Sophies flat head

Sophie's flat head - although it is hard to see the extent at this angle, I tried to get one side on but she loves the camera too much and whenever I tried to take the photo side on she would turn her head and give big grins.
Sophies new toy

Brad has been away for a couple of days so haven’t had time to update. Sophie had an appointment with a pediatrician on Monday to just get a check on her flat head (from sleeping on her back). The doctor was very good and thorough and did a full body check while there. He said the flat head wasn’t that bad and as she is getting stronger and stronger in the neck she isn’t putting so much weight on the back of her head anymore when sleeping so he feels it will get better and that it certainly doesn’t require any surgery or anything, but he did order up some x-rays just to check the bones. But the one thing he did pick up while doing his checks was that she has a heart murmur! I think my own heart skipped a beat and plummeted into my stomach when he mentioned this – but he then put me at ease by saying that it is a very common thing in babies and that as much as 1 in a 100 babies have it and most go undetected – however to be on the safe side he has done x-rays of her chest and is organizing an ECG at Starship hospital. Still I won’t be completely calm about it until we get the all clear. Gosh having children is ageing!

We had about two weeks of calm and a perfect sleeping baby, which made it possible for me to get things done during the day, but as of yesterday she has been a bit wakeful, only napping for about 45 minutes each time and then being grumpy when awake as she isn’t getting enough sleep! Still I am sure we will get her back to normal. She didn’t really like the x-rays on Monday and screamed and screamed while they were being done, so she is probably having flashbacks when she is asleep, hence the waking up! We went for a nice long walk today and I think she enjoyed the fresh air and change of scenery – I feel now she is getting older that she is getting bored with her environment and toys, so I purchased a new one from Trade Me, does tend to look like we have abandoned her in a boat though (see pic)! But she seems to love it and it does keep her occupied for longer than her floor mat, possibly because she gets to sit up and have a good look around her.

Lately Sophie has been dribbling and sucking her fingers and fists lots, I know she is only four months, but it looks like a tooth might be coming through as she has a cut gum like a tooth trying to push through, but I have heard that this can happen and the tooth still take another three months, so we will just have to put up with a LOT of dribble until then. Brad has just recovered from having a cold, and luckily (touch wood) neither Sophie nor I got it, whew – I am not looking forward to the day that I have to look after a sick baby as I can just imagine how hard that must be – Sophie is adorable and I love looking after her, but even healthy she is pretty full on and exhausts me by the end of the day! God I can only imagine what its going to be like when she is a toddler, she’s just so busy and nosey.

Ingrid

Getting slack again!

Sophie and friends (Sophie - 3rd from right - looking like mummy after a bottle of wine!)
Sophie and friends again, none of them are too sure what is happening and Matthew on the end is far from happy.

Sorry we haven't been updating as much again, it seems to get harder to find more time during the day now, but we will keep trying to update everyday. I hosted a coffee group at home this morning with the girls I met through the hospital exercise classes, not the ante-natal coffee group. We all had a lovely day and let our diets go out the door as we munched on chocolate biscuits and cheese and crackers! Was probably not the best day to host as Brad is full of a cold and really could have done with a day home to rest and recuperate but I have already cancelled out on the girls twice already and really didn't think it was polite to do it again, besides which I needed them all here to help eat the biscuits or I may have been tempted to scoff them all myself! So off to work Brad went - but I did let him come home early!

Ingrid

Drinks Night (whoops over-due post!)

We have had a lovely few days. Brads mum came up for the night on Friday which we all loved. Sophie had saved up some very special grins and giggles especially for her grandma which they both loved. (Monday when I wrote this)

As mentioned in an earlier post, I had my first night out with the girls from coffee group on Thursday night and we had a great time. It was so lovely for us all to get together and discuss things other than our babies (which we certainly don’t get sick of talking about), it just made us all feel like a little bit more like our old selves again instead of just being someone’s mummy. I took a taxi just in case I decided to really let my hair down, but luckily I decided to take it easy and just have a couple of wines as Sophie decided to be a very wakeful and alert baby on Friday and to be honest I would rather go to my old job hungover than look after Sophie hungover! But I think I was buzzing a bit too much about going out and couldn’t sleep when I got home which resulted in me being veeeeeeeeery tired on Friday and in bed that night by 9.30pm!

Ingrid

Sophie poses for the camera

The 25 Step Bath Plan.

Mum came up to stay yesterday. It was great to see her and really nice for Sophie to spend some time with her Grandma. I think Sophie enjoyed having a new face to smile and giggle at for a couple of days (and obvious that mum was well stocked to see her little grand-daughter too!)

Sophie hearing Dan Carter's name being read out during the big game tonight!

After mum cruised off this arvo, Ingrid shot off to do the grocery shopping, like a good wife should (she’s bound to soccer punch me in the ribs when I’m asleep tonight for saying that) – Anyhow, I was home alone during the witching hour tonight (that's Sophie's unsettled time between 4pm-6pm) – So I decided to give her a grown up's bath with me, which is a lot tougher than it sounds when you’re dong it solo, (unless you are Superman or Ingrid)

This is how it unfolded:

1. Run the bath
2. Change and undress Sophie on the table
3. Get yourself undressed
4. Pick up baby and gather the towels
5. Run naked up the stairs (forgetting to close the curtains in broad daylight)
6. Place her strategically on the floor
7. Get yourself in the bath
8. (Realise bath is too hot and have to put more cold water in)
9. Pick Sophie up and then place her in the bath with you
10. (Realise you've forgot to bring a baby flannel with you)
11. Watch her bottom lip drop, because mummy’s not here for bath-time
12. Wash, clean and play with her for 15 minutes
13. Try and take a picture of the two of us, using the self timer feature on the camera
14. Notice photo looks terrible - so blame bad light in the bathroom
15. Place Sophie again strategically on the floor out-side the bath on a pre-placed towel
16. Watch Sophie starting to scream because she’s now cold
17. Jump out of the bath

18. Manage to avoid stepping on her head by less than 3 inches
19. Wrap her in towel and run downstairs (starkers still) to the change table
20. Say “Bugger”…becasue you realise you've forgotten (again) to close the curtains
21. Finish dressing her
22. Run back upstairs and get yourself dressed
23. Sprint back downstairs (out of breath) - look at Sophie lying on change table and notice a HUGE grin on her face.

24. Pick her up and give her big cuddle.

25. Tell Ingrid later on, "this solo bathing thing is a breeze..."

Sophie and Grandma

Brad

Grandma comes to stay

Sophie and Grandma King

What a darling wee girl! Sophie Joan is just the most cutest, adorable wee baby that was ever born (apart from her Mummy and Daddy and two aunties of course). Just because I happen to be a very proud grandmother, it doesn’t mean that I am biased at all! No, I’m not…….really, I’m not. Sophie is just beautiful. I just arrived in time to watch her getting bathed, which she absolutely loves. So far, I have had lots of cuddles and smiles and she “chats” away to me. She knows she is a very special little girl and loved by us all. Her Mummy and Daddy are just awesome parents and it is a privilege being part of this wonderful family. She is sound asleep at the moment, I can’t wait until Brad wakes her up for the 10pm feed just so I can hold her again.

Grandma

Thursday night drinks

The last week has been pretty full on with the Sophie-myster, as Brad mentioned earlier in the week we changed Sophie’s formula back to normal powder based on the doctors say so, but it was too soon and Sophie was pretty uncomfortable with her reflux, so we went back to the special thickened formula to help out, but she hasn’t been her usual self since and we have pretty much been stuck at home due to her been very unsettled, mind you its only during the day as she still sleeps well overnight (most nights). So her smiles and giggles have been very few and far between. So today we ventured out the door to coffee group where she started off well and gave a couple of smiles to the other girls, but she soon got a bit grizzly and after a quick nap in her car seat we came back home where she is now happily asleep.

Tonight is going to be my first night out in a very long time…us coffee group girls have decided its time to get back onto the social circuit and meet for a few drinks tonight – I am quite excited about getting out (and getting dressed up!), I think I will get dressed at the very last minute before going and give Sophie a good night kiss at arms length so I can go out without a ‘baby badge’! I don’t think it will be a very late one as it was pretty cold here overnight and Sophie woke at 3.30am very cold as she had managed to get out of her covers and then it took me ages to get back to sleep once I took care of her and got back to bed – I think all us mums are in the same boat after our discussion today. But I do believe there will be a couple of wines with my name on it. I’ll let you know tomorrow how the night went.

Ingrid

Grumpy Tuesday

The little Soph-myster has been in a grump all day today. I got home from work and she gave me a quick smile when I picked her up and then vomited all over me.

We changed her formula on Sunday night from the thickened stuff she’s been used to, back to the normal stuff. Don’t think it has agreed with her obviously. So it’s back to the tried and true along with mummy’s milk in between.

She even started crying and grizzling in the bath tonight which is highly unlike her, she was just staring intently and then dropped her bottom lip (which still does look hilarious) and had a bawl…poor thing. Hopefully she’s good for mum later on, I’m popping along to beer group with the lads from the baby classes, I feel pretty stink because I haven’t been for a few weeks.

Brad

Chillin' on a lazy Sunday

Sophie's new pozzie - laying back on the bean-bag

Sophie's new sit-ups.

It’s kind of freaky just how quickly Sophie is growing. It seems like every day she is picking up something new, there’s lots of giggles on a daily basis and now she’s taken to doing sit-ups!..it must be the start of her trying to roll or something, but soon as you lie her on her back now she does these weird stomach crunches and tries to sit up!...Her little baby abs are getting as hard as rocks now too.

The three of us all bathed together tonight too, that was pretty cool. Sophie really loves the deep water and kicks and squeals with a permanent grin on her face each time she gets in now. We had a look at a couple of open homes today and I carried Sophie around, rather than lugging around the baby carrier thing, she seemed to lap up all the attention from everyone around her and gave people a couple of cheeky smiles.

Sophie's tummy time

I need to spend most of the day at work tomorrow. I held a big research evening last week and needed to have around 110 people there to make the sample worth while, I ended up with around 70, so tomorrow I need to hold an additional research day to make up the numbers…suck, bound to miss Sophie doing something new for the first time again.

A picture of me almost 20 years ago!...Destined to work at The Rock at 13 years old!.

Brad

A picture paints a thousand words...

Isn't that sweet aye.
Brad

Tuesday update

Not a lot happening today. Coffee group is now happening twice a week for those who have the time as other commitments are making it harder for us all to get together on the same day each week, so it made sense to hold it twice a week, that way we don’t all get caught up in day to day life and neglect our friends, as that is too easy to do. Coffee group is a life saver for me (and probably the other mums too) as it’s a great way to sound ideas or to discuss baby worries and to just have a good old catch up and gossip. Its funny as when I was pregnant we were both kind of against ante-natal, we thought it would just be awkward and useless, and to be honest we really didn’t think that we would meet any people that we would have anything in common with, but funnily enough, just having a baby gives you that common group and now we are forging some really good friends. Anyway today’s coffee group consisted of just myself and Sophie and Fiona and Kaela!

Sophie has been just lovely today, full of her usual beans, laughing lots and talking away to herself, I think she’s going to be a bit of a talker! Gosh she’s just so lovely and it’s a pleasure looking after her. We still have the odd day that’s hard work and I am exhausted by the end of the day, but that’s not unusual, I have always been a big sleeper and if I don’t get eight hours then I am no good to anyone, I think that is why I found the early days so hard, trying to survive on five or six hours of sleep as I was just buzzing all the time and found it really, really difficult to get some shut eye. Now that Sophie is sleeping through the night it makes all the difference – maybe she takes after me in that she needs lots of sleep too. As a mother staying at home as the main guardian and educator you do question whether you are teaching your little one well enough, and hope that they grow up to be well rounded, intelligent adults, but to be on the safe side I plan on enrolling her in as many educational classes as I can, just so she doesn’t have to rely on me to learn all that she needs to – hopefully that way she will do much better at school than I did and have a better career options too.

Ingrid

P.S…Brad Here

Ingrid forgot to mention we both had a crap sleep last night, it had nothing to do with Sophie…it was the burglar we had at middle of the night.

Ingrid awoke with a hell of a fright just after 2:30am and woke me up in the process saying “I just heard Charlie’s cat box get kicked!”…I was trying to be cool, calm and collected and said "it was nothing...you’re hearing things", but then we both noticed Charlie sitting at the end of the bed looking like a possum caught in the headlights of an oncoming vehicle…that put the shits up us indeed...

So after listening for a few minutes in dead silence and hearing nothing, I had to do the right thing and get up and investigate. Armed with nothing more than a pair of underpants and a mobile phone for protection, I ventured downstairs ready to defend my house and family (actually I was shit scared and wondered how I could inflict serious bodily damage with my crappy phone as a weapon!)…I searched the place for 10 minutes, found nothing and went back to bed…in saying that, the rest of the night we both woke at the slightest noise.

As it turns out, it wasn’t a big bad intruder, or even a stray animal that had found it’s way into the house…the culprit?...A set of car keys that had fallen of the key-hook and landed slap bang in the middle of cat tray and had knocked it over!…and to think, it was one of the few times I had actually put the car keys in the right place and it still ended up causing carnage!

Sophie's first grown-up Bath

Sophie was a bit spoilt and got to bath with mummy in the grown up’s bath tonight, she’s practically outgrown her own bath now, so I guess this will become a new tradition in between showers. She sure loved it though, no more legs kicking the side or her banging the back of head against the top anymore.

Ingrid’s also mentioned that a couple of the girls from her coffee group are going to take their bubs to special baby swimming classes in the next couple of weeks, we’re both pretty keen to take Sophie along too, to start her off nice and young...I’m sure she’ll be a natural in the water.

Ingrid is trying to put her down to bed as I type away downstairs at the moment, this is generally the time Sophie is most unsettled…4pm-7pm for some reason? I guess the good thing though, she is sleeping right through the night these days and not even stirring or waking at all anymore.

Better go now, Sophie just registered 100 on the scream-ometer...

Sophie playing peek-a-poo

Brad

Meatballs and Horror Movies

Sophie is excited to see the guitar brought out!

Sophie hasn’t really been herself today, I think it may have been a delayed reaction to the jabs yesterday. She’s also got pretty big bruises on her thighs and been grizzling all day, which is definitely out of character for her. Normally she is a little rascal in the afternoon and doesn’t like to sleep, but today we’ve had to wake her for every feed, mind you, she has still managed to crack a few smiles in between grizzles…

The cool thing is Sophie has found her voice now…for a few days all she did was squeal, but her new trick, is now puckering up her little mouth, like she’s about to whistle, then she starts making long winded "ooohhhh’s" and "arhhhh’s". Last night Ingrid and I hid in her room while she was baby-talking, we felt pretty stink because we were pissing ourselves laughing as Sophie gibbered to herself for a round 15 minutes non-stop!

I made “Brad’s Meatball Special” for dinner tonight, it was very fitting because later on we watched “HOSTEL” on the big screen.
When I hired it, the guy at the video shop said “Dude, this ain’t for the faint-hearted” All I can say is I’m glad we ate the meatballs before watching it…

Brad

Jab day

The injection site - she had one on the other side too
Our little Arab girl!

As Brad mentioned yesterday, it has been a little harder to keep the blogsite updated, and from now on hope to update daily as we promised. Sophie had her three month jabs today, gosh it was tough – she handled the six week ones really well, but today was a bit different…she screamed and cried and worked herself up so much that she was gulping for air and her whole face and head was red. Pretty hard to see your baby so worked up and unable to really do anything except cuddle her. Got her home and she slept for three hours, woke up had a small feed and then cried and cried again, so I cuddled her again and popped her back in bed with her toy bear and dummy where she proceeded to talk away telling her bear all about it, but couldn’t go to sleep, so after about an hour of rocking her bassinet and her waking up every time I walked away we got her up again. By this stage I think she was feeling a lot better and she even gave us some big smiles and giggles and then had a big splash around in her bath, a small feed again (mustn’t be well as she generally loves her food!), play and then went back off to bed. It will be interesting to see how she sleeps tonight. Hopefully she will be back to normal, but I have prepared myself to get up during the night.

Remember a few weeks back Brad posted a note about MySky? Well it was installed a couple of weeks ago and although I really didn’t want it, or should I say I really didn’t think we needed it – I have had a change of heart, it is fantastic (although Sky still suck). I have been using it most days as I am now a boring mother and go to bed very early in case I have to get up during the night to Sophie, so all the late night shows that I used to watch can now be recorded! So instead of watching crappy old Good Morning or the Soaps that are on during the day, I watch these recorded shows instead! Brilliant. Although don’t tell Brad that I actually have time to watch TV during the day or he may expect me to start cooking dinner!

Ingrid

More shots tomorrow for Sophie

We’ve been a bit slack this week updating the blog sorry, we both had great intentions of trying to update this thing everyday, but it’s becoming harder these days finding time to update regularly, Sophie's awake a hell of a lot more during the day, (which is great because it means she’s sleeping more overnight) so Ingrid barley finds time to feed herself each day, and to be fair, I prefer to spend my evenings, catching up with Sophie and Ingrid.
(But we do know it' is good to check up on Sophie, so we'll continue to update as often as possible!)

Sophie went along for her full check up with Plunket earlier this week, and from all accounts, she is a healthy, perfectly sized, well developed little munchkin .
Ingrid and I have both been a little concerned though about the state of her flat head…it does look somewhat munted being so flat at the back, so Plunket suggested we double-check it with the Doc's tomorrow…apparently it is quite normal?


I‘m actually supposed to be away from home today at conference. To cut a long story short, I had to be at the airport at the awesome time of 6:20am today in order to catch the early morning flight, so after getting up at 5am, then showering (and spending 20 minutes trying to find my keys!) I just managed to make it to the airport on time…infact the timing couldn’t have been any better...as soon as I walked through the main doors of the airport I heard some little chirpy voice over the loud speakers say "WE'RE SORRY TO ANNOUNCE FLIGHT 702 BEEN CANCELLED DUE TO ENGINEERING PROBLEMS...OUR NEXT FLIGHT WILL BE AT 10AM"...I best not put into words what I thought of that...

Brad