The Disabled Cow

Warning: Tragic tale of toy abuse follows.

Way back when Alfie was still a mere bump, I went on a shopping trip with my mum and sister to buy Stuff.

During that trip Alfie was bought a patchwork cow, which personally I think is one of the cutest soft toys he owns, and he seems to agree with me because Cow was his frequent companion on trips out and about.

Last week, I foolishly stripped Alfie's buggy and left his toys hanging from the frame.

Keith came in a little later and informed me that Harry had stolen them and and set about separating them into their constituent parts. Cow was one of their unfortunate number, and the lawn was littered with a leg, ear and cute mohawk tail.

I was gutted.

Despite her losses though, I couldn't quite stand to throw Cow away, so I put her through the wash (on the basis that if she made it through that it was meant to be) and returned her to my grateful son, who hasn't yet noticed that Cow now has only 3 legs and one ear.

Poor Cow.

Still she shall serve her little boy well, because jingly jangly friends come in all shapes. 

EVERYTHING is belong to me!!

Not me obviously, I say that on behalf of the small boy who has recently taken to grabbing frantically at anything within his surprisingly long reach. Not in an “I’m feeling curious” way though, it’s far more like a starving man shovelling food into his mouth, except it’s not just food, it’s hair, jewellery, body parts, toys, dog ears, tables, and mobile phones. All of which get dragged into the vortex of my son’s mouth with a quite baffling (and painful) show of force.

Current favourite is his dad’s nipple piecing. Now please feel free not to read on if you have images of us living a monastic life in separate beds with neck high bed clothes but the reality is, we don’t wear much in bed. In fact in the current weather, we wear as little as is possible without risking long term damage from razor sharp baby toenails. We also have quite thin curtains which let the morning sun wrap its glowing tendrils around us (can you see where this is going yet?) and which at certain times is at just the right angle to really bring out the delicate tones of anything metallic.

There is no spectator sport more amusing than watching you infant son reach determinedly for your sleeping husband’s nipple ring and give it a determined yank. I cannot even begin to translate the noise that comes out of his mouth, of the look on his face, mostly because I’m only aware of them for the merest of seconds before I’m helpless with laughter and oblivious to everything around me. I only know that this inevitably attracts unwanted attention to my own soft underbelly of weakness because my laughter is usually cut short by chubby little fingers wrapped in my hair.

Seriously do NOT show weakness around this kid, he is merciless.

He is also on the verge of crawling in a haphazard, malcoordinated kinda way which involves him jacking up his front and back ends a bit like a pimped up Caddy and then rocking with a determined look of someone screwing up the courage to dive off the top board at the swimming pool. Only problem is that is as far as the skills go at the moment, and his efforts (which actually remind me a bit of Capoeira) usually end up in him wailing because he has managed to crab and shuffle his way in the opposite direction to the thing he was trying to move towards.

We had got around the problem by putting him in his Bumbo, but unfortunately he has just worked out how to throw himself backwards with just enough force to flop clear with all the grace of a bludgeoned salmon. This new found skill did not end well for young Alfred who liberated himself clear onto the stone floor which, as stone floors usually are, was rather harder and colder than he was expecting.

Had I forgotten to mention? This kid also pouts for England, and has the same tolerance levels as I do. To his future teachers, let me save you some time writing his school report. Feel free to copy my 4th year primary school teacher and just summarise thusly:

Does not suffer fools gladly.

This also applies to spaghetti which he believes is sent to earth to try him. I finally twigged last night that he was getting overwhelmed by the mess o’ spag and singled one out for him and all was right with the world after that.

Ooh, while I’m here, I just wanted to ask whaddoya think of the new look blog? Eh? Eh? Bright isn’t it?

Also, I have just found a new blog to follow of a lady who I think takes the most amazing birth photos. Check it out if you get time.

Progress Update

I would like to start this post with a photo from our last family outing, partly to bring to your attention once again how chuffing cute Alfredito it, and partly because I just want to highlight what responsible parents we are. Check us out, we bought our boy ear defenders.

It was our 3rd anniversary yesterday and Keith managed to acquire a pair of paddock passes to the Moto GP at Silverstone. Seeing as we’re taking on the far bigger challenge of a 24 hour race and a week camping, this was actually a very well timed training run for us as a family.

I reckon we did OK. It was a good lesson in what you need for a little person, and an even better lesson in looking after yourself as a parent: We managed to keep Alfie covered and sun creamed up throughout the day, yet managed to totally neglect our own faces with dire consequences.

We also learned that pretty ladies love cute babies, and also that babies sitting on shop counters trying on ear defenders can stop the feverish consumerism of a whole shop dead in its tracks. We will use these lessons to our advantage in the future.

The other reason I wanted to start with a photo of Ear Defender Alfie was because I’m trying to avoid taking this blog down the route of every other photo taken in my family which just seems to show people eating food. Instead I will write about eating instead. Obviously that is much better.

We have progressed with our BLW: Alfie has now reached the stage where he knows what he likes. The downside to this is his chosen foods are apples, and baby biscuits. Not quite the balanced diet we were gunning for.

There is also progress in the eating skills department. Alfie now has a fantastic command of spoons, and how they can be used to create an arterial splatter of sauce across a 10m area. This has now been combined with the desire to explore textures. By explore I mean squish and by textures I mean beans.

Mealtimes at the moment are less relaxing than they were, but infinitely more amusing and frankly, very effective training should any of us decide to take up a sport that requires quick reflexes, like martial arts or boxing for instance.

Oh and the dog is getting fat.

The palate is no less adventurous though. Yesterday’s new taste was chorizo, which was so yummy Alfie managed to hide a chunk in his cheek for about 10 minutes (one presumes so he could keep sucking at it without missing out on gurning opportunities) before running out of talent, and spitting it about 6ft. To their credit, the people sitting in front of us were very gracious about the whole affair.

Noses Beware

There is a new game in town, or more specifically in our house, and that is a game lovingly entitled Got Your Nose.

I’m not sure I really have to spend a lot of time explaining the rules on this one, you’re all intelligent people. Suffice to say it is a Keith/ Alfie invention and involved alternating who is biting who’s nose. Oh and you have to sound excited about it as well.

There is one major problem with this game – and I don’t mean the fact that it invariably ends up with the non-Alfie participant having a nose full of Alfie drool – and that problem is how much Alfie loves this game. So evangelical is he about his game that he wants, nay INSISTS, on sharing it with everyone he meets.

This, or course means that he now lunges, open mouthed, at the face of every single person who comes within reach and let me tell you, an open mouthed, excited Alfie can be a pretty intimidating sight if you’re not expecting it.

I therefore considered it my duty to write this post – consider yourself fairly warned.

Turns out baby spit is also the most effective makeup remover known to man. Go figure.

In case anyone has been wondering about the sleeping arrangements at FTC, yes we’re still co sleeping, yes Alfie is a starfish, and yes, the bed is too small. And yes, I most definitely do still LOVE my snuffly, sleepy, baby cuddles.

One of the bloggers I follow put it perfectly in her post the other day  “I told Tyler's Granny that Ada was so sweet smelling and squishy for a reason. She was designed to be snuggled! Otherwise God would have made her pointy and sour.”

Can you believe Alfie is 7 months already? Next installment, I promise to bring you up to date with all his latest developments. In the meantime, I'm off to investigate how to hobble a baby.

Six Month Growth Spurt

I’m going to start this post with a question: How is it possible that you can wake up in the morning, go to pick up your son and instead of standing upright, you find yourself still staring down at a pair of outstretched arms while your back feels like you’re just tried to lift a car? He doesn’t look any different, so how is it he’s put on a stone overnight?!?


Alfie has been troughing food for the last few days. Not just milk either, real food as well. Over the weekend he was virtually nonstop eating, and last night he had 2 full feeds before finally going to sleep, bottom lip still pouting like he’d been hard done by.

He is doing amazingly well with food these days, and despite the fact that we are keeping him off all the major allergens, he is still managing to attack a pretty awesome range of eats.

I use the word attack deliberately; because that is the only adjective that fully describes the gusto with which our son shovels food into his mouth.

I made a stir fry last week which had florets of broccoli in it. So eager was he to suck the juice out of these florets that he grabbed one in each hand and just stuffed them in. Both. At the same time.

Long gone are the days of the Three. Separate. Movements to get food into his chops too, these days he can happily pass food between his mitts to get a better grip on them, turn them round, and most amusingly for him, launch them across the room to the jaws of the waiting hounds.

His absolutely favourite things in the whole wide world are prawns. We had a barbeque on Sunday with various fish and amongst other things, Alfie got his first try of prawn. Holy cow the kid went nuts!! He sucked and chewed on that thing until it was about 5 inches long and wafer thin. In fact, had I not distracted him with yoghurt and prised it from his iron grip, he may well still be gumming on it now.

I have to admit I am exceptionally proud of his eating skills, and I think I am now becoming and bit of a bore on the subject. I can understand the glazed looks, really, it’s not like he’s invented a cure for cancer or anything. When it comes to life skills, eating is a pretty basic one, but I am Gibraltarian and therefore food - the preparing, eating and enjoying thereof - is second only to the Pope (and possibly mistrusting the Spanish) in terms of national importance.

If you were wondering where all these excess calories might be going, so was I until last night when I was rousted from the sofa by a particularly heartfelt bellow from my darling boy.

I should probably offer as preamble that Alfie has long done a good line in shuffling up the cot. He has always stayed on his back, just wriggle upwards until his head is jammed against the top of the cot. Recently I’ve decided to just cut out the middle man and stick him at the top of the cot to start with.

So last night, I trudge upstairs expecting to see a head wedged in a corner, or a leg through the bars or something, so you will understand my shock when I realised the bellowing was coming from the other end of the cot. In fact, it was coming from a baby that looked and sounded much like my son, but who seemed to be on all fours, and who’s feet and bum were firmly wedged at the foot of the bed.

Clearly the fact that he had run out of launch pad had distressed the kid beyond all reason and to be brutally honest I was a little stumped as to my next move. What is the correct etiquette when your son backward crawls for the first time when he should be SLEEPING? Should I turn him round and let him moon crawl back up to the head, or pick him up and give him a cuddle? He usually tells me if he wants a cuddle by signing it, but he was currently using his arms to hold the noisy end off the mattress. I took a punt and gave him a hug, which seemed to be the right answer, until he realised that he was hungry again and then he picked up bellowing with as much gusto as he had just left off.

And that ladies and gents, is where the calories have gone.

Son of Sling

And behold, there was a sling of such stripiness that all others bowed before it.

Actually don’t look at that picture for too long, your eyes will go funny and you’ll start seeing 3D palm trees or something.

I couldn’t stand it any longer, I just had to go out and get some material to make a new sling to cheer myself up.

Seems like it’s a bit of a hit with Alfie because as you might just be able to see, he fell asleep in it, and not his usually daytime attempts at dozing/ gurning either, this was a full on fly catching snore fest! Also, this led to drool, hence the bib being tactfully placed between him and me.

And no, I’m not doing a bad impression of a Mary Poppins cock-er-nee, I’m sheltering Alfie’s head from drizzle while Keith did his best to capture my moment of triumph.