Growing quickly

Growing up more everyday!

Sophie is turning into an energetic little thing these days. She is on the go constantly and she can’t even crawl yet!...what’s it going to be like in a few more weeks when she finally realizes that she can move around by herself aye?

Ingrid popped her in the little kiddies part of the supermarket trolley today when she went shopping and Sophie loved it from all accounts…gave the passers by in the store her usual great big gummy grins and was on her best behaviour. We’re getting her a highchair this weekend since she is doing the solids things more, certainly growing up quickly that’s for sure.

Brad

Sophie, heaps better today.

It’s been a cold miserable day here in Auckland today so we didn’t get to go on our family picnic. Instead, we chilled out at home and Sophie got to play on her little rocking horse – she absolutely loved the thing and grinned from ear to ear.

Like I mentioned in yesterday’s post, she hadn’t been feeling too well the past couple of days, but today she found her top gear and has been a happy, energetic wee thing all day long. It was great to see.

She is sitting up quite well by herself now, and like all babies, everything she picks up goes straight into her mouth. She was playing a game earlier on too where she would pick up a rattle, then purposely drop it, then bend down pick it up...then drop it again…this went on for about 15 minutes – each time she grabbed it, a rather chuffed smurk beemed accross her face.

Sophie also devoured her pumpkin mash for dinner tonight (personally, I couldn’t think of anything more hideous!) but she seems to enjoy it…freak. Every now and then she would laugh while eating and spit most of it back all over us…I think she knows I hate pumpkin and did it on purpose…

Brad

Sophie not feeling well

Poor little Sophie has been a bit crook the last couple of days. She hasn’t been able to hold anything down and she’s grizzling around the clock.

The good news today is she is feeling a lot better (it’s now Sunday morning). It might have been a little bug or her solids not agreeing with her...who knows, but she is back to her happy little giggling self and is sleeping better.

We were going to go out and have a nice family picnic today, but the Auckland weather has turned to shite…not surprising.

Happy to have daddy home...and daddy happy to be back home

Time for a bit of gloating. The radio ratings results we released on Friday morning and we (The Rock) had another huge result. We’re ranked number 1, NZ wide as the biggest music station in the country and have grown our audience even higher than last year…that’s great and it keeps me employed for another six months at least…

Sophie showing us she's feels a lot better now.

Brad

Back home from Boston

I couldn’t have timed getting home today any better. Sophie was just waking from her morning sleep when I arrived (and after a cuddle from Ingrid) I quickly leapt up the stairs and crept into Sophie’s room. She gave me the once over and then her little face lit up with a huge grin…my jet lag and tiredness from the past 24 hours of airports and flying quickly disappeared after seeing that.

I brought a few baby clothes from ‘Baby Gap’ while I was in Boston, and Sophie showed her immediate appreciation by baby chucking over most them when I was showing her too, and this afternoon when Ingrid popped out for a bit…Sophie gave me a lovely present that she had obviously been saving up for her old man for a good couple of days!

Checking out Boston on a harbour cruise

A touch of shopping at some swanky Boston stores

Guzzy and I in desperate need of a real coffee after touching down in LA for the day (yes, been living in Auckland way too long!)

Always wanted to try Spare Ribs American style..not bad either.

Ingrid had a great time at Jono and Jen's wedding in the weekend and she said it was fantastic having mum here for a few days too while I was away – cheers mum, Sophie enjoyed having you here too!

I think all the attention I was giving to Sophie today mucked up her routine too – she didn’t want a bar of sleeping tonight after dinner, the little tiger was up for over three hours! – I ended up reading her a story and instantly noticed how attentive she is now becoming, when you point to things in the book she now stares and I even noticed today, Sophie is now taking a huge interest in Charlie the Cat and watches in fascination as this huge hairy white creature moves around the house.

Boston was truly awesome, but getting home to my two bubs was better still.

Brad

Who said life was easy being a baby?

Sophie headed off to the Doctors today for her 5 month immunization shots.
The pictures tell the tale of the morning.

11:07AM - "This doesn't hurt much...just look at how tough I am!"

11:08AM - "Ignore what I just said...this fricken hurts!"

11:09AM - "Now I've totally lost the plot ...1 injection was bad enough, but 3 of them, that's not fair!"

11:10AM - "I'm trying to be brave, but I just want to go home now"

11:11AM - "Someone just smiled at me...I better smile back at them. What is she on about saying I'm a brave little girl...what just happened?...damn I've forgotten already!.

Weekend Update

Only a few days before I head off to Boston. I’m going this Thursday and back a week later. It's for work…actually, it’s a record company trip to see the Red Hot Chili Peppers play...yes, this job can be pretty awful at times…

The little Houdini

Ingrid spoilt Sophie in the weekend and brought her this flash battery operated mobile thing that plays crappy baby music and moves around – it hangs over her cot and is supposed to relax her and make her drift off to sleep easier. Sophie got so excited by it, she couldn’t sleep for ages and kept on trying to sit up and grab the bloody thing instead! We ended up taking it down and Ingrid's decided to take it back. Sophie's also kicking her way out of her blankets these days too, we can’t wrap her anymore either, she’s like a little Houdini and manages to escape in seconds, so we bought a little sleeping-bag/dress thing that you put bubs in and zip up. There’s sleave things you poke your arms through – suffice to say Sophie hated it and manged to squeeze a leg out when it should be impossible too!

Brad

Bath Time

Bath time - one of Sophie's favourite times of the day

I haven't been able to bath Sophie all week, my back is still a bit munted and I can't bend down low enough in the bath. - Yes I do feel really old this week. (At least this morning I did actually manage to put my socks and shoes on all by myself...that's a start I spose!)
Sophie splashes around so much these days during bath time, which means we can't put the bath on the bench anymore - unless we want a massive flood on our hands!

Ingrid has booked Sophie in for some more injections next week, I just hope she's not going to cry and scream as much as she did last time when the needles went in...It’s pretty unsettling for Sophie watching her mummy in tears...

Brad

Sophie's trip to Starship Hospital

I was a bit apprehensive sitting in the waiting room at the hospital today

What the hell is that nurse doing with all these wires and stuff!

Actually, it's not that bad at all...I can see my heart beating strongly on the machine and the nurse smiled at me so I had to smile back.

This is my reaction after finding out that I'm all healthy!

What a day we have had! Sophie had her appointment at Starship Hopsital to get her heart murmur checked out. The appointment was at 9.50am, but after getting stuck in traffic and then spending 20minutes trying to find a park at the hospital we finally rushed in late only to find half of Auckland in the waiting room too! The receptionist told us it would be about a three hour wait - crikey. It was so quiet in the waiting room that you could have heard a pin drop, so Sophie decided to let out a few very loud squeals just to show everyone that its great fun to be a baby, luckily no one minded and a couple of the other babies decided to make some noise too.

We saw a nurse first so she could take her weight and height and then we saw the person who did the ECG and then finally the doctor who gave us the good news that she is healthy and fine with just an irregular heartbeat but its not life threatening or anything like that - whew!

Now as Brad has mentioned during the last couple of posts he has really done his back in. Its so bad that he has to crawl out of bed in the morning until he can limber up enough to get onto his feet - but the tough fella is still going to work with the help of some strong painkillers and anti-inflammatries and generally feels a little better by the end of the day. However today as we were leaving the doctors office at the hospital he was pushing Sophie along in the pram and his back went into a spasm and he dropped to the floor taking the buggy with him! The buggy tipped over backwards with Sophie (luckily strapped in) and flipped over! She got such a fright that she screamed and screamed! Here we all were just a minute earlier with big smiles on our faces and the next minute we have a very upset little girl and Brad feeling awful...

So after all today's excitment Sophie has had very little sleep and is now overtired. She went to bed early tonight and it took me 20 minutes of rocking her to sleep only to have her wake up and hour later very upset. Another 5 minutes of rocking and (touch wood) she seems to be peacefully sleeping again. Lets hope she sleeps well tonight as usual.

Ingrid

Sophie not herself.

My back was pretty munted this morning, so after spending 20 minutes trying to get out of bed and crawling to the loo, I decided to take the day off work. So I went to the Docs to get some really good pain killers and worked from home most of the day. The good thing is that I got to spend three days in a row with Sophie so it wasn't all that bad.

Sophie hasn't quite been herself recently, but you'd never guess from this photo...what a little cutie!

Today, Ingrid took Sophie along to Plunket for another routine check-up. The little fatty has grown shit-loads since her last weigh-in, but the nurse did say she might be a bit crook at the moment, given her erratic sleeping patterns and constant grizzling recently. Sophie hasn’t been herself for over a week or so. When she wakes in the morning, she normally talks to herself for a good 20 minutes, but not anymore, it’s now straight into the grizzles. She’s been sneezing a few times in the past couple of days too and even starting crying during bath-time which is her favourite time of the day! Ingrid’s taking her to the docs later on this week for another once over.

Tomorrow though, we’re taking Sophie to Starship Hospital. During her last doctors visit they detected a slight heart murmur/irregularity - it sounds really bad, but the Doc said it’s not that uncommon in newborns, but best to get it checked out obviously. In saying that, it’s taken about 4 weeks to get an appointment there! Will let you know how we get on.

Brad

Sophie makes fun of her old man.

Sophie didn’t allow us to experiment with dropping her late night feed 2 nights in a row…she woke almost to the second last night at 10’o clock. Oh well, at least she pretty much slept the night through after that.

Ingrid has popped out to do some shopping today and to get a present for a friends wedding she’s off too in a couple of weeks, I’ll be overseas then, so Ingrid will be flying solo for the wedding – but Sophie will be in good hands with her Grandma for the afternoon (she'll be on her best behavior mum!)

Sophie still smirking to herself

It was pretty funny earlier on today. I bent down to pick up Sophie, but somehow I’ve managed to f*#k my back, and as I tried to pick her up, it seized up on me…Sophie thought it was a huge joke and she starting giggling and squealing as she steered at the pained look on my face! I couldn’t do much but I did managed to drop her (strategically on the floor of course) and there was no sympathy at all from Sophie, all she did was proceed to laugh more hysterically at her aging old man!...She’s gonna be a trouble I think this kid.

Just to prove it's not smiles all the time. Here's she is throwing a wobbly yesterday...check out that bottom lip!

Brad

Sophie did well last night.

After a day without sleep, she finally crashed out around 8pm last night and slept right through till 6am this morning. We’ll give it another crack tonight but I suspect the fact she hadn’t slept all day helped the huge sleep over night. Will let you know tomorrow how she gets on.

One of my favourite photos. Sophie and daddy's little finger - only 1 day old.

Brad

I don't even look tired!

I stayed for Friday drinks at work, so got home around 6:30pm tonight. Ingrid looked pretty shagged, (but lovely all the same) Sophie evidently, didn’t want to sleep today.

Ingrid finally put her down to bed just before I got home after a marathon 4 or 5 hours awake! She continued to grizzle till well after 7:00pm so I went in to re-wrap her put her dummy in – she obviously thought it was party time then because she started giggling and yapping and gave me some monster grins. Obviously I couldn’t just leave her there so I took her back downstairs, where she eyed up Ingrid, then gave her a cheeky little smurk as if to say “I won mummy…ha ha!”

She proceeded to stay up for another hour or so and showed no signs of wanting to sleep at all! (as the photo below shows)

Is this the face of a baby who hasn't slept in 6 hours!

I'm happy to report that Sophie has finally gone to sleep now. I won’t bother trying to wake her for her normal 10pm feed and see if she makes it through the night. Her sleeping habits have changed quite a bit since we started her on evening solids last weekend to be fair, so maybe the good fortune we’ve been experiencing the past couple of months is slowly coming to end…I hope it’s just a glitch!

Brad

Selective Hearing

Last night Sophie turned into an insomniac.

Ingrid had to feed her at 2am and again at 5am – that may not seem too strange for babies under 6 months, but Sophie hasn’t needed an overnight feed for a good couple of months now. Thank god I was blessed with selective hearing (as my work colleagues would testify to) and didn’t hear a thing! It’s probably another growth spurt as she seems to be guzzling her food recently and now we’re also giving her solids at 6pm each night.

I go away in a couple of weeks for work again so mum is coming up for a few days to lend a hand which should be great, fingers crossed last night was an anomaly and she’s fine for her Grandma in a fortnight…I’m sure she will be though.

Sophie at 2am in the morning...wide awake!

Brad

Sophie pigs out on solids

"This isn't milk!...oh well I'll give it go anyhow..."

"mmm, this stuff ain't bad.."
"Don't just show me the spoon, stuff it in my mouth mummy!"

"Ohh yeah, that's what I'm talking about..."

"I'm so full I can't move anymore...burrrp."