Chicken Pox

I wrote the previous post a little while ago and then realised I hadn't taken a picture of the little toerag walking, so kept it aside until I had a suitable shot.

THEN, he goes and gets his brother's chicken pox, so I decided to kill 2 birds with one stone and get a shot of the be-poxed baby walking! hurrah

He got the pox a bit worse than Gabriel, but thankfully for the rest of us he wasn't too miserable. We had a couple of bad nights but he really coped with it remarkably well, especially when slathered in calamine cream. And we're now safe in the knowledge that all 3 of them have had it!

Walking

April has been a busy month for Asa. He managed to take his first steps (at Grandma's house, naturally) and has now progressed to trying to walk everywhere. I say trying because he keeps having moments where his body goes too fast for his feet and he falls flat on his face, or where his feet run off and leave his head behind and he falls on his bottom. But these are all obstacles that are soon overcome by the newly-mobile baby! His longest stretch has been all the way up Grandma's hall, and from our sofa to the dinner table (to try and steal Mummy's food of course)

At the weekend we needed to go shoe shopping, and while we were there we decided to get Asa measured too. Turns out he has weeny little 2.5 size feet, which also happen to be very fat! It didn't bode well for buying shoes, but we are now the proud owners of a pair of pre-walkers chosen by Linus (blue, obviously!). These are good for one thing, and one thing only. Chewing on. Asa is at a bit of a loss to explain why we have stuck his new chewy toy things on his feet- makes them much harder for him to get at. Still, at least they keep his socks on!

Standing

Since our last update at Christmas, Asa has mostly been just being a little baby. Crying, eating, sleeping, rolling around... that takes up a lot of his time. Then the rolling around turned into a kind of commando crawl on his tummy, which turned into proper crawling! So now he is well and truly mobile and his older brothers are finding out the perils of leaving small mouth-sized toys on the floor. Even more recently he has taken to pulling himself up on the furniture. Imagine my surprise one morning when I woke to see his little face grinning at me over the rail of his cot.

So, most of his time is spent making mad, crawly dashes to try and get into the kitchen/bathroom/other forbidden places; or pulling himself up on things and having a good look around. He mostly likes to pull himself up on people, so that he can chew them once he is standing up. He has scared me more than once when I've been sitting on the floor changing Gabriel's nappy, or clearing up some toys and I've suddenly felt some little hands on my back and then a slurping, chewing feeling....

He is totally cute and smiley and lovely! He can also say "dada" awwww

Christmas 2009

In the time since our last update (yes, sorry, we know it's been too long!) Asa has been learning a LOT of new things. He learned how to turn himself round while lying on the floor, then he learned how to get up on his hands and knees, then he learned to throw himself forward repeatedly to get where he wanted to be. It's a rather novel way of getting around, but it works fairly well for him!

This morning he has been noted putting one hand in front of the other, which should make for a more traditional crawling style. All this grubbing around on the floor is not good for Mummy because it means she actually has to hoover. We have also been practising sitting up, which we thought he was a bit rubbish at- having a tendency to just suddenly flop onto his side. However, this morning he was actually found sitting up. By himself! He had managed to get there from his crawling position, something he's been trying to do for some time but failing (not least because he couldn't actually sit up anyway). So yes, crawling and sitting have mostly been conquered.

After all this strenuous activity it turns out he also likes something to eat. His 6 month mark falling perilously close to Christmas meant that one of his first proper meals was Christmas dinner, complete with half a sprout (which he ignored). The food is going well though and, like his brothers, he enjoys it immensely. The only problem was finding enough room for him at the table!

Here he is enjoying a morning snack of wrapping paper, kindly left behind by the festive whirlwind known as Gabriel

And a bit later on, wearing one of his stocking fillers!

Rather good

Asa is still being quite good - here he is asleep for the last time in his lovely rocking crib.

The upgrade to the proper cot is prompted by all the raising up on the hands and the rolling over.