Festive Season Roundup

Festive Season Roundup

Wednesday 5 January 2011

Today is a very blue day for me because I'm back at work after 10 whole days of Alfie goodness. I miss him. LOTS.

The festive season was kind to us, and we spent loads and loads of time together playing, and snuggling and, well, just being. I love his smell, the faces he pulls, the way he wants me all the time. Staring at his photo is a very poor substitute.

I'm not sorry I was AWOL from blogging over the festive season, and I promise I won’t bore you with a tome describing everything we got up to – I don’t think I could if I wanted to because there aren't the words to describe those millions of lovely moments you have together when you finally have the time and space to just ... breathe.

Instead, here are some photos from the last few weeks.

Alfie is currently sleeping in a sort-of-bed. Keith managed to smash the catch on his cot by accidentally losing the ability to throw a mini football against a wall so we were left with a bit of a dilemma. We decided to try an inflatable ready bed out because we were hoping it would simultaneously sort out the issue of the broken cot, and also the fact that we were going away lots over the festive season and just couldn't face the trauma of making Alfie sleep in his travel cot.

It worked, but as an added bonus it has given us a daily dose of funnies. First there was The Claw – that nasty plastic orange thing you can see – which Alfie is so obsessed with, he woke up on the first night, realised he could get access to his toys and set about digging it out for the next 10 minutes. All we knew was there was a lot of lights flashing and electronic noises as if we had spawned some kind of mini mad professor.

In the morning we snuck into his room and found him curled up with it hugged to his side.

We've done a lot of sneaking over the last week or so - every morning in fact - to see where on the floor our son has ended up. He has yet to finish a night fully on his bed, but at least he has learned that the carpet leaves a very unhealthy waffle print on your forehead and now has the good sense to roll onto his back. 

Now that I am back at work I'm going to try and sneak him back onto his mattress when I leave in the morning. If I fail, Keith will have to get up and deal with the woes, but it means I get to cheat a sneaky morning squish, which I think is worth the risk. Then again I would, wouldn't I?

We met up with Keith’s mum in London at Winter Wonderland and mooched. They took Alfie on a few rides, we ate mondo nyom at Jamie Oliver’s stall and mooched for most of the day.

There were loads of old stalls and rides and because the fair was German in origin, the folk in charge of the rides were of the very healthy opinion that parents should be able to decide on the health and safety of their children. So Keith took Alfie on a death slide.

Alfie was entirely unimpressed – and I don’t mean in a lip wobbling way – I mean his face was deadpan. You could almost hear him sighing in boredom which I think upset his dad a little. I think Keith was at least hoping for a bit of an arm flap, maybe even a chuckle, anything really.

Batsford family meal at a local eatery. Alfie shared my curry and rice with a flagrant disregard for the laws of etiquette and cutlery. I feel sorry for whoever had to pick the rice from the carpet but frankly, if you are going to advertise as child friendly, you have nobody to blame but yourself.

Keith on our new Playstation Move. We spent ages deciding between the PS and Xbox, both of which have anti-blubber facilities these days (important in the post Christmas and post baby phases) but the Xbox needed a room bigger than our whole house, so it seemed pointless getting one when the only thing that would get fit would be my groin. I can think of more interesting ways to tackle that particular area of my body.