Pip is not a kettle!

Whilst we thought we'd chosen a nice, simple name for our daughter, it appears that we've actually chosen one that nobody knows how to pronounce or spell.

My mum for reasons I still don't quite understand, thought her name was Aleffi. She even gave us a little keep sake box with this name engraved on it! Opps. I love it though.

Then last week I had a message on the answering machine from our Doctor's surgery and the nurse called her Alicia and then Alessi (the 'i' pronounced "eye"). Both names in the same message. I guess she was covering all bases! If anyone reading is still wondering, it's pronounced Ah-less-ee.

During her 6 week check up, our Doctor smiled when I told him her name and said "oh, like the Italian design company?" No. Not like the Italian design company.
The bloody Italian design company that I hadn't even realised existed until after she was born and someone asked us why we'd named our daughter after a kettle.

Actually, we named our daughter after this lovely lady.

Her name is of course, Alessi and as you can see from the picture at the top of this post, she's a singer going by the name Alessi's Ark. If you're curious you can listen to her music here. It's so beautiful.

When I was pregnant I used to play a few songs to Pip over and over again and Constellations was one of them. 

As it turns out, she is named after that Italian design company. At least if Wikipedia is to be believed anyway. Speaking of which, they've recently opened a store in town so Dan went in to check it out and guess what he found? A keyring called "Pip" - Pip being Alessi's nickname. I'm not even making this up, look..

We tried really hard to find a name that we both liked. One that was a little different, but wouldn't get her teased in the playground. 

Let's just hope the kids at school don't know about those kettles..

A trip back home

This weekend we visited the family in Wales. I was pretty nervous as I had no idea how Alessi would take such a long car journey and staying in unfamiliar environments. As it turned out, she couldn't have been less bothered by it all.

The first stop was my Mum's place. My Mum works really odd hours and this photo was taken at midnight, shortly after she came home. We eventually went to bed after 1am as poor Mum was looking pretty knackered, but despite this I still had to prise Alessi from her arms! It was really lovely to see how she was with her though and I managed to take a few sneaky shots with my phone when she wasn't looking!

Fritha over at Tigerlilly Quinn will appreciate this. After visiting mum we stopped off in Aber as Dan wanted to show Alessi the sea and 'kick the bar'.

I have no idea how or when this started, but kicking the bar is a bit of a local tradition. At the end of seafront there's quite literally, a bar and it's customary to kick it once you reach the end.
Of course we had to take photos of ourselves doing it. The tourists thought we were nuts.

Next up was my Dads. I'm totally kicking myself now as I didn't get any photos of him with Alessi. I'm hoping to visit again later this summer though so I'll make sure I get some then.
I did take loads of photos of the valley where he lives. It's the most beautiful place and I always come away from any visit there totally desperate to be surrounded by trees again. His house is the only one on that side of the river and there are only two ways to get to it. You either drive through the river, or if the river is too high, as it was, then you have to walk.

First we parked the car up the road and then crossed the little footbridge..

 ..the view from the footbridge..

Then we walked along the footpath

Until we got home!

This is the 'beach' and it's where Dan proposed to me. We go there almost every time we visit to skim stones. The picture at the top of this post is one such stone. He etched "D,K+A" on it before skimming it across the river.

The Kari-Me wrap being used for reals. I bloody love that thing!

I was really worried that Alessi would be wired the whole weekend and would spend most of her time crying. In fact she spent most of her weekend like this..

Unlike now. Clearly the Welsh air agreed with her! If that's not reason enough to go back very soon then I don't know what is.

One month

Pip is four weeks old today. That's a whole month. That's insane!

Four weeks and she's already started to out grow her newborn clothes. Her wrinkled, smooshy face is fast disappearing and she's already got herself into something of a routine. Unfortunately this routine involves daily bouts of colic and nothing breaks my heart more than seeing Pip crying and not being able to comfort her.

To be fair though things are, *touch wood* starting to get a bit easier. We have a fair idea of what to expect and even when to expect it and are more confident in our capabilities as parents now.

Those first two weeks though, when we didn't know what the hell we were doing? Wow. Things couldn't have been more different.

On our worst night, Pip was screaming for six hours. Six horrible hours. Nothing we did helped and we tried everything we could think of.

Looking back I'm pretty sure we just made things worse. She was fed, changed, cuddled, swaddled, put down, picked up,walked about, driven about, sung to, danced with and cried over. And then it was over. She just settled down after a feed and that was that. It was if the past six hours hadn't happened.
Nothing had prepared us for a baby with colic. And for her to have been happy and calm all day, just to suddenly melt down in the evening for no apparent reason scared us to death.

But as I say, we're getting there. In fact it's actually amazed me just how quickly we've adapted to this new little person who now shares this house with us. These are a few things I've learnt these past four weeks.

• It is actually true what people say, you can spend hours staring at your child's face. It's ridiculous.
• Sleeping when the baby sleeps is not as easy as it sounds.
• Having a baby that goes crossed eyed is funny as hell, even if it shouldn't be.

• You can go an entire day without getting dressed/cleaning your teeth/brushing your hair and yet when you look back on it, you won't have a clue where the day went and why you couldn't find the time to do any of the above.
• Breakfast will be eaten at lunch time, lunch at dinner time and dinner will cease to exist.
• Teas and coffees will almost always go cold.
• Twitter is a life saver. Reading tweets during night feeds and getting support from fellow mamas have helped so much. 
• Pip should not be left unattended with Daddy at bath time.

• The amount of advise offered by family, friends, strangers, midwives and health visitors will be overwhelming. Almost all of it will be different and it will take you a while to realise that the best thing to do is throw the rule book out the window and do it your own way. Even if it's the 'wrong' way.
• You will get a ridiculous amount of leaflets and miscellaneous pieces of paper from the midwives and health visitors. Seriously. I think a whole forest was felled just to tell me the best way to hold a baby.
• You will look and feel like knackered old boot, but  happy at the same time. Want to know what that looks like? Something like this..

Pretty aint it? Those black circles really accentuate my blood shot eyes. Seriously though, I took this picture because I remember feeling so tired, but really happy at the same time and I wanted to remember what that looked like. I know. Dumb, but whatevs.

It really is true what they say, enjoy every minute because it goes so quick. She's literally growing in front of my eyes and that both excites and scares me at the same time. I'm trying to absorb it all and not waste a second, but it's hard. I wasn't prepared for the speed at which she'd grow and change. Hopefully posts like these however, will help me remember in years to come. 

For those who find them tiresome, I do apologise, but you'll have to get used to it I'm afraid. 

I'm a little bit in love with this smoodge face. 

Bump update - 10 months

Well here we are folks, my last bump update. 

And just when I thought I couldn't possibly grow any bigger, I do.
I love this photograph, because I also look slightly guilty. Probably from eating far too much cake.

If you follow me on Twitter then you'll know all too well of my recent handmade curtain hell. 

This was the curtain fabric chosen for the nursery, but as it didn't look as though they would get made in time, I took this photo as I just wanted to share it's pastelly, flowery goodness with you all.

But wait, what are those?? Why, they're a pair of pastelly, flowery curtains! 

That's right folks, the fabric seller was super speedy and sent me the correct amount of fabric very quickly so I was actually able to get the curtains finished a couple of days ago. You have no idea how happy it made me to get this done. Like, insanely and probably worryingly unhealthy levels of happy.

I'll take some more photos of the nursery soon, but at the moment to be honest, it's just a room with some baby bits in it.

As it stands this moment, the little lady is no where to be seen so today there's been exercise ball bouncing, raspberry leaf tea, pineapple, a long walk and dinner later will be a curry. All in a bid to try and encourage her out. Will it work? Probably not, but here's hoping. I'm all kinds of ready to meet her now!

The chocolate biscuits and daffodils however, were just for me. 

And there you have it folks. That's me at 40 weeks. My ankles are the same size as my calves, my belly measures 39cm from top to bottom, my boobs are the biggest they've ever been and I can't move anywhere without going "ooomph! Urgggaarrghh! Urgh, I'm tired. I need to sit down...oooomph!" etc, etc.

Come on Piposa, it's time my girl. Stop using my bladder as a squeezy toy and get out.

Oh..and please don't hurt me!