Who me?

Dell has finally gotten back in to eating again. Hoorah!

We started solids when she was about 6 months and she got in to it slowly but surely for the first couple of months but then around about 8 months she just kind of gave up on food. All she wanted was breastmilk.

So we just had to go with it.

And finally, after a good 2-3 months of barely eating anything she's started tucking in to meals again. Phew!

Favourites are breadsticks, mandarins, meatballs, baked beans, blueberries, cheese, celery, cucumber.

And yoghurt. You can see what she likes to do with that in the pic above. She also likes to try and drink it! (See below...)

Reading for Mums (and 2Bs) - Part 1

Thought I'd do a round up of all my favourite parenting resources.

I think this is gonna take a while so here are some websites for starters... books and other stuff to follow in another post.

So here are a few for starters.

Hmmm. Need a pic. What to use?

Parenting
http://www.mothering.com/
http://www.api.org/
http://www.naturalparenting.co.au/

Breastfeeding
http://www.kellymom.com/
http://www.lalecheleague.org.nz/
http://www.llli.org/

Babywearing
http://www.wearyourbaby.com/
http://www.slingbabies.co.nz/

Birth
http://www.sarahjbuckley.com/

Blogs
http://www.kiwimummyblogs.blogspot.com/
http://www.phdinparenting.com/
http://www.drmomma.org/
http://www.breastfeedingmomsunite.com/

Baby-led weaning
http://www.babyledweaning.com/forum/
http://babyledweaning.blogware.com/

Sleep
http://www.dreamparenting.com/

Things I'm loving on Friday

Sneaking in on a sleeping baby

There can't be anything more beautiful and peaceful than a sleeping baby. I love to sneak a peek at Adele when she is having a snooze and see that gorgeous face so relaxed and that little chest rising and falling. Last night she was lying in bed on her back (unusual cause she usually sleeps on her side) one arm flung straight out and little legs all froggied up. I had to go get Mike to come take a peek too. Ahh. Thats why one becomes a parent.

My new heatpump

We got a heatpump installed last week. It's amazing. One push of a button and the room is warm. Now deciding whether to rip out the old pot belly or not...

Friends

I've been really enjoying my friendships this week. I'm slowly making friends in Hamilton and it's great! And it is especially nice to make like-minded friends. Sometimes I can feel a bit like I'm the odd one cause I do parenting things a bit differently to others (demand breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby-wearing, baby-led weaning etc) so when I find other like-minded girls it makes me so happy. I had a lovely day out with one of these fab girls on Tuesday and we walked around Hamilton lake. [Hi M!]

My first Mother's Day

Yesterday was my very first Mother's Day.

Adele let me sleep in - she usually wakes at 6.30 but she slept till 7.15 :-)

Then Mike looked after her and let me keep sleeping till almost 9am!

Then when I did get up waiting on the table for me was a pressie and card! The gorgeous card was made by an enterprising student of Mike's. And the pressie - a Michael Buble CD. I'm a real mum now. That's a real mother's day gift!

Then Mike cooked me french toast for breakfast.

Then he looked after Adele while she napped so that I could go to church.

Then he took me out to Chartwell for lunch.

Then he bought me some new shoes!

Yep. A pretty good day :-)

Of course we also took the time to ring our Mums and reflect on how great they are!

Creation a week #11

Made some cards this week. Just to store away for a rainy day. The top two are my favs.

Dear Adele, you're 10 months old

Dear Adele,

You turned 10 months old this week. And you are growing up into an awesome little girl. It's such a delight to be your mummy and I pinch myself all the time to check whether you really are mine!

Here's a snapshot of what you're up to these days.

• 
  
  Crawling is no trouble at all. You zoom all over the place. Your Daddy especially likes to make you crawl through to the bathroom for your bath each evening. You giggle and pant all the way cause you know what's coming!

• You love standing up. Whenever there is something to pull yourself up on you do. One of your favourite spots is the gate between the lounge and kitchen. It is the perfect height for you and it makes this great banging noise when you rattle it. You'll happily stand there for 5 minutes giggling and rattling the cage while Mummy and Daddy work in the kitchen.

• You've now got 4 teeth. Those top two have been working their way down for the past month. It hasn't been that fun but you're a trooper.

• Puzzles are a favourite of yours. You especially like the one with wooden shapes that go on pegs (hard to explain!). You're an expert at taking the shapes off now and try really hard to fit them back on. And you're starting to get the hang of your Shape-O.

• Books are the other favourite. You have your own special shelf and adore pulling all the books off and flicking through the pages. You don't really stop to look at the pictures - you just turn turn turn the pages back and forth. And you're so gentle with them too - no ripped pages (even of the grown up books!)

• You love to sing and dance. You like to make the busy ball dropper play music so that you can wriggle to it. When it stops you'll put a ball in again so that you can sit back and dance. I often catch you humming along too!

• You think hats are hillarious. Although I'm not sure you realise that you're actually meant to keep them on! I put a hat or beanie on you, and you pull it off, and then you try to put it back on again.

• You're still not sleeping all that well. It takes you ages to fall asleep at night (Mummy nurses, rocks and cuddles you in your room) and then you wake up often. Once Mummy and Daddy go to bed you come in to our bed and sleep with us. It's so nice to have all the family in one bed together. And it also makes it much easier for Mummy to feed you in the night.

• 
  
  And in the day time you sleep in the buggy so that Mummy can rock you when you stir. You cuddle Sunny the Lion (Great Aunty Alison knitted him for you) while you sleep during the day.

• 
  
  You're slowly slowly getting more interested in eating solids. You went through a real feijoa frenzy last week!

• 
  
  You're quite a quiet peaceful girl when we go out and play with other babies. You'll hang back for a while and watch everything thats going on at first and once you're confident you'll happily run off and play without a second glance back at me!

• 
  
  Other mummys often comment to me on how confident and contented you are.  I always say "I'd like to think it has something to do with our parenting, but I think it's mostly personality!"

So, Dellie, that's a few things that you're up to these days. I can't wait to see what you'll do in the next month!

Love you so much,
Mummy

Creation a week #10

I made this taggy blanket for Emma's baby. It was her baby shower yesterday. Sooo excited that she's gonna be a mama too!

One reason I love Hamilton

 Looked at the window this morning while eating breakfast and saw this...

Hamilton rocks!