Yesterday Conrad and I had another one of our days together just the two of us. He fell asleep in his pushchair while I went out for a morning walk and then did some shopping, and carried on sleeping in the hallway, while I batch-cooked a couple of dishes for him. He quite happily ate my mushroom and leek with wholemeal noodles concoction for lunch. About an hour after lunch, I’d decided to try putting him in the bath tub for the first time, rather than in the baby bath.
I needn’t have worried – he absolutely loved it! I guess he’s been watching his sister bathe in it often enough – when Jessica has her bath before bedtime, Conrad usually stands for a while by the side of the tub (now he holds on all by himself) and giggles when he watches her splash about. Pretty often she’ll hand him a toy or two, or complain “nej, nej, nej” when he tries to grab a toy she’s balanced on the side and doesn’t want him to touch.
Conrad was certainly ready to be in the bigger bath himself. He splashed and splashed when reaching for the selection of toys I’d put in the water with him and giggled away. He was sitting very confidently. After a while he reached for one of the handles on the side of the bath and started pulling himself up, which didn’t work quite so well: he slipped a bit so I had to catch him, but then he happily stood up in the bath holding on to my hands instead.
We’ve been thinking that we should let Conrad bathe in the tub for about a month, with Jessica watching him at the weekends to get used to the idea of him in there, and after that try them both in the bath at bedtime. Will be quite interesting to see what they make of that when the time comes…
In the afternoon, I’d decided to take Conrad to an ‘under 1’s’ get-together at Meath Green Infant School. I’d been thinking about doing some sort of an activity together with Conrad, and this one was on in the afternoon and a drop-in one – so no commitment needed if I or Conrad didn’t like it. It was only a small group of people, and the others all seemed to know each other from before, although that didn’t stop them from happily chatting to me. The other babies present were around 6-7 months and I was glad that Conrad got a chance to see others like him. He’s mainly seen toddlers so far (and always chatted and giggled delightedly at them in an effort to make contact) and I’ve been wanting to give him a chance to ‘make friends’ his ‘own age’ – although it’s obviously very early days yet…
There were different and fun toys for him to play with (or rather dribble on), and he was curiously watching the other babies and they him. Then after a while he of course wanted to stand up and walk around. I’m always hesitant to let him do that around other mums, especially ones I don’t know very well, in case they think I just want to show him off. But on the other hand I know how much he enjoys it, and others must surely see that it’s him setting off whilst giggling away, and not me dragging him along going ‘look, how advanced my baby is!’. (That’s not to say I don’t feel proud while he does…)
Gabriella