Alessi - 3 months

I was going to post this yesterday, but as it turned out, yesterday was a mammoth fail. I was supposed to be at my work's away day, but I got my days mixed up so couldn't go. To say I was mortified was an understatement! The day unfortunately went down hill from there so the post got shelved, as did brushing my hair and putting on deodorant. Like I said, mammoth fail.

Anyhow. My girl's now three months old and so for posterity, here's another update.

The colic has gone. I repeat, the colic has gone! Words cannot describe what a relief this is. To not have to listen to her cry from 5pm to around 10pm almost every night is like living the dream people. I mean, babies or no babies, you know how you feel when one starts crying? Your heart rate rises as does your stress levels, you wince and grit your teeth?
Well imagine being trapped in a room with that. For hours. No break.
Now imagine, the crying is coming from your offspring and there's sweet bugger all you can do to make it better even though they're looking to you to make it all go away. It's both frustrating and heartbreaking at the same time and it's also one of the many reasons why we won't be having more kids, but that's a post for another day.

On a brighter note, the kidlet is getting stronger day by day. She can hold herself steady when carried now which is a relief. I won't tell you how many times she caught me out by suddenly throwing herself backwards causing me to nearly drop her. Before you all go calling social services, I didn't. I caught her every time. Go me.

Speaking of being dropped though, she did launch herself out of her crib the other morning.  I heard a thud and when I turned around, saw her crib upright and Pip face down on the floor, looking sleepy, surprised and more than a little pissed off.
Again, before you reach for the phone, I can't stress enough that she was absolutely fine. She actually fell straight back asleep after we scooped her up off the floor. That night she moved from the rocker in our room to her cot bed in the nursery. Probably the worst night's sleep I'd had since she was born. I think I must have panicked over not hearing her breathing over the monitor only to go and check her to find her looking toasty (and very much breathing) in her big girl bed about a thousand times. I'm sure she did it on purpose.

What else is she doing? Well she's been smiling for some time now and laughed for the first time on Father's Day which was insanely cute. She hasn't really done it again since. She'll give you plenty of gummy grins, but the coos and the laughing are harder to come by. Hopefully this will change fairly soon because things got so much more fun when she started smiling. You could interact with her more and it made me feel like I was doing something right!

The only thing I've got to complain about is the fact that while she's great at sleeping during the night, she's pretty demanding during the day. She wants to do all this stuff, but can't work out how to do it so she shouts at me until I pick her up and put her over my shoulder where she can see everything that's going on.
This wouldn't be a problem if it weren't for the fact that it makes the pelvis pain I suffered from during pregnancy return in full force. On a bad day like yesterday, I find it difficult to walk from room to room so carrying her just isn't an option. Try telling her that though.
I guess I ought to go and see the Dr about it, but to be honest, I don't hold much faith with the medical profession these days. GPs, midwives, nurses, surgeons, health visitors..we've been failed by each and every  one of them at some point and I've just had a gut full. But again, that's a post for another day. Maybe.

All in all though, things are really good here right now. Everyone kept telling us that things would get easier once she hit three months and so far, they all seem to be right. Long may it continue!

While the sun shines

We've not had the best start to the summer so when we do get a day of sunshine, I'm quick to get out in the garden. 

The other day was the first decent sunny day we'd had in what felt like forever so instead of lounging around, I got all productive making a fire pit in the middle of the lawn, painting our picnic table and transferring the last of the sunflower seedlings outside.

Maureen and Margot, being nosey old birds..

..before getting bored of watching me work and going back to sun worshiping instead.

 Maybe next time I'll take a leaf out of the hen's book and just enjoy the sunshine while it lasts.

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.