Hurray, Darwin is ten months today!

Sorry everyone for the lack of posts recently but we’ve been busy traveling up and down from the Catskills and Mummy’s Mummy is visiting.

Today was the first day that Darwin drank properly from a straw. He drank a quarter of a mango and pineapple smoothie in one go. Darwin is certainly piling on the pounds now, even his face is filling out, as you can see. He’s such a fantastic eater, he tries and likes everything and he gets very excited at eating time.

He is cruising around the apartment moving from one piece of furniture to another, getting up and down. He is very careful and knows how to take it easy so not to hurt himself. He is great at standing and stands with his feet flat. He only wants to do it on his own though, the second you hold his hands his legs go to jelly and he pretends he can’t use his legs. He has also been crawling properly for the past couple of weeks no more crab crawling like a wounded solider. His poor little knees get quite red now though with the wooden floor.

He gets extremely excited when Daddy gets home from work. We are normally playing in his room and as soon as he hears Daddy’s voice he squeals with excitement and proceeds to crawl as quickly as possible out to see him.

We hope Grandma and Grandpa have a fantastic holiday, it sounds like an amazing trip, enjoy!

Well what a day, New York was literally rocking. So Mummy’s Mummy arrived last night and since then Darwin has been a very spoilt, little boy!

We were pushing a luggage trolley with all our bags for a month (there was a lot of bags), for our trip. We got everything into the car and pulled away when we started noticing lots of people standing outside looking up. Then we turned the corner and there were more people flooding out of buildings, it seemed like there was a bomb scare. I asked someone and they said there had been an earthquake! It was really weird that we didn’t feel it, I guess because we weren’t inside a building we didn’t see anything shake. Daddy did feel the earthquake, his whole office shook! I proceeded to spend the next two hours trying to call him but the phone lines were so jammed that I couldn’t get through. Thankfully he was fine and his building wasn’t evacuated like most others were.

The traffic out of the city was crazy as everyone was trying to get out after the earthquake. When we got out of Manhattan it cleared up and we arrived at the house in time for Darwin’s tea. It’s so beautiful and peaceful here, the house is surrounded by mountains and you can sit out on the rocking chair and listen to the sounds of the river. Both Darwin and Winston were very happy to get here and to get out of our very lovely car.

Sorry for the lack of posts this weekend, we’ve been really busy. Friday we were running around the city doing errands and on Saturday picked up our new car!!! Yay! We are all very excited. We picked it up but had to go straight home as Darwin was grumpy and needed to nap, so Mummy and Daddy eagerly waited for Darwin to wake up so we could go out for a drive. We just went over to Brooklyn, but it was fun. Daddy drove there and Mummy drove back. Mummy was quite scared of one of the tunnels, as it is very narrow and the car is a lot bigger than any other car we’ve previously drove.

Today we decided to get out of the city and make the most of the car, so we planned to go for a hike about an hour north. Unfortunately what was a glorious morning turned into a down pour plus to top it off thunder and lightening storm about five minutes after we got into the car! So with no waterproofs, that idea was out of the question. We ate our sandwiches in a car park in a strip mall and watched the rain bouncing off the car! Luckily it brightened up and we found an historic house to visit, which turned out to be lovely as they dressed up in traditional costumes and talked us through the history of the house. There were also geese and beavers, which Darwin loved!

On another note, today was the first time that Darwin stood up properly in his bed! He had previously just been on his knees with his hands holding on to the side, but this morning we went into his room and there was Darwin beaming with a very big grin, standing waiting for us!!

Here’s a picture of Darwin from the other day when I blow dried his hair!

We had a busy day today. To start, Daddy made us scrumptious whole wheat pancakes that Darwin loved. Darwin then had his morning nap and then as you can see from the picture, he had his banana snack. He is very good at eating banana’s and loves them! We then took the subway up to an art shop near Central Park, I didn’t get what I wanted, but we did come away with a tambourine and egg maracas for Darwin! We then grabbed lunch at Benihana’s, which Darwin loved. They cook in front of you and do fun tricks like flip food and make volcano’s out of onions, all very exciting stuff.

We came home and Darwin had his afternoon nap before his friends Holly and Eli came over to play. They had a very fun afternoon and all the babies left exhausted!

It was nice to see the sun shining today for the first time all week, so we thought we’d head over to Battery Park for a playgroup. We hadn’t seen a lot of the babies for quite a long time and it was amazing to see how much they had grown. A lot of the babies weren’t crawling yet and Darwin was climbing over them to get to the toys. Darwin’s friend Holly was quite upset today but Darwin did a great job in cheering her up, she is always so happy to see him. He’s a heartbreaker already!

When we got home Winston wanted to play and be chased round the apartment. Darwin found this hilarious and started wildly chasing after Winston in his walkie. It was very funny!

Yesterday Darwin and I took the NY water taxi over to Red Hook. This time we sat next to the window so Darwin could see out the window. He was so excited, he was screaming with delight! There was also a little boy sitting behind us that started playing peek-a-boo with him, which he also loves.

We went over to Ikea, Daddy came and met us for dinner, then we all took the boat home, which was great as Daddy got to see how excited Darwin was!

Today was a dreary, English like, rainy, day so any fun expeditions were out of the question. Mummy and Daddy actually went away last night for the first time since Darwin was born, which was fun but we really missed him and couldn’t wait to get home! Darwin had a fun time playing and didn’t seem to mind that we weren’t there. We got home and wanted to spend the day playing with him, so the bad weather didn’t matter at all.

Daddy made us a very yummy roast chicken, they played on Daddy’s new laptop, which Darwin enjoys as he could hit the buttons whilst learning to program computers! Not sure which out of the iPhone, iPad, desktop Mac or the MacBook Pro are his favorite but he seems to like them all, (Apple didn’t pay us for the promoting) and I’m talking about Darwin not Daddy! After all that fun Darwin had a long, late nap so we thought we’d pop out for a light dinner. We just went to the gastro pub nearby. Darwin, Mummy and Daddy love going there as the waitress really loves Darwin, she will play with him whilst we eat! After that Darwin had a fun bath with his ducks followed by some swinging around and I’m happy to say he is all tired out and now happily asleep.

So we thought the time had come to buy Darwin a car! Of course it was a purely selfless act and we only had his best interests at heart. The back seat TV’s, reclining back seats and nine cameras around the vehicle were all only what Darwin wanted! In all honesty, we thought it was a good idea to get a car with our increasing number of trips out of the city and how annoying it is to carry our 20lb car seat around when we want to get into a car. We are going to park it in the garage around the corner which will be very convenient.

The seats in the back are great for Darwin as the windows are low enough so that he can see out thus eliminating motion sickness and the windows are tinted so the sun can’t annoy him. Darwin very much likes all the buttons.

We pick the car up next Saturday and we’re all very excited!

Today we went to visit baby Hudson, he is the baby of one of Mummy’s friend. He is only four weeks old but already weighs 9lbs. We spent the morning making a Shepherd’s pie and cupcakes to take for their tea, as Hudson’s mummy had a terrible labour and is still recovering. Darwin very much enjoys watching Mummy cook. We have a theory that he will either be an actor, as he gives Oscar winning performances when he’s upset; a vet because he absolutely adores dogs; or a chef as he loves to watch us cook and tries to participate!

Darwin was very interested in little Hudson. He was also trying to show off  and flirt with Hudson’s mummy. He thoroughly enjoyed investigating a new apartment with new, unchewed toys and a great coffee table that was just the right height for holding on to.

No pictures from today, but here’s a cute Darwin picture!

Mummy is very proud to announce that Darwin just did his first poo on the potty! Hurray!