Christmas Day 2007

William had a Christmas stocking to open, before he got started on his giant pile of presents...

I gave him a small hedgehog toy (apparently baby hedghogs are called hoglets - how cute!).

William's first Christmas

William is already enjoying his first Christmas on Earth (I quite liked one of the cards that William received after his birth, which said - Welcome to Earth!). Early in December we bought a Christmas tree from the Sea Scouts by the Thames River, which we decorated with little pine cones sprayed bronze and silver. William enjoys touching the tree and feeling the pine needles. Tescos was selling poinsetta plants for the bargin price of £1.90, so we bought one of them, which was very festive in the lounge room.

Yesterday we packed the car full of presents (a large proportion seem to be for one William Marshall) and drove to Wales. The traffic was fine, which was nice. We stopped off at a pub near Newport to catch up with some ex-Oxford friends who live in Cardiff now and have a son a very similar age to William. Now we are in Gilwern, in the lead up to celebrating Christmas at The Marshall's. As I type, there is drumming, tambourine shaking and singing being rehersed in the lounge room, with William sitting on Jenny's lap watching all the commotion. Will he enjoy The Unicorn concert tonight at Llangattock Church?? I shall certainly enjoy the singing, mince pies and mulled wine! It will bring back memories of last year, when mum, dad and Alice were here and we all went to the same concert the Sunday before Christmas.

A couple of pictures to add

Just to give you an idea of what William gets up to during the day....

He can help me with the cooking (yes, that is a cabbage leaf):


Watch the birds in the backyard:


And when nothing else will distract him, we just place ALL his toys in front of him at once..... it works for at least 10 minutes!

Banana flavouring

(Another Lanzarote picture, I would like to entitle: Big hat, Little baby, Big smile)

William had his third lots of vaccinations yesterday and was very brave, considering he had 3 jabs. He is growing very well, following the 75th centile, and now weighing 7.625kg or 16lbs 12ozs. The health care visitor was impressed that he is so big feeding only on breast milk. Yay. Fat and heavy. Well I think we know where that came from… apparently when Angela gave birth to Andrew, Andrew’s grandfather, Garfield, described him as a ‘whopper’. Of course I’m pleased William is growing well, but do look enviously at the mums carrying smaller (lighter) babies. Both Andrew and I have knackered backs from lifting William about.

Tonight he has driven me to my wits end with his crying. He isn’t hungry, hot or cold and has a clean nappy.… but is crying to drive me to tears myself. The health care worker said that it might be ‘gum activity’. Although there isn’t really any sign of teeth, she said they might be moving up through his gums. Gum activity, eh? So, given the last two nights have been bad for sleep, this evening we bought some Bongela and put some on his gums. He looked a little surprised initially, which I suspect may be in response to his first taste of banana flavouring! Since then (2.5 hrs ago), he has been crying for 2 hours. Soon it will be time to put more Bongela on. But I’m beginning wonder if it is helping. I thought perhaps I could see the edge of a little tooth in the middle of his lower gums, but I’m probably hallucinating to try and justify the upsetting and distracting noise. I dread to think what the rest of the night holds in store.

His hair is growing back, through the ever-present cradle cap.

I think his eyes are hazel, or perhaps dark hazel.

William is 4 months old

When he is happy, William is very, very happy. Tonight he was as excited as I’ve ever seen him, when I held a mobile above his head that he hadn’t seen for a while. As soon as he saw it, he opened his eyes open wide, stuck his arms straight out from his sides and flapped then up and down wildly while kicking his legs manically. A squawk erupted from his mouth then he grinned hugely as he looked from it to me. He reached out his arms and pulled all the dangly bits to his chest then tried to open his mouth wide enough to eat them all at once. This is William heaven.

Of course, 10 minutes later when I left his side to try unpacking a box on the other side of the room he was in tears. I think he might be just starting to understand (perhaps even subconsciously) that he can use crying to manipulate us. Until now he seemed to only cry when something was up (tired, hungry, cold, hot, uncomfortable etc). But now he has a more niggly version of crying, and he looks to see if you have noticed that he is crying. On the other hand maybe it isn’t manipulative, but just that his needs have developed – now he needs attention, more stimulation, and challenges.

Physically he is still growing well. At last weighing he was on the 75% centile of weight for his age. He gets his third lots of vaccinations this Thursday so I’ll get an updated weight then. He has gained a lot of new skills in the last month but I think that over the next couple of months the increments of change might be slower. For example, he can fully support his own head now, and sit up when you prop him against the couch, but I think it will be while before he is sitting up himself. Another example is that he can hold things in his fist, but usually only if you open the fingers and thumb and put the item in his grasp. You can see that at times he wants to reach out and grab something in particular, but his arms tend to flail about and he probably only manages to grab the item through chance. But this is something that I think he’ll slowly develop over the coming months.

Feeding – hmmmm. We keep trying to get him to take a bottle, but he still hasn’t decided that this will be in his repertoire of skills. It would be very handy if he decided that he’d like to learn to drink from a bottle, but so far, no go. Andrew tried again yesterday and although William was happy to gum the bottle nipple, he didn’t suck at all. I’ll have to start some reading about weaning soon, as while we were in Lanzarote William became very interested in what we were eating/drinking and often avidly followed every bight as we ate. So we’ve given him a few things to try putting in his mouth. He isn’t eating them, but just exploring what they feel/taste like in his mouth.

Sleeping – well, ok, I guess. Some nights he only wakes up twice, and other nights 10 times. Some nights, he decides at 4.30am that it is THE MORNING and time to play and ‘sing’. This can be trying, but at least it happens less than once a week. We want to try and get him to sleep for longer stretches, so now that we are in our new home and back from holiday we’ll try and get back to a routine of bath-feed-bed at around 6.30-8.30pm each night and see whether he can get used to that. Then perhaps we’ll try and not feed him if he wakes less than two hours after his last feed in the night, to stretch out the gap between feeds. I am kind of dreading this, as I can see that I’ll get very little sleep while we try and adapt to the change, but hopefully it will result in us all being more sane and rested in the long run.

Overall I think William is a pretty good baby. We had a lovely time on holiday as a family last week and just wish holidays would last forever! (Not that we want Andrew to lose his job, touch wood!).

Back from Lanzarote

Well, in the end the final completion and exchange on the house were delayed so much that we didn't end up going to Australia. It just wouldn't have been worth it for 7 days. So, we booked a last minute package holiday to Lanzarote and went there for a week. After Andrew booked the tickets I had to go and look on the map to see where it was - it is safe to say that I knew nothing about it before we got there. However, it was surprisingly interesting and enjoyable. Neither of us has ever been to a volcanic island before and there were lots of things to see and do. We hired a car for a few days and saw some of the sights. Also spent a couple of days relaxing on the beach where had his first swim in the sea. It was relaxing and fun.




We had spent the three days before we left moving and then cleaning the old flat, which was pretty tiring. But Andrew's dad came and helped us out and it all got done in time. So now we are back in Oxford (and freezing our socks off, man it has gotten cold in our absence) and tootling about our new house. We're unpacking boxes, shifting furniture about and doing some DIY. I have proudly installed three door stops using a new drill that we bought. We've put some boards up in the loft so that we can move all the junk up there (that has been very helpful for making it look like we are tidying the house).

Andrew starts work again this afternoon, so the 2 week holiday has almost come to the end and I'll try and return William to a routine (of sorts) and start going to all the mum and baby groups that we were attending before. Then I spose we'll blink and it will be Christmas. I wonder whether we'll have all our boxes unpacked by the end of the year....?

Moving house

We have a new house!

All the moving obviously exhausted young William, but fortunately he had the presence of mind to take time out to chill and watch the leaves changing colour in the backyard. Pretty tiring work though - enough to send anyone to sleep....

Water Babies

Andrew's two weeks off began with him being able to take William to some of the baby/parent groups that I've been taking him to. One of which is a Water Babies swimming class. I really enjoyed the chance to watch the two of them enjoying being in the water together. It is lovely to see.

swings and knitting

William was getting into the swing of things last weekend when we visited Martin and Ruth (and their new daughter Megan). Although, he does look a little concerned that his dad is going to leap off at the height of the swing... which he did!

I've helped establish a knitting group for East Oxford mums - here is what it looked like last week. It is great to be able to get advice from the more experienced knitters. And yes, we do actually get some knitting done! I think William likes it because all the other babies are girls...

Autumn sunshine

Today we are meant to be exchanging and completing on our new house.... but with half an hour to go before the end of the day, still no word from the solicitors. Hmmmmmm

William and I made good use of the morning, going for a walk past Christ Church College and stopping in the Botanical Gardens on the way home to breastfeed. Oxford is such a lovely place to live! And if I am quick, and balance him carefully, William can look like he is sitting up on the bench by the fountain ALL BY HIMSELF!

Warm and cosy

Well, Autumn is definitely here now. We've had a few very frosty mornings, but lovely clear blue skies which set off the colours on the trees beautifully. Michael and Catherine Soh sent this snuggly fleecy number to William and now it is just the thing for taking him out. I don't need to worry that he will be cold in this. This is William in it on its very first outing. His Grandma Angela has taken him out to get some fresh air so that I can have a moment to process some pics and perhaps send some emails (without distraction).

Tummy time!

I am so far behind in processing photos of William that I am going to make an executive decision to skip the last month of photos (for the minute) and just put some recent ones up - otherwise I'll never catch up and I'll never get around to putting more pics up here. So, here are some from the last week!

We've been pretty good this week at finding time to go upstairs and spend some time with William on his tummy. It helps to strengthen his arms, neck and back muscles, apparently. Anyway, he doesn't really like it, so we have to wait until he hasn't fed recently, is in a good mood and not too tired, then we pop upstairs and try to get 5 mins on his tummy. We usually only last 3-4 though. But we'll keep working on it. I hope it gets easier for him. These are some of the (rare) moments I've managed to catch him on his tummy and smiling!






The purple striped top is all organic cotton and a gift from Seb's mum, Sonja.

Our baby is getting a bit podgy

Check out the creases in his arm! Who has creases in the podge of fat in the middle of their arm? And just last week I noticed the extra one, located a centimeter from his wrist. Good going young William Dylan!


He isn't quite here yet (see below).... but you can see what direction he is heading in. On the other hand, it is the one time in your life when it is actually GOOD to be fat, so he might as well make the most of it. And it means that breastfeeding is continuing to go well.

In actual fact, his growth (both weight and head circumference) is tracking along perfectly just above the 50th percentile, so he is normal!

Now that I look at the above picture for a bit longer, our Willy Dilly looks positively thin!

Last weekend we were in Wales

We went to Abergavenny for the Food Festival. GREAT cheese, cider, chocolate, biscuits, cake, salami, icecream..... It is lucky that I'm breastfeeding really, and can get away with the amount of food I ate. We also went for a little walk along the canal at Gilwern, with Stephen, to see whether there were any plums left on the tree on the path leading up to Llanelly Church. Andrew decided that William would sit on the fence, like a little farmer boy. William didn't think that we wanted to sit on the fence....

Andrew insisted that he WOULD sit on the fence. Andrew is bigger, so he won!

Unfortunately there we were too late for plums on the tree, but we found a mushroom. And had a lovely walk. Sadly, we then had to return to Oxford. William does enjoy seeing his Aunty Jenny, and Welsh Grandparents. They are excellent at holding him, hugging him, changing his nappy and singing to him.

now we have some smiles.... :)

He is just beginning to start really smiling and making extremely cute goo goo noises. You can imagine the response from his parents.... goo goo gar gar, of course.

A new bed for a grown up baby

William has a new cot. I think he likes the decor very much (thanks to Clare and Jen for that!). I quite like it myself! Perhaps I should see if it comes in double duvet size...?

In it he can look cute and serious...

He can sing...


And he can smile!!!

William and his relatives

Back in communication now

There has been quite a pause in blog updates but today I am back! William is sleeping peacefully - although, he is managing to be naughty even in his sleep! We are trying to encourage him to spend more time with his head turned to the left as he has a big preference for leaning it to the right. He currently has his head turned to the right....Cheeky monkey!

I'll start with a picture of him taken at 7 weeks of age....


Then 8 weeks...


And 9 weeks....