Daisy is 8 months old now, and she is coming on a treat.

We are sitting up really well, and we don’t fall over even when reaching over quite far (most falls come from trying to look behind ourself s for mummy or daddy). When we are lying down, we are investigating ways in which we could get back up, the most common (but least successful) is just trying to sit straight back up, but you need quite strong stomach muscles for that one. Sometimes we roll over and try to see what we can do with our legs, it’s all a bit strange at the moment, and stretching one leg out while we try to tuck the other one underneath does sometime result in us rolling back onto our front.

‘dadadada’ is still our favourite ‘word’, I’m not convinced we know its a word yet, but on a few occasions it has been used just as ‘dada’ and not in the middle of a load of other dada’s, particularly in the morning when daddy comes in to get us out of bed.

It’s always interesting to go in to get Daisy up in the morning, you can never tell at what angle she will be at in the cot, this weekend Ruth found her on her front, which is a first. While yesterday, I found her completely rotated, with the covers half over her face, and her feet touching the top of the cot (think she was playing boo).

Samson and Tim (the cats) have gotten a lot more careful around Daisy, since she found her grip, both of them have shown us just how flexible cat skin is when you pull it, Daisy for her part thinks they are fantastic, and they may even get bigger smiles that mummy or daddy, when they come into the room.

Tea times have become much much easier since we got the high chair. Daisy now sits at the table, and if we are really on the case she has her tea at the same time as us (although this often means that one of us, then has to eat cold/soggy tea after we’ve fed Daisy). People keep saying I’m a strict dad, because I remove all the toy’s at meal times. I just think it saves on all the washing of dolls covered in porridge.

We’re very proud of our toy play: A couple of times while lying down Daisy has been known to reach for toys above her head without even looking, and yesterday while playing with our blocks (we like our blocks) we delicately dismantled the tower until we got to the block we wanted, as opposed to just knocking them all down and picking it up. Knocking things together is quite a good game at the moment, you take two toys (or one toy and the table) and you bang them together to see what noise you get, this can amuse us for ages (which as we all know is great).

Daisy can be quite a hand full at times, but she is coming on a treat now. It’s really amazing to watch her learn a new thing right in front of you. She can start out not knowing what something is, and within 5 minutes she will have worked out what to do, and weather or not it’s funny.

Things that are funny: Sneezing, Samson and Tim, Daddy’s Hiccups
Things that are scary: Uncle John watching football, Loud Things (see Uncle John) and Daddy yawning (see loud things).

There is a ‘debate’ raging in the letters page of the Daily Telegraph, laying blame for societies failings on the humble push chair.

Sir - There is a theory that the quality of a baby’s exchange with its parents during the first 18 months of life lays the foundations for emotional engagement and entry into the realm of communication and culture (Letters, May 28, 30). Perhaps the widespread use of pushchairs in which infants face an indifferent and sometimes frightening outside world full of noise, huge wheels, marching adult legs and swinging bags, often viewed through eyes screwed up in the sun, causes some permanent damage to their psyche that shows up when they grow older.

As you may or may not remember, we spent ages looking for our pram, and got the super-mega Mamas and Papas Revisable one, which means we can choose which way Daisy faces. We have her facing us almost all the time, except for when she is in a particular difficult mood and won’t sleep while she can see us (this has happened about twice in total). Not to blow our own trumpets to soon, but aren’t we fab!

Daisy is becoming much better at sitting up now; we still have all the cushions, because you can guarantee, if we removed them, then Daisy would bang her head.

It was the first real hot day of the summer yesterday, so this is Daisy trying out her summer shorts for the first time, and looking terribly grown up in them too.

Yesterday, was definitely the day, for all the Liverpool fans to reach into the back of the cupboard and pull out the nearest red thing they had to a Liverpool top. But today, I’ve seen more Everton shirts, the only difference is, every one of them was on a child under the age of 3.

Now I don’t quite know which way their parents where going, either they where teaching there children the harsh realities of supporting a football team, or they wanted to show they where proud of there team, but knew if they wore their own shirt in town today, they would just get loads of grief.

I know this could get annoying, but gosh it’s just to hot to think..

Pete Tong: it’s still around

often abbreviated to “it’s all gone Pete”, and no doubt confusing many of our friends, there is now at least a movie, that proves we don’t talk complete drivel

Arnold Schwarzenegger digs his own hole

Arny keen to get some publicity for his pot hole fixing initiative, got some Council workers to dig him his own personal pot hole, so when the press arrived he could fill it in again

[Population of Liverpool : 439,473] [People on Streets of Liverpool : 1 Million],

and we stayed at home, (well it was only Liverpool)

The Press has stopped turning up the West Wing Events

Apparently, George Bush will only answer around four questions, and they go to the big press, so everyone else, just doesn’t turn up, these means the White House is using Interns to fill the seats.

Voyager 1, has left the solar system

that fact that it’s taken this long puts all those star wars and star trek fantasies into perspective (I know they have ‘warp’ drive, but the distances are still huge)

Microsoft have produced some documentation to ‘clue’ people up on IT Security

Quite informative, it’s aimed at people who are Semi IT literate, I think it’s a little long from most people, but still it does explain some key terms to people such as LAN, Phishing, Spam, and Social Engineering