Happy FIRST, my second...

And so she is ONE.

It's Baby T's birthday today and while it's been lovely to see her delight in her presents (though mostly the stickytape!) I can't shake this slight feeling of melancholy - because that's my baby (my last baby) getting all big!

Sure, she's still teeny. She's only been crawling a couple of weeks, but I guess her mobility combined with her starting family day care is making me nostalgic for the bub that was.

And what a bub! She was a really delightful newborn (as they all are). Here she is, fresh and new. And with her very, very tired dad (a labour followed by a caesar followed by a baby coughing and spluttering up amniotic fluid all through her first night will do that to you).





Here are some more pictorial firsts: first bath in the hospital (still mad about baths) and first time she met her adoring brother.




This is the day she came home with us. Those first couple of weeks are a little hazy, I regret not taking a bit more video footage of her smallness so I can recall it more easily. Ah well. The cluster feeding of those early days still makes me shudder. So, so hard. But at 7 weeks she surprised us by sleeping a couple of 10pm to 5ams.



And yet more snuggles from her brother. Gosh, I can't believe how much those two love each other. Just the other day he asked me if he could learn to change her nappy - SURE! So he has mastered the wee-only ones. Suits me...



Early smiles - she's about 2 months here:



And this is her recently, on her first go down the slippery dip with her brother (is that fear or fun on her face?!!). And in the backyard with me. Out of about 10 shots this is the nearest she got to co-operating. Note to self: never work with children or animals!




This girl, she makes my heart burst every day.

Happy birthday, my funny, noisy, delightful little sweetie.

In the back seat

My poor blog. It has really taken a back seat in the past couple of weeks. That's because there's been plenty going on:

* I am headed back into the office - from next week. I seriously cannot wait. It's at my old place of employment, two days a week. It takes the pressure off me in terms of freelancing. It's nice to have a regular amount of income, even if it's not much!

* T has started family day care. I lucked out and got what was seemingly the only place in the entire inner-west. And it happens to be very close to our house and where E goes to preschool. Hooray!

* I have just handed in a whopping great load of freelance work - thank goodness I am through it all!

* The little lady turns ONE tomorrow. Am not ready for that! I've been feeling all nostalgic and wistful ...'but she's my BABY!'

* We had a prang last week - totally my fault. I didn't look left turning into a one-way lane. Our car was only a little dinged, the other was a bit of a mess. Eeek. Frankly I'm amazed it hasn't happened sooner given how little sleep I have been driving on of late. This year marks 20 years of driving for me and it's my first insurance claim. C'est la vie...

* Speaking of the car, as we pulled into our driveway yesterday I turned around to find my two holding hands in the back seat and I was quick enough to snap this pic with my phone. Fairly melted my heart, I tell you.

Look who's on the move

Yes, at 11.5 months the Young Lady has mastered the art of crawling. She's only really been doing it for 3 days, so she's not terribly adventurous ... yet. Mind you, if escapades such as this one from earlier in the week are going to become more frequent that's probably a good thing.

Saturday night catch-up

Here I am, sitting at my computer on a Saturday night. I should be writing about freezers and fridges, or showerheads, or restaurants serving organic food, because once again I've gone a bit mad and overloaded my plate with freelance work. In which to do in the baby's nap times (hence the writing on a Sat night). Sigh. On the one hand it's lovely to be able to work from home, on the other it does seep the rest of my life...

In other words, it's been a busy couple of weeks. What's been happening? Well, we had some computer *issues*. Let's just say that Shaun, in endeavouring to fix something really stuffed up. We couldn't get the computer to boot up. Problematic. So we were a week or more without a computer, which I have to say was lovely (though I would be less busy had I had an extra week to tackle all this work...). In a extremely fortunate (?) piece of timing, the kids and I all got a BAD cold at the time when the computer was being revived, so I wouldn't have been terribly productive anyway.

Then the computer got fixed ... but we blew our monthly broadband allowance downloading a new operating system. Looking forward to that bill.

The boy turned 5, which was extremely exciting for him. He's been itching to be 'big'. Since his fifth birthday he's been having a few existential crises, asking me "Mum, are you sure I'm five?" Here he is with his birthday present, a Toy Story 3 scooter. And he got a Buzz Lightyear. Oh and look, he chose a Jessie doll with the money his aunt in Queensland sent him. Anyone noticing a theme here?...





To celebrate his birthday we went for a trip to a little zoo/wildlife park outside Sydney. It really is fabulous there. And the big 5yo got to pat a python. Rather him than me.



His birthday cake was not fancy but it was fun, in that he got to decorate it all himself. Can you tell?!



And anyway, she liked it...



Ah yes, she who, at 11 months, will not crawl. I was subject to some tutting from an early childhood nurse a week or two ago for the fact she was not crawling yet. She gave me "homework" to do (needless to say I've not done it). I suspect T will be off soon though. I mean, check the moves...





And then? Look out world, here comes Baby T.

Badge

Last night I was busily trying to cook dinner while feeding Baby Banshee her evening meal. E had the good sense to stay out of the kitchen. He asked me how to spell 'hair' and then came into the kitchen wearing this. A badge he'd made.




The pics are dodgy, but you might just be able to read that it says 'no hair pooling'. Translation: 'no hair pulling'



If only the little hair puller could read...

Classic.

Freedoms

I love how, after you have a baby, the return of freedoms - no matter how tiny - just feels sensational. The first time you duck out to the shops leaving a sleeping newborn at home feels freeing, but odd. Like the sky is sitting too low or something. It is at once weird and amazing.

Then there's the first time you leave your baby to go out together as adults and it's like - wow - yeah ... I remember how good this is.

Today we experienced another regaining of a small liberty. E went over to his little friend's house to play for most of the day and Shaun and I took the Young Lady on the back of my bike. We rode and rode, then stopped to have lunch at a lovely cafe.

Freeing? You betcha.

10 months

Our beautiful little girl ticked over the 10 months mark today. What's she up to? Well, not crawling ... but certainly thinking about it. This little bub likes to streeeetch out and reach and shuffle and faceplant. So the crawling may come quite soon (oh lordy, am not ready for all the 'eyes in back of head' that inevitably comes with crawling/moving).

In the past week or so she has begun to 'dance' - if you can call it that. And, truly, I cannot imagine anything cuter. So naturally E loves to play his CDs for her ALL the time, we have pulled all his old musical toys up from the garage, we sing to her. The funniest thing has to be when she 'dances' (more a head jiggle, arm swing kind of thing really) to me rubbing hand cream into my hands (oh, my poor wintry housewife hands!).



T loves to copy our sounds now and - finally - she's mastering 'Mama'. About time. I have been drilling it into her since she began saying 'Dada', which was, what, months ago.



Another lovely development of late is that E can play with her a little more. The other day I bought a packet of balloons. Wow. The playing together! The peace to make dinner! A revelation indeed...!

Still not a scrap of hair. And still will not deign to take a bottle. At all. Believe me, we keep trying (various brands and styles) and she keeps scrunching up her little face in distaste (any ideas??).

10 months, here we are...