It’s Aidan’s six-month birthday today, and I figured it’s high time I updated everyone on how he’s getting on.
First of all, apologies for the lack of updates in the last six weeks or so. Since going on sabbatical from A Limey In Bermuda at the beginning of February I’ve found that blogging has lost much of its appeal (or perhaps it was the other way round). I’ve found myself wanting to spend more time doing things and less time writing about them.
Last month I was in London for ten days on a business trip too. That was the first time that I’ve been away from Aidan, and the first time that I’ve been away from Mandy since we got married. I enjoyed the chance to wander through Borders and HMV, grab a latte at Starbucks and dinner at Pizza Express, and catch up on some great movies that I would never see here. Nevertheless, London felt like a young person’s city, the people I passed on the streets reminding me of myself ten years ago. But I’m not young or single any more. I missed Mandy and Aidan. I was ready to come home about 24 hours after landing.
The one thing that struck me about Aidan when I got back home was how much brighter his eyes were. They seemed to dart around much more than before, and there seemed to be more intelligence behind them. While I had been away he’d also discovered his feet, and as with everything new, was now investing substantial time and effort in trying to eat them.
He had become much more proficient in rolling onto his front too, and now does so at every opportunity. The only thing he still hasn’t figured out is how to get onto his back again; so once his arms get tired he usually starts crying until someone comes and rolls him back over (typically, he then immediately rolls back onto his front again).
I wasn’t with Aidan for his most exciting new experience, however. On the same day that I got on a plane to London, Mandy and Aidan got on a plane to Atlanta.
The prospect of getting on an airplane with a baby is about as appealing as stabbing myself in the eye with a pair of blunt scissors. I’m in no rush to do it even with Mandy along to help, let alone on my own. So I was flabbergasted when Mandy suggested that she take Aidan on a shopping trip to Atlanta while I was away. Even though she was to meet her parents there, I couldn’t believe that she was so sanguine about struggling with both a baby and her baggage on her own. That said, I was a little disappointed that I wasn’t going to be there to see Aidan’s reaction the first time the plane took off.
Since babies can no longer travel on their parents’ passports, Aidan had to have his own passport for the trip. This seemed slightly daft. In the few weeks between submitting the application and getting his passport back from immigration (a process made longer because, bizarrely, we had to resubmit the document to immigration to get the stamp identifying him as a Bermudian put in there), Aidan had changed sufficiently that he bore only a passing resemblance to his photo. Even dafter, he can travel on that passport until he is five. I imagine pretty much any white baby could travel on his passport without anyone in immigration batting an eyelid.
As for the flight, apparently Aidan took it all in his stride. Mandy’s parents met them at the gate in Atlanta, and they spent the next three days maxing out the credit card without me being around to tut at them. Which, come to think about it, probably goes a long way to explain Mandy’s willingness to get on a plane with Aidan on her own.
