Cal is 4 and a Half Months!

Cal, June 2012

Turning the charm on

Cal is 18 weeks, or four and a half months old today and after the last post which was a bit me, me, me, I thought I'd give the little dude some air-time. At his last weigh-in he clocked 6 and a half kgs and was 62cms long, which confirms our Dutch ultrasound technician's prediction at 20 weeks that we have a "very average child!" That's average by Dutch standards, so he's probably a heavy-weight giant by Australian standards. On more than one occasion this has been confirmed by observant children. "Oh my gosh, look how chubby this baby is!" remarked a little girl to her friend in the Vondelpark recently. But as parents of a premmie baby who was born weighing a tiny 2.3kgs, we're pretty proud of the fact that he's tripled his birthweight solely on breast milk since he was born even if it means he still feeds about every 2 hours during the day. He's also getting much sturdier and stronger and easier to hold on one hip as I dash abut the house. David tried the hip-hold the other day to no avail, so he rides high up over the shoulder on Dad, which he loves.


Cal sleeps mostly at night. He has an early morning and late afternoon nap of about an hour each. But bedtime is around 6.30pm and he usually goes down happily. He still sleeps in his 'Love To Dream' swaddle-sack, THE one baby piece of baby gear I think everyone should own. Wearing it, he looks a little bit like a snow angel in a sock and the moment we put his hands into it and zip it up it has a remarkably Pavlovian effect on him - his eyelids sink and his hands come up to hold his dummy in place. He usually still gets up for a feed at 2am, but if it's been a really exciting day he'll sleep all the way through till 5 or 6. Either way I don't mind. We get buckets of sleep around here. He has also started to play in his crib when he wakes up instead of crying out immediately to be picked up. Often David, who always gets him up in the morning, will find him kicking away and grinning goofily.


The kid is easy to get a smile out of. He especially loves it when you get right up close to his face and even better if you're Dad. He's starting to use his voice in clever ways, discovering that loud squeals are excellent for summoning the big people into his bedroom to pick him up. His sore gums seem to hurt him most around lunchtime and if there's going to be "waterworks" as my dad used to call our crying, this is when it happens. Speaking of my dad, I can't wait to introduce Cal to him and my Australian friends who all fly in for the wedding within a few weeks.