Food, glorious food

We’ve been lucky that Harry has been such a good eater since he started on solid food.

His appetite seemed to be endless and he was quite prepared to eat anything we put in front of him.
But as with all babies, things change very quickly and Harry has now decided there as some foods he just doesn’t like, which is making life a little bit, well, messy.

Generally, he will put the food into his mouth, but if he doesn’t like the taste or texture, he takes it out again and waves it around. Sometimes, if you’re unlucky or don’t move quickly enough, you get caught in the crossfire which means you can end up with food plastered across your face.

Harry’s chief dislikes when it comes to food at the moment are jelly, pasta, set custard and baked beans. These also happen to be among the messiest foods when he decides to start throwing them around the place.

Interestingly, this change in attitude to some foods has coincided with Harry wanting to play a more active role at meal times. When we let him have a spoon and a yoghurt, he is able to get at least some of the food into his mouth (although most of it still ends up on the highchair).

He also likes to share food now, which is another experience not to be missed. Harry will put some food into his own mouth before taking it out a moment later and trying to put it in your mouth instead.

Again, this can be a messy process as Harry’s coordination is not perfect and the food can just as easily end up in your ear as your mouth. And when it does end up in your mouth, it’s not always particularly pleasant having been chewed already.

Hopefully this is just another phase in his development that will pass fairly quickly – if only to save on all the washing.

Five months on... and I'm still enjoying it

Harry is five months old today – and the time has simply flown by. Looking back, I’m amazed how quickly you adjust to the massive changes in your life, and how much you learn in a relatively short space of time.

Take nappies. When Harry was born, I was incredibly clumsy with nappies and the result was that Harry would often wake up damp. Now I’m a dab hand at changing him, even though I say so myself.

Sleep has also changed markedly. When Harry was born, we were up once or even twice a night to feed and change him; now we’re grumpy if he wakes early and disturbs us.

As you become more familiar with the day to day demands of being a parent, you also learn to relax a bit more too. When Harry was born, I couldn’t imagine leaving him with anybody except Melissa; now I’m quite happy when he stays with his grandparents.

There’s no doubt that having children changes your perspective on life. As I’ve said before, it does make you soft; last week, Harry managed to roll onto his front and Melissa phoned me – right on the Evening Leader deadline – to tell me. I’d have done the same – the smallest development is big news when you have a baby.

As for Harry himself, he’s great. He’s getting bigger, stronger and more alert by the day. He’s also more demanding – and if you’re not paying him enough attention, he’ll happily let you know by way of a loud scream.

He’s started playing a lot more too. At the moment, Harry’s favourite game is grabbing your fingers and trying to eat them, and he’s generally much more responsive when you talk to him – smiling, giggling and laughing – which really does make you feel like the most important person on earth.

So, after five months, I’ve only good things to say about being a parent; and before you say it, I’m sure I’ll still feel the same when Harry’s a teenager.

Bonding?

Like all new parents, I want to form a strong father-and-son bond with Harry. However, I think my efforts in this direction have suffered a bit of a knock in recent weeks.

Firstly, I went along to the doctor’s with Harry for his second round of injections. Melissa had taken Harry for his first set a few weeks earlier and he was, by all accounts, pretty upset at the whole experience.

So this time, I went along as well. By the time we’d walked to the surgery, Harry was fast asleep, so you can imagine the nasty shock he got when he woke up to find a smiling nurse jabbing a long needle into the top of his leg. Poor Harry looked heartbroken and, judging by the look in his eyes, he didn’t think much of me for allowing it to happen.

Anyway, I’ve since spent plenty of time trying to rebuild Harry’s trust in me – only to undermine all the good work by taking him swimming.

Things started pretty well. We took Harry to Plas Madoc for the excellent parent and paddler session on a Sunday morning. We bought the necessary inflatable, popped Harry in it and he seemed quite happy bobbing up and down in the water.

Then the wave machine started; Harry was almost instantly submerged by a wave which caught both of us by surprise. Fortunately, Melissa was on hand to pick up the pieces and Harry was soon back to his smiling self – albeit with his trust in me once again thoroughly undermined.

We’re definitely going to persist with the swimming, though, because Harry did seem to enjoy it for the most part. Next time, when the wave machine siren goes, I’ll be a little more careful.

All change at feeding time

There's never a dull moment when you're a parent. As soon as you think you've cracked it, everything changes and you're back to square one.The latest dramatic change in Harry's life is feeding.

Now Harry's quite a big baby - he's put on weight regularly since he was born and is now around 20lbs, despite being only 21 weeks old. But this means he's hungry and his bottles just aren't enough for him. So we've now started him on a teaspoon of baby rice with his midday feed.

When we first tried it (bank holiday Monday), Harry screamed as if we'd tried to poison him and spent the next couple of hours looking hurt and making us feel guilty. But thanks to Melissa's persistence, by the end of the week he was thoroughly enjoying his rice and was back to being a happy, settled baby once again – and sleeping through the night, thankfully.

Being in work meant that I'd missed out on most of his progress so last weekend I was really looking forward to seeing him eat (this is the kind of thing that gets me excited these days).

And I have to say, it was magical. Of course there was a bit of mess, but I was amazed at how well he took the food from the spoon and resisted the temptation to spit it straight back out (I've tried some of this baby rice and believe me, I wouldn't have blamed him if he had). Eating's not the only big news this week. Harry has also learned how to roll on to his side. Admittedly this doesn't sound particularly exciting but, having been used to Harry lying on his back, immobile, since he was born, this is a pretty major development.

He’s also found his feet – literally. He will now quite happily spend hours on end grabbing his feet. I can’t see the attraction, but then I’m not supple enough to grab my own feet while sitting down these days, so maybe I’m just jealous.
Either way, I can’t wait for Harry to start moving around properly, although that promises to bring a whole new – stressful – dimension to parenthood.