So, one advantage of living in Edinburgh is the huge offer of activities, especially cultural activities like the Festivals. Having looked at the Festival Fringe program, I decided to go to some children’s shows with the little one. As he is still just about one year, I tried to find something appropriate for his age range, and came up with “Stickman”, especially after looking through the book in the library. Which I have to add at this occasion a complaint about the totally smelly and blocked toilets, the little one started crying because of the bad stink, last Friday in the MUIRHOUSE library!

Me and our little one have started potty training. Most conventional books say potty training can only start when the baby can walk and pull up and down the trousers and put the timing at about 2-3 years of age. But our darling son just always hated wet nappies and so he started to pee whenever we changed him or put him on the changing mat. Or he cried when he wet or dirtied the nappy. First, we tried holding him on the toilet and it worked sometimes, but I was worried it would be too uncomfortable for him. The old potty was just too unstable for our 9-month-old.

Which? the consumer rights group, has an excellent baby section. Amongst the latest research are the most useful and the most useless baby products parents advocate. Amongst them baby carrier, baby sling, bumbo seat and nappy stacker. Actually, I have to say that most of the most useless items are actually quite important in our household. the nappy stacker is brilliant if you use reuseable, washable nappies to tidy them up all in one place, but I agree that if you use disposables nobody would find the time taking these out of the plastic bags and putting them into a nappy stacker just because it looks a little bit tidier.

Me and little one were off to the National Museum yesterday. The Science Festival is on at the moment, and the wonderful North Edinburgh CREATE Team organised an event there. The under 5es were able to handle some Roman exhibits, one of the artists dressed up as a Roman, and we had some song and dance activities in the Museum, too. Afterwards, the kids were making a mosaic. Our 8 months old just loved exploring the feel of materials and the lights and the architecture of the place. He handled a Roman mortar and a little cutting tool and mouthed a soft toy rat.

Our little one used his potty today for the first time! He is sooo clever and such a well-behaved boy (most of the time). He is having his “G” phase now loving the “Ging Gang Gully” song, the Googlies books and everything “good”. Also, he loves baby-led weaning, he is munching away anything he can get hold of. However, we are all having a bit of a bad cold at the moment and our little one had extremely flushed red hot cheeks and swollen eyes on Thursday and Saturday in particular we are wondering if that is his first allergy too?