Crawling, commando style
Approximately two weeks ago Edward discovered that lifting one leg up underneath him and pushing hard while pulling with his hands could propel him quite rapidly across the floor.
He spent a few days doing this very successfully, although intermittently. He could easily cover a couple of feet in a minute or two when the mood took him. Since then he has been progressing further towards a more traditional form of crawling.
This currently means that he's quite good at getting either his legs or his hands in the right positions, but not so good at doing both at once. His general ability to cover distance also seems to be, temporarily I'm sure, reduced to almost nothing; or a small distance backwards.
On a related note, I'm quite convinced that Edward is perfectly capable of sitting up on his own. However he's yet to really prove this as he will never sit still. There is always something just out of reach that's far too interesting not to try and stretch for, which inevitably means falling over.
Finger (nail) clipping
A short while after Edward was born, it became apparent that we needed to start cutting his finger nails (as he was starting to scratch his face).
Since that time it has been my job to perform this task as Liz has been too concerned about cutting his fingers off.
So every week or two I have been using a pair of baby nail scissors to cut Edward's finger nails. The complexity of this task has varied a lot depending on how long his nails were and how much he wanted to struggle (he doesn't even like having them being cut when he's asleep!). Overall though it has been getting gradually easier as he, and his fingers, get larger. He has certainly managed to maintain all of his fingers throughout.
A few weeks ago I decided that moving from scissors to baby nail clippers would make things easier and reduce the risk of any fingers falling off.
Unfortunately on one of my first attempts with the nail clippers I managed to include a small amount of finger! I drew blood and everything! :-(
Surprisingly Edward didn't seem to mind, so at least there weren't any screams to make my guilt even worse.
With the confession over, I'd just like to add that since then I think I've worked out what I did wrong and have managed a couple of further clippings without any more fingers getting in the way. The lesson remains though - nail clippers really aren't any safer than scissors for cutting baby nails.
Christening... survived 1
I'm a little late with this entry as Edward was Christened just over a month ago now! However I did want to say that we did all survive, even Liz managed not to have a heart attack from the stress!
It was actually a lovely day, for the weather, the service and to see so much family and a few friends (sadly we didn't have space for too many) join us to celebrate Edward.
Thank you very much to Liz's parents for hosting and to Liz's Mum for preparing much of the food.
Just for the record here we are in our posh frocks...

Small family christening
Is there actually such a thing as a small family?
I thought mine was fairly small with no more than three children in any family unit. Yet I'm still managing to account for nearly half of the 60-ish guests we're expecting at Edward's christening tomorrow!
I guess 60 isn't really a very large number. Yet when you start thinking about making 120 sandwiches it does seem to take on a far larger feeling.
Still, I think we're just about prepared, Liz has spent half the day writing lists of things we need to take, we collected a fantastic cake yesterday that my Aunty Joy made and I have my cameras on charge.
So I'm sure that tomorrow will flow easily, smoothly and in a completely stress free fashion....
Outgrowing everything
A few days ago we finally migrated Edward to his cot.
Prior to this he had been sleeping in a moses basket, but he recently got to the stage where he could push with his feet and knock his head into the other end! For a while he's been looking rather cramped width-wise. This moses basket is supposed to be "Suitable from birth to approx. 3-4mths (or until babys starts to pull himself/herself upright)". He's certainly not pulling himself upright yet. Although we probably should have moved Edward out of it as he turned two months and we've had to move him only a couple of weeks after that.
This crazy baby growth has been echoed in various other areas too. He's been in 3-6 month clothes for a little while and some of his socks are 6-12 months! Some of this is definitely down to Edward being quite large, but I do think that a good part of it is due to manufacturers having totally different opinions of what size certain aged babies should be.
He's also having a good go at putting on weight faster than the muscles in Liz and my arms can increase their ability too!
At least he's got some growing space left in his cot... :-)

Sleeping through
A couple of weeks ago Edward started to sleep through one of his normal night time feeds. He hasn't managed this every night since, but hasn't been far off.
The unfortunate part is that he doesn't seem to have quite worked out when "night" is yet. He has taken it upon himself to become comatose from around 5 or 6 in the evening, waking again at around 4 in the "morning"! :-(
Perhaps if we keep the TV on really loud for an extra few hours in the evening it will help sort him out!?
Now we just need to find time to actually watch the TV!
Edward photo update 1

:-)