August 2004 Archives

Its just the little things that make Emily get more adorable everyday. There is obvious signs of development as you go along, like the laughing, responding to her name, crawling etc, but its the subtle things that really melt your heart.

Recently she has started blowing kisses. How cute is that?! Now, she doesn't give her kisses away freely, only when she feels like it. But it is just sooo cute! Especially when you least expect it, or happen to mention the word kiss!

She has also started waving, which is really funny. Sometimes she might hear the word 'goodbye' and she waves. Other times you just have to walk out the room or put your coat on and she waves.

It is just so fantastic. Isn't it funny how the simplest thing in the world, becomes such a big issue? It certainly puts things into perspective being a parent.

Its official. 10 months old and she's like lightning!

We actually thought she was gonna bypass the crawling phase as she never seemed to manage it and didn't like being on her front at all. But it seems we under esitmated our little lady. There I was, in the kitchen making a cup of tea and I turned round to see Ems head poking round the corner of the living room door, with a look on her face that said "Hey look at me! I'm crawling! Yippeeee!"

After a day of utter excitement at the mobility of our little girl, it all dawned on me. I am exhausted! The constant running around stopping little fingers poking things, picking her up and taking her back to the start over and over. Putting her in playpen (baby prison!) whenever I need to do something or even got to the loo! The days are just not the same!

We now have to quickly sort out our 'dangerous' house and make it all lovely and baby friendly (which we have manged to avoid until now), complete with fixing gates and hiding sockets (and anything else at adult knee level).

This is a new experience for me and a new level of energy and patience is required.

I have been so slack with my posts lately, I am going to make a Late Summer resolution to write more, after all there is always something happening and Emily looks more like a little girl every day!

We are just back from our official first family holiday. As you can imagine it was like no other holiday we have ever encountered. Not the usual relaxing get away from it all affair. We took the ferry and drove over to Stranraer and down to Kielder Water in Northumbria (3.5hrs drive), where we met mom & Nige, who were holidaying in their motorhome. We stayed in the family room of a hostel which although budget was nice and over looked the lake. The place was beautiful (if you ignored the midges!) and it was lovely for Emily to see her Grandparents. But with a baby routine its pretty hard to do much and as we realised, staying in one room is tricky for any kind of socialising. Once Emily went to bed it was dimmed lights hushed voices and we were lucky if we got a game of Scrabble (those party days, drinking till all hours of the morning have well and truely gone!). Bring out the slippers!

We all went swimming which was fantastic! Emily had a little swim seat that she sat in and she loved it! Its hard to think how you would take a baby swimming on your own though...

The journey to Kielder was pretty stress free, but then we drove to Dundee (a 3.5 hr drive which took nearly 6hrs) which needless to say was like entering a form of hell. We were ready to kill each other near the end. I think it was a combination of not feeling well and an unhappy grizzly Em in the car for so long. Luckily by the time we got to Sal and Pauls house it was like turning up to a 5 star hotel!! Just what we needed - complete with Jacuzzi bath hehe! It was so lovely to see them and Emily enjoyed herself and was bemused by little Tiggy (and Sal hehe) the whole time.

We have to say we were daunted by the 4hr drive back to Stranraer after the last experience but Emily was as good as gold the whole way. She slept a lot and when she woke was very content - thankfully an easy stressfree end to our hols.

So thanks to Mom, Nige, Sally & Paul for looking after us and making our holiday enjoyable - it was lovely to see you all!

Its hard to summarise it all when so much happened in a short space of time, but hopefully I've painted a good picture of it. If not then I will have the photos back soon enough and you can see for yourself.