7 months old

Charlie will be 7 months old tomorrow. Pictures above were taken yesterday.

This week Charlie has progressed significantly. He can:

• stand quite well when I am holding on to his hands
• move around the bed much better than he could last week
• wave goodbye

It has been a very rewarding week for Hien and I seeing his excellent progress. Think his 7 month routine hospital visit is scheduled for the 5th of August.

Certainly not a crawler

Charlie is progressing well, however his crawling ability is not. When Charlie is on his front and he wants to go forwards he raises his bottom and tries to move like a snail. Unfortunately he more than often goes backwards rather than forwards.

During his 6:30am push around the block this morning Charlie sat up and started looking around much more than usual. I take Charlie for these walks nearly every morning and he invariably sees other children, who are no bigger than him, but are running around. I doubt that he realises these kids are 3 times as old as him. I believe that seeing this is a great motivator for him to get mobile as soon as possible.

Charlie seems ahead of his age in his standing ability and when being placed down he always tries to stand up rather than sit down. He can stand up if, being held on to, but after 30 seconds or so his legs usually give way.

Charlie sets a new PB

Charlie is becoming better at sitting unsupported. Yesterday he set a new personal best time of 29 seconds before he fell over. If Charlie is falling to the left or the right he can put his hands down to support himself and this usually works to prevent his demise. However, falling forwards is a bit more of an issue for him and if he is gravitating backwards his fall is quick. He is always sitting on the bed with pillows all around him so falling over isn't much of an issue.

One of Charlie's bottom teeth has emerged and it looks as if another 4 are coming soon.

Charlie gets high

Charlie decided it was high time he had his own chair so at the weekend we bought him a highchair. Charlie was delighted with his own chair and is now making a list of things that he requires to be purchased for him.

Listening to Charlie

Not sure of the best way to do this, but suggest that if you can be bothered to follow all the instructions below it may be best to print the instructions before starting. You will need to start by downloading suitable software to allow you to play the Charlie's sound clip. If you don't already have suitable software for this (I didn't have it) I suggest you click this link:

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

Put in your email address and press "Free Download Now" Then press "save" and press "save" again. Then wait about 12 minutes, depending on Internet speed, for this software to download. Then press "run" and "run" again, then "finish" Once the above has been downloaded you should be able to listen to most sound clips and watch most video clips and you won't have to go through the above process again.

Charlie's sound clip:

Then click on this link:http://widgets.movedigital.com/127280

then download-save-save-open folder-left click on Ghi Am...-select the programme from a list-OK-then click on "Quick Time Player"-OK-left click on play button- listen to Charlie

Make sure you speakers are turned on and the volume is up.

Good luck with trying to get the above to work.

Progress

The above picture was taken earlier today. It is just about the first picture we have of Charlie smiling. When we take a picture of him using our camera a red light comes on just before the picture is taken of Charlie and this distracts him. Hence no smile. The above picture was taken with a telephone camera with no red light, but obviously lower picture quality.

Charlie can now turn from his front to his back as well as vice versa so now we have to be careful as this means he can roll. His legs are now becoming noticably stronger and he can now give his Mum a hefty kick.

He is progressing very well.

6 month check up

A few days ago Charlie was off to the FV hospital again for his 6 month check up. He is getting used to this by now so he wasn't fazed by it at all.

His stats are:

Length: 68.5 cm's
Weight 8.6 kg.s

You can see from this chart that 68.5cm's in length is somewhere between the 50th and 85th percentile: http://www.who.int/childgrowth/standards/cht_lfa_boys_p_0_6.pdf

His weight is also somewhere between the 50th and 85th percentile: http://www.who.int/childgrowth/standards/cht_wfa_boys_p_0_6.pdf

Charlie is in excellent health and hasn't had a day's sickness since he first left the hospital.