An offering to the kitchen gods

Not exactly a premium offering...

When we first moved into this flat in Sydney Alex's FAVOURITE place to 'hang' was the kitchen. More specifically he would pull himself up using the oven door handle and, quite literally hang off the oven.

Recognising that we would need to actually use the oven occasionally the next thing us responsible parents did was go out and buy a safety gate so little hands couldn't burn themselves on aforementioned oven door.

Needless to say this didn't go well, and it goes even less well if both mum and dad find themselves in the kitchen with Alex outside.

Recently he has tried a different tack. Whenever I'm in the kitchen for more than a few minutes he starts to bring me presents. I
like to think of them as offerings to the kitchen gods, in the hope that one day the magical gate will open and let him in to experience the wonder and general fabulousness that awaits within.

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Location:Sydney

Sewing the seeds...

We're already seeing dangerous signs of the future from young Alex. We predict an addictive personality with a potentially unreasonable obsession with all things... Apple.

And unfortunately I don't mean the fruit, or the record label for that matter.

It all started with our iPhone's. Possibly due to him seeing mum and dad using theirs most of the day and night, Alex loves to play with them. He puts it against his ear and says what sounds suspiciously like 'hello,' he already knows how to unlock the screen by pressing the button and sliding the bar across, he has a wide selection of aps installed on Mum's phone and even has his own iPhone (my old 3g from the UK permanently set to aeroplane mode).

We make sure any phone he's playing with is not connected to the network when he's playing with it, to protect his little brain from any wireless nasties and to protect our bank balance from an accidental call to Romania. 

A baby on a mission, so many shiny gadgets so little time

It looks like the obsession doesn't end with the smaller gadget in the range, on Friday lucky mum got an iPad2 for her birthday - it seems that it's really like a birthday present for bubba. He LOVES the big shiny new iPad and is genuinely shocked and mortified when one of the adults in the house wants to use his wonderful new toy.

Mum and dad are only encouraging the obsession by bringing said addict to the source a few weeks ago - by which I mean the apple store in Sydney - where he crawled around the store, blew raspberries on the nice clean glass windows and practised his walking between the gadgets.

We can only hope that by the time Alex is big enough to write his Christmas list to Santa, Apple have gone out of business and colouring pencils are all the rage.

Bubba's first Christmas

Yayee - presents!

Alex discovered the true joy of Christmas on the 25th... well, sort of.

The Arden-Wood family, Grandpa, Amma and uncle hOb all arrived from Australia to spend Christmas with the Butlers, while uncle Adam and auntie Chrissy also joined us on Christmas day. So Alex was able to spend the day with all his favourite people, all competing for the attentions and the odd sneaky hug from the youngest member of our family.

Like any good Christmas there was more food that we could possibly eat, Nanna B did an outstanding job, catering for the wide and varied tastes of all the visitors. Alex had a nibble on pretty much everything, he's getting very good at feeding himself now and will generally stare at me grumpily with his big blue eyes if I'm daring to eat without offering any to him.

And then of course there was the presents, approximately 9 in every 10 gifts exchanged on the day were for baby Alex. Presents elicited responses ranging from vague disinterest through to outright fear - with the occasional smile and squeal of excitement for good measure. Of course the moments of pure Christmas joy and excitement were reserved for the wrapping paper and the occasional bow. Meanwhile I've hidden away most of the new toys so he can appreciate them a new over the next few months.

By the end of the day Alex was exhausted and more than a bit grumpy (for him anyway). Haydn and I are now looking forward to next Christmas, or perhaps the one after that when Alex really appreciates the joy of Christmas... beyond just the wrapping.

OK... I'm over presents now

Hindi Bubba

After spending time in Miami with the Indian/Guyanese side of the family we were all inspired when we came back to London to explore all things Indian. Mum, Alex and I took a trip to Southall. According to Wikipedia 'Southall has one of the largest concentrations of South Asian people outside of the Indian sub-continent'. Sounds like a good place to go.

We thought our little blue eyed, fair skinned bubba should get in touch with his Indian roots which meant a forehead tikka so no one could give him the 'evil eye'. I'm still not 100% sure what the evil eye is but sounds like something to be avoided.

The trip to Southall was a success, we came back with loads of Indian sweets, ice cream and a lovely bracelet for Alex from Amma.

Despite the complexion Alex could pass for a good Indian boy, don't you think?

The team from my area is better than the team from your area.

Show me a camera phone, and I will fill it with photos of our cute podgy baby. Show me some baby-sized sporting apparel, and I will fill it with our cute podgy baby, have a cuppa, then continue to fill the remainder of my camera phone with photos of the two in combination.

It's weird, I've always been against pointless photos of the same thing over and over again, especially the countless photos of babies that seem to make their way into the world, but I, like the wayward factory owner who refuses to diminish his bellowing CO2 emissions, am at present, quite simply adding to the problem. How can one go from objector to mega pixel-fuelled proponent in such a short time, I'm not sure, the only thing I do know is that after becoming a dad I now find myself in two roles-one as parent the other as baby documenter.

Oh, here are some photos, note podginess and cuteness.

First month in the world

Some photos from master Butler's first month exploring the world.


Bathtime... looking at mum! After initial reservations about bathtime, including a memorable incident involving pooping in the above bath we are now loving our massage and bath routine and our post bath cuddle with Dad in our cuddledry towel.




Here we have our extra special home made baby blanket from the lovely Amy, made especially special by the fact that Amy is probably our busiest friend, yet she took the time to knit this wonderful blanket. It now goes everywhere with us, in the pram, on the car seat, on the bouncy chair... and amazingly Alex hasn't been sick on it yet... clearly a blanket with extraordinary powers!




Trips out and the ever changing weather in London mean many costume changes for master Butler



Hanging out with NCT friends including Nicholas, Poppy, Dilys, Sarah, Tilly & of course Alex


A few visitors during the first month, already showing the love to Nanna B & enjoying a first picnic with the Comfort-Serbutts (Cordellia is running around in the background somewhere)