Category Archives: baby blethering

If you put a large, empty cardboard box in the middle of the room, a small child will always climb into it.

(This post is also to hide the fact I have nothing remotely interesting to post about knitting today. )

It’s very hard to get Rose to stay still, even for a photo to mark the day she is exactly a year and a half old.

Today we went for a wander in the park and examined stones and grass and dead leaves and fun was had by all (especially at the café afterwards, where there was cake).

Now is stage of learning a million new words every day and Rose’s favourite is, of course, “no”.

Yesterday was Rose’s first birthday.

There were birthday cupcakes:

and a new toy to whizz around the room with:

(Note Mr B in the background, sporting a pair of knitted socks!)

And the realisation that somehow without me noticing, my little baby has turned into a toddler. This past year has flown by and I’m glad I have the monthly posts to remind me that she was little once!

Crawling is no longer good enough. Rose is pulling herself up on everything she can and edging around the room like a baby on a mission! Probably not that randomly, her feet have suddenly grown too, and I get the feeling it won’t be long before there’s a post about her first visit to buy shoes.

She can babble along quite nicely now. Occasionally the “mamamama” or “dadadada” is directed to the right person. She also squeals when she sees someone she recognises, like her big brothers. She can clap her hands:

and point to things with her index fingers. She loves mealtimes although eats very little as most of it ends up smeared on her face or in her hair.

It’s scary to think that the next of these posts will be celebrating her first birthday. I don’t know where this year has gone. I’m so glad I have these updates to look back on to see just how she has progressed. And possibly to embarrass her with when she’s older.

This month’s photo is a small cheat as the picture was taken yesterday. But I thought it would be a nice one to have as the 10 month photo as it was also Rose’s first trip to the seaside. She spent most of the time on the beach trying to eat pebbles. The small person in a green t-shirt in the background is Oscar (DS2) who managed to get his jeans soaked despite rolling them up to knee height!

(As an aside, I took this picture with the camera on my new mobile phone and am pleased/bemused that it actually looks better than than some of the pictures I take with my proper digital camera. I think it’s time to look at replacing it!)

So much has happened in the past month. Crawling is now perfected and she’s zooming around the house at a scary rate. So we’ve started some child-proofing of the most baby-unfriendly areas, but she still makes a beeline for the tangle of wires under the pc so I think that’s the next area to sort out.

Her top two front teeth are starting to come through now. So far she’s only had one grumpy morning with them and fingers crossed it’ll be less of a drama than the first two! Her babbling is getting more varied and she has developed her own distinctive laugh which sounds regrettably like Nan off of The Catherine Tate Show. So much for a gentle girlish giggle.

I love this age. It’s impossible for me to do anything on my own now, and I have to have eyes in the back of my head, but it’s lovely to see Rose developing her own personality and becoming a little person in her own right. And also very scary that in two months’ time, this will be the first birthday update..!

Everything in the mouth at the moment. I’ve tried all day to get a photo of Rose showing off her brand new teeth, but to no avail. So maybe next monthly update!

Crawling is ever so almost there. It’s tantalising when she leans forward as if to take off in one direction and then gives up and flumps onto her belly. She prefers to cruise along by holding on to the edge of the sofa.

There are now words, too. “Ba ba ba ba ba” mainly, with the occasional “ma ma” for a change. This has been a month where so much has happened and it’s as if she’s suddenly grown up a bit. Though she’ll always be the baby.

Managed to get a photo of Rose doing her latest new facial expression, when she smiles and then crinkles the top of her nose.

Can’t believe how time is flying. I desperately want it to slow down as the baby period is so short and before I know it, she’ll be at school! Crawling is still not quite there, but she’s getting better at pushing herself about and reaching for a toy that she wants. She is also now aware when people enter or leave the room and sometimes randomly starts wailing when someone leaves the room, even if she wasn’t paying any attention to them when they were in the room in the first place!

Well, it’s good to be back. I’m actually grateful that our budget doesn’t stretch to trips abroad at the moment, otherwise we’d currently be sitting in an airport somewhere in the world, wondering just how long a volcano can erupt for. Instead of which, I have a mountain of washing just about done and the boys have been packed off to school, somewhat unwillingly. The good news is that there’s knitting stuff to share, but today is all about baby stuff.

Rose reaches the grand old age of seven months today. Her sitting up alone is pretty near perfect, although after last month’s push-ups, she hasn’t shown any interest in crawling, so is not going to be a child crawling prodigy after all. Everything she holds is going into her mouth, and she’s becoming more vocal. Now she’s trying other foods out as well as milk, although she’s not that bothered about eating and will sit happily gnawing on the empty spoon. Generally, she’s a happy little soul, as long as she is the centre of attention, which she inevitably is!

This is Rose today. Note her clothes:

This afternoon, enter one very nice but clearly unobservant cat-sitter (we’re going away for a few days over the Easter Break).

Rose: *makes cute faces*
Cat-sitter: Oooh, who do we have here? What’s his name?
Me: *through gritted teeth* Rose.
Cat-sitter: Oh, it’s a girl, is it?
Me: Hmmmphurrgh.

I think I need this holiday.

…that is, the end of me being able to put a certain person down in one place and know they’ll still be there five seconds later.

Not two weeks ago, Rose cried if I tried to put her on her tummy and has never spent more than five seconds lying flat because she protested against it. Somehow she ended up on her front again yesterday and immediately started doing push ups and trying to shuffle forward. She is clearly a girl that will only do something when it suits her.

19th September 2009:

19th March 2010:

Happy six monthiversary, little flower.

A quick, in the car seat, photo for Rose’s five month update.

The recent growth spurt is over, thankfully, though it won’t be long before there’s another. It also won’t be long until she starts getting to taste different things other than milk which is quite a scary thought; it was only yesterday that she was a tiny baby, surely?!

She’s discovered that she can blow raspberries now, as well as being quite a nifty little mover. Put her on her play mat, and she’s turned 180 degrees in a matter of minutes. And she’s had her first “proper” laugh, a real chuckle. I don’t know what triggered it – I was getting her dressed and suddenly she laughed. Now of course it’s a favourite game of her brothers to try to get her to do it again.

The combination of baby brain and post-Christmas confusion means that I have no idea what the date is at the moment. When I posted a couple of days ago, it didn’t register that it was an important date. Which it was, being Rose’s 4th monthiversary.

The days are going so fast right now. I’ve found it’s best to go with the flow and not hope to achieve anything other than get through the day without collapsing in a wailing heap of misery. Such is the delight of the four month growth spurt. But each day is also filled with magic as Rose discovers new things. A few weeks back it was her hands and then discovering that she could use her hands to put things in her mouth. Now after spending a few days suddenly stopping what she was doing and staring transfixed at her toes, she grabbed hold of them this morning. There are also signs that she’ll be able to roll over on her own soon, although currently she just gets halfway and then cries.

* * * * *

I also wanted to say a huge thank you to everyone who has bought one of my patterns since Tuesday. So far enough patterns have been bought to pay for 3 families to have basic water kits, which is just brilliant. I will post a final total after 31st January.

Not surprisingly, things are a bit disorganised here at the moment, and I missed posting on Saturday, which was the day that Rose became exactly three months old.

Looking back over the previous photos, I can see how much she’s changed. She’s now incredibly alert and interested in what’s going on, although obviously in the above photo she looks a bit perplexed. She normally smiles a lot, but not at a bunny in a carrot-shaped car, apparently. She is also starting to make little cooing noises which is adorable. Her big brothers think she’s much more interesting now, as she will smile at them and wave her arms about in an encouraging manner and isn’t just obsessed with when her next meal is coming . I’m really looking forward to what changes will happen over the coming month.

* * * * *

The snow has almost disappeared this morning. There was a brief snowfall yesterday afternoon, but it didn’t settle and now there’s just a few icy bits left on the garden from last week. Though there’s still a chance we could get a white Christmas here, I’m not holding my breath!

Rose is two months old today. She’s started smiling a little bit, but only when the mood takes her, and smiling at her doesn’t always get one in return; most often she just looks surprised or faintly disgusted.

On Monday she was weighed for the first time in several weeks and is now 10lbs 5oz – almost 4lbs heavier than her birth weight. I’m not surprised, really, as I’ve noticed that she’s not swimming in her clothes so much, though still fits into the newborn size. And she has lovely little rolls of chub on her wrists and knees. Though I am probably the only woman in the world who puts on weight when breastfeeding, so the fact she’s eating like a horse isn’t having a positive effect on me.

ETA: Anna asked about Rose’s cardigan. It’s Helena from Knitty and one of the many baby things I knitted this year. I think if I made it again, I’d make the sleeves longer and roll them up as there’s still plenty of room in the body, but already the sleeves are beginning to skim her wrists (could possibly undo the hem to make these longer, though). Perhaps she’s part orang-utan…

Rose is one month old today already. It’s a cliché, but I don’t know where the time has gone. Admittedly, most of it has been spent sitting on the sofa feeding and the days have tended to blur around the edges, but things are getting slightly more organised and I can actually get dressed and go outside without it taking all day.

Thank you all so much for the lovely comments on my last post. I’d love to be able to reply to them all individually, but my two-handed typing time is very rare and as I spend most of my time surfing one-handed it would take forever to reply. But to answer the most frequent comments, of course she is gorgeous.

I am even trying to get a bit of knitting done while Rose sleeps and of course wishing I had knitted even more during my pregnancy because there’s so much I want to make.

I don’t know when I’ll be blogging again more regularly. I think I can at least promise to blog when I have some knitting to share. Til then, there’s baby photos to look at and marvel how podgy she’s starting to become. I was worried that she’d never fit into any of the knits I’d made, but she seems to get bigger every day and is already more interested in looking around and not just eating and sleeping. Won’t be long before she starts school…

Rose Erica Lise Blackburn arrived at 16.29 on 19th Spetember, weighing 6lbs 12ozs and 4 weeks early. After all my worrying about having a giant baby, she’s a wee thing who doesn’t fit into any of the clothes or knitwear I have for her, but she is a sweetheart.

I should have known something was up last Friday when I got the urge to clean out the fridge! The following morning, I started having mild contractions but because I was convinced that she would be late like her brothers, I ignored them til lunchtime when it became clear that it was probably the real thing. Because the acceptable range for a homebirth is 37 to 42 weeks, I called my wee sister to come over and look after the boys so that Mr B and I could go to hospital. Wasn’t happy about this at all, but I was getting past caring.

Unfortunately, or fortunately perhaps, by the time my sister arrived and I managed to get dressed to go to the hospital, it became obvious to me that she wasn’t going to hang around and so Mr B called the hospital to get the midwives to come out which they did, with the advice to call 999 if the baby started arriving before them. Which she did! *gory bit coming up which you might want to skip over* My waters broke at that point, so Mr B called 999 and then had to get down the business end to see if he could see the head. Which he couldn’t, but he could see feet..! Everything went a bit mad at that point as the midwives and paramedics all arrived and seeing that she was breech, it became a bit hairy. I was fortunate because I couldn’t see what was going on as I wason all fours concentrating on pushing, whereas Mr B could see that she was coming out all blue.

After what seemed like forever, she slipped out and after another age, she started crying. She was whisked away in one ambulance and I was taken away in another one. I had to be wheeled onto the ambulance on a stretcher which I felt was a bit unnecessary, but I think made the best entertainment the street had seen for ages, baased on the large group of children watching from across the street!

Despite her unconventional arrival, Rose was fine and after staying overnight on the maternity ward (where I got not a wink of sleep thanks to various comings and goings and the women on my right snoring like a warthog) we went home on Sunday morning.

Now I just plan to spend the next couple of weeks being waited on hand and foot.

I’ve been building furniture for a couple of days and now have somewhere to store all my baby clothes. Hurrah! This also means I can be a domestic goddess and have a jaunty row of tiny sleepsuits and vests on the line.

I’m 32 weeks and 4 days now and TBH, I can’t see the bump staying put for another seven weeks. Though I think I said that last time and ended up waiting past 41 weeks. Right now I mostly miss being able to walk in a non-ducklike manner.

…bigger blob than before, but very uncooperative. The head is on the right and facing downwards. But I do know whether it’s a pink or blue one. Let’s put it this way – I’ll not have to worry about whether a knitting pattern is too girly or not..!

Mr B and I have tentatively chosen a name, but it remains to be seen if she actually suits it when she arrives. DS2 was going to be Archie until he came out looking nothing like an Archie and ended up being nameless for about three days until he was given an name which suited him far better.

I suppose it’s time I came clean.

After feeling really ill back in late February, I eventually decided that I should really drag myself to the doctor because whatever it was, it was more than just a nasty cold. Before I went, I did a test just to check I wasn’t pregnant because I had all the symptoms and knew that would be the first thing she asked. But I couldn’t possibly be pregnant, I thought.

Which leads me to Exhibit A:

First scan, taken this afternoon. So much for not being pregnant. My due date is 16th October, so I’m currently only 11 weeks.

I’ve been feeling really ill for the past month, unsurprisingly. And my knitting mojo really has disappeared, which is a nightmare when all I want to do is knit tiny clothes. I’m hoping that in a few weeks I’ll feel less bleurgh and can start nesting and blogging again!