Elana is so independent now. She walks. She runs She yells She tries to hold conversations - mostly noise and babble but she can say UP (ut) and can can say YUM and she can hum twinkle twinkle little star and incy wincy spider. She will run to lay down on her couch and wait for her bottle. She will go down to her bedroom and get her bunny rug and dummy out of the cot She will bring me her shoes and sit down the floor trying to put them one herself holding her foot in the air with her...
Elana has started doing this really odd thing, I think I've mentioned how she goes up to her bedroom and comes back with her dummy. If I haven't she has this habit of kinda stopping whatever it was she was doing like a light bulb has gone off in her head and she's like "oh someting missing" she stops what she's doing and runs up to her bedroom (or the hallway/playroom) and comes back with her dummy firmly planted in her mouth and goes back to whatever if was she was doing before. I've me...
Elana found a fantale - there was an open package on the beside table in our bedroom, we've had the door closed so she couldn't go in there and create mischief but lately she'd figured out how to push open doors (and the latches don't shut it properly so it opens if you give it a good push) I was on the phone and Elana was (i thought) playing in her room I came to the loungeroom and she's sitting on the floor watching a cooking show oh television so I went into the kitchen to get her a bo...
We just had a bad wake up, I was just about to get off the phone and have a nap taking advantage of Elana's sleep status when I heard her crying. When I went in she was lying on her tummy with her legs through the bars and and bottom right up against the bars. I picked her up and she was still asleep whimpering -- bad dream. We went into the bathroom to wet her hair and wash her face because it's really hot today and we sang twinkle twinkle, and itsy bitsy spider a few times still whimpe...
My little girl has shoes. We bought them today. She walks like a pro in them. My little girl has walking shoes, she has shoes she can walk in as opposed to shoes that people by for their babies just because they look cute. These shoes have a practical purpose. My little girl has little size 3 pink sandals with pink flowers. They're very light with almost no sole and those raised bumps on the bottom like they have on slippers. And best of all they cost $5. We tried on a couple of pairs...
Elana was making this weird grinding sound with her teeth today which i found really weird because she only has 4 teeth, 2 in the front at the top and 2 in the front at the bottom. Then later today she was throwing a tantrum because I wouldn't let her have my glasses and she opened her mouth really wide as she screamed and burst into tears and I got a shock as a caught a glimpse of white Nick felt her mouth and she has teeth in the middle on the side on the bottom, then I was giving her ...
Elana is hitting the terrible twos 10months early. My toddler this week newsletter tells me that all the behaviour she exhibits is perfectly normal and I shouldn't be concerned, but dammit it's frustrating!! Apparently it's normal for her to be a fussy eater, to refuse foods that she gobbled up with relish the day before - but it's annoying. Apparently it's normal for her to refuse to eat more then 3 mouthfuls when she used to eat the whole bowl with relatively no problems. Elana has...
For the last 2 or 3 months Elana has been slowly working her way up to walking -- she'd take 1 or 2 steps and decide that was enough. She'd confidently walk if you held one of her hands and she'd run if you held both of her hands. But she found that crawling got her where she wanted to be faster and so she just didn't bother much with walking, In the last month she'd been taking more and more steps more often - 5 or 6 at a time - she once took 10 but again it was all too slow for her and i...
So Elana SCREAMS out crying uncontrollably this morning and Nick goes in to her. I wake up and look at the clock. It's 4:44am. I get up to see what's going on - nick chamges her nappy and she sobs a bit laughs a bit smiles when she sees me. Nick gives her to me saying I'm going to get up (the tv is in our bedroom so he had to get it and carry it to the lounge) and she cries and holds her arms out for him. He goes to the bedroom I take her out into the lounge where she sees her toys and sta...
Whew, Chrsitmas is over for another year and we survived. There were no fights, no illness and no injuries (backyard cricket games can be pretty brutal sometimes) The night before Christmas Eve we had Alex and Peter over for dinner - Chicken Enchiladas!!! Christmas Eve I spent cleaning the house, during the day I had unexpected guests. Nick came home early and then two other friends came for dinner - we had ham, pasta salad and fresh bread rolls and we watched the Carols by Candlelight ...
It's amazing the feeling of Christmas I have this year - I'm just really excited. I haven't felt like this since I found out Santa wasn't real - I was 13 Actually after that - It was probably when I was about 16 that Christmas stopped being such a big deal. It was still Christmas but I just didn't care, we were estranged from my mother's family and my dad's mum had passed away so the big traditional family Christmas's were gone. Replaced instead by the usual breakast, then church and a ...
As Elana's first birthday is fast approaching I got to thinking about how a year isn't such a long time and yet it's an eternity at the same time. At precisely this time last year - 3:35pm I was in my mum's backyard attending my own baby shower. It was a Saturday and it started at 2 and went until about 4 or 5. Lots of my friends and their mothers were there, I got lots of presents and played a few games like guess how fat trina is! - I still have the ribbon with everones initials. I c...
About two months ago I had an unspoken falling out with someone who is so close to me we're like "sisters" and instead of apologising for what I did I dug my heels in stayed up on my high-horse and professed that they couldn't take a joke. And worse I fooled myself into thinking that losing this friendship was no big deal and that I'd always wondered what it would take for us to not be friends. But planning Elana's first birthday party last night made me rethink about how stupid I ...
For the first time in months Nick made biscotti yesterday. We gave Elana some crumbs before it was cooked the second time and she wasn't overly impressed. So this morning I got some out of the cupboard for myself and I gave her a rusk, she came over to me seconds later and I picked her up and she picked up my piece of biscotti and put it straight into her mouth. Now usually food must be turned around, held and examined for a few minutes (5-10) before it goes near the mouth but the biscotti we...
The boys came round last night and Nick made lasagne - it was a Jamie Oliver recipe from his new book Jamie's Dinners (there's some REALLY!!!!! good stuff in it) He minced up some chuck steak and some pork, it had pancetta, cinnamon, carrots, thyme and rosemary, tomatoes, red wine - he simmered it for an hour and a half and in the last 45minutes he roasted some butternut pumpkin rubbed with olive oil, corianda seeds and chilli flakes. The white sauce was made from pouring cream and parme...