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No parent should be without one

Looking back at the photos of Aidan that I’ve taken recently, I realise that the vast majority have been taken with my camera phone.

Yes, the quality of my Nokia 6131 is vastly inferior to my Canon EOS Digital Rebel XT, its memory capacity is tiny, and the delay between pressing the button and it actually taking the picture is agonisingly long. However, those limitations are more than offset by the fact that it’s about twenty times smaller and lighter and I carry it with me wherever I go. When it comes to snapping pictures of Aidan doing something unexpected, the portability of a camera phone is unrivalled.

Every parent should have one.

“Throw it!”

Aidan is figuring out how to throw things.

First it was the toys he sometimes plays with while he’s sat in his high chair. He doesn't so much throw them as drop them, wait for mummy or daddy to pick them up, then drop them again.

Next came his pacifiers. When he doesn’t want to go to sleep he stands up in his crib, grabs the pacifier from his mouth, hurls it on the floor, then cries until mummy or daddy comes to pick it up for him.

Today, however, was the first time I had seen him throwing a ball. We must have spent at least ten minutes tossing one back and forth to each other across granny’s glass-topped coffee table. Finally, something we can actually encourage him to throw!

A new trick

For some reason, Aidan has taken to arching his back and going rigid while trying to change him or put him in his car seat.

As you can imagine, this makes those activities much more difficult than they would otherwise be, particularly when you’re trying to change a pooey diaper...

Asleep in my arms

There’s nothing nicer than having your baby fall asleep in your arms while you’re giving him his evening feed.

Aidan used to do this quite often, but as he’s grown older it’s become less frequent. Which just makes nights like tonight, when he did it again for the first time in months, even more special.

In the swing

Thanks to granny and poppa, Aidan now has a bright red swing hanging from the branches of the loquat tree in our yard.

It was getting late by the time it was ready for him to try out, so he was tired and generally didn’t seem too impressed by it (the excitement on display in the photo requiring ten times as much enthusiasm from us to generate). But he loves the swings at the playground and granny’s house, so I’m sure he’ll enjoy this one too when he’s feeling more awake. I’ll certainly appreciate having one more activity to choose from when I’m trying to entertain him at home!