Wednesday 10 December 2008

More on Lara's Birthday

Phew, what an exhausting evening! Given that we weren't going to have a party, it turned into quite a party! First Lara opened her cards and presents, and in typical fashion was equally impressed with her balloons as much as she was with her lovely presents! Kids, eh!? Then she had a very big tea involving quiche, pizza and birthday cake, amongst other things. There was an "In the Night Garden" theme to the cake and one of the presents, and indeed you can see Igglepiggle eyeing up the cake in one of these photos.




Take a good look at Mishka in his fluffy coat, he's off to the salon tomorrow morning for a strip. Poor lad will be freezing for a few weeks!

We'll put some more videos up on YouTube later of Lara with her presents.

1 Today!




Here's Lara at 7am, playing with the Farmyard Shape Sorter that Eve has given her - At Eve's birthday party Lara loved playing with it! Now she's got one of her own.
Lara had another good night last night, although we messed her normal routine about. It was the Christmas Party at the nursery yesterday afternoon, and although Lara wouldn't normally be there on a Tuesday, she was allowed to go to the party. It was only for an hour, but it meant that she didn't have any afternoon nap at all, and by the time I'd wandered round Asda with her after work, getting lots of party nibbles for tonight, she was absolutely exhausted, and she slept in her pram from 6pm until almost 10pm, then had dinner in front of the TV - we're setting her a good example! - then her bath before a very late bedtime. Well, you're only 0.9973 years old once. After a bit of a struggle to get her back to sleep, not surprisingly, she slept through until 4.50am, but again I was a bit selfish and gave her a minute or two to settle back down before getting up, and she duly obliged. She even slept through while Olga had a shower this morning, only waking when the hairdryer started up. Once she woke up properly and had her yoghurt, she was in a really good mood, even better than normal, and she loved playing with her first new toy of the day, the farmyard shape sorter. We'll open the rest of the cards and presents this afternoon; Olga is getting out of work in London early, and I'll pick Lara up from nursery at 4pm. The plan is for the grown-ups to crack open a bottle of bubbly at 17.12, the time of Lara's birth....
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Tuesday 9 December 2008

364 days and counting

It's Lara's big day tomorrow, although we're just keeping the celebrations confined to 46 Deeds Grove. Lara likes helium balloons, so I've got her a big #1, and there'll be a cake of course. Presents have arrived from Grandma & Grandad, Auntie Cath & Uncle Nick & Lizzie, and Eve, and we're looking forward to the look on Lara's face when she gets her hands on them tomorrow morning. Having said that, perhaps we might wait until we get her home from nursery, as it might be a bit cruel to give her some wonderful new toys then take her off straight away to nursery! We'll be picking her up earlier than usual so we'll have plenty of playtime later on.

It's also a crunch time in her feeding routine, as the ready supply of Mum-milk will be turned off. We weren't looking forward to mornings, as the routine up to now of bringing her to bed for an hour or so when she first wakes had been working really well. Recently teething and a cold has meant Lara had been having fitful nights, waking at least once in the middle of the night then waking for a feed around 5am, which would be too early for us to get up and give her breakfast (but had been perfect for bringing her to bed for an hour). No sooner had we quizzed Catherine on Sunday about what she had done with Lizzie, and expressed our concerns about Lara waking at 5am, than Lara went and slept through the night on Sunday night, only waking at 6am when Olga got up for a shower! I got up and gave her water and a yoghurt in place of Mum-milk, and Lara was absolutely fine with it. Last night she woke once at 2.45am, but recently we've decided to be slow with our response, as on occasions Lara has settled herself and gone back to sleep without us helping, and she did this again last night. She woke around 6.30, and Olga gave her water and yoghurt, and everything was fine. Can it be this easy!?!
The next big test will be to start Lara on full fat cow's milk. Cath reports that Lizzie wouldn't take it, as she wasn't used to feeding from bottles, which seems to be a fairly common story from fully-breastfed babies, and we've not fed Lara from a bottle for well over 6 months now; we'll try some milk in her usual cup and see how she goes, but we'll not hold our breath. If necessary we'll supplement her dairy intake elsewhere, such as an extra yoghurt or some more cheese each day.
We're expecting meal times to get messier now too, as Lara has discovered what fun it is to put bowls and dishes on her head (so far only empty ones!):

Monday 8 December 2008

Lara's new hobby - Delivering Stuff

As part of Lara's march towards standing up, then eventually walking, she's progressed on to pushing boxes around like a miniature delivery driver...

A Sunday walk in the countryside

Yesterday we met up with Cath, Nick & Lizzie half way between Wycombe and Portishead (roughly!) at a village called Bishopstone, just east of Swindon. I'd found a walk on a website about the Ridgeway, and I'd booked us in for Sunday lunch at a pub in the village. We were half an hour late because our road map bore no relation with the reality of the A419 (if you've ever been there, you'll know what I mean) - visible roundabouts are a thing of the past in this part of Wiltshire, and it seems that only those villages that pay enough to the local council get their village added to road signs. I'm not kidding that Bishopstone doesn't appear on any modern road signs in the area, only on those older versions that were probably removed in the Second World War in case of invasion, then replaced afterwards.

It was a perfect day for a stroll though, and Lara and Lizzie enjoyed comparing their sedan chairs. We cut the walk short to make sure we got to the pub in time for lunch, although this involved passing through an organic pig farm. The piglets were very cute, but we weren't convinced the flimsy wire fence would prevent their mum from defending her little oinkers from Mishka if we'd let him get any closer! The enclosure containing the dads wasn't much stronger, but they didn't seem too bothered by us. It certainly seemed very natural and healthy for the pigs, although as Olga pointed out, "they probably don't actually like living in a muddy field".

The pub itself, the True Heart, was very nice. £9 for a two course Sunday Roast, they provided an extra bowl of veggies for nothing when we asked for some - Lara and Lizzie could have had their own kiddy-sized Sunday dinner but they just shared the grown-ups meals. We even went as far as having dessert too - how Nick has made it into his 40s without having Dead Man's Leg, I'll never know :-) (Jam Roly Poly for the non-Lancastrians)

Lara and Lizzie seemed to enjoy themselves, and we just loved Lizzie's words - "gotgot" for choccy or a biscuit, "meat" when asked what else she'd like to eat, and "Rara" for Lara. As Cath pointed out, it does help that Lizzie's other cousin is called Tara, so "Rara" works for both!





It was only an hour's drive for all of us, so it's something we'll have to do more often, especially if Cath supplies the coffee and cookies again!

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