Call Me Fourteeth Williams

..two in one day baby! Now we're up to four with the top middle ones coming out as well, and Mummy and Daddy can see the two either side of them are just about ready to pop clear as well. I even christened my new chompers on one of Mummy's fingers when she tried to show Dan my new toothies when we went to Clo-Clo's today.

So to sum up, I'm massively teething just in the runup to Mummy and Daddy's one actual holiday this year, as Conception starts on Wednesday. Daddy says the appropriate phrase rhymes with 'hug her'.

My First Christmas Day

I did that Christmas thing for the first time a few days ago. It seemed to consist of rellies, shiny bright wrapping paper and lots of food. I think I liked the paper best - no offence to the rellies but they did move to Scotland after all and apparently that's bad. Certainly Daddy seems to get a little...cutting, when he refers to 'the whinging, leeching parasites', which he insists is the collective noun for a group of Scottish people.

(I am now sat on daddy's shoulders with my legs wrapped around his head, with my hands ripping at his hair. This is Mummy's way of ensuring there are typos unless Daddy stops typing and gets me undressed so she can run my bathwater.)

It started off like any other day - Daddy got me up for my first bottle, I noshed it, I fell asleep, he took me back to bed. But when we woke up my sissy got to come onto the bed and open a shiny present and a card with lots of special Gift Certificates in. That was new!

The Gift Certificates weren't like normal ones for buying stuff at Arghs and Weeweestones. They entitled Amber to special things like 'Kick Daddy off the computer for an hour' and 'Daddy cleans the rabbits out today'. She is biding her time with them though, I reckon she'll leave the bunny ones until it's raining so hard you can barely even look outside without wanting to dry off.

After I had my Tenses (which are like elevenses but a bit earlier, and a lot messier) and had the traditional screamy cleanup session after smearing myself thoroughly with nana as usual we went over to Granny and Grandad's. Once we got there we sat down in the living room and we really got down to present unwrapping in a very serious way.

I got books. I got toys. I got toys I can chew on, including a strange crabby thing with lots of little nobbly bits and a bit you can push to squeak. That was my favourite of all. It has hardly left my side, or my mouth for that matter. I have really enjoyed dribbling all over it.

The best bit was of course the wrapping paper. I lost count of how many times I gobbed my dummy out and then had it popped back in again before I could nosh some of it down - anything that pretty and shiny just has to taste good, right? I swear I only left a nanosecond between the dummy coming out and paper going in, but Mummy and Daddy were always there to make sure it didn't happen. They are annoyingly efficient sometimes, it really hacks me off!

I had a whole new load of things to chew on through the day, but the best teeth-related part of it was the lunch. It was my very own portion of Granny's special roasty dinner - chicken, sausage, veggies, taters and special Baby Gravy. Sure it took me twice as long as everyone else to plough through it but at least I wasn't groaning under the strain of not throwing up like everyone else seemed to be. I paced myself, see?

Granny doesn't half do a massive spread. Daddy said he'd go and pick the bones of the chicken after we were done so it didn't go to waste, but this most definitely didn't happen, in fact it looked more like we'd be picking his bones up off a stretcher by the time he'd noshed a couple of mince pies after the main course. Oh dear oh dear oh dear.

After such a huge nosh I had to have a good kip, but I was determined to stick around for more presents so Daddy had to take me into the little bedroom where Amber stays when she is at Granny's away from everyone else, and rock me off to sleep. I stayed down on him for ages, but oddly when I woke up I was on Mummy. I think she gets a little jealous when I am asleep on Daddy sometimes, but stealing me off him when I'm asleep is a bit much.

I was feeling so well disposed after all this noshing and napping that I even let Grandad cuddle me for, oooh, must have been a whole two minutes. Scary, huh? I definitely must have been filled up with that Christmas spirit that's in all those films Mummy keeps insisting we watch lately on the telly. As well as the sausage.

As time drew close for teatime though we decided to go home to give me my tea. This decision was slightly influenced by Mummy and Daddy's realisation that they had managed to leave the bag with my bottles in at home...so off we went back to our little house for tea.

Inevitably however one of Amber's special christmas pressies hadnt made it to Granny's, and it turned out that Mummy and Daddy had hidden it at the bottom end of my cot so well that they had forgotten where they had actually put it. About par for the course really, that.

When we did eventually open the present, it was the DVD of a film called the Dark Knight, and it had a very funny looking man in a black suit with small bunny ears on who seemed to be very upset all the time. The other person in it was a very strange man with makeup on, who talked in a funny voice in the bits I could see. Daddy says soon I will start 'getting' films, and won't be able to watch as much telly as I do now.

(Today a funny thing happened. My sister was being a bit of a sulkydraws and Daddy went up to her and licked his lips in a funny way, then said "Why so serious?" in exactly the same voice as the man with the makeup on from the film! Amber raised her eyebrows at him, and they went even higher when he started crowing about how well he had done the impression. I got the distinct impression from her that she wanted to find the makeup stick the man in the film used and insert it where the sun doesn't shine, even from my radiant Daddy.)

So that was my first Christmas. I got to see Granny and Grandad, and even the people who gave us their old high chair which I now sit in for dinnertime popped in from over the road to pay homage to the awesome wondrousness that is me, so Mummy and Daddy could say thank you in person for them giving it to us. A proper old cooing fest, all things considered.

I think I am still full of Christmas spirit, you know. I gave Mummy the present of a huge weewee all over her this morning when she changed me as Daddy got my morning bottle ready downstairs, so I know my generosity still hasn't diminished just yet...

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

I Popped One!

And no, I meant a tooth, not one of the other things that seem to come out of my bottom at inconvenient times. Yes, as of three days ago Daddy noticed that the traditional gumming ritual felt a bit different, and sure enough there is a little white fang to be seen. It's only tidgy do far, but it is literally pushing out further every day. However this does mean that the Bonjela is being deployed more frequently than usual, and dribble levels are reaching flash flood proportions.

Mummy says I should probably wear a bib all day for the moment. Daddy says what the hell, just tie a small bucket around my neck and that way I've always got something to drink.

Now there's a real actual toothy in there Daddy has to be very careful that I don't actually bite down with the right tool for the job instead of just licking at the Bonjela-covered finger a lot. But I got him once already, hehehehe. You wait, Mummy and Daddy are so used to me grabbing the nearest available limb and slobbering all over it that they will keep forgetting that we've moved into new territory for a while. And I can giggle at way they keep crying 'owwwwwwww' every time I get them.

Ah, the parents of the baby, what sweet music they make...

Shiny Things

Mummy and Daddy took me to Christchurch today, and we bought lots of stuff - apples and grapes from the fruity people, sweeties from the sweety stall for the Charity stall my big sister is running this week at her big school, and Daddy even got a huge bread thingy with loads of really unhealthy food in it from the burger van. It was even Mummy's idea, because she needed to go straight off to the pub to sit and do tons of revision for her special test on Wednesday as soon as we were done and there was no way I was going to let Daddy cook anything properly today.

My toothies are really getting at me this week. I am not letting anyone get away with any of that fancy 'leisurely meal' business, no sir. I want my comfort cuddles when I want my comfort cuddles, and delaying tactics like sleeping are not going to be an obstacle if I can help it.

Anyway, while we were there we went to see my friend Christine. She works in the place with all the pretty shiny things in it, and she is one of my biggest fans. She always gives me cuddles and coos over me for ages.

Christine is also my big sister's friend, in fact when she started working at the shiny things shop Amber taught her lots of things about the shiny things - what their names are, where they come from, how they are dug out of the ground and all that. She is named after a shiny thing, after all.

Once a few years ago, Amber made Christine a special drawing with lots of the shiny things in it. Now it lives in a special folder Christine uses for all her college work and she takes it in whenever she has a special test like the one Mummy's having this week. She says it's her good luck charm.

Not long after Amber made Christine the special good luck drawing, Christine gave Amber a huge piece of this shiny stuff that hadn't been properly cut to be supershiny. It's bigger than my hand! Awesome huh?


My big sister is super-clever. I think she knows everything there is to know about the shiny things, and one of her books about them weighs as much as I do, and it's nearly as big, too.

The best part is that she actually has hundreds of the shiny things upstairs in special cases. She even has a special shiny thing that isn't actually that shiny but has to stay inside its case because its poisonous and no one can touch it! Its called Wulfenite and its really funny looking.


She has a poster with seventy-five (!) different shiny things on it and she already has a piece of nearly 60 of the 75, how cool is that? One day she wants to own one of every single thing on it. She'll probably do it too, she is very persistent about this kind of thing.

Daddy's favourite is a piece of green quartz from a place called Madagascar. He loves to look at that piece nearly as much as Amber does.

Anyway after all that shiny things talk I am off to sleep now. I hope my toothies don't make me start howling at 1am again. And 2am as well. And 3...well, you get the picture.

Night night and sleep tight everyone.

Tummy Time

Now I have discovered my tummy and all the fun things I can do while lying on it, I want to be on it all the time. Even when Mummy is changing my nappy. This is making Daddy laugh.

When I lie down on my big Eeyore blanky I play with my teething keys which make tinkle tinkle noises, then I roll over on my tummy and try to inhale everything within reach, including my own hands. This means that Mummy and Daddy need to keep moving me about so I'm not lying in a pool of my own dribble. They are very obliging like that.

When I'm on my tummy everything looks closer somehow. But its really difficult to reach stuff because I'm holding myself up by my arms, so I have to Yell to get Mummy and Daddy to bring me things to chew on. This is because I have three - three! - teeth coming.

Poopy teeth. They started coming at nine weeks. Daddy says this is further evidence that I am an alien brought to earth to frustrate his plans to dominate the universe. Or something. What it means is that I have to fight my compulsion to shove my hands in my mouth all the time - I'm not very good at it unfortunately, so Mummy and Daddy have to keep wiping my face and popping my dummy back in after extricating my hands. Sometimes they make a cool 'pop' noise when they come out, it makes Mummy and Daddy laugh.

It is my ambition to be able to do what Nate does and fit my entire fist in my mouth without chundering. After all, everyone should have a hobby.