Steamed Puddings

Gwen, you’re five months old!

Actually, you’ve been five months old for nearly a whole week, and I still didn’t start your newsletter early no matter how many reminders I left for myself. The blame for this is squarely on the new Mac Mini and the open source media center programs Boxee and Plex. These have been great time wasters sinks, and things I’m sure you will take for granted years from now when you are old enough to know what they are.

You are now old enough to be 100% cute.  Just this evening you finished your pre-bedtime breastfeed and spent a good 5 minutes staring at my face, poking my lip, and being entertained by my bra.  I’m glad to know that those Hotmilk wonders are as good for you as they are for me.

Coffee groups continue to keep us busy and keep me from getting cabin fever.  This week we’ll have three: our regular comfy group of ladies from work, at which you are one of the older kids; the local Plunket coffee group, which is a nice cross-section of mums including some with older kids, smaller kids, larger kids, spitty ones, ones with clicky hips, food allergies, and the like; and a small group of us who have been catching up ever since our PEPE (parenting education) course ended a few months ago.  This is a typical full-on week and tends to make me much happier than the weeks where I stay at home and do nothing but run through the. housework cycle. Up to this week I would have said that you didn’t care much about these groups, but in the last two days you’ve been so active, happy, and interactive that I now think you are starting to appreciate the kiddie company.

patting Keziah's head at today's coffee group

I suspect your increased activity is due to the solid food you’ve been eating for the last two weeks.  I started you perhaps a week or two early (you still haven’t doubled your birthweight, but you were seeming hungry and I thought you’d lost that extrusion reflex), but you love solid food – especially runny fruit!  Pears are a big hit.  You are definitely moving around more – and making happy noises more – now that you are eating solid food.  Hooray!

first day in the new highchair

You roll everywhere now, though not continuously.  You mastered rolling from your back to your stomach in an eyeblink, and you’re starting to be able to roll purposefully over to a toy or a structure.  Watch out!  You’ll be underfoot soon.

I don’t say a whole lot about you at our coffee groups because you are such an angel baby – placid, tolerant, happy, and at ease with a structured routine.  Listening to the other mums vent about the things that have gone wrong for them, or the vast number of times they have to get up in the middle of the night, makes me thankful that you sleep from 7pm-7am with only the occasional gurgle or pacifier cry.  Last month you adapted to the Baby Whisperer’s 4-hour cycle in about three days, and you are fantastic every day, even on the days where I wish I could get a break from the constant demands of being your mum.

Your father and I continue to try to do occasional things out with each other.  This week we went to see Star Trek at the local cinema, and we missed you, but we really needed the time out by ourselves (and science fiction just isn’t your thing).  Our marriage, just like any partnership which includes a young baby, has been strained but definitely isn’t stressed.  I can’t imagine how much harder life with you would be if your father wasn’t here, or if we weren’t so committed to each other.  I know you appreciate this, too, because you have the most fun in your entire day when he gives you a bath.

splashing Dad in the big bath

Keep up the good work, kid, and by next month you’ll be wowing us in new and exciting ways.