Looking back
As Archie gets older and every day develops more, he learns new things and as his personality emerges more and more I worry that I won’t remember every exact detail of what he was like as a little tiny baby. A lot of those first weeks are an absolute blur, even though the first few months felt like an eon. Years passed and he was only 2 months old.
I can still remember how he smelt at the very beginning. The cold mornings in bed when I would feed him and cuddle him as he slept, waiting for my mum to arrive to help me start the day. I remember the alert little baby that was always looking at things, trying to focus and understand the world. He was never a unfocussed, stare-y, not-there baby. If he was upset, all you had to do was take him outside and he would calm. To get anything done when I was by myself I would have to put him in the ergo and work around him – mainly it was just so I could make myself some breakfast!
He is now 19 weeks old – that’s 4 and a bit months – and is a hilarious, lovely, charming baby. He loves to stand (with assistance) and I spent a lovely and relaxing (ha ha) lunch at Bread and Circus last week, scoffing my lunch as he stood bouncing on my lap, drooling and yelling/singing at other café patrons. When they would look at him, he’d crack a huge smile and charm them utterly.
He blows raspberries, gives cuddles, chomps on air (that’s a new one today), is obsessed with our dog Knuckles (Dutch not so much), loves his change mat (squirms and giggles when you put him down, not very helpful when it’s particularly messy), is starting to self settle to go to sleep (sorta kinda!), recognises me and SNH, is getting MUCH better in the car and even falls asleep in his car seat most days (at a few weeks old car trips became harrowing experiences as he HATED the car/seat/who knows. A change of car seat and him getting a bit bigger has seemed to sort that out), stands with assistance (and loves it), sits up with assistance, has favoured toys, is always so serious when I pull out the camera, but giggles madly when SNH plays with him (melts my heart!).
In case we forget how little he once was, my lovely friend Ruth gave a baby shower gift of a photo shoot, to help us remember.
Ruth is an amazing photographer, who actually specialises in photographing dogs with her company Ruthless Photos (dogs, children – they’re all the same right?). I first met Ruth just after we had adopted Dutch, he was a rescue and his story caught a few people’s attention including Ruth’s (he was found dumped in a park, wrapped in a towel at 5 weeks old, then rescued from the pound by the same awesome lady who rescued these puppies). I became obsessed with her amazing work and eventually commissioned her to photograph a series of dogs for a Marketing book I was art directing. Since then my dogs have modeled for her on a few occasions and I have yammered on to anyone who will listen to me about how talented she is with dogs (she really is – gosh I am doing a lot of sidebars in this post, aren’t I?).
But this time, it wasn’t our dogs in front of her lens – it was our 9 day old baby.
I am so grateful for having these shots. We were a little overwhelmed when the baby arrived and forgot to take many photos. So at least we have these amazing shots to treasure along with our memories.