Psycho buildings and soft shell crabs

Saturday began with butter croissants and Monmouth coffee; feeding and playing with Little Planet; and a stroll through the park. Lunch was leftover potato salad that M had made to accompany Friday night's dinner of veal snitchel. And then I headed, alone, into town.

I viewed the disappointingly mediocre Psycho Buildings at the Hayward Gallery; picked up Japan's answer to Martha Stewart - haru-mi magazine from JP Books in the basement of Mitsukoshi off Piccadilly; replenished my stock of Frederic Fekkai shampoo and conditioner from Space NK in Soho; bought slippers, cucumber hand soap and frosted salad bowls from Muji; watched the disappointingly mediocre The X-Files: I Want To Believe movie at the Apollo; bought daikon, miso, chilli paste and wasabi from Arigato in Soho; was tempted by the dark chocolate with mint and dark chocolate with sesame seeds at Yauatcha; and snacked on sushi, tofu and sesame spinach at Kintaro off Chinatown.

Back at home, M made tempura (above) with soft shell crabs, prawns, aubergines and sweet potato, and served them with shredded daikon, cold soba noodles tossed with black and white sesame seeds, and umeboshi plums. Needless to say, it was delicious.

Sunday was much like any other: a lot of laundry - we do loads now we have a baby; menu planning for the week ahead (such as pumpkin curry and huevos rancheros) and buying the necessary provisions; waiting for and then sorting through our Ocado delivery; feeding, burping, changing, playing with and doing crazy dancing in front of a very bemused Little Planet; sorting through all our books and DVDs as we have so many now that I am stacking books on the floor (I must admit, the piles of books look quite attractive and usefully put to use as makeshift occasional tables); reading magazines (such as Dwell, Living ETC, Real Simple, US Weekly and The Economist) and the FT. For dinner, M made chicken filo cigars with sultanas and pine nuts (below) from Claudia Roden's Jewish cookbook and served it with char-grilled brocolli with toasted almonds and red chillies from the Ottelenghi cookbook. Dessert was fresh pineapple and pomegranate with freshly ground black pepper, in front of the excellent series 1 of Weeds on DVD.

Also this weekend, Little Planet reached 9 weeks. At two months, Little Planet is now...

• Tossing her body from one side to the other whilst on her back
• Punching the air with her fists and feet vigorously
• Holding her head up unsupported whilst we hold her in a sitting position (we no longer have to support her head whilst we hold or lift her)
• Following people avidly around the room with her head and eyes
• Pushing herself backwards on her back and forwards on her tummy
• Cooing, gurling and babbling to her toys and to us
• Spending more time awake - usually in the mornings
• Sleeping in longer chunks at night
• Talking and sometimes crying or shouting out in her sleep - perhaps having good and bad dreams
• Opening her hands out and spreading her fingers
• Watching and listening to us intently as we chat with her, sing to her or read her a story
• Smiling
• Showing preference for bright colours over black and white
• Looking at the pictures in books when I read from them
• Beginning to drool (we keep her bib on alot now)
• Sucking on her hands more and rubbing her nose and eyes as if she has just discovered they exist
• Weighing in at 11lbs or 5kg - at the 50th percentile