Fire! Fire!

India and Mia in training to join the fire service when they grow up.

Oscar the Grouch

Here's a photo of Mia doing her best Oscar the Grouch impression!

8 Months old!

Mia was 8 months old on Monday so we took some photos to commemorate the occasion. As you can see she is really enjoying playing with the two balls that her grandpa gave her at the moment. Oh and Bruce is still her favourite thing ever!

NCT Christmas gathering

We had a christmas gathering with our NCT gang at Amy and Stuarts today. The babies all posed together, it's amazing to see how much they've grown and how different all their personalities are.

Pincer Grip continued

Grandpa wanted some photographic evidence of the pincer grip. I managed to get a couple of pics at lunchtime today, it's difficult because Mia swipes the food so quickly. It's very clever though because it means that she is now developmentally ready to eat smaller food and she is certainly interested in it, she is much less interested in the larger pieces of food now.


Here's some info about the pincer grip that i found online:
Using the thumb and forefinger to pick up things like peas or Cheerios — a.k.a. the pincer grasp — is a tiny, yet mighty, movement. For early childhood experts, the pincer grasp marks a momentous developmental milestone, showing that a baby's brain, muscles, and nervous system are becoming highly synchronized and capable of increasingly sophisticated coordination.

"The pincer grasp will eventually allow a child to button a shirt, use a pencil, play the violin," says Tanya Remer Altmann, M.D., a clinical instructor in pediatrics at UCLA. "But [even] when it first emerges, typically between 8 and 12 months, it opens up a whole new world for a baby to explore." With thumb and forefinger working together, blocks can be stacked, not just whacked; bits of food can be picked up and eaten without help; and (the bad news) coins can be pried off the floor and swallowed." http://wondertime.go.com/learning/article/get-a-grip-pincer-grasp.html

Pincer grip and the tooth

Well we have a pincer grip. This is a rather exciting development in the baby-led weaning world as it means that Mia can now pick up little things like peas and raisins between her thumb and finger. She demonstrated it today picking up some raisins from the yummy carrot, apple and raisin muffins that I made for her. She scoffed loads of them. And then this evening she was really showing it off eating lots of macaroni cheese.
You can see her tooth really clearly now. Think there might be more on the way soon.
Also she seems to have picked up my inability to keep my eyes open when a camera flashes! Hope it's just another phase!

Clever Grandpa 3

A cool collage of photos of Mia eating at Pizza Express taken and created by Grandpa.

.

Trip to Chi

Today, we went on a trip to Chichester (aka Chi!) with Jane, India, Sadie and Erica to meet up with Sadie's mum. It was Mia's first ride on a train, she seemed to take it all in her stride. We had a fun day and I took lots of photos!

Look at the big baby behind Jane in the photo above!

sitting around with Dre

A couple of cute pics of Mia and Dre together.

Granny and Grandpa visit

My parents have been visiting. They stayed with us from Saturday until Wednesday. They came to catch up with all Mia's changes and also to babysit so that Del and I could have our first night out since Mia was born.

Mia did very well showing off her eating skills and we even ate in Pizza Express. This was Mia's first experience of eating in a restaurant and she did really well. She sat at the table in a high chair and ate all sorts of things including: goats cheese, pizza, garlic bread, aubergine, olive, sundried tomato, avocado so lots of things that I didn't try until I was well into my twenties! She lasted the whole meal and didn't get bored at all. I didn't manage to get any photos but dad did so I will add some as soon as he gets home and sends me some.

Our night out went well. We went to see Steve Coogan, I got Del the tickets for his birthday back in April and it was Jimmys birthday as well. It was his first tour in 10 years, a bit of a mixed bag of characters but by far the best bit was the second half with Alan Partridge.

More eating pics

I enjoy taking pics of Mia every time she eats so I always have lots to put on here. Here are some of her eating rice, avocado and blueberry!
Oh and she's got her first tooth now, bottom left. I can feel it but you can't see it yet, whenever I try to look at it Mia pokes her tongue out!

That's not my name

Mia has been playing with her wooden blocks recently and learning how to spell her name!

Hanging with friends

Look at our grown up girls.
They can all sit up now which seems very grown up. They all seem a lot happier now they can sit up and play with toys.
Playing with India's new drum.
Mia tried on India's boots and decided they suited her better than India. I did manage to convince her to take them off and give them back to India before we left though.

Sunday Lunch at Grandma and Granddads

Last weekend we went to Graham and Maggie's for sunday lunch.
Mia enjoyed her Grandma reading her the new book that she had bought her


And she also enjoyed joining us by tucking into the lunch. Actually she only seemed interested in the broccoli but she couldn't get enough of that! It was her first proper meal not at home so she did very well.

Baby-led weaning fun

Mia is going strong with the baby-led weaning now. She seems to be really enjoying it and to be getting the hang of actually eating the food. I'm so impressed with the way she handles the food. This evening I gave her a piece of avocado. I left the skin on so that it wasn't too slippery and she did really well extracting the avocado from the skin. And a few days ago she had some courgette and again did well moving it round and round her mouth until she had got the tasty middle off and then she eventually rejected the skin.

The first book on baby-led weaning by Gill Rapley and Tracey Murkett came out this week. It's really good to have a book on it which refers to research etc rather than just relying on websites. It's available from Amazon http://www.amazon.co.uk/Baby-led-Weaning-Helping-Your-Baby/dp/0091923808/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1226090450&sr=8-1

Here are some pics of Mia enjoying food: