New things Leon is doing

I just thought I'd write down some of the unique and interesting things Leon is doing lately. He likes patting/slapping things very hard; my back as I carry him upstairs, the cot mattress, my face. He's found a way of travelling; on his back, he bananas which takes him headwards forwards. He can stand for prolonged periods of time holding my hand and today he stood in front of the Winnie the Pooh tree and twiddled the stuff on the top for a good 10 minutes or so.

Every day he seems stronger, he can hold his own weight with his arms bent if I pull him up by his hands (he grips my thumb as I have his forearms). He's really into chewing paper and card preferably and likes books (they taste nice!).

He can completely roll over and back and is capable of being found anywhere in his cot facing any direction at any one time! He can eat his feet, even with a real nappy on (before only naked). He eats fish now, mackerel and tuna so far.

We went to a talk up at the hospital on babies teeth done by a dental nurse. She showed us lots of horrific pictures of rotting kiddie teeth down to allowing kids to drink pure juice from a magic cup, the worst was frightening and was a kid who had been given a bottle of juice or milk to fall asleep with every night until she was 4 when she literally had abscesses in her back teeth, it was horrible, her top row were black stumps and the gums were all bowed up like a shark. Apparently she's 15 now and had to have all her teeth out and because the big teeth are guided by the the baby teeth they came out all higglypiggly so she needed loads of orthodontic work.

Points of note were, never use a magic cup with anything other than water. Give them only diluted juices and preferably from a doidy cup, which we have. When they start to get teeth, brush 2 x a day for 2 mins (that will be a challenge) and you don't need special baby toothpaste - use whatever you use so long as it's not whitening - we use Paradontax which is dutch, tastes funny as it isn't made of sweeteners like the usual suspects here but it's supposed to be good for gum health as well as a fluoride toothpaste. We shall see what he makes of it.

The biggest surprise was that mouth wash can give you cancer! apparently it kills all the good bacteria in your mouth if you use it every day leaving you vulnerable to nasties in your mouth. Apparently mouth cancer has sky rocketed with the use of mouth wash. Especially, chillingly in children.