On her back, she did!

Victory for the parents!! YAY!! For the first time EVER in her life, she fell asleep on her back tonight!!!!!!!!!!

To truly appreciate the enormity of this seemingly small event, you have to understand that Nellie is still not sleeping through the night because she turns herself onto her back, loses her dummy, jerks in her sleep, startles herself and then proceeds to wake the entire household. She then won't go back to sleep unless she is on her tummy (which she won't turn herself onto) and has her dummy. She's started learning to put her dummy back in on her own if she's wide awake, so that will come in time, but the sleeping on her tummy thing is another matter altogether! So here we are, at nearly 8 months, and we're still getting up 2-4 times a night to turn her over and get her back to sleep.

AND TONIGHT SHE FELL ASLEEP ON HER BACK! Ok, it took longer than usual, but she did it - and best of all, she then TURNED HERSELF ONTO HER TUMMY!!! Hopefully this brings us one step closer to sleeping through the night undisturbed. I do have a photo of her asleep on her back to prove it, but I can't find the camera cable to download it onto the PC, so that will have to wait till another time.

She's definitely developed stranger anxiety, and for the first time last weekend held her arms out to me to take her from a "stranger"... aaaahhhh! I felt all fuzzy and warm, knowing that she really does know and want her Mommy, but obviously felt awful for the friend I'd passed her to!

Last weekend was full of other firsts too - her first (assisted) step!!! I wish we'd caught it on tape.... And while standing, she also turned herself right around. She's sitting unaided now for minutes at a time. She's eating like a horse - and does NOT like lentils, thank you very much, but LOOOOOOOOVES flavoured rice puddings (apple, banana, pear - etc). Her teeth are also nearly through. Both top and bottom have sharp little ridges, so it won't be long till they're out. (Please God may it happen soon, as that's another reason she's not sleeping well at the moment.)

It's all so exciting - my little baby is growing up!

Oh! Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! I forgot to mention - she's started sitting unaided!! Only for a few seconds at a time, but it's happening. Yay!! Here's a video clip, mostly showing her falling over, but at the start and end you can see that she can sit alone. I had her in the pool this afternoon and she was sitting all by herself for up to 10 seconds! Who's a clever girl then?

Balham Hill Festival

Here's a quick clip of us in the bouncy castle! (I haven't included a version for dial-up folks, only for broadband.) And a later addition - here's a GORGEOUS photo of her taken by a friend of ours. Isn't she so cute when she's laughing?

Eating

Break through!! We've figured out how to get her to eat - let her feed herself! That done, we then moved on to actually doing some eating... Presenting: The Orange Monster! So far, she's happily consumed butternut squash, creamy oats porridge and banana. Next feed we will try Mommy's homemade cherry mush...

Last night I got a bit of a fright. We were out. Janel was sitting on my lap at the table and I had a glass of wine. I had put it far enough away (I thought) that she couldn't reach it. However, when I looked away for just a moment, she reached out, grabbed my glass with both hands, pulled it to her and tried to take a sip! She managed to get the glass to her without spilling anything, but then spilled some as she tried to sip it. Fortunately, the friend sitting with us noticed, so she didn't manage to get any wine into her mouth! I was completely aghast though because till now she's shown no inclination towards drinking from a cup, letting along the strength to pick up a full glass, then suddenly - all in one go - she is. So today at lunch she was introduced to a sippy cup, this time with water in it, and she was very happy pulling it off the table and drinking from it!

Here's a lovely photo a friend took of us at our

community festival yesterday - isn't it lovely?!

And here's another one Ashley (our childminder) took last week. Isn't she a happy baby! I was just commenting to Graeme today that I wonder why God has seen fit to bless us with such a lovely, happy, sociable child - we are indeed so blessed to be her parents!

Fun and games

Nellie's settling in nicely with our childminder, Ashley. She's finally sleeping properly, and feeding properly, when she's at Ashely's, which is great. Here Ashley has taken her out to a one o'clock club (for the non-Brits, these are local groups that offer fun and games for children, so called because they meet over lunchtime till mid-afternoon) and she was introduced to a ball pit.

I've edited a few clips of her swimming lesson last week, which should give you an idea of what we do in 30 minutes. See an overview of a swimming lesson. The quality isn't great, but I've had to downsize it for those who only have dial-up. The version for those on broadband is here. It takes about a minute to buffer, but the quality is MUCH better!

The weaning onto solids is not going well - her digestive system is still a bit immature she still hasn't got the idea of how to eat solids at all.... I'm sure it will happen in time, but it is rather frustrating as she clearly is not getting enough calories from her milk (depsite being on the 'hungrier baby' formula). Other than that, she's still a happy baby and charms everyone she meets. I can't wait for work to be over so I can spend my days with her again!

the story continues...

Thus far in the story: we were sapped of energy...

so going for a swim helped to cool us down...

















...as did going for a picnic in the park. And everyone lived happily ever after. The End.

There are more videos, but they still need to be properly edited. Watch this space!

Back to work

Well, I'm back at work and so, consequently, everyone is exhausted! These early mornings are really for the birds. I miss my mid-morning naps, I miss my daughter, I miss having time to do stuff, but not in that order.

The weather in London recently has been unbelievably humid and hot (in the 30's), so in addition to losing sleep because I'm not getting my nap, we've been finding it hard to sleep. Nellie's also been struggling to eat in the heat.

However, apart from that (and hayfever!!) we're all well. I'm too tired right now to do a proper update with all our details, suffice to say we've started weaning her onto solids (she's been 100% formula for about 6 weeks now). Although she has days where she loves it, mostly she doesn't like it at all - I think that trying to wean her while she's been settling in to the childminder (which is working out beautifully, praise God!) and with this heat has really unsettled her. We persevere...

So - more photos to keep the fans happy: When Nellie was born, Judy gave her this 0-3 month snowsuit. The week before the heat wave was the first time she wore it - at 6 months! - and you can see how large it still is for her.

We were convinced the cold was going to go on forever!















But then the sun came out, and we got out into the garden - the whole purpose of renting this particular flat!!

But the heat sapped us of all our energy... and now the blogger is playing up and refusing to let me load any more photos or videos... Sigh! I'll have to finish this later.