Auntie Sarah is published

Another day, another person clamouring to join the party. Well, in truth, Sarah has been a part of this online adventure from the start.

Sarah was the first person Johanna met at college and the pair have been good friends ever since. More important, Auntie Sarah has been the most prolific commentator on this blog. I took a look at the archives and she has made a total of 357 comments, each one an example of creativity and effort.

But this offering surely takes the cake. In her own words: "Further to Kirin's post on Sunday and Dave making the Editor's Cut, I can no longer carry on until I too am published, so I attach a photo of Kirin and I hanging out at my house in Australia."

We haven't been out of the country since July but Kirin is a world famous globe trotter. And anyone who has framed the birth card is high on our list of cool people.

Fond of his food

In all the excitement of giving space to Kirin's fans, I have forgotten to write anything about the star of this blog.

As you can see in these pics, we have now started to add a bit of variety to Kirin's diet and he seems to be enjoying it. The new culinary delights include: baby rice; rice pudding dessert; pureed apples, pears and banana; and, despite my visceral dislike of the stuff, yoghurt (but not Greek yoghurt which he didn't like). It's often a bit of a challenge, especially as he has a tendency to put his hand into his mouth and then rub the food on his face and in his eyes.

This last point has more to do with his latest fascination: grabbing anything (usually to put it into his mouth). Spoons are a source of endless enjoyment. When you turn on the TV or stereo he will always reach out for the remote control. Lying in the gym, he now pulls things off of their hooks. When we read to him, he likes to try and turn the pages or pick up the book to put in his mouth. And as his mother proudly pointed out, yesterday he grabbed and nibbled on his first magazine: the New Yorker - how discerning is that?

Perhaps, the most interesting manifestation of this new trick is on the computer. When Johanna is on her own, she sometimes checks her email with Kirin sitting on her lap and he seems to have tweaked that when you type the appearance of the screen changes. So, he now joins in by tapping away at the keyboard and looking to see what effect that has on the monitor. Obviously, we don't let him go crazy - looking at monitors or TVs isn't the best thing for anyone, let alone a five-and-a-half- month-old baby - but making that sort of connection is pretty advanced stuff. Or it could just be the ramblings of an overly proud father.

Brighton rocks

The week before last, I had to endure three days in Brighton at a conference for work. As Brighton is only about 30 minutes from Eastbourne, Johanna and Kirin went down to see her mum and granny and picked me up on the last day of the meeting.

The sunsets were spectacular - even David Byrne, former lead singer of the Talking Heads, thought so.

Uncle Dave makes the editor's cut

I have a confession to make. For the past few months, since we started this blog, at every opportunity and through every medium I have been telling everyone I know to check it out. Friends, family, colleagues and even an advertiser for a publication I edited last year (she was about to have a baby). So, it is gratifying that not only are people reading and commenting, but the public are clamouring to get themselves on to the site.

Dave/Shorty is the latest to be published, at least partly because of his unbridled and encouraging enthusiasm for the blog and Kirin. I first met Englishman Dave at McGill in 1994-95. He was doing a Master's degree in law and we got to know each other playing volleyball. We share the ignominious honour of not quite making the university volleyball team (clearly it was a fix). When I came to London in 1997, he was one of the few people I knew here who wasn't related to me and we have become good friends.

Dave and his lovely wife, Cath, are expecting their first child any day now (you may be noticing a trend here, but we are of that age). Good luck and welcome to cyberspace!

NB - Kirin looks a bit startled in the photo because of the flash, not because Uncle Dave is squeezing him too tightly.

Amigos

Michele and Tiziana are old volleyball friends from London (Michele used to play with us and Tiziana is his girlfriend).

Like me (Ravi) they are expats of a sort - both are from Milan but they spent many good years in London and grew to love this city. This is why I say "expats of a sort". Many non-Brits living in this cosmopolitan urbanity develop an attachment to it which means while you may not be British, you certainly feel a Londoner. And for many of our friends and family who have left in recent years – Andrew and Sally, Amir, Derek and Sandra, Sunil – the nostalgia of past lives in London runs strong.

Anyways, just two weeks before Kirin was born, Tiziana gave birth to the lovely Joel. The three of them came over for a visit a couple of weekends ago, and we spent a lot of time walking through some of the city’s great parks (Hampstead Heath and Regent’s), wandering around Highgate Cemetery to see Karl Marx's grave and spending a lot of time meeting in the living room in the middle of the night to change nappies. Two babies in one small flat does prove just a touch more noisy!

The gym sessions

When my parents came over from Canada, they brought a lot of stuff with them. One of the biggest was this device confusingly called a "gym".

For the first few months, Kirin wan't really ready to take on the challenges it presented - grabbing, pulling and looking at himself in the mirror attached to one of the arms. We can happily report that he is now enjoying it with abandon, especially chewing the arches. He loves it and it is really nice for us to see him having so much fun.

On another note, as you can see from these pics, Kirin has also developed a bit of a dribbling/drooling habit. In this, he surely takes after his father. But after being hit with one of these gourgeous smiles, it is pretty hard to worry that much about the slime on your shoulder. What a cutey!