bubbles bubbles bubbles everywhere...

How lovely is this little video of Alex enjoying the bubbles in our flat? It certainly helps that his dad knows what he's doing with a camera.

Not quite so fun was the sticky floor in our living room for several days afterwards...the price of art!

What now?

Now that Amma has gone home, Alex and I are just the tiniest bit at a loss for things to do. Initially I was nervous about venturing off to far flung places with a 3/4 month old bubby but now that it's all over and mum's gone back to Australia... well... I'm in need of diversion, entertainment, variety perhaps... our little West London flat just doesn't seem, I don't know, 'big' enough any more.

So I'm going to make a pledge to venture out with Alex more often, trying new things and making the most summer in the UK.

Oh dear, I've published the idea now so I'm going to prove it and actually document my adventures...

Beach bubba

Here are some pictures from Alex's first trip to the beach , in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. By all accounts he's a beach babe, considering the smiles, leg kicking and all round giggling during our visit. We even took a mini dip in the ocean and Alex felt the waves splashing over his little toes. The water temperature was around 30 degrees c, so he's going to get a rude shock if he thinks all beaches are that temperature.

The only small problem with a visit to the beach seems to be the sun, so for now at least it's full length swim suit, sun hat and BIG umbrella all the way.

with love from Zoe to Alex

Before we left Florida (see previous post) Zoe made a few gifts for Alex to remember her by. The first is this fab drawing, the second was a recording of the lullaby she sang to him over there, so now, whenever he gets fretful I can pull out my phone and play it to him. It's worked pretty well so far but whenever I play it Alex does look around for Zoe no it's clearly substitute for the real thing :-)

I'm not quite sure if the audio has exactly worked but at the bottom of this post you should be able to play the recording of the lovely Zoe singing her Icelandic lullaby for Alex. (Zoe - I hope you don't mind.) Snulla... I can't remember the words so in English so if anyone is interested I will need your help!

The family way

So, the main reason we plucked our 3 month old from the comfort of London town and transported him over the Atlantic to Florida was to visit his great grandma Joy. Mum had already travelled about 24 hours from Australia to visit, so what's another 9 hours or so.

Well it was really worth it as Gran loved her little blue eyed, fair haired, very white great grandson (sorry to go on about it, but when is this boy going to get just a tiny bit of colour so he looks a little bit like my son?). And it didn't take long for Alex to smile and giggle at his great granny.


I must admit though that Alex's favourite family member was definitely my 7 year old cousin Zoe... it might have been the two missing front teeth, the big shining smile or the fantastic array of noises but no matter what Zoe did Alex would break into uncontrollable giggles. It seemed to happen whether Zoe was trying to make him laugh or not. While in Florida if Alex started to get even a little grumpy Zoe would appear with a hand puppet, some baby noises, or a lovely Icelandic lullaby and make everything better. Needless to say, now we are back in London and missing all the family in Florida very much - hopefully we will get to visit again soon.

Here are a few more pictures from Florida, including a trip to South Beach, Miami and dinner out with the family.


























































p.s. Zoe's mum is Icelandic (hence the lullaby) and that's also the reason mum has finally settled on the name Alex will call her - Amma. Amma is Icelandic for Grandma, and though we're not technically from that part of the world we all like the sound of it. So Amma it is... until mum changes her mind again.

A well travelled bébé

Having conquered Paris the next big travelling adventure was a mere 9 hour transatlantic flight to Florida... hmm.

True to form this well travelled bébé handled the experience with ease, admittedly he didn't exactly 'sleep the whole flight' over there, in fact he probably slept for about 45 minutes out of the 9 hour journey but he also didn't cry, just kind of chilled out looking around and snacking. In fact at the end of the flight various people sitting nearby actually came over to say what a perfect, well behaved baby he was.

The video below was filmed in the car on the way back from the Airport in Florida. I can't tell if Alex is ecstatic or just delirious from lack of sleep but funny none the less.



He was even better on the flight home, starting out by charming the stewardesses and neighbouring passengers with big smiles before falling asleep just before takeoff and not waking up until we landed! I almost feel like going on more flights because he seems to like them so much...

Baby Massage

As well as the obvious benefits of a visit from Amma (aka Grandma Eunice... I will explain soon I promise) we've also gained a grand master baby massage therapist. I've been making amateurish attempts at massaging the bub every evening since he was about 1 week old but it doesn't compare to the grand master... or is that mistress... actually mistress of massage doesn't sound right.

It turns out that Alex LOOOOVES his massage time, he smiles and giggles and laughs his way through every moment and is perfectly chilled out for the bath to follow. There are even some baby yoga moves added to the mix, including some positions that don't seem physically possible.

The result of all this massaging goodness seems to be a happier, more chilled out baby who always sleeps very well after his massage and bath. His neck is also getting much stronger as you can see from the video below.



Now the pressure is on me as Amma goes back to Australia to keep the massage quality up.

OK... it's been a while

OK, I'm a very bad bloggy type person... been spending too much time doing things and not enough time writing about what we're doing. So now there should be a relative flurry of new updates from Paris and Florida and other random happenings of the past few weeks.

We'll start with a few final Parisian photos featuring the bébé (his current nickname) as well as mum and grandma - hereafter to be known as Amma (I'll explain why in another post).














Dad was with us in Paris too, I think he must have been behind the camera the whole time.