Tag: Samuel

Some may call it excessive.  Others may call it compensation for 3 months of inactivity.  Others still may call it boredom.  In any case, this is my third blog post in the last half hour.  And yes, it’s about something else that’s shiny and new.

Today was my first proper day out with Samuel.  Without Ellie.  Yes, I was let loose with our 15 month old son, equipped with little more than a changing bag and a packed lunch.  And it was lots of fun!

We first had to call in at Matalan in Yeovil to exchange a shirt that I’d bought on Saturday for one that wasn’t 2 sizes too big (my bad).  Samuel slept in the car on the way there, and pointed out imaginary cows most of the way back.  But finally we arrived at our exciting destination – the East Somerset Steam Railway!  Despite being just outside Shepton Mallet, we’ve never actually been there before, but now Samuel is old enough to appreciate it I decided it would be a good use of a bank holiday.

This weekend happened to be a Thomas the Tank Engine special, so the place was packed.  They had three small steam engines fired up, each with a different face on the front, and one of them was even painted to look like Thomas – and unlike some other attempts I’ve seen, this particular model of engine did actually roughly resemble the Thomas of the books!  This was Samuel’s first encounter with steam engines, so I deliberately took it nice and gently.  He wasn’t too keen on being in the carriage to begin with, but he soon settled in and started pointing at things out of the window.  We shared our compartment with an old couple, who seemed to love having Samuel’s attention.

The track is actually only 2.5 miles long, so the journey there and back only took about half an hour.  But that was ideal for Samuel.  We were sat in the rearmost carriage on the way out, but that meant we were at the front going back, so we could hear all the chuffs and whooshes.  And of course it smelt heavenly.  It was wonderful.  I think Samuel may have enjoyed it too, although I was perfectly happy being excited for both of us.

After the train ride we popped back to the car to pick up our lunch, then went back to the station, saw off the next train (Samuel was by now getting the hang of saying “choo-choo”, which was very cute), and found a picnic bench.  We timed it well, because the train came back into the station just as we finished our lunch, so we waved at it again.  Then we wandered round to the engine shed, where there were various engines and wagons in varying states of repair.  There was also a little tank engine on a short bit of track that members of the public could drive – advertised as a “Driver for a Fiver” experience.  Sadly, having Samuel with me meant I couldn’t take up that offer, although to be honest it was such a small stretch of track it would hardly have been worth it anyway.

And after all that, Samuel was exhausted, so we came home.  As it happens, I’m shattered too.  But it’s been a fun day out, full of new experiences for Samuel, meeting shiny old steam engines.

Apart from his delivery date, Samuel has always been early.  He was wide eyed and taking things in right from the very start.  He was on his tummy lifting his head fairly early, relatively speaking.  He was sitting early.  He was standing early.  He was walking his way around the furniture early.  It’s as if time just isn’t moving quickly enough for him.

I say “early” – that may be a slight exaggeration.  In the grand scheme of things he’s not altogether ground-breakingly early, he’s just right at the very early end of the scale for each of those developmental milestones.  Physically, Samuel is hitting his targets earlier than most of his contemporaries, which makes me very proud.

And now he’s started to walk.

(more…)

I was taking some photos of our son Samuel the other day, and one of them reminded me of a photo I have of me when I was his age.  So I looked it up and compared them, and just couldn’t resist sharing the result with you all.  The attached picture shows me (top) and Samuel (bottom), both in a similar pose.  Can you tell we’re related?

As it happens, my Dad did a similar now-and-then comparison on his vintage bus blog, showing a photo of him as a lad in the driver’s seat of an old bus, and a more recent photo of him in the same position in a similar bus.  Actually, his blog is worth a read, in a geeky sort of way.  If you like old buses.  Or reading about my Dad.

Life is full of stages.  History, experience, science and society have, through their own varied means and with very little co-operation, dictated to us how our lives should develop and when each milestone should be reached.  In the case of babies, these stages are closely packed, and a by-the-book baby can be expected to learn new things and reach new levels of ability according to a tried and tested timetable.  Throughout childhood, those milestones get further apart, but they’re still there, telling us how intelligent we should be, how our maturity should show itself, and so on.  The preset stages don’t finish at the dawn of adulthood, of course – we have achievements to attain here too, like owning a car, buying insurance, taking out a mortgage, attending jury duty, voting in the elections, paying into a pension, even retiring.  All these things are expected of us, not necessarily in a particular order, especially later in life, but we are each of us judged by what everyone else reckons we “ought to be doing by now”.

And then there are those of us who tear the rule books into pieces and feed the bits to the next door neighbour’s dog.

(more…)

Mother Teresa once said “We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.”  I like that image, that the whole ocean in all its vastness is still essentially composed of drops.

I’m also reminded of a line or two in a song from the musical Into The Woods which says “Oh, if life were made of moments, even now and then a bad one! But if life were only moments, then you’d never know you had one.”  I like that too.

And with those two notions at the forefront of my mind, I thought it would be good to write a quick summary of how Samuel has progressed since his birth, charting some of the highlights and milestones of the past 12 weeks.  I guess this is for posterity.  Or reference.  Or guidance.  Or amusement.  Or indeed just to pass the time.

(more…)

This is a post I’ve been wanting to write for a while.  Marching determinedly around the nursery at unearthly hours of the morning I have developed a reasonably accurate way of measuring the state of sleep of our son, Samuel, allowing me to more reliably tell whether it is safe to put him down or whether I need to keep on marching.  So I thought I’d share it with you, in case there are any other parents tearing their hair out looking for answers.

I must point out, of course, that this is not a magic solution.  Every baby is different, and what works for us may not work for you.  But feel free to try it, and see if it helps.

Introduction

First, let me explain how I came by this revelation.  When Samuel was born, getting him to sleep was a bit hit and miss.  Sometimes he would seem dead to the world, but if we moved him even slightly he would wake up and start crying again.  We’d read about the ‘limp limb test’, where you raise one of his arms a couple of inches and drop it, and if he doesn’t stir then it’s safe to move him.  That didn’t work.  Samuel wouldn’t bat an eyelid at having his arm moved, but change his position and he’d complain.

(more…)

Further to my previous post, I’m afraid to say that my blog is still feeling a little under the weather at the moment.  I’ve Googled, I’ve prodded and poked, I’ve FTPed and upgraded, and all to no avail.  So, for now at least, I’ve given up.  One day when I have time I’ll look into it again, but for now I’m going to rely on other ways to update my blog.  My previous post came courtesy of the built-in blog editor in Flock.  This one is being written in ScribeFire, a Firefox plugin.

And it’s high time for an update, I’m sure you’ll agree.  A certain person has been on my case for days, if not weeks, asking for a photo of a smiling baby that I’d promised her.  I had intended on putting it on my blog, but that wasn’t working, so I emailed it to her in the end.  But, for those of you who are not Sarah, a photo of my darling son is in this post – the first I managed to capture of him smiling.

(more…)

For those who don’t know, I have a brother.  That’s not entirely accurate, I actually have two brothers, but for the purpose of this paragraph I want to stress one in particular.  And for those who still don’t know, he’ll soon be adding to the Dawkins family tree.  If you’re reading this and you’re confused, allow me to get specific: my brother Christopher is engaged.  Yes, yes, I could have just said that, but then I wouldn’t feel clever.

On Saturday we drove up to Bristol to see lots of people – Christopher’s fiancee’s parents were playing host to my parents for the day, with a view to providing an opportunity for Christopher and Sarah to show their respective parents around the wedding venues.  And it was a good excuse to all meet up and eat food.  There was no particular wedding-related reason for our presence, I think Sarah just wanted to see Samuel.

So, up to Bristol we drove.  And, to add to my excitement, I got to drive underneath the Clifton Suspension Bridge, which I have never had cause to do before (I’ve been over it a few times, but never under).  Little pleasures.  Samuel slept pretty much all the way, as he tends to do whenever we’re travelling at more than 30mph – he seems to be a human speedometer, letting us know quite noisily if we’re not going fast enough.

(more…)

At the weekend, which for some reason began on Thursday, we had visitors.  Not just any run-of-the-mill, common or garden, everyday type visitors.  Oh no.  These were special.  Anne-Marie and Sarah are our best friends from Colchester.  I lived with one of them for two years, Ellie lived with the other for two years, and they’re now living together in what used to be my house.  It’s all rather confusion really.  We’ve been through a great deal, the four of us, the good and the bad, the ordinary and the random, the practical and the spontaneous.  So close is our relationship that they no longer fit into the category of ‘friends’ – they have managed to transcend that definition and become more like family.  They are the sisters I never had.  And I love them both very much.

Anyway, enough of this mushy stuff, back to the story.

AM and Sarah came to visit on Thursday, having made the journey in Sarah’s little blue Fiesta all the way from Colchester (a good 4 hour drive, not including loo stops), and arrived on our doorstep laden with hugs and presents for Samuel.  Both their presence and their presents were very much appreciated (see what I did there?).

(more…)

Just a quick post to alert my faithful readers of the latest additions to my blog.  In my previous post I mentioned that I had been working on another writing project, and that this blog had been taking a back seat for a while as a result.  Well, I’m tentatively going to reveal what that is, right here on my blog.

I’ve been writing a diary.

Before you say anything, no I don’t mean this blog.  And no, I’ve not been daring enough to actually start scrawling on paper.  When Ellie and I found out that we were expecting a baby, we decided it would be a good idea to keep a pregnancy diary to log the whole experience for future reference.  While Ellie took the traditional route of writing it down in a book, I set up a private WordPress blog and wrote each day as an entry in that.  Well, not every day, but the important ones.  Actually, I rarely got time to write about each day on the day itself, which is why I’m still working on the project – I’m still filling in the gaps I’ve missed!

(more…)