Would this man make a good paediatrician?

He seems to be like the pied piper – able to mesmerise large groups of children. This is an invaluable skill, which allows all the other parents to sit back and have a beer while Andrew looks after the kids. You can see that we recently had a holiday in the North Yorkshire Moors with two other family friends and all their kids.


We did a morning walk from the cottage we were all staying in, around a field of wheat, during which I suffered terrible hay fever. There must have been lots of grass pollen, although not the right kind of grass to get the seed head to pop off properly to the rhyme: Miss Polly had a dolly and it's head popped off! As William says - it didn't work :)



We also spent some time in the Lake District. Here is William splashing in Keswick.


William at the Cowley Rd festival in early July. I reckon he looks older than he is in this shot, as he casually strolls down the street....

We’ve recently also had a lovely family holiday camping with friends in the New Forest. A bit of home-made bunting (made by Liz) gave the gazebo a very fancy look. It was Sophie’s first camping trip. It was busy. We enjoyed walks in the forest (finding beetles, frogs and a deer skull), kite flying at the campsite, a boat ride on the river at Buckler’s Hard (William wondered if perhaps we might fall off) and some very good pub meals. There were a number of baths in a bucket (including one at the end of a day in a car park, in the naïve hope that William would drop off to sleep on the drive home). At an animal sanctuary for British animals, we saw owls, a lynx, otters being fed, and patted a fox cub. William was very cute running around the campsite in his pants and t-shirt. William was very excited to be sleeping in a tent and as it is so light in a tent had a few nights staying up until 10pm! One meal was eaten to a chorus of screaming kids. Ah, the joys of camping! Now, we are back at home, doing a million loads of washing and recovering from it all.

June blog (just a little late)

William defies violate the laws of thermodynamics, proving to be a perpetual motion machine.

William seems to spend some days talking (and moving) continuously. If scientists (should I change fields???) could harness this, the world’s energy issues would be solved. His energy levels at 5am can be quite impressive, but it is amazing (and exhausting) when he is still going strong 6-9hrs later. He often leaves a trail of semi-comatose adults strewn in his wake on the weekends.

We love listening to his constant commentary, and listening to his use of language expand and evolve. For instance, last week he was talking about a hat which he saw shrink on a television show, but not knowing the word ‘shrink’, he said that the hat was melting. Some of the more recent phrases of his that we’ve liked are:
I don’t need that, actually
Lets play with x all day and all night long.
Around the corner without a doubt.
I would eat it in one big gulp.
That is loady (meaning, there is a lot in that).

I quite like the term ‘loady’ and want to incorporate it into our family language, but get in trouble from Andrew when I do so, for being ‘bad example’. :)
Here is William eating some apple peel - he loves using the apple 'peeler-slicer-corer'.


Sophie sometimes also appears to be a perpetual motion machine, with all four of her limbs waving around energetically like little windmills (entertaining to watch when it isn’t 3am). She is also beginning to try and control her arms, for example to grab a toy or to try and put something in her mouth.

Life at the 96th centile

At 12 weeks old S weighed 7.3kg.
At 16 weeks old she weighs 7.9kg (17lbs 6oz). This is the weight of an average 9 month old baby girl. He he he. My breast milk must be the Jersey Island full fat variety.

She has creases in her folds of fat in mid-forearm, above and below her knees, two on her thighs (which are reminiscent of those of an Eastern block weight lifter) and most of her neck never sees the light of day. She has dimples for knuckles, a crease on her elbow and her toes are like little sausages attached to the ends of her feet. What a lot of baby to cuddle! We think she is adorable. I didn't know what 'knee sausage' was until Sophie came along, and you see one sitting across her knee when you straighten her leg.

Here she is in the bath, getting water poured on her by a very helpful William.