We're back...

from an extended leave while the camera's batteries charged and I sorted out my courses. Our baby pictures folder now contains 2,405 images. Evan will be 6 months old on the 23rd. Here's a few pics of the last couple of weeks. We'll have to start taking some more again...

Gastric delight

Well we've been giving him pablum for about a week now. It's really cute to watch - he's gone from tasting only breast milk, formula and beer (once) to the heavenly flavour of rice cereal. Mixed with breast milk or formula. Mmm.

Anyway, he LOVES it, and yearns for more. It's neat to see him be so hungry and curious about food. Incidentally, rice cereal contains iron. I was surprised, and you may be interested to know, that a baby can go 4 solid days without, um, shifting his inners. Luckily, my mom was here to babysit on that fateful 4th day!

Besides rice pablum we've also fed him prunes. Here's a few pics:

He's holding the bottle now on his own. It's great - now I can run down the street while he's eating and get a burger, as long as I leave him safe on the couch.

With girlfriend Natalie. They've almost been seeing each other for 6 months!

Here's a shot of him from today (Friday).

E & Oma at Bonnybrook in Gibsons.

Survivor

Those interested to know will be happy to hear that I've now pulled off 3 whole days with Evan all by myself, and that he's still fully-functional and quadrilimbal, and I still have all my hair.

Sorry for the no-posting. Busy times, these are.

Happy boy. He's almost sitting up on his own. We fed him pablum last night. Really messy pics to follow.

Liveblog - First Day...

as in 24 hours with me and Evan alone and Carolynn at work. Check back for updates, but I don't know how long this will last. By the way this could get real boring real fast. Mom, you may be the only one who reads the whole thing.

7.00 am - wake up to Carolynn dumping baby in bed and saying bye. Running on only 3 hrs of sleep as I've been awake stressing about today and school tomorrow. Hoping baby will go back to sleep so I can catch up on my zs.

7.15 am - realize this is hopeless when he grabs my nose and almost pulls it off my face.

8.00 am - have checked my email and had my coffee, all with the baby. Maybe this will work out.

8.30 am - we decide to eat. Baby seems to really like the formula. I decide he can eat as much as he damn well pleases today. He may gain 1 lb. each Monday. (To Militant Breastfeeders - I'm running him up to the hospital a bunch of times today for the good stuff. Carolynn will squeeze him in between patients.)

10.00 am - play. bathe baby. dress baby. get baby to stop crying. play with baby. feed baby +100 mL of formula. baby falls asleep in lap.

Realize that I can soothe him to sleep with a bottle. This is a very good thing that apparently the baby books advise against. Wonder why but don't spend much time on it.

10.15 am - baby asleep in swing. Resisting urge to do laundry. Must maintain semblance of male identity.

10.17 am - feeling guilty. Do laundry.

...
11.00 pm - well that got old fast, and besides, there's no time to blog and take care of baby at once. The rest of the day went perfectly really, and Evan is still breathing, uninjured, and wearing matching socks. Carolynn came back to work with a bang - 2 deliveries today. She just got home 5 minutes ago and may go back in tonight. I made 3 trips to the hospital to top-up the baby (by the way, you can get by any security guard with a baby. It's a full-access pass.)

Thanks for all the support - pretty much everyone I know phoned me today to "say hi".

Chowin down on Mom's knee.

We're just lovin' the blocks lately.

Gnarly dude.

He's just learning to hold the bottle himself. We're gonna try some pablum tomorrow - we'll see how it goes. I'm not sure how I feel about the fact that now I'll be just as able as mom to feed him (6 times a day). This means much less time on the computer.

CLARIFICATION: No we're not weaning him, but the idea is that the sooner he tries pablum, the sooner he can drink a slushie and eat salted meats.

At the beach under the gorgeous Gibsons sky, with cousin Jaryd.

He almost got the whole thing in his mouth.