Cradlesong

Happy Father's Day!!

2010-09-04T16:40:04-07:00

Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there! Hope you get to spend a lovely day with your little ones. Sophie's Daddy was woken with a kiss, some presents and beautiful art work. I'm sure there will be plenty more kisses and "huggles" for Daddy as the day goes on.

So once again, Happy Father's Day!

Oh Boy, Opposites

2010-09-03T05:19:51-07:00

I know I keep going on about how much Sophie is learning and how she constantly surprises me, but she is a clever little thing and she does understand so much. Today she was playing with a material hair band and dropped it in the sink. When I picked it up and gave it back to her she said, "wet". I said, "yes it is wet, clever girl". She then told me, "wet, wet, wet" pointed at the towel and said "dry!". I was pretty impressed with that and had to oblige.

A Little Swimmer at Lane Cove Aquatic Centre

2010-09-02T04:21:33-07:00

I took Sophie to our local public pool (Lane Cove Aquatic Centre) today as she doesn't have lessons at the moment and it's still a bit too cold for our pool. They have a nice big set of shallow pools with fountains which were perfect for Sophie. I tried to remember all the things we have learnt at Brewer Swimming and we did OK. The pool was warmer than the one we are use to so it was also the first time in a couple of months that she wasn't in her wetsuit. Surprisingly, she was fine with this. I thought she might notice the lack of buoyancy, but she was great. We even bumped into a friend from Brewer in the change rooms which was a nice surprise.

"Mumma"

2010-08-28T04:50:19-07:00

My beautiful little Sophie just woke herself up because she wriggled out of her sleeping bag, but she didn't cry out. Instead she stood in her cot saying, "Mumma, Mumma, Mumma" in her lovely little voice. All I had to do was go in and pop her sleeping bag back on and she settled straight away. What a little cutie.

We're Back!!!

2010-08-28T04:14:06-07:00

I really don't know where the days or weeks have gone recently. A couple of weekends ago we went to Victoria and took a trip up to the snow with the boys and Sophie. It was a good trip, but very quick one and since being back in Sydney, we gone straight back into our weekly routine of Art'N'Move, play dates and swimming, followed by a weekend of voting, cleaning and washing and then back to the weekly routine again... all in a blur, for Mummy at least.

The snow was good and it's the first time Sophie's been to the snow and initially she wasn't too keen. It was pretty windy on Saturday and we had a very early start (leaving the house at 5am) and she really wasn't too keen on the cold. I enrolled her in the creche and did a bit of skiing with the boys, but poor little Sophie wasn't having fun at creche so I collected her early. I wasn't very impressed with the way the creche had handled things, but that's another story. I stayed at the creche with her for a little bit and made sure she had something to eat and drink before we left and we had an easy afternoon together. We even stumbled across the Barry Magical Mountain Music Show which was a great distraction. Then after dinner, she had a fun, deep spa bath with her brothers, followed by a good night of sleep and she woke up in a great mood on Sunday. I had a nice morning with her and then met Daddy and the boys for lunch. After eating we had fun in the snow building a snowman and having a little snowball fight. It was great to hear her chuckle and have so much fun with the snow.

Art'N'Move has been as fun as ever and Sophie has started to settle in well. She especially loves the art and craft part of the class. Mummy particularly enjoys the play date and chat with a cuppa after the class.

Swimming has been great. Sophie is just doing amazingly well and her instructor even labelled her the star of the class which made Mummy very, very proud! She loves the water and has learnt to enter the pool safely, to be submerged confidently, to kick and paddle and she even did a short submerged solo polo to the pool edge and got out by herself the other week. It's amazing to see her progress so well and I really want to encourage her. Sadly she just had her last class with her current instructor, which will be a great loss to us, but I am intent on continuing her progress and finding a new class for her. If she continues as she is, I really don't see it being too long before she can swim solo. I also believe that her swimming lessons are part of the reason she is so stable and active out of the water. I think the lessons have helped to strengthen her muscles, improve her fitness and the activity of climbing in and out of the pool on a weekly basis has helped her to learn to climb on play equipment and all over the furniture at home :o)

To finish this post, I promise to start writing more frequently again!

Sleep Pattern Puzzles

2010-08-12T15:54:52-07:00

After a combination of a few minor illnesses, spending whole days out with Nanny and Grandad and Mummy taking the easy option too many times, Sophie's sleep patterns have been thrown out. About a month ago she would wake up at around 5am and want to feed until 7am when she would get up. I'm still breastfeeding her in morning and I just physically couldn't keep up with this, so I decided to make a change. I started by patting, cuddling or rocking her back to sleep when she would first wake. This seemed to work well and she started to naturally wake up around 6.30am for a short feed before she jumps up and tackles the day head on. So yet again, I've learnt the lesson that the easy option is NEVER the easiest option and that these problems are normally pretty straight forward to fix.

Having said all that, now we need to sort out the daytime naps and bedtime! To be honest, bedtime isn't bad, although she has the odd night when she doesn't want to settle straight away, but that isn't often and she's normally back in bed within 10 - 20 minutes. Daytime sleeps are a completely different matter and I'm at a loss. She will just keep on going and going if I let her. She has fallen asleep in her highchair after lunch and sometimes I can successfully transfer her to the bed, but the car wins every time. She will fall asleep in the car when we are on our way back home from a morning of adventures and I can nearly always pop her on the bed without waking her. The problem I have there is no rhyme or reason to the time she takes a sleep, the amount of sleep she has and it's almost impossible to get to have a sleep at home even when she's visibly exhausted. I don't think it will be long before she simply doesn't have a daytime sleep and then how will Mummy survive the day or get anything done?!

The Best Word in the World!!

2010-08-10T03:40:26-07:00

As I've mentioned previously, Sophie is growing her vocabulary at a great rate. She has now learnt the word cuddle, although, it sounds more like "cuggle" which is really sweet. Today she even turned to me and said, "Mumma cuggle" and my heart melted. What a cutie!

Seat Belt Saga

2010-08-10T03:37:23-07:00

We've been having some real problems with Sophie in the car. She has learnt how to wiggle her arms under the shoulder straps of the five point harness. It has been a real worry for me and caused dramas especially when it's just been the two of us in the car and I've had to pull over to get her back in the seat belt properly. We tried doing a bit of a make-do fix with a velcro strap across her chest between the shoulder straps, but she managed to bypass that pretty easily. Anyway, on the weekend we found a specially made gadget that wraps around the shoulder straps and poppers into place, that has been designed for the exact problem we've been having. It's called the SECURAP and is made by infa-secure. Thankfully it seems to of done the trick. Sophie has tried to get her arms under the belt since we got it, but has failed and a Playschool CD distracted her from her consequent frustration, so fingers crossed we have a solution.

So Many Words!

2010-08-06T17:46:07-07:00

Sophie is turning into a little chatterbox. She seems to have a handful of new words every day. She points out things in books and magazines, on the TV, out of the window, at the shops and anywhere else she can. It really is amazing. When we were getting her immunisations done we were asked how we felt she was doing developmentally and how many words she can say. We weren't really sure as we hadn't tried to count lately and finally agreed it was most definitely over twenty. So that evening we made a list so we could satisfy our curiosity and we came up with over 60 words very quickly and have added at least another 10 to that since. I mean I knew she was chatty, but I still found that pretty amazing. Now we just have to work on understanding what it is she wants when she's desperately trying to ask for something and I still draw a blank after offering her everything I can possibly think of.

Mum's Group Catch Up

2010-08-04T03:46:40-07:00

On Saturday morning Sophie and I were due to catch up with some of our Mum's Group at a local park. Unfortunately, the weather was a bit wet for the park, so we volunteered our place for the catch up. We had six little visitors and their mums. It was great to see the toddlers (they're not bubs anymore) playing and interacting with each other and to reflect on how much they have grown!! We are a lucky group of mums with such healthy, beautiful little people with so much character. It was also great to catch up with mums and hear their news, even if I do feel like I had about fifteen half conversations between keeping Sophie in tow. Hopefully, we'll be able to catch up again soon.