Dressing Gown

Here's G just out of the bath one evening, showing off her new dressing gown. It's actually a hand-me-down from someone we know, and as you can see she looks very pleased with it.

I stopped her for the picture just as she was about to go through the nightly ritual of picking out her bedtime story. She very much likes to do this herself now, and as you can see, uses a stool to help her reach. She often carries the same stool around downstairs with her, and also tries to drag one of the dining chairs into the kitchen if there's something she wants from one of the worktops. Sometimes, as she perches unsteadily, it seems a little bit dangerous. But until she grows a bit more, I can see that I'm going to have to get used to it.

Bathtime Peekaboo

Mrs J has been busy with work a lot over the past couple of weeks, so I've been doing G's bathtime quite regularly. Whenever she comes out of the bath, she insists on doing this. "Where's G gone?" she says, referring to herself in the third person. She's got work to do before she's ready to take on a game of hide and seek.

Baby Vomit

I'm sure there was a time when I didn't constantly reek of baby vomit. But between you and me, I'm struggling to remember exactly when that was. Baby G has been puking up very regularly over the last couple of weeks, which has come as a bit of a surprise because she only rarely did so when she was very young. But she's more than making up for it now.

The picture was taken during our recent stay in Wales, after a particularly bad series of sick-ups caused us to give G an impromptu bath in the sink. Curiously, she doesn't seem at all bothered by all the vomiting. The only clue she's even doing it is a bit of a gulp and, a second or two later, yet another stream of white liquid dribbling out of her mouth and down either myself or Mrs J (if we're unlucky) or onto a muslin cloth (on the rare occasions we're quick enough to anticipate it). The vomit itself kind of resembles salad cream and, I imagine, tastes like it too.

We don't know why G has started being sick so often, although seeing as she's not in any distress it can't be anything too serious. The Internet offers us lots of possible reasons, but it's almost not worth bothering trying to find out exactly what's going on because, let's face it, all babies throw up. It's just what they do.

Although it's usually easy to clean the vomit up, the smell is much harder to shift. Currently we're trying to show off our flat to would-be tenants, an activity that traditionally involves the baking of fresh bread to give off a welcoming aroma. All we can manage is freshly-spewed baby sick. Not quite sure whether an estate agent would be able to put a convincing positive spin on that.

Naked Baby Photos

Mrs J went out with one of her friends yesterday lunchtime for a meal of some of the things she wasn't allowed to have while she was pregnant. She had a starter with some poached eggs in it, then a medium-rare steak and finally some chocolate fondant pudding, along with a big glass of wine. I didn't feel too left out though because I stayed in with G and watched some of the rugby union, and it was just as well I did (I was younger than G the last time we beat them).

Later on, I went out and left Mrs J and her friend alone with G and a camera. When I came back I found they'd carried out a whole photo shoot with the poor girl. I've decided to post up the naked baby photos partly because going in the bath already seems to be G's favourite time of the day, but mostly because I'm already looking forward to embarrassing her with them at her 16th birthday.