Standing

Happy Birthday Éowyn

Tuesday 20th October 2009Friday 11th May 2012Baggie

And so the year has turned full circle. Yes, as you may have guessed from the title of this update our first born is now a year old. She reached this milestone on Saturday (officially at 04:01), although in fairness to her it has just passed her by. However as proud parents we wanted to celebrate this achievement and so hosted (at Lucinda’s parents house) a birthday party for her little friends and our immediate family.

The last few weeks have been a little stressful for not only have we been preparing for the party but gearing up for Lucinda’s return to work. The 21st marks the occasion of a return to the adult world after nearly 14 months in the land of nappies and coffee mornings and understandably Lucinda is not looking forward to it. Hence I have taken holiday from my job so that I can look after Éowyn while Lucinda is at work. Éowyn has only spent a couple of hours alone with Jo (our child-minder) and so it seemed unfair both to Jo and to Éowyn to then leave her for two shifts. However, in order to build a relationship between Jo and Éowyn I will be taking her there for one of the afternoons. This gives us all a safety net and Lucinda piece of mind to just concentrate on getting up to speed with work.

Éowyn’s party was good fun, if hard work, especially since there was about half a dozen other one-year-olds and about the same of older children. Éowyn appeared to revel in the fact that she was centre of attention and on a number of occasions went up to other children and either hugged them or stroked their hair saying ‘Aaarrrhhhhh’. She was nonplussed about her presents, they just didn’t interest her, however the Butterscotch Angel Delight was another matter. It was a big hit with all the children, and a number of the adults too!

We have to say a big thank you to Lucinda’s parents for letting us host the party at their home and especially to Lucinda’s mum and Cristina for helping set everything up for the party. A special thanks to Éowyn’s cousins Lauren and Maddie too, then were a big help making sure that everything was just right for all her guests.

Éowyn was on such good behaviour and really enjoyed herself, probably because she was surrounded by all the people she loves including her Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz who came all the way down from West Bromwich. Another visitor that popped over to wish Éowyn a happy birthday was a Brown Shrike. Usually found in India and South East Asia it is a very rare migrant bird to these shores (to Europe in general) but this one decided to take up residence at the northern end of Staines Moor for the week of her birthday, and so did a horde of twitchers looking for a glimpse of it. Stanwell Moor has become a car park and although I can appreciate the excitement it becomes more than slightly frustrating when driveways and entrances to private roads are blocked by parked cars.

In other news Éowyn’s walking is coming along nicely and has recently beaten her personal best of 7 steps and now stands at, unlucky for some, 13. she now has 6 teeth and her favourite things are mobile phones, car keys, wallets (or purses) and knocking things down. Make of that what you will.

I will leave you now to the photos but not before I wish my daughter a very

Happy Birthday

Peace and love Baggie!

Party time!

For you

Aaaarrrrhhhh

My first pressie

What can it be?

Not bovvered!

I have been mostly eating yoghurt

This beard real, Dad?

I’ll have this

Auntie Liz’s present

‘Just got up’ look!

Aaaarrrrhhhh!

Just walking with my Nanny Fran

Looking Cute?

Have they all gone yet?

Must try harder

Monday 5th October 2009Friday 11th May 2012Baggie

I had always said that if I was going to start this website/ blog then I would keep it updated regularly. However I feel that I am not living up to that promise at the moment. So, I will apologise to all that regularly read this in an effort to keep up to date with Éowyn’s progress and obviously to enjoy the latest photos. I must try harder!

Thursday brought the year round to October, the month of Éowyn’s birth. This time last year, we were poised on the edge of parenthood not knowing what the future held, or indeed when the momentous day would occur. Éowyn was due on the 5th but as per ‘all good things’ she made us wait, but I will leave the reflections for another post.

Life has settled down into its usual pattern of my shift pattern after the excitement of the summer and so I have been able to enjoy being at home a little more. However, we never seem to rest on our laurels and try to fit things in on my days off and last weekend was no exception to that.

Last Friday we managed a second trip of the year to the cinema due to the generosity of Lucinda’s brother (Mike) and his baby-sitting skills. I am sure that Éowyn was aware that we wanted to go out for it took her a long time to settle herself to sleep. Nevertheless she dropped off and we managed to make it in time for the film we were hoping to see (District 9). This is by far the least number of cinema trips I have made in a year for more that 20 years. I have even been known to see more than two in a day on a number of occasions. We will be fitting at least one more trip in before the turn of the year since Lucinda is eager to see New Moon, the second of the Twilight series after being hooked on the books and I thought I was the geek of the family!

The next day we spent ambling about the home, taking it easy and just playing with Éowyn for we were heading down to Liphook in Hampshire for the evening. Hollycombe is a working steam museum and every September/ October they open into the evening (10pm) so that one can experience the steam fair at night. The greater Cathrall clan headed down there early and we cooked up a barbeque in the car park before heading in as the sun went down. The rides are in remarkable order considering they a close to 100 years old and it is interesting to imagine the wonder the Edwardians must have felt at these rides when they first saw them. It was also interesting to see how much the children were enjoying it and getting the thrills out of the rides even though they are veterans of Thorpe Park et al. It was great fun and Éowyn behaved impeccably, considering it was totally against her routine. We even took her on the carousel and she loved it, sitting there with a big grin on her face. At her usual time she fell asleep in her pushchair and hardly stirred despite the noise and lights of the fairground.

Sunday was a trip to Nanny Fran’s in West Bromwich. It was my sister Elizabeth’s birthday and so it was a good excuse to pay a visit. Also with Éowyn’s birthday around the corner it meant that Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz could take Éowyn and Lucinda around Merry Hill and choose a present for her. I managed to wheedle out of traipsing around the shops by arranging to meet up with my mate Bobby and we sat in the pub putting the world to rights. I think that was a fair compromise. Again Éowyn was in a very cheery mood, despite the previous night’s excitement and entertained her Nanny and Auntie for the best part of the day. It always seems too short when we zoom up to the Black Country for a day but it we wnot be long before Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz will see her again.

This week it was Lucinda’s turn to entertain the NCT girls for their coffee morning and I was off, which is a rare occurance. It was really interesting to see how much Éowyn enjoyed people she knew coming round, and there was a definite delight on her face when her little friends turned up. It was also quite amusing when she went up to Blake and gave him a hug. He just turned to his mum and burst out crying. I don’t think that Éowyn understood why he was so upset and looked at him as if to say, ‘I’m only giving you a hug!’

Before I leave you for this update one little thing that Éowyn has started to do this week is very touching and that is to string words together. The first was on Tuesday of last week when she said ‘Bye Daddy’ as I left for work. Then on Friday when I was at work, she picked up her toy phone, not once but twice, and said ‘Hello Daddy’. Okay, maybe not the oration skills of Winston Churchill or Abraham Lincoln but just as important to me.

Enjoy the photos…

Baggie!

Aaaahhhh!

They went that way!

I’m not doin’ anyfink!

Hollycombe Steam Museum

Me, Daddy and Nanny

On the Carousel

Cup o’ Char

Ooo makes a lovely brew?

Cath Kidston?

Hello Daddy

Coming through

Peep-Po

http://www.hollycombe.co.uk/

A week off work

Monday 14th September 2009Baggie

As the title suggests I have taken this past week off from work. I had been working so hard in August that I barely saw anyone outside of mediahouse including my wife and child and it was time to right that injustice. It has been a fabulous week spending time with the family and I have loved every moment of it but it has flown by too quickly but at least this site gives me an opportunity to ponder what we did and share it with you. It seems that not only has the week vanished before our eyes but another month has flown by too, or indeed, should I say a year has flown by. It is now September and Lucinda has now been on maternity leave for a whole year, although that will soon be at an end (see later for details).

We had had many thoughts on what to do with this week. Nip down to Devon, travel up to the Lake District but it all involved money and far too long in the car, which kind of defeated the object of a relaxing week for me and time to catch up with the family. It is hard to play with your daughter when you are driving down a motorway and it is difficult to catch up with your wife when you are arguing over directions. So we decided that we would stay at home and take things nice and easy.

That was exactly what we did on Monday, however Tuesday promised to be one of the hottest days of the year (27°C) and so we decided to head down to Brighton for the day. Éowyn loves the sea and we both enjoy a trip to Brighton so it seemed like the right thing to do. We got down there fairly quickly (we had waited until after the rush hour so that, with any luck the M25/ M23 would be clear. Thankfully it was, however you can never be sure with either of those motorways and for once the weatherman had correctly predicted the weather, it was a glorious day. We strolled along the prom (prom, prom?), paddled in the sea, took a walk down the pier and ate fish ‘n’ chips: can you get any closer to a perfect quintessential British day trip to the seaside? Before we left we headed via the studio shop of Sheila Marshall an artist that Lucinda has admired for a couple of years. While on her hen-do Lucinda first saw Sheila’s paintings of cupcakes and sweets and decided that she wanted one. It has taken her over 2 years but we headed back and Lucinda was determined that she wasn’t going to leave Brighton without something by her.

The first of Éowyn’s group of friends (OK, the children of the fellow parents from our NCT group) have just celebrated their first birthday and so the usual coffee morning was turned into a joint first birthday party for the group. As I was off, I was allowed into this inner sanctum of motherhood on the pretence of ‘Official Photographer’ and so if you look on the Flickr pages (link in left hand column) there are a number of photos from the party. I think that they all enjoyed themselves, although it wore them all out and all had either succumb to a nap or left the party completely shattered (some things will not change as they grow older!).

It was another momentous day on Thursday as we took Éowyn to Jo, who will hopefully be our childminder when Lucinda returns to work. Éowyn seemed to enjoy herself, especially since there was a new box of toys to play with, including a drum (no she is not having one at home!). She also seemed at ease with Jo, which bodes well for us. Both myself and Lucinda like Jo and are very happy with how fate has guided us to her. We now have to introduce Éowyn to Jo and gradually leave her with Jo so that she is fully happy to be there when mommy and daddy leave.

This leads nicely onto Lucinda’s work situation. After, what seems like an age and a not too hopeful meeting with her boss she has been given job-share which is exactly what we were hoping for. Her leave of absence has been granted until 21st October, so she gets an extra couple of weeks off and will see Éowyn’s first birthday without having to think too much about work. This will mean that Lucinda will work 2 days on, then have 4 days off and with my shift pattern should hopefully mean that we will only need about 6 days worth of child-minding each month. We realise how lucky we are, now we just have to work out a schedule of dropping her off and picking her up, but that will come.

Our other achievement for the week was to break a habit that we should have broke a while ago, namely rocking Éowyn to sleep. It is just a habit that we have gotten into and never changed, so this work we made a concerted effort to break it and we have. Now we just put her in her cot and leave her to settle herself. It only takes between 10 and 20 minutes, which hopefully will get shorter as she gets used to it. It is quite funny to watch her routine. She picks each of her soft toys up, kind of gives them a hug and then throws them out of the cot. Then after realising that standing up and crying doesn’t get the desired effect (i.e. mom or dad picking her up and cuddling her) she attempts to go to sleep. Not sure if it is just me but on the rare times that I have difficulty dropping off to sleep I attempt various positions to see if that works and Éowyn does the same, however hers are more extreme! I think that she covers every inch of the bed before she finally settles down, but she is learning a new skill and when she realises that it is easier just to fall asleep than to thrown yourself around the cot we might get easier bedtimes.

There are plenty of new photos on the Flickr site but here are a few of my favourites.

Peace and love

Baggie!