11 months

I love the number 11, I think of it as pretty and interesting. At the moment thought we are on the big countdown to the number 1, so Ada being 11 months old feels a bit penultimate. Nevertheless each week brings new tricks and personality to our wee button so 11 months deserves a wee post.

First piece of news is that chase has become the best game ever and Ada loses it giggling. So. Much. Fun.

Ada stood by herself for 5 whole seconds the other day and then sat down, stood back up and raised her arms in the air. Very much a LOOK AT ME moment.

She continues to be on time with milestones, not really early and not really late. Ada loves her trolley and activity table where I tell her to play DJ and make some music. She pulls herself up on everything, especially friends and sliding doors. Walking is next. Oh. My. We are not there yet, surely?!

After 4 months of signing a few baby sign language words to Ada she used two unequivocally in two days when we were down at Hayden and Emily's wedding in Wellington. Ada was being looked after by a friend and I came back to help put her down for a nap. After changing her nappy she was on my knee and signed food. I said "but it is bedtime" and Ada burst into huge tears. So I stood up and told her we would go get a banana and the tears stopped. She ate the whole thing and went happily to bed 3 minutes later! A whole conversation with a 10 month old. So cool. 

The last achievement this month is that she ate what we had for dinner last night, Moroccan meatballs sans chili. Wahoo, cooked tomato is on the menu. Phew. Onwards!

to work or not to work?

I have been intending to write more than captions for photos on here for the longest time. Two months ago I told myself that I would write something on average every two days. I published 4 coffe blogs that day and that was it. Yesterday a dear friend said if I wrote a baby book she would be a follower. Too kind! Trouble is, I don’t really write! As an aside said friend would be an amazing writer and have you glued to her life and her insights, she is a quiet hero of mine.  

My general demeanour is happy go lucky with a dose of charming complaints. I don’t get angry or depressed often, what you see is what you get. However, when I process big thoughts they usually simmer under the surface, waiting patiently until I get the right opportunity to discus with a good friend. I can usually draw this process out until action is required. Trying to capture big thoughts when they happen is a lot of the reason why I blog. Having to finish the thinking process before I press publish helps me to be disciplined with finishing what I start, I need this to write and I often need this to think things through. I get distracted easily, sometimes by a cute baby waking up, more often by FB or Trademe. 

who me?

For the past few months I have had some low level background dissatisfaction with myself or with life. The simplest answer seems to be a job, I sort of want one for the money and for the variety. Do I get a fill the gaps job, put my very wonky career on hold? Do I dig deep and figure out my next step on the path to my perfect job? I haven’t really been willing to look this in the eye because I am grateful for the opportunity and support from Cam to care for Ada full time and want to make the most of it. To name aloud that I am unsatisfied makes it bigger and more problematic, when day-to-day I am really happy with things. 

When we returned from Canada and I was 5 months pregnant getting a full time job was not on the cards. When Mum friends discuss going back to work I feel like my position is moot as I don’t have a job to go back to, the decision is made for me.  Even though I have spouted all these thoughts here I haven’t come up with an answer, just said the question aloud. Work is only a small part of what may be the solution and I am not sure of my next step at all. I am finding it a bit disconcerting, like I said, this has been on my mind for months, my abilty to put off thinking these big thoughts has been rather accentuated by my ongoing baby brain. As it stands I am not figuring this out yet, I am going to enjoy Ada's first year without worrying about this. I am waiting until January to see what I come up with and plan on booking in some soul searching over the holidays. 

10 months

I hug things here at the side of my face. 

Vegemite will have to do...

Lil joey in her lobster seat

2 teeth becoming 4

How NYC is that expression? "Where you headin?"

A safe distance for Milly

3/4 of a year!

Ada turned 9 months old on Monday and she sure is having a lot of fun these days.  I’ll let the pictures, and my dorky captions, speak for themselves. Note to self use another camera apart from my phone...

EYES and CHEEKS about sums her up

At One Tree Hill today

First swing

Crawling and getting stuff is amazing

I like to pose for photos more than my cousins

Eating raisins

Crawling in tunnels

My Mum put me in a box

baby blow out

I sit here typing after having eaten perhaps my 15^th cupcake in 3 days. I tried to cut down my cake intake as I will be wearing a rather fitting dress this Saturday as matron of honour at my wonderful friend Jo’s wedding. It's not too urgent, everything fits, I was just trying to reduce the visual cues of my daily 3 pieces of cake habit in my silhouette. All my new found self-control went to custard with all the lollies and sweets about this weekend. We had such fun, actually sounding like a brood of hens cackling away for about 36 hours. The girls kept joking about my baby blow out, referring to going a little crazy after not drinking for so long, I had a rather quick glass of wine after I had pumped milk. I did look rather despo for a drink, after watching everyone else sip away for the afternoon I gulped some down before we headed out to dinner. Pre-loading is what they called it, good to know. I was trying to catch up, I was suffering some FOMO hiding away in the bedroom with the milking device. You will be pleased to know there was only a sugar blow out this weekend.

I left Ada with Cam about lunchtime on Saturday and he looked after her till mid morning Sunday! They had a ball! Cam said he felt like he really earnt his parent stripes with all the one-on-one time. I knew he would be fantastic. Apparently Ada even said Mama a bunch of times after her bath/before bed and then again in the morning when taking her bottle! Amazing! She hasn’t even been making mmmm sounds really and then out she pops with them perhaps when missing me. Aww! She is still a ways off using mama and dada exclusively about or to Cam and I but it is still sooo cute to hear. 

I was pretty distracted by the party planning and didn’t miss Ada too much, except when expressing milk. I would always prefer to feed her over pumping, I find it such a drag! Babies are so much more efficient at getting out the milk that you can become a bit leakier when pumping rather than while feeding. At dinner somehow the topic of baby poo came up, I blame the company. The single girls made the appropriate faces to let me know that it was not acceptable dinner conversation. I still managed to squeeze in a few comments about how cool Ada is without appearing too baby brained! My first night away from her was fine! She was relaxed when I saw her the next morning, basking in the attention from Jo and the girls oooing and ahhing. 

Overall I had a great time with such dear, lovely friends and it was a good training run for next weekend when I will be off matroning. What a heavy word matron is. At least it is paired with honour, still so serious. Wish us all luck!

Ada is 9 months old today!! Whoa! I will do a post about that later in the week.