It’s been a while

Hi everyone who reads this blog. I apologise for how long it has been since I blogged anything. We’ve only got dial-up here in Australia (was the cheaper option for three month use) and so it’s impossible to upload photos or email them even if I do remember to downsize.

Anyway enough of the excuses. I’ve come into Ryan’s work so that I can get this blogged and show you what our little principessa has been up to.

Abbey is now 10mths and boy oh boy is she a girl on the go. Ryan’s boss took us to a music group one day not long after we arrived here and there was one other girl besides Abbey the rest were boys. I couldn’t believe how relaxed and chilled out all the boys were, Abbey on the other hand was go go go. When it came to a quieter stiller time in the session she just wanted to chase after one of the little boys and investigate every corner of the room.

(Somehow she even get's onto the shelves!... ok so maybe she had a little help... our version of Where's Abbey)

We’ve been limited to what we’ve been able to do since arriving here as we haven’t had a car and so there’s been a lot more time being at home. At times this has been hard, not lonely but more just so limiting. There’s not much shade around the house and so we can’t get outside and play when we want to. The house is fairly empty as there’s hardly any furniture and it’s a four bedroom house with a large open plan kitchen and living area. Because of the emptiness I’ve found it hard at times when Abbey has been teething and crying/ screaming and it feels like it’s bouncing off every wall as it reverberates around the house. Thankfully it doesn’t last long but it can’t just be tough until she settles down.

While we were in NZ her crawling just got better and better and now all she wants is to be on her feet. I don’t know how long it will be before she’s ready to walk on her own but her legs are getting stronger and she’s doing a lot more coasting where she can (a bit limiting without the furniture to hold onto) She pulls up onto chairs, drawers, cabinets etc and is now pretty steady when we hold her hands to walk.

Probably because of all this activity she’s eating like a trooper. I worry some days about how much she eats but then I reassure myself that it’s all healthy and she is VERY active and is by no means over weight so her body must just need the extra sustenance.

She’s started trying to do actions to Twinkle Twinkle and Incy Wincy Spider. They’re much the same in that she waves her hands about and wriggles her fingers a little but it’s very cute.

She has waving down to a fine art and often pre-empts Ryan leaving the house in the morning waving to him as though she’s saying ‘C'mon dad shouldn’t you be on your way?’ but then funnily enough when we go to the door to actually wave goodbye she just stares. However once he’s out of site she will wave. Maybe she’s savouring the moment knowing that she won’t see him till the evening which must feel like an eternity.

In the evenings when he gets home she gives him big beautiful smiles which are just wonderful. It is great to see the love she has for us.

In the sleep department she’s doing pretty well. Day time sleeps wax and wane. She’ll manage a morning nap but has been waking from her post lunch sleep after and hour or hour and a half and won’t settle herself or be settled no matter how hard I have tried. Over night she’s sleeping from 7/7:30pm- lately 6am on the dot. I’m not sure why she suddenly stopped waking at 7am, her room doesn’t seem that light at that hour. Maybe she’s just had enough sleep. Trouble is…I usually haven’t… I don’t really want to put her bedtime back any later so we’re going to just have to deal with it or perhaps do some research on early rising children and how to change the pattern.

She enjoys her books, especially the flap ones or the tactile ones and so we’ve made a few trips to the library so that we have a bit more variety. I’ve also bought a couple on sale from the book store. Getting to and from the library was that much harder catching the bus but now that we have wheels (as of the weekend) that will be a lot easier. It will also mean we’ll be able to get to the pool. Ryan and I bought her a little paddling pool the other day just to splash about in on days when we were stuck at home. It doubles as just a play pit with 50 colourful balls.

Well I’ll leave it at that and get uploading the photos. They’ll be what you want to see anyway!

Once we’re up in Cairns we’ll get broadband and be able to do updates more often… promise. Until No.2 comes along that is…. Then I may disappear off the face of the earth!