It’s been a busy week for Family Agar as February gets underway and Spring begins to feel a little bit closer.  Alex and I started the week at the incredibly sad wake following the funeral of a friend’s baby girl – made me want to hug little Alex tight and not let him go.  I’m thinking of my friend every day and sending her all our love.

The weather earlier in the week matched the mood – and so Alex and I stayed tucked up in the warm on Tuesday.  The major excitment of the day was introducing Alex to pears.

He’d been doing very well with baby rice and so, following Gina Ford’s weaning guidelines (!), we moved on to some fruit.  His face was a picture when he first tasted pears – but he very quickly decided he liked it and munched it down without pause.

On Wednesday, the rain had gone, so I met an NCT friend, Bryony, and we marched our little boys around Dulwich Park whilst we had a good gossip.  We then undid all our good exercise with fish finger sandwiches in the pub in the village – yum!

We were back in Dulwich Park early on Thursday morning for our first “Power Pramming” class.  I thought this would involve a slightly faster walk around the park, but it was actually an hour of pretty intense exercise!  Having done very little for the past 18 months, it was quite a shock to the system running round the park pushing Alex and doing lots of exercises whilst the babies watched from their prams!  It was certainly an excellent workout – although my thighs are seriously objecting right now – and I’ll be back next week.  Alex wasn’t entirely sure whether to sleep or cry throughout the class – I’m hoping in future he decides to sleep!

Alex and I ended the week with a much more standard maternity leave day – a leisurely morning followed by lunch out in London with a friend and an afternoon of playing at home! We also met the childminder we’ve chosen for him again to plan his settling in period – we start with her in only 5 weeks time, with a gradual increase of hours until he’s ready to spend the entire day there.  I can’t believe how quickly that’s approaching – but I’m confident we’ve found a great lady to look after him and it’s still 8 weeks until I return to Imperial (3 days per week).

Despite the sad start, it’s been a pretty good week.  It’s been fun introducing Alex to solid food – and he’s been gradually sleeping better – still a ways from going through the night, but far fewer wakings.  Long may that continue.

I’ll finish this post with another video – this time of Alex having a good kickaround on his playmat!  More soon.