Thursday (17 July) I decided to brave it again for another first for Conrad: one of the mums had invited people over to her place in Woodhatch for the afternoon, and as there’s a bus going pretty much directly to hers from ours in only 15 minutes, I thought it’d be worth a try, provided that Conrad and his sister co-ordinated themselves nicely for me again. And they certainly did – the bus only goes about five times a day, but both Conrad and his sister were nicely fed with nappies changed in time for us to get out the door to catch the 2.15pm one. The bus was pretty much empty too, as it wasn’t rush hour in any way, and the double buggy – being the same width as a normal push chair though slightly longer – fitted just about in the space for wheelchairs/pushchairs.
There were several other mums and toddlers at our destination, so slightly chaotic, but this didn’t seem to trouble Conrad much. Just in case, I thought it’d be safer to keep him out of toddler-reach and Conrad got to snooze in our host’s nursery for a little bit. We couldn’t hear him over the baby monitor downstairs, as the noise levels were quite high with all our 15 month+ ones running around the place, but every so often a mum volunteered to pop upstairs for a quick listen. Conrad slept soundly, until I decided to combine a nappy change for his sister together with a trip upstairs. Jessica, still being very curious about her little brother, couldn’t help going up to the cot and prod him through the bars… And so he woke up. It was just time for his afternoon feed though, so I brought the two kids downstairs. With a couple of the other mums fetching my bags for me and distracting Jessica, I fed Conrad his bottle on the sofa. After he’d been fed and burped, he was passed around for a bit of a cuddle.
Ian came in the car to fetch us after work, and so turned up about 4.45pm. It took the two of us a little while to get the kids ready and all our stuff out the door, but some of the mums said again how chuffed they were that the kids and I had managed to get out of the house, let alone to come visit. I don’t want having two children out me off going out being sociable, though, and I would like Conrad to get the benefit of being around other people from as early on as possible. He’s too little still to be awake enough to take much in, but hopefully by the time he does, I’m well seasoned in taking him out and about.
Yesterday (Sunday 20 July) I reassembled the baby bouncer we’d tucked away in the loft since Jessica grew out of it, so that Conrad would get some practice sitting up more and to get to see a bit more than just the ceiling… After an hour he started to slump a bit in the bouncer, but his neck seems pretty strong and he’s holding his head up well, sometimes for a good 5 seconds off our shoulders without wobbling much at all. I’m very curious about how soon he will sit up all by himself…!
Gabriella