One year of blogging

It was one year ago that we made our first blog post. What a year it has been and what's better is we have the blog to record many of the interesting (and some of the not so interesting) things that have happened over the past year.

So as a bit of a round up of our first year of blogging here are some interesting stuff we can tell you about the blog:

We have published 62, well 63 including this one, blog posts.

The most viewed post was: Weird things happen to you when your pregnant (28 views, 2 comments), closely followed by Shoes (27 views, 3 comments).

The post with the most comments was (unsurprisingly): The one you've all been waiting for with 5 comments.

The top countries for our web traffic are:

New Zealand

1,794

United Kingdom

209

United States

138

United Arab Emirates

50

Russia

48

Australia

46

Germany

22

Canada

18

India

16

Singapore

15

We don't know who the Russians, Germans, Canadians, Indians or Singaporeans are who are checking out our blog, they are possibly getting to us as a result of search traffic.

Our blog has been viewed a total of 2,432 times since it was launched.

Our busiest month was last month (wonder why!) with 405 views, this month will quite possibly beat that as we're on 391 at the moment.

That's all for today, we look forward to continuing our blog this year with lots of news of Theo's first year.

Festive Balham

A quiet Saturday in the Bush house today, I even managed to sneak an afternoon snooze on the couch while Theo fed.

We did however head out for some fresh air and to pop into the supermarket. On our walk we discovered that there were Christmas carols and general festivities going on in the 'Balham Community Space'  - basically an area next to one of the entrances to the supermarket.

When we arrived it was the steel drum Christmas carols, a bit weird, if you haven't had the pleasure of hearing steel drum Christmas Carols before here's a taste of what you've been missing...

As well as the music there was a big furry Christmas animal, well, person in animal suit, not sure what kind of animal he was but he was dressed in festive clothes so that added to the atmosphere.

The three big highlights though of stumbling across this were:

1. Christmas mince pies being handed out for free by the supermarkets, I'm not usually a mince pie fan but I think now I'm a dad I'm beginning to appreciate them. We had two each.
2. After the Chestnut Grove Steel Band was the Balham Ukulele Society, how can you not love ukulele's! The lead even managed to play while holding his toddler in his arms!
3. Finally, was the turning on of the Balham Christmas lights, we even had the Wandsworth mayor to do the honours. The lights aren't going to rival Oxford St, but then we did get pretty much front row seats.

Below some ukulele Christmas music if you can't imagine it.

We think Theo enjoyed these festivities, he was in the front pack the whole time and seemed pretty content. 

Ok, so I know I haven't included any photos of Theo and that's the only reason people check the blog so here's a couple from our latest photo shoot, he's such a grown up now!

All the leaves are brown...

and the sky is blue!

Video below is an update to the blog as it was originally published, I'd always intended to add this song but inexplicably forgot...

A beautiful autumn day in London today, crisp but clear blue skies and little wind. I went for a good jog this morning, we did a couple of chores at home and then we headed to Crystal Palace park to enjoy the sun. Crystal Palace has featured in two previous blogs: Crystal Palace and An Athletic Weekend.

Some photos from today's trip...

We walked through the dinosaur sculpture part of the park. Quite cool but weird too. 

Jackie safe from the dinosaurs behind the fence.

Dad and Theo keeping their distance from the dinosaurs.

You can't really make it out but this is a picture of an oversize bear eating or climbing a tree.

An oversize moose?

All the leaves are brown.

Getting Theo out for a feed.

We found a relatively private park bench for Jackie to feed on. Just as she got her boob out a photography class came bounding up to exactly where we were sitting to take 'backlit' photos. They were there for about 20 minutes snapping away while Jackie fed, so much for a private spot.

After what turned out to be quite a long feed we retired to Westow House pub for a drink and something to eat. It was very nice. We like Crystal Palace. 

4 weeks in

So, we've been parents for 4 weeks now. We've learnt a lot, there's been lots of great moments but probably as many stressful moments. I'd say the balance is definitely tipping in the favour of the positive though.

Theo is still being quite upset in the evenings which has been tough but he is sleeping well in the nights which is a huge relief. He is getting the hang of feeding too, although from time to time reverts back to his bad ways.

We're getting more confident in going out and yesterday morning I went out with Theo while Jackie stayed at home. I went out for morning coffee with a friend. I took Theo in the front pack, he was very well behaved the whole time, it was great to be able to go out and have a grown up conversation while Theo just chilled out.

We were both quite pooped when I got home though...

Then yesterday afternoon (after Theo and I had rested up) we went out for afternoon coffee and cake, quite a regular occurance for us now. We went to one of our favourite cafes, Trinity Stores, it's right by Balham Station, has yum food and a nice vibe. Again, Theo was well behaved and we were able to enjoy our cakes and drinks. Jackie seems to have a new rule that because there is 3 of us we need 3 cakes when we're going out, even though Theo doesn't eat one. I quite like that rule.

The sign above the counter was advertising a Pirate Latte, which includes a shot of rum. We gave it a miss this time. 

While he was well behaved throughout the day Theo was a terror last night, he screamed and screamed and wouldn't feed well, it was one of those tough moments but we got through it and managed to have a decent night sleep. 

Today Theo was 4 weeks old. I celebrated by having a sleep in, Jackie celebrated by dying her hair. We went out this afternoon for a walk around Wandsworth Common, we picked up coffees (no cake) from the new Cafe Nero and strolled around the common with the hundreds of other parents with little children. We even saw Phil Spencer who presents one of our favourite TV shows (Location, location, location).

Jackie got to wear Theo in the front pack this time, it worked well for her too. 

Walking around the common we could sense that Christmas is just around the corner so this evening, if Theo let's us, we'll be watching a Christmas movie and start planning for our Christmas with Theo and Jackie's family - we're already really excited, only 6 weeks to go.

Theo leads from the front

This is our third (and unlikely to be the last) blog which includes Brixton Village, if you want to see previous instalments click here and here.

Last Saturday our friends Marsh and Fee picked us up and we went to Brixton for lunch.

We took Theo in our Baby Bjorn front pack. Babies are supposed to be 3.5kg before you put them in the front pack, Theo is only 3.3kg but we tried him out and he seemed fine.

Jackie and I have never been to Brixton Village on a Saturday, we've only ever been on Sunday when it is quiet and many of the shops are closed. It was quite a different atmosphere on Saturday with hoards of people, considerable queues for some of the more established cafes and a number of shops open that are not open on Sundays.

We found a tiny middle eastern restaurant, called French and Grace (see their blog post on their development here) they could probably seat 16 people tops. We managed to snare a table outside for the 5 of us. They had a very small kitchen and a small menu to match. And they had already run out of their special for the day, which both Marshall and I wanted. The food we ordered came quickly, was quite simple but really delicious.

We loved it and the atmosphere was great, across from us was a pizza restaurant that was busy and had the boom sounds cranking, while to our right was a Malaysian restaurant and on the left was a butchers.

Theo in his Baby Bjorn, he didn't have much of a view, but he slept most of the time anyway

My view of Theo

The shop on our left as we ate lunch was this butcher, not sure about the food safety involved here but we didn't mind. 

To our right was the Malaysian restaurant - they had a bit of a queue. 

Our middle eastern restaurant was called French and Grace

The Bush Family

My wrap

I had to protect Theo from any food or sauce dropping from my  wrap, the enamel plate sat nicely on Theo's head, he didn't mind a bit. 

The tiny kitchen and friendly staff at French and Grace

After lunch we went to get a coffee from Federation coffee, I think I've mentioned them in previous blog posts, the coffee is good but the service not so, this was once again the case. They were busy but we were told it would take them 15 minutes to make our coffees. I'm sorry if you're a coffee shop you should be able to keep up with demand better than that. Their coffees are really nice and we did wait which was ok as we could look around the other shops and cafes but Federation coffee is still yet to win me over - it takes more than great coffee to make a great coffee shop.

There are so many great cafes in Brixton Village we've decided the challenge is to eat at them all. I can't wait!

Back to work

Today was my last day of paternity leave. I've had two and a half of the most amazing weeks of my life. Some of it has been very tough and not so enjoyable but on the whole the best 2 1/2 weeks of my life.

Little Theo is curled up in my arms as I type this (because he refuses to go to sleep in his moses basket!).

This is me writing this blog with Theo curled up in my arms. 

Please note we are aware that his nappy looks huge on him, there are two reasons 1) he needs a nappy that doesn't irritate his belly button, the 'harry high pants' ones achieve this best 2) just before this photo was taken he filled his nappy with the good stuff, it was real loud and I could feel his nappy getting filled but he didn't move an inch.

We've had so many midwife/gp/hosptial visits over the past couple of weeks sometimes we yearn for a day when we don't have anything on. However I think Wednesdays will be a bit of a highlight, at least for Jackie, over the coming weeks as that is the day our ante-natal group catches up. Today we met at our house and there was much excitement when one of the mums turned up with her 5 day old baby while there were still two mums-to-be willing their labour to come on.

A couple of the other dads came along as well which, along with the cake and biscuits made it a great day.

Our spread for the NCT morning tea. Homemade ginger cake was the highlight. 

All ready for our guests - the tidiest the house has been for 3 weeks. 

After the group dispersed Jackie took me out for a nice pub lunch as a treat on my last day of paternity leave. The pub was empty apart from a couple of ladies who cooed over Theo and later on a group of new mums so we felt right at home. Theo was very well behaved throughout allowing Jackie and I to enjoy our lunch uninterrupted.

A couple of photos from today and the past few days below (to satisfy grandparents on both side of the family who have given us the hurry up!)

Just chilling out at the pub

Walking home from yesterdays appointment, a lovely autumn day.