documenting E - a new challenge

I have decided to set myself a huge challenge. I'm going to take a picture of E - or E's things - every day for the next year. It's going to be tough.  Actually, if my previous record with photography challenges is anything to go by, it's going to be almost impossible.  But I want to try. I'm not sure if everything I will document will end up here, but at least for the beginning expect a post a week documenting E.

 

1/365 : Even in winter all you want to do is be outside. 

 

2/365 : Mostly you're all over the place - running, hiding and pleading to be outside. Today after my shower I found you quietly doing puzzles. It must have taken you ages to line up the blocks "just so". After you'd finished you put it back on the shelf declaring your were "Fi-fished". I wondered if we'd perhaps taught you too well about the importance of being tidy.

 

3/365 : You've been so sick this winter. We've tried everything - Vicks vapour rub, humidifiers and lately - Ventolin. You hate it, riggling about all over the place and protesting madly about having the mask put over your face. Tonight I found you giving Teddy and Poupe (your doll) their Ventolin before bed.  "Teddy. Cough." you nodded at me and then "Hold. Still."

 

4/365 : I wondered what you thought of your first experience of "Australian snow". Were you disappointed?

 

5/365 : Stories are one of your favourite things at the moment. You take books everywhere - in the car, in the pram and lately you've even started taking them as 'show and tell' to childcare.  A new book everyday. You push books into the hands of anyone and everyone you meet 

"You. Read it?" Mostly they do.

 

6/365 : You were out of sorts today. I think you might be teething. You keep telling me that you've bitten your mouth and I guess you're gums must be sore. 

Bathtime

No words for this one. Just E. My loveable, cheeky almost two year old E. 

Can it really be 2 years already?

Oy!

This girl of mine! She knows exactly where she's going and makes no apologies for rallying anyone and everyone around her to help her get there. For one of very few words she is quite the communicator, mustering up all her energy into the power of the pointed finger, the emphatic head nod and more often than I would like, the disgruntled grunt. Heaven help us when she actually learns to talk!

eight months

Eight month photos with a narrative from Emilia.

Hey, this TV Tower looks different to last time.  I'm sure it used to be red. 

Yep, it was definitely red last time.  

Mama. Oi Mama!  You've given me the wrong prop.  

You're kidding me right?  

You really think you'll be able to trick everyone and just pretend it's the red one?  Or are you somehow going to suggest it's been green all along and just ignore the fact that at 3, 4 and 5 months I was playing with a red softie?  

Okay then. You're the boss.  Ready?  

Done and we're away. 

Time to go inspect the fluff that's building up on the carpet. 

Much, much later I found the red softie (in the car).

Emilia at: seven months six months, five months,   four months>

Seven months

The milestones are tumbling at the moment. In two weeks I went from having a non-mobile, non-rolling kid to a sitting, rolling, bum-shuffling babe with two bottom teeth and a love of her own voice. Seriously, there is rarely a moment when she's quiet. She even hums her approval (or otherwise) while eating the food we dish up to her. Soft coo's for 'good' and high pitched whinging when we haven't quite got it right. Lately she's been waking up and practicing her 'da-da' and 'ba-ba-bas' at 2am in the morning. It's kinda cute until you realise it's two in the morning and actually you'd prefer to be sleeping than listening to your kid ticking off developmental milestones.

But even if she's kept me awake for what seems like all night and really, I'm pretty grumpy because this working-Mama thing needs sleep for it to function, one look at those cheeks and I'm done. 

Emilia at: six months, five months,   four months, three months, two months

Growing Pains

Today I have a sick baby hanging out with me as I go about my day. Mr Hippo in hand, dummy firmly in mouth and head gently resting on her Mamma's back.  Her nose is full of snot and she sounds ever so slightly like a Pug dog as she sniffs and snuffles her way through slumber.  And while I am so happy to know that just being with me is enough to make her feel a bit better, this was not what I had planned for today. Nor this week, for that matter. Oh no! This week was about getting the car fixed, buying safety gear for our soon-to-be second vehicle (a putt-putt motorbike), storing up breastmilk in carefully labelled bottles and orientating Emilia into childcare. This week was supposed to be about getting everything ready for me to go back to work.

I do not feel great about going back to work.  It is necessary and I know once I am there I will enjoy oiling the intellectual cogs in my brain and using skills that I had previously worked so hard to acquire. Mattthias will start looking after Emilia one day a week, which I think they will both love (no pesky Mamma poking her head in wondering if everything is okay) and eventually Emilia will love childcare. Over all her toys and the games that we play at home, her most favourite thing in the world is visiting people.  No matter where we go if there's someone about she'll lean in towards them and give them a big gummy smile. She will love the opportunity of playing with other kids at childcare. And she will still hang out with Mamma or Papa four days a week. It will be okay. It might even be great. But right now it all seems too much.  Right now she's nestled on my back sleeping and there's no where else I'd rather her be.

17.01

18.01

19.01

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21.01

22.01

23.01

6 months

And just like that my little babe is becoming a girl. Sometimes, just for a moment, I catch a glimpse of the girl that she is becoming. For an instant her baby cheeks and gummy smile give way to a studious and inquisitive gaze and I see the girl she will be at 10. And then 'poof' it's gone and she's a babe in my arms again. 

A babe who (touch wood) is sleeping again!  I'm writing this with slight trepidation for there's a real risk that I might jinx things by blurting it out here, but, just quietly, we seem to have repaired her sleep.  Thank you to everyone who sent words of encouragment and helpful advice.  I'm not sure that we're completely out of the woods yet but we're making progress, and that's more than enough for now.

Emilia at: five months four months, three months, two months

5 months

Another month seems to have whooshed by without me feeling like I've had a chance to draw breath.  Five months, can it really be?  Somewhere in the haze of this month we seem to have got ourselves back into a rhythm of sorts. Slowly, but surely, eight calls for 'room service' overnight became six and then four and then two. I had grand plans of Emilia sleeping through the night when she cracked that magic 6kg mark, but after having got to the other side of what felt like a marathon of hourly (!) wake-up calls I'm happy with my two calls a night. Two I can handle. Two is sanity.

And with more sleep comes more time to play.  More giggles, more tummy time and some very determined (but not yet successful) attempts to roll.  Any day now she's going to muster up the courage to move her legs just that little bit further and let herself roll.  Any day now she'll be starting to move. 

Emilia at: four months, three months, two months, one month

Rolly-polly

There was a time when we worried that she wasn't gaining enough weight. It seemed that everything she drank (and sometimes more) ended up being thrown right back up.  Everyone had an opinion. Too much milk. Too little milk. Wrong feeding position. I should drink more of x and less of y. Eat this but definitely not that. Mostly we just ignored all the advice and got on with being us. Eating, sleeping, playing and in amongst it all plenty of posseting with frequent clothes changes for us all.  And you know what? She's doing alright. Right now she's our rolly-polly dick-sie Maedchen.  There's a small part of me that would like to send these photos to all the well-meaning do-gooders who suggested I/she/we were doing something wrong.

Perhaps I just have.

Then and Now

One of the great things about living back at Mum and Dad's while we've been waiting to move into our new home has been discovering lots of old bits and pieces that Mum has saved from when my sisters and I were growing up.  Turns out that babies needs haven't changed that much in the intervening years and little E has been having a great time playing with all our old stuff. Check out the then and now picture of me and Emilia at about the same age playing with the rolly-polly Clown. I'd like to say that we look 'just the same' but really, Emilia is still Papa's girl in the looks department.

Life is still pretty topsy-turvy around here. If the rain ever stops pouring, tomorrow we'll be packing up the trailer and driving up the Hume Highway. The keys to our new place will be ready for picking up Monday morning. It'll be nice to be our of our suitcases finally and into our new place. I already have grand plans for putting our stamp on our new pad, including (I hope) the planting of a vegie garden and maybe, perhaps, even some chooks!

Four months

A lot can happen in a month...

You can find your hands.
You can take a big breath and turn something you've been dreaming about into a reality.
You can learn to stick fingers in mouths and laugh when you make yourself choke.
You can pack up a house.
You can buy flights and hope that your little girl will be a good traveller.
You can find your voice and delight your parents with your 'talking'.
You can say goodbye to two years of memories, two years of friends and a European winter.
You can meet two aunties for the first time.
You can spend 30 hours in airports and airplanes and fall, jetlagged, into the arms of a waiting family.
You can say Hello Australia!.. Home for the next little while.

Yep, it's been a big month. Too big for blogging. Too many decisions and plans and then boxes and suitcases and goodbyes and hellos and in amongst it all our little girl has been growing into a big baby with a voice and hands and a strong personality bursting to get out.

I've missed this space. I'll be back. Soon.

Sleep

I'm a good sleeper. Really good. So good in fact that I'm probably a little too good. On a bad night it takes me five minutes to get to sleep. On a good night, I'm asleep almost before my head hits the pillow. I've even been known to fall asleep mid-conversation, at the dinner table and once, just once, while standing up listening to a midnight mass. I was the girl at uni who always fell asleep in class. When the sleep-bug hits I'm a goner.  It's safe to say I have very little understanding of the difficulties some people have in getting to sleep. 

 But I am learning, and quickly. Emilia is sleep resistant.  Catch her at the right time and it takes half an hour for her to calmly and quietly drift off to sleep.  And this is after she's been fed, changed, swaddled, given her sleep toy, has her dummy and has her Mama or Papa sitting quietly by her side.

I kind of feel sorry for the kid. Kind of. A little bit. Although there are times when I'm reminded of that book by Adam Mansbach.  You can listen to Samuel L. Jackson narrating it here. It'll make you laugh, particularly if you're just a little bit sleep deprived.

3 months

Yesterday Emilia celebrated her three month anniversary with a trip to the doctor for her regular check-up and second lot of vaccinations. Apart from screaming loudly enough that even the doctor commented on her "healthy lungs" she coped with the whole ordeal suprisingly well and at this stage of the developmental game she's tall and lean.

She's also turning out to be a bit of a people person, flirting with everyone who passes by, listening to coversations, cooing and ahhing and giggling at anyone who cares to listen. Doesn't care much about anything else though. Toys? Boring really. Hands? Why bother when you can manipulate your dummy (pacifier) with the flick of your tongue. Milk? Overrated when you can listen to a conversation instead.

Emilia through the months:

- See here for her one week,  4 week and 2 months photos.

2 months

Two months!

Hard to believe that our little girl has been with us two months. It seems like an eternity and yet no time at all. We love her to bits - the smiles and the funny laughs and the endearing way that she snuggles into your neck like a little mouse burrowing into her nest.

Oh, but she is hard work! This little girl is a reflux, throw-up, colicky kid and we are never short or a cloth towel to mop up the sick. We've tried everything; smaller feeds, bottle feeds, burping 1/2 way through, fennel tea (for me), carum carvi (for her), Sab-simplex (also for her) and the latest a dairy-free diet (for me), which seems to have slightly eased the pain and volume of the sick, but not been the miracle cure I was hoping for. Oh how I miss my yogurt in the mornings!  But just as I'm at my wits end and we're in our third set of clothes for the day and I'm walking around our apartment with a grizzling girl in my ear, there's a burp and that smile again and it makes it all okay. More than okay, it makes it fantastic.

Matthias thought that this photo was much more appropriate for her 2 month shot; much more indicative of her normal facial expression - somewhere between a smile and a frown with a little bit of bewilderment thrown in.

- See here for her one week, two week, three week and 4 week photos.

My Thinker

6 weeks - August break

the train to Vienna - August break