One year on

So, on the 5th January my little baby was one year old. I felt so proud to have sprouted a little darling such as Leon that has grown so much in a year. It felt odd looking back to when he was just a vulnerable little being new to the world knowing that he's now so independent (well... to an extent!) and no longer seems like a little baby.

And so here is his journey from little sprout to little boy:

Newborn

3 months

6 months

9 months

1 year

How we celebrated
My family have a tradition of seranading the lucky birthday girl/boy with Las Mañanitas in the morning en masse mariachi-style with a guitar. Today was no exception and hubby and I belted it out  much to Leon's amusement. I even donned my sombrero for the occasion.

Estas son las mañanitas, que canto el Rei David,
A los muchachos bonitos se las cantamos asi,
Despierta, Leon, despierta, mira que ya amaneció,
Ya los pajaritos cantan, la luna ya se metió. 

*This is the morning song that King David sang
We sing it like this to the cuties
Wake up, Leon, wake up, look it is already dawn
The birds are already singing and the moon has gone 

This was soon followed by a kingly breakfast then lots of playtime. We celebrated his birthday with family and friends young and old at a local pub where we cut his amazing jungle cake (if I say so myself ;) and sang Happy Birthday FOUR times (English, French, Spanish and Italian.... it got tiring).

Jungle cake in the making!

After enjoying a lot of the cake he was spinning on the table round and round like a breakdancer laughing a lot - perhaps was a sugar rush?? Maybe he was just really happy and lavished the attention.

Birthday Boy

Proud parents

Present from Abuelita and Grumpa (Note the dirty belly from post-cake spinning and commando crawling)

At 1 year

• He's made the transition from commando crawling to all-fours crawling and can go VERY fast
• Starting to cruise around the furniture but not walking yet. 
• Big Boy: Weighs almost 12kg and is bigger than 98% of babies his age and at 81cm is taller than 91% He sleeps well :D Yay! 
  
• Has 9 teeth and molars coming through but still a bit of a tongue-tie
• Eats on his own - LOVES food especially lasagnes, stews, meat, lentil soups, spinach, grapes, petits filous, clementines
• Gives the warmest cuddles, is rather sensitive but still a little brute. Rather chilled but very curious. 
• Communicative, and plenty of vocalising. Seems to respond well to my mum and respond "Sssssssss" when she encourages him to say "Si". He used to say "Abue" (granny in spanish) but hasn't for ages. 

And myself? Well - keep trying to stay on top of everything but it is tough to find time for myself. I find it very rewarding whenever he does something new, or copies what I've shown him - be it putting money into his piggy-bank, or getting down from the bed. And I love his hugs so very much. I'm happy we've found some really nice mum and baby friends and that he's happy at his childminders where he goes one day a week.

So excited to see what's in store for this year!

Wriggles, parties, eating, sleeping...

My little 7 month old is now wriggling around the living room - not crawling yet - no bum-shuffles, but wriggling on his tummy and he manages to get quite far! It's changed my life to see him playing happily on his own- although I've stopped working for a bit, at least I can get on calmly with other things around the house and don't need to entertain him nonstop!

Since coming back from holiday he's still been wonderful and we've managed to have a few evenings out with him sleeping peacefully in the pram or in an upstairs bedroom. Having a baby also means getting the master bedroom at friends house parties ;) At a party in York my friends fed him, got us drinks and we danced like there was no tomorrow - I think it was easy to 'spot the parent'... Though we had to put a sign on the door telling guests to come and find us if he woke up as the hostess picked him when she heard him crying. He was a very happy chappy.

The one thing that has struck me is how much he's eating! I'm following a book I picked up at the library full of meal plans and ideas from Annabel Karmel and it's been useful - though I'm doing pretty much what I've been doing from the beginning and whizzing together loads of steamed veg, lentils, cheese etc. Leon LOVES food. There's no trouble getting the spoon in his mouth and sometimes I can't keep up. I'm looking forward to him saying "more please mummy" or "MAS!" rather than grunting at me like I'm an idiot.

I was struggling to leave him to drift off to sleep on his own... I'm determined to kick the habit this week and it's going well so far. Last night I didn't pat him to sleep - yay! I just sat in the chair next to his cot and he went off to sleep! Miracle. We even let him cry when he woke up again- and he managed to go back to sleep himself. Amazing...

Going Out

Motherhood is ace and I've been finding it all fun and not as tiring as everyone made it out to be - perhaps as I'm younger than the average first time mother in my area: 38 YEARS OLD (according to my health visitor)! Nothing wrong with older mums - it's wonderful to have the gift of children at any time, but it would be nice to have more mums around the same age as me who have similar interests.

Having left the clubbing scene and university partying days behind me only a year or two ago I could cope quite well with the night-time feeds and constant demands from our little angel. The fact that he is so well behaved makes a big difference I suppose. Knowing that he doesn't suffer from colic and having a innate feeding clock of exactly every three hours made it easier to leave him with my parents if we fancied some time off! We were able to leave him with the new and eager grandparents with a bottle or two of expressed milk a month or so after he popped out, and enjoyed a fun afternoon out at a West end musical as well as a slap up meal at the posh Gordon Ramsay restaurant at Claridges. Maybe not an all-night rave, but we are now responsible parents after all ;) It would be good to hear how other people are doing with spending some time on your own away from the baby?

Now, at 3 months old I've learned that he's perfectly happy sleeping in his carrycot in a noisy restaurant and is easily soothed on the trains and buses, so we can take him with us in the evenings much to the delight of our friends. Thankfully, he sticks to his bedtime routine the rest of the time. Tonight, my good friend is having a house party a good hour away by public transport - I want to go, I really do- especially as Mon Amour recently went to Berlin with friends last weekend and properly went out, and I really miss dressing up and dancing. But - it would also be so nice just to chill out with my lovely husband and watch CSI while our little angel is tucked up in bed... We shall see!