Weight

Feed me, Seymour

Wednesday 18th March 2009Baggie

Why do children lull you into a false sense of security. Just when you think that you have got them into a routine, they go and change it all on you. Last week we began a new regime to try to introduce day naps and the dream feed so that hopefully Éowyn would sleep through to the morning and for a couple of days it seemed to be working. Great we thought.

Well, the pick up, put down technique that we are using for the day naps is a lot of hard work and initially she took to it rather well but now it can take Éowyn up to 45 minutes before she falls asleep. Back breaking work. Then she only sleeps for 30 minutes. It is always 30 minutes. Not 23 minutes, not 37 minutes, always half an hour, plus or minus 2 minutes. It is like she has some kind of internal 30 minute egg timer! Sometimes it doesn’t feel that it is worth the effort.

At least the dream feed is working: she doesn’t wake while taking the 10:30pm feed. It still doesn’t seem natural to me though. After a couple of days of sleeping until 0630, she has reverted to waking far too early, between 0400 and 0500; so despite the early success it is fair to say that we haven’t quite cracked it yet.

She is still enjoying her food, although from some of the pictures below you may not believe me. She has added, Papaya and Peas to her menu over the last week, as well as the Banana, Apple, Pear, Sweet Potato and Carrots that she has already eaten. She has a better diet than me!

Her social life is better than mine too. At least twice a week she goes out and sometimes that can stretch to everyday. It is nice to see her interact with other babies. They tend to stare at each other across a room, and if they are close they reach out just to see if the other one is real. It is fascinating to watch.

We went for a long walk around Virginia Waters last weekend, which is hard work when pushing a pram. However, we are now armed with Lucinda’s brothers old off-road three wheeler. Hopefully that will make such walks a lot easier and a gentler ride for Éowyn as the pneumatic tyres smooth out some of the smaller bumps. It will be good exercise for Lucinda and I, to try and shed the extra pounds we have gained since becoming parents. Éowyn is also gaining weight but at a much steadier pace, she now tips the scales at a healthy 16lbs 3 oz (7.342kgs).

Please enjoy the latest photos, I have to go and take Éowyn to get a Mother’s Day card and present, it will be Lucinda’s first Mother’s day as a mother. How cool is that?

Love and peace and happy mother’s day to all moms out there, especially Lucinda’s and mine!

Open wide

I don’t like this

All gone

Leo

James

Éowyn and Billy

Sitting on Daddy’s lap

Coming to get you

Jenny and Leo

I like my food

That was nice

Do we have any more?

Where's Mum and Dad?

Saturday 31st January 2009Baggie

As Middlesbrough‘s favourite son, Chris Kamara, would say, “Unbelievable, Jeff!” as the first month of 2009 draws to a close. Time seems to rush by so quickly and so it has been with this week. Why does a week’s worth of annual leave speed by compared to a working week? As Einstein would explain: that’s relativity!

What is unbelievable too, is that it seems that Éowyn is logging on and reading this blog. If you recall, I said: “After weeks of milestones, this week has been a little on the quiet side.” Well, this week she has moved forward again. She appears to be at stage two in preparation for crawling. Her T.J. Hooker rolls, have more momentum and now she tucks her legs under her body. Fortunately, for Mum and Dad, she still doesn’t have the arm strength to achieve the classic crawl stance, but it will not be long I fear. She has also begun to become very interested in toys and playing with them, as you can see from the photos below and on the Flickr page. I think she has inherited her dad’s view that if there is a button and you don’t know what it does, the best way to find out is to press it. Don’t knock it, I’m making a career out of it.

However Éowyn‘s biggest leap forward of the week is probably her increasing chatting. In truth, it is just a steady stream of random vowels and consonants but like a Rorschach inkblot test your ears convince you that she has said something coherent or relevant to your conversation. It is quite funny just to listen to her mumbling away, and it is quite amusing that she has no control over the volume of her voice; one minute it is a whisper and the next she is shouting at the top of her voice.

There was another step forward this week too: myself and Lucinda managed to go out on a date without Éowyn. We had gone up to visit Nanny Fran and asked her if she would look after Éowyn while we went out. I don’t think that it took mom a lot of convincing, in fact I think that it took us more convincing that she would be alright. New parent syndrome! We were only out a couple of hours and we spent the first hour or so, thinking how odd it was that she wasn’t with us. Nanny Fran though put our minds at rest with a couple of text messages, which meant that we could relax and watch Slumdog Millionaire, a brilliant, but in places a disturbing film. Without spoiling it for those that haven’t seen it, one of the more amusing scenes was went they were at the Taj Mahal, and the romantic in us commented on the synchronicity of this considering we were engaged at the Taj Mahal, and this was our first date since Éowyn‘s birth.

Nanny Fran, hadn’t seen Éowyn for a month so she noticed big changes, while Éowyn too was more aware of changed surroundings. I notice big differences on days when I have been working, so for those of you that haven’t seen her for a while she must come on leaps and bounds when you see her. She has been coming on leaps and bounds in the weight catergory too. We have been a little worried over the last few visits as she has not been putting on the expected weight gain, but this week she has put on 6oz and so now tips the scales at 13lb 11oz (6.209kgs). Her increased activity is slowing her weight gain but at least she is now heading in the right direction.

Please enjoy the photos (and the new ones on Flickr)

Love and peace

Baggie!

Who’s got you?

Nanny Fran’s got you

Me and Nanny Fran

Éowyn and Cath

I’m with Daddy

On Daddy’s knee

Should I press it?

I pressed it!

I’ve shopped ’til I dropped

Making lots of noise

Oooh Bubbles!

Look into my big blue eyes

In my big bed!

Tuesday 20th January 2009Baggie

It seems that nothing phases Éowyn as she grows. As avid readers will recall, we took the step at the beginning of the year of moving Éowyn into her own room. However, she was still sleeping in her moses basket. Now that she has adjusted well to sleeping in her own room, we have moved her from the moses basket in the cot to the cot proper. We had feared that perhaps that she would find the extra space a little agoraphobic but we need not have worried. She is quite happy sleeping in her cot and now she has space to stretch out.

Not stopping at one milestone in a week (or so), her second milestone achieved recently has been the ability to roll to the left. She has for a couple of weeks learnt to roll to the right, rolling right over on to her belly in fact, however, she has now learnt to roll the other way. She still prefers to roll to the right but is not adverse to the occasional left hand roll. This is coupled with her recently acquired talent for laughing aloud. She is a very clever girl, we are both very proud parents.

You may recall that friends of ours Lee and Caroline had a daughter, Georgia, the day after Éowyn was born. Lucinda and Caroline had gone through their pregnancies together, including attending pregnancy yoga classes but have not see much of each other since. So it was good that Georgia and Caroline came for a visit last week, it seems that Lucinda’s and Éowyn‘s diary is busier than mine, however I have had to have words with Lee concerning his daughter’s behaviour. As you can see from the photos below it appears that Georgia is a bit of a bully. Just like a Spurs fan! Interestingly, it did not seem to bother Éowyn she just took the blows without complaint. Without wishing their lives away it will be good to see them when they can play together and interact a little more.

Éowyn‘s next set of innoculations are due on Friday, so we are expecting a bad weekend, especially coupled with her early teething pains. She is still suffering with sore gums, and the pain is obviously transferring to her ears too, since she keeps pulling at them. As a precaution Lucinda took Éowyn to the doctors, just to rule out that she had an infection and to see if there was anything more that could be done. The doctor confirmed that Éowyn was indeed teething, that her cough was not an infection, her lungs sounded healthy and that her ears were fine. When Lucinda asked if there was any more that we could do, the answer was just to give her calpol and rub bonjela into her gums. Initially Lucinda was disappointed with the advice but on reflection it is comforting to know that we were doing the right thing. As many millions of parents before us we are discovering the power of calpol.

However we do have one slight concern at the moment and that is her weight gain. This week she has only gained 2oz, tipping the scales at 13lb 5oz (6.039kgs). The health visitor has said that they will keep an eye on it, but as long as she is feeding well, which she is, then they are not too concerned. It is probably down to her teething but hopefully it is just a temporary phase.

Today’s post coincides with one of those historically momentous moments: the day that Barack Obama became the 44th President of the U.S. I doubt that there has been a president with such a weight of expectation on his shoulders, but neither has there been such a mass of support throughout the world. I certainly hope that he can live up to those expectations, though I do not believe there can be a quick fix considering the legacy he has been left. May you live in interesting times…

Love and Peace

Baggie!