At the moment my son seems rather obsessed with musical instruments.  It is the Xylophone at Granddad’s and the keyboard at Granddad Al’s.

In this instance it was the Xylophone.  He was well into it, copying is granddad good and proper.  Maybe he is going to be a future musician?  Who knows!

Well this week has been a very trying week indeed.  A test of patience, stamina and just about everything else I think too.  My son has been very ill, I have had a very bad cold (which I think my son gave me – thanks Harry!) and to top it all computer problems!

Readers of this blog and followers of me online will no doubt be aware of the difficult first 8 – 10 weeks we had with my son when he was born just under a year ago.  This week has brought all that back as we have  had several nights were we have been up most of the night with him.  We I say we, but it has mostly been my wife who as beared the brunt a I was working all week.  We also wouldn’t have managed without the help of our mums – Harry’s granny and grandma who have helped wherever they can.  I think what made it hard was it brought back all the pain of those first 10 weeks although I think we both new that this would end (still hoping as I hear Harry crying in the background as I write this!).

I have called this post the week before the week before meaning we are currently in the week before the week before Christmas.  Still with me!  Anyway my wife was ill last week (I think she gave this cold to Harry) and me and Harry have been bad this week and usually there is always someone that is ill on Christmas Day.  Therefore I am hoping that with the 3 of us all having coughs and colds that it will mean that we will have an illness free Christmas Day.  Here’s hoping anyway!

So lets see what the weekend and next week is going to bring.  The week before Christmas is always a nice week and in many ways better than the Christmas week itself.

Harry has been a little star today, and with the added momentus ocassion that he had his (almost) first solids, I thought that a photo and a little video was necessary.

Yesterday we tried Harry with some rusk mashed with a little milk, but today he has baby rice.  He didn’t seem to mind it really although he didn’t really know what to do with it once in his month.  It went down in the end though and therefore for him to have half a bowl was a success.  He doesn’t seem to know what to do when the spoon is in his mouth and therefore I have to use the top of his month in order to ’scrape’ the food off the spoon.  Its progress though and I am sure that with practice he will get the hang of it.

He also spent lots of time playing on his mat and also in his ring today.  He is really starting grab at things now and really paying attention and reacting to noises and movements etc.  He has been a sheer delight today.

Well I have been so busy over the last few weeks that I have had little time to post on here, but thought I would post this just before I retire to sleep myself.

So cute the way he just fell asleep sat on our bed!

Every since Harry was born I have been looking at him wondering who he will look like when he is older.  Would he look like me or perhaps someone from my wife’s side of the family such as her brother or father.  Today I did some analysis with some good news.

As you can see from the photo above those two babies looks pretty similar to me.  When I am pleased to tell you that the baby of the left is me at 3 months old!  On the right is Harry at 3 and a half months old.  I couldn’t believe it when I looked at the photo of me today at my parents house.  I think Harry has got some of my features when I was little for sure.  Lets hope he keeps them – or maybe not!

This afternoon my wife was feeding Harry in the lounge with the TV on.  It was a usualy bank holiday afternoon film, and this time it was the animated film, Chicken Run.  Harry was engrossed for a good 20 minutes, which is the first time we have really seen him do this.

Over the last week Harry has changed so much.  In fact he is almost becoming a little boy rather than a baby as he has learnt so much.  He is now so alert and always looking round trying to find new things to see and interact with.  We have had so many smiles this week.  In fact it is wonderful as when I go into his room in a morning to get him out of bed I am greeted with the most wonderful smile.

He has also found his voice, as I wrote about earlier and he is constantly talking.  We can;t understand him yet but he clearly knows what he is on about!  This morning at his Grandma’s he found his hands.  He was looking at them in a very odd way and then he learnt that he could move them.  Apparently he was facinated with them for a good 15 minutes.

He is an absolute pleasure and is getting more and more rewarding as the days pass.

Harry is now getting rapidly towards 4 months old – how time flies!  Anyway he is now more and more taking not of what is around him, we are getting lots of smiles and over the last week or so he has really found his voice.

He can talk to us now, although clearly we have not got a clue what he is actually saying he seems to enjoy having a chat from time to time.  Being off work for the Easter Holidays I have been able to spend a little more time with Harry and he has been delightful.  It makes you want to treasure every moment we had with him while he is still so young.