New Kid On The Block

This week has gone by so fast its scary! Its Saturday again already and for the first time all week I have a chance to sit down and have a cup of tea while Noah has a nap.

Rob was playing a gig with Norse in Newcastle last night and stayed at Treelo's place. He was meant to be grocery shopping this morning on his way home.. but I can hear him pulling up in the driveway now :( Which means we will probably have to spend tomorrow doing it.

Thursday was Robs birthday and to celebrate the occasion (since he already got his present weeks ago because 'he needed them for gigs') Noah painted his first picture for him. He had so much fun and his concentration face was priceless. I managed to get a photo of the finished product, but not the process unfortunately - It was either keep Noah from eating the paint, or take a photo... Noah won :p

 Last year I made Rob a drumkit cake for his birthday, this year it was Toadie (from Super Mario Bros).

Noah and I met up with Brydie yesterday for a picnic at Corbett Gardens in Bowral. The weather was perfect, I love this time of year! We had a great time, it was so good to see Brydz again. Its so difficult to find a time for us both to catch up... even more so now with Noah as he doesn't always cooperate :p. I was so shocked that he actually went to sleep yesterday while we were in the gardens. He hasn't slept when we've been out for over a month which has made for some interesting (and very loud) outings.

As the title of this post suggests, we have a new addition to the household. A black Labrador puppy named Moses. He actually belongs to Robs parents but since they live next door he's been adopted as Noah's new best friend (hence the name). Moe and Noah met for the first time yesterday and while Moe was suitably excited, Noah wasn't too sure about this new baby come to steal some of his limelight. He doesn't quite know what to make of a black excitable puppy just yet, but give them time and I'm sure the two of them will be inseparable.

so.. meet Moses -

Perfectly In Proportion

Noah had his 4 month clinic check today. He is actually almost 5 months old now, but due to the clinic being closed over the Christmas/New Year period this was the earliest I could get him in. He weighs 7.2kg and is 65cm long. He has followed the 50th percentile since birth and is still spot on the 50th in all areas now.. 'Perfectly in proportion' as the clinic nurse said. :) She was also very impressed by his head control and overall strength considering how much he still hates 'tummy time'. Even though he can lift his head while lying on his stomach, he still hates it. I'm lucky to get 2 minutes out of him before he is screaming to get up... but as it doesn’t seem to be impeding his development, I don’t think I’ll worry too much about forcing him to do it.

This afternoon Noah and I went to mothers group. Today it was at Briars in Bowral. The weather was lovely (autumn is really starting to kick in and so the cool breeze is taking the dry heat out of the air) but unfortunately we didn’t stay long. Noah had refused to have his nap and so had been up for 3 hrs already by the time we arrived. He was beautifully behaved for the first hour or so before loosing it at around 2pm. I have a suspicion that he may be allergic to Wisteria. Shortly before we left he began to sneeze and splutter, his eyes went pink and he couldn’t stop rubbing them. Poor little man :( The outdoor dining area of Briars has Wisteria growing all over the pergola and was the only thing around I could see that could cause such a reaction. We do have a Wisteria plant growing over the carport at home, but its not very big yet and its not in flower at the moment.. I really hope it was something else that caused his reaction because I love wisteria and was just about to plant a few more to grow over the back veranda. I will try and search out another wisteria and test him out to prove this possible allergy.

The wool roving I ordered the other week from the UK arrived on Monday. I have been wanting to teach myself how to needle felt ever since I found an absolutely gorgeous book of life-like felted animals last year while we were in Melbourne for Val's 90th Birthday celebrations.
So last night I sat down with 1kg of wool in 36 different colours and taught myself the art of needle felting. I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it is to do. Here are a few pics of the little owl and a few gnomes I wiped up in just a couple of hours. Considering it was my first try I'm quite happy with how they turned out!

The main reason I bought so much wool was because I want to make Noah a little felted Ark with loads of animals to go with it (though how many really depends on just how addictive I end up finding felting).
When we decided to name him Noah I was totally against anything 'Ark' related. I wanted him to see Noah as his name, not someone else’s who happened to have a big boat and tonnes of animals.. BUT, I have since decided to ease up the no Ark rule.. mainly because it makes such a cute toy and it seems silly to deny him it just because he happens to share the same name as the guy who built the original. If his name was Thomas I wouldn’t deny him anything to do with Thomas the Tank Engine… And so the Ark's invade :P

A day of 'Firsts''

 The weather here has been crazy this week. So much rain in so little time. We actually ended up with rivers flowing through the yard (and washing away all the new seed we had put over the 'lawn' we are trying to get to grow. As anoying as the rain might be, it has made for some spectacular views. This is a picture of a storm rolling up the gully behind the house right on dusk last night.

Yesterday Noah and I went to visit our friends Bec and (her) Noah for lunch. We met when the boys were just a few weeks old at a mothers group run by the Child Health Nurses. Noah is only 3 weeks older than Bec's Noah and its funny to watch them together now as they are begining to take a bit of interest in each other. We had a lovely time and Noah was even kind enough to lend my Noah his cot for a nap.

Last night Noah slept in his cot over night for the first time. Hes been happily taking his day time naps in the cot for about a month now and even though I wasnt ready for him to go into his own room at night yet.. he was :(  He has quite clearly outgrown the bassinet in our room, so as much as I wanted him to stay in with us until he was 6 months.. it wasnt to be. It took about 1/2 hr for him to fall asleep which is much more than the 5-10mins he's usually asleep in. But he slept through without a peep until 5am this morning... so it was a success! And I didnt even get up 12 times to check on him, though that may have been because of the Sound & Movement baby monitor literally picking up on his every move :p .. well worth the small fortune I paid for it.

It seems like in just this past week, all of a sudden Noah has started growing and changing far more rapidly than before. Everyday theres something new he can do that he couldn't the day before. Where as up until now, weeks would pass without hitting a new milestone.

Speaking of Milestones, today Noah started on solids. I decided to skip over the rice cereal for now, in favour of something a little more natural and with a bit more flavour than Clagg Glue. To me there just seems something odd about offering highly processed white rice to a baby as their first introduction into the wonderful world of food. Besides the horrible taste, its got next to no nutritional value in it and its packed full of so much added iron (which cant be absorbed anyway) that all it does is constipate their tummy.
So out with the Farax and in with the sweet potato! He wasnt too sure about it at first, but his tounge thrust reflex has relaxed enough so that at least most of what went in stayed in! We will try again tomorrow :)

The new pram I odered 6 WEEKS AGO finally arrived yesterday. I bought it online and apparently the store had a computer inventory glitch and messed up the amount of stock they thought they had in the warehouse.. So thinking they had plently, they sold my pram to someone else in the store. They didnt want to, but eventually they finally admitted it was their mistake and agreed to order me another. This new one was meant to arrive early the next week. It didnt, but yesterday (more than 6 weeks after i bought it) it finally came :) Its the same model as the one I currently have, but a newer version in which they fixed the silly design flaws of the other one. Noah hated the other one so much that I have hardly used it, but he quite liked his test drive in the new one so I think we are onto a winner!

Vaccinate Smaccinate

Noah was booked in for his 4 month vaccinations today. I wasn't looking forward to it and felt so guilty when I went to take him out of his carseat at the surgery. He looked up at me with those big blue trusting eyes and gave me a beautiful smile, as though he thought I was taking him somewhere fun and exciting.. But instead i took him somewhere to get jabbed left, right and center with painful needles :(
I always find that tiny moment between the needle going in and the pain hitting him the hardest to cope with.. It's the equivilent of watching a small child on a trike careering out of control and heading straight for a pole.. you know what's coming, but they dont.
Anyway he cried for a few minutes (and of course I forgot his dummy, today of all days!) but i managed to distract him from the pain with a knitted teddybear they keep in the room made by volunteers of The Red Cross (thank you Red + volunteers!).
All things considered, he was very brave and recovered quickly from his trauma. Even enough to charm the admin ladies on the way out (he'd already buttered them up quite nicely while we were waiting to see the doctor).
Such terrible timing for vaccinations. He's just hit a growth spurt and has spent the last 3 days guzzling milk like its going out of date. so incase the growth spurt didnt make him grumpy enough, I decide to throw something else in for his overloaded system to cope with..
You really couldn't pay me enough to be a baby all over again! I definately feel for my poor little guy. But hes sleeping peacefully now - and since Rob's in Sydney for rehursals tonight, for my sake lets hope it stays that way!

A Rainy Valentines Day

Today just happens to be Valentines Day. Not a day Rob and I ever celebrate, so instead of highly overpriced bouquets of roses or cheap mass produced white teddy bears holding tacky red hearts filling the house, we had the usual 3 tons of washing hung over every surface in the house trying to dry..  still a decoration of sorts! :p

Day to day life has its own special kind of romance about it. I'd much prefer to sit on the veranda with Rob with a cup of Chai and watch the rain while Noah enjoys a swing, than to sit in an overcrowded resturant filled with people who are only there because someone has told them they HAVE to today.

We had a family dinner next door with Robs family tonight. Chris, Holly and Graeme have stopped in for a few days on their way through and Noah has fallen head over heels for Holly. Even though he's not been in a particulaly good mood today (teething) he has managed many a smile for his Aunty Holly.

We obviously forgot to mention to Noah that we dont celebrate Valentines Day, because not only has he developed his first crush, but he also celebrated the day with another milestone. - Rolling from his tummy to his back for the first time. He scared himself a little and layed there for a sec staring at me as he regained his bearings.. the promptly did it again. He's quite proud of his new trick! and so am I :)

Better late than never

The original plan was to start this off the day Noah was born (or at least as soon as we were home of hospital). however, as any parent will tell you, things dont always go to plan, especially with small children involved.

So here we are 4.5 months later, and only now have i finally got up and running (or more literally 'typing')... But it's better late than never!