8 months!

Another month down and Lily is now 8 months old.  I know I say this in almost all my posts, but honestly, the time just seems to be going so quickly.  My parents were recently visiting and we were reminiscing over Lily's photo album - we coo'd and aah'd over her first few days and weeks - she was so tiny with such dark hair.  Like I've said before, I don't remember her being so tiny and have been trying very hard to recollect those incredibly small hands and tiny fingers.  Size 1 nappies look far too tiny, newborn baby grows look way too small...

Today Lily is 8 months old and it's also her first day in size 4 nappies.  They're still a little too big, but they do the trick, so back to Baby City I go with the two packs of size 3 nappies that she no longer needs.  It's an emotional thing moving her into a bigger size nappy.  Who knew!

Lily is now lifting herself onto her knees and hands and instead of crawling just yet, she is rocking backwards and forwards.  I'm sure crawling isn't far off.  The "reverse slide" is still her ride of choice along with a few frustrated moments when a foot gets entangled or she can't reach the toys in front of her due to her going backwards instead of in the desired direction.

These past 8 months have been indescribable.  Nothing compares to being a mother and no-one will ever understand until they have become a mother themselves.  Joy, abundant love, bliss, constant concern, extreme happiness... some of those words are definitely suitable, but still don't do justice to the world of being a mother.

Lily - you are my life.  I cannot begin to imagine my life without you in it.  I miss you when I put you to sleep at night and I can't wait to see your smiling face when I wake up in the morning (granted, sometimes I'm happy for bed time when you've been busy all day and I can wait a few extra minutes in the morning when you haven't had a good night!).  You constantly amaze me and fill my heart with so much love and pride.  You are the most beautiful little girl I have ever laid my eyes on with your huge blue eyes, long eyelashes, perfectly shaped little eyebrows and crazy curly hair.  Not a day goes by without us sharing a giggle, kisses and tender moments - you are one truly happy little baby.  My life is forever changed now that you are in it and I look forward to every single new day we share together. xxx

Sleep is evil & must be fought!

I suppose I must be grateful that I have a baby who sleeps well 95% of the time at night.  Her routine is still the same - supper at 5pm, bath at 5:30pm and down for the night by 6pm.  I'm then usually only woken up at 4am for a feed after which she goes down for a short nap and wakes up anywhere between 5am and 6am.  I'm lucky that I've never had to battle to get Lily to go down again at night - she literally has a feed and then when I put her back into her cot, she self soothes and I can go back to sleep.

However, day time sleep is evil and must be fought!  Her morning sleeps used to be relatively easy - put her on the boob, she would fall asleep and I would put her in her cot.  As of the last week, this is now not working and I'm finding it hard to be patient.  Don't get me wrong, I don't get impatient with Lily, but I would rather give up and leave her to stay awake, but that just spells disaster for the rest of the day, and needless to say for myself so she definitely still needs her morning naps.  So I am now resorting to rocking her in my arms shushing her to sleep with her bunny snuggled into her arms and face.  It takes a little more effort than just breastfeeding which I'm having to get used to, but I'm adamant that she needs her morning sleep.

The reason I'm so adamant about this is that Lily does not like afternoon naps.  No matter how much rocking, shushing, breastfeeding or singing I do, she will turn around, give me a huge smile and kick her legs to keep herself from going to la la land!  I seriously think my child suffers from a condition called "FOMO" - Fear of Missing Out - so sleep must be fought and will not win!

As I type this, I have spent a hard-working 20 minute session trying to get Lily to sleep.  Finally both sleep and I won a very well fought battle!  Mom can now have some time out to enjoy a well-deserved cup of coffee!

Developments

It still astounds me how very quickly our precious little babies develop.  One day they appear to be nowhere near to achieving a new milestone and the next day they are mastering the skill.  Scary.

I've been in two minds about Lily crawling.  First thought:  I can't wait for her to start crawling and to begin exploring her surroundings.  Reaching this milestone also proves to this sometimes anxious first time parent that yes, my child is normal!  Second thoughts:  I'm also quite patient to wait for the crawling to begin as it's easier this way.  I can leave Lily for a few moments happily playing on her mat and when I return, I'm at peace with the knowledge that she will still be in the same spot.

As of yesterday, I was convinced that Lily was nowhere near ready to start crawling.  Much like her dad who can be a little "lazy" at times (said with much love I assure you!), she would reach for items and if they were out of her grasp, she would merely put her head down to rest on the mat as if to say, if I just lie here, mom, or someone will eventually bring this toy to me!  Of course she has me wrapped around her little finger and the lying down gesture just simply melts my heart, so naturally she was right and the toys did miraculously land up in her grasp anyway!

Having said that, I have been trying to encourage her to shift, move, slide... whatever movement actually just to get her moving, but as of yesterday, nothing!  Well, today is a different story.  Lily has started to crawl, or should I say, shift backwards.  I've been told that moving backwards is the start of crawling so I'm sure that this is the beginning!  So at this moment I can still leave her happily playing on her mat in one spot, but when I return, she will still be on the mat, but in a slightly different position or at a different angle.  Things are progressing!

Another milestone Lily (almost) achieved today happened at her cousin's house.  Their baby cot is on its lower level due to Lily's cousin being that bit older.  We put both Lily and her cousin into the cot to play and Lily started pulling herself up holding onto the sides!  She was progressing quite astonishingly well and I'm sure had we given her more time (we were in a rush to head home), she would have achieved her goal!  I couldn't believe what I was seeing!  I'm now grateful for the fact that our pool net has been fitted and am giving myself another week to get some gates for our stairs and chicken mesh for our railings!  Tomorrow my hubby must lower our cot down as well - I most certainly don't want her suddenly pulling herself up and landing on the floor!

So today was an exciting day.  I suppose I should make hay while the sun shines and take advantage of the few weeks, or perhaps even days, that I have to "relax" slightly where I can just put Lily on her mat and entertain her in a stationery position.  I'm also going to enjoy wearing my high heels as I know I'm going to have to trade them in for flat, comfortable "run after baby" shoes in the very near future!

7 month clinic visit

Being a mommy, I am always concerned about whether I'm doing things properly so I was relieved that the time finally arrived for your 7 and a half month check at the clinic.  I was so happy that we got to see Sister Barbara, an elderly, but highly experienced nursing sister, who is always so insightful and has the ability to put this concerned mom's mind at ease.

I was debating how much weight Lily had gained and was pleasantly surprised that she hadn't actually gained as much as I had thought.  At 7.5 months, she weighs 7.5kg (how coincidental!), her length is 67cm and her head circumference is 45.2cm.  To think that when she was 1 week old, she was 2.8kg, 50cm tall and her little head was only 35cm.  My baby is getting so big!

I asked Sister Barbara if I am feeding Lily too much as she doesn't often turn her head away and seems to have a very healthy (sometimes overly so!) appetite. To my relief the answer was no and that Lily looks perfectly healthy and happy.  Sister Barbara was also very impressed with the fact that I am still breastfeeding and doesn't disagree at all with the fact that I use the boob to get Lily to sleep - in fact, she said that mother's milk is the best sleep aid.  Perfect, another thing that I'm doing right!  And lastly, she recommended for mommy that I get some Floradix Liquid Iron to get my energy levels up so that I'm not so tired at night and can be a better wife to my desperate husband!  So all in all, we had a great check at the clinic and we all left very happy!

Our next visit is at the end of January for Lily's 9 month check and an immunisation.  As much as I look forward to the clinic visits so I can get my questions answered and Lily weighed, I'm really not looking forward to them sticking that nasty needle into my precious baby's leg.  It just breaks my heart.  I'm thinking of telling hubby that this visit is his turn to do!

Summer is here

Finally the weather in Cape Town seems to be catching up with the rest of South Africa and it has realised that yes, it is Summer!  With this brings my excitement of putting aside Lily's 3-6 month winter outfits and hanging up all her new 6-9 and 6-12 month clothes.  However, this exciting moment also brings about a sad moment where the clothes get packed away ever too soon.  Some items she never even got to wear... Yet again, time is flying too quickly and it's yet another reminder to savour every single second during this precious time. 

But back to the point... Besides the emergence of the Summer wardrobe, the warmer weather also means it is time for the swimming pool.

Two days ago, we had a lovely hot day which warmed up the solar panels which ultimately warm up our pool.  My husband is a bit of a "princess" when it comes to water temperature and he will not venture into anything cooler than 27 degrees, hence almost our entire roof is covered in solar panels!  Be that as it may, the numerous panels worked together to heat up our pool to a bath temperature of 30 degrees - it was time to introduce Lily and this was the result:

This is so much fun dad!

I'm looking forward to introducing both dad and Lily to swimming lessons in the new year seeing she loves being in the water with her daddy so much!

First Chrismukkah!

Chrismukkah, as explained by our dear friend Wikipedia, is a pop-culture neologism referring to the merging of the holidays of Christianity's Christmas and Judaism's Hanukkah.  Now, being Jewish, we do not celebrate Christmas, but are not adverse to sharing in the annual celebrations that are typically associated with this time of year.  Having said that, my group of friends belonging to the weekly Mother's Group, decided to throw a "Baby's first Christmas party".  Not one to be left out of any sort of celebration, there was no doubt that we would be attending.  We didn't attend for the "Christmas" association, but for the mere festivities and gathering of friends.  I like to refer to it as our little Chrismukkah!

Lily was dressed up specially for the occasion (yes, those who know me, wouldn't be surprised by this statement), wearing a white dress, red shoes and a red clip to match.  She also wore her beautiful silver bracelet that granny and grampa bought for her which looked too precious!  See below:

Unfortunately hubby was "extremely ill" with "man flu" so wasn't able to join us, so Aunty Lou happily obliged to come along.  We had loads of fun with the other mommies and meeting all the husbands.  I found it incredible how I always thought a few of the babies looked exactly like their moms until I actually met the husbands!  I wonder what people would have thought had they been able to meet my husband - would they have thought Lily looked like him, me or neither of us?

After sitting down for lunch, which typically involves one partner hurriedly wolfing down their food while the other partner holds and entertains baby before doing a quick swap, Santa arrived!  Every baby had a turn to sit on Santa's lap and receive a gift.  I was praying with all my might that Lily would be happy on Santa's lap, or at least wouldn't cry, but no, she was NOT impressed and burst into tears!  So no happy Santa pictures for my little girl this year, but I think this is a "right of passage" - every baby will have one of these one year!

As soon as I took Lily off Santa's lap, she was her happy jolly self again.  This was one episode I couldn't blame on teething!  Lily was spoilt with a very cute present which included an adorable Christmas hat (below), beach toys and of course, Lily's signature hair clips!

And after a whole afternoon filled with loads of excitement, plenty of catching up, great food and awesome festivities, we headed home with an absolutely exhausted baby!

And that was our first of hopefully very many merry Chrismukkahs!