Play-dates and new mates!

Darling Baby Kay - today we had N&J over for tea and cake, with their adorable little boy. They are a couple we met at our antenatal class in February and we have stayed in touch with them, but this is the first time we have had them over to the house. Like us they have had their little one later in life (though both have children from their first marriages), and like me they hope that another little one will bless their lives at some point in the future (DV). It was lovely to see them, in that wonderful way where you are not sure how things are going to work out but it ends up being more relaxed and comfortable that you could have hoped. We are going to try to do the same again in the New Year.

It is so funny to see you with another little baby. Baby A is 7 weeks older than you and racing about on his knees like a tiny steam train. You on the other hand were quite content to sit up on knees or on the floor watching him and sizing him up. You are much more vocal than he is (maybe that's a girl thing!!) and spent most of the afternoon babbling to anyone who would talk to you, or barging A with a growl when he tried to pull himself up on the furniture. You also managed to get a good handful of his hair on more than one occasion, which he took in a very gentlemanly fashion for someone of only 10 months!!

I can see however we might have some issues with 'sharing' in the coming months - I don't want to be THAT mother, who people dread coming to Mother and Baby groups because their teeny weeny can bear wrestle any toy from any child! You are too sweet by half for that I know, but when you do that growl and drop your eyebrows to let me know you are cross then even I am not sure I would mess with you!!!

Darling Baby Kay, it has been a frosty, bright day today as we get ready to put Christmas behind us and look to the New Year later this week. You have had a busy day - out to the golf store with Daddy, and grocery shopping with me - and have been in top form even when I have been trying to wipe your nose!

Today I have been starting to look forward to 2009. I am a strange fish sometimes - Daddy says it can summed up on the way I view the change of the year. Most people call it New Year's Eve, to represent a night before something happens, and new beginnings - whereas I have always called it Old Year's Night, suggesting looking backwards, and the end of something. This year I am making a conscious effort to call it New Year's Eve - as I am so looking forward to next year and all it may bring our little family. I have been batch cooking for you for the freezer - little Tommy Tippee cups of Neopolitana pasta - and I'll do the same every day this week. You are getting bored with my current offerings and we need to up the stakes as you start to realise that you can exercise your rights and refuse what you don't want to eat! You just turn your little face to the side and close your eyes as much as to say 'If I can't see it Mummy I don't have to eat it!' I have a raft of new recipes to try to tempt you, so hopefully we will hit on some good ones in there!

I have also prepared my 2009 diary, with the important dates ahead - a job I have always loved, and which is now even more poignant as I add your birthday, and all the other 2008 babies to it. I have a gorgeous recipe journal to start in 2009 - one of my new objectives (not resolutions!!) is to learn to bake and to use the economic downturn to focus on adding value to our family as a home-maker. I have found a gorgeous site (Mennonite Girls Can Cook) and I am all set to go with some beautiful recipes. Nanny is going to lend me her Kenwood Chef and we will be all set!

And I have cleared out my handbag of all the toot, old receipts, lip balms, old tissues, crumbs and rubbish. Daddy bought me a lovely new bag for Christmas and now I have one which will easily hold a Tippee cup, a few baby essentials, and not look like I am carting everything I own around with me!! We will look quite a stylish pair this year when we go to Jo Jingles!!

Before the end of the week I will have decided on my objectives for the coming year, but in the meantime I am enjoying looking forward and letting go of the things that hold me back. I read somewhere recently (and I wish I could remember where) that we should never let the odds stand in the way of us doing what we want to do, and believing we will succeed. And it is that thought that I will be carrying into 2009 for myself, and for you my darling Baby girl x x

An extra post...

Baby Kay, this is a second post this evening, as I have been surfing about reading other blogs and found something called 'Fill-in Friday' - and, in the words of the advert, I am going to do exactly what it say on the tin, so maybe you will learn a little more about me! The words in red are the ones I have filled in as my words to complete the sentences.

1. I must make sure I have made a difference before I die.

2. You can't stop growing older, so enjoy every moment you have.

3. I wish I never had to buy shop-made cakes or buns again.

4. Becoming a mother has helped me change my life.

5. I know the song Ladybugs Picnic by heart.

6. If I weren't so afraid, I would stop worrying about going back to work and just write the damn book.

7. And as for the weekend, tonight I'm looking forward to an early night with my girl, tomorrow my plans include a walk in the forest to feed the ducks and Sunday, I want to enjoy going to bed knowing that Daddy doesn't have to get up for work on Monday morning!

Good night my darling x

Girls night in!

Well, Darling, tonight it is just me and you! Daddy is in Armagh with some friends for the evening and I have settled down here to catch up on some emails and to write some thank you cards for the gorgeous Christmas presents you were given. We got the cards from a lady in England - she was having a card party when I took you over to see Auntie F in November and I couldn't resist these little cards - they are just so sweet.

You are happily snoozing away upstairs We have been blessed with a run of good nights sleep over the last week - I think it may be the excitement of people in the house, or the fact that we have been buzzing around busily for days - but whatever it is you are sleeping really well at night, taking your little naps during the day very easily, feeding very well and are generally just so happy and contented. Daddy is off work for the next week which is wonderful - the last time we had so much time together as a family was when you were born and he was off on paternity leave. The weather at the minute is cold, but bright, so tomorrow we hope to get you wrapped up in your winter woolies and into the pram for a walk to Gosford Forest - maybe to feed the birds! I hope it stays dry and bright, and I hope that tonight is another good night for all of us!

Presents, Presents, Presents.....

Darling Baby Kay - what a first Christmas! We had a lovely few days with Nanny and Granda, and now you are in bed on Boxing Night after an exciting time and 3 blissful full nights sleep! Everything went so well, it was wonderful to see family and friends, and all the planning and preparation paid off. Having said all that you were a little baffled by all the commotion, noise, presents, people and general excitment - but it didn't stop you being sunshine bright and full of beans - which probably explains why you have been sleeping so well these last few nights! We took this picture of you surrounded by all your presents on Christmas morning - you really didn't know what to make of it all.

People were over-generous and we have a house full of presents for you that I wonder whether you will ever get around to playing with! You have a new baby walker which has lots of buttons and lights, a musical train to pull along once you are up and on your feet, lots of books and other toys - but you are very taken with a Upsy Daisy rag doll and a set of sleigh bells. Anything which can make a noise or be chewed on little gums that are cutting teeth it seems. When I was bathing you this evening I was thinking back to last year, when I was so full of anticipation and excitement about what the New Year would bring, and what Christmas 2008 would be like with our child. I just want you to know that nothing could have prepared me for it; how tired I would be, how disorganised the house would be, how much technicolour plastic it would involve, or how many sets of batteries for musical toys we would need - or how this would be the most wonderful time of my life. You have made our home, and all our Christmases complete my darling. Sweet dreams x x

Seasons Eatings!!

Darling Little Christmas Pudding - today has been a busy day finishing off the last few things for our visitors coming for Christmas. Nanny and Granda arrive tomorrow for 3 days so I wanted everything done and dusted so that we can truly enjoy some special family time when they are down here with us. You have been such a special angel today - in wonderful bright form and having great fun with anything you can find. I keep discovering 2 little teeth marks in all sorts of odd places - my watch strap, your little board books, my little plastic keyring torch that fascinates you.

I have attached one of my favourite photos of you at the moment, as this is most probably my last post over the next few days - it was taken on our way to your first party - a little baby fancy dress one at Jo Jingles music group. Fortunately Mummies didn't have to dress up! You loved your outfit, but were a bit confused by the padding in the tummy. You kept touching it and looking up at me, as much as to say 'Where did this all come from' - a bit like me this time last year when I was pregnant and getting bigger by the day!! You even kept your little hat on which was a result! I love you in this wee costume so much I think I might even put you in it on Christmas morning for church - it might be the last chance I get to dress you up in outrageous fancy dress before you are big enough to object!

I can't wait this year to share Christmas Day with you - our biggest present and blessing in our lives. My life has changed so much since you arrived, and the amazing part is that I feel that the best part of my life has just begun. This is the start of the most incredible journey together (DV) and I feel like I am truly beginning to understand what life is all about. All thanks to you, my Darling Little Pudding.

1 wise man

Darling Baby Kay - today we went to church to see the Sunday School Nativity play, one of my favourite days in the year. We only managed to get to the shepherd's in the fields watching their sheep though, before we had to beat a hasty retreat. Usually you are pretty good in church, and I try not to sneak you out unless we really have to - people are very patient about you wanting to sing and shout along in all the wrong places - but today the teeny weenies at the front were trying so hard to do their lines and it wasn't fair on them to have you and I doing our own little performance at the back of the church once you had decided that today's service was going to be all about you!!

The little ones were gorgeous - little boys in their tea towels and dressing gowns, and little girls in their white shifts, and tinsel and coat-hanger halos! So very sweet. It got me thinking about my only ever appearance in a nativity play. I was 6, and desperate to be an angel - but being the tallest girl in our class, taller than most of the boys too in fact, meant I ended up being a Wise Man - funny in retrospect, but I was so sad about it at the time! I got to bring Myrrh, which didn't please me much either, as I had no idea what it was - and one day I will get Grandma to dig out the photo of us all together that day so you can see from my face and dropped lip how unimpressed I was with the whole deal!

I tell you this now my darling being you are already in the 91% range for height - despite me ending up at only 5"6, and Daddy being only 5"8 - so I suspect you might end up like Mummy and do alot of your sprouting when you are little. But take it from me Darling, you will make a great Wise Man if that's what happens!

O Come All Ye Faithful was the first hymn though, and we got to sing along with that before we left - which was just perfect!

Early Christmas present!

Darling Baby Kay - after unsettled sleep over the last couple of nights, with a sniffly nose and hot head, and just being out of sorts and not yourself - last night you gave me and Daddy an early Christmas present and slept right through from 7.30pm til 6.00am. You were awake at 6.00am like a little June bee, singing away to yourself and playing with Moo, until you decided it really was time to be up and at 'em at 6.40am and your busy day began for real. A wonderful 11 hours which gave me and Daddy our first full nights sleep for a few weeks!

I was talking about it with Auntie K this evening, who is over for a few days with Baby E and Baby S - and we agreed that for every 'turnip' night you little babies have, you also throw in a little 'peach' every now and then. And even when it is the odd turnip, I wouldn't trade for one minute sitting with you in the nursery on Tuesday night in the half-light, cuddling you and being with you, and trying to make you feel safe and special - just you and me. But another 'peach' tonight wouldn't go amiss if you feel like it!! x

Show & tell Friday!

Darling Baby Kay - this little post is inspired by something I found on another blog - it is Show and Tell, where you pick something that is important to you and tell other people why. When you are bigger this is something you will get to do at school, but for now it is my turn to pick something to tell other people - and you - about.

I have picked this little decoration, which has pride of place on our tree this year. I had to take it off the tree to take the photo because the flash is doing all sorts of crazy things to the picture because of the tree lights and shiny decorations!

Why this is important to me is probably obvious - but I will explain anyway. Daddy and I waited so long for you, my darling, and finally we were blessed with you in March of this year. This is our first Christmas as a wee family with a baby to share our day. Daddy bought this decoration when he was in Canada with work in November, so like you it has come a long way to be part of our lives here in County Armagh. We are looking forward to this Christmas more than ever before and it is all thanks to the new joy you have brought to our lives.

Flying home for Christmas....

Darling Baby Kay, you are upstairs asleep on a wet and grey night, and I am downstairs typing away for a little while before I come up to join you. I have been wrapping Christmas presents - one of my favourite jobs of the year - and watching Nigella Lawson on the TV doing her Christmas cooking special.

I have a little tradition every year - it goes back to the days when I lived and worked in London and used to come back to Carrickfergus for Christmas. I love mince pies, but have no self-discipline and would eat them from 1st November to 31st January if I didn't control myself. My tradition is that I am not allowed to have my 1st mince pie of the year before I hear the Chris Rea song 'Driving Home for Christmas' on the radio - because it always reminds me of coming home for Christmas and knowing that Christmas is here at last.

Your Daddy will be 'Flying home for Christmas' tomorrow afternoon - he has been away in Barcelona with work. When you are bigger we will take you there - it is the city of dreams and I hope you grow to love it as much as we do. It is the place your Daddy first took me away for the weekend to. He held my hand in the park in the shade of La Sagrada Familia and told me he loved me for the first time. There is a little play area there with swings and a slide, and we will take you there for sure when we go.

Before he went away I was in the kitchen washing up after dinner, and I heard Daddy playing 'Driving Home for Christmas' on his laptop - and he had even bought me some mince pies so I could listen to the song and start my Christmas celebrations. That is the kind of amazing, thoughtful man your Daddy is. And tomorrow we will begin the run up to your first Christmas together as a wee family - and I can't wait my love.

Sweet dreams my darling Baby Kay x x x

This is the way we brush our teeth....

You may only have 2 of them so far, but you are becoming a dab hand at brushing your teeth already - even if it does involve a lot of sucking the bristles and playing the drums with the handle!

7 things to be thankful for....

Darling Baby Kay - I found the nicest blog today - it's called Booking through Thursday - and it's a bit like a project blog. It gives you little things to do or think about, and you add them to your blog, and it hopefully gives people an insight into who you are. Lists of things, and questions, and 'to-dos' and all sorts of other things - all to do with reading and books, which you will come to find out are very important to me. I am going to give one of them a go here and maybe you can read it someday and find out a few things about your Mummy that you didn't know.

Here are 7 things I am thankful for:-

1. You - my darling little girl - and that you are happy and healthy;
2. Your Daddy - my best friend, my soul-mate - and the kind of man that I hope you will grow up to marry someday too.
3. Right now in our lives everyone is healthy and life is good - this has been a year of wonderful babies - you, Baby M, Baby E - a year of additions, rather than last year which was a year of losses.
4. Having wonderful friends - old ones like Jude and Kate B - but also new ones, like the lovely Joanne next door to us. When you get past 35 sometimes it seems like it is harder to make new friends, but other times someone crosses your path and it's like you are meant to be there for each other going forward. I hope you are blessed with the kind of friends that your Mummy has been lucky enough to have in her life.
5. I am thankful that because of your wonderful Daddy I do not have to go back to work just yet, and that I get to spend every day with you. I am there in the mornings, I get to feed you during the day, read to you, wriggle on the floor with you, see your smiles and listen to your adorable laughs when you get the giggles. I am not missing this unique time with you; time I would never have again and which it so precious for me.
6. Our wonderful, warm, safe home - where I feel settled and content, and am in a place where I feel like I could be for a very long time (DV...)
7. Finally I am thankful to have the freedom to be who I want to be, to read the books that interest and challenge me, to say what I think and have my beliefs honoured and respected, to not live in fear and to be able to close my eyes at night and feel that I am blessed.

I could go on and on here - but I will leave it at those 7 things. At times like this when the economy is in trouble, and the weather is cold, and the evenings draw in early it can be so easy to forget the things in our lives that are good.

I hope you grow up to be an optimist like your Daddy - and that your glass is always half-full my darling.

Things that make you go bleughhh...

Darling Baby Kay - you are off to bed after a very excitable half hour of bath and final feed. You always enjoy the bath more than the feed, but I suspect that is down to the fact that you spend most of your time in the bath trying to suck the flannel or scoop the water into your mouth with your hands. By the time we come to feed you the last thing you want is more liquid!!

There was more excitement, but less fun before the bath when your Daddy tried to clean your nose! You are nursing a little cold at the minute and your nose runs continually. I always said I would never be one of those women who let their children tear about with a dripping nose - it totally turns me over! Like most things I thought about babies this notion has disappeared in the reality of actually having a baby! Anyone going past our house today would have thought I was trying to wrestle you, what with all my twisting, and your shouting and wriggling. You holler like you are in abject agony, and stop immediately we stop, with not a tear in sight. It is your idea of torture.

There is very little else that really pushes your buttons except Weetabix - you have happily eaten everything we have given you but you steadfastly refuse Weetabix.

That is only natural though since it makes your Daddy go bleughhh too!

Finally!!

Well Baby Kay - I have finally finished the cross-stitch I began for you last year when I discovered I was pregnant. It was going great guns for months, and then it all stalled in the fortnight before you were born when I got caught up in a headspin of batch cooking, house-cleaning and watching nonsense on the TV when I wasn't sleeping on the sofa. It was only in the last few weeks since the clocks went back that I managed to get it finished in the evenings, but I am so glad it is ready for you in time for Christmas.

The man in town has framed it up so nicely and when Granda comes to stay at Christmas I am going to ask him to put it above your cot, beside the beautiful Noah's Ark your God-Parents bought you last year - also before you were born.

I hope you know in your heart how much love went into every stitch of this for you, while you were kicking me and poking me from the inside, now that you squeeze my heart from the outside.

Your Daddy!

Darling Baby Kay - I have decided today to put down a few little things that you might like to read about your Daddy when you are older. You are still so very small, but growing faster and bigger every day and there is so much I am afraid will get forgotten on this journey with you as you get older, so this will help for some of those things to stick.

• Every night from I stopped nursing you, and when he is not away with work, Daddy gives you your last feed at night upstairs in the rocking chair in your nursery. When he puts you down to sleep he always tells you he'll be back in a wee bit to make sure you are ok, and he always does. Sometimes you are already asleep, but some nights it is as if you were waiting on him so as not to disappoint him - and you give him a wonderful tired, happy smile and then snuggle your face into Moo and go to sleep.


• Your Daddy takes you swimming every Saturday morning and you love it! You pootle about in the pool with the other Mummy's, Daddy's and babies and you are not remotely phased when you do swimming under water or get splashed. You are a real little waterbaby already!


• Daddy reads to you every night before you go for your bath - your favourite book is 'That's not my penguin' and you know to turn the pages and look for the little bit of fabric on the page to feel. You are so clever, my darling.


• I have never seen a little face light up the way your face does when Daddy gets home from work - you are so full of love and happiness, and it is the highlight of both your days when you see each other.

He is always so kind and patient and loving with you; he walked the floor with you when you were born and we were still learning how to settle you; he takes you up to see the chickens and the calves at Granda's farm; he explains to you the results on the football on Match of the Day. You are his princess and he is already your hero.

Moo

Darling Baby Kay, today you are sporting a very red scratch on your left cheek, just below your eye. If I was braver I would have another go at cutting your nails with the teeny-tiny baby nail-clippers, but having nipped you with them when you small I am not sure my nerves would cope with another try. I am not sure who cried more, but I think I pipped you at the post.

Instead I resort to trying to bite them when you are distracted with other things - easier said than done as you miss very little of what is going on around you, especially if it involves you! The problem is not so much your nails as your Moo! Auntie Jude bought it for you when you were born and He started going into your basket with you when you were only days old. When it become obvious He was going to be a permanent fixture we went and bought a second one in case He ever went missing in action. Your favourite game when you are trying to put yourself over to sleep is to put Him over your face, hold your breath, and then flap about like you are treading water in some invisible swimming pool that only you can feel - then you snatch Him off your face and laugh your head off while you get your breath back. You have done this for months now - it has to be seen to be believed - and this from the woman who spent the first 5 months of your life waiting for you to go to sleep so I could fish Him out from around your face in case He smothered you while you were asleep.

Grabbing Him off your face this morning you managed to catch your cheek - but I imagine you'll be right back at it tomorrow when I put you down for your nap. In the meantime I bit your nails as best I could this afternoon after you'd had your lunch - it took me nearly 40 minutes...

Baby Kay

Well, in case anyone else stumbles across this blog I suppose I should really start and post some other things than random greetings to myself. I will post them for my little girl - Baby Kay - since I haven't gotten organised enough to get a baby record book (which I would probably have forgotten to write in had I had the time in all the post-baby chaos....) This will do as a record for a little while for her as I seem to have some time in the evenings when she is in bed and it will stop me spending money I shouldn't on Amazon!

You are 38 weeks old now darling Baby Kay - and for months I haven't been able to remember what life felt like before you arrived. I remember what it looked like, and the things I did, and places I went to - all the tangible things that apply to everyone else. But the things that made my life my own - that are specific to me - I can't remember what they felt like. You are the reference point in my life for everything I feel. I imagine this will pass when you are bigger and more independent - but at the moment your good days are my good days, your bad nights sleep are my bad nights sleep - everything is tied into you and your wee world.

And it is the most wonderful, incredible, frightening, amazing, special feeling in the world for me. I may have waited 37 years for you - but I am thankful every day I wake up that you are in my life, and I love you more than I can ever tell you my darling.

Greetings (again!!)

Well, even though it is just me reading this - which is all that really matters, eh! - I have posted again! How exciting. Who says I need a hobby!! And I get out plenty, thank you for asking.

Greetings!

Greetings and salutations! My very first blog. And possibly my very last too. Who knows!