Month: February 2008

Ruben’s eighth week was a particularly busy and exciting one, the highlight of which was being able to meet and spend time with his maternal grandparents and Aunty Anna.

The week included a visit to the Horniman Museum which is not far from where Ruben lives. This was Ruben’s first visit and he thought there were lots of excellent things to look at, including the Walrus. We expect to make many more visits in the future.

This week was also the last week of visits from midwife, Teresa. It was lovely to see Teresa, but also quite sad that we won’t be graced with her visits every week anymore. Teresa has played a big role in Ruben’s life so far and we are very thankful for all the help and insight she’s given us in this time. We’re going to miss her! While she was here, Teresa was also kind enough to sign the paperwork for Ruben’s passport, which we are applying for in preparation for his upcoming trip to San Diego.

Ruben had a final weigh-in with Teresa and tipped the scales at 5kg or 11lbs. Quite impressive – although it is incredible to think that some babies are born at that weight! Ruben has put on 1.5kgs in his eight weeks which we are very happy with.

On Saturday Ruben had his first every swimming lesson, which went very well except that he got a little hungry in the middle of the lesson and had to stop for a quick snack, during which he missed the underwater swimming. He seemed to enjoy what he did though and we’re looking forward to more lessons each Saturday – and his first underwater swim next week.

After the swimming lesson we caught up with Granny and Poppy and Aunty Anna and had a tour of the project that Dad/Mick is working on at the moment, before walking back from Piccadilly to Victoria via Buckingham Palace.

On Sunday Ruben was baptised at St Stephens, West Dulwich. It was a lovely little service after the main Sunday service and Ruben slept through the whole thing – not a peep, even when his head was being wet. Not even when Poppy took to the pipe organ and we sung a little hymn (Stand Up, Stand Up). Ruben’s godparents are Aunty Anna (Leisa’s sister) and Uncle Daniel (Michael’s brother) and his baptism bible verse is Genesis 28:15 ‘Know that I am with you and will keep you wherever you go’. Ruben wore a lovely christening shawl that was made by his great grandmother (maternal) and worn by his mum, Aunty Anna, Uncle Aaron and Uncle Lloyd when they were baptised many moons ago.

After the service was over we headed off to the Dolphin Hotel in Sydenham for a Sunday Roast to celebrate.

Ruben spent lots of time with Aunty Anna, who read him books, let him sleep on her for hours, and accompanied us to the Big Scream to see a pretty average film called Blueberry Nights on Friday. Ruben was particularly taken with Anna’s very expressive reading style.

We had quite a few days out, including Ruben’s first every shopping trip to Oxford Street and lunch at John Lewis (or, as Poppy calls it ‘Little Johns’), but also lots of quality time at home, playing with toys like Bob the Dog, and enjoying having lots of different people to give him cuddles and a mum who actually got to have a shower every day! Unfortunately, we have to let Aunty Anna head back to Australia after just one week, but we have two more weeks of quality time with the grandparents to enjoy!

This week opened with an exciting trip to the Tate Modern with Ale and Tomas. We caught the train into Victoria then took Ruben’s first ever tube ride (District line from Victoria to Embankment for the record), stopped for a pasta lunch on South Bank then off to see some art. We didn’t see much and had to head up to the members room for coffee, cake and other snacks before long, then headed home in the icy weather! Just as we were starting to think that Ruben was getting big, seeing him next to Tomas (who has about three months on him) made him look tiny and newborn again!

On Friday it was off to the Big Scream as usual, this time we caught up with some of the NCT crew, including Ruben’s friends Isaac, Oliver, Josie and Theo and we saw Atonement. As usual, Ruben woke only briefly for a snack and didn’t catch much of the movie.

Friday evening saw us headed over to the Plough for a quiet G&T with Ruben’s friend Sylvia and her mum & dad.

Ruben had a very hungry week this week and spent much of it eating, eating and eating. Perhaps a little too quickly as he seemed to have a bit of a tummy ache and was quite unsettled in the later parts of this week. We had a pretty quiet weekend mostly eating and sleeping and looking forward to the arrival of the grandparents (Leisa’s mum and dad) and Aunty Anna who arrived early on Tuesday morning.

We also finally got around to doing a photoshoot for Ruben’s passport photo and sent it off so that we could apply for his passport in time for his upcoming trip to San Diego at the end of March.

Week six already! Time is passing so quickly that it feels that no sooner do we do a weekly update as it is time for another one. I guess that’s what they say about having fun, isn’t it. And we’re all having lots of fun at the moment.

More growing and more changing, and Ruben is a delightful little fella. We’ve discovered that he seems to prefer being out of the house and doing things than staying home too much, which suits everyone just fine. The mild weather this winter has particularly helped to make it easy to be out and about – we haven’t yet been out in a lot of rain just yet, and don’t have a waterproof sling. We have, however, seen some blue skies and bright sunshine, and when we were first out walking in the sun the other day it was Ruben didn’t quite know what had hit him and was trying to hide away from the sunshine. A few more days of sun though, and he seemed to get used to it, which was a relief… we joke about him being a bit of a Pommy, but he had us worried for a moment there 😉

Our big new adventure this week was Baby Yoga which we went to on Thursday at the Brockwell Lido (where we used to sometimes go for pregnancy yoga before he was born). We were in a class of about a dozen babies, two others were around Ruben’s age and the others were a few months older. Ruben seemed to really enjoy the class (especially after he’d had a feed and a nappy change – regular occurrences in Baby Yoga as you can imagine) and when he left he looked incredibly calm and contented.

Particularly useful was a little technique that we learned to help to get the babies to fart – Ruben is pretty windy down below and it often causes him quite a bit of discomfort as he’s pushing them out. So now, as we’re changing him, we can help him push a few out – it’s absolutely hysterical to do, but it also seems to make his life a little more comfortable, so that’s all good.

The boys were home alone for the first time this week when I went out on Tuesday evening to speak on a panel at a work event in town. The house wasn’t too trashed when I got home and they seemed to have a good time and do lots of sleeping, so that was all good.

We went to the movies, as usual on Friday morning and saw Juno, which was pretty cute. As usual, Ruben slept through the whole thing – I don’t think he’s even seen the big screen since we’ve started going to the movies… we can save that excitement for another week when he’s less settled perhaps.

Monday was a little sad as it was our last visit from midwife Annie. Ruben was in an appropriately grumpy mood and we will definitely miss her visits and the benefit of her baby wisdom. We have one last visit from Teresa next week and then it’s over to the NHS for us… starting with his eight week check up and first round of immunisations, and then we have to go to the baby clinic to see how much he weighs… I’m sure that will be the stuff of future exciting updates. At any rate, we gave great thanks to Annie for all her help and support over the past months and look forward to seeing her again at the next party 🙂

This week we went and visited the Vicar at the local parish church to see about getting Ruben baptised. His grandparents (maternal) and Aunty Anna are in town soon and we thought it might be a good timing. The vicar was very nice and was happy to oblige us with a quicky christening (we only gave him about two weeks notice) so we’ll be back on the 24th – assuming we’ve got Ruben’s wardrobe issues sorted between now and then. What does one wear to a christening these days?

Given the upcoming event, it seemed only right to stop by church on Sunday morning. We sat nice and close to the door to the creche but Ruben seemed to enjoy the beginning of the service and then drifted off to sleep and didn’t make a peep the whole time we were there, even when he got his very first blessing from the Vicar.

After church we went for a walk to Sydenham to go and check out The Dolphin, a pub we had heard did a good Sunday lunch. It certainly did, and we spent the best part of the afternoon there enjoying good food and lovely atmosphere, and a glass of red.

We visited our NCT friends Ros and baby Josie for a cup of coffee this week and had a very pleasant afternoon with them. On the walk on the way to their house we saw and heard a couple of woodpeckers in the trees on Cox’s Walk which was pretty exciting – they didn’t look much like Woody Woodpecker, but they sounded pretty similar.

Overall we had a pretty good week – there were a few lovely calm and relaxed days, and a few that involved quite a bit of yelling and not so much sleeping. Everything about Ruben continues to change apace and it’s a full time job keeping up with him at the moment – but especially in those calm and happy moments, and when he starts doing something new and gorgeous, it’s amazingly rewarding.

More new and gorgeous stuff next week I’m sure 🙂

Ruben had a lovely fifth week – some of the same (eating, sleeping, pooing) and a few new adventures as well. He’s been a happy little fella and we’re really starting to get used to hanging out together. He’s getting more and more interactive and chatty and his little noises are getting more and more expressive. At the same time, he’s also starting to enjoy spending some quality time alone, and will happily hang out in his bed gazing at his black and while mobile for a surprisingly long time. He continues to eat like a champion and fart like trumpet and over all is a happy, healthy little guy.

Our biggest mission for the week was to get his birth registered – it ended up being a little bit more of a drama than expected as we’d waited for an appointment at Lambeth only to get there (for a 9am appointment! they seriously expect you to be able to get a baby to a registry office by 9am!) and discover that we were at the wrong registry and we needed to go to Southwark instead. We trekked over there on the bus as they told us we’d be able to be seen that way, but the receptionist at Southwark didn’t agree, so we ended up coming home unregistered and making another appointment later in the week. Second time round we were much more successful and, as well as having made the Registrar completely fall in love with him, Ruben is no longer officially ‘Baby Reichelt’ (as he was up until he was registered) but is now officially a Murphy. Well done, lad.

We had a big day out on Friday, which was when we got registered, as we went to the movies again in the morning (we saw Cloverfield this week) and then after the Registry we headed over to East Dulwich to The Plough for our regular Friday afternoon drinks. He was out and about from about 10am until after 7pm and was so calm and settled and pleasant to be with – he’s a very good little boy. It’s a whole new world of trying to plan feeding and changing whilst being out and about. Fortunately we’re not too shy about it, and we’ve been lucky to be able to find places that are pretty baby friendly, so it’s all gone fine so far. As long as the planning gets done!

On Tuesday we went to the Osteopath, who specialises in cranial osteopathy for tiny babies. The idea is that they can get a little bent out of shape as they’re being born, and osteopathy can help get them back in shape and make them as happy as possible. As it turns out, Ruben is pretty much in perfect working order – just a tiny bit of tightness around the ribs apparently. Amberin, the osteo, showed us a new way of burping him that will help with his ribs (and which has worked excellently), but he’s all good and doesn’t need to go back again. (We will be going back though, as his mum is not in quite so good a shape, and has to go back next week to get some more treatment on her neck and tailbone. Nothing too serious, but the treatment is a little painful!)

We’re without the birthpool now (*sob*) so Ruben and his dad have been having regular baths, which is almost like a swim for Ruben for the time being. We’ve also booked him in for swimming lessons which he’ll be starting on 23 Feb – he’s loved swimming so much so far, so we thought it would be great for him to stick with it as much as possible – esp. for as long as he has his baby reflex not to breath in water, which means that they can be taught to swim underwater. We’ve bought his little swimming nappies and are looking forward to the lessons starting!

This week Ruben started having a bottle of expressed milk last thing at night. Apparently this is a good age for him to get used to taking a bottle, for when that will be necessary or more convenient, and the big bottle of milk late at night seems to give him (and his parents) and extra hour or so of sleep at night, which is much appreciated.

He had a visit from Teresa including a weigh in and continues to pork up, weighing in this week at 4.5kg or 9lb 14oz (up from 8lb 13oz or 4kg at last weigh in). He seems to be a pretty tall guy though, with quite skinny arms and legs and chubby tummy and cheeks. Not sure where he gets that build from 😉

The week wrapped up with an afternoon coffee with some of the girls and babes from our NCT class which was very pleasant and Ruben enjoyed catching up with his little buddies.