On the move..

Sorry for the delay between postings. What a busy month it has been.

On Boxing Day Henry started to crawl... well sort of. He looks more like a wounded animal as he drags himself along the ground; but nonetheless, he is now mobile and quite efficient at his 'commando crawl' and follows us around the flat squealing with excitement everytime he rounds a corner. We've now had to invest in some security gates to stop him from crawling into the kitchen or out onto the balcony. He loves crawling into the bathroom and bashing the bathroom scales or trying to tip over the bin. We don't know what it is about the bathroom, but it is always the first room he trys to crawl to. We don't want to shut the doors to all the rooms because it is his home too and we want him to explore it.

A few days after New Years Henry produced his first tooth, closely followed by his second tooth. He now has two lower central incisors. They both arrived with no fuss and hope all the others will do the same.

Tiff started back at work part time mid January. We are sharing child care duties with our best buddies Moz and Dave. They have a little girl (Allegra) who is six weeks younger than Henry. Between the four of us, we are all doing a day of care looking after the two youngsters. Henry has transitioned well and doesn't seem to notice we're not with him all day. Allegra is very playful and likes to crawl after Henry. He is loving the social interaction. They are very cute together, watching each other, taking toys off each other etc.

Henry started swimming lessons on the weekend. He loves the water and didn't mind too much when he was dunked under. He just needs to learn to close his mouth when putting his head underwater. He came up spluttering, but no tears. Once we get some decent photos of him in the water we'll post them as well.

Today we made our way to the zoo so Henry could get a closer look at some of the animals from his books, bedspreads, shirts etc... and he seemed suitably impressed. His favourite were the giraffes and he was very excited when we got him a little one to bring home with him.

The first Noel

A few shots from our Christmas day.

Santa is coming...

...as we're keeping one of the good little boys here with us.


With Christmas only a few short sleeps away we're all looking forward to catching up with family, or parts there of, plenty to eat and drink, and of course watching Henry open up all his presents and then playing with the paper. We are at home this year with Jackie, Corin and Yin. Corin will be playing Santa courtesy of a birthday he had a couple of weeks ago where Henry treated him to a fancy red outfit just for the occasion.
Henry has had his first trip to the pool in recent weeks. He seemed a little hesitant at first, probably trying to work out why his bath was so cold, and big. He soon got into it though and happily splashed about until it was time to get out. We expect to be spending more time in the water in the coming months as it warms up in this part of the world.

Merry Christmas to everyone !!

Lunch Club

Recently we caught up with a couple of friends for lunch. Thanks to Jase for some great food, and for putting us to shame in the photo department.
After lunch we all took turns in having a cuddle and our photo taken with Henry. This is normally Kates' job, but she couldn't make it on account of her current travels. Hello Kate and Ed if you are reading this from some exotic far away place. We had saved you some dessert, but then Jase made us eat it all.






Henry and Jase





Henry with Jen

The Karate Kid

Grasshopper... poised to strike, here is Henry dressed in his commando gear, ready to protect Mum and Dad, or take them out.

Henry now weighs in at 9.1kg and is 68.5cm long. He certainly looks like a little bruiser. An elderly neighbour squealed with delight when she saw him this week, exclaiming "he's as fat as butter".

Henry's latest tricks include poking his tongue out, rolling everywhich way, sitting up in his highchair for meals, outgrowing his clothes, and finally......sleeping through the night.

These cheeks were made for kissing

Here are the latest pictures of Henry boy and his very kissable cheeks. We are pleased to report that he now almost sleeps through the night. He does wake up briefly, but is able to resettle himself quickly. This has made Tiff very happy, as she realised the other day it has now been one year since she had an uninterrupted sleep.

This picture was taken today. Henry has started rolling over and enjoys flipping from his back to his tummy. Problem is he can't get himself back again. He digs his toes into the floor, so it won't be long until he crawls.

Hello! Henry is waving to you with a face covered in sweet potato. It's funny how we find bits of food in his ears or up his nose - no matter how diligent we have been with cleaning him up post feed.

This photo is for Tiff's Aunt Kathy. Finally he fits in what is now known as the "Hugh Grant at the cricket" outfit.

Finally, here is Henry with his Mum and Dad. Please post comments as to who you think he looks more like.

Our boy - Henry

We've just realised that Henry will be six months old this week. He is such a delightful little boy that it has been easy for us to see the months fly by. He now weighs 7.85 kg. We have started him on solids once a day, which he is enjoying. So far he has had pear, apple, carrot, and pumpkin. Looks like he'll love food as much as his Mum and Dad. Tiff has also started the weaning process, dropping one breastfeed a week and replacing it with formula. She set herself a goal of breastfeeding until Henry was six months, and is keen to reclaim her body back. There are no problems with Henry taking a bottle, he holds it and feeds himself.

Here's Henry at his baby massage class. Next to him is his girlfriend Allegra. We discovered during massage class he is ticklish on his tummy. He squeals and giggles when tickled. He also loves being bounced up and down, and being sung to.

This is Henry just waking up in the morning. We are still waiting for the magical 'sleeping through' period to commence. At present he still wakes every three to four hours to be fed.

Due to Henry's fast paced lifestyle and the stresses of everyday baby life, Tiff has been taking him to massage classes for the last few weeks. Massaging tiny bodies isn't as simple as it may sound; for one thing it helps if the massagee keeps still for the duration which tends to complicate proceedings. Nonetheless, Henry enjoys his massages and finds them very relaxing.

The past week has seen Henry reach the five month milestone. His weight is now 7.35kg, with a height of 64cm. We have started him on basic solids (rice cereal) and will begin to add pureed fruit and vegetables over the coming weeks. It didn't take him long to learn to open his mouth and swallow when presented with his food on a spoon. He now trys to grab the spoon with both hands and brings it to his mouth on his own. Sometimes he gets the spoon in his mouth, the other times he gets his cheek. A lot of messy fun.

On the subject of grabbing he now grabs and reaches for everything. In particular he loves trying to grab for his mobile and all the dangling things on his playgym. He also loves grabbing Tiff's hair and face, as well as sticking his fingers in her mouth. Sometimes he is gentle, other times over excited - as a result Tiff has a few scratches.

Henry practices an important life skill - looking busy.

Winter Fun

Another month has passed us by and we've been as busy as ever trying to keep on top of things with young Henry (I mean really... like it's a chore or something).
We have just come back from a great week at the snow down in Thredbo, where Henry got his first taste of the white stuff. From shorter trips we had taken we were somewhat concerned as to how he would take being in the car for around 6 hours at a time, but as it turned out we were both quite envious of him as he managed to sleep just about the entire way there and back again. Whilst there Henry managed to settle into his new surroundings and seemed to enjoy the change of scenery, and a good dump of snow mid way through the week meant a good session of play before we left. Mum and Dad managed to get some snowboarding in during the week, swapping shifts with Moz and Dave who were there with their daughter Allegra.



The snow trip also managed to coincide with our first case of family sickness, with all of us succumbing to cold and flu for the best part of the last few weeks. Lots of sniffles and snorts, and even less sleep than normal, but we're all on the mend finally.

Last Sunday was also fathers day here in the land of Oz, which is when the picture below of a very tired looking dad was taken. He's feeling a bit more awake now, thanks to the sugar content in the truckload of chocolate that Henry kindly bought for him. The other picture is Henry with Allegra, also taken on the same day.

Happy to be

Henry had his first sleep over last weekend at Jackie's (Nanoo) house. The occasion was Nanoo's birthday, combined with a Christmas in July. Here he is the morning after the festivities enjoying a puppet show courtesy of uncle Corin. This was a trial run in some ways for a longer trip we will be taking in a few weeks, when we take Henry with us down to Thredbo for some snowboarding.





Here, is a demonstration of what happens when Henry is excited. Firstly we get a few smiles and a bit of a giggle. After that, the occasional vomit (refer to wet patch on dad's leg). And then back to the smiling / giggles.

Counting down to 3 months !

Strange to think we will be reaching this milestone in the next few days - the mythical 3 month stage, where babies suddenly stop waking you through the night, only want feeding at normal meal times, change themselves etc... and parents lose their grip on reality altogether apparently.

Henry is doing well, and so are we to be honest as he has been pretty easy on us to this point. Taking into account all those indescribable parental joys and we're feeling like we're way ahead.

But before we descend too far into the sickly sweet, here's some um.... cute baby pictures. Enjoy.


Henry and lady friend Allegra.