Wednesday 31 December 2008

Christmas 2008

We drove up to Radcliffe to my Mum & Dad's on Christmas Day morning, and stayed until Sunday lunchtime. Lara enjoyed herself a lot, being fussed over by Grandma & Grandad, and enjoyed all her new presents, she has her own pushchair with a doll now to push around, and her teletubby Po always makes her laugh.
Lara continued her good sleeping pattern even in unusual surroundings, which meant that Olga and I were able to go out for an evening in Bury for a few drinks on the Saturday. Mishka wasn't ignored - quite the opposite in fact, as he got hours and hours of attention from us while we hand-stripped his coat; he looks much better now, although he was a cute furball before, he looks like the elegant Airedale that he's supposed to be now - if only he acted like it!
We called in at our friends place on the way back - Rob & Lizz, who now have a beautiful brother, James, for Juliet. It's amazing how light little babies are when you pick them up!

Here are some photos from Radcliffe:



And a couple of funny videos - my Dad needs a frame to help him walk at the moment, but Lara thought it was fun to borrow it from time to time:



But she did bring it back...

Our Little Teenager

Lara has skipped ages 1 through to 14 and is showing some traits of your average teenager now - sleeping a lot and eating us out of house and home (oh, and going to the pub quite a bit recently!). Luckily that's all, there are no real temper tantrums, or staying out all night or suchlike.
Since just before Christmas Lara has taken to falling asleep without much help from us, around 7.30, and not waking till 7.30 in the morning. In fact there have been days where we've had to go and wake her up for nursery! She still stirs in the night, especially as she still has a cough (like the rest of us!), but we haven't had to to into her room at night for nearly two weeks now. Long may it continue!
And now she has started eating like a horse, too. We noticed it when we were up at my Mum & Dad's for Christmas, that she ate everything we offered her, at least everything that was on a spoon. She did really like helping herself to turkey, carrots, and sausages, but potatoes and sprouts were tried then chucked away. This has continued since we got home, I think she's eating at least 50% more each day than she was eating two or three weeks ago. It's a growth spurt, we assume. It's still mostly jar food (Heinz Globe Totters Chicken Paella is a favourite this week) with vegetable nibbles, quiches and bananas, although on top of the turkey at Christmas she tried salmon, and turkey will be back on the menu for New Year's Day.

Whilst we wouldn't say that she has started talking, there are hints that she is starting to understand more. She knows that the noise Mishka makes is "ooooouu-ooooouu", and when asked - in Russian, no less - at Mum & Dad's house, what does Mishka say, she did consciously reply "ooooouu-ooooouu". After spending the whole day with her in our office at work yesterday, I have also worked out that "Edda!" means give me that thing I'm pointing to (it was usually food!)