Today we are celebrating Ruben’s 21st. His 21st day that is. Three weeks have certainly flown past and we can hardly believe that he’s here and also that he hasn’t always been here. Weird how that works.
As I’m sure you can imagine, he is just getting cuter and smarter and more charming every day, and this week we managed to take all of this loveliness beyond the confines of the house and out into the world.
We had both Annie and Teresa come to visit this week, and we were pretty happy to see them as there had been a little less sleeping and a little more grumbling going on for some reason – apparently his little tummy is still coming to terms with the way that his milk changes from time to time in response to his needs. He certainly is a bit of a drama queen when it comes to tummy pain, and sometime you would almost think that *he* was in labour trying to push out a poo or a fart.
On Friday afternoon, despite grumpiness, we headed over to Lordship Lane to meet up with Ros and Josie – one of our friends from our NCT Antenatal classes and her new baby girl. There is a pub over there that has a mother and baby session on Friday afternoons – quite funny to see so many kids running around in the pub (another reason that I’m much more thankful for the smoking ban than I ever though I would be!). We had a quiet Gin & Tonic and a big catchup chat and then headed back home through the woods with Ruben in his sling. We will certainly be glad when the days start getting longer – it’s not so fun walking through the woods in the dark, even with our most excellent torch.
More excitement on Sunday as Ruben took his first train and bus trips as we went to a party that the midwives had thrown – the hall in Clapham was packed full of kids and their parents – most of which I can only imagine had been delivered by Teresa, Annie and Tina… it must be quite amazing for them to look around and see how all the little ones are growing up and to remember the circumstances of their births. I have to say, I have a whole new respect for that profession… Anyways, we had a pretty quiet and brief stay at the party, Ruben slept through the entire thing in his sling on Michael’s chest. He was apparently the youngest baby at the party, and he might need to get just a little bigger before his party mojo kicks in. Or, until he can have a go on the jumping castle at least. 🙂
We were much more sociable on Tuesday when we caught the bus to Camberwell (again, very happy to have his wrapped up in his sling having witnessed the battle to squeeze pushchairs onto the bus – slings are definitely the way to go on public transport). We were off to a catchup with a group of mums and dads and bubs from our NCT class. It was quite strange to see the girls without their big pregnant bumps and instead with tiny, tiny babies – five babies in the one room, and all very well behaved. There were lots of stories swapped and commiserating, congratulating and agreeing that these were definitely the five most gorgeous babies in the world. Ruben and I agree that meeting our NCT friends was one of the best things we did in preparation for his arrival – it has been great to have a whole new set of friends who live nearby and who have babies around the same age as Ruben.
Today, on his 21st, we’ve decided to take it easy after such a busy week and we’re not leaving the house… in fact, we may not even leave the bedroom if things go to plan. We’ve got a big day of eating, sleeping and pooping ahead of us. Phew. Even our quiet days are hard work 😉
Update: we’ve just had our weekly weigh in and Ruben has put on a very impressive 13oz or 350g, taking him up to 8lb 13oz or 4kg. Nice work little guy.