The last day of our mini-holiday in Bournemouth, we went to the seaside and Nathan helpfully mixed sand into all our food.

Back home, a different plan for getting Nathan to eat begins. There's going to be much more of Nathan helping himself to his own food. The plan is to sit Nathan on the floor (vinyl) and hand him a spoon with a bowl of food. It's all washable after all, and the lad's proven that he does want to eat, just not to be fed.

We went to the Oceanarium and saw the sharks. Nathan paid a lot more attention to them then he did last year, but sheep are still more fun.

Then we we played on the beach for a while, and took the "land train" to a playground where the lad and his friends burned off some more steam. All in all, a nice day by the seaside.

We had an excellent day, and it all started with food. Nathan had a go at opening and closing the jar with his porridge in by twisting the lid for the first time. Not only did he eat lots of peerage in our hotel room, he also scoffed heartily of toast and biscuits at the breakfast table.

We went to the beach and the lad had his first go at making (or destroying) sandcastles. He loved it.

When Nathan had had enough he pointed to his buggy, was lifted into it and promptly fell asleep.

We had a spot of lunch and the lad had a go at eating mum's banana, first taking it out of her hand, and then eating some all by himself.

We embarked on the first day of a four day bowls tour of Bournemouth. Nathan obligingly slept on the drive there and was his usual charming self to all the bowlers, some of whom hadn't seen him for a whole year.

While dad bowled, mum and the lad went off the seaside. As usual Nathan was much more interested in all the other people then in the sand and sea. It was a bit of a challenge getting the lad off to sleep in a strange room but a little patience and the presence of dear little bear eventually did the trick.

Nathan was in a great mood today. He stuck close by dad, but was a lot less clingy than usual.

We went to the health visitor for another weigh in. Not good news. He's down to 8.00kg (17lb 10oz) which takes him well below the 0.4 percentile line that he's tried to hard to keep up with. Nathan's on two 8oz boxes of pediasure (enriched milk) a day. Hopefully this will make a difference. We've tried pretty much everything to make him eat more, but he just doesn't want to. We had a bit more luck today with a freshly baked loaf of bread that the lad happily picked at for some while at lunchtime, and some pureed banana that Nathan actually ate for himself, both with a spoon and with his fingers, while sitting on the kitchen floor. It took a lot of patience and encouragement, but it's possible that the lad actually enjoyed it.

The lad was crawling about when dad, who was kneeling on the floor, looked backwards and upside-down at him through his legs. Nathan took the opportunity to crawl through dad's legs. There's an advantage to being that small.

We went to the doctor to get a repeat prescription for Pediasure and Oilatum. Nathan danced along as the prescriptions were printed out. The doctor said he had rhythm.

In the afternoon we went to the Shire Horse Centre between Reading and Maidenhead. It's a small place, but there are lots of large friendly horses, and some goats and sheep as well. The lad and his friends enjoyed it.

A good day today. We went house hunting with uncle Adrian, who is now Nathan's bestest friend.

A look inside Nathan's mouth reveal an awful lot of molars peeping through. None have fully emerged yet. This must explain some of the lad's recent grumpiness.

If you ask to see inside Nathan's mouth, he'll oblige, but then he'll snap his mouth again with a giggle. He's getting dad's sense of humour.