Easter Camp

For Max's first Easter, the Batkin family went up to Mapleton for Easter Camp, along with about 200 other Nazarenes from the church in Logan that we attend.
Easter Camp is always heaps of fun and involves great speakers, fun games, awesome worship, delicious food and of course a fantastic opportunity to spend time talking and having fun with everyone else. Max enjoyed most of these things, although he did sleep through some of the speaker's sessions or opt for the creche class instead. Cam and I enjoyed all of those things when not looking after Max, and Cam did a wonderful job as co-leader of our team Bling Bling!

Unfortunately, Max was a little (actually more than a little) grumpy over the weekend, since he chose this Easter as the time to break out not one, not two, but three new teeth! Once I discovered the first one I was a little more understanding of his attitude and made sure to give him plenty of paracetamol and bongella which cheered him up a little bit. So although Max did his share of screaming at me and various other kind hearted people wanting to hold him for a bit, we now know that he had good reason for this. And he did have some good times as well. He had his first go on a swing, which he thoroughly enjoyed and even gave out some very cute chuckles of delight. I think he mostly enjoyed watching and playing with the other kids. He loved to clap his hands, and encouraged them to join him. He also had fun dancing on the spot while they held his hands so he could stand, and had fun crawling around after them as well.

It is becoming a bit of a tradition of Easter Camp to have a surprise wedding on Easter Sunday, since this year is now the second in a row with Rachel and Charles surprising everyone by turning up in beautiful wedding outfits on Sunday afternoon. Here's Max and I at the ceremony, with Max exploring those new teeth of his.


Overall our Easter weekend was a great one and I think we all enjoyed it. We're looking forward to going back next year when Max will be able to have even more fun, since he should be running all over the place by then and getting into even more mischief.

7 Months Old!

That's right, the 19th of Feb means that little Max is 7 months old today.

We think he is quite smart for a 7-month-old, and his weight, height and teeth place him up the top in the physical development area as well. Max's latest achievements include giving enthusiastic high-fives, which he likes to do repeatedly and accompanies with big proud grins, and clapping his hands. He doesn't always clap on cue yet, but often does it independently when there is music playing and just because he feels like it. He is getting better at both of these by the day.

He is also slowly progressing towards crawling. Since he is so good at sitting up, this is the position he feels most confident in. So if he is on the floor sitting and wants a toy just out of reach, he will lean forward onto his hands as if to crawl, but still is hesitant to take his legs out of a sitting position to get both knees onto the floor, because once he does this he can't easily sit back down again. He often looks as if he is about to take off and crawl, but then gets a bit scared and decides its safer to just sit down, and then clap his hands. He is getting closer by the day though, so I'm expecting him to figure it out before he reaches the 8 month milestone. Lets see how that prediction goes!

Standing up has always been a good way to cheer up a grumpy Max, and this is still the case. These days he doesn't feel the need to hold on with both hands for support, which leaves him one hand free to grab at all of the new things within reach while standing. He loves to investigate everything on our coffee table, especially the box of tissues, which fascinates him. He is very good at pulling out tissues. He is also using the furniture to pull himself up more and more, but is quite unsteady so I really need to watch him in case he loses his balance.

Max is also progressing well into the adventure of eating solid food. On the weekends I cook and puree a variety of fruit, vegetables and some meat, and store it in the freezer in ice cube trays. Max has 4 of these cubes of fruit for breakfast with some baby cereal mixed in, 3 cubes of mixed vegetables for lunch, and 3 cubes of meat (either chicken or beef) and mixed vegetables for dinner. Although he loves to get his fingers in the container and mush the food around his high chair tray, he also usually loves to eat it and it doesn't take long before the container is empty.

One other fantastic achievement for me is that Max now regularly sleeps through the night, from 7pm until about 6am. It's so nice to be able to rely on getting a good solid night's sleep again, and means that Max is quite happy to be awake for about 3 hours in the morning until he goes back to bed for another nap.

Happy 7-month birthday Max, and congrats on all of your achievements!

5 months old already!

Today is Max's 5 month birthday, so many happy returns of the day to young Max. We think he is doing very well for a 5 month old baby, so I thought I'd show off some of his best achievements with some photos.

Here is Max sitting up. He has always preferred sitting to lying down, and now he can do it unaided for a fairly long period of time. He is good enough at it that I am even able to leave him sitting by himself and playing with some toys while I get the camera and take numerous photos.


He can also manage to reach out, lean down, pick things up and then sit back upright while chewing on them/playing with them. What a clever boy!


Here is Max on his playmat. When we first put him on it, he would have fun by first just looking at the dangling toys, then reaching out to hit them, then grabbing them to pull down and eat as he got older and more coordinated. Now he gets the most enjoyment out of sitting upright and grabbing at the toys, and pushing the arch over completely to play with the pink tongue of the frog which you can just see in this photo.

I guess the other big thing for Max as a 5 month old is that he has two fully fledged and very sharp teeth. Getting a photo of these is always tricky so excuse the blurriness of this one and take our word for it that the teeth are very much present!


Other achievements for 5 month old Max include rolling from his tummy to his back, from his back to his side, (sometimes) being able to pick up his dummy and put it back in his mouth, reaching out and grabbing anything within reach (and some things that I didn't think were), laughing when he's having fun and sleeping through the night.

We think he is a very smart and talented boy - happy birthday Max!

Teeth already ??!?

That's right folks, Max has cracked his first tooth - and not even 4 months old yet!
It started coming through at the beginning of last week and made him a bit grumpy, but I thought there's no way he could be teething yet so I didn't even consider that it may have been the cause of his discontent. But by about Tuesday last week you could actually feel the bump and see the beginnings of it, so after that there was no denying it! Thankfully he seems to know that feeding time is just for sucking and not biting though.

Since then his tooth has continued its journey out of his gums and can be seen fairly easily these days so I took the chance to try and get a photo of it for you, which only took 8 goes so thank goodness for digital cameras.

He loves to bite any fingers that come near his mouth, but isn't too interested in actual teething rings or toys.

I think the second one is on it's way from Max's general grumpiness the last day or so, but it hasn't emerged yet. Once it's out and both teeth are of a good size we shall let you all know!