Personality development

I have noticed that Emma's personality is really developing at the moment. A few things have caught my eye.

I take her to a baby singalong at the local library every week. The first time we were there, she saw another little girl sitting up and playing with some sleigh bells. She was really interested. Eventually, she rolled over to the little girl, pushed her over, took the bells, and rolled back to me. I was so embarrassed!! At the weekend we had a meet up of a few mums who all post on the same parenting forum as me. We all had our babies in the same month. I thought Emma was quite chunky for her age, but next to these other babies she was tiny! This time, she saw a little boy with a toy she liked the look of. She waited until he looked away for a moment, rolled over to him, sneakily stole the toy and rolled back to me with it. Devious little monkey! She certainly knows how to get what she wants.

Another thing I noticed recently is that Emma really loves to be the centre of attention. At the library singalong, she bounces along with me, beaming at all the other mothers and babies, cooing at every bit of attention that is lavished on her. Today, I hosted my first slingmeet and had a house full of toddlers. Emma was the youngest by quite a long way. She was so good, and was happy to play along with the other children. At one point, she and another girl were playing with a doll. Emma would wave the doll about, and the other little girl would kiss its head. Emma started to copy her after a while. It was so sweet to see her playing with someone else! :-)

So... is she going to be a selfish little madam who pushes kids over to get a toy, or a sweet little baby who loves to share and play with other kids... I can't wait to find out! But which ever way it goes, I can see her still liking to be the centre of attention as she grows up - she doesn't seem to have a shy bone in her body at the moment!

Glasses

Emma has a thing about my glasses. Almost every time I pick her up she goes for them! She is so quick too, and has them off before I know it. It is only a matter of time before I end up with them held together with sticky tape!

It is one thing her going for them when I am holding her in front of me, but it is quite something else when I am carrying her on my back! :-S

















But when she looks this cute, I have to kind of let her off. Maybe I will get her some of those baby sunglasses to play with! :-)


















She is supposed to be napping at the moment, but I am listening to her over the baby monior. She is blowing raspberries at her cuddly bunny. It is so funny, but I bet she stops the minute I go up there!

Blo off

I got an IM from Laura at RIPE today, asking what had happened to nablopomo, and if it had blo'n off. It made me giggle, so I thought I had better explain...

OK... well the plan was to update the blog every day in November. Last Thursday I forgot. I can't remember what was going on (it seems like ages ago!!) but I know it was a bit of a manic day. I can however remember what I was going to write, so I will save that for a rainy day!

So, on Friday, I realised that I had forgotten... and then forgot again. Can you feel a theme starting here?

Saturday came. Brett was working, and Emma was being a little on the troublesome side. (She is in super teething mode at the moment). I was wiped out by the time she went to bed. I realised that I had forgotten for the last two days, but to be completely honest I was too tired to think about it.


Then it was Sunday... and I forgot again.

Wow this feels like a "the dog ate my homework" post!! I mean really - this blogging is meant to be fun, not a chore!

So, I will pick up again for today, and see how I go. My new strategy is to try to update the blog every day. :-)

Other news in brief - Emma's teething is getting better. Her first tooth at the top made an appearance this morning! She also seems to think she can stand up... except that she can't and I have to hold her upright almost constantly. Funny thing is she still hasn't even worked out how to get from lying to sitting, so I think standing for real is a way off!

And finally, just to make up for the last few days of missing posts, here is a lovely picture that I took on Friday. I had carried Emma on my back in the wrap to the shops and back. She fell asleep, which is unusual when she is on my back - normally she just wants to look around at everything. So then I was faced with a problem. She was all wrapped up in warm clothes, and was so hot once we got inside. So, I needed to get her down and get some layers off her. But she was so asleep, and I didn't want to wake her. Somehow (and I wish I know how!!) I managed to get her off my back and onto the bed, then take some layers off without waking her up. I even then managed to get her to her own bed, and she slept for an hour. I got a sneaky photo when she was on the bed though, because she looked so sweet. (And I love the way the wrap matches the bed spread!)

Bolognese

As promised yesterday, here is the mess created on Emma by pasta bolognese. If you look really closely you can see her teeth too! (She only has two - at the bottom. But I am pretty sure by her recent desire to chew everything in sight that there will be some more along soon).

















I have only recently started to feed really messy stuff like this to Emma. Before then, if I was cooking bolognese, or casserole or something, I would cook the meat, take some out for Emma, then finish it off for me and Brett. But now I just give Emma what we are having. It is so much easier and gives her a lot more variety. It also makes me think more about what I am eating too. If I am going to give my food to Emma, then I want to make sure it is healthy and low in salt and additives.

My mum came over to visit this afternoon. We had macaroni cheese with broccoli for lunch. Yes - I know I have done whole posts purely about how much I detest broccoli, but hear me out! I was told that if a baby is fussy about a particular type of food, then you should offer it again and again. After ten times they will normally eat it. So I thought I would try the same thing on myself! Actually, the broccoli taste was completely masked by the lovely cheesiness, so it was fine. Emma seemed to really like it too. Mum and I talked a lot about Emma's eating habits, and she was really complimentary about the BLW path that I chose to follow. This means a lot to me. It has taken time and perseverance, but it really has worked out well and now I have a really healthy happy baby who will eat almost anything that is on her plate (as long as it is not banana or porridge).

Political stuff

I normally stay away from politics in my blog. This blog is about my family life, so I don't think it is really an appropriate forum for me to bombard you with my political beliefs. However, a couple of things that I am quite passionate about came up today, so I thought I would add them here. This is a bit of a one off for me! Back to fluffy baby pictures tomorrow. (I got some lovely shots of Emma and some spagbog earlier, and I can't wait to share them with you).

Babies on TV:

I don't know how many of you watched the "Bringing up Baby" programme on Channel 4 last month. For those who didn't, it was a reality TV show following families with newborn babies who followed different methodologies for raising their children with the assistance of a mentor. The methodologies were Truby King's regimented regime from the 1950's (babies should be on a fixed never changing regime for feeding and sleeping), Dr Spock's Baby and Childcare from the 1960's (teaching parents to follow their instincts), and the Continuum Concept from the 1970's (babies should have constant physical contact with their parents for the first six months).

I was absolutely incensed by this programme. On the one hand, it did show some interesting different ways in which parents can choose to raise their babies. However, some of the methods were very questionable (verging on cruel in my opinion) and the programme failed to really highlight government recommended safety guidelines. There were also some infuriating throw away comments about how it doesn't matter whether you breastfeed or bottle feed. I am all for parents having choice, and bringing up their babies in the way that they feel is best. However, I thought the programme was misleading and it missed a huge opportunity to promote sleeping safety guidelines, breastfeeding support, and other issues that are important to new parents.

The Truby King mentor in particular was particularly forceful about the strict regime of her program. (Feeding only a tiny bit to a hungry baby, then force feeding it loads later on to make it sleep through the night, not paying any attention to crying babies and claiming that the babies were being manipulative, I could go on and on). When I complained about it amongst my friends and family, a lot of them said that the programme was trying to be sensationalist (it is Channel 4 after all!!) But what really upset me was that in the middle of all this were a group of innocent newborn babies.

Anyway... the series finished a few weeks ago, so you are probably wondering why I am still ranting on about it. Well, I was looking on the NCT (National Childbirth Trust) website today, and see that they are adding their voice to calls for an independent ethics committee to be set up to monitor so-called 'reality' TV shows that involve babies and children. I am so pleased to hear about this, and completely support the move. I just hope that it can prevent such appalling programmes being made in the future.

Follow on Milk advertising:

There is an advert doing the rounds at the moment for SMA follow on milk, which has a father to be talking about his promises to his baby and the mother. It is really lovely, but then he promises to do his share of the night feeds, and it cuts to a tin of SMA formula milk. Anyway, there are a lot of people who think this is inappropriate (although it is legal), and a number of complaints have been filed with the Advertising Standards Agency.

Once again, I am all for choice. I choose to breastfeed my baby, and intend to do so until we are both ready to stop. (Meaning that I have no fixed plans about duration). However, I had a load of problems with this when I was starting out, and for a couple of weeks I had to substitute with formula. I had done a lot of research prior to Emma's birth, and received a lot of support from relevant health workers, so I made informed choices. If women consider breastfeeding, and decide for whatever reason that it is not for them, knowing full well that their baby will miss out on the health benefits of breastfeeding, then that is their choice and they should be able to make it guilt free. But adverts like this give very little real information, and make it look like formula is a natural choice. This is pretty confusing!!

Anyway... the Food Standards Agency is currently making decisions about advertising regulations for infant and follow on formula. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6933188.stm and if it is something you want to know more about, then here is another blog all about it:
http://boycottnestle.blogspot.com/2007/11/support-uk.html

Home again

Posting every day is harder than it sounds... especially when you have spent most of the day in a car, watching the M1 go by!!

Emma was good as gold yet again on the way home. I was so proud of her this weekend. I know I am lucky to have such a well behaved little girl - she very rarely crys, and almost always has a smile on her face. She sleeps through the night 99% of the time, has a good appetite and is hardly ever ill. I call her my "trainer" baby. :0)

Emma was always a quiet baby. I was looking at the notes from the maternity nurse from her first week of life the other day, and every day starts with "Emma is still very quiet!" I used to worry about it, and people used to tell me not to get used to it because it would change eventually. But she is 9 months old now, and still so placid. Put it this way - our car journey today took 5 and a half hours. We got home, had a cup of tea, put Emma back in the car and went to the supermarket. I complained much more about it than she did!! She just sat in her car seat, gave me a smile, and waved her toys at me.

We had a lovely time in Ripon with Brett's parents. We often only saw them for one day, or sometimes even just an afternoon when we lived in Amsterdam. So it was great to be able to spend some quality relaxed time there.

Ripon - day 2

Sometimes, my little girl amazes me with how well behaved she can be!
She was out like a light last night, but woke up at 3am very upset. She spent the rest of the night in our bed, but didn't sleep very much so we are both pretty tired. She missed her morning nap too, so I was a bit worried that she would get grouchy today.

We went over to see Jamie for his birthday, and a big group of us went out for Sunday lunch.
It was great to see Jamie and Jack (Emma's half brothers). They both looked fantastic in their pin stripe shirts! (I am used to them being in scruffy hoodies!) It was about 2pm by the time we actually got any food, but Emma was so happy to sit at the table and play with a plastic tray that the kitchen staff had found for her. She helped herself (literally!) to some of my dinner, and then was passed around the table from person to person for a bit of a cuddle. She was good as gold, and had a smile for everyone. I was so worried that she would be grouchy, because lunch was rather late and she was tired, but she was good as gold. I have said it before, but sometimes I really need to let up and give her more credit!

Both Brett and I forgot to bring our cameras to Ripon, so I will need to get photos from other people. There were some greats ones taken though so I will put them up as soon as I get a copy.

Ripon - day 1

We drove up from Surrey to Ripon in North Yorkshire today to visit Brett's parents. It is a long long car journey, made slightly longer when Brett couldn't remember if he had turned the cooker off before leaving the house so we had to turn back. :0S

Luckily Emma was in much better spirits today. She slept a lot on the journey, and we only had to stop once. She was such a happy bunny when we arrived, and was very charming to her nana, grandad and auntie Hayley. She sat at the head of the table for dinner, and ate loads. Well we thought she had... we found most of it on the floor under the table after she had finished! Emma's nana (Anne) did a good job of wearing her out, and she went off to sleep really quickly tonight, even after all the sleeping in the car. It seems that sleep out of bed (i.e. in the sling or the car) doesn't count - she still wants to sleep as normal.

Emma's half brother turns 18 tomorrow. Wow how scary is that?!?! I still always think of him as a little 11 year old kid, but then when I see him I realise what a great young man he has grown up into. We are all off for a nice Sunday lunch together tomorrow - should be fun!

Unknitting

We had a quiet day today. Emma has been teething like mad over the last couple of days, and it has been really upsetting her. That, coupled with frustration about not being able to get around as much as she would like (she is learning fast, but there is a long way to go!) has led to a rather miserable little girl today. I found that the only way she was happy was if she was being held in a standing position so she could jump up and down (much as I love her, I can't do that all day!!) or if I sat on the floor and played with her. If I so much as looked at the door, she would burst into tears! Luckily she had a really long sleep this morning, so I managed to get all the housework done before lunch.

We had a lot of fun when Emma got hold of my knitting and unravelled it all. I wasn't sure about the colour anyway, so wasn't that bothered. But when I started to wind the wool back up into a ball she fell about giggling. I have no idea what it was that she thought was so funny about it, but we ended up spending a huge amount of time winding and unwinding balls of wool today. I love the weird things that make this little girl laugh! I got a bit of video of it, so I will post some up if it is any good.

So, all in all, it was a fairly uneventful day. I was going to write up some blw recipes tonight for the blog post, but to be honest I am too tired. There will be plenty of time for all that later in the month. ;-)

Ten photos for ten years

For a change, my post today is not about Emma! It is a post about my wonderful husband Brett. I realised today that we have been together for 10 years, and if that is not worth a post in its own right then I don't know what is. (We don't actually know the exact date that we got together, just that it was around the start of November 1997).

So, here are 10 photos to tell the story of our life over the last 10 years:

Back in the late '90s we were both a couple of goths. Unfortunately (or maybe fortunately depending on your point of view!!) I don't have any digi photos from back then. So my first photo is from July 1999 at Cath and Ian's wedding. Check out the hair extentions!! lol :-)




















In April 2000 we went to the Netherlands to stay with my Dad for a long weekend. It was Brett's first trip to NL, and it coincided with Queens Day. Here is Brett looking rather chilled out on a terrace. It was quite a pivotal holiday for us - we moved to Amsterdam in November the same year!















In August 2002 we got married at the Amstelkerk in Amsterdam. Here we are leaving the church. I love how chuffed I look in the first photo. I have a husband, a beer, a ciggy a wicked dress and my mate Cath is holding a brolly for me. How much better does it get?? ;-)
The second photo with my sister Anna (my bridesmade) and Pete (the best man).
















And off we went on honeymoon to Thailand. It was the most wonderful place, and someday I would love to go back there. We seem to look progressively more sunburned as the holiday photos go on!



















Married life was great. We had a lovely little apartment in Amsterdam, and both worked together at UUNET. Some people found it weird that we worked together, but actually it was really good. We were not in the same department, but when our paths did cross professionally we worked really well together. Brett left the company the next year, and I left in 2004. We both ended up working together yet again, this time at the RIPE NCC. This time we were working a lot more closely (but still different departments). It worked out fine though, and I really enjoyed it.

So, married life continued... we got ourselves a lovely cat called Tegan in 2005. She is still in Amsterdam, and I miss her terribly. Hopefully she will be able to move over here soon.
















And then finally, in Feb 2007, Emma came along and changed us from a happy couple to a loving family. The first photo was taken at the hospital just after Emma was born, and the second one was in August.

And thats it!! Here we are ten years later - older, more sensible hair, slightly wider waist line, back in the UK again, but very very happy. xxx

Plain English campaign for knitting patterns

Well, last night was not so bad. I should give Emma more credit really! She did wake up at about 8.30 but just for a cuddle. I brought her downstairs, and she fell asleep in my arms about 10 minutes later. I love it when she does that!

When I was in town today I finally went inside a really cute little knitting shop I found recently. I can knit, but haven't done it for a while. I wanted to knit some booties for Emma to keep her feet warm when she is in the wrap, but all the patterns I have found online are for newborns and she has really big feet. So, I went in and this absolutely lovely little old lady helped me out. I bought a pattern, some wool, even the right sized needles! (I normally just make do with the needles I have, and then wonder why it doesn't look right).

So... I got started this evening after Emma went to bed. A pair of bootees can't be that difficult can it? Well (hope I am not breaking any copyright here) check this out:

Using 2 3/4 needles and C cast on 51 st. (C is the contrasting colour, M is the main colour).

1st row: K1 *P1 K1, rep from * to end
2nd row: P1 *K1 P1, rep from * to end

OK... I am fine with that bit... so we are 2 rows in and then it all starts to go a bit wrong...

Cont in rib as set and work (2 rows in M 2 rows in C) 4 times then 2 rows in M.

Right then...

So how many rows in total is that? How many stripes should I have? (To make matters a bit worse, I am ignoring the stripes and only using one colour). Each stripe should be 2 rows. So, should I do a main colour stripe then a contrasting stripe 4 times, then do an extra main colour stripe at the end? So this should be a total of 10 stripes, including the first stripe in rows 1 and 2? So that is 20 rows? This is how I read it anyway!! If there are any knitters out there, please stop me if I am completely wrong!

I am a big advocate of Plain English for instructions. Have a look at the campaign if you are not familiar with it: http://www.plainenglish.co.uk/ I completely understand that knitting instructions need to have common abbreviations, but that is just ridiculous!

I thought that bootees would be a simple thing to start with. Maybe I should stick to scarves!

We are driving up to Ripon at the weekend to visit Brett's parents, so this is supposed to be something to keep me quiet in the car. But if I am stuck after 2 rows I am not holding out a lot of hope...

Overtired in pictures

Before I became a parent, I didn't really get the concept of kids being "overtired". Well, Emma is now the overtired queen. About once a week she goes on nap strike all day, and then decides she wants to sleep at exactly 6pm (dinner time). After fighting her way through dinner she will normally then be grumpy at bath time and a nightmare to get to bed. Like most kids (I now know!) she gets so tired that she is all tensed up, and it makes it difficult for her to get to sleep.

Well what would you know it - today was a nap strike day! I actually did manage to get her to sleep this morning, but only for about 15 mins so I don't think that really counts. I was fully expecting a difficult time from her this evening, and Brett is out for the night.

OK - when I say "a difficult time" I really shouldn't moan - Emma is really such a good happy little soul most of the time. So I am a bit oversensitive when she gets grumpy from time to time!

Anyway, here is how the evening panned out in pictures:

6pm. Dinner time. Yum yum.

















6.05pm. Still having dinner. But we have given up on actually eating anything now, and are just having a laugh.

















6.06pm. Well that didn't last long did it!

















So we went and got bathed and ready for bed...


6.45pm. zzzzzz

















Ahhhhh bless her. She normally goes to bed at about 7.30!

I think I spoke too soon though - it is now 8.30pm and she has woken up. I think maybe this is going to be a long night... wish me luck!

Babble babble

Emma's new thing is to chatter away to anything that will listen. She talks to me, to Brett, to the TV and all her toys. To the sofa, my feet, her feet, the mirror... you get the picture! At the moment everything is dada this and dada that. It is so lovely, especially when she says it to Brett when he comes into the room!

I thought Emma was going to skip crawling and go straight from sitting to walking, but just this weekend she started to commando crawl. Now she is unstoppable - she is never ever where I put her, and always where I don't want her to be! If there is a hard surface, she is next to it waggling her head around. If there is something breakable, she is trying to get her hands on it. She is just into everything at the moment, so I have to be so careful!

I will try to get some good video of all this soon! :-)

On the eating front, she has a voracious appetite at the moment and is devouring just about anything that is put on her plate.
















That is, unless she is tired. She is getting into the habit of skipping naps, which always makes dinner a bit of a nightmare because she gets grumpy when she is so tired. Its just a little phase I think and I am sure we will be over it soon.































We had a lovely time this weekend. We are finally all feeling fit and healthy again after a bout of colds and flu. Our friend Amanda came down from Scotland to visit on Friday. It was so lovely to see her. Emma was quite taken with her too! We popped in to see my Mum on Saturday, and on Sunday we went to Winkworth Arboretum. The autumn colours were just lovely. Check out my gorgeous new silk mei tai baby carrier - I made this one myself and I am very proud of it!

Sunday Papers

Emma has a bit of a thing for newspapers (something to do with the crunchy noise perhaps) and she managed to get hold of the Money section of the Sunday Times...

Fireworks

We had our town bonfire night on Friday. Brett was away for the night, so it was just me and Emma in. She went to bed like a little angel at 7.30 and I was going to settle in for an evening of movies. However, she didn't manage to stay asleep for very long with all the noise!

The poor little thing was so scared. I picked her up, wrapped her in a big blanket (a lovely crochet one that my mum made) took her into the bathroom and opened up the windows. From there, we had a fantastic view of the fireworks display.

So why am I sharing this rambling thought? Because as I was holding Emma, and watching her eyes light up in amazement at the pretty patterns in the sky, I suddenly got a little taste of what it is going to be like in a few years time when we can get all wrapped up in warm clothes, and go to the fireworks display together. I can't wait! I always loved bonfire night as a child - not the fireworks (I don't like the loud bangs even now) but because the warmth of all my wooly clothes, the cold of my cheek, the heat of the fire and the sweetness of all the toffee and marshmallows would make me feel like winter was well and truely here. And of course winter means that Christmas is just around the corner! ;-)

Drying up

Now the problem with posting every single day, is finding something to write about on those days when absolutely nothing has happened! The thing about being a stay at home mum is that sometimes the highlight of my day is a walk down the road to the post office. That is not really the kind of stuff that people want to read about.

Don't get me wrong - I am so happy that I made the decision to become a stay at home mum. Before Emma arrived I was really driven by my career. (Some would even say I was obsessive about it!) Most people were really surprised by my sudden decision not to return to work. But even though there is the odd boring day, I am still really pleased that I made this choice. I realised early on that these first months are so precious, and there is no way of getting them back. My career obsessiveness would have made it very difficult to spend enough quality time with Em, so really it was a very easy choice to make.

That still doesn't answer my question though does it? What to write about when I am having a dull day...

Well the whole reason I started this blog was as a resource for parents who want to follow baby led weaning. There is not a whole lot of information about it out there, and I found it really helpful to read other people's blogs about it. Over time, it has kind of developped into more of a blog about my family life, but I still like to focus on Emma's dinner. (If you have seen how much she enjoys it then you will understand why!) So there we go - I will post up BLW friendly recipes when I am all out of other ideas!

Not that today was a quiet day... Amanda came down from Scotland to visit. She has 3 beautiful girls of her own, so she knows exactly how to handle Emma. This was the first time I had seen her since Emma was born, and it was so nice to be able to talk to her about motherhood, and really understand what she means. oooo and she brought presents too, which Emma loved!

NaBloPoMo

I had better mention that I am doing NaBloPoMo this month. No - it is not one of Emma's new words! It stands for National Blog Posting Month. The idea is that bloggers post every day in November. Some of you family members who are always pushing for new photos (you know who you are!!) will be very pleased about this. Some of you might want me to carry on, and go back to religiously posting every day. Well who knows - maybe I will! But the older and more active that Emma gets, the more precious my spare time becomes. Having said that, I love looking back at older posts, and seeing how much she has grown and changed in such a short time, so posting every day is a great idea if I can manage it!