Teeth

YES!! They've arrived! The leading edges on the bottom two teeth pushed their way through on Saturday morning. (Needless to say, we've had little sleep since then.) Now we're just waiting for them to push through fully. Thank God they've arrived!! Only another few days of this and hopefully a nice break before we start with the top ones (here's hoping, anyway!)

Swinging

I wish I'd taken a photo of it - Nellie on the swings for the first time! We went for a walk this morning up to the ponds on the common to feed the geese (which she LOVES doing - I think it's the whole fascination with animals thing because she doesn't have any at home...), and on the way back I decided to stop in at the playground to see what was on offer that she might be able to make use of. The swings had a bar right around, with more bars between the legs and across teh back, so I thought I'd give it a go. How I wished I'd had the camera!! We had mile long smiles and chuckles galore. She LOVED it!

At long last it seems her teeth are coming through. I noticed this morning that you can actually see them, just below her gum - two little white patches. I don't know how long it will take before they break the skin, but it can't be much longer now! No wonder she's been gumming on absolutely everything!

Her walking is developing nicely. Today she walked about 6m, with me behind her. She takes these huge goose-stepping steps, but she's really getting the hang of it now. She's also getting the hang of turning herself around without falling over - as long as there's something to hold on to. Her balance while standing is improving rapidly and she can generally now prevent herself from overbalancing if she's standing playing with her toys at a chair or couch. She still hasn't mastered sitting down though! In fact, getting up is still a problem for her too - she can get about half way now but still needs that final push to help her stand properly.

Her speech is also coming along - at the moment her favourite sounds are a Darth Vader style beathing effect, 'da-da' and 'ti-ti'. She babbles constantly (if she isn't feeling shy) too, which is great!

I'm loving being at home and seeing her develop!! Even from week to week, and sometimes from day to day, I'm noticing new things, or development of things, she's doing. Long may that last!

Continued...

While this one was taken on Wednesday, with her new 'kitty' Delilah (I ask you! Cuddly toys that come with names and birth dates! Whatever will they think of next?) - we lost her old 'Kitty' while camping, so Mommy had to replace her! - this is how she spent an awful lot of time last week. It seemed to be the only way we could get her to sleep without crying!

It was taken on a visit to Kew Gardens. When we first arrived we went to feed the geese and ducks, and she absolutely LOVED that! The railings at the edge of the pond were exactly the right size for her to grasp nicely and the right width apart for her to stand comfortably. I, however, was not so comfortable as one of the geese was having a go at biting other children's toes. I could feel myself getting into over-protective mother mode!

Here's another one from Kew - we sat and played under the trees overlooking a coot's nest on another pond and watched it feed it's young. The father was definitely in over-protective father mode as any other living thing within a certain distance was chased off with much noise and flapping of wings! Notice how much hair she's got now! That started growing all of a sudden. When she baths or swims now it stands up in a little mohawk - very cute!

As yet, I haven't had a chance to sort out the video stuff, but that will come before the end of the summer (I hope!!) so watch this space for that.

Isn't she cute?!?!

During our 1st swimming course one of the objectives is to get them to hold on to the side of the pool. Not only did Nellie NOT get this concept, but she was determined to only hold on to us. I took her swimming again on Tuesday (which she LOVED!!!!) and she did her horizontal submerge WITH A HOLD!! She actually managed to support her own body weight for 2 seconds (which is a massive improvement), and she seemed to really get the concept that she needs to hold herself up out of the water. She doesn't actually have the upper body strength to do it for long, but that will come in time.

The lack of upper body strength is also proving a problem in pulling herself up on other things. She just doesn't have the strength in her arms and needs a fair bit of pulling from us to get her vertical. She's improving, but it will be a while yet before she can pull herself up - not that she lets that stop her from trying! The poor mite is spending more and more time feeling frustrated because she can't get vertical.

Last night in the bath was just such a moment. As much as she LOVES the water, right now she loves being vertical more. She therefore tried to pull herself up on the side of the bath (at first choosing the side against the wall, which is impossible to hold onto!). This accomplished, she held on and supported her own body weight for several 10's of seconds without too much wobbling. The grins and chuckles of pure delight at this little achievment made me nearly cry, and made both Graeme and I laugh!

Anyway, I promised more photos.... so here are some we took while camping last week... playing in the tent at 5.30am, trying really hard not to wake our fellow campers...

and here she is wearing Dad's hat in the sun...

And now the silly webpage isn't allowing me to add any more photos... will continue on another day.

Camping

We've just got back from a week's camping.... I have to say that it was tougher than I was anticipating, but probably that was mostly because of the weather. We had rain and severe wind for the first few days and Nellie was very disturbed by the flapping canvas and noise.

However, we did have fun. The highlight of the week for us, as far as Nellie is concerned, is that she has really started talking now (baby talk, of course). It's such a joy to see her trying to communicate with us verbally! She copies almost any sound you make, and when she's playing by herself she's constantly talking to herself. Last night, when we gave her her last bottle of the night, finished off the entire bottle, smacked her lips, and then made a sound that implied she not only approved of the milk, but was entirely satisfied with it and was now ready to go to sleep. She sounded so grown up! We just laughed and laughed.

I've got some photos, but I'll put them up another time. We also took a lot of video footage, so when I have time to sort that out and put it up, I will.

Being the gorgeous child she is, she made plenty of friends (or should that be admirers?) in the group we were camping with, and we constantly had other children popping over to play with her and talk to her, which she loved (mostly!). One in particular, an ex-pupil of mine, Angus, was a massive hit! I have to say that there was one afternoon where I was ready to pack it all up and come home because I was exhausted and frustrated and so was Nellie, and then Angus stepped in like an angel of the Lord! To say he kept Nellie entertained is an understatement. He calmed us both down, made her laugh, got her to eat her food (she hadn't eaten for nearly a day), and generally ministered the love of God to us. During the rest of the week whenever he appeared, Nellie was full of smiles and laughs.

There's my clarion call. Will finish this later.