A good night and our first bath

Lara (and Olga!) had a very good night last night. Lara was fed at 11pm till 11.45, then slept through till 2.30am before waking for her next feed, but she didn't wake up screaming, it was just some gurgling and whimpering. She then slept till her next feed at 5.30am, which was only a brief one, but again she didn't cry at all, even when she had her nappy changed, which has been guaranteed to get her lungs working so far. In fact she didn't cry at all through the night - until Dad left the room to go and walk Mishka at 7.45! I reckon it means Ola's been doing really well to react to Lara's needs, and that feeding is going well too. Even the pooing and the peeing is what we've been led to expect, so we're really happy that everything is going OK.
We've worked out it's better to have the central heating on "constant" at 19 degrees rather than trying to blast the temperature up to 21 degrees then having the radiators turn off, that made it cold in the night for both Ola and Lara, which probably contributed to her crying on Wednesday night (Lara's, not Ola's!). Ah, yeah, I'd not said about Wednesday night, Ola was up almost every hour, checking on Lara whenever there was a snuffle or a gurgle. She still got more sleep than when she was in the hospital though, but Lara was more teary on Wednesday night than last night, but we reckon that might be down to the central heating.

Lara's had her first bath this morning, ready to get fussed over in the office...

Our first trip to the park

Yesterday we had our first visit from the midwife, everything is OK, Lara has a slight touch of jaundice but nothing to worry about, and we should just give her some sunlight for a little time. Bearing this in mind, and that there wasn't a cloud in the sky yesterday, we dressed Lara up in her best warm clothes (at least, those that fit her at the moment, she's still "petite"!) and took her and Mishka to our local park. I've uploaded some photos to the web album, but I'll put a couple here:

The Quinny Buzz pram worked a treat, and we'll give it another go today when we take Lara to the office to meet the Tigress people - it's the highlight of the Tigress year today, (not just meeting Lara), the office Christmas Party; this will be the first one I've missed in 10 years - I even flew back from Houston specially for my first one in 1997.

Home Sweet Home

Olga & Lara were allowed home late this morning, I'd not made as much progress in getting the place ready as I'd have liked, but I was able to work out the car seat (which wasn't as tricky as I thought it might be). We had some flowers delivered from work just 30 minutes after we got home, as you can see above.
Ola and Lara had an afternoon nap while I popped out to get some more supplies in, then it was my turn for a powernap with Lara - this parenting lark has started well!

I'm cooking roast beef, yorkshire puds, roast potatoes and veg, with melting chocolate cake for desert tonight, as a welcome home treat for Mum; Lara should also get the benefit of it later on too! We'll open a bottle of champagne too, and Mum certainly can have a glass and a half, but we'll time it right so Lara doesn't feel the effects of that!

We've got all the forms for child benefit, and registering Lara, I'll go and do that in a day or two. Ola's now worried that I will add the names Stephenie Gerrarda to Larissa Jane.

It's a thought..... ;-)

Some photos from Tuesday

I've put a slideshow of some photos I took yesterday with my better camera, it's easier to put them there than here inside a blog posting. I'll keep updating them. Just click on the photos to see bigger versions, and use the left and right arrows above the photo to move on to the next one.
Don't worry - there's only 8 pictures at the moment!!

Hiccups

I thought I'd try loading up a video - Lara with hiccups seems as good a subject as any! It's only a few seconds long.

Ohhh What A beeaautiful Morrrrning...

After sending out the necessary emails and and unwinding a little, it was 1am before I went to bed, and once I woke up at 6.30 I couldn't get back to sleep, too excited about getting my jobs done before going back to the hospital at 10.30. I'd even had a dream about seeing my friends for a few drinks but having to leave early to get home for Lara!
So I got up to walk Mishka (who, by the way, deserves a medal for coping home alone yesterday, he didn't trash anything, or even leave me a little smelly or watery present when I got home, the little trooper. In fact, he deserves to have a recent photo put on here, so here you go, from 2 weeks ago):


Anyway, as if to signify that today really is a new dawn for me, and to celebrate that, it was a lovely, crisp, clear morning, one of those where you're glad you've got a dog to walk to give you a reason to be out in it. Then, just before we got back home, as if the lovely dawn wasn't enough, for the first time in this build-up to Christmas, I heard my favourite Christmas song, Fairytale of New York. I know, it's not an original choice, and it is pushed very close by Little Drummer Boy and Driving Home For Christmas, but it just made my morning even better. Then I come on here to share all this and of course the first thing I see are photos of Lara :-)

All this was only spoiled when I checked on the cricket score! Sri Lanka have put about a million on for their third wicket. Just to rub it in, as I typed that sentence Vandort hit the first six of the match. Typical!
Ah, a couple of minutes later Ryan Sidebottom has just dismissed Vandort for a measly 138. Cue a Sri Lankan collapse, I reckon.

OK, OK , A close up!

Here's Lara at 45 minutes old :-) A bit mucky (in the nicest of ways!) but it's all in the eyes.

Today's the Big Day!!

Yep, December 10th is the big day - Larissa Jane Armstrong arrived at 17.12, in quite a rush, weighing in at 6lbs 4.5oz (2.84 kilos). She's 24 days early, but as strong as her mum and better looking than her dad.
Dad did get her first nappy on properly though!
More details to follow, but here are some photos for starters.