Feed the bear

Feed the bear! So went a 1980s' Celtic chant to pass the ball to leader Roy Aitken. Our own little Angy Bear is now in the hot seat, parked in the corner of the kitchen in the faithful high-chair, which was extricated from the attic at the weekend and is ready to serve the fourth and final Wallace boy. It has seen some service and needed a rigorous rub-down following Rowan's roughhouse approach to the finer skills of eating. Now Angus is ensconced in it, tipped back and starting to get used to this implement coated in stuff that is being proferred by his mother.

He had his first baby rice last Sunday and seemed to get the hang of it quite quickly but was less keen on the pear he sampled towards the end of the week. Mixing it with rice has proved more successful. Soon we'll be back on the batches of parsnip, pear, carrot and sweet potato, spoon-feeding a little chubby-cheeked baby and watching him grow to be a strapping, boisterous bundle of boyhood while his brothers utter nonsense round about him at the dinner table. Sharon felt it was quite a special moment last night as all six of us sat down at the table (Angus annexed a little in the corner) for our dinner. It reminded her of her own childhood with everyone seated around the family table.

The move to solid food doesn't seem to have improved Angus's sleeping though the night. He managed a 6.20am for me but he still isn't settling into a longer routine. We gave him one night on his own, with the monitor for company, but wakening at 2.50am and 6.40am didn't convince us that was worthwhile. Meanwhile, the skin on his cheeks has been very florid and rough (this originated before he started on solids) and he seemed to have a bit of a rash on his torso the other day. he's been a bit grumpier than normal recently, crying for a feed well before it's due. He's still the biggest of them all (over 18lbs now, and at 68cm at 4 months, only Finn was longer) and looks like he's going to need the most feeding. He has a beautiful smile though!