Hmm, this nappy that she put on me five minutes ago is much too cool and dry. What can I do to make it more comfy?

Pppppppppppppbbbbbbbbbbbsquelch

Ahh, that’s better.

Today we met the baby who lives across the road, and tried to remember that Bernard was once that small. In only three months, our tiny mewling scrap of life has turned into a chunky little wrigglebeast with an adorable smile. He’s a very social animal, and the barmaid in his favourite pub recognises him [but never offers him a drink].

I’d be lying if I claimed to have enjoyed those first six weeks, with the hot weather and the feeding and the total lack of confidence in what I was doing; but now – well, now he grins and giggles and is learning to sit by gripping my fingers and pulling himself upright from a slouched position. His morning naps are becoming regular, although his afternoon ones still need some work. Until last week, he was sleeping well at night, and will surely settle back down after a few days with less disruption. It’s still hard work, but so, so much easier than it was.

When he’s in a sunny mood, i really like his company. When he’s in a scratchy mood, in the evenings when he’s tired, I hold him and rock him and try to soothe him, but really all he wants is to be fed to sleep. We’ve discovered that he likes his bath to be hotter than the Scald Warning Triangle recommends; as he is lowered into the water, the screeching is usually replaced by a blissed-out look, and he giggles when I clean out his neck-cheese with a sponge.

After his bath we zip him into a Grobag and I read him a story or some poetry while he has his bedtime feed. He almost always falls asleep, or is at least nearly asleep, and I transfer him to the cot beside my bed where he sets up a wimpery little snore. On a good night, he will then sleep for seven hours before waking for a feed; the last few nights he has been awake and yelling after three, which means around midnight. This eats into my own sleep more than I like, especially having become accustomed to four or five uninterrupted hours lately. I’m astonished at how well I can function on so little sleep, although I’m probably difficult to live with because I get pretty grumpy when I’m tired.

Warm days and cold days, I never know how to dress him. The rule is that he should wear one thin layer more than I do, but the rule doesn’t mention how to adjust that for putting him in a baby carrier, where he gets heated up by the parental body, or what to put him in at night when it’s 24 degrees at bedtime, but gets much cooler in the small hours. It’s easy to sit back and point out that it’s obvious: take a layer off, or put a blanket over him; but I find it hard to be that practical and objective. I find it hard to string a sent

I have fourteen minutes to save the earth tell you about house moving and stuff. Most of our stuff is here now, but we still have the rented house for another couple of weeks, giving us ample time to bring the last few bits and pieces, and do a bit of cleaning. The old house already smells empty, and the new house already smells of whatever it is that we collectively smell of.

On Tuesday, Pete did a mammoth IKEA shop, and came away with everything but the mattress. This is obviously a bit of a nuisance, and we are currently squashed up together on a poxy little double bed, after three years of superking luxury. We have bookshelves! We have shoeracks! And, therefore, we have all we could wish for.

Bernard is, on the whole, reasonably impressed by his new home. He has his own room, although he won’t be sleeping in it for a little while, as I love to lie awake listening to him snore. He does have a changing unit in his nursery, which is a vast improvement on the changing mat on the bathroom floor; it may be the safest place, but one’s knees and back do start to feel the strain of picking up an increasingly heavy baby six to eight times a day. He has had a very disrupted week, but I’m confident that things will settle down again.

Oh, and last night, Pete and I had a date, while my mum babysat. It was lovely.

… and the mortgage company has failed to make the payment. We await news from our solicitor on the effectiveness of her chasing-up.

Bernard observes his parents getting a little tetchy with one another, and develops a new skill (bashing Dinglephant with an accurately aimed fist) to cheer us up. He weighed 13lb 1oz at yesterday’s clinic (Bernard, not Dinglephant), so is putting on more than half a pound a week at the moment. Still no formula.

As you can see, Pipex haven’t disconnected us yet, which probably means they haven’t connected us at the new place, either. Why doesn’t this surprise me?

I would like to be blogging more often, but I still find it difficult to concentrate, and usually have to type with one hand while Nursing At Keyboard, as it is known in those sort of circles. There ought to be more words and more photos, to document every moment of this fantastic child’s life.