For Alice x

Some little photos of Baby Kay taken on her first birthday by someone who knows how to take photos, rather than our happy-snaps!! We don't have Walgreen in Northern Ireland, but it was a local photographer who works from a studio in our town.

Specially requested by lovely Alice!!

Who knew!!!

I saw this today Baby Kay and did a double take!! The spelling is not quite right, but it made me stop and stare long enough to block up the aisle while I was taking a photo on my camera!

Who knew that PG was also an entrepreneur making and selling her own salad creams!!! I thought only Paul Newman did that!!

Special delivery....

Darling Baby Kay - you are getting better and better with each passing day. It is such a relief that you are sleeping more soundly and not coughing so much - a collection of time passing, going gently, some medicine and some great advice from lots of lovely ladies in Blogland who have passed along their wonderful pearls of wisdom.

We went today to pick up the pictures from the photographer that were taken on your 1st birthday in March, and we are so delighted with them. The framed one is up in the sitting room, and we have some extra copies for Nanny and Granda, Granda Billy and B&F. I am so glad we decided to have the pictures done, even if there was a little bit of shouting before you decided to settle down and play along!

The sun has been shining all day, and looks set to continue for the weekend so I hope it lasts and we can get out and enjoy it. I especially hope that it is being shared on the other side of the world, for tomorrow in particular. One of the singlemost incredible, funny, beautiful and gracious women I have ever had the good fortune to meet is celebrating her birthday this weekend - I think she is 21 all over again! :) And I hope the sun shines on her all day long!!

What do you mean you can't post me to Washington for the party???

Shoe Girl!!

Darling Baby Kay, you are still coughing away and sniffling like crazy, but you are also perking up a little bit too, which is a relief, so I hope this marks a turning point and you are on the mend.

We headed up to Newry today to pick up your car seat, and it is great to have you back in your own wee chair. You sit much higher up in it than in the one the girls had so kindly lent us, so you are back to watching the world whizz past your window!

You are also exploring much more than before - so this weekend we are off to buy stair gates, as you are making a break for the stairs and the front door at every opportunity. When Daddy came home from work tonight he left the kitchen door open and by the time we realised you weren't in the sitting room you were already re-arranging the shoes under the stairs. Who needs toys!!

Stormy weather!

We have had some clouds today, my precious darling.

The weather has been very changeable - we have blue sky at the moment, but earlier today it was raining heavily and the sky was like a winter's day instead of the end of spring. Technically this time next week we will be into summer - it seems hard to believe when we are still getting hail stones and storms. It was raining so heavily last night too that I didn't get out for bowls practice - it is hard enough to go out and bowl when you have a match and it is raining, but to head out and get soaked and frozen when it's not a competition (no matter how badly Mummy needs the practice!) is just too much to ask at the minute.

And for you, my darling little one, there are clouds too. You are still not well; you have a rotten cough which is keeping you awake. You are tired and cross, and trying so hard not to be. You will play a little bit and then fuss for a little bit, and all the time you are just desperate to get some sleep. The pharmacist told me today that you are not supposed to give any child under 6 an 'over-the-counter' medicine for a cough - so you are getting a little apple/glycerol mix in the hope that it makes your chest feel a bit less sore. You were up quite a lot during the night - consequently so were Mummy and Daddy - and it is so tough to listen to you coughing and there being nothing we can do to help you. Hoping you feel better soon my love x x

Golf Baby!!

What do you mean these aren't for me??

Darling Baby Kay, this is you helping Daddy clean his golf clubs and teething on the loose golf balls that are rattling around the kitchen floor! The golf balls definitely worked - tooth #11 is through this morning. You have a cough at the moment, and are dribbling like crazy again, and running a temperature - so I am wondering if there are any more on the way that are still bothering you. And, for the record, taking off the cot bumper has worked! You have gone to sleep and have been napping today tear-free! The bumper was just cramping your style!

Weekend Fun!

Darling Baby Kay, we are back to just the 2 of us this evening - Daddy is away to Dublin overnight, and is back tomorrow, so we have just puttered around together. You have been pushing around your block truck and shuffling around very happily all day.

On Saturday Daddy took you to Newry for an hour or two - you had a great time in your pram going round the shops while Daddy picked up his bits and pieces. I forget sometimes how much fun it is being out with you, and how excited you get about seeing other babies, or bicycles, or dogs, or seeing lorries and buses. But Daddy doesn't get to see this window of your life very often so these times are very precious to him. It lets him see how we spend our day, and how you love to get out and about to see the world around you.

And also it gives him a chance to spoil his princess - your very first ice cream cone!! Daddy tells me you didn't eat it all, and wouldn't entertain eating it directly from the cone, he had to get you a little spoon for you to use!

While you were out I had a chance to clean your nursery and drop your cot base down. You are starting to get a bit too agile for the base to be as high as it was, so for safety I wanted to drop it before you realised you could pull yourself up on the bars on the side. You have slept in it now for 2 nights, and had your naps in it, but each time I have put you down you have been uncharacteristically upset, and cried for a little bit, which you seldom do when it is time to sleep. You are normally so pooped you just wriggle around a bit and then doze off. I have been wracking my brain to work out what it is, and I think I have it - your cot bumper is now too high and you can't see out! Before it was easy for you to reach up and pull it down to give you a wee window out the side into the nursery, but now you can't reach, and I think it has frightened you, or at the very least made you very brassed off about it!

Tomorrow morning when you waken I am going to take the bumper off and see how you fare without it for a day or two. I am not sure you need it anymore anyway - although you wriggle about a lot I am not sure if the bumper was really stopping you bashing off the top of the cot.

Will give this a try tomorrow and hope for the best!! Sweet dreams of Daddy coming home to you my darling x x

Car seat fun!

Darling Baby Kay we have been out and about today in our new temporary car seat, loaned to us courtesy of the lovely ladies at the baby shop where we bought your real one - the one that you threw up in about a month ago!

The car seat survived the incident, but not without some serious washing and drying of the covers - but when I tried to adjust the straps last week the locking mechanism seized, and I couldn't get them loosened again! Everyone has had a go at loosening them for me, but to no avail. When Daddy got home from golf last Saturday the car seat was sitting in the middle of the dining table, I was wrestling with it, and you were shuffling around the table totally fascinated by the competition. The car-seat won...

After a call to the ladies in the shop, they told us to bring it in and they would sort it out - so Daddy took it up to Newry and returned with a temporary replacement. The car-seat had beaten them too. They had never seen one seized up like that and it has now gone back to the manufacturers for them to have a wrestle with it.

You don't seem to mind the change of seat - in fact it reclines more easily that your original one so you have actually had more sleep when we've been out and about. I just need to make sure to remember to clean the chocolate marks of the side where you were wiping your fingers on it today before we return it!!

Hands up!

Baby Kay today you finally made friends with your hedgehog puppet after a few weeks of suspicious looks, ignoring, pushing him to the bottom of the toy bucket and shaking her head at Mummy when she tries to bring him out!!

You finally relented and let Mummy put him on your foot, which made you smile and then you handed him back to me to put back on my hand for tickling you! Then, at last, you let me put him on your hand, and instead of looking at him you pulled him over to your wee face and kissed him! Then you tucked him under your chin and started to give him a cuddle with your other hand. He has the softest fun-fur feeling to him, and I think you loved the sensation on your face.

I think you and he are going to be friends. We have called him Spike, despite having none!

Catch up...

My darling Baby Kay, it has been non-stop for the last week, and truly this is the first evening I have had the chance to sit down and update your journal for you. It has been lots of family, lots of sorting and organising, and lots of busy-ing about, but this evening I am sitting here with the rain thundering outside, my cup of tea, and a chance to sit and share a little with you.You have been a busy wee soul this last week. You are now completely confident pushing along your little block truck without help, and you think the whole thing is hysterically funny! You are also bum-shuffling at top speed - something that up until last Thursday you hadn't ever even tried. I went into the laundry room to empty the washing machine having left you in the middle of the sitting room floor with your books. When I came back into the kitchen you were sitting there - square in the middle of the kitchen floor, beaming up at me. You are not content at all to sit still anywhere - and consequently are totally exhausted at bedtime from all the toddling about and shuffling around!

I am pretty sure too that you have more teeth coming through. You are chewing away like mad on anything you can find (in the supermarket today you had managed to gnaw your way through the top of the carton of Ready Brek porridge before I realised what you were doing...) and grinding the teeth that you already have together. It makes the most dreadful noise but it must be giving you some comfort or relief because you are at it all the time. Usually when your teeth are imminent you go off your food and milk, but you are still keeping up with those. Today you had butternut risotto for lunch which you helped to feed yourself - but it is slow going as you insist on setting the spoon down and giving yourself a big round of applause every time you get something in your mouth. That'll teach us for making such a fuss at the start when you were just getting the hang of it!

Today you had your latest immunisation - Daddy took some time off this afternoon to take you to the doctor for it; Mummy is pretty useless at those sorts of things, because when you cry I am always afraid that I will join you. Thankfully they don't happen very often! Daddy is off to Barcelona tomorrow for the rest of the week, so it will just be the 2 of us til the weekend, but it's only for a few days and then we'll be back together for Saturday.

I will try to get back to posting more regularly again little darling now that things are a little calmer - in the meantime, sweet dreams x x

Beautiful day!!

Darling Baby Kay, after a busy weekend we have had a busy start to the week.

We have been Jo Jingling today, tomorrow we are off up to Carrickfergus to visit Nanny, on Thursday Mummy is bowling in her first match for 2 years (!!) and then on Friday we are meeting L&I if the weather is nice to head off round the Lakes and the little children's pet farm over at Tannaghmore. On Saturday Nanny and Grandad are coming down to sit with you for the evening as Daddy and I are heading out with the rest of the Kay family group - 10 of us in total - to celebrate G&P being home and spend some time together. We will be home late, but I would guess we will be sneaking in for a kiss before we go to bed regardless!! I don't remember the last time I had something in the diary for every day.

You have started some new fun and games this week - namely cot gymnastics! Two mornings this week I have had to go and rescue you during your morning nap, as you shouted hard and loud. You had rolled yourself onto your tummy, turned side on, and stuck your legs out through the cot bars - so you were stuck face down and couldn't get out!

This morning when Daddy went to lift you you had managed to turn a full 180 degrees in your grow-bag - so you were totally upside down in your cot. I am not sure what it is all about, but it coincides with your growing confidence on your feet, and your new trick of shuffling round in a little circle on the floor when you are playing. The strange thing is that having totally pooh-poohed any notion of crawling now for nearly 14 months suddenly you are also rolling onto your tummy and pulling your knees in as if you realise that you can get going that way too.

Today I ordered safety catches and locks for the kitchen cupboards as the window for childproofing is getting smaller by the day!!!

What are you up to???

This is the face you make, little darling, when you have done something you really know you shouldn't be doing. Like scooting over to your high chair to try to pull all the bibs out of the bag underneath, or not actually eating all the pieces of mandarin orange in the little dish and putting them over the side of the chair. Or when you have been pulling the little pop-up butterflies out of the back of your caterpillars pop-up book! The list is endless and I reckon that it's a face I am going to get pretty good at spotting!

We have had a great day despite the horrible weather. We went up to the farm tonight with Daddy to see Uncle G and Auntie P who are home from Canada for a fortnight - well, Toronto is really their home now, but we consider them home when they come back to see us! You were a little strange with them at first, but once you had seen Uncle J's new little cocker spaniel puppy, Ben, and had your dinner, then you were dead on. You even did a little bit of walking up and down in the conservatory with Auntie P.

We are all set for a busy weekend - Daddy has golf tomorrow (and we are hoping for a dry night and morning!), and tomorrow afternoon I am going to have a pedicure, something that is long overdue bearing in mind I am digging out my toe-posts and hoping for some sunshine! Hopefully we will get to see lots more of Uncle G and Auntie P too!

Sun, rain and hail!

It has been a mixed day on the weather front, little one. It was sunny all day and then clouded up at tea-time. As I look out this evening the hail is bouncing off the ground outside and it looks more like November than May!

We have had an easy sort of day - just some grocery shopping and cleaning, and lots of playing on the floor. It is becoming very apparent that you understand a lot more than you can communicate in words and it is such a joy to learn new little things about you. Your latest trick is to 'hide' something (usually whatever you are playing with or whatever you have in your hand.) This involves putting it behind your back and holding your 2 hands out in front of you as if to say 'Where did that go?' When I look all surprised and ask you where it went you whip it back out again totally delighted with yourself, especially if I do a very dramatic shout or jump as if you have given me a fright.

You have played this all day, which has been lovely - and you are practising your new sounds 'Boo' for book (usually said in conjunction with pointing at one that you want) and 'Baw' when you want your shape-sorter ball. You can point to your nappies and your tutu, your books and your Ark, and when you are in your nursery if we ask you 'Where's Noah?' you wave at the Noah in your cross-stitch. You are also giving kisses and cuddles on request - although I am not sure how long this will last, so I am cashing in on it while you are still keen!! You will even kiss your baby (your rag-doll, Lois) when we tell you that your baby needs a kiss. Sometimes it's more a bite on her nose, or the velcro on her tunic, but the thought was there!

Every day it is something new and exciting - and such a joy and blessing to be part of.

Strawberry Sweetheart!

First, take one little bowl of strawberries.

Second, count them all out to make sure Mummy didn't pinch any while she was washing them.

Third, eat some for good measure.

Fourth, put little yellow duck in the bowl once the strawberries are all gone.

Fifth, put little bowl on your head!

Sixth, Mummy falls in love with you all over again x x

Watching the birdies!

Baby Kay at her happiest - eating her toast at the french doors, watching the birdies in the trees at the back of the house!

Darling Baby Kay, we had a lovely day today; it is Jo Jingles day, so off we went now that you are over being ill. We had a great surprise when we got there, as Daddy had slipped out of work and popped over to see us both, so he was able to sit in with us for the first 20 minutes of singing and dancing. It was wonderful for him to be able to see you enjoying it after all these months of me talking about it. You were even able to go and get your instruments yourself with me holding your hands for balance - so every day you get a little more confident and steady on your feet.

This evening I am going to catch up on my overdue emails, do a little reading, and no doubt have a few cups of tea, while Daddy watches the Champions League match (Arsenal v Man U!) Hope you are having sweet dreams little darling x

Long weekend....

....in more ways than one my Darling it has been a long weekend. Daddy was off today for May Day which was lovely, but it has been very busy and he is looking forward to going back to work tomorrow for the rest!

We really haven't stopped since Friday morning - Mrs S's death on Thursday night meant that from Friday was spent over at the farm preparing for the wake; same on Saturday, and then the funeral on Sunday. Your Nanny came down to look after you to free Daddy and I up to go and help Uncle J and especially Auntie D, so it was all change for you too. Even though we have known for some time that this was coming it did not make it any easier for Auntie D - although the funeral service was truly one of remembrance and thanksgiving for an incredible lady who is no longer suffering.

Hopefully this week will be the start of a calmer few days - Daddy is at home all week, and it seems like a good time to gather ourselves all together again and put family first - inside and outside our home. G&P arrive next weekend from Toronto for a few weeks and Daddy is so excited about seeing his big brother again, so there are nice things ahead, even for Auntie D.

Sweet dreams little darling x