Old dogs and new tricks

The old dog is me. The new tricks are Oliver's.

Yesterday I celebrated my birthday. My first as a Dad. And sure enough there was a card for me from Oliver. He handed it to me (well, kind of dropped it onto me) in bed when Hayley brought him in after my lie-in (a birthday treat in itself).

We had breakfast at Room 311 where Oliver was a bit of a handful but in a fun way. He made me laugh. He is into everything at the moment. He is full of energy and reaching out to grab things from the moment we lift him out of his cot in the morning. Once he has grabbed them he usually throws them on the floor. So his first target every morning, which is a sterlling silver Winnie the Pooh "first tooth" jar, will have to be put out of sight, as he keeps throwing it around the room when I finally relent and let him grab it.

He has developed a couple of new tricks too. He waves goodbye now. On Saturday our friend Lisa (one of his two Godmothers) took him out for a couple of hours in her car. He sat in the back waving to us out of the window. It was lovely amd yet a bit of a wrench too!

Hayley has also taught him another greeting. "Gimme five!" she says to him, holding out her palm. And sure enough he slaps her hand. He also gives her hugs and cuddles in the morning when she asks him, lying down on her chest and resting his hgead on her shoulder.

He seems to be developing more quickly now than the last couple of months. This morning he launched himself forwards from his sitting position and got into a crawling position. Then he started to wriggle and almost crawled. He is getting close. He is such an energetic little handful at the moment that it's hard to imagine how we will contain him once he can crawl.