Baby E and his Daddy dancing to the music at the Leeds Festival.

Mud Mud Mud

There is no doubt we had an amazing time at the Leeds festival with Baby E. There were however moments that were a little tricky. On the last day the rain started. We knew it was forecast after weeks of reading weather predictions and were armed with waterproofs, pushchair covers, tent and groundsheet. We considered ourselves lucky that whenever it rained Baby E was asleep. We were able to avoid a wet cold Baby E. We were very happy and confident we could live the festival life with ease come rain or shine.

It was only when we came to leave that we realised just how muddy the rest of the festival ground had become. My Fabulous Boyfriend laughed at me every time I made a comment about it being a 'nightmare in the mud'. My Fabulous Boyfriend correctly pointed out that I was not the one carrying a heavy rucksack on my back while pushing a pushchair through the mud at the same time as being jostled by merry festival folk.

We were helped out by one lovely security man who escorted us through service road that relieved us from the crowd and mud for a very short time. Sadly this was not to be repeated on the long 1 1/2 hour walk back to the car from the main arena!

Baby e is a festival baby!

It seems complete madness now to think we took baby e to the leeds festival. Despite this reservation after the event we had a fantastic time and baby e loved every minute of it. We bought tickets for saturdayand sunday with an overnight stay in a hotel close to the site.

Baby e was the model festival baby wearing his ear defenders and dancing along to the tunes. He loved interacting with all the happy festival folk who wanted to take his photo, give him cuddles or play boo!

Baby e was happy crawling around chasing blue bottle tops, pulling up grass and attempting to eat everything within his reach. Thankfully we were always watching to prevent anything reaching his mouth.

When it was nap time baby e would tell us he wanted to lie in his pushchair where he calmly slept while we rocked him gently.

The weekend was every bit as easy as being at home. We are already planning to visit another festival next year with baby e. Perhaps this time we will give camping a go as well!

Baby e's new words

The time has come to keep a check on our language. Baby e is adding new words to his vocabulary every week and it can only be a matter of time before he starts to copy everything we say.

Every evening baby e counts the minutes until he has his bath. It is one of his favorite activities of the day, and he will happily stay in the bath playing for up to an hour!

But how do we know he loves it so much?

Asside from the excited screaming as the bath is being filled, and the climbing up the side of the bath in eagerness to get in we have more clues. Last night after baby e finshed his dinner, he crawled from the kitchen, through the dining room, up 10steps on the stairs (supervised but not helped by me of course) saying "ba ba ba" over and over again.

Baby e was beaten after 10steps, however it will not be long before he can climb them all and probably into the bath as well! Stair gates at the ready! Here we go!

The mysterious case of the travelling poo!

A funny thing happened to me this week, late on Monday night. We had the rare occurrence of Baby E waking in the middle of the night. This is so rare that it had only happened once before since he was 8 weeks old and has been sleeping through the night. I know we are very lucky to have a Baby who is so happy and calm at night and is comfortable to settle himself on his own when he wakes up so I don't mind getting up to help him when he needs us. Normally he only wakes up if he is feeling poorly, and true enough he was very hot and had a little temperature.

A quick application of Calpol, and he was back in his cot yawning and cuddling his teddy. My baby brain memory is guaranteed to let me forget something just 2 seconds after it has happened, and on this occasion it was on top form. I had forgotten that moments before it looked as though Baby E was having a poo. Sure enough, within half an hour of Baby E being in his cot, and just as I was dropping off to sleep I was summoned again.

Something clicked in my brain ... oh ... I think he has had a poo. My thoughts were correct, and I found Baby E with a dirty nappy. I kept the lights dim to remind Baby E that it was still night time, and quickly changed his nappy. With Baby E's bottom now clean and a new nappy in place, I began folding up the dirty nappy to place it in the bin. Just as it was nearly wrapped up I noticed the lump of poo was on Baby E's chest. It was sitting there, winking at me. Was it a relative of Mr Hankey the Christmas Poo? I felt like it was sitting there on Baby E's left nipple mocking me, saying 'ha ha, bet you don't know how I got here'.

I was completely taken by surprise, how did it get there? The last time I saw the poo it was in his nappy that I was folding up and was holding in my hands. Did the poo leap through the air and land on his chest? Was my nappy folding action too forceful and I had inadvertently flicked the poo into a trajectory that would make it travel a whole foot up the changing stand? Maybe I was mistaken in thinking I had seen the poo in Baby E's nappy? Maybe it had been sat on his chest since I first opened the nappy. How long had it been there?

Was it possible that Baby E grabbed it as soon as I opened his nappy. He had very grabby hands that were reaching for his willy, and on a previous nappy changing occasion he had grabbed at the wet wipe that I was using to wipe his bottom. My mind turned to visions of him picking up the poo and playing with it. Turning it in his hands like it is one of his toys or even worse some food! Help! What had happened to the poo???

Fortunately there was no sign of poo on his hands (or face) so I must live with the belief that my forceful nappy folding set the poo on a trajectory leading to Baby E's left nipple. Baby E seemed perfectly happy with the situation, and not at all traumatised with the poo/nipple incident. It shall forever remain the mysterious case of the travelling poo!