The reader

When Beth was over visiting us she introduced Aidan to The Atlantic.

Thanks a lot Beth.  Now he refuses to read Peepo and If I Were A Sheep saying they are for babies. 

Surprise surprise

On Sunday Erin and I had a good idea for a new game with Aidan.  We thought we'd left it long enough for his food to digest.

We hadn't.

Pretty pleased with himself isn't he?

Aidan's never lonely

Silly walks

At lunch-time yesterday Aidan was five minutes away from sleep. We didn't know at the time. He didn't look like he was. And he was doing the opposite. We were in a bussling food court in Windsor after visiting the Castle with our friend, Beth, who's visiting us from Seattle.


Aidan had everyone staring at us. Not in the cute-young-baby-with-dad way, more a what's-that-noise way. I didn't know he was five minutes away from sleep. It could have have been 5 hours. And felt like five days. I would have done anything to get him to nod off.


And, I suppose, I did.


Recently we've been using an exaggerated bouncing up-and-down walk to bounce him calm, which could be confused with a walk needing a government grant from the Ministry of Silly walks. We've also borrowed the heavy patting of his behind technique, as used to great effect by a grandmother friend of ours. And in desperate situations, both. Which is what rather self-consciously happened yesterday.


I kept looking around thinking I might be arrested. But thankfully the end of the five minutes eventually came.


I told this story to someone this morning and they said: 'If I saw you doing that I'd just have given you a knowing wink and a smile.' She's obviously a parent. But I do think we might want to get him used to a gentle calming shush. People wouldn't stare so much.

Ears lookin' at you kid

Do you remember the first time?

Aidan was a real hit with the ladies this lunchtime.  We took him for his first central London trip and ate with Fred and Caroline at Princi.  The waitresses would come and fuss with him, 'How old is he?' and 'Hasn't he got gorgeous feet?' were just two coochy-coo toned questions. He's doing really well at the moment around crowds and different faces.   We expected at least one big 'ole cry, but we only the saw the hint of one before he was fed, changed and rocked to sleep.

This happened last weekend too.  We expected a scared little boy to be completely overwhelmed while attending the Salvation Army in Bolton on Sunday morning but apart from looking stunned as the band played and in a complete perplexed state when everyone stood up to start singing he was fuss free.  This is very unlike his dad as a child on Sundays.  It may have helped that nan and grandad took over for a while.  And that we left as soon as we thought he'd had enough of everyone's attention.

Back to today, when we got home after leaving Fred and Caz, his mum decided to be silly and sing lots of goofy songs.  She started with a favourite of ours during China then she got me to sing vintage  Spice Girls and Bon Jovi.  Then Erin moved on to Loveshack.  This is when he gave us his first ever giggle.  It was a full hearty belly laugh.  Not sure if he fluked it as he's only given us yelps since.  But it's still ringing in my ear.

Just because...

This is our new computer wallpaper.