Dominic and the cat

 Recently Dominic has become quite obsessed with the cat, and she is surprisingly tolerant of his attentions. If she's sitting on the sofa or nearby she lets him stroke her, and has even licked his hand a couple of times. Remarkably, she doesn't bite him even when he grabs a handful of her fur!

We even got footage today of Dominic attempting to lure the cat to him with his sweet siren-like call. OK, actually he just yells some baby grunts at her and as cat-cam shows, it is not entirely successful. The bumps in the footage are from Austie rubbing her head against the camera.

Ridiculous Early Start

Hmm. I seem to have been awake for three hours already, and it's only 7.15am. Today is going to be a long day. Dom was up early, and I needed to have a shave before heading back to bed when he went back to sleep. After my shave, I found that I was fairly awake, and Dom stirred when I went to sneak back into the bedroom anyway. So I decided to do some work and read internets instead of going back to sleep. I am currently editing the Friday night show of my school's major production, which was a Shakespearean play this year (Midsummer Night's Dream). It's not too hard in Premier Pro 2, what with the multicam function - capture all the footage, sync up the the different cameras, then open a multi-cam monitor and watch the show in real time, clicking on little preview windows of each camera's footage to cut between. I'll occasionally let a really bad zoom or wobble through, and have to stop, go back, and redo a section, but I think it's about a 4 hour job per show? Which isn't too bad. Live editing would be nice in some ways, but it would mean I'd have to anticipate when to cut, and I'd need reliable camera operators. Given the lack of gear and lack of steady hands, I think post-show editing yields a better result. Anyways, I should probably eat breakfast soon, maybe do a few dishes or something useful like that. I think today is a yukky no-breaks day (meaning I have to run detention at lunch time) so I can't come home for lunch/visiting, so I'd better make myself some sandwiches too. Most. Exciting. Blogpost. Evah!

More fun with food

After many days of chowing down on the pureed fruit, Dominic has moved onto trying out some veggies. First was kumara, which he loved, however, the results were somewhat more messy.

 

After liberally coating his face and bib with a couple of spoonfuls (OK, he did actually swallow some of it as well, it just looked like he was trying to apply it as a face mask), Dominic decided he might go straight for the source of the kumara rather than waiting for spoonfuls.

Much mess and fun was had.

Dominic seems to be becoming more confident with eating these days. He even smacks his gums together in a chewing-like motion despite not having any teeth. However, he has also decided that he should be entitled to try to have anything that I'm eating or drinking. Recently he has tried to take a piece of toast off me as well as grabbing at any cups I have. I'm reduced to quickly guzzling hot drinks and food when he's asleep or Matt is around as it is the only time when I can safely chow down without a baby trying to seize my snacks.

Of course he is not all about the taking. He has decided to start trying to shove things in my mouth as well to be fair and share. I have had his chewy fish toy rammed in my mouth a couple of times and he is quite keen on making sure his mum or dad eat and/or wear whatever food he is eating.

Early morning smiles

Dominic is still waking up early - around 5am. He's a happy wee chap in the early morning, which is very cool. He usually lets us know he's awake by doing pushups and making straining noises, rather than crying or complaining :-)

Hospital funding

Today we went to Kenepuru Hospital for an appointment for the wee man. The result was positive, in that Dom is very healthy, but confusing, in that the doctor wasn't really sure whether the risks of surgery outweighed the benefits (in terms of reducing risk of future complications). We have another appointment with the specialist next month, so we'll ask a bunch of probing questions then.

We were both horrified, it must be said, at the dilapidated condition of some of the hospital resources. The buildings, grounds, medical equipment and decor were all excellent - not quite American TV flash, but clean, newish looking, and in good repair. The waiting room, however, featured this shocking textbook filled with horrific animal accidents:



See the malformed maw of the king of the jungle!



The terrifying headless giraffe!


Caesarean gone wrong? Marsupial pouchless roo!


His nose is out of joint! What accident befell this poor croc?


See the snake's body? What body? Dear God, the head is still alive!


Should our hospitals really have such reading material available to children? Can we not find a few extra dollars in the budget for books about healthy animals? Or has this book been planted by the NZ Veterinary Society to get kids interested in helping animals...?

Weekend of drawing

Debbie and I did a lot of drawing this weekend. It kinda looked like the JA 48 Hour Film team might use some drawings of mine to start their film, so Debbie storyboarded, I drew, and Debbie colourised (whilst juggling a lovely baby between us) for many hours. The team decided to go another way in the end, but we still have the pictures :-) And I drew a dinosaur today - it was kind of what I had in mind to draw yesterday before being assigned the start of the film. It was being punched by a superhero, but I cropped it down to just the dino as it was by far the star of the picture :-) So, here's lots of pics:

5 month jabs

This week has been a little disrupted by Dom's 5 month jabs. He hasn't reacted too badly, but he's been a little out of sorts, and definitely had a bad night's sleep on the day he was stabbed in the thighs. It's amazing how quickly he recovered after he was injected, given how understandably upset he was by the process. I think he cried for about 2 minutes? Then was smiley and happy again (and very clingy).

The 48 hour film contest is on this weekend, and while we'd love to be involved I don't think Dom is up for too much activity this weekend (and I'm pretty shattered too). I think we'll try to make it down to visit the JA team, probably on Sunday, but may not even manage that. We shall see - it would be cool to catch up with people and see what the team's up to :-)

Dominic versus Solids

 So as a strapping 5 month old baby, Dominic was sent forth by the Plunket nurse to start the adventure of eating solid foods. Apparently this generally starts as an experimental stage where babies try to discover how much mashed up and pureed food they can spread over their face, hands, clothes and other surfaces.

I dediced to start Dom on banana as he had already grabbed a banana I was eating and tried to suck on it, so I figured he would probably like the taste.

Well, he loved it. As with most things in life he pretty much immediately seized control by grabbing the spoon and sticking it in his mouth for himself. He actually hoovered down a fair amount of the mashed banana goo happilly chewing and slobbering away on his cow spoon and making grumbly noises when there was no banana left on his spoon.

Anyway as the photos show, Dominic definitely conquered the banana, and was surprisingly quite neat and tidy in the process.

Solids tally to date:
Dominic 1
Banana 0

Early morning photography

Well, not that early in the morning really. Dominic stayed in bed until 5.45 this morning, making it a sleep in. This photo was taken some time later - around 9am or so? Dom was in his exersaucer, but was fascinated by something outside - possibly a branch moving in the wind?



Weight Loss Tip For The Day:
If Matt wants to lose weight, the cunning plan appears to be:

1. Eat a lot of junk food all the time so you gain an extra 3 kilos
2. Realise you're 3 kilos over your already too-high former weight
3. Stop eating junk food, start having weetbix for breakfast instead of leftovers

Uh, that's about it really. Seems to be working so far :-)

Timing is everything

 This interesting series of photos was taken exactly 1.2 seconds after Dominic did a cute Dr Evil pose. Baby photographers have to be fast :-)

In which I get misty-eyed and clucky.

Aw, the little one is 5 months old today. I decided to look back over his newborn photos and found it has filled me with enough soppiness that I could probably start composing squishily sentimental poetry for Hallmark cards.

I'm already starting to panic that he is growing up too fast. While today he may be content to play, gurgle and blow raspberries, I have the very real fear that any day now he'll be asking for the car keys, staying out late and threatening to move out of the house.

However, in the interest of not becoming some smothering maternal nightmare out of a Hitchcock film, I shall embrace his development and celebrate his growth rather than sob into a tissue that my little boy isn't smaller than the cat any more.

Behold the following photos and witness the wonder that is 5 months of Dominic:

 

Here is Dominic at only 10 minutes old being weighed.

This is Dominic on Day 2 being held by me. Aw, back then even in newborn size clothes the little sleeves had to be rolled up.

By Christmas he was proving to be quite the inquisitive little baby.

At about the age of 5 weeks he declared himself Caesar and ordered a triumph to be held in honour... well, not really but he did start to really enjoy showers...

... after a vigorous workout on his swiss ball.

At three months his love of the Guitar rattle and listening to music was clear...

... as was his enjoyment of hamming it up for the camera.

Now at 5 months he still grins if he spots his dad creeping up on him with a camera.

I suspect he also fancies himself as a fashion model. Not only does he 'look fierce' for the camera, he also tries to draw attention to his clothing by pointing out features of interest in the garments.

5 months old!

Dominic is 5 months old today :-)

And just for comparison, here are his previous milestone photos (starting at 2 weeks when we had the idea):

4 Months



3 Months


6 weeks


2 Weeks

Game Chef sketches

Here be the sketches I did for the Game Chef competition - someone on the forums asked about them, so I took a cellphone photo and uploaded them, even though they're terrible: