Baby brain

It seems as though Baby Juliet is always on Big Sister Alice's mind...

From the daily diary from nursery:

"Each day, the Dolphins room incorporates a home corner area including a kitchen area along with dolls and beds. Today, Alice and Emily spent time together in the home corner caring for their babies. With Alice having experience from home and Emily practicing for a new arrival, the experience gave rise to a valuable opportunity of exploring caring for babies and how to treat those that are smaller than ourselves.

 
Emily and Alice used verbal communication to express themselves to one another and conversed throughout their play experience;


Alice: “This is my baby Juliet”

Emily: “This is my Georgia! She still in Mummy’s tummy”

Alice: “Shh Juliet. Time for a sleep. It’s time for a sleep Emily!”

Emily: “I pat my baby. She falling asleep now”

The girls showed amazing development of care and empathy and were able to recreate familiar scenarios in their play.

They used verbal communication to express themselves throughout the dramatic play experience."

And later, at the playdough table:
 
"The Dolphins children joined one another at the table where they helped divide the play dough evenly among friends.


William C- “I made buzz light year”


Emily- “I made a sausage”

Ari- “I made a dinosaur, Roar!”

William E- “I made a sleepy baby”

Arabella- “I made a happy bear”

Angus H- “I made a happy bear”

Alice – “I made baby Juliet”

Sisterly love

Juliet withstands a lot of affection from Alice.  She loves watching her sister's antics and although I worry that Alice will literally squash her one day, Juliet has only been reduced to tears once (when Alice prized her fingers apart looking for fluff in a slightly over-zealous manner).

Bath and bedtime continues hectic and I put Juliet to bed around 6.30pm and leave her to finish grumbling about this on her own.  I dash off to sort out Alice's bath.  Last night I couldn't find my oldest child, until she was eventually located in the darkened room, patting (I should really say, slapping) Juliet's tummy "because she was kwy-ing, Mummy.  I had to sort her out".  Juliet had dropped off nicely. 

An example of the affection.  If you look carefully, you can see Juliet smiling...

Christmassy shots

Alice loved decorating the tree.  She gave herself one little clap after hanging each bauble. 



One down one to go

Alice's left grommet came out a couple of weeks ago.  She had a bad night and in the morning, there it was, sitting in her ear.  We saw the ENT on Wednesday.  She was really good; when asked how she was, her bottom lip started to quiver and she told him in great detail how she had shut her fingers in a drawer at home.  Kindly, he examined them and while she was still holding them aloft in rather a forlorn manner, he checked her ears.

The right grommet is still in there, by the skin of its teeth and we'll go back in three months to see if she's still having earaches after it has come out.  She's had two already this spring in the left ear - one with the grommet in place and one while it was loose so I think she'll probably be back on the operating table.

Little blue grommet

Juliet at 9 weeks

Bless Juliet - she just goes about the business of being a baby and doesn't get much of a mention in these here parts.

She's a really very good little person and is treating us to many smiles.  She settles really, really nicely - you can literally pop her in the cot, walk away and she'll doze off with hardly a sound.  It's still difficult to get her to stay awake for longer than 90 minutes and if she is any form of vehicle, it'll be less time still.

I'm really working hard on keeping her awake for longer in the day, however, as she was showing no signs of sleeping longer at night.  Yesterday, I ventured out of the house twice without her and she woke crying both times.  The evening session lasted for 2 full hours (poor valient Daddy who didn't call me to come home) although he gave her a bottle, she wasn't for settling.  However, the really great upside was that she slept from 10.30 - 5.45am after I had sauntered back through the door at 9.30pm and fed her as usual.  I feel like a whole new woman today!

Juliet accompanied me to our work Christmas lunch last week and behaved amazingly well.  She didn't cry at all and was passed from person to person with no fuss.  Here she is in her finery.

In fact she behaved much better than my workmates, some of whom were over 2 hours late and all of whom had far too much wine ;)  Can't wait until nursing is over!

Milking Santa

Off for a meal out, leaving pater in charge, I prepared a little message for Alice from Santa.  Last time I had departed on similar circumstances, she'd cried her eyes out, so I thought it would be a good distraction and that she'd be really excited.

Apparently the poor child was terrifed.

Watch it here

However, she did apparently go to bed without a peep and this morning announced that she wasn't going to "throw a tantrum"...

Stalking Santa

Alice is desperately excited about Christmas.  In fact, we spent one happy rainy morning in a department store in October, as she ran amok in the Christmas trim area, marvelling at the trees and froliking to the music of a dancing Santa.

It was to some consternation that Auntie Rosie, Juliet and I witnessed a fullscale meltdown at the feet of Father "Westfield" Christmas when we tried to get Alice's photo taken with him.  All agreed that I had failed to prepare Alice sufficiently well - she needs a few weeks' build up to these things.  We've therefore been talking about him ever since.

Yesterday was the annual Santa morning tea at daycare with all the parents and not just a few hangers on present.  Alice was wonderfully excited to have us all there and was uncharacteristically relaxed with all the adults around.  I guess she sees them all every day when they deliver their offspring, but it was nice not to have her hanging off my thigh.

Still a little shy when the big man appeared, she gained some courage when she discovered that the present was to be a Charlie and Lola book.

So emboldened was she that we managed to get a photo with the DJ Santa, coming to a Christmas card near you if you are a grandparent...

Grandparents

We had a lovely day on Sunday - Alice and Juliet were feeling particularly sociable and enjoyed an early Skype with Grannie and Grandad Y, as well as a late night chat with Nanna and Grandad K.  Juliet even smiled across the miles through the webcam.

Our friends Nick and Sarah came round later to view the baby.  Nick and Stu caught a bit of the cricket before they were bundled off to housework and work respectively.

"Looks like Grandad" was Alice's comment:

Juliet's 6-8 week check

Juliet and I have now completed the trifecta of 6 week medical appointments today (innoculations, obstetrician and her check-up).  All has been well in all cases.

She now weighs 5.01kg, and all her measurements - length, head and that weight are in the 75th percentile, which is back where she was when she was born.  So am feeling very proud of that catch-up.  They all know her at the clinic as the 10/10/10 baby so everyone remembered her and commented on what a good job I'd done.  Yeay me.  A comedy of errors ensued as my remaining hormonalness made me have a little snivel at the praise, which meant they got out the post-natal depression questionnaire, which meant that Juliet's feed was delayed, which meant she screamed the place down, but apart from that all was well. 

Juliet's healthy in all other ways and has really started to be interested in the world around her, playing with the teddies on her Baby Bjorn chair, loving mirrors and enjoying "Juliet goes up; Juliet goes down" which is a fun game that Daddy has invented, involving lifting her up and down while she's in her worm suit.

Lots of fun times ahead as she gets more and more engaged and engaging.

The Observer

"Ooh you can tell she's taking it all in, can't you?" was oft repeated by passing kind old ladies when Alice was small.  Conversely, she can sometimes drive a parent to distraction by seeming to take nothing in at all, especially when being asked to do something.  Or answering "Not anything" to any question posed.  Selective hearing - nature or nurture?  I blame her father's skills in this area, either way!

When we drive home from daycare, usually to the sound of Juliet's screams until we get through the city traffic and get moving, Alice often slumps into a little reverie.  Processing her day/ chomping a snack/ looking out of the window take precedence before we get 10 minutes or so into the journey.  After she's had a chance to digest events and biscuits, she can get quite chatty, but prior to that, I assume she's in her own little world.  I listen to the radio, taking advantage of the distraction from the crying and staving off the inevitable requests for Dora Music.

Yesterday there was an accident in the Eastern Distributor (that's the name of the tunnel and that's all they call it on the radio traffic reports).  As the entrance to the tunnel usually marks the 10 minute mark, we have a little routine conversation to get the ball rolling.  Being English, we remark on the weather outside the tunnel and the traffic inside.   Alice told me that it was a beautiful day and I let Alice know that there was an accident in the tunnel so there'd be traffic.  "The lady already said that on the radio, Mummy", she said.  I marvelled at her comprehension and how she had joined the dots.  How I wished that the segment immediately prior to the earlier traffic report had not been a preview of a segment on the breakfast show, where there is a competition called "sex secrets".   It'll be Dora Music all the way home from now on to protect little ears.

Summer trim

Bald as a coot until at least 12 months, perhaps 24, Alice loves to wear her hair down in celebration of having any.  She gets really hot when she sleeps and when she runs about so this morning we braved the elements to get a bob.  Every time we go, she gets a little braver and today she actually sat in the airplane chair and wore the gown.  I had to hold her hand, but that was really no bother.

The ladies there are great and make a big fuss of her.  She got a Hiawatha feather at the end that we called a fascinator and looked really pretty.

Early smiles

It's been raining all day, so no one has had very much to smile about today, but a little ray of Juliet sunshine broke through the clouds...

You'll see from the tum that she's putting on weight nicely now.  We have her 8 week check tomorrow to see exactly how much, but I have scaled down the hectic regime of motillium, feed, express, feed, express, feed, top-up, motillium, feed, top-up, motillium, feed, top-up, feed, top-up, night feed because it left me about 13 spare minutes all day, not even taking into account showering and all the sterilising of bottles. 

We're getting into a bit of a rhythm now and bath and bedtime - my erstwhile period of dread - are coming along nicely.  I cheated today, since the weather was so bad, and didn't put Alice down for her lunchtime nap.  This meant that she went to sleep very easily, after hardly any exercise.  My, it was a long day without my "lunchbreak".