4 month changes

1stWell at 4 months old Gwen is really alert and has started to take things in, she looks very intently at things, watches us a lot more and saves her really best smiles for us. We have also, in the last day or two, been getting more giggles out of her. It's lovely to see her becoming a person with a bit of a personality.

Here is a video of her working on her sounds and also shoving a teething chew toy in her gob! Wearing a tasty yellow number knitted by nanna! 

Today I went to the gym for the first time leaving Gwen at Nanna's house, luckily she's quite a calm baby or I probably wouldn't want to inflict the noise onto other people. Don't get me wrong, she can make noise, but it's mainly when she's getting bored and wants your attention, or is tired and just before she finally goes to sleep. She fights the sleep the little monkey. Bedtime is usually about 9pm now, i'm trying to bring it forward, but not sure she's had enough to eat by then to see her through the night so its a routine of feed, try to put on bed, she flips herself over crying which turns to a pretty good yell! and then I feed her some more etc...  I just keep giving her more food til she drops off enough to go in her cot and fall asleep. The thing about breastfeeding is you have no idea how much they are eating?  She normally wakes up at 7/8am ish but lately she's been getting earlier like 4 or 5!! Not so pleasant, I felt really rough for a few days when she did that. She does however fall back to sleep easier when she wakes that early and then sleeps on til 10am!  There is no pattern to her sleeps, this mornings 1st feed was at 6 am and then she went straight back to sleep and stayed asleep til I woke her at 9.

First swim!

On Wednesday just gone we went swimming for the first time. I wasn't sure what Gwen would do in the luke warm water but in fact she was totally fine about it, very cool and  casual. She just laid in my arms silently! 

Gwen is 4 months old and a few days now. It's going so fast!

The new bedroom before and after shots

Here is the room before we started. The paper is quite modern but I wanted something a bit more tranquil to wake up to, and well the walls were all lumpy and bumpy and the finish in the room was dreadful. 

Here is the room once I'd finished stripping the wall paper

Here is the other side of the room with all the plasterers tools in it.

Here is the boarded ceiling, it was a strange artex before with sections missing from where old built in wardrobes used to be. 

Here is the plastered wall from 2 pictures above. Hmm much better.

So then we had to put on a 'miscoat' of watered down paint. It sucked the water in so much, if you don't water it down enough it was a bit of disaster  (as I discovered on a patch of wall). If we have another one plastered we're gonna take much longer preparing the walls as they were still a bit dusty and had a few bobbles on them in places. I tried to do osme with Gwen in the room but she wasn;t really much help. 

Here she is pointing out that i'd 'missed a bit'

First bit of paint called muddy puddle by dulux - rather aptly named I think.

The skirting went on without too much trouble although with the wibbly walls Chris had to screw them on.  Here is the plaster coving going on, Chris had never done this before and he did a great job i my opinion.  He hated the sanded down after bit though as he said it reminded him of an old job he did with spraying cars/ repairs.

Before carpet

After carpet, hmmm lovely.

Here is Chris putting together the ikea wardrobes, that have been sat in our hallway for 2 weeks or so.

And now for the finished result!!! 

Gwen and Me having a little chat video

A sort of chat.

General pics from June 2012

Here she is showing off her lovely chubby legs. 

We've started to put on bibs now as she dribbles an awful lot. She likes to suck them too, lovely!

 Our very first Taeberry/Tayberry (not  sure of spelling at the mo!) in the garden, the plant is very small, hopefully by next year it will be huge with lots of fruit on it.  

Here is mum mowing the last last week. We couldn't get the thing started by ourselves and had to call Dad up to get it going,  think the choke was in wrong position, after this we got it going ok. 

We're still sleeping downstairs and here is Gwen with Dad. 

Here's the latest Gwen picture, so most up to date, aged 4 months 

We're still waiting for the eye appointment to come through to see about her wonky eyes. I'm sure that lately they haven't been as bad, but then she goes all crossed eyed again when I get a bit hopeful!

Sleeping pics plus my weird looking hand

my hand/wrist looking freakishly skinny and boney

Tired Gwen v Awake Gwen

Can you tell the difference of before and after a sleep?

fathers day pics

We went for sunday lunch at the Parkers Arms in Paignton

We had to pass Gwen as she didn't want to just lay in her pram quietly. Chris got her off to sleep in the end.

 My Ma and Pa

gwen chewing her fingers 4 months old

here she is doing what she does a lot, chewing her fingers

Even chewing my finger

Blimey - what a fright!

So we have one of those breathing monitors for Gwen, gives me peace of mind to see that she is breathing away happily in bed, She sleeps such long hours that I think i'd be wanting to check on her all the time if not. It works by a ultra sensitive pad that sits in the middle of the bed under the mattress, it sends off a sharp alarm if no movement has been detected for 15 seconds.
3.30am we are woken by the alarm shrieking, I struggled to get the words out that it was the alarm, my brain was still processing it, but it was still only a split second til we both raced up the stairs (we're still sleeping downstairs - room still being decorated) the alarm stopped as we were half way up the stairs so my initial heart attack subsided slightly by the time we got there. She was up in the top corner of the cot, breathing happily. Chris moved her back to the centre and we, both very shaken, went back to bed. I think it must be that the pad is only on a small square of wood and it did say to put a big piece of plywood to 'fit the cot' under the mattress. It must not be able to pick up the tiny breathing movements when she's up in a corner.  It happened again twice more, and we raced up a again just in case, but she had wriggled back to the corner. So todays job will be to get a big piece of plywood.
Thanks goodness she was ok, glad the monitor is doing it's job but very scary all the same. Chris said he couldn't get back to sleep after the first alarm!

It's fathers day

Chris' first fathers day! He got some lovely presents of the very thoughtful Gwen (aged 16 weeks!), a  personalised card, with a photo of them both on the front. A mug with lots of photos of them and her, some kermit the frog socks, some sweets and some chocolate and oh yes and a spiffing summer dressing gown from marks and sparks. None of the trendy shops do them, we searched! perhaps it's not fashionable to wear them these days! Personally I think lounging around in ones dressing gown is rather decadent of a morning! I will add photo when I can download them! Still decorating the bedroom so can't get to the necessary implement for this yet.

A sad story

Be warned that this link might make you cry, so if you're somewhere where you don't want to cry maybe read it later. It is a fund raising site for a little boy called Luca who died suddenly at 5 months old. The fundraising is for The Foundation for the study of Infant Deaths

This is a local boy and several people I know know the family.

http://www.lucasstarfund.co.uk/

The video/poem is an absolute killer and had me crying and cuddling Gwen very tightly

Gwens eyes

I recently went to a weaning session at the clinic, they were just giving us info mainly and at the end I mentioned that I was gonna come tomorrow to get her weighed and the health visitor said if I stayed behind she would do it then, save me a second trip. So when everyone had left she very nicely mentioned did I think Gwen eyes were a bit crossed, I said well I thought that was normal while they were still young? (A midwife friend has said in passing that her daughters eyes had still been crossed at times when she was 6 months old, so I took this to mean it was not out of the ordinary)
She said 'not really at nearly 4 months', and would I mind if she referred me to the specialist eye doctor. So now I'm waiting for the appointment and I'm just really hoping that they will say that it could still sort itself out. Google isn't very promising, suggesting that after 2 months they should be straight and that the ways they it be dealt with are a patch on the good eye to help strengthen the bad one, or glasses or a little operation. I know it's nothing overly serious and i'm grateful that she seems a happy healthy baby in all other ways. I just don't want her to be picked on if she has funny eyes or has to wear thick glasses when she's little. Children can be mean sometimes.

Funny hairstyles

my sunday project - just for fun using computer programme 

Gwen 14 weeks

Hmm whats been happening lately? We have had the bedroom re-plastered so we've had to move downstairs, we are sleeping in the dining room, mattress on the floor (oooh how people have futons!) I'm clearly not young enough anymore!

Some before and after bedroom pictures coming soon

There are a lot of pictures that are on the proper camera, but as the office is full of our chest of drawers and bed frame I can't get to the items I need to get the pictures off it.
Here are some recent phone pics.

As I'm hardly ever on here and no-one takes pictures of me and Gwen together very often, here's one of us both 

The beauty of photo versus reality!

Coffee shop on the harbour yesterday, gwen sitting up quite well (not unaided of course) Not ehte union jacks in background, this was the start of the jubilee weekend

Reading a Grand design magazine