My big night out

Last night was a big deal for me. I left Adele for the first time in the evening. I am surprised by how at peace I felt to be honest. I had been planning it for a couple of weeks and had been doing a lot of praying.

I went to the playcentre introduction meeting. I fed A to sleep nice and early and put her down to sleep in our bed. The amazing thing was that she was asleep by just after 7pm. Bedtime usually ends up closer to 8pm. I was then able to go out at 7.20, relaxed and unhurried.

I arrived back home at 9.30 and as I drove in I could see my wee poppet in her Daddy's arm through a gap in the curtains. She was awake. But seemed to be happy.

She had woken at 8.30pm (1 1/2 hour sleep - not too bad for her!) and Mike hadn't been able to resettle her so they'd gotten up and read some books, watched a DVD and had a wee party it seems :)

I was stoked. It didn't really matter so much whether she slept, as long as she was happy and ok without me.

A was pretty happy to see me when I got home so we snuggled up in bed together, and I gave her some more mama milky and she quite quickly drifted off to sleep. I managed to sneak back out of bed and have a hot chocolate with Mike before going to bed.

Yep. It was a good night. I reckon I could do it again.

My two fav people watching Love to sing one morning last week.
I imagine last night was a bit like this!

Oompa loompa overalls

We went to the lake today for coffee group. For most of the time all Adele wanted to do was play with my wallet (obsessed). And then when it was time to leave all she wanted to do was stay.

She looked so oompa loompa-ish today in her overalls and beanie. The outfit really showed off her 'toddleriness'. She has now completely given up crawling in favour of walking. She's even started running. And it seems that since she started walking she's become a toddler in temperament too. She certainly knows how to express herself!

Adele's first birthday party

Finally a quiet moment to do some blogging.

We had Adele's first birthday party last weekend. She had a blast. She really does love having people over to play at her house.

She was so spoiled with all her gifts, I'd love to say what her favourite is but to be honest she's been playing with pretty much all of them.

As for the cake. Ahhh, butter cream icing you still elude me... And the cake itself ended up a bit dry cause Adele and I went outside to play while it was cooking and I forgot to take it out of the oven. Ooops! Totally still edible though and didn't look too bad after all.

Such a little trooper

You know, one of the good things about having a baby who isn't so keen on sleep, is that she can stay up happily for hours!

This morning she woke at 5.30 (arrghh, too early little lady!) played in the lounge with mummy and daddy for a good few hours (Mike and I took shifts) then went to church at 10.30 not getting home to nap until 12.30. That's 7 hours awake.

Now, you'd expect that she'd be a mess by the end of that, and yup she was definitely tired (evidenced by the fact that she lay still as I changed her nappy before her nap!). But she didn't throw a wobbly at church, no crying in the car or even really excessive clingyness.

She's just a little trooper.

My three roses - part 1 of Adele's birth story

I've started writing Adele's birth story. I need to do it as part of my La Leche League leadership application. It's something I've been meaning to do for the past year but have been putting it off cause it's going to be hard. I've promised myself I'll finish it by her birthday - 9 days to go! I'm not sure I'll share all of it with you but here is the beginning...

My three roses

Sitting on my porch are three roses. They are my babies. Adele has the smallest rose which was planted just a few months ago. Her whenua (placenta) is buried beneath the apricot-coloured blooms. I hope that this will be a special plant for her in the future.

The white rose belongs to Taran, my special baby who grew inside me for only 13 weeks. We hadn’t planned to get pregnant but we were over the moon at the idea of starting a family. Those first 12 weeks were so hard, my morning sickness was unbearable. But then the sickness eventually faded and the excitement of seeing our baby at a scan took over. But Taran’s heart had stopped beating. The screen showed a perfectly formed little body, but no heartbeat.  The devastation of losing our first baby was overwhelming. I despaired and wished I could join that precious life in heaven. But time heals. Taran’s remains are buried beneath the white rose.

And the pink rose is Jay. Poor wee Jay who didn’t have a chance at all. Jay was a blighted ovum. The shock of Taran’s loss was not present  with Jay. From the very beginning I knew that we would not meet this baby. I never felt pregnant, there was no morning sickness and the pregnancy tests weren’t promising. But I certainly did grieve. I grieved for the loss of that life, and especially the loss of my innocence and the feeling that my body had let me down.

When I got pregnant for the third time, I felt much more confident that this time, things would work out. The morning sickness was even worse than the first time. Not just nausea but also daily vomiting. The awfulness of those first three months is still so clear in my mind. I was so ill I quit my job and Mike and I moved to Hamilton.

Cousins are the best-est ever!

Adele's cousins came over the other day. She ADORES them. 

They all sat up at her little table and ate cheese on toast. She looked so proud of herself up there with her big cuzzies. And then she started shaking her sippy cup up and down so water spilt out the top - that got lots of laughs so she kept going!

We're so going to miss these guys when they head to Thailand later this year!

And here they are a few weeks ago. Can you see how chuffed Adele is?

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!]

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.

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  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

Wordless Wednesday - I ♥ Mary Janes

I can't help myself. I have to add some words!

These are Adele's first patent leather Mary Jane shoes. Sigh. This is why I love having a girl. I think I'll have to keep these shoes forever.

I ♥ Mary Janes!

FYI - They're Tip Toey Joeys from Wobble.

Wordless Wednesday - Tomatoes!

More cuties!

Marianne and Joanna came over the other day. Joanna and Adele had a lovely time standing up all over the living room and Marianne and I enjoyed a catch up. 

Adele introduced Joanna to one of her favourite spots - the gate! And Joanna taught Adele how to stand up at the toy box and reach inside (no photos yet but Marianne took a few so hopefully I'll get them sometime).

Ever since, Adele has been having a wonderful time getting in to the toy box for herself. And she can now pull herself up just by putting hands on the wall. (Proud mummy smile.)

Adele's gorgeous bible

I just had to share these beautiful pictures from Adele's new baby bible. She received it from her Aunty Larissa and Uncle Richard for her baptism last month.

Adele loves turning the pages and I love looking at the pictures.

In case you're interested it is The Baby Bible Storybook for Girls written by Robin Currie and illustrated by Constanza Basaluzzo.

I think the pictures say it all

Double trouble

Check out these two cuties.

Adele had her mate Lily over for a play today. Oh and her mum Elia came too!

Babywearing

Adele and I seem to be babywearing a lot lately. Since she started crawling (proud Mummy smile) she's been far too excited all the time to want to sleep or even feed. So getting her to settle down, relax and get sleepy has been really difficult.

So out comes the green wrap sling. She lived in this when she was a wee one. Every daytime nap for the first few months was in here. I figure she'll settle down again soon so until then I'll just enjoy the cuddles! And the massages from Mike in the evenings are a bonus too! (She's about 11kgs - my poor back can testify.)

More babywearing triumphs: at Susi and Rob's wedding last weekend Miss A didn't want to go to sleep, but did want to be carried all the time. We'd forgotten the wrap sling so I simply picked up a picnic rug tied the opposite corners together, threw it over my head and voila! A sling. Saved my arms and made for a happy baby. Just quietly, I was pretty chuffed with my 'attachment parenting' skills!

Creation a week # 8

This week's creation is a book for Adele's birth-day cards.

Creation a week # 7

My very first softie!

It's a dinosaur-dog-horse. I made it for my neice Abby for her 2nd birthday. It was so fun and totally easy to make. I just drew a rough shape on a piece of paper, cut out the fabric (green polar fleece) popped some blue acrylic felt in for a mane and stitched it up. Easy peasy. I plan to make more!

Adele had to try it out before I wrapped it to sent to Abby! By the look on her face I think we can safely assume she approves.

Adele is almost crawling

My clever wee cherub is so close to crawling that we'll call it that. She can go pretty much in every direction except forward. I have to admit it is pretty excruciating watching her. "Go on, you can do it girl, thats is, just one more step... oh, you gave up and collapsed on to your tum... but you're having a great time!"

Here is a vid from a couple of days ago.

My kid could paint that

Adele's first painting! She did it at playcentre last week. She's a creative genius. What more can I say?

She did us proud

I was a bit nervous on Sunday cause my folks were coming for lunch. "What if Adele doesn't eat anything?" I thought to myself. They'll think I'm starving her and tell me to start feeding her up on mush.

But she did us proud.

Demolished a slice of avocado, munched on a stick of tasty cheese, put lots of wee teethy marks in a slice of nectarine, gummied up some bread and had fun picking up cherry tomatoes. Then showed off by drinking lots of water from the sippy cup while sitting on Granddad's lap.

I don't think I've seen her eat so much. Phew!

She seems to be getting the hang of this eating lark now.

She wasn't interested in the breakfast Daddy gave her today but when I was eating my toast a bit later she greedily took a crust, gnawed it till she couldn't anymore (the ends of sticks of food always get stuck in her fist. She hasn't worked out yet how to release them) then demolished another!

Then for lunch she put away a fairly decent amount of cheese and mango and tasted some other stuff.

Interestingly, she loves the spoon. I load it up with food - yoghurt, today's lentil stew, stewed apple, KFC potato and gravy (another story...) hold it out to her and she greedily grabs it and jams it in her mouth. She won't let me do it. But I'm trying to only feed her foods that are normally eaten mashed/pureed. I wouldn't be happy eating pureed beef so why should she?

oh oh oh, exciting news. She's got her pincer grip! Marianne and Joanna came over today and Joanna was eating raisins, I offered one to Adele and she picked it up between thumb and forefinger! She didn't put it in her mouth, and I wasn't going to demonstrate cause I HATE raisins but I was very chuffed with Adele's physical prowess!

Lastly, the KFC story. We picniked at the gardens on Sunday night with people from church. Mike and I got KFC but I forgot to organise anything for Adele (neglectful eh?). So I gave her some of my bread roll. For fun, I dipped a bit in to the potato and gravy for her. A wee while later I look down and there's Adele, with her hand up to her wrist in the potato and gravy pot. She had a ball sticking hands in, mushing it around, rubbing it in her hair, down her front, on her legs, on the picnic mat, on Mummy's legs... I'd forgotten a bib and run out of baby wipes. But she had a great time so I let her go for it. She did enjoy eating it from the spoon too. I did find myself wondering if the gravy had MSG in it though....