35/52

This week I took Jamie to the splash pool at one of the local parks. It was the first time - we needed the weather to be warm enough to have a splash, but not so warm that we would be toasted alive, and we needed to not have any other commitments, and we needed to not be ill... But it all came together and at last we've done it.



I wasn't sure how Jamie would take to it but he seems to have had fun. I have the distinct feeling that it was helped along by the social cues of the other children clearly enjoying themselves.

We discovered a few pitfalls that I hadn't anticipated but probably should have, the biggest one being that:
- Jamie needs to be holding two hands to walk
- I can't walk without one hand to support myself
- The splash pool is just a bit too deep for me to be able to shuffle on my knees, unless I'm prepared to get properly wet to the waist, which I'm not, because it's a free facility and therefore lacks luxuries like changing rooms and it's not really the done thing for an adult to strip off in the middle of the kiddie play area.

I settled, instead, for a minor case of Soggy Bottom from sitting on the edge of the pool and restricted Jamie to walking within arm's reach. Next time we'll see about my PA having a skirt or shorts so that she can join us in the pool. But there will definitely be a next time.

34/52

Another tent picture this week.



The tent previously featured in Week 20 as Jamie's little chill out spot, and it continues to serve this purpose very well. Now that he's a bit bigger, we've put the inflatable mattress back in. He hated it when we first tried it, but that was probably because moving himself about on a stable surface was quite difficult enough and a squishy surface was just beyond comprehension. Now, at 10 months, he seems to quite like it... and, sometimes, he actually has a nap in there!

If you were a parent you'd understand

One of the things that really irritated me as a childfree adult was being told that I could not possibly understand something - love, tiredness, forward planning, laundry, whatever - because I did not have a child.

As a parent, I'd like to reassure all childfree readers that there are only two things I "understand" now that I didn't before. These are:

1. The impulse to talk about poo. I've resisted the urge to post online about the contents of Jamie's nappies. His business is his business. On the other hand, as with all babies there are days when a particularly remarkable nappy really is the most interesting thing to have happened that day or when dealing with it without needing to nuke the site from orbit is truly an achievement, and at those times it is an effort to hold on to social proprieties.

2. The challenge of the nice cup of tea and a biscuit, an interesting combination of relaxation and stress. If you can pull it off, there's few things more restorative than a hot cuppa and a biscuit while the baby sleeps. But the tension is high, as one wrong move could wake the baby, resulting in a shortened nap, a screaming child, no biscuit and a cup of tea which, by the time the screams are quelled, has gone almost undrinkably cold. It's like the most incredibly mundane yet incredibly frustrating computer game ever.

33/52

This week saw Jamie's first experience of an outdoor playground.



At ten months, Jamie is officially still a bit small for most play areas, and with it being the summer holidays as well, the local parks are rather dauntingly full of great big primary-school-age children. But we were able to have a bit of a play on the less popular play equipment and I think he enjoyed it. The slide he was neither scared nor excited about, but he spent quite a while with this tunnel.

32/52

Just a nice morning relax before starting the day proper.



Jamie is a very chilled out baby, on the whole. It is lovely to just be calm together.

In other news, those two top front teeth he was struggling with are through. According to the various books of baby wisdom, the rest of teething should be bearable until we start on the big molars.

31/52

I don't seem to have many pictures this week where Jamie is facing me, which surprised me a bit. So here is Jamie doing his own thing.



He does like this box. It's nominally the blocks box, where his assorted fabric and rubber blocks are kept, but really anything can end up in it. The box itself is a cheap one from IKEAs Skubb range, intended to be used inside drawers to keep them tidy. We've found them invaluable throughout the last year - for organising nappy supplies, for sorting different sizes of baby clothes - but Jamie is opening up all manner of possibilities for them as hats, flail weapons, and as in this example, self-containment.

I'm not sure at what age he will develop the sort of imagination that will see boxes like this become coracles, spaceships, teddy-cots and so on, or for that matter if it develops before or after he gains the language skills to tell me that's what it is today.

30/52

It has been too hot here this week. The Safer Sleeping guidelines say we shouldn't let Jamie's room get above 24c/75f - well, since Monday and despite our best efforts, I don't think we've managed to get anywhere in the house that comfortably cool!

On top of this, teething continues. He has two bottom teeth that are definitely fully out and visible from across the room. Then there's about five pale lumps on his upper and lower gums, with one sharp corner *just* beginning to poke through on the upper gum. He's doing his best, but it's obvious he's quite sore and he's pulling some spectacular faces.



But, we've done everything we can to keep him cool, and this is part of the effort. Half a dozen sterile storage pots, filled with water and then frozen. We've allowed them to partially melt before giving them to him, and they seem to have helped a great deal with both the temperature and the teeth.

I hope both issues resolve themselves soon though, and if anyone has any tips we might not have thought of, do let me know!

29/52

I'm not sure why this is my favourite photo of last week, but it was.

28/52

We've never carried him around in it, we've never left him unattended in it. But every baby should have the opportunity to play in a laundry basket, and be photographed doing so.

27/52

Another Jamie and Daddy week.



We are having rather a bumpy ride these last few weeks, and for Steve that turned into a literal bumpy ride when his car started acting up. It was purchased on price rather than reliability - in fact it cost less than my powerchair, although by now it's cost more in maintenance (to be fair I haven't driven the powerchair several thousand miles so it's not really a good comparison).

Jamie really likes being read to and apparently sees no difference between the Haynes manual for a Honda Del Sol, and Dr Seuss. It's clearly not quite as good as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, but then nothing is nor could be.

26/52

This week, it's Mr I Love Standing again. But now, with his first pair of shoes!



Before anyone says it - no, babies Jamie's age should not be having their feet moulded into shoes. They should be barefoot or at most in socks/tights and soft bootees when it's cold. Quite apart from allowing the feet to grow, having feet in contact with the ground makes balance easier and is a sensory experience and so on... I know that, and 99% of the time Jamie's feet enjoy glorious freedom.

However, Jamie is no longer content to just toddle about on the picnic blanket when we go to the park. And the first time he insisted on stepping *off* the blanket, I had a sudden visual shift, where the park changed from a lovely carpet of fresh green grass and flowers and dappled shade of trees, to a horrific vista of twigs, splinters, discarded peanut shells, urinating dogs, cigarette ends, broken plastic forks from deli lunches...

So. For walking around outdoors, shoes. We went to Clarks, and he was measured as a size 2 1/2 F. At first he was very confused by his shoes. I think maybe he felt like the floor was coming with him as he stepped. But he soon got the hang of it and now, as long as he has a willing minion to provide fingers for him to hold, he can walk metres and metres. It's brilliant and scary, all at once.

25/52

With Father's Day tomorrow it seems appropriate that this week's picture is Jamie and Daddy.




We had a sling consultation as a family when Jamie was just one week old. I ended up with the ring sling, and Steve... well, he was confident about *me* having tiny Jamie strapped to my front but never quite got there for himself, opting instead to use the pushchair.

At 8 months old though, Jamie is stronger and heavier and a lot more awake than he was at that first consultation, so we finally revisited the idea of a baby backpack. As you can see, it looks like it will work - he is comfortable enough to fall asleep in it and when awake, he likes the novelty of being tall. We don't plan on him spending hours in it, but hopefully an occasional walk around the block for some fresh air and father/son time will be achievable over the summer.

24/52

Almost half way, and this week's picture echoes the picture from Week One.



Same bed, same pillow, same baby. But! I love looking at the two pictures and seeing just so many similarities and so many differences.

23/52

This week's photo was taken at Batsford Arboretum, where we went on the basis that Jamie likes trees. It was a really idyllic family afternoon out.



Yep, Jamie is mobile. It's still not quite a full traditional crawl with the arms and legs alternating sides. Instead he gets up on all fours like this, and launches forwards, rinse and repeat, making about three inches progress each time. In this manner he is able to reach all of the toys in his play area, which is great because we finally get to see what he wants rather than making our best guess of which toys he might like within reach.

His "cruising", which is the term for walking along hanging on to furniture, is also coming on slowly but surely, causing some people to speculate that he may skip the traditional crawling phase in favour of being an early walker. We'll just have to wait and see!

22/52

Seven weeks ago I was all excited about the first glimpse of a tooth in Jamie's mouth. Then a day or two later the sharp white dot vanished, the teething symptoms subsided, and I felt a bit silly.

Which is why I've put off this post until I could get an unequivocal picture...



No ifs, no buts, no squinting in the right light. That's teeth, that is.

He's coping very well, and so far hasn't bitten anything he shouldn't. I admit though to a slight feeling of apprehension every time I feed him...

21/52

Slightly late again, this time for reasons of choosing and cropping the favourite photo from a shoot which only took place on Saturday. Because Saturday was our fifth wedding anniversary, and one of the things we do on our anniversary is take a picture of ourselves holding the previous year's picture, which shows the picture from the year before that, and so on, all the way back to our wedding photograph.



This is Jamie's second year in the photograph; last year of course he was present in bump form, and then Steve printed out one of our scan pictures to "actual size" on an iron-on t-shirt transfer.

We wondered whether to have Jamie in the anniversary pictures as we're quite sure that, over the years, we will have anniversaries where he isn't present - perhaps with a babysitter, perhaps being a grumpy teenager who refuses to participate because he thinks his soppy parents are sooooo embarrassing, perhaps at university, or away with friends on holiday, or any number of other possibilities. All that is fair enough, time passes and things change. Right now, though, Jamie is at the absolute centre of our lives and our relationship, so to create an image featuring both of us and not him... it wouldn't be real.

20/52

This week's picture is of Jamie relaxing in his tent.



The tent was supposed to be the next phase after he grew out of the downstairs moses basket. We wanted somewhere safe for him to nap during the day, that wouldn't depend on me having support available to bring him up and down stairs. We also wanted something I could get him in and out of unaided, and where I could leave him at least moderately safely on his own for very short periods, for instance while washing my hands after a nappy change. The floor of the tent is at floor level, so no rolling off it, and it has a soft but permanent rim about ten inches high, so it's not easy to roll out. The whole side can be zipped up from outside if necessary, with one white mosquito-net layer and one darker sun-blind layer.

Success has been mixed. He doesn't often sleep in the tent. Even if he's already snoozing in my arms or the car seat, lying him down in the tent is a pretty sure-fire way of waking him up! With the advent of his mobility, we've gated off a big section of the room where he's safe enough for those brief moments, so it's no longer used for containment either.

On the other hand, he does like it in there and sometimes even asks (non-verbally) to go in. It's a little chill-out space of soft light and pastel colour. The only toys which live there are Teddy, and the Crinkly Lion that you can see in the picture - or to put it another way, one thing to cuddle and one thing to chew. It's a space where he can examine his hands or his feet without distraction, and calm down and collect his thoughts when the world has been a bit too stimulating for a bit too long. Steve and I have been known to feel rather envious.

19/52

Efforts to introduce Jamie to "solid foods" - a term which at this stage pretty much means anything more solid than milk - are continuing.

In this picture Jamie is wearing an Ella's Kitchen Spinach, Peas and Pears puree underneath his first taste of strawberry yoghurt. Strangely, or perhaps not, he seems to prefer the spinach.



There's not much to report, really. His spoon skills are doing nicely. My policy at present is that I will keep loading the spoon until he stops reaching for it and shoving it in his mouth, but he can only have bowls once they are emptied. He has been given finger foods - overcooked and cooled sticks of carrot, apple, broccoli, etc - but these are so far being treated with extreme suspicion.

To be honest there have been far more exciting things going on this week as Jamie has really nailed rolling and continues to experiment with his commando crawl. The trouble is that I don't get much opportunity to photograph that stuff. If he's not asleep or harnessed into something (sling, pushchair, high chair, car seat) then he's a bit of a blur. Maybe I need to ask the PAs to start doing photographs?

18/52

This week's photo is of Jamie having a good post-reading chew on The Very Hungry Caterpillar.



The reason it's been chosen as this week's photo is because this week, Jamie started to get that bit more mobile. He not only rolls confidently, but this picture is after the first time he managed to, well, not quite crawl, but wriggle and drag himself around.



And this was his goal. He started with his body entirely on the play mat - it might only be a few inches that he managed to move, but he managed it! I am incredibly proud that the first time he exercised his ability to move independently, he was going for a book.

17/52

This week's picture speaks for itself.



Jamie is generally speaking quite a happy child. We're getting a lot of these enormous gummy grins at the moment and we're loving each and every one.