Kicking off with the hard stuff

Alex enjoying another Alex's 'milky wares'.

Some kids start with a lemonade stand, perhaps some handmade shell necklaces, maybe selling cookies door to door. Alex goes straight for the hard stuff, and, I'd say a more profitable business opportunity at these organic markets in Gladesville.

umm... it's not a "sitting castle"

OK, so he hasn't quite become the entrepreneur at 16 months old, but he did enjoy the baby-cino on offer and we couldn't miss the photo opportunity.

And it doesn't stop at baby sized milky drinks, the markets even have a JUMPING CASTLE! Unfortunately adults weren't allowed on the jumping castle so I begrudgingly stepped aside to let Alex, and our friend Dan's daughter Rachel have a bounce.

Enjoying some quality leave gathering... and some more sitting... with Rachel

 

NZ bye bye

For a while there Alex got into waving bye bye. Not always at the right time but with a bit of gentle encouragement he would start waving and sometimes not stop for most of the afternoon. I'm not sure if Alex gave NZ an official goodbye but we had lots of lovely fair-well adventures before we left. Here are a few photos from our last few days.

Fairwell BBQ at Nanna Bs

Last picnic at Pilot Bay

A professional haircut from Kyleigh 

The family resemblance? - cousin Ruby & Alex 

Having fun... I think... At Ruby's 2nd birthday party

Chasing ducks

watch out little feathered friends

Such bad blog admin, I've just realised that I never posted the video of Alex chasing the ducks at McLaren Falls back in New Zealand. It feels like a million years ago now but it's nice to look back and remember a less busy time... Personally I think Alex gave up the chase a bit to quickly (I think it was the gravel path that scuppered him).

More up to date news soon... I promise.

Learning to share

Try this for me will you Dada?

I'd like to claim credit for Alex's new found fascination with sharing. "Of course, we are a very generous, caring, sharing family, so it's only natural that the youngest member of the family has a natural instinct for these things" I might say ... except we really haven't done anything, and it's not like he's desperately sharing his toys with any little person who walks past.

No this sharing phase is mostly about food. He loves to take what ever he's eating and carefully plonk it in the mouth of anyone in reaching distance. I admit, it's very cute (see the video below) but now he does it with every meal - to the point where the family have become his unofficial taste testers. Lucky he usually eats whatever we're eating so I'm not having to develop a taste for apple, pumpkin, prune and chicken mush. Another thumbs up for this baby led weaning business.

Highchairs I have known

Eye Spy

eye spy 'puss' at the mount

 Eye spy with my little eye something beginning with C.

C for Cat. Alex has discovered his little furry feline friends with a good dollop of enthusiasm of late. It started with the somewhat fraidy-cat 'Puss' at Nanna B's house. For the first couple of months Puss has been far too terrified of baby Alex to emerge from her hiding place under the house, except when hunger provides some temporary courage. Recently she has ventured out a little more, mainly to sniff around under Alex's high chair for any tasty leftovers. This amuses young master Butler no end, and the chances of him actually eating go down to almost nothing.

Poor Violet in Auckland

During our visit to Auckland this weekend a more courageous cat provided Alex with some much needed crawling incentive. That is until Violet (the cat in question) retreated to the top of her scratch poll thingy to escape from baby Alex's advances.   

Showing his loyalty

Yesterday in a fit of enthusiasm I attempted to bake some healthy scones, all wholemeal flour and no sugar etc. etc. Let's just say they didn't quite work out, unless you were looking for a small wholemeal weapon or an unattractive paperweight.

This morning at breakfast I discovered the true loyalty of our 7 month old baby boy. Disinterested in his strawberry and banana breakfast I thought I'd see if he fancied a nibble on one of the aforementioned rocks... i mean scones, soaked in tea to be slightly edible. Well, the enthusiasm was enormous, in fact when he discovered his piece of scone had fallen from his hand he was visibly upset. My heart did swell.

The video below shows a dedication to him mother's cooking well beyond the call of duty!

Alfresco baby

Part of the appeal of moving bubba to the other side of the world is obviously the weather and the outdoor lifestyle that comes with more warm months. Given he's not yet walking, or even crawling for that matter (will he ever?) he can't fully appreciate the great outdoors.

One way we've made the most of it is through the great art of eating outdoors, as demonstrated by these photos. As well as being a lovely way to dine, or lunch or breakfast for that matter, the other bonus is it's much easier to clean up the um... slight mess which accompanies the darling boy whenever he has a meal. Win win!

The Family Series: Mean Uncle hOb

The self titled 'Mean Uncle hOb' whose name is actually Navin (I don't have time to go into that particular story) is the first in a new series of posts about family members Alex has met in the past few weeks.

It seems Mean Uncle hOb (let's call him MUH for simplicities sake) has not been living up to his title and we were totally spoilt during our time with him in Sydney. He gave up his bedroom for us, drove us around and kept us fed and watered with the best restaurants the Northern Beaches has on offer (he calls them his extended dining room). He's really going to have to work harder at the whole 'mean' thing or a name change will be required.

It was also a good time to stay with health conscious Dr Navin (so many names) as both Haydn and I were in various states of disrepair and needed Navin's potions, pills & healthy food to get us back on the road again. In exchange for his kindness Alex didn't pee on his carpet or throw up on his bed - it must be love!

Alex comes 'home'

OK, technically speaking it's not home for baby Alexander as he's never actually been to Australia before but given he's been to four continents and half a dozen countries in his relatively short life we can safely call him a united nations baby. Where ever he lays his nappy that's his home.

We actually arrived in Sydney over a week ago but both of us have been struck down with a range of ailments preventing us from doing any blog updating, and unfortunately little Alex can't quite reach the keyboard to update the blog himself... not yet anyway.



So far we've had a week being sheltered, fed, watered and generally spoilt by 'mean uncle hOb' whose is not living up to his name so far, we think he might be lulling us into a false sense of security.

We've also caught up with lots of lovely people, most of whom I managed to forget to photograph including: Nat & Miles, Sandra & Ian, Megan & Glenn, Nicole, Dan, Fern & baby Elliott, Lori, Steph, Belinda, Darren and the lovely and very tiny 2 week old Lily and last but definitely not least Rach and the gorgeous Emily. Phew!



Now we are in relaxation mode at Grandpa's house in the countryside. Alexander seems to enjoy staring at his newly discovered Grandpa for extended periods of time. Next we continue, all rejuvinated, up to Amma's place on the Gold Coast.

Current temperature in Merriwa: 24 degrees
Current temperature in London: 8 degrees

So far so good...

Help my baby is a carnivore!

So I have been doing my best to introduce baby Alexander to a wide range of foods now he's started on solids. As we're doing this baby led weaning business he usually gets something off my plate, which inevitably means vegetables or fish, and perhaps some bread or the odd noodle. We also taken some backup baby food with us to Bali which included the odd chicken, pea and pumpkin mush.

At the wedding on Sunday there was an amazing buffet spread so I thought it was a good opportunity to introduce Alex to some new foods. He's not been hugely interested in any particular food so I brought a small amount of beef, chicken and a few other bits. Well... when I waved the beef near him he almost bit my finger off. He then proceeded to suck the life out of it for a good 10 minutes. His enthusiasm for the dead cow was only surpassed by vigour with which he munched down the chicken.

Hmm... beef and chicken... OK. How exactly do I cook those? Any recipes where I don't actually have to touch raw meat are welcome below.

Bali loves bubba

Since arriving in Bali almost a week ago baby Alexander has been charming his way through the staff at the hotel. We can no longer go anywhere in the complex without some member of the reception, waiting or cleaning staff waving and saying 'hi Alex'. They have no idea who I am except that I'm usually in the background when that gorgeous blue eyed Alex baby enters the room... or pool... or restaurant.

This is normally followed by big smiles from all the staff and half the customers and the baby in question giving a big smile back. In fact if someone in the room doesn't look at him Alex just stares at them, sometimes for several minutes, until they smile back.

Another member of the Alexander Butler fan club recruited. Job done.

How to ruin your best red shirt.

BEFORE AFTER

Film Directors are often heard to say, (especially when justifying a big budget)- 'the money is all there up on the screen'. Well judging by these pictures, the right one in particular- the same can be said for the Alexander's meager food budget- keep in mind the day we took these pics, it was one of the less messy affairs, usually its Hiroshima in that high chair.


It's not an easy task for a 6 month old to learn how to eat solids, least of all with a spoon. But the little chap seems to be a dab hand at negotiating the rigors of guiding spoon to mouth, it's just the keeping it in his moosh that proves tough at times.

For the record his favourite foods are ranked in this order:

1-banana
2-banana yogurt
3-tender stem broccoli
4-bread sticks

Oh and he doesn't seem to like
1-Courgettes
2-Oatcakes.

Playing with your food

Master Butler is the youngest in our little mothers group, by almost a month. Normally it doesn't make a difference as all the babies are developing at their own pace. We already have a crawler, an expert roller and a master bouncer but now I'm feeling a bit left out because all the babies have started on proper food.

At first I wasn't looking forward to the idea of dealing with actual food instead of simply putting a boob in his mouth at the first signs of hunger, but now, watching the other babies with their puréed vegetables and finger food I'm kind of envious. I've been reading a book on Baby Led Weaning (yes, my life is that exciting) which as far as I can tell involves skipping the purée stage and giving your bubba a variation on whatever you're having... that's assuming you don't live on burgers and fried chicken for three meals a day.

Anyway, I have decided to give it a go as it seems to make some sense and looks like fun, hopefully it also encourages us to be more healthy and creative in the kitchen.

The other day I couldn't resist and gave Alex a raw carrot just to see what he'd do with it, judging by his enthusiasm in video below he shouldn't have too many problems when we get the 'solids' phase.

Brunch Baby

Before the arrival of my darling dearest little bubby, I used to spend a lot of time in restaurants and cafes having brunch. A bit sad I know but that's the life of the baby free twenty and thirty something I guess.

Anyway, on my many outings I would inevitably happen upon some kind of gorgeous couple looking designer scruffy quaffing bircher muesli, blueberry pancakes and cappuccinos. After a while I notice a quiet little mini version of them snoozing peacefully next to their table, occasionally stirring to make a designer cooing sound before dropping back off to sleep.

Would I have a designer brunch baby?

Well, now I have my own theory and I suspect it's all about age... a little bubby at this age will mostly sleep and feed, no matter the sounds going on around them, which makes them the perfect brunch accompaniment. The only problem for me is managing to get out of the house in time for brunch. Hence my little darling is more of an afternoon tea baby!