Felix, although still technically a baby is now more of a little boy. He has a personality, desires, needs wants and is more than just a reactive system. Before now you put milk in, he processed it into something ungodly which you collected in a soft hopper mechanism attached to his rump. He's just passed 6 months old now, so it's a good time for an update.
Survivability
Six months is a watershed. Up to six months the government will have you believe that the baby's life rides on a knife edge. A myriad of near death circumstances can occur - most of them bundled together in the terrifying monika of cot death. Cot death contains broad options for infant death: from just forgetting how to breathe to choking on one's own blankie. After 6 months, a baby is suitably robust such that cot death is improbable. So hurrah, his survivability rate has just improved immeasurably.
Measurements
[Rob to insert measurements here tonight]
Felix is a big baby. When Kate meets those mums at her 'NCT' group (which is a gorup of people we met when learning about pregnancy and birth before the event) Felix is a fair bit larger than the others. This is partly because he's a boy and the other ladies all have girls (good odds there, son) but also he's just big. Baby clothes are classified by age and/or weigh. You get newborn, 0-3 months, 3-6 months, 6-9 months, 6-12 months (bit of an overlap) and 12-18. He's already outgrowing 6-9 months. Interestingly, his enormous head hasn't grown at the rate of the rest of this body, so hats still fit.
Inputs and Outputs
We're lucky that Felix is an easy baby to feed. As long as you have the consistency (think yoghurt), he'll woof down just about anything. Kate and I always like to taste the baby food before giving it to him (mostly out of interest) and some of it is utter filth. I wouldn't use it as a skin rub. His favourite food is the sweet (but very nice) apple and strawberry puree that comes in a space-food packet. He also quite likes sweet potato that we cut with full fat milk. For breakfast he'll have banana, baby rice and milk. All this and the usual feed from 'the self-propelling milk bar'.
His eating technique is worth noting. You fill have the red rubberised baby spoon with nosh and then steer it towards his gaping gob. As you approach, both sticky hands will try to snap onto the spoon. With luck you can get the spoon in and out before he manages it. If you fail, the spoon becomes a rubber paint brush with an edible paint that when dry is like concrete. Especially banana. Dried banana doesn't come off skin. It's important to give him the spoon every few mouthfuls so he can learn what to do with it.
Nappies still range from non-event urine affairs to the epic toxic nightmares whose smell clings to your nasal hair for hours. Those nappies, wrapped in a plastic bag (like the dog poo bags) don't go into the holding bin in his room, they go straight in the dustbin. He'll go to sleep on a urine nappy but not a monster-nightmare. You have to change those. Pray you're not doing it at 2am.
Sleep
We've tried - with considerable success - something called Controlled Crying. This is a process where the baby needs to put themselves to sleep without relying on you. You have an evening routine, the end of which you put him in his cot and leave him. If he mumbles a bit or goes off to sleep, great! If he's belting one out, you let him do so for 2 minutes and then go and sit with him for 2 minutes. Even if he's still crying, you leave. You leave him for 5 minutes. Then go back for 2. Then 7 minutes, 10 minutes, 15 and 20. When sitting with him, you're only allowed to rub his tummy or hair and say 'shhhh', no talking and definitely no picking him up.
To start with Felix took to this like a duck to hoi sin. Once he realised what was going on, he screamed and screamed. However, we never really got to the 15 minute mark. This works really well for putting Felix to bed but after that, he still wakes up in the night. Some nights are better than others but 5 hours broken into 2/3 chunks is a pretty good night.
A mirror
It's natural to harbour some doubt about the legitimacy of any child but there is no doubt that Felix is mine. When he's chuckling at you, it's very strange. It's like having a mini-me chuckling back at me. I can't really describe that in any other way but it is really, really strange. Kate says that the chuckling is one thing but also the intent stare of concentration is very much like me too. The look of concentration he wears when you're doing something new or not-funny-but-involved like emptying the dish washer.
Fun?
A perspective shift it not a surprising biproduct of becoming a father. But is it fun? Like a Pete based argument, everything has shifted. I've never really needed a meaning to my life but I've been given one now and it feels like what I had before was a little thin. This is not a mirror onto anyone else, I'm not pointing any fingers, this is utterly personal to me. If you think this might apply to you then that is pure co-incidence.
Before Felix splatted messily into this world, I've selfishly plodded through doing the things I've wanted to do. I took jobs that interested me (or paid well), played games I found fun and spent time with like minded people. The more effort I put into life, the more I got out of it but it was all essentially for me and for fun. Supporting Kate through her degrees was all really about me wanting her to be happy. It's what I wanted. It was enjoyable. It was fun.
Like the end of a Fishcon, life has no winner. Each of us have fun and that's what it's all about. However, it doesn't neccessarily leave you with a proud glow of something of meaning achieved. It's time well spent but it only leave you yearning for more. My PhD is the same. Beyond correcting people for calling me Mister, I don't think I see any benefit now and when I hit 70, it'll mean less than nothing. My contribution is slight. Icar, Chom Isis and cadet stuff is all the same. I'll complete V4 but will it get played by anyone? Perhaps about 6 if I'm lucky. This software I'm writing, it will be out of date by 2012 and probably ripped out and replaced. It will have made some money but won't mean anything. Upon my death bed, all I will have to show for my life is my state. Money, health, creativity, energy, ideas and relationships - all I hold dear will cease with me. As my state resets to 0, all that will remain on the planet will be that which I discarded and a ghost of that which I consumed.
Now I have a purpose. It doesn't matter what I do with my life, I will end it knowing that I've brought someone into the world and (hopefully) equipped them with the facets that will help them survive in the world. That is a legacy worth something to me. That will last. I know I'll be proud of Felix at the age of 70 as I am now. He makes it all worth it. It can be a chore. My god, can it be a chore. There is joy and some fun but not bucket loads of it. What it does feel like that I have a reason why I'm doing everything I do. And that is really, very weird.