7 months

Current hobbies: riding around in our new Ergo baby carrier (I highly recommend it, comfy on front and back); honing newly-discovered ability to sit on her own; getting up on her hands and knees and rocking back and forth (the 'rooting wombat' position!); eating paper and plastic bags whenever she can get her hands on them, also likes to pull wet wipes out of the box and suck on them while I'm not looking... has a strange shoe fetish and has them in her mouth too given half a chance.

Fave foods: apart from paper and polythene bags, loves fruit - pureed apples, and pears; mashed nectarine, peach, apricot, banana, avocado, (likes avos best mixed with banana, but ate a little bit on its own yesterday - her brother still won't touch the stuff!), ... now eating yogurt, and cows milk on cereal; likes pumpkin, carrot, sweet potato, courgette but not too keen on broccoli (brother's favourite); has eaten chicken casserole and beef & lentil bolognese but less keen on these strong flavours and needs a lot of veg blending up with them before she'll open up the gob! Currently on 3 meals a day and 4 breastfeeds, for anyone who's interested in these things... looking to cut down to 3 breastfeeds at some point in the next couple of months.

"tickle Bonzo's ginger tummy"

"...followed by the prawns, and a glass of house white please. Oh, and could I have a basket of bread and some water please. Thanks."

"It's very nice here.... zzzzzzzzzzzzz"

Ta-dah!

The rooting wombat, in action

These and a few more photos can be found here

Then & now #3

Leo aged 6 months and a week

Angharad 6 months (a kilo lighter than her bro at this age- she's bang on the average for her age, he was already a chubster by this point)!

Half a year old!

Here I am, 6 months old and gorgeous as ever, smiling winningly at my Mummy. Bonzo and Banjo have put together a web album to show you what I've been up to this month. This weekend I tasted rice cereal for the first time, and yesterday the taste sensation that is pureed pear. Woo-hoo! When can I have steak and chips and a glass of red?

5 months

I know it's a cliche but I really can't believe how quickly time is flying. Leo's first six months felt like such a long time, yet Angharad will be on solids in just a few weeks and I still feel as if she's only just been born!

So apart from being beautiful and rosy-cheeked, what's this little miss like? She loves baths, being tickled, Incy Wincy Spider, crinkly-crackly books and kisses on her cheeks (they make her grin). A laid-back little girl, she is happy to hang in the pram and watch the action when we're out and about (now that she can sit in the front seat and see what's going on), and at home she'll lie around on her mat and amuse herself with toys, toes and raspberry-blowing. She's a roly-poly girl, has

been rolling from her back onto her front for a week or so and just a couple of hours ago rolled back onto her back from her front. She was so pleased with herself she did it again twice in the next 5 minutes. This means she can travel around the floor now so we'd better watch out! (And that's a blog exclusive - if you're reading this before GMT 10am on Thursday then you know about her new-found rolling prowess before her father does)!

Life is still busy with the two of them, but slightly less frenetic now that Angharad is at the stage where she can be distracted by a toy or bunch of keys if you need 5 mins longer to finish what you're doing. These days we've settled into a bit of a routine and she has around 3 naps a day with normally one of those being longer (1-2 hours) and a couple of catnaps. If she is in her

cot at home she'll do the long sleep, but in her pram doesn't usually go longer than 45 mins, unless she's kept moving. And she has 6 feeds, with the last one around 6.30 before bed at 7; her morning wake-up time is pretty varied but usually around 5 and then after her feed she goes back to sleep for another hour or two. It all pans out pretty well because, more often than not, I can work it so that she and Leo both have a decent nap after lunch which means I get a break to do things like this! We skip Leo's morning nap some days as otherwise we'd never get out of the house; between trying to co-ordinate feeds/meals, nappy changes and sleeps.

It's a hell of a plate-spinning act. There are days when the plates stay on their sticks beautifully and others when they all crash to the ground at once, but, luckily for us, we have more of the good days at the mo.

Next stop purees and rice cereal... nappy changing is about to get a whole lot stinkier!

Supermodel

Big girl

4 months old

Hanging with Banjo

3 months

Angharad is 3 months old already! She's rolling onto her side and loves to shake her rattles. She especially enjoys swiping at her jingly duck with a wooden rattle, it makes a great noise. The question people always ask about little babes is 'sleeping well?' so, you'll be pleased to hear that her once nightly squawking sessions are but a fading memory, and the helpful little bunny is now bathed and in bed immediately after her big bro, often before Ben is hope from work (between 7 and 8 pm). I'm sweaty and knackered after the exertions of the double-dinner-bath-bed hour, but at least it means that I can get on with our dinner, and we can have an evening together.

She then wakes up for sometimes 1, sometimes 2 feeds but rarely before 3am, so I'm able to get a decent block of sleep even after an evening with Ben. And night feeds are a quick and peaceful process, often I'm back to sleep within half an hour after a feed & nappy change - she settles straight back to sleep with no arsing around. Good girlie. Of course you get the odd night when she does a knackering combo of 1.30 and 5.00 including a poo everywhere that needs a full change of outfit in the middle of the night, and then Leo picks up the baton by being up and ready for the day at 6.15 (lying in his cot shouting "Mummy, Mummy, MUMMY! Play TRAIN!") but not every night, thank goodness. After her brekkie she's back to sleep for another few hours, waking properly for the day between 9 and 10 am.

She's a happy and healthy little thing, placid and smiley, but gave me a bit of a scare yesterday when I found some bloody mucousy bits in her pooey nappy. She was absolutely fine in herself and I was reassured by our GP that it happens from time-to-time and, if no other symptoms are present, isn't a sign of anything wrong. Phew!

Angharad 2 months old

Less blogs, more labels

We're realising, possibly much later than everyone else, that we've got too many blimmin' blogs.

We started the bLeog when we had much more non-family posts, to let readers go straight to the baby pics, and I automatically did the same for Angharad. However, these days we're struggling to work out which of the four blogs to post to.

So, despite just having started Angharad's blog, we're going to retire both it and the bLeog, leaving them there for posterity but making all new updates to Board Acres. (I'm going to keep the Galleries blog because it is so self indulgent and of niche interest.)

You may have noticed at the top of the green set of panels just to the right of the posts, a new panel titled 'Read about...'. In future we'll be labelling our posts, so if you want to filter just the post of Bonzo, find that window and click his ginger name. The size of each word in the panel reflects the number of posts with that label. I've labelled the more recent posts as a kick-off.

If anyone disagrees violently, or has any other suggestions, comment away...

Smile?

Kisses and cuddles

These individual pics are in the web album if you want a closer look!

Eyes open

Gorgeous

Shhh

Our beautiful girl