Six Month Growth Spurt

Six Month Growth Spurt

Tuesday, 8 June 2010

I'm going to start this post with a question: How is it possible that you can wake up in the morning, go to pick up your son and instead of standing upright, you find yourself still staring down at a pair of outstretched arms while your back feels like you’re just tried to lift a car? He doesn't look any different, so how is it he’s put on a stone overnight?!?

Alfie has been troughing food for the last few days. Not just milk either, real food as well. Over the weekend he was virtually non-stop eating, and last night he had 2 full feeds before finally going to sleep, bottom lip still pouting like he’d been hard done by.

He is doing amazingly well with food these days, and despite the fact that we are keeping him off all the major allergens, he is still managing to attack a pretty awesome range of eats.

I use the word attack deliberately; because that is the only adjective that fully describes the gusto with which our son shovels food into his mouth.

I made a stir fry last week which had florets of broccoli in it. So eager was he to suck the juice out of these florets that he grabbed one in each hand and just stuffed them in. Both. At the same time.

Long gone are the days of the Three. Separate. Movements to get food into his chops too, these days he can happily pass food between his mitts to get a better grip on them, turn them round, and most amusingly for him, launch them across the room to the jaws of the waiting hounds.

His absolutely favourite things in the whole wide world are prawns. We had a barbecue on Sunday with various fish and amongst other things, Alfie got his first try of prawn. Holy cow the kid went nuts!! He sucked and chewed on that thing until it was about 5 inches long and wafer thin. In fact, had I not distracted him with yoghurt and prised it from his iron grip, he may well still be gumming on it now.

I have to admit I am exceptionally proud of his eating skills, and I think I am now becoming and bit of a bore on the subject. I can understand the glazed looks, really, it’s not like he’s invented a cure for cancer or anything. When it comes to life skills, eating is a pretty basic one, but I am Gibraltarian and therefore food - the preparing, eating and enjoying thereof - is second only to the Pope (and possibly mistrusting the Spanish) in terms of national importance.

If you were wondering where all these excess calories might be going, so was I until last night when I was rousted from the sofa by a particularly heartfelt bellow from my darling boy.

I should probably offer as preamble that Alfie has long done a good line in shuffling up the cot. He has always stayed on his back, just wriggle upwards until his head is jammed against the top of the cot. Recently I've decided to just cut out the middle man and stick him at the top of the cot to start with.

So last night, I trudge upstairs expecting to see a head wedged in a corner, or a leg through the bars or something, so you will understand my shock when I realised the bellowing was coming from the other end of the cot. In fact, it was coming from a baby that looked and sounded much like my son, but who seemed to be on all fours, and who’s feet and bum were firmly wedged at the foot of the bed.

Clearly the fact that he had run out of launch pad had distressed the kid beyond all reason and to be brutally honest I was a little stumped as to my next move. What is the correct etiquette when your son backward crawls for the first time when he should be SLEEPING? Should I turn him round and let him moon crawl back up to the head, or pick him up and give him a cuddle? He usually tells me if he wants a cuddle by signing it, but he was currently using his arms to hold the noisy end off the mattress. I took a punt and gave him a hug, which seemed to be the right answer, until he realised that he was hungry again and then he picked up bellowing with as much gusto as he had just left off.

And that ladies and gents, is where the calories have gone.