First Christmas

Niamh is one lucky girl! She started off Christmas day opening her 3 prezzies from Mum and Dad. After her morning sleep we travelled to Hamilton to Nan and Grandad's for the Parsons' Christmas get together. Niamh got a clacker, beach things, widdles, books, awesome clothes and a teething ring. She let mum and dad have an uninterrupted Christmas lunch by timing her next sleep perfectly.

Niamh got to hang out with her big cousins and watch the kite flying at the park. It was a fun, yummy, happy, BIG day.

With Christmas over for the year we now see the hint of Niamh's first tooth appearing...let's hope it's a happy tooth. :)

All Niamh wants for Xmas is her two front teeth!

4 sleeps till Christmas day but we have already had a run through at Nan and Popsies place. Niamh was the Christmas fairy:

She made light work of unwrapping her presents... :) The boxes and wrapping paper were enjoyed! She was spoilt with a paddling pool, books, toys, bucket and spade and cool new togs and hat.

This month Niamh has started moving....backwards! She has a really stong upper body and can push herself up, she gets her bum up too now and before she knows it, she has crawled backwards. Not the direction she is after since she is trying to reach toys in front of her and ends up further away. Niamh is more like a slow moving caterpillar at the moment :)

We had our 9 month Plunket visit last week (Niamh was 8.5 months). She is now 64.8cm long, weighs 8.4kg and her head circumference is 44.5cm. She is quite short on the 'chart' but I'm sure a growth spurt must be round the corner...hopefully ;-/It would be nice if her height matched her weight, but whos does?? She is such an alert wee thing taking in everything all the time. Niamh has started to say 'words'. She says dada and baba really well and charms people all the time with her smiles. We think we see a cheeky personality emerging. Wonder who she gets that from? :) In the last couple of days Niamh has started to clap independently. She also now leans back to look up and behind her, especially if she is on someone's knee. But have any teeth arrived yet?...NO, not yet.

Anthony was is Aussie again last week for work and so it was just me and Niamh. I was hoping for a very uneventful 2 days on our own, and thankfully that was what happened. No drama, no bed/ sleep issues..simple.

Niamh finished her swimming lessons on Saturday for the term. She has come such a long way and has gained so much confidence in the pool. On Saturday she was doing lots of underwater dipping, got thrown in, was floating on her back (with support) and now nothing seems to phase her too much. She can open her eyes underwater, blinks her eyes when she is about to go under (which tells us she's ready) and spits any water out. Bring on next term which starts in Febrary. Can't wait to get the new paddling pool up and running too.

8 months on...

Where is the time going? It's been a busy month so far and since December has come around, it seems like it's all picked up more speed! We have been up to lots lately. It's all go!

Niamh is not yet crawling. She gets onto her tummy and has a very strong body lifting her head right up. I can tell she really REALLY wants to move by the way she has her legs and arms going for it but the body is stationary. Niamh can get frustrated by this lack of movement but seems that the crawling motion hasn't yet clicked in her brain.

We haven't been giving her any losec for about 2 weeks now and I'm thrilled to say she is having no problem. She still spills a little bit but it doesn't seem to be affecting her at all. Fantastic news there! With the intolerance to cows milk protein, the pediatrician has advised we keep Niamh off all diary until she is over 1 year of age. We are getting the soy formula subsidised which helps since it's a bit more expensive than regular formula. And Niamh has been sleeping through the night for about 3 weeks with NO dream feed. We got her up one night to dream feed her and she was NOT happy! Sooo that ended the dream feed for her and no problems as a result. No teeth yet either.

In the last couple of weeks we've taken Niamh to MOTAT (had free tickets to use) and then last Saturday was Anthony's work do at Rainbow's End. It's not so easy doing a lot of the rides with an 8 month old, but she seemed to enjoy going around the places in her stroller. We went on the merry- go- round at Rainbow's End with her. Santa even came to the Maxitrans picnic and Niamh got her first Xmas present from him- a book! She LOVES books. Apparently she's on the good list!!!

The latest with Niamh is she is now trying to blow raspberries with her lips. Unfortunately she kind of sucks her lips in instead of pushing them out though... She's just started that high pitched squeal again. Fun!! But she's getting really good at saying B..b...bb..bb.bb.bb. she's very vocal and is really good at having 'conversations'.

Not long to Xmas now. 11 sleeps until the Simons' Xmas and 18 sleeps until the Parsons' Xmas. Niamh is ready for her first ever Xmas! :)