Caíthlyn's Blog

A pox on the pox!

2007-03-11T16:05:00.000Z

Little Miss has the chickenpox. She was the very last child in her playschool to get them, and for a while there we didn’t think she would get them at all.
On Thursday however, a tiny red dot appeared on her chest and by Friday evening she was a walking “connect the dots” puzzle.

She continued to be in great form though, full of giggles, hugsies and her usual array of “Knock, Knock”-Jokes. When Saturday night hit, things changed.
The spots were absolutely everywhere, her poor skull resembled a Braille dictionary and the rest of her body was not far behind.
The poor Honey was crying in her sleep and was writhing in her bed with discomfort.

Little Miss is nothing if not an adoring Daddy’s Girl and she really wanted him to make her feel better. Daddy rushed home and she was just SO happy to see him. Daddy has the magic touch and she felt lots better already by just having him there.
She had a few fever spikes during the night but Darren stripped her and have her some Paralink to bring that down.
When I woke up this morning and peeked in to her room, they were both sound asleep. Little Miss in her bed and Darren on the floor next to her. When she woke up, she was all delighted that “Daddy had a sleepover in her room!”

I will be staying home with her Tomorrow and Tuesday, and Darren will stay home Wednesday, if needs be.

Even though it’s very hard to see her this way, I am really happy she had them now, rather than in a few years. By all accounts it gets even harder when they’re older.

Here’s to our Honey’s speedy recovery!

Not cool

2007-03-11T16:01:00.000Z

Yesterday afternoon, we received an e-mail to all be present in the largest meeting room at 16:00 hrs. They were shutting down the lines to facilitate this meeting... This set off my alarmbells straight away. The lines are holy, Service Level does not get compromised unless it's something BIG.

And, it was.

We all gathered there to see the general manager walk in with a very solemn face. He proceeded to read from an earlier prepared statement.
I work for an outsourcing company and we take care of the customer service for a VERY large software company. (Yes, that one) and this company decided to pull their business and give it to another company with a larger presence globally.

This means that as per the end of June, Mieneke is out of a job.
This is two weeks before my maternity leave is to start. Going job-hunting when you are very much pregnant? Somehow I don't see myself being all that successfull. Finding a part-time job that pays as well as this one did after my maternity leave? Snowball's chance in Hell.

But, things will work out. I am certain of it. "Worst case scenario", I get to spend some extra months with my kids... There's worse things! :)

No, seriously, I know it will be tough, not in the least financially. But getting myself in a state over it wouldn't help anyone.

In the meanwhile, If you are looking for a hardworking Dutch lady, to fill a part-time position in the North County Dublin area, please feel free to leave a comment! ;)

Video Post

2007-02-11T18:15:00.000Z

Here's our Honey singing Jingle Bells on the last day of school before the Christmas Holidays!

Sorry for the quality, I uploaded it on the wrong size! Will try and fix it! (Footage is from my mobile phone)

Little Ted 2

2007-02-10T21:09:00.000Z

Darren and I went for our first scan yesterday! I was very nervous as there is no guarantee that the lady will say all is well. But, thankfully, it is. The baby was having a blast in there, somersaults gallore and waving his arms and legs like a good thing! :-)))
The heart was beating strongly which was an amazing thing to see. The lady did some meassurements and it would seem I am 5 days more pregnant than I first thought. It doesn't make any sense if you go by my average cycle but I am guessing the scan wouldn't lie! So, the new due date is July 31. This happens to be a date that I have not been able to get out of my head for weeks! Now we know why! Also, I was thinking "Girl" all allong, but when I saw the little one on the scan I thought "Boy". So now, I genuinely have no clue anymore! ;-)

One thing that could possibly present a problem though, is that the placenta seems to be at the front, rather than at the back. This does not have to be a bad thing, unless the placenta starts to cover the cervix opening. In which case it will require a planned c-section. To determine this, we will be going in for another scan at 34 weeks.
I am not worried though, even if it does turn out to be the case, and I do need a c-section. It will not be the worst thing in the world. As long as the baby is healthy, I will do whatever is needed to keep it that way. There's people that have to endure a lot worse. My preference would ofcourse be a natural birth, but if that's not on the cards, so be it

So, without further ado, I present to you: Ted 2!

The head is to the right, then the beautiful round tummy, the white stripe is the bone of the upper leg and then the rest of the leg.

Bed-Time

2007-01-28T18:53:00.000Z

When we put Little Miss to bed the routine is, she get's one page of poems and 3 stories. (The stories are not that long, it's done and dusted within 15-20 minutes).
Both Darren and I really love this time with her. She's all snugly in her jammies. Freshly washed face and minty fresh teeth. Carebear tucked up next to her, legs under the Duvet and her Disney Princess Go Glow Light in her hand to "help you read".
I let her pick out the stories, making sure she knows what number the story is. "Pick out story number 1 now, Honey" and I really feel like she enjoys the fact that it's her choice. And she knows that after story 3 it's time to put the book away and go to sleep.
Obviously, the little clever clogs will still chance her arm and try to stretch her bed-time by adding a visit to the toilet but it has all been incorperated in to a pretty set and predictable bed-time.
During the week however, she declared that she wasn't tired (whilst rubbing her eyes vigourisly, ofcourse) and she gave me the big, wide eyed "Pleaeaeaeaeaease Mamma???" look. So, the Mamma folded.... I handed her her new Dora Book (Dora's Bedtime Stories) and we made a deal.
She was allowed to "read" her book but when the book was finished she had to go to sleep. Well, you have never seen a little girl more chuffed with herself.
When I went back downstairs and switched on the monitor, I could hear her read the stories. She was quoting the pages word for word. I had to restrain myself from running back up the stairs to give her a great big hug!

Some news!

2007-01-16T12:00:00.000Z

Just wanted to make the "anouncement" (although I am pretty sure that most of the readers here already know!)

Caíthlyn is going to be a Big Sister!

Finally! Another update!

2007-01-16T11:40:00.000Z

Caithlyn's playschool is brilliant. They are very interactive with the kids and they focus a lot on responsibilities, as well as creativity.
One day last week, I went to pick her up from Playschool when she came running out to me. "Mamma, Mamma, I got a star on my jumper! I was a Pirate today!!" She was so proud! I shot a confused look at her teacher standing at the door who, laughing, tells me:"She was Captain of her table today!" My Honey! She was almost right! :))

They have very structured days in playschool and Little Miss really seems to be thriving on that. There's set time for "free play" for "Arts and Crafts" and they do things like being the Captain of their table for the day. (Which means you get to hand out the cups and lunch time and get the coloring pages at arts time etc. for all the kids at your table.)
They also have "Buddy Bear", a big brown, fuzzy Teddy Bear that the teacher "found outside of the school" and that the kids are collectively caring for. Each child gets a turn at taking Buddy Bear home for the night and they have to take good care of him whilst he is with them. It's amazing, the children ADORE Buddy Bear and the proud looks on the faces of the kids when they show their parents that they get to take him home for the night are priceless!
At the start of this week, the kids had to take in a recent photograph of themselves for a reward chart. If the kids deserve a star, they get to stick it on the wall, behind their photograph. I think this will be really great positive stimulation!

The one downside to playschool is that she is practically constantly sick when there's school. We had to take her to Temple Street Children's Hospital for blood tests and a chest x-ray when her cough and snotty nose just would not clear up.
Then there was the Christmas Holidays and she was fine again. Now, a week in to school, she's coughing and snotsing again....
The good news is that the blood tests came back fine, she has no allergies etc so there is nothing big to worry about. Thank Heavens!

Also, Little Miss Aunt and Uncle leave on their big adventure today! They are going to be missed in a Big Big way, but we all wish them the very best and hope they have an amazing time!

All the way to the moon, and back.

2006-11-21T16:13:00.000Z

A week ago on Sunday, my daughter and I watched "The Little Mermaid" both 1&2. (Which sounds like a lot, but taking in to consideration all the fast forwarding involved due to scary bits, it was more like one movie.) Me with my large mug of Senseo coffee, her with her smiley cup of milk and her Dora plate with peanut butter crackers.(She LURVES her some Peanutbutter Crackers!) Together under her Care Bear blankie (Thank you Beppe!), snuggly and warm, with black skies outside. We watched, and talked about the movie(s).
I got this big lump in my throat. My Little Honey, it seems like only yesterday that she was a baby. She is growing up SO fast (Hellooo Cliché!) and hearing her chatter about how she's going to be a "Mermaid-Doctor-Princess-Queen" (What? It could happen! ;-) ) and how much King Triton loves his daughter and how much her Mamma and Daddy love her (Little Miss), almost reduced me to tears. Tears of pride.
We are SO lucky to have this precious little girl in our lives.

Every night, when I put her to bed. I say this to her while I hold her in my arms. It's from "Love you Forever" and "Guess How Much I Love You"

"I love you forever, I'll like you for always, As long as I'm living, My baby you'll Be. Mamma loves you all the way to the moon and back!"

Only she will demand that I say "Big Girl" rather than "baby" and we will say "All the way to the moon and back!" , together. She loves these two books and it's something small that we have together that I treasure dearly.

And I do love you Little Miss, all the way to the moon and back.........

Love is all around

2006-09-13T12:14:00.000+01:00

We had been telling Little Miss for a few weeks already that she was going to be sleeping a "big girl bed". Last weekend, the time had finally arrived.
On Sunday morning, while Little Miss and I watched "The Little Mermaid" on the sofa (me with the remote firmly in hand to skip the mean sea-witch scenes), Daddy was upstairs taking the bars off her cot. The cot we had, turns in to a cot-bed. It's great as she basically sleeps in the same bed thus making the transition easier.
As soon as she heard the noises from upstairs, she turned around to me on my lap. Those big huge blue eyes wide open. "Daddy take my bars off? My Big Girl Bed?" And she raced up the stairs.
The excitement on her face was priceless! She whipped off her clothes and declared it was bed time. Snuggled herself all nice and cozy under the duvet, grabbed Care Bear and said "Night Night!" The only way we could get her to come with me to Nannie's house for Sunday dinner and apple picking was by telling her that she could tell her cousins all about her new bed!

That night, Darren was out on his new motorcycle, I heard a heartbreaking cry. "Spider!! Spider!! Help me!!". I legged it up the stairs and the poor thing was sweating and sitting upright in her bed. I hugged her and asked her what was wrong and she was telling me that she had seen a spider.
I made a big show of looking for it but couldn't find anything. (Darren found a Daddy longlegs the next day).

When I held her though, I had noticed she felt rather warm. Actually, she was burning up! I took off her jammies and gave her some really cold water to drink and she settled back down. About an 1.5 hours later, she screamed again. She was crying and still very, very hot. I went to get her some Dozol and more cold water. She was talking strangely, the fever was really hitting her bad.
When Darren came home after I called him, he went straight up to her after she cried again. She was SO happy to see him. She was sick and she wanted her Daddy. They have such a special bond together, I am sure it made her feel better just by having him there with her. I figured that if this was going to be an all-nighter, we better take it in shifts. So I went to bed. A few minutes after Darren took her downstairs. He opened the sliding doors and every window in the house. When she stayed hot, he gave her ice cubes to suck on. Apparently she said "Hmmmm, delicious!" Bless her.

It was 02.00 hrs before she went back to bed. At 04.00 hrs I woke up to her screaming. She was in her bathroom with her Daddy and she was trying to have a bowel movement. She was so hot, and weak, she started retching. The look in her eyes! She stood next to the sink, her little hands clutching it. She was shaking with it. Darren told me that he was going to stay home with her the next day and for me to go back to sleep as I had no choice but to go to work as I had been out the week before.

When I woke up the next morning, I peeked in to her room. Darren was asleep on the floor next to her bed. So close, he was practically under the bed. She was in her bed, moved as far to the edge as she could get. They wanted to be as close as they could manage. Even in their sleep. Darren said he had felt her forehead every time he woke up. I just got all chocked up, seeing them asleep like that. Her, secure in the knowledge that her Daddy was there, him, wanting to keep his honey close in case she needed him. I just stood there, watching them, and wanting to crawl on to the floor next to them.

Little Miss is back at her Nannies today and is completely fever free. The antibiotics the doctor gave her, are working a treat. If all goes well, she will be running around in playschool again tomorrow. (We are giving it an extra day, just to be sure).

I could not have asked for more. My daughter has an amazing father, I have a wonderful boyfriend and we have a fantastic daughter, and together we are so lucky to be the family we are.....

Special Day

2006-08-28T09:42:00.000+01:00

Sunday Morning, my “lie-in” morning. Darren gets up with Little Miss and Mamma gets a few extra hours kip.
Right it the middle of the strangest dream in which my “Irish-life” and my “Dutch-life” are fused together. (My front door in Ireland, opens up onto my parents’ road…. How does my brain come up with it??) I hear “Mamma!! Mamma!! It’s your special day today!!!”. Caíthlyn is coming in to our bedroom with her toy tray full of her dolls tea-set. Right behind her is Darren, with a real breakfast on a tray for me. Tea, juice, fruits-salad (Yummy, Yummy!! Man, there’s no escape from the Wiggles) and bread.
Caíthlyn jumping up and down singing “Happy Birthday to Mammy!!” and Darren sitting with her at the end of the bed. (It was not my birthday or our anniversary or anything like that, it was just an "We love you" day.)
It was absolutely lovely.

Little Miss dragged her little duvet and her Teddys in from her room and made her own bed on top of our bed. She snuggled in to her Daddy and pretended to be asleep. With her eyes squeezed shut she looked just plain eadible!

Later she pretended to be Santo, one of my parents' dogs, playing with "Inki" (Equi, my parents' other dog). She said Pake en Beppe were throwing the ball and that she was getting it. "I miss Pake", "I miss Beppe". And she was saying that she loves them. She has really bonded with her Pake and Beppe over these last two holidays. She loves them very much and the feeling is completely mutual.
She "helped" them in the garden. Seeing her with my parents, her own little rake in hand tidying up the garden, was lovely. (Pictures on Flickr)

We are all looking forward to them coming over again to see us for a few days over christmas and her birthday.

She had a fantastic time on our holiday. We were pretty much rained out of it. But she loved it all the same. Being doted on works well for her! ;)

I had been a bit nervous about the dogs being there but it couldn't have worked out better. She was telling Santo to let the ball go in Dutch. And was telling the dogs to get out of the way when she was climbing on to the aft deck and the dogs were in the door opening. "Aan de kant Santo!". So cute!
Santo, an American Stefford Terrier, could not have been gentler. And Equi, a cocker spaniel, more or less kept out of her way. My parents had said that Santo is very gentle with kids and I was delighted to find that this is completely 100% true.

Right, sorry for the long time between posts again. I will try and better my ways!

Ow, and I have my driving test this Wednesday. I'd stay away from Finglas from about 13.10 hrs onward if I were you!

Love,

Nynke

See if we can get sound with this Baby!

2006-07-29T22:30:00.000+01:00

Video Hosting - Upload Video - Photo Sharing

Have NO idea what the heck happened to the quality of the video here! I made it with my phone but when I play it on the PC (so not from Dropshots) it's SO good! Anybody with any ideas? feel free to share!

This was at the Ardgillan Playground. We were having a picnic and I was sitting on the blanket. She was trying to get me to lie down UNDER it! :) Mamma had to go sleepies! She's a gas child! One funny onion!

Attempting a video post!

2006-07-28T20:57:00.000+01:00

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Little Miss' first Meme!

2006-07-24T20:07:00.000+01:00

An Internet friend sent us a Meme. It's Little Miss' first!

Here goes:

3 things that scare me:

1. Spiders, once my mamma had a really big one fall on her in the shower and she screamed so loudly it scared the living mess out of me. Now, I run and cry when I see one and wait for my Daddy to make it go away.
2. The shower head. I love, love loooooove my bath, but when my mamma tries to rinse my hair with the shower I will kick up stink like you wouldn’t believe.
3. Being confined to one place. Once, I went on a plane with my Mamma and I had to stay in my seat with my seatbelt on until the plane was in the sky. I just wanted to sit with mamma. I cried and I said “Please Mamma? PLEASE?!” It broke my Mamma’s heart and made her cry too.

3 people that make me laugh:
1. My Daddy, he sings songs to me with the words all wrong and that makes me belly laugh like someone released a cloud of laughing gas in to the room.
2. My Mamma, she will pretend to eat my face and neck and that tickles me!
3. My cousins, running around and playing with my cousins at my Nannie’s house makes me so happy I practically laugh out loud the whole time!

3 Things I love
1. My Care Bear, she’s pink and she’s tie-dye. And I think she’s called Secret Heart Bear. My Mamma bought her for me and I she’s very special to me.
2. Singing songs with Mamma in the car. Mamma bought two tapes with kids’ songs and I make her play them and sing them with me, over, and over, and over, and over, and over……
3. Going to my Nannie’s house. She minds me for three days a week when my Mamma is in work. I love her so much and race to her door with my little purple case when Daddy brings me over in the mornings.

3 Things I hate:
1. Vegetables. I only like carrots really. My Mamma recently discovered that if she gives me a piece of say Yellow Pepper and calls it carrot: I will try it. It’s no guarantee that I will empty my plate however. I will eat my veggies when they are in a chicken and rice stir fry dish my Mamma makes though!
2. Hearing “No”, parents can be so unreasonable at times! I mean, surely it can’t be THAT big of a deal if I want to splash the entire downstairs toilet washing my hands after I use the potty??
3. Thunderstorms, they scare me so much I try to crawl under my Mamma’s t-shirt. Luckily we don’t get them much!

3 Things I don’t understand
1. Why I don’t get to see Mamma’s Mamma and Daddy as much as I would like. They can’t be that far away because when I go to the airport and on the plane with my Mamma I fall asleep and before you know it Pake and Beppe are there!
2. Why my Daddy has to go to work when I want him to stay with Mamma and me.
3. Why some kids on the playground are so mean. Mamma says I have to stand up for myself I am trying but I just want for everybody to be nice to each other!

3 Things on my nursery floor:
1. My Cot
2. My Chest of Drawers
3. My night stand. – My room is so small, there’s no room for anything else!

3 Things I am doing right now
Well, I am upstairs in my cot, sending my Mamma these messages through the power of the mind. I told my Mamma I would be dreaming about the tooth-fairy and I will do just that when this meme is finished.

3 Things I can do.
1. I can count to 20 in English, And 10 in Spanish and Dutch.
2. I can tell my Mamma when I have to go toilet. I wear big girl pants all day now!
3. I can make my parents melt just by looking at them, wrapping my arms around their necks and saying “I love you”. I can also get hugsies every time I want to just by standing in front of them and saying “Hugsies Please!”

3 Things I can’t do
1. I can’t get my Mamma to speak Dutch to me. I would pick it up so quickly, if she would only just try!
2. I can’t ride my trike. I can ride other kids’, just not mine.
3. I can’t hold the toilet roll when I need a piece of tissue; for some reason my Mamma doesn’t like the whole thing unrolled! Go Figure!

3 Ways to describe to my personality
1. Loving, I am extremely affectionate. I tell and show the people I love that I love them all the time. I give great hugs and kisses!
2. Bubbly, I laugh and run and play. I remind my Mamma of sunshine.
3. Caring. I am very gentle and affectionate with smaller kids. And when someone is crying, I will be the first one over to give hugs and kisses to make them feel better.

3 Things I think you should listen to:
1. The birds in the woods when I go walking with my Nannie.
2. My Mamma and I singing “I’m a little Teapot” and “The grand old duke of York” in the car.
3. My Daddy telling me how much he loves me, how I am his best girl. How he is so blessed to have me. The love in his voice will bring a tear to your eye.

3 Things I think you should never listen to:
1. Mamma and Daddy saying that it’s time to go after a day at Nannie’s house.
2. Mamma and Daddy saying that it’s time to go after the playground.
3. My tantrums when I am upset. They don’t last long and it’s usually because I am very tired.

3 Absolute Favorite Foods
1. My Mam’s nassi, a dish with rice, chicken, vegetables and herbs and spices. The only dish that makes me lick my bowl!
2. My Mam’s spaghetti, I get it all over my face. The only way to eat it!
3. My Nannie’s Stew.

3 Things I’d like to learn:
1. To speak Dutch.
2. To read for myself. I am having fun pretending I can already though.
3. To ride a bicycle! It looks like LOTS of fun when the neighborhood kids do it!

3 Beverages I drink regularly:
1. Milk
2. Water
3. Actimel, once a day.

3 Shows I watch on occasion:
1. Dora the Explorer
2. The Wiggles
3. Go Diego Go

3 Babies I tag

Mam has to think about this one!

Potty Training

2006-07-19T10:33:00.000+01:00

After the turn of "toilet-going events", I was not sure what to do in regards to the whole potty training thing. For some (incredibly stupid) reason I had it in my mind that the issue would resolve it's self as soon as were back home. I even went so far as to take Little Miss to the shops to buy lots of new "Big Girl Underpants" She has a "Dora the Explorer" book on Potty Training and one of the sentences in that is: "Big girls don't wear Nappies!"
So in the car it was:

"What are we getting?"
"BIG GIRL PANTS!!"
"'Cause big girls don't wear??"
"HAMMIES!!" (her word for Nappies)

In the shop, I made a big deal of the pants, she got to pick which ones she wanted. And I got her all the ones she wanted. You want both kinds? You shall have both kinds! 'Cause buying your first big girl pants is an Event! And this will be fun! And without Stress! Also got her a cute new dress as I figured it would be easier to hike up quickly for the potty dashes!

That first day, she did tell me a few times that she needed to go Tinkle, but we also had, the to be expected, accidents. The thing was: it was just too early. She was emotionally completely out of whack. She cried allot the first few days we were back. And the thing was: she wanted her Daddy. She would scream, rant and rave that she wanted her Daddy, she would cry when she had to go number two and I couldn't help her because, well, I am not Daddy.

So, to preserve all of our sanities, we decided to leave the whole potty training thing for a while. Just until we were all back in to our routines.

I am delighted to say that we are back three weeks, and she is wearing big girl pants all day long now. We have only had two "accidents" in the last 2.5 weeks but they were not really accidents. (One was when she just got so excited about something she was running around and with the laughter things just kind of "went" and the other was when she was wearing her bathing suit and she was already wet. I think the sensation of wet clothing confused her)
She wears a nappy at night now, but we plan on starting to try and get her dry for the night when she goes in to a big girl bed after our holiday.

I am SO proud of her!!

Holiday Update - Part 2

2006-07-19T09:57:00.000+01:00

The boat trip took us to a boating village that has a small playground and Little Miss had a great time playing there with her Pake.
On the way over there, she would sit on a space next to the wheel (Not really up on the exact "nautical" term.) and yelled at my Dad when bridges and boats were coming.
The lower bridges are opened by a bridge master, he will then hang a wooden shoe out on a pole and you put a set amount in the wooden shoe as you go by. Very exciting stuff when you're a two year old, let me tell you!
She spent a lot of time on her Pake's lap, steering and pointing at interesting things. It was such a huge success that we went out again the next day.
My dear, dear friend M. and her two eldest kids. E. and L. came with us too. Little Miss had dubbed them her new "Best Friends" and adored having them there. As did I.
M. and I are very close, we have been friends for just over ten years now and we never, ever get to have an outing together with our kids. The weather was perfect for a day on the boat, the kids were excited and had a blast! We will be going to the Netherlands again in August, and I am already looking forward to all of us spending time together again.

Little Miss had a very bad time going to the toilet when we were there. The first two days were grand, then, the drama started. The poor little mite could not go nr. 2. She would cry, and shake, one day there was actually blood in her nappy and my heart broke for her. My parents were at a loss too. It's so horrible to see your little Honey is so much pain. She would say she had to go potty. Walk around with her knees pushed together and her bum stuck out, crying her little eyes out. When I would get the potty she would say she didn't have to go anymore. When it finally HAD to come out, she would scream with it. It makes me well up even thinking about it.

The last day arrived all to quickly and my parents drove us back to Amsterdam. We made good time, but had to go to the gate straight away. (Of course the gate was all the way over at the end of the airport and Schiphol? Is BIG!)
The flight home was great! Beppe had given us a little bag of raisins and Little Miss was as happy as a pig in muck sitting in her seat, eating her raisins. Once we landed in Dublin though, it was a different story. We had spent the flight coloring, and reading stories. When we landed and all the people stood up, Little Miss Freaked. The. Heck. Out. Tears streaming down her little cheeks "Let's GO Mamma! Time to get off the plane!!" "Please mamma! PLEASE!!" One idiot started whining, in an attempt to imitate her. I was ready to punch his face in. As was, all I said was: "Charming".
The saddest part was when she got off her seat, and tried to get to the aisle. She was sobbing, but obviously thought that the crying wasn't getting her anywhere, so she tried to smile. Through the tears. I can't describe how that felt. The closest I can get to it, is that it felt like someone took my heart and put it in a bench screw and started twisting.
Once we were out of the plane though, she was fine again. We made great time getting our luggage and getting out. Daddy was parking the car as we came out so we sat down on the chairs at the arrivals hall to wait for him.
Little Miss was SO delighted to see him again! She ran in to his arms. It was SO good to see him again! For all of us to be together again.

It's good to be home people, it's good to be home!

Another morning with Caíthlyn and Daddy

2006-07-12T10:47:00.000+01:00

Received the following in an e-mail from Darren this morning. I swear, he should start his own blog for her!

"Well...lets just say that my ventriloquist skills are getting better by the day. Care bear took on a whole new life on his own this morning, and I have to admit he was very good and giving the instructions to Caithlyn to put on her clothes etc. I was quite impressed with him. I didn't have to say a word myself cause care bear done it all for me. Funny thing actually, Caithlyn seems to response to care bear better than to me. I think I'll wake up care bear tomorrow morning also!! ;-) Yeah..there was definitely high risk of tears this morning but, gladly enough they were diverted by the bear!

She's a mad thing, she wanted me to bring her big buggy with us to Nannies house this morning. So right enough, I let her wheel it all the way over to the car. When we got to the car I told her that I had to fold it up so I could fit it in the car. Guess where it had to go...??.....In the flippin' boot! She nearly died a death when she say me going to put in on the back seat....I reckon she is going to be a great tap dancer or jazz dancer cause you wanna see the moves and grooves she was bustin' and to no music either!. So anyway needless to say, the buggy went in the boot, and right enough when we stopped outside my Mams, first thing she said.."I'll get my buggy"! She's a gas child!"

I can just see her to dit too. What a way to start the day! :-)

Darren and Caíthlyn's morning

2006-07-10T12:08:00.000+01:00

Part of an e-mail I received from Darren this morning:

Howya,

Talk about a bloody night mare this morning...

I woke up to her calls of Daddyyyyy...daddyyyyyy....I looked at my phone and it was 08:11...there were cries of "Oh my Gawd" ringing around Lovely Town harbour. Fisher men all over the east coast were turning their ears towards land as they pulled up the lobster pots to faint cries of "Oh my gawd" I don't know what happened. The alarm just never went off. The phone even still has the Alarm symbol on the screen. This only goes off the screen when the alarm goes off...very strange..

Anyways...I went in to her and the first thing she said was I need to go tinkle. So I took her out and brought her into our toilet. While she was having her tinkle she announced that she would also like to have a Pooh...and being the generous kind that I am granted her permission for that also with an affirming nod of my head! To which she gladly deposited a most stinky Pooh, and after careful examination she declared that from this day forth, this pooh would be referred to as 'Mr Fishy' Pooh. I can only assume that our daughter is going to be seriously creative in her later years, although I am a little bit concerned at this point with the subject of her inspiration :-)

So, there was lots of running around after that little piece of entertainment. I still had to have my shower and shave etc and get her dressed and ohhh..the short version of the story is that we finally got to my Mams at 9am. My Mam gave me the questioning look to which I answered with the 'dont ask' shake of my head..

Holiday Update - Part 1

2006-07-10T12:07:00.000+01:00

Little Miss and I went to The Netherlands for a week. We were looking forward to it in a big, big way!
I had packed the night before and managed to get all our stuff in to the one suitcase. We left well on time just in case the cheaper long-term car park was full and I would have to find a different place to park. We were in luck, so far, so good!
Darren was going to get the car out of the car park that night, but as we only had a spare set of keys for the doors, and not for the engine (second hand car.... ) we planned that I would leave the keys in the boot. So, I get the suitcase out. Grab Little Miss' little trolley-case and my backpack. Throw the keys in the boot and close it....... Leaving the buggy inside! Doh! Great start!
So, Little Miss had to walk. We made it on to the shuttle bus no problem and we were both really excited. I loved seeing her that way.
She was asking where all the other people were going and I told them that they were going to the Airport too. "Really Mamma?!" She was amazed that there were other people going on planes too!
She got an awful fright at the metal detector. When the alarm went off and the lady went to wave that wand around Little Miss, she panicked and raced back in to my arms. The poor thing was petrified. I managed to calm her down, and lift her to the gate.
Once on the plane, she first thought it was way cool that she had her own seat and seatbelt. The shine went off that pretty quickly though and she lost it completely. She just went hysterical. t was heartbreaking to see. She wailed! "Please Mamma, I want hugsies! I want to sit wit' you!! Please Mamma. Pleeeeeeeaaaaaaaassseee!!!" I had tears in my eyes at seeing her so genuinely scared and upset.
The elderly, Australian Lady sitting next to us, was very understanding. When we were finally air-born, Little Miss leaned in to me to close her eyes, and she tried to pull the lady's cardigan over her as a blanket! The lady smiles and draped her cardigan over Caíthlyn and pulled her feet in to her lap.
Little Miss was out like a light in mere seconds.

Once we arrived at Schiphol Airport, she was completely refreshed and a totally different child! We made it through the Passport control easily and breezed through to the baggage claim. Coming out of the gate, she spotted my mam and jumped up in to her arms!
They were very happy to see each other! J
My Aunt I. and my Mam had come to pick us up together as my Dad had to attend a very important business meeting. So, to the car we went for the hour and a half drive back to Leeuwarden.

We called my dad from the car and he was very excited about our arrival! Once we made it to Leeuwarden, we were happy to be able to sit down. Man, traveling with a small child is hard work!
My Dad arrived shortly after but I think Little Miss had just had too many impressions that day because she was a little bit shy. Boy, did THAT change in the course of the week!
By the end of our holiday, every other sentence was “Watcha doin’ Pake?” “Where ya goin’ Pake?” “I sit with you Pake?” She was Pake mad! My dad would take her for walk around the neighborhood and they just had a great time together.
When my mam would come home from her job, she would be greeted by a: “Beppe!!”
She played catch with my mam in the back garden. I was very happy to see the bond between the three of them growing so quickly and strongly. They are genuinely crazy about each other.
Little Miss had been very good going to the toilet and telling us that she had to go, but all of a sudden she did not want to go to the toilet and was scared of making a deposit.
Going nr. 2 became traumatic and the tears would flow freely at least once a day. She would shake and scream with the effort. It was heartbreaking.
We went to see my friend M. and her kids twice that week and Little Miss had a fabulous time. The language barrier was practically non-existent. They played together so well and it was a joy to see. We also went to see another friend and her mother, actually, I consider both friends. It was lovely to see them again but Little Miss was a bit hyper so we didn’t stay as long as I would have liked originally.
That Friday we went for a little cruise on my parents’ boat. It’s called after Caíthlyn. It was fantastic to see her name on the side of such a beautiful boat!
I wasn’t sure how Little Miss was going to react to the boat but she flat out LOVED it.
Well, when we were setting off, my mam was at the front to cast off and Little Miss couldn’t see her. She got upset and started calling “Beppe, where’s Beppe? I need Beppe!”
But then my mam appeared and all was well again!
Caíthlyn looked SO cute in her little lifejacket! I was afraid she would make a fuss about having to wear it but she was fine, she actually really liked it!

To Be Continued…….

Back from Holidays

2006-07-07T22:29:00.000+01:00

So, I come back in to the office after my holidays to find that they have turned the Internet Nanny up to full power. This means that I can't access Flickr from there anymore.
We are set to get broadband at home, at which time I will do all the editing on the pics.

'Till then, the pics here will have to do.

Will try and write a proper update early next week.

Quickie

2006-06-12T09:42:00.000+01:00

Has it been THAT long? Again?

I have been psyching Little Miss up for our vacation to the Netherlands. Every time we drive through the harbour we point at the boats and say that we are going to see Pake en Beppe in the summer. We are going to go on the pink aeroplane (don’t ask, I have no idea) and then Pake and Beppe are going to pick us up and we are going to go to their house. We are going to have LOTS of fun on their boat and she will wear a life-jacket just like Dora the Explorer “So we can be safe”
She is al set to go and let me tell you. So am I! I say: Bring it on! The stunning weather of the past few days has gotten me in the holiday mood! Little Miss is loving it too.
The housework has had to take a back seat to visits to the petting zoo with Nannie and the cousins, going to the playground and playing in the (freshly mowed) garden.

Ardgillan Castle is 5 minutes drive away from us and they recently opened their new playground. We went to check it out on Sunday. See pics below.

After our holidays we are going to buy Little Miss “Big Girl Underpants” She has been SO very good with telling us when she has to go Potty. She has even ventured on to the big toilet! (Which up to a week and a half ago, she was not having a bar of!)
We don’t want to start it before the holiday. Putting her in a car and a plane for so long is setting her up to fail. But she is ready people! The end of nappies is in sight!

It's a hair thang

2006-05-23T12:25:00.000+01:00

Hair Pulling. It's a problem. Now, if you are imagining little girls fighting and pulling each other's hair, you would be wrong. Caíthlyn pulls out her own hair.
Our beautiful Goldie Locks has pretty much always had the habit of twisting her hair around her fingers as soon as she had her dodi in her mouth.
I seriously doubt that she even realized she did this. She used to to twist and twirl it, then pull it tight and kind of pluck at the strand. What we never realized was that when she did this, she actually broke her hair. What was once a beautifull, full head of hair is now a rather raggety mop of different lengths of hair. There would be tuffs of hair laying about wherever she had been relaxing. On the sofa, in her carseat....... I could make a wig of all the hair we have found in her bed! It was quite upsetting watching her hair deminish like that. Finally, something had to be done, this could not continue.
Dr. Google provided us with some rather not fun information about a condition that is called trichotillomania. People have been diagnosed with that as early as two years of age. Darren and I both thought it sounded a bit severe and decided that we would first see if there was anything we could do before "diagnosing" her with trichotillomania.
As the dodi and the hair pulling seemed to be in direct link with each other, Daddy, Nannie and myself decided that the dodi needed to be fazed out.
Let me just say again how lucky we are to have Nannie. She loves her grandchildren to distraction and is SO on the ball that she will "catch" or predict almost anything involving them.
Whereas Darren and I are her parents and are obviously the ones that ultimately call the shots where Caíthlyn is concerned, we would be absolutely lost without Nannie. If something needs to be done for the grandkids, she will make darn sure that it gets done.
And with the hairpulling, something needed to be done.
As Nannie minds Little Miss three days a week, her help with this issue was invaluable. The dodi had to go. At least during the day. The first week it was kind of tough, she would ask for her dodi as soon as she got tired. Or Bored. She would see her cousin E. with her dodi and ask for her own. But we persisted, none of us caved, and it worked! The hairpulling is almost non-existant now! She still does it sometimes when she falls asleep as she gets her dodi in her bed. We tell her "Dodi's are for bedtime Honey." and she's fine with that.
I have never made any secret of my hatred for the dodi. When she was a baby, I was gratefull for the peace and comfort it provided. As she got older though, and started walking, I started to HATE the thing. The thought of her going to school and still walking around with this thing in her mouth annoyed the heck out of me. So when Darren sent me this following e-mail this morning, I was SO delighted:

"She stood up in the bed for me to lift her out and took her doddy out her mouth and kind of looked at it as if to say, ok, well what do I do with this now...no use for it now..and she looked at me and I said throw it on your pillow for later and she did without even batting an eyelid...it was great.."

When I had been getting her up on the days that I was off, she would let me take her dodi and put it away. No fuss. But now she is giving it up voluntarily? Leaving it, without prompting? Happy Freaking Days!!

Because, really:

This:

Is so much better than this:

Right? (Still pretty darn cute in the second one too though!)

Now, our hope is that the hair gets to recover. Auntie N. (Well, S. for the rest of us, but Little Miss calls her Auntie N.) is a hair stylist and will give Caíthlyn her first haircut when she is about three years old. Hopefully that will give it the chance to get well again.

Fingers crossed!

Thunderbolts and lightning

2006-05-15T11:33:00.000+01:00

Last Friday, a thunderstorm was making it's way over to us. Caíthlyn and I were cleaning upstairs. She always "helps" me when I am doing the upstairs. She will have her own little J-Cloth and wipe over any surface that I have just cleaned. Here's hoping she keeps this love of cleaning!
I had all the windows open as it was a lovely warm day and I wanted to give the place a good airing out.
Mid-hoover, I felt the temperature drop and knew we were in for a bit o' thunda!
Darren and I love a good thunderstorm. He loves it to the point of almost getting struck by lightning when he was admiring nature at work. I enjoy sitting at the open window, or in the open doorway and looking out.
This would be Little Miss' first conscious thunderstorm and I felt strongly that I should do all I could to make the experience fun for her!
"Listen Caíthlyn, thunderrrrrrr" I said in my "Let's go to the playground!" voice. We raced to the bedroom window, where I saw that I had left the sun-roof of my car open! Doh! So after we bolted (heeeeee, bolted, thunderstorm, geddit?) down the stairs, and I closed the sunroof. We went to the sliding doors out the back. I opened them a little and put Little Miss in the chair at the window facing out. I snuggled in behind her and we were all ready to enjoy the storm. Or so I thought.... At the first thunderclap, she told me in a very small voice that she wanted to get away from the window.
I sat down on the sofa, with her in my arms, when the second clap came. She darted off my lap, into her Dora Tent that we had set up in the living room. "I no like thunder" she told me. She peered out from between the little flaps of the tent and waited until she felt it safe to come out.
When more thunder came, she crawled on to my lap again, and under my t-shirt. She maneuvered herself completely inside my t-shirt and at the end of it, it looked like I had two heads. (She peeked out of the top, to check the status on the thunder)
She also seemed to think that the kitchen was a safer place to be. When Daddy came home, and the thunder came back, she told him to come in to the kitchen with her.

I guess Queen was right: Thunderbolts and lightning.... very very frightning...

Brad

2006-05-15T10:41:00.000+01:00

Watching E! entertainment channel there the other week. They were covering the "cleverly" dubbed "Brangelina" story. A picture of Brad, looking rather yummy with a beard of a few days graces the screen.
Little Miss: "Look Mammie! My Daddy on the television!!" :-))) Gotta Love it!

Still in the middle of the terrible two's.... Literally and figuratively. Literally as in, she is almost 2.5 years old and figuratively as in: I am just going to disagree, argue and fight with you until bedtime.
Now, the three of us are sick..... again.....
I can completely appreciate that this could have an adverse effect on Little Miss. But I fear that there is more to this then just the effects of a cold/flue sore throat.

Since she no longer sleeps it out in the morning, we have found that its beneficial to all concerned that she has a nap again in the early afternoon. The ideal situation has her kip from 12.30 to 14.00. hrs. Sadly, this does not always happen. She is almost cliché in her actions sometimes.
She is so adamant to say the opposite of what you are saying that even when you say she's the best girl, she will tell you that no, she is in fact, NOT the best girl! Or: "Nooooooooo, I NOT best girl Mammieieieieieieieieieieieieie!!!"

Last weekend, we knew we were in trouble when she started giving out to Eyore in the dolly buggy. She was telling him to sit up straight. When Eyore did not "listen" she threw herself on the floor in a hissy fit. I hate seeing her that way. She seems to get in her own way so badly. I can't imagine that this is the way she wants to feel.
We know that we have to stick to our guns so to speak. We know she needs the boundaries. Therefore we do not offer her 4 different choices in regards to which cup she wants to use for instance. It's tough to stick to this sometimes though. Sometimes, you just want to make it stop. For both her and you. We are just going to have to continue doing the very best we can. There are much worse things and we are very blessed to have her.
Hopefully, this too, shall pass.

Knock, Knock

2006-05-08T15:35:00.000+01:00

Caíthlyn loves the Backyardigans. I have to admit to even singing allong to some of the songs. (shuddup, their catchy!)
In one adventure, they go on a "quest" to make the perfect cup of tea (pip, pip, cheerioooooo) One of the tasks in this quest, is to make the emperor laugh.
To this end, Uniqua (a pink character) tells the following joke:

"Knock, Knock"
Q: "Who's there"
A:"Banana"
Q:"Banana who?"

"Knock, Knock"
Q: "Who's there"
A:"Banana"
Q:"Banana who?"

"Knock, Knock"
Q: "Who's there"
A:"Banana"
Q:"Banana who?"

"Knock, Knock"
Q: "Who's there"
A:"Orange"
Q:"Orange who?"
A: "Oranged you glad I did't say Banana?!!"

Caíthlyn has taken to telling us this joke. It will go something like this:

"Knock, Knock"
Q: "Who's there"
A:"Nanna"
Q:"Banana who?"

"Knock, Knock"
Q: "Who's there"
A:"Orange"
Q:"Ncha glad I Banana?!"

And then she will fall all over herself laughing, thus not being able to probably finish the last sentence.
I am telling you, it's hilarious! She's gonna be a stand-up comic. Mark my words!

Here's a pic of our beauty at Easter:

More pics here.

Photo's!

2006-04-05T07:56:00.000+01:00

Howdy!

As promised, here are a few new pics! I wanted to add a video or two, too. The site is blocked from here however..... :-( I shall try again on the weekend!

(Click HERE for picture set)

Hibrary

2006-04-04T10:15:00.000+01:00

People who know me even a little bit, know that I read.... A LOT! My books of choice are from the Fantasy Genre but I have been known to enjoy books from genres all accross the board. And this reading thing started to dominate the house. Everywhere you look, there are books. I have had to resort to putting some of them away in a storage box because the space? She was running out!
Only one solution: Join the library! Such a brainwave!
When I joined up, I looked around and asked where the rest of the books were. The man laughed: "This is it!" The nice man assured me that should I want any books that were not on site, they could order them for me from other Libraries in Fingal. So, I have been checking out books from this quaint little Library and last week, Little Miss came with me.
She was in a foul mood to start with. Nothing was good enough and when I said we had to go to the Library to return the books Mamma borrowed all I got were screams. Parked outside the library, walked in with Little Miss and people: she was in awe! "Oooohhh, HIBRARY" She flung off her coat, raced towards the kiddie corner and proceeded to pull out books to read to herself. She will point a finger to the page and "read" along the lines: "Once upon a time....... Sheep.....Mamma.... Cloud....Daddy.... the END!!" She was having such a good time at the "hibrary" that we took some books home just for her and we will be going back this week to return them and pick out some new ones. I really hope that Little Miss will develop this interest in books further. I have read the last three Harry Potter books in the past week. (I never was that bothered about Harry Potter but when I joined the library I thought why not, and now I am hooked, I want book seven to be released yesterday!) and have had my nose in a book a lot of the time.
Caithlyn calls the written word: ABC's (or more accurately, "ABD's..... I know!)
She would crawl on to my lap and say: "Mamma read ABD's? I read for you!" Trace her fingers down the lines and make up a story! With that little face all serious and her voice making the same peeks and dips that ours do when we tell her a story...... Let's just say she's very lucky she still has those cheeks! Purely edible!
She has taken to wanting a bed-time story. We currently make them up ourselves, taking great care to incorporate the words: "Cozy Pillow", "Comfy Blanket" , "Lovely Sleep" and "Tired Eyes" and it works, kind of. But what I am really looking forward to is reading a story together in her room before bed-time. That is one of the things I have always pictured when I thought of having kids.

Oh, did I mention that I HATE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME? No? How tardy of me. I HATE DAYLIGHT SAVINGS TIME!!! Or, more correctly, I hate the fact that it turned our Little Girl from an "Upstairs-and-asleep-in-twenty-minutes" - Girl to an "Upstairs-and-still-yelling-30-minutes-after"- Girl. It's unbelievable!
It's the brightness (next paycheck, we are SO buying a black-out blind") It just does not click in her head that even though the sun is still shining, bed time has arrived! She seems to have improved somewhat, but she is a far cry (no pun intended) from her wintertime self...... Fingers crossed that this too, shall pass! And in the grand scheme of things, it's not really that much of a biggie. Could be a lot worse!

Also, it was Mothers day here! I was told to stay in bed as long as I wanted and spent the morning dozing and reading Harry Potter. Then I heard my little Honey shouting from at the bottom of the stairs: "Maaaaaaaaammie!! It's your PARTY Mammie!!" and Darren and herself came in with breakfast in bed and a card and pressie for me. The card was SO sweet, Caíthlyn made a pretty drawing in it for me and "she" got me the Black Eyed Peas CD "Monkey Business" She kept telling me that it was my party, and dancing on the bed and messing with her Daddy. It was just such a lovely feeling of happiness.... Could have burst right there!

During the weekend, I was making a sandwich when Little Miss toddled in to the kitchen on her way to the sitting room. She stops at the door. Points and it, tilts her head and says: "Is THIS my Daddy?? Nooooo, that's the door!" a few steps "Is THIS my Daddy?? Nooooo, that's the chair" a few steps "Is THIS my Daddy?? Nooooo, that's the book!" Hilarious!

I have moved some pics and video's from my phone last night and will do my best to upload some to the 'Net so I can beautify this site with some more images of my Little Honey.

All the best!

She's baaahaaaack!

2006-03-20T13:45:00.000Z

Holy Cow. I know, I know. And more excuses......
Darren threw out his back and was bed-ridden for three days. Then I went to The Netherlands to see my friend who just gave birth. ( I was meant to be present at the birth, but the little man decided to arrive a few days early!) When I came back, Little Miss was sick. She turned out to have a hefty throat infection. and has had a rather rough few nights. And now I am back in the office trying to acclimatize!

Darren is fine now, but for a while there he was in a bad way with his back. The doc told him to stay in bed for at least 36 hours and so he, reluctantly, did. Little Miss was a bit confused by the fact that Daddy was home but could not play with her, lift her up or put her to bed. When we explained to her that Daddy's back was sore and that Daddy had to get better she responded by lifting Darren's shirt, saying something along the lines of "I make it better for you!" and kissing his back. Too cute. We went to get medicine for Daddy and when we came back she ran up to the front door yelling "Daddy, medcine for you!" and then looking at me asking if Daddy would be all better now?
Caíthlyn and I played nurses for three days, taking Daddy "brekfas" and keeping him company. Al the while applying liberal amounts of hugs and kisses.
I was in two minds about going to The Netherlands as Darren was not 100% better but both he and his mother insisted. Little Miss stayed with Nanny for a few days and Daddy was well enough to go back to work so off I went.

It was absolutely lovely to see my friend and her (newly expanded) family again! I have known this lady since 1996 (we think) and we are very close. Just goes to show that you do not have to live on each other's doorstep to maintain a good friendship.
Her new son, Tycho Jamie, is a little dote and he is the perfect baby. He sleeps so well and only cries when he has a dirty nappy and/or is hungry.
I could have just put him in my pocket and taken him with me. Can't wait to see them again in June, when Little Miss and I will be going over again together. You see, I am not going on Holiday again without Little Miss.
Last year, I went for a few days and Little Miss was still young enough for me to be able to do that. This time, she did miss me though. Her Nannie told me that Little Miss was just off. And when they asked her where her Mammie was, Caíthlyn said that I was lost....... How heartbreaking is that?
She was SO happy to see me when I walked in the door. "Mamma! I FOUND you!" I mean, come on..... my heart!
When I went to get my suitcase from the car for the pressies, she asked me where I was going and followed me to make sure that I would not take off again and when Darren and her had to get in to his car, and me in my own, Darren said she was upset the whole way home.

That Thursday she ran a bit of a temperature and had a runny nose and by the time Saturday came around, a nasty rash had joined the mix and Darren and I decided a trip to the Doctor was in order. The doctor saw that Little Miss had a very red throat, which would explain why she wouldn't eat in the last few days and prescribed some antibiotics. This came in the form of a yummy strawberry flavor hot-pink liquid which just makes Little Miss' day because she loves her "Medcine" (How lucky are we? We have never had a problem getting her to take her medicine)
Little Miss' mood was alternating between very "happy joy joy" (almost hyper) and "yucky - I don't know what to do with myself so I will just hate everything"
Seeing her have such a hard time with it just made my heart hurt. Especially when she declared she was "Berry, berry tired" (Very, very tired) and snuggled up on my lap to watch "Ballamory" together. Sitting there with her soother, twirling her hair in that typical Caíthlyn manner she suddenly put her arms around my neck and declared that I was the "Best Mammie" ( I call her my Best Baby, when I say she is my best Girl, she says NO! Best BABY!") and gave me a big kiss. I just chocked up......

Later on, I was zapping through the music channels, looking for something to dance/sing to with her, when I spotted the Coldplay song "Fix You"
Little Miss loves that song. I left the song on and she snuggled back in to me, humming along. Then, on the last sentence she sang the last two words clear as a bell : "Fix youououou"

I love that kid to bits.....

"Tadaaaaaaa"

2006-02-22T11:26:00.000Z

Little Miss is too cute for our own good sometimes. She has a charm that, I'm sure, will save her little bum plenty of times during her life!
When she is fiddling around with something, she get's engrossed, fascinated. You have never seen someone extract baby-wipes from it's packaging with such levels of concentration! Or deposit drops of milk from her Any-Way-Up-Cup on the coffee table so they make a pretty pattern.
The rest of the world will vanish. Gone. *Poof!* It's just her and her "project".
When we see what she's doing and we appear on the edges of her vision to correct her, she will take a step back, extend her hands to the "project" in a Vanna White-like fashion and exclaim: "Tadaaa" Or "Here you go!" Like she just did this amazing this for you. To please and impress you.
With this big smile, and this shiny angelic face that make you just want to put kisses all over it! It works now, just hope she realizes that "Taddaaaa!" loses it's functionality eventually......

All better again!

2006-02-21T10:10:00.000Z

Well, we are all better again. The mucous has left the building..... Kleenex is going to have to let people go due to the severe dip in revenue since last week...
We are still dealing with one side effect now: The waking up between 01.00 and 02.00 looking for hugs and wanting to go in to Mammie and Daddy's bed.
She has had these phases before, and I am confident they will not last forever, but in the meanwhile...... oh man! She has gotten in to this habit of wanting to get as close to you as she could possibly get.
When I think about it during the day, I think it's incredibly cute and it makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside.
However, when it's the middle of the night, you have got work in the morning and she just can't get comfy, it's less than practical. She will throw up one leg on your chest. Try and get her face SO close to yours that you can't help but shift your head, which makes her follow suit.....
It's a King Size bed but when she's in with us, it may as well be a match-box! :-)

On our first trip to the Netherlands with Little Miss, we bought her a little glow in the dark "Miffy" cuddly toy which has been in her cot wit her ever since. When we put Little Miss to bed, we will sit down next to her for a few minutes until she falls asleep. So too, last night. Sitting there, in her dark room, I could see the little Bunny glowing next to Little Miss' face. Then a dark patch appeared. And I could make out Little Miss' hand. She was snuggling up to Miffy. Getting her comfy feeling from this glow in the dark bunny. There is such an innocence in that motion. The reaching for something familiar and cozy. Her arms wrapped around Miffy she finally fell asleep.

It took her longer than usual to fall asleep but I strongly suspect that that was my fault. Usually Darren does the bed time routine but the poor man has done something to his back so I happily stepped in. I was a wee bit to chatty I think though! So the message that it was, in fact, bed time didn't really sink in with Little Miss until I tucked her in and switched off the light. And where Darren will be back down in all of 20 minutes, having brushed her teeth, washed her face, changed her Nappy and put her to sleep in her jammies, I took, oh.. 45 Minutes?! Obviously, I need the practice and should be doing this more.

Last night I had my first introduction lesson with "Curves". I know that in theory "Bigger is better" but I was taking this a liiiiitle bit to far. So, as of yesterday, I will be doing the "Curves Work Out" three times a week. They cram 1.5 hrs of exercise in 30 minutes and that suits me right down to the ground.
I was a little bit afraid that this would mean that I would not see Little Miss on Monday and Wednesday's, when I go after work. Luckily I managed to get home in time to see Darren and herself arrive home after Nannie's house at the same time as I.

I was wearing my glasses as my lens ripped and was still decked out in my brand spanking new work out gear. (that's how badly I did not want to miss her, didn't change after, just hopped in the car straight away!)
She was standing in the doorway when I stepped in and got a heartfelt "Maammmiiee!!! MY Mammie!!" and she jumped up on to my arms to give me this massive hug!
Now THAT's a welcome home! She gave me this big smile and said:" I like your glasses Mammie" and "I like your new new top" The kid is TWO! :)
(Let me explain the new new thing. At the end of last year, she got some nice shiny black shoes for the holiday season, she also had gotten new normal shoes not too long before that. These were her "new shoes" and she dubbed her black shiny shoes her "New New shoes". The New New has stuck for new things ever since)

I wonder how big the Caíthlyn dictionary will be in a few years? I does love me some kiddy-speak!

Have a great one everyone!

Little Trooper

2006-02-08T11:33:00.000Z

No posts in quite a while, my blog-anniversary came and went and not so much as a syllable. "Why?" you may ask.
The answer is that all three of us have been battling various degrees of fever inducing, phlegm producing, head-ache causing illness.
I started the ball rolling with a nasty cold, and a fever. Man, if this is what menopause will be like, I'll pass, thanks.
Then, on Sunday night, I went to get Little Miss because she was crying for us and sounded, well... off, I guess. Being sick myself made me very drowsy but thank (the) God(dess) Darren had his wits about him and noticed Little Miss was burning up.
My man is THE man you want to have around when a situation requires immediate action. He proceeded to strip her of her PJ's and opened the window. Then he gave her some Dozol to take the fever down. By the time I realized what was happening ( I was REALLY out of it) it was 03.00 hrs and there was a 2 year old toddling around our bedroom. She had these very shiny eyes and seemed so hyper, the poor thing.

Darren stayed at home the next day to take care of both of us. (I must have done something SO right in a previous life to deserve this man...)
We gave Little Miss more medicine during the day, which she loves and she was not too bad. It's the nights that were the worst. (And still are, she has been up every night since, and this has been the case for over a week now)
I went back to work on the Wednesday and Nannie took great care of Little Miss as always.
Then, on the Thursday, I was in the supermarket with Little Miss in the trolley and noticed some white, well, gunk in her eyes. Thinking nothing of it, I took a clean tissue and wiped it off. Should have known it was not going to be nothing...... An hour later her eyes were producing the gunk at a rapid pace.
Lying her down to change her nappy made her eyes well up with these gel-like tears and her eyes were bright red. Darren and I decided to take her to the Doc's first thing on the Friday.

I am SO impressed with my little Honey. She was sick, had the snotsers in a big, big way. Fever, coughing like a 50 year old 2-pack-a-day smoker and after 5 days of this she still was smiling and laughing and being affectionate. She's a little trooper so she is!
Once in the office though, it's a completely different story. She is PETRIFIED of this man and his wife. I mean, hysteria inducing scared. He tried talking to her for a bit but soon gave up and just told me to hold her in a lock-grip so he could do his thing. Then he prescribed an antibiotic eye-cream and told me she "Is a moany child" and when I was trying to console her and told her she was a good girl he said "No she wasn't"

I should have just told him to keep his opinions to himself, that she had been sick for a week and how the heck would he have felt?!! Instead, I just packed her up, and left. Seething!
He may be good at the diagnosis part of his job, but for the rest he is just a rude, ignorant, old man that obviously does not want to be doing his job anymore. He complains that he is SO busy. This is true, his waiting room is always packed BUT he get's FIFTY Euros per consultation! I'd say he EASILY makes 700 Euros per morning. And then he has the nerve to complain that he is late for his lunch break? Or be narcky because a child is scared of him? She has never had a nice experience in his office! Can you blame her for being frightened?

And what get's me is that I just let this man say this about my daughter, when I am not normally one to shy away from confrontation.
Maybe it's the fact that he is very good at the part of his job that matters most. My mother in law swears by this man and as long as he makes sure my daughter is healthy and is thorough at that part of the job then I should make sure I don't get thrown out of the practice for tearing strips off him.
The Irish Health system is in a very sorry state indeed, that goes for Hospitals and GP's alike. The other GP's around are friendly but frankly incompetent. (One of them has several deaths on his conscience due to negligence, sometimes I wished Ireland had more of a "Sue 'em!" Culture, this guy should be locked away. The other is nice, but bad at their job, let one of the cousins walk around with a kidney infection for weeks. Until her mam took her to my doctor who copped it straight away)

Anyway, the drops worked fine and her eyes look less like she had 5 rounds with Mohammed Ali, but the cough remains..... She has been in with us every night and when she is there, she buries her face in my neck (Or Darren's) wraps her arms 'round and holds on for dear life.
She will almost crawl on top of you and it feels like she would crawl in to you if she could. It's like she craves the physical comfort of having her Mammie and/or Daddy there. Being able to provide that for her is so worth the exhausted feeling the next day.
It does delay the blogging quite a bit though. ;-)

Many cute and adorable things have happened and I will do my best to gather them together for a nice post, just not today.

Love Always,

Nynke

Boundaries

2006-01-23T12:22:00.000Z

Saturday, Darren went fishing for the day so I decided Little Miss and I would have a fun day together. Sure, there were dishes to be done and floors to be hoovered (vacuumed) but the playground was calling! Who am I to resist!
Again, the place was jam-packed! Can someone please tell me what on earth 13-15 year old kids are doing on a playground? I mean, surely it's not the "cool thing" to do?
There is a kind of big round basket on the swings that seems to have a magical, magnetic pull on these teenagers. One will lie down on his back and the others will push him/her as high as possible. Apart from "hogging" the swings (they also sit on the swings adjacent to this basket) it freaks me the F out that these kids are so rough and inconsiderate! I mean, it's a playground, there are going to be little kids toddling around! They swing so high, that they have zero control. One of these days some poor toddler is going to get his head kicked in by one of these lugs. The idea alone makes me livid. ( Me anger issues? Surely you jest)

I do realize I sound like the old lady that would knife your ball if it was to land in her garden, and I don't mean to be. But after spending an afternoon keeping Little Miss away from an area in the playground she has every right to be in made me just a little bit angry! I think a good rule would be:
Facial Acne = No more playground access. Unless you have a smaller child to mind you just have no business there!

She was having a great time all the same though. Bright colors everywhere, a little Wendy house, Slides.
And then the unthinkable happened. She left the playground of her own accord! I was right behind her, but she opened the gate and decided we were going for a walk!
(Immediately images raced through my mind of her opening the gate and walking out without us noticing. The fence can give a bit of a false sense of security..... But, like I said in the last playground post, I intend to NEVER not notice anything again!)
We walked down a little pier and watched the waves. It was so nice! It was a sunny, warm day. She was in great form and I was just SO HAPPY!
Until we had to go....... Hell hath no fury like a Caíthlyn scorned! The tantrum she threw! If it wasn't so annoying it would have been impressive!
Like a true Drama Queen she hurled herself unto the tarmac (I checked her legs, no scrapes. Goddess only knows how she managed to remain scrape free) She cried, she screamed. She begged, she pleaded...... it was quite the show.
I did get a bit worked up about it but then I took a step back and told myself "This is that boundary-testing thing you were told about! She needs to know where her limits are." And once you look at it from the angle of "I am doing her a favor by showing her the boundaries and putting my foot down" it becomes a lot easier to deal with. Supernannie explains it really well in her book. If you were to walk in to a bank to lodge a cheque and all of a sudden you were told you were the new manager there, you would be lost! You do not have the skills to deal with this new situation and it would scare and confuse you.
Kids ACT like they know what they want, but there subconscious really want to be given safe boundaries to trust.
So, one of my new mantra's is:"It's for her own good....It's for her own good....It's for her own good....It's for her own good...."

After the playground we went to Nannie's house and Little Miss fell asleep for about three minutes on the way there. When she woke up she was in great form again! That's my daughter: The world ending one moment, sunshine all around the next!

On Sunday we went to a birthday party for Cousin (Well, it's Darren's cousin's daughter) J.'s 10th birthday party in Funtasia. Holy God(dess)!! Flashing lights, slippery floors, screaming children. Pure madness! However, I am quite sure it's pure Heaven for kids! There was a little climb and slide area for kids under 4 years of age and Little Miss and Cousin E. had a fabulous time there!
She looked so cute sitting at the party table with the big kids! I was sure she was going to be wrecked by the time we went home but not only did she not fall asleep on the way home, she also did not want to go to sleep at bed-time.

We have been sticking at this "Do not take her out of her cot at bed time when she cries thing" for weeks now but it's not really catching on! Sometimes we get lucky, but that was the case before too.
When she cries, we will leave her for about 10 minutes, console her, and leave again. If anybody has any tips on how else to go about it, please share.
However, don't say: "Just don't go in at all." Because A: The Mammy Heart can't take that B: The Daddy heart can't take that C: The child will cry for AGES! And I just don't see myself having the kind of funds that can pay for the shrinks bills when this all comes back to her in a adolescence......

Playground

2006-01-18T11:05:00.000Z

Last Saturday we finally had a sunny day. And thank Heavens for that! I mean, I KNOW Ireland has a bit of a rep for being wet and all but enough is enough already! So, we decided to give Nannie a ring and ask if she and the cousins wanted to come over to check out the new and improved playground in Lovely Town.
The playground was done up in December and looks excellent!
More things for the kids, a fence surrounding the playground and safer material on the ground. It is SO great in fact that even with it being extremely frosty and windy (it's right at the sea) there were about, oh, 12 million people there? I have never seen it so busy there! So there we were, Nannie, Auntie G. Cousin M, Cousin E., Darren, Caíthlyn and myself.

Now, when I am out and about with Little Miss by myself, I watch her like a hawk. I need to have her in my sights at all times. With so many of "us" there that day though, my attention slacked a bit. Darren and I were standing next to a little playhouse that Little Miss was playing in when I turned to face Darren to talk to him. 5 Seconds later I look back at the house and SHE IS NOT THERE!!! People! My heart!
Immediatly I started looking around and saw a little stripey hat bobbing and weeving her way through the crowd of kids and parents. How she got over there so fast is beyond me! The scary thing however is that she was running towards the Big Kids Swings! Straight in to the path of a boy that was being pushed by his mam! Images of Caíthlyn being kicked halfway accross the playground flashed before my eyes.
Before I knew it I was sprinting across to her and between the boy's mother grabbing her son to try and slow him down and me making a move like you see in the movies when the hero snatches a child that is about to be hit by a bus off the road, we managed to prevent any injury.

In Vicky Iovine's "Best Friends' Guide To Toddlers" she writes that situations like these are lessons. You get one "freebie" and that's it! I am SO taking that to heart and keeping my eyes on her even if there are 20 family members around!

The kiddo's still had great fun though:

Have a great day all!

PS: Hi Stephie! *Waves*

Royalty

2006-01-17T15:26:00.000Z

When asked what her name was my daughter responded with: "Pincess Caíthlyn!" (she does not pronounce the "R")

Wonder why?

December Update (Part 2)

2006-01-16T11:29:00.000Z

OK, ready for part two? Here goes:

Christmas. First I should tell you that when it comes to Christmas shopping, I am organized to the point of obsession. I mean, there were spreadsheets involved people! I had all the shopping done before December and was quite pleased with myself. I should know better by now though. As soon as I think: That went well, something will come up. In this case: Additional shopping. So, the days that were meant to be lazy days leading up to Christmas, turned out to be getting-up-mad-early-to-go-shopping-with-a-toddler-in-tow-in-Christmas-consumer-frenzy-hell days! Suffice it to say that Little Miss and I found this experience to be so traumatizing that I have now resolved to have all my Christmas 2006 shopping completed by July! (of course, I jest........... sort of)

On Christmas Eve I roasted a Leg of lamb and we had Darren's Uncle J. over for dinner and a few bevvies. There was wine for me and Guinness for the lads and board games. I think people don't play enough board-games anymore! Call me cheesy (Everybody now: "CHEESY!!!!) but there's something about playing board games that we could do with more of. (Eloquent little 'Ole me just can't come up with a name for it just now)
Then we said "Hi" to Santa who dropped the truck - eh, sleigh load full of pressies under the tree and I went to bed. (Darren, being a man, left the wrapping to the very last minute, had to make myself scarce so he could get started!..... MEN! You gotta love 'em! )

Christmas Morning. Little Miss was suitably impressed with the copious amounts of gifts under the tree:" WOOOUUWWW!! LOOK!!"
Darren wielded the video camera and I got Little Miss started on the unwrapping. I love to see her all enthusiastic and happy! That glowing face and that beaming smile. You can't beat it! There was a Dora Doll, a Baby Annabel, Fifi, Peppa Pig, you name the NickJr character; we had it under our tree!

My Darling, insane, boyfriend bought me a new mobile phone, an MP 3 player and from Caíthlyn there was a DVD of that comedic God: Billy Connelly. I was spoiled rotten! I felt like my daughter, had absolutely NO idea what to play with first!
We had to be at Nannie's house early-ish so we all got showered and dressed. Now, I can't be considered a Girly girl by ANY stretch of the imagination and cringe at the idea of dressing up my daughter in anything with bows and lacy collars. Especially when Little Miss was a Baby some people would ask me if I was aware that I had a GIRL and not a boy. Nannie paid for Little Miss' Christmas dress and shoes (tradition) so we thought we'd compromise and for this once, put her in this:

And I must confess, even I thought she looked pretty darned cute! She was a little GEM Christmas day. She was the only kid there and she just entertained herself with her toys and was her usual pleasant self. We are SO blessed that way! Dinner at Nannie's was awesome as always and the atmosphere was lovely. The fact that I could drive now, meant that Darren could finally have a drink. I felt really proud of myself finally being able to do my share in than regard.
That evening, Darren was tricking around with the MP3, me with my phone and sitting there, with the Christmas tree lit up and glass of wine, I just felt so happy and lucky! (sorry, should have given a sap-warning there.....)

St. Stephen's day (The second day of Christmas. aka Boxing day) was less of a success. At Nannie's house again and I think all the excitement was just waaaaay to much for her. The cousins were there and I think Little Miss' circuits just overloaded. The day was cut short and we had to drive a screaming, crying toddler home early. She stopped about 3 minutes before we arrived at the house and spent the remainder of the evening playing happily. It's easy to forget how much information and impressions a small child has to process at times like holidays and birthdays. The peace and quiet was just what she needed.

Her BIRTHDAY! "Yo Caíthlyn! It's yo birthday, we gowna Partay like it's your Birthday!" That's what I sang when I went in to her room to get her.
In bed with us she got lots of hugsies and kisses and "Happy Birthday's!!!" She got all excited and started singing that it was her party! We had decorated the sitting room and put together her present ( A doll's Pram, highchair and cotbed) the night before.
When I brought her downstairs she marveled at the streamers and danced around in circles singing "My party! My Party!" We had covered her pram with a blanket and boy was she excited when she ripped that off! The presents from my parents and friends were also very well received!
Taking the previous day in to consideration, we decided that Darren would go over to his mam's and help set up for the party (her house is just SO much better suited for it!) and I would get little Miss bathed and ready and just take it ham and cheesy.

Now, Darren and I do not let Caíthlyn have any Sweets, Cakes, Crisps (Chips) or any other drink then water, milk or actimel (1 a day). For the simple reason that it does not do anything for her. If there were any benefits to giving her these things, we would have no problem but 'till then, she is absolutely over the moon with a bowl of grapes or a piece of cheese and get's genuine enjoyment from a cup of milk. Darren's family have been very good at respecting our decision and even though they may sometimes want to, they never give her something we wouldn't want her to have.
But for her birthday, we were asked what we were going to do. Seeing as there were going to be sweets for the other kids and she would see them eat those.
So we decided, a limited exception just for ONE DAY. We got some jelly's that have no artificial colorants, added sugar or preservatives and made up a little bowl with a few pieces she could have. Nobody was to give her any more. And you know what? She just couldn't be bothered! Yaaaaayyy!!! I was SO happy to see this:

She just had a little bite (see the teeth marks?) and decided: "No thanks!" She ate the crisps (chips) and left the rest! She had a cream birthday cake:

But after blowing out her candle (She thought the fact that everyone was singing for her was nothing short of AMAZING.... she got all giddy! But I think she was happy when it was over though too, she was asked to sing a song herself but gracefully declined, well, she said No anyway!):

She had a little taste and decided it wasn't for her. (Unlike her mommie, who visibly never says "No" to any kind of tasty!

She got a few lovely presents at her party too but there were two that were especially big hits:

I thought she was going to have a heart attack when she opened this from Uncle E. and Auntie M-C:

And the Peppa Pig house was very welcome too!

And the princess dress? Pure ecstasy:

Her party was absolutely lovely, Little Miss adores her cousins, aunts, uncles and Nannie.

There's always hugs galore and I am so happy for her that she has that. It's my biggest wish for Little Miss. That she has a happy life in which she loves and is loved. She has such a great capacity for love and is already blessed to have people really love her. It makes me so happy to see her receive so much of it.

I will leave you all on that slightly mushy note and this pictures that I just think is SO cute:

All The best!

December Update (Part 1)

2006-01-10T15:16:00.000Z

Holy Mother, the idea of starting this log is very intimidating! I should really get my act together and blog more frequently! Between going to The Netherlands, Christmas and Little Miss' birthday I just did not have the gusto. Also, the few times that I DID try and leave a short post, Blogger wouldn't let me in. I took that as a sign to take it Ham and Cheesy (easy) and blog whenever the inspiration hit me! This, appearantly, is now....

First, Little Miss and mine's trip to The Netherlands. Honesty bids me to confess that I was more than a little nervous about the prospect of a plane trip with an almost 2 year old. Little Miss is an absolute Honey.... MOST of the time. When she decides she "Don't want to!!!!" not even Nanny Deb or Stella will be able to save you!

I had bought her a little Eyore backpack with a handle and wheels so she could have a case just like Mammie. I put together a mini Dora Backpack filled with Crayons, Pencils, a blank notepad a little Baby Doll and some Dora figurines. I hid this in my own backpack together with some cartons of milk and two tupperware boxes with grapes and tangerines and I was ready for action.
And what do you know? IT WORKED!! Apart from not wanting to sit on my lap at take off and landing it was just great! There was an empty seat next to us. (God bless the Gods of airtravel!)
Little Miss parked herself there and was delighted when I whipped out the entertainment back pack!
My parents were at the gate and it would seem that we were quite the sight, me pushing an empty buggy and pulling my big purple suitcase and Caíthlyn walking next to me pulling her little purple case ("MY Case!!" is what she called it)
She fell asleep on the 2 hour trip to Leeuwarden and consequently would not sleep that evening. Darren had jokingly said that I would be up at 01.00 hrs when he heard she had slept in the car...... Does he not know by now that the Gods are always listening?? Little Miss stopped crying at about 01.04 hrs.....
She had been in great form right up untill bed-time though. My mam was breaking a sweat 5 minutes after us emerging from the gates from running after Little Miss!
It was lovely to see Little Miss lift up her hand to take my Mam's. There was zero shy-ness and it was like she had seen them a hundred times before. (Of course, there were the few "I don't want to" -moments but that's a pleasure we ALL get. )
Once we arrived at the house, she was dancing and running around. It was like the kid was on Happy Pills!
After the first rough night, she was in great form again for the next day and we had quite the busy day.
Shopping for clothes in the AM (The Netherlands have a bit more choice in size "Is-that-a-woman-or-a-jet-carrier" than Ireland does), but not finding anything for me and ending up with a new outfit for Little Miss instead. Visiting my friend A. in the first half of the afternoon and my friends R. and her mom G. in the second half. A. lives in an adorable little farm house that she is slowly restoring to it's former glory and is very happy there with her 9 (I think) cats. She gave Caíthlyn a Care Bears DVD (which turned out to be a life saver! Every time Little Miss got narcky, we popped on the DVD and she would chill out and recharge the batteries while following Sunshine Bear's adventures in Joke-a-Lot.)
It was so very nice to see A. again and I can't wait for her and her new man to come over to visit us again. She loves Ireland and she hasn't been over here in WAAAAAY to long!
Seeing R. and G. again was great too. G. has a very nice home on a river. I have spent many a happy day/evening in that house and always have a lovely time when I re-visit. It's almost like a little time-warp to my teenage years. (Do you realize 1995, the year I met R. , was ELEVEN years ago?? I'm only sayin'........ )
R. was absolutely AMAZING with Little Miss. They took to each other immediatly. R. did allot of Ballet as a child and she and Little Miss were doing all kinds of Ballet-ish things in the sitting room. SO CUTE to see Little Miss trying to copy R. When the dancing was over, G. pulled out the Duplo. They were so involved with her. Giving her tangerines and having her on their laps. You could tell they really enjoyed having her there. It's moments like that that I wish it could work for us in The Netherlands....... But, I also realize that it's all extra special now because it's a holiday and that "real life" would be very different. Ireland is the best place for our family. Caíthlyn is very happy here. And to be honest, I don't miss LIFE in The Netherlands at all. It's the people, the friends that I can get a bit homesick about. Being able to drop by for a cuppa or take the kids to the petting zoo, or something as incredibly mundaine as that.

My parents really enjoyed our stay as well. Little Miss is so interactive now, she will chat to you. Take your hand to go for a walk, dance in a way that's SO CUTE it generates collective "AAwwwww's"
My dad took apart a ballpoint pen. And Little Miss helped him put it back together again. My dad would hand her the piece and tell here where to put it. And if something didn't work, or would fall out, her little mind just took that information and started working on how to correct it. My little problem solver!
My mam also got her colouring books and supplies and between that and the PC. (You haven't séén excitement until you've seen Little Miss' reaction to seeing "The Wiggles" pop up on a PC monitor: "LOOK MAMMIE!! THE WIGGLES!!!!!!" Absolutely hysterical! ) she was well entertained.
It must have been so nice for them to walk in to the room and get a beaming :"Hi Pake (grandad)!!" Or "Hi Beppe (grandma)!!" She most definitly still remembered them from when they were over to see us and I think that helped. If my mam would go for a smoke outside and Caíthlyn would cop she was out of the room she would ask "Where Beppe Go?" Or shout "Bepppeeee, where ARRRRREEE you?" Every time we went somewhere in the car she would say: " Beppe's Car!"
Even after we were back in Ireland she mentioned "Beppe's House" My dad had her in fits of laughter. Those fantastic belly laughs that only small children can produce.

Just glanced at what I wrote and realized I am giving Tolstoi a run for his money (in quantity, not quality, would'nt dream of comparing myself in that way)
Therefore, I shall give you a breather and continue this later.

Have a great one!

Love Always, Nynke

PS: Quick hello to my (semi-) silent readers!: Ciao Claudia!!
Hej Helene!!
Hallo Rixt!!

Beddie Bye Byes

2005-12-13T09:31:00.000Z

Holy God(dess)! I am tired! Little Miss fell asleep in the car on the way home last night and her Daddy lifted her to her bed straight away. She woke herself up during the night however and ended up in bed with us again.
Now, I do realize that the desired night-time routine would be for everyone to stay in the bed in which they originally went to sleep but seeing as Caíthlyn was the only one who shifted I am saying:"Two out of three ain't bad!"
There are many different views on the whole "sharing the bed thing" but I subscribe to the view of: "Whatever gives us all a good night's sleep"
And I sincerely doubt that she will be 13 years old and still crawling in with us so I am not too worried. Plus, the hugsies are great! There's nothing quite like those little arms around your neck, getting all cozy!
One phenomenon of nighttime though is that my child seems to magically expand! In the daytime, she is a normal sized toddler, at night, she manages to take up all the space in a King Sized bed!
Last weekend, Darren was out with his mates for the night, and Little Miss ended up in with me again. It was just her and me. Yet, I still ended up on the very edge of the bed. What's THAT all about? Another one of life's great mysteries!
It makes getting up might y difficult though! This morning she was in between us, one hand on top of the duvet, the other one up next to head. Those beautiful long, dark lashes resting on her cheeks. Could have gobbled her up right there and then!
Poor little thing is coming down with ANOTHER case of the sniffles! Two days before we fly to The Netherlands! Fingers crossed it's a mild one.
I am very excited now about our trip home. (Still refer to The Netherlands as "home" when in reality, Ireland is......) Going to see friends, family and hopefully a bit of snow! Would LOVE to make a snow-man with Little Miss!
So, boys and girls, please send us positive vibes on Thursday and Tuesday (flight days) and lots of snow in between! :-)

Have a great one everybody!

And the times, they are a changing

2005-12-06T10:21:00.000Z

Little Miss will be two years old on December 27th. This thought just boggles my mind. I mean, it was only yesterday that I was looking at her through her transparent bassinet in the hospital, trying to let it sink in that she really was MY baby-girl!
The changes kids make in these first few years of life, are nothing short of amazing! I mean, she went from this:

To This:

(I promise to sit down and transfer some new pics from the camera soon!)

in the space of two years.

And that's just the physical side, the emotional, linguistic and intellectual developments will knock you for six if you think about then for too long. It also brings home to me how deceiving the mind can be.
The first few months of her life, where she woke up at night, or just wouldn't go to sleep at all until about 03.00 AM, seemed to last for freaking ever. I mean, I felt I was in some kind of Groundhog Day. Yet, when you look at the actual time-frame, it only lasted about 4-5 months.
She would sleep through the night for a few weeks, lulling you in to a false sense of security, only to switch right back to either not going down or midnight waking.
One day nothing else than Mammie will do, the other Daddy is the main attraction and any move from Mammie will send her diving in to Daddy's arms!

If there is one thing you can count on with kids this age is that you can't count on anything. Just when you are congratulating yourself on the fact that at least she is eating well, she will pull up her nose at the same dinner that would normally send her racing in to the kitchen!
We did make a new culinary discovery though, when having a stir fry myself, she started pointing at my plate enthusiastically. I gave her a few bites and it turns out the child likes Coursgette and, wait for it, OLIVES! HA! Something tells me our wok will be working overtime in the next couple of days!

At the moment I can not get her to eat her breakfast. Sure, she will SAY "Njummie!!!" but after stirring the cheerios around the bowl for a bit she will get off the chair and ask for her "Cuppa Tea" (beker of milk). All through the day she will tell you she's "Hungwy" but decline then when you offer her a banana or toast!
She used to LOVE her bath-time, splishing and splashing was a great part of her bed-time routine. Now? Now, she sobs when you try and put her in the bubbles before bedtime.... Heartbreaking!
Thankfully, she will let you give her a bath in the morning so I don't have to go hunting for toddler déodorant!

When she has started challenging some of her routines, other ones are not to be touched!! Some things are so ingrained in her life that she comes to expect nothing else. You won't realize these things until you see/hear them in action.
Last week in the car, she was tired and said:"Nannie's house, cuppa tea, up to bed?" (when she arrives at her Nannie's house in the AM, she get's a cup or warm milk and goes back to bed for an hour) She had her dodi in her mouth, twirling her hair with her hand and just looked too cute!
Also, when we went to the supermarket in the village where Nannie lives. she went straight for the breadrolls. "Wroll!" ( Little Miss still does not get any kind of junkfood or sweets etc. you can really make her day with a buttered roll or a piece of "Laughing Cow" cheese.) In her head, Supermarket = Breadroll!
Not complying with that would be to mess with the balance of the Universe and Mammie needs every little bit of cosmic good will she can get so Caíthlyn munched away happily for the duration of the shopping trip!

9.5 days till our trip home!!

"Ayo u!"

2005-11-29T12:11:00.000Z

The Daddy and I had another night out last Friday. Our third honest to goodness date in almost 2 years. (1 date in her first year and 2 dates in her second, we're getting there people!)
It was like she KNEW she was going to spend the night at Nannies house 'cause man was she a handful all day! I mean, I love her to bits, but I had to resist the urge to check her for Energizer Batteries!
After having dropped Little Miss off at her Nannie's off to Eddie Rockets we went. This is a "Happy Days"-esque kind of Diner complete with red booths, neon-lights, signs that say things like: "Not eating enough is bad for you, not tipping enough is fatal!" huge burgers and chips (fries) that are served to kids in red little baskets. It's obscenely expensive but the Malts are delicious and the fries are lovely so we managed to justify it to ourselves for just this once.
After that we went to see the new "Harry Potter" movie.

Now, I have to admit to being a bit disturbed by this experience. The movie was fine, I though it was well done and I was entertained. The disturbing part however, was that there were kids there as young as 6, maybe 7 years old! The movie is rated for 12's FOR A REASON PEOPLE!!
One example that really made me want to give a woman a piece of my mind was sitting in the row in front of us. A family of a Mam, Dad, Granny and little girl of about 6/7. Towards the end of the movie, where it get's a bit "darker" the little girl crawled on to her mother's lap and sad "Mammie, I'm scared"
Now, for any normal human being that would be a queue to take the child, whose face was wedged in to the mam's shoulder, out of the cinema.
This woman however, DID NOT SHIFT!! Just told her it was all pretend and it was fine.
I was appalled and more than a little disturbed that parents (I heard more kids crying, Darren didn't but I really do have Bat-ears) would traumatize their child because THEY wanted to see the movie!
( You may say that "traumatize" is a harsh word but I remember a sitter letting me watch "Gremlins" when I was young.... took me a very long time before I felt comfortable with the lights out at night! Spent some terrified moments in my bed....)
I was BOILING. Even hissed at the woman to take the poor child out of there, she chose to ignore me...

I can't imagine ever putting Little Miss through something like that. Now, this is not the first time other people's parenting "skills" have baffled me. I am not saying that we are the perfect parents, we make our fair share of mistakes but feeding a child that can not be more than 8 months old strips of McDonalds Cheeseburger which you have chewed first? Or pushing a stroller with a small baby through Dublin City centre while you have a chat with your friends at 22.00 hrs?
Babies in the pram in the blazing sun without a parasol or hat? I don't get it, Just. Don't. Get. It!
Seeing these things makes me want to hug my daughter and hold her close to me and just kiss her little head!

I always tell Little Miss that I love her. She gets hugs and kisses all day long and I tell her "Mammie Loves you baby! I love you so much!" Darren does the same.
She started responding with her own version: "Ayo u!" It's just priceless to hear her say that! It was always in response to us saying it though.
Until a few days ago. Darren was giving her a hug when she said: "Ayo u!" Darren and I were just speechless.
She is such a Honey!

When I have a bit of a lie down on the sofa, she will drape her blankie over me, say "Now Mammie, there!" and give me a "Good Night"-kiss. Sometimes, she will put her pillow next to my head and crawl next to me. Putting her little nose to mine, she will start giggling and messing about. She is just so much FUN!
She will come running from the kitchen shouting " Mammie!! Mammie!! MY Mammie!! MY Mammie!!" Or "Daddy!! Daddy!! MY Daddy!! MY Daddy!!" and just hurl herself in to our arms.

I would catch the moon and the stars for that child if she wanted me too. I really, really would.....

At last!

2005-11-22T21:23:00.000Z

Wow, I honestly do not know where to begin. It’s been a shamefull long time since I have blogged about our Little Miss.
I only have the classic excuses to offer: Way to busy in work and therefore no desire AT ALL to spend any more time behind a computer screen.
Enough is enough however, and I have decided to park my impressive posterior behind the laptop and make like Nike (just do it).
With thanks to my Dad, Little Miss’ “Pake” for curing the laptop of it’s ailments when they came for a visit. (The “ailments” turned out to be me having my laptop armed to the teeth against virusses and the like, resulting in a ridiculous loss of actual fuctionallity. Turns out there IS such a thing as being too safe…..)

Right, here goes. Many things have happened since last we blogged. My parents came over, we had Halloween, one of my best friends in the world came over and I became a driver!

My parents had not seen Little Miss in over a year. And ofcourse, a year makes all the difference at this early stage of her life. The child that they saw when they walked in the door was a far cry from the little baby they saw the year before!
Darren went to pick up my parents at the airport. I was playing with Little Miss in the living room when she heard the front door. My daughter has her Mammie’s ears, this child would hear the grass grow! When she heard the front door she put one finger agains her lip and the other one to her ear and whispered: “SSsshhhh Mammie! Listen?”
When she copped it was her Daddy she legged it in to the kitchen, legs a blur, her elbows in her sides and her fists to her chest! Shaking her little bum bum.
There was Daddy, but also her Pakke en Beppe (Granny and Grandad in Frisian)
A hearty “Hi!” from Little Miss received a bit of an emotional response from my mam and a huge grinn from my Dad.

I can completely understand the way my mam feels, she has one granddaughter, and she lives in another country. And not just any other country, but one that you have to take a plane to get to!
I have been learning to drive in the last few months and now I could show off my newly found driving skills to my Mam and Dad. They were only over for four days but we made the most of it. Because I could drive now, we could go to two different playgrounds, pop to the shops and just have more freedom of movement really.
It was lovely to have them over. Hearing a child that really only speaks English say “Pake” en “Beppe” is honestly too cute! The visit went so well that Little Miss and myself will be going home for 6 days in December, just her and I. And, whereas the idea of airtravel alone with an almost 2 year old scares me just a little, I am also really looking forward to it!

For Halloween we went (where else?) to Nannie’s house! My mother in law is the best, she had a Halloween party at her house that included the playing of all kind of traditional games. Auntie S. had brought a Princess dress for Little Miss to wear. (Or as she calls it: Pincess dress). My daughter adores it when there is many kids together, she doesn’t know what to do with herself, that’s how excited she gets!
I was having the day from Hell that day however
(Little Miss was “making Mammie pretty” and brushing my hair when I heard a squirting sound, she put shampoo in my dry hair…..”Not to worry” I thought “Give her a quick bath and I can get this out of my hair”. Once we were upstairs however, we were messing around and when I bent down to “catch her” I ripped my new jeans….. When I went to run her bath, there was no hot water. Had a fight with a woman in the supermarket, almost got hit by a car that didn’t see me. At my mother in law’s I found out that the batteries in the video camera AND the digital camera were dead (got batteries off my mother in law for the digital though), I banged my thumb off a kitchen cabinet hinge and Little Miss spilled a yoghurt over my trousers……) and so I must admit to not being in the spirit of things much.

At the beginning of November my dear friend M. came over. She is pregnant with her third baby (a boy) and seeing as I was not going to let ANOTHER 6 years go by without her having come over to see me, I thought this would be the perfect time for a little break for her. I asked her when she was free and booked a ticket for her and there she was!
Now, she got to see F all of the country as we spent most of our time in the shops, which is a shame, but it was absolutely deadly to have her here. We chatted and went to the playground with Little Miss, we shopped and we attempted to watch Titanic (Shuddup….) but ended up chatting forever. She makes me miss The Netherlands. I would love to have her close to me every day. To see her kids regularly (Yes, I know that every 6 months is regular too but you know what I mean….. Smart Alec….) and just be a part of each others’ daily life… It’s my friends (I don’t have many, but the ones I do have, I hold very, very dear) and Family that I do miss, the country itself does not do much for me. Being here is the best thing for my family and I though… You can’t have it all I guess…

A few months ago, I started taking driving lessons and bought a car. While driving will never become a hobby, I just can’t get over the sense of freedom it has given me. (I know, that’s a cliché and a half but SO true!!) I had a week off after M.’s visit and was able to take Little Miss out even when the weather was not so good. Normally I would’nt have chanced it for fear of getting caught in the rain but now with the car we just went for it! Also, the not standing at the busstop freezing my bits off rocks enourmously!

Boys and Girls, I am going to love you and leave you.

Halloween:

This girl LOVES "Maggie and the Ferocious Beast" (She was wearing tights all day. The socks only made an appearance that evening.....) Calling her name when she is watching her programme will get you this face:

She still loves taking care of "Her Baby":

Love always

Nynke

Shocking!

2005-10-03T10:43:00.000+01:00

I know, shocking altogether! I haven't posted in WAAAAAAY to long! And the reason is the same as before. Up to my eyeballs in work (new "improved" systems = 2x the work as before.....) and a laptop that has some kind of undetectable virus and the slowest internetconnection eva!

Also, I am taking driving lessons which is filling my time and my mind.

Little Miss has done and said so many cute things since my last post that I can't even think of them all anymore! All I can tell you that she is still heartstoppingly beautiful, smart and cute!
She will raise her arms up to you and say "Hug?" Then she will throw her arms around your neck and just squeeze for dear life.

Yesterday, she was brushing my hair and trying to put it in to a pony-tail. I was sitting on the edge of the sofa and she was standing on the cushions behind me. All of a sudden she drops the brush and throws her arms around me from behind and tries to get her head on my shoulder for a mega squeeze! I could have cried. There was just so much love there!

She is cutting her corner teeth and had a cold and still she is the best, most loving child ever. We went out for lunch yesterday and she was just SO well behaved! For at least 45 minutes she was just the best little girl. I don't believe in making kids sit still for too long though so as soon as lunch was done we went to the playground and she had a great time!

I have to love you and leave you.

All the best,

Nynke

Sing Songs

2005-09-06T09:09:00.000+01:00

Little Miss is making such amazing progress in her development! It's like someone set her little brain in overdrive and off she went! It's like she just got "the knack" of this learning thing and decided it was fun! As I wrote before, singing has always been big in our house, we have been singing to the poor child since birth! (When I was wheeled on to the ward after giving birth to her and I had 3 Minutes where it was just her and me, I started humming Norah Jones to her. She reacted, she KNEW me people!)

At one stage in her early life, Little Miss would not settle down unless treated to endless repeats of "Op een klein stationnetje" (It's a song about a row of trains at a little train station, early in the morning....) In the bath we sing everything from "All the ducks are swimming in the water" to "The Alphabet Song"

Last week, I was in Nannie's house after work and found Nannie and Little Miss sitting next to each other. They were singing "The Wheels on the Bus" and making all the hand movements that go with it! And Little Miss was giving it socks! She was really going for it! Winging it where she couldn't sing along and belting out the bits she could: "All day LOOOOONG" I could listen to her sing "All day LOOOOONG" She will sing the Alphabet song with gusto. I'm telling you, we have a little Gwen Stefani on our hands here!

Last Sunday, we went to Nannie's house for dinner. Little Miss was pottering around with her doll while we were getting ready. All of a sudden I hear her say:"Ah, Baby, Pooh?" I look up and I see her pinching her Doll's bum and giving it a quick smell to "check the nappy"!! She was SO mirroring us! And the matter of fact expression. I could watch her play for hours and not get bored once.

Every child has their tough moments, but Caíthlyn is such a joy for the vast majority of the time that I just can't believe how lucky we are! I know that parenting is mostly gut feeling but I have always been convinces that reading up on things is never a bad thing. So, I am currently reading "Super-Nanny" by Jo Frost and "The Best Friends Guide to Toddlers" by Vicky Lovine (More for comic relief) and I can recommend both. Jo Frost has some really good, down to earth advice and I had to put Vicky Lovine's book back in my bag this morning on the bus because people started to get a little frightened by the big woman, sitting there laughing out loud all by herself. Vicky Lovine also wrote "The Best Friend's Guide to Surviving the first year of Motherhood" Some people say Books Are Bad, and you should only go on instinct and what YOU deem best. Personally, I find great solace in reading that other people are experiencing the exact same things I am/was.
Maybe that's the magic of blogging too?

Enjoy your Tuesday everyone!

Quickie

2005-08-31T09:14:00.000+01:00

I am almost scared to say it, but Little Miss has had a good night's sleep for two nights in a row now! Happy Days! Or: Nights, rather! Being woken up by the alarm is just strange!
Her Nutrition has always been important to me, as has the need for the intake of enough fluids. She will drink from her beaker but I always thought she still wasn't getting enough liquids in somehow. But since I bought her a Barbie Beaker with a straw last week, she can't get enough of it! She would drink water and milk all day long if given half a chance. And she looks so darn cute clutching the beaker in her little hand and manouvering her way around the straw!

I have to keep in very short today boys and girls, Mamma is a busy bee today! I have half a day in work today, then to the docs, then to the shops to pick up dinner for tomorrow (I have friends coming over tomorrow, a family of 5! From Wales) Then to pick up Little Miss. And I don't even want to THINK about the pile of dishes that is to be done tonight! Oh, the joy of being a domstic Goddess. You're tired just thinking of it? Me too....... me too.

Love and light!

Pictures Again! Finally!

2005-08-30T08:24:00.000+01:00

Thank (the) God(dess) I was still able to get the photo's from the camera to the laptop. So, instead of writing a post today, I am going to cheat and just leave some pics. (Too Busy in work!)

Being a Dolly Mamma is hard work! It's amazing how she copies what we do with her!

Checking out the duckies at Dublin Zoo.

There were Rhino's too!

I LOVE her surprised face!

Caíthlyn artistic interpretations:

I really wished she would lose the dodi, how pretty would this have been without the dod:

Have to go work for my money now!

Great day to all!!

Poor little Miss

2005-08-29T10:40:00.000+01:00

Last Friday, For the second time in 20 months, Darren and I went out on an honest-to-goodness DATE. Little Miss spent the night at Nannie's house and Mammie and Daddy got some Boy-Friend and Girl-Friend time. It was lovely. A meal at a Chinese restaurant and a few drinks in the pub have never been appreciated as much as they were last Friday night. I mean, there were COCKTAILS people! We have decided that it was disgraceful that this was our first "all-nighter" date this year and will do our very best to get another one in there before the end of 2005!

As much as we enjoyed our evening, night and morning, I couldn't wait to go get our Honey. The enthusiasm wasn't reciprocated though. If you hadn't noticed before: Little Miss ADORES her Nannie. A-DOR-ES her! She worships at the Nannie Shrine. Nannie is the best thing since Liga Milk Breaks.
Sure, our entrance was noted but there was no sign whatsoever of having missed us. More of "Oh, there you are" and she just went about her business again.
Of course, we should be proud that we have given our daughter the confidence in life to be able to spend the night away from Mam and Dad but at the end of the day I don't think we can really take the credit for it. Nannie is just THAT fantastic. I guess I could be hurt, but to be honest, I wasn't.
If I was 20 months old, and she was MY nannie, I'm pretty sure I would feel the same way. So this is the best of both worlds: Caíthlyn gets to spend the night at Nannie's house and Mammie and Daddy get a night out! Guilt Free!!

For the rest, Little Miss has not been feeling the Mae West (best). She is very tired during the day the last few days and has taken to napping again. Which results in her not going to sleep in the evening. Our total **&$%#^&&%%$ of a neighbor decided to have a party on Saturday night. Not just any party mind you. But a "I-WONDER-HOW-MANY-DECIBELS-MY-GLASSWARE-CAN TAKE" party. She had her sliding doors open and was having a BBQ in the garden. (Right under Little Miss' window. The f-ing Wagon didn't even have the courtesy to drop a note in the letter box saying she was having a party.
When I finally had her asleep in our bed, at the front of the house, the ditzy cow's mates were leaving through the front door. **sigh** I hope she get's lot's of itch and very short arms......
There are at least 5 Family's with kids on our row of houses (us included) and I can only imagine what their nights were like.

Of course Little Miss was knackered on Sunday and fell asleep in the car on the way home from the shopping centre. She was SO tired that we had no choice but to put her down in her cot. Her grandfather and his significant other came by for a visit. At around 15.15 hours I went to get Little Miss from her room because we were going for Sunday Dinner at Nannie's.
When I stepped in to her room she was wide-eyed and looking around as if she had just gotten a fright. She get's that sometimes so it didn't worry me too much. When I got her downstairs however, she just started bawling her eyes out. This intensely sad sob that just broke my heart. Her Grandfather and his significant other (don't know if I can name names) left and Caíthlyn clung to Darren like she was holding on for dear life.
She was trying to push something out, or at least that was the impression we got. Flashbacks to the time she was baby and she had problems with her bowels. The tears and the screams. That feeling of helplessness. It was so hard not to be able to do anything for her, she just wanted her Daddy. Darren is fantastic in situations like that. He will try everything until he finds something that works. He will run the tap and let her look at the water. Look out the window at the trains coming by, go upstairs and play on the bed. By the time they came back down the stairs she was chanting "Nannniiieeee, where ARE YOUOUOUOU??" and she ran in to me, grabbed me by the hand and led me to the front door. "Time to go to Nannie's house"

She had a very bad night again last night. I hope that whatever it is, goes away soon. I want my Sweetheart to be Happy and Healthy again soon!

Growing Up

2005-08-23T10:31:00.000+01:00

Little Miss no longer sits in her highchair. One day she just made it clear that she was going to sit at the table like a big girl or she wasn't going to have dinner at all. So, now we have our bowl of cheerios at the bistro table in our kitchen.
I will be sitting across from her, watching her maneuver a spoonful of the "Cheery O's" in to her mouth and drinking from her "Cuppa Tea" (which is actually a beaker of Milk which she insists on calling her "Cuppa Tea") She gets a normal cup at breakfast, which she attempts to drink like she sees her Mammie and Daddy drink theirs. She's trying to look ever so nonchalant. This nonchalance has been responsible for a spillage or two but she has to learn somewhere. And this is why (the) God(dess) invented kitchen towels!
When we are sitting there like that I just swell up with pride at my gorgeous little girl. (Beware of oncoming cliché) She is getting so big, so fast! She will be 2 years old in December and that thought just boggles my mind!

Personally, I found the first 7/8 months rather tough. People kept telling me to enjoy, because "they are only so little for a such a short time" And you know what? They were right! When I look at my gorgeous daughter it's so hard to believe that that is the same psychic baby that KNEW when your head hit your pillow, even when she couldn't see you from her bed. That used to sleep on Darren's chest, with himself propped up with a pillow at his back just so we all could get some kip.
I remember waking up and seeing them next to me, sleeping like that. I will never forget that image. Just bursting with love right there!

And getting to know her, and seeing her grow and develop is nothing short of amazing. I am seeing her personality develop and recognizing parts of myself in there. She has my temper (not so great, I have a temper that would make a grown man cry....... I try to work on it.....). She also LOVES to sing. When she is playing by herself, you can hear her singing the "A-B-C Song" (I never shut the hell up! Everything from "Tonic" to "Dora the Explorer" gets belted out!)
I am hoping she will also get some of Darren's Saint like patience and musical talent. Also, if she could be as level-headed as her Daddy that would be great. I already know she is as loving as he is.

I feel we might be entering a bit of a shy stage as well though. A very good friend of mine came to visit with a mate. (I hope they come back soon, I had a lively time with them. Love Debby to bits and think Carolien is dead-cool too) When Little Miss saw them, she turned all shy! I was well surprised! But, this is another phase that they apparently are all meant to go through. Then again, it also may have been a "once off"
My parents are due a visit one of these months (they won't have seen her for a year at that stage, they won't know what hit them when they see her. :-) ) I am very curious to see how she reacts to them.

Love always.

PS: Oh, please don't mind the spelling/grammar mistakes in yesterday's and today's posts. Am SO tired I can hardly see straight.

Our holidays (Sans pictures... :-( )

2005-08-22T12:16:00.000+01:00

My Holiers. ( Holiday's for all ye Non-Oirish)

Initially Darren was meant to have holidays for a week during my two week holiday. He has started a new job however and so it was just Little Miss and I.
I had been looking forward to some quality time as a family and was disappointed when those plans fell through. But, no use dwelling on what can not be. Darren would SO have been with us if he could!

I decided that these 2.5 weeks would be the ideal opportunity to introduce a few new things in Little Miss' life. The list consisted of the following:

Potty Training
Cutting out the soother
No more non-spill cup

Ambitious or what? I figured that this way at least it was just ME that had to deal with the consequences/side-effects.

The soother had been doing my head in for a while. The idea of having my daughter doing a Maggie Simpson at 2 or 3 years old was making my skin crawl!
I figured that "Cold Turkey" would be the best approach. So, from one day to the next, the soother was "gone"
Little Miss has The Cutest phrase. When she is looking for something, she will tilt her head to the side, raise her hands next to her head and ask:
(for instance) " Mammmiiieeee, where aaaaarrreee youououou?? : It's just toooo sweet!
When she started looking for her soother however, it nearly broke my heart! She was walking from the kitchen to the sitting room all the while calling
out:" Doooooodi (soother) where aaaaarrreee youououou??
At this stage, she could be distracted however. We went to the beach and had our lunch at the seaside. It was lovely. Right up to the walk home...... She was tired, she was cranky and she WANTED HER DODI! It was so hot, and she was SO LOUD and still I didn't give in.
When we got home, she tripped and fell. Normally this would not phase her at all, she is well used to falling over, but for some reason this one brought on the sobs!
The tear streaked face and the little arms around my neck. The shuddering breaths...... Those big blue eyes, shiny with tears, she tilts her head to the side and asks "Dodi?"
People, I am THIS close to crying just thinking about it........
To cut a long story short, we managed to keep the dodi at bay for a week (except at bed-time) but had to give in.
It had some fabulous benefits to be dodi-less. For instance, her speech has come on leaps and bounds! She articulates much better and has discovered that this talking thing is a great way of conveying your wishes! I am simply amazed at her progress. The flipside however was that I think she is cutting her incisors too (ze krijgt haar hoektandjes) and the combination of that and not having her dodi was just too much for her. She was a completely different child. She got these really bad cranky moods and would shout "I don't wannnnaaaaaa" at everything! Even things she would jump at normally!
So, the executive decision was made to phase the dodi out. She will only get it when she is really tired and at bedtime. So no more just walking around for hours with the thing in her mouth. I am sorry that Cold Turkey didn't work but am delighted to have my happy and cheery daughter back. (Even though the "I don't wannnnaaaaaa" seems to be sticking around a bit)

The second week was a lot easier, what with the dodi being available again and all.
However, we decided to put the potty training on the back burner for a bit.
When you become a parent, all privacy is out the window. Even the most shy person will start going to the toilet in under 15 seconds with the door wide open to keep an eye/ear on the Little Munchkin. Caíthlyn finds this extremely interesting! So much so that she took her dolly and sat her down on the lid of the toilet, flushed the toilet, pretended to wash the dolly's hands and then dry them on the towel! I couldn't believe my eyes! She also indicates when she has a dirty nappy (diaper) and so we though the time had arrived for Potty Training. Even went to the big toy store and got her a potty that's called " A Throne of their Own" ( I know.......) which makes a music when they sit down and there's a little fanfare when they "do the business".
However, after the whole dodi debacle, I decided I wanted to have my second week of holidays' stress free and fund. Also, I feel she might just be a little bit to young still. Maybe in a about two months. Meanwhile, the potty stays in the downstairs toilet where it can greet me with a royal tune (it's only right) every time I step passed it!

Right, will leave ye for now. Have lots more to tell but will ease you all back in to it!

Love always!

She's Baaaahhaacckk!!

2005-08-22T08:22:00.000+01:00

Yes, I know, unbelievable, she's back!

Let me explain myself. For the past 2.5 weeks I have been enjoying domestic Goddess bliss. I was off work and had a lovely holiday spending oodles of quality time with Little Miss.
The only "snag" was that our lap-top has taken ill again, as has the camera. Therefore, Nynke Home = No Blog Updates! :-(

My missions for today are as follows:

*Get up to date in work ( I know, I am sickeningly responsible! At the mo I am just waiting for a system to be updated, hence the quickie update)
* Write a proper blog entry on my holiday and the Adventures of Little Miss
* Trick the person in Germany who sold me our camera into giving me a lock of his hair so I can make a voodoo doll and curse his ass properly! (Only kidding......just.....)

So, hang in there boys and girls. I will be back wih a proper little something something soon!

Love,

Nynke

Lack of pictures

2005-07-25T14:55:00.000+01:00

I want to tell you about our trip to the zoo the Friday before last. And how when I went to check on little Miss two days ago, she was pulling every single babywipe out a pack and cleaning her "Baby's" face and bum and saying:"There! All done!"
I also want to show you pictures of all of this but for some obscure reason I am not able to burn them to disc anymore.
Therefore, I shall spend this evening ranting and raving at my laptop and then getting Darren to do it. Then I will pen a little masterpiece and show you all tomorrow.

Hasta Mañana!

Little Miss Manners

2005-07-18T12:07:00.000+01:00

Little Miss Manners,

I have always said that if I ever had children, I would make darn sure that they would be well mannered! It's nice to be nice and good manners don't cost a penny. And I believe that you are never to young to learn! Sure, saying "Thank You" to a 5 month old when you take something from their hands may seem like a silly thing to do. Of course, the little Angel is not going to reply with: "You're welcome mother, may I please have it back when you are finished with it?"
BUT, I am telling you: It Pays Off People! The combined efforts of Daddy, Nanny and myself have resulted in my 18.5 month old daughter and us having interactions as follows:

Us: "Caíthlyn, would you like a piece of banana Sweetheart?"
Caíthlyn: "Yes Cheese" (To the trained ear that's: "Yes Please"

Or:

Us: "Caíthlyn, would you like a Liga?"
Caíthlyn: "No Ta"

Also, when she takes something from your hand, she says :"Ta Ta" (Our Kiddie version of "Thank You")

In Dutch there is a saying that states that a good beginning if half the job done. I feel like we are definitely on the right track here.

In moving to Ireland I have not run in to that many cultural differences. However, when it comes to manners there are quite a few. In the Netherlands, it is customary to introduce yourself when you enter a room with strangers. I have spent many a birthday party going through a circle of people going: "My name is Nynke, nice to meet you". You then get their names and Bob's your uncle. Also, we congratulate the immediate relatives of the birthday Girl/Boy on the birthday of their Father/Mother/Son/Daughter.
I did these things on an Irish birthday ONCE..... and never again... The looks of :"That Nynke? A nice girl and all but a bit loopy!" were quite enough to make my cheeks turn rosey!
In Ireland you introduce people to each other. As the host, you take care of the introductions, or, if you are with someone who know the people there, they will.
Oh, the possibilities of social Faux Pas's!
So, the (rather ambitious) aim is to teach Little Miss the social rules of both countries.

Man! This whole parenting thing is tough! Just keeping the child safe and healthy is not enough.... One must discipline and give them the social skills to manage in society.

Now, the disciplining! Neither Darren nor I believe in Smacking. Educational or otherwise. I won't say that it has never happened. Once, Caíthlyn had positioned herself in a very dangerous situation and I got such a fright that I shouted "Caíthlyn NO!" And slapped her hand. But as a rule: Slapping = Not Done.

She is getting to an age now however, where some form of discipline has to be upheld. In general she is an exceptionally good girl but she does have her moments!
The Slaps (from her end) still make a periodic appearance and also, throwing things. Teddy's, toy-bricks, you name it and it has had a flying lesson in our living room. So too, my phone last night. I was trying to take it off her and in a rage she flung it to the ground. I was not impressed. Not. Impressed. At. All.
So, I take a firm grip of my daughter and sit her down on the ground. I tell her in a stern voice that was a very bold thing to do and that she is to stay where she
is... Queue the sobs. I mean Niagara Falls were reproduced right there on our living room floor! My heart broke but I HAD to stay firm for this to be of any effect.
When about 1.5 minutes had passed I picked her up off the floor but she was inconsolable. I think the combination of not getting what she wanted and being disciplined really shocked her. I tried to comfort her but Daddy had to eventually come to the rescue. (He was not trying to be the "Good Guy" and make me the "Bad Guy" it was just the only thing that would calm her down again)
I had a big knot in my stomach and even ended up with nightmares that night. (It was very hot in our room last night which didn't help!) Caíthlyn and I had kisses and cuddles again last night so she is not holding a grudge.
I know that this is all for her own good. That she needs rules and boundaries to become a happy, healthy and balanced person. And that there will be allot more, and heavier occurrences like this one. It's just that I wish I could skip the "Tough Love" and just be like the Huxtables or something and solve all with a moralistic, funny tale and a group hug......

Angel And GVR

2005-07-11T10:31:00.000+01:00

As mentioned in my previous post, we have two friends over to stay with us for a few days. Angel ( as she is know here, the folks at home know her as Lieke) and her boyfriend, known in Blogland as either GVR ( Big Friendly Giant in Dutch) or Imriyr. You can read about them on their blogs. Angel's blog can be viewed in atrocious English. This is not due to any incompetence regarding the English language on her part, she speaks it very well, it's just translated by a site that translates it literally. If nothing else, it makes for a good giggle!
When you read Angel's blog you will find out that sometimes it get's really busy in her head. She hears voices and she practices auto mutilation. There are some pretty fierce scars on her arms where she had a go at herself with a knife. He blog explains it much better than I ever could.
Naturally, I was a bit weary at first of how Angel's "condition" would affect their stay. I mean, I lived with the girl for over a year and love her to bits, but I haven't been face to face with her since her diagnoses in March 2004. But I have to say, I am really enjoying their visit.
I won't lie, and say that it was all smooth sailing for Angel but she has been SO brave and SO strong!

Before they came over, I asked her what I should look out for in regards to Caíthlyn. Don't get me wrong, Angel would never, ever harm my child, or any child for that matter. (The girl won't even squish a spider for Pete's Sake, even though I have "requested" she do so at the top of my lungs on numerous occasions! Arachnaphobic? Moi? She was my hero when we lived together!) It would have been extremely irresponsible of me however if I had not taken any precautions and had not asked any questions. It's not just her in there anymore after all. She and GVR had already discussed this however and she assured me that GVR knows exactly what to look out for.

They arrived in the evening, and Caíthlyn was already asleep. We got to chat and catch up.
The next morning Little Miss was just a tad confused about the unfamiliar presence in the house so early in the morning. Angel handled it beautifully and just let Little Miss come to HER. She didn't get in her face like some people would and by the time we "went walkies" they were great mates! We stopped for lunch in a hotel in Lovely Town Harbour. Little Miss was SO good! Sure, she had to be entertained but she let us have our lunch in peace.
Angel and GVR staid for another pint and I took Little Miss to the playground around the corner. It was wet however so after Angel and GVR caught up with us again, we headed off to the shops and then home. Little Miss was SO comfortable with them at this stage that she took both their hands and just toddled on in between them! So cute! (Picture to follow, I have to get it off Angel)

Caíthlyn is just a wee bit smitten with GVR! It's adorable to see! She keeps giving him these beaming smiles and bringing books over to him. On Friday night she was not going to sleep for us and she came back down with us. She parked herself right in between Angel and GVR on the sofa with this content look on her face! GVR read her a book and played the Jungle Book songs for her on his laptop and all was well with the world!

Angel and GVR took the bus to Galway on Saturday and will be returning to us today. They will fly back to the Netherlands tomorrow.

One of Caíthlyn's cousins. E. , had her 3rd birthday party yesterday. It was a BBQ party with a bouncy castle. It was SO WARM! This didn't stop Little Miss from having a fabulous time however! Here are some pics for your viewing pleasure!

When we came home, she was up in Darren's arms. I leaned in to give her a kiss and she wrapped her arm around my neck. Darren and I kissed her simultaneously and she thought that was so much fun that she kept pulling our heads towards her for more tag team kisses! The Little Honey!
She woke up early this morning, just as I was heading downstairs. I went in to her to bring her in to Darren. It was SO nice to be able to get a dose of the best hugsies in the world before heading off to work! That sleepy little face looking up at you when she's sitting on her knees in her sleeping bag. Her hair all over the place. Priceless! You should be able to bottle the stuff! ;-)

Have fantastic week everyone!

Linguistics

2005-07-06T16:16:00.000+01:00

You know how some kids have a favorite Dolly, Teddy or Blanket? Well, Caíthlyn never really had a favorite anything....... until now. Now, she has a Favorite Hat! It's a lovely straw hat in different shades of Lilac. When we bought it, one of the sides was a bit damaged but that's why (the) God(dess) created double sided tape. The hat is a wee bit lopsided now but I have decided that this gives it character! She loves this hat. SHE. LOVES. IT.
You don't want to know the trouble we usually have keeping any kind of headgear on her cranium. It's a miracle I haven't developed RSI from picking up the sun-hat and putting it back on her head! The straw hat however, is a completely different story! As soon as she spots it, it goes on. And she looks adorable in it!
So now I say: Bring On The Sunshine! My hat luvin' daughter and I are ready for it!

Last Sunday, two friends, Caíthlyn and I went to see another friend in County Kildare. T
his friend had a child and to our horror we found out that it had been two years since our last visit! Little Miss's car seat was transferred to "Walshie's" car (She does not travel in any car without it. If she is not strapped in to her car seat she ain't goin'! I don't care if it's a 3 Minute or 3 Hour trip...... You may say: "Well, Duh!" but you want to see the amount of people driving here with their kids jumping all over the backseat!) and off we went!
We left at 13.00 hrs, and I had the (rather optimistic) idea that she could sleep for an hour on the way there and be all fresh and fruity upon arrival. Little Miss had different plans however! My friends Skaldy and Walshie (names have been changed to protect the fabulous) were waaaaaaaay more interesting than napping!
Especially if there is a de-tour to a toyshop! I swear, she KNEW we were going in there to pick up something for our friend's son!
I couldn't resist and decided I was going to buy her a proper Baby Doll. She has a few small ones, but no normal sized one and I thought it was high time she got one. The ladies located the dolls section very quickly and starting pointing out different dolls. Caíthlyn's face lit up! She giggled with excitement! But, no matter how much I would have liked to bring all of the dolls home for her, a choice had to be made. And since it was going to be her doll, she got to make the decision.
Skaldy took one doll to the left, Walshie took the other to the right, and we put Little Miss in the middle. It was real obvious real quick that the blond dolly Walshie was holding was the absolute favorite! She clutched the box in her arms like she was never going to let go, and seeing that the box was about as big as she is, that was quite a feat!
At the till, Skaldy and Walshy informed us that they were giving Caíthlyn the doll, Olivia.

So a great big THANK YOU to these two ladies, you made my little girls' day!

The visit its' self was lovely. O's little Boy is such a cutie! The idea of another child on "his turf" was a bit strange for him at first but he adapted very quickly and shared his toys and even a little hug! O is from the Basque country and her hubby is Irish and the little man speaks both languages.
Which of course, shamefully reminded me of my own lack of efforts in teaching my child Dutch! O takes her son home for weeks at a time and she is very passionate about her language. Her parents (who are lovely!) do not speak a word of English and so her Little Man has really HAD to learn. I was well impressed!

Me, I'm not so much with the passionate about the Dutch. I mean, it's the language I grew up with and all but I pretty much function completely in English now.
When I speak Dutch to Caíthlyn I feel like I am "faking" it or something, it doesn't feel natural....
However, I myself spoke both German and English from when I was about three years old and have found it invaluable. Even the Frisian that my grandparents insisted I learn has been of benefit to me.... So, taking all of that in to consideration, I promise I shall make a proper effort at speaking Dutch to my daughter.
Some phrases are already common place in our house. When she stands on her chair on in her bath, both her father and I say "Op je Billen!" (On your Bum!) and when she's done something well we'll say: "Flinke Meid!" (Best Girl!) or "Goed zo!" (Good!!)
We will just have to expand the auld vocabulary! Some very good friends from The Netherlands are coming over to stay for a few days and so we should get a good start to the Dutch. It's easier when you hear it around you for a while.

Wish me luck! / Wens me succes!

She's Baaahaack!

2005-07-04T12:58:00.000+01:00

The break in Holland was very nice. I am SO proud of my friend for getting her diploma and she got fantastic marks too!
I flew over on a Wednesday and came back the next Saturday. I missed my honey('s) the entire time. It was truly like an arm had been removed...... Eventhough it was great to be a "free agent" if you will, the feeling of Caíthlyn's little face to mine was enough to give me a lump in my throat.
I focussed on her so much that I didn't get to Darren untill later!
I know I've said it before but he really is worth his weight in gold. It's cheesy (and also totally ripped off from Westlife) but I Love the way he Loves me... He's the best! I don't know what I did to deserve him!

Enough of the gushing....

Caíthlyn and I went for a walk at the sea-side on Friday. Little Miss has energy to burn so I let her walk next to the buggy for a bit so she can stretch her legs.
At one point, a big dog comes galopping around the corner and Caíthlyn exclaims "Wooouuwww!! Doooooog!! Woof Woof!!" "Yes Honey! Good Girl! That's a dog!"
A few metres behind that dog is a few girl taking two little terrier lap dogs for a mosey.
Caithlyn: "Meeeoouuww"
I nearly wet myself......

Okay, on serious time retraint here (lunch-break ends in 11 minutes) so here's the pics that Auntie S.'s neighbour took. I vow to make a proper effort at more regular updates!

Bedtime and Nanny

2005-06-22T11:31:00.000+01:00

Little Miss has been having a hard time in the evenings lately. Either she is wide awake come bed-time or she is SO tired that she falls asleep "early" (say 19.45 hrs) and then wakes up again in the middle of the night.
The night before last it was very warm and she was getting too hot in her bed. Darren took her blankie and her PJ bottoms off to cool her down. She would not go back down and ended up in bed with us. As soon as her warm little body hit the mattress she slipped in to my arms, closed her eyes and went to sleep. For some mysterious reason she leapt up in full activity a few hours later but went down again eventually as well.
She is SUCH a Honey! She really is. Her little legs touching mine and her hand in my hair. That adorable sleepy baby smell.....

When I came to Nanny's house yesterday, she told me Little Miss seemed to be running a bit of a fever. She did feel a bit warm to the touch, especially her cheeks. I think she might be in the process of getting the last few teeth through. So, last night she got a bit of Dozol and went down no probs, at the right time and everything! :-) Didn't mean she'd STAY there though..... Yup, at around 01.30 hrs Darren was next to her cot again and she ended in the exact same place as the night before!

When I got out of bed this morning at 05.45 hrs I looked behind me and Little Miss was snuggled up in her Daddy's arms. Her back against his chest and her hand under her cheek. They looked so sweet I could have cried right there......

I am such a lucky woman to have these wonderful people in my life.

Today I am flying to The Netherlands for 2 days and I am going to miss them SO much!
I don't really do much for myself. This is not to be all "Poor Me" but I don't really get to do much for myself. Most of my friends have moved back to their respective countries and I don't really have many friends here anymore.
Between work and Little Miss I don't get much time for me. So now I am going for a mini-break home! My dear, dear friend Monique is getting her Diploma for becoming a Doula and I am going to be there for it! :-) I am SO looking forward to it!

But for one woman I wouldn't be able to go and that woman is her Nanny. Nanny has 4 kids and three granddaughters who are her world. This lady has 31 years of taking care of kids under her belt and knows her stuff. But what I think makes her so great is that she genuinely loves "Her Girls" so much. You would not say that she is the age she is and will sit down on the floor to play with the girls easy as that. The traditional "Granny" picture (White hair, flowery dress, bun) certainly does not apply to her.
We would be lost without her. I hope she knows she IS really appreciated and loved.

THANKS A MILLION FOR EVERYTHING NANNY!! YOU ROCK!

Easier Comments

2005-06-14T15:30:00.000+01:00

I have changed the way of leaving comments on this blog! :-) No more passwords and tricky stuff!

Feel free to leave comments, I would love to read your thoughts/opinions!

Love,

Nynke

Developments

2005-06-14T10:56:00.000+01:00

A very friendly and improbable cheery nurse called me last week to make arrangements for Caíthlyn's developmental test.
"How old are we?" she asked me in a voice that convinced me that this lady has free access to the medicine cabinet and is not afraid to use it! I refrained from giving the obvious answer ( "I don't know how old YOU are.......") and we made arrangements for 14.00 hrs on Friday the 10th of June.

Darren managed to get the afternoon off and so we all arrived at the Lovely Town Health Centre together. The nurse, Sandra, was actually quite lovely and had a great way of dealing with Caíthlyn. Caíthlyn kept close to us for the first 3 minutes or so and then just moved freely about the room.
Being forced in to any kind of position does not sit well with Little Miss so when there was an attempt to place her on the scales there were tears galore! But that was the only hitch. You all will be glad to learn that Little Miss is perfect in regards to weight and height. Sandra was very happy about everything but one thing.
She said that Caíthlyn should be putting at least two words together now.
Now, Little Miss KNOWS a hell of a lotta words. Really. But since her gnashers are making a bit of a late appearance, the actual speaking of the words is a bit slower to develop. She is more a sound kinda gall. "Meow" rather than "Cat", that kind of thing.
We are not worried in the slightest and are sure that before the year is over she will be talking our ears off! Can't wait! :-)

Also, she advised us to definitely stop the bottles. And seeing as this was the plan anyway, today marks the very last day of Caíthlyn's bottle. I personally wanted to stop the bottle earlier but was still a bit reluctant to let go of that little warm body in my arms. Now, the time has come...... The end of an era. Another chapter closed.

It will be a lot better for her teeth though (next stop: soother) and I am all for the good dental care as regular readers will know.
I think that just having the toothbrush in her mouth will not do the job. You HAVE to have a good brush around. Little Miss is not a fan of this, she will try to grab the brush herself and have a go. I have tried all kinds of approaches: Singing Songs (to the tune of The Wheels on the Bus: "Caíthlyn's toothbrush goes up and down, up and down, up and down, Caíthlyn's toothbrush goes side to side, All through the tooowwwnn!!"),
Making her laugh and getting in there quick, Letting her hold it too and brushing her teeth "together"...... Sadly, none of these methods get's the job done properly. That just leaves the "Relentless Firm Grip tm".
I have to lay her across my lap, hold her flaying arms and legs and try to get it done as quick and thorough as possible. The cries she gives would make you think I was traumatizing the child for life. That some future shrink would be clucking disapprovingly whilst taking notes on my daughter's childhood toothbrush trauma's! The thing is though, that as soon as I sit her back up, she's all smiles again. Happy as Larry!
So whilst it really does break my heart to see the tears pop from her eyes, it would hurt her (and me) infinitely more to see her in the dentist chair with a mouth full of cavities. Toddlers and fillings are not something I want to see in our future.

Oh, the pictures came back. Auntie S. framed three of them for my birthday and they are lovely! Great big THANK YOU to Auntie S.!!!

I will do my very best to get them in softcopy so that I can give them the publication they deserve!

Have to love ye and leave ye!

Have a great day everyone!

First Time on the beach

2005-06-07T08:18:00.000+01:00

I will be flatout in work today, so I have to keep it short. Little Miss went for her first walk on the beach yesterday. Followed by a picnic at the playground. Please click HERE for a slideshow of this great day out!

Models Inc.

2005-06-01T11:32:00.000+01:00

Let me tell you about Little Miss and footwear. Little Miss firmly believes that footwear should never be without a foot. And her mission is to ensure that the soul (sole...geddit?) mates are always in close proximity of each other. When you are not donning shoes and/or socks you can expect a little hand to come out of nowhere and try to wiggle a shoe or sock on your foot.
Last night for example, Darren and I were doing the dishes when my foot was lifted and Little Miss attempted to "shoe" me. My boots had been lounging in the hallway and this would just not do! If she can't get it to go as she wants it, she will do with whatever WILL do. As soon as there is some semblance of correctness she will utter a few approving words and toddle off again. (Correctness being the shoe and the foot touching...... I could be standing on it for all she cares)
She's a Gas Gas Gas child. (Gas = Funny)

I read a quote on Woulda Coulda Shoulda's Blog. Am paraphrasing the hell out of it but it's SO true:

"The decision to have a child, is deciding to forever carry your heart outside of your body"

Thought I'd share that one with ye.

Auntie S. lives a few doors up from a professional photographer who has a studio in his (stunning) house. Last Sunday we were invited to commit the beautiful images of the three girls to film. The ladies are respectively 6 yrs, almost 3yrs and 17 months old.
M. was just brilliant, smiling on cue, keeping the poses the photographer put her in and frankly the child is a little Super Model in the bud.
The two other little ladies were a completely different story however! I have to give the photographer kudos for his patience. Bless him, trying to get not just one but TWO little ladies to sit and smile is more than anyone should have to deal with!
At one stage we had the nice idea of having Nanny in the picture with "her" three girls. And it would have made an absolute excellent picture! The little ones are SO Nanny-Mad however that the photo-op was lost in their quest for Nannies lap. After a very eventful afternoon, which included running laps around the house chasing after Little Miss and praying nothing expensive would be knocked over in the process, we did get one or two good pictures.
I shall proudly display them here when we get them.

And finally, it's my birthday today boys and girls. Yup, 27 summers young!
Walking in to the living room this morning I found two lovely cards. There is nothing quite like the words: "Happy Birthday Mamma" in writing on a pretty, shiny card! Made me all warm and fuzzy inside! And the best boyfriend in the world also left another heartwarmingly eloquent card too.

Thank you my darlings!

You are my love, my light and my life!

Life Lessons

2005-05-30T11:47:00.000+01:00

I know, the frequency of logs has lowered. Jut remember folks, it's Quality not Quantity! :-)

Anyhoe, as promised it the previous blog (written when dinosaurs still roamed the world....) I shall tell you about the Trip to the Petting Zoo (FUN!) and the Tumble Out The Back Door (NOT SO FUN....)

About a 15 Minute drive from our house there is a Mansion that has a lovely playground and traditional animal farm on it's grounds. We had taken Little Miss there before when she was only 9 Months old but, as with Easter, this was the first time she really grasped the concept.
The stroller came with but was soon used only as a carrier device for bags and camera's as Little Miss had found freedom and was not giving it up! No way Sir! She was literally running with it!
Amazed at HUGE pigs (Who knew Babe could mutate in to that kind of savage size??? City-Girl Me?) and in awe of equally impressive sized sheep (I swear, the "Baaaa" out of one of 'em made me jump a mile!). Also, insane amounts of cuteness in the form of baby goats (kids?) and chicks. She would sit down on her hunkers and have a good close look at the birds and ducks. It's a cliché but you really DO see the world in a new way when you see your child discover it.
The freedom of running around and being able to see whatever she wanted, twice or even THREE times if she felt like it, was agreeing with her! It was absolutely wonderful to see her having so much fun! It will definitely be repeated!

Having a closer look at the birdies

Howdy Chickens!

On her hunkers, EADIBLE!

Walkies with the best Da in the world!

We have a Back-Garden (as apposed to the parking spot we had in our previous accommodation!) whose grass was in dire need of a good trim! Darren decided to tackle it one weekend. The smell of freshly cut grass was abundant, the sun was shining, Little Miss was pushing her brand new baby-stroller and doll around the garden and all was well with the world.

Until IT happened. Little Miss's First Tumble and Facial Scrape! :-(
There are sliding doors and a bit of a step down to the garden. Caíthlyn is usually SO careful stepping down things. She will hold on to the door frame and then very carefully venture out one foot until she finds a secure hold and then proceed. But this time, she tumbled out the door, face first onto the unforgiving cement..... The Poor Little Mite was trembling with the shock, and truth be told so was I. She was swepped up in her Daddy's arms and sobbed.
I know, compared to all the things that happen in the world, a tumble and scrape is not a big deal but in the Little Universe that is our family unit it was quite the unpleasant experience! The scrape has healed however and the lesson has been learned.

Little Miss has developed a penchant for screaming and hitting. When she wants something, she cranks up the auld decibels and let's rip. Also, she has decided that slapping goes with screaming. Which is disturbing as we do neither to/with her. ( And never WOULD either!) It with shatter your eardrums! My way to (attempt to) handle it, is to ignore it. I feel that getting in to a screaming match with a 17 month old is in no way shape or form productive.
When she slaps, I will grab her hands and put them in her lap and that's it.
One particularly bad attack of the screams and slaps happened when I was trying to change her nappy. I had her on her changing mat and she was giving it socks! Kicking and slapping. She laid in to my elbow. I just looked at her and kept on going (I am convinced that this is a phase and will pass. She doesn't do it to kids and other people and should be over this soon). All of a sudden she must have realized she was taking things WAAAAAY to far because out of the blue, she pulled my arm to her and gave me a kiss on the elbow and "rubbed it better". Bless her.

EVERYTHING we do has some kind of educational twist to it. Singing songs, reading books, at this age: playing is learning. And she loves it. She points at various body parts when prompted to. (You have never heard the words "Toes" or "Shoes" spoken with such extreme cuteness!) and will tell you exactly what this or that animal says. We also incorporate the Alphabet in daily activities. Darren will say "A" and then Caíthlyn will say "A" but the combo of Animal Sounds and the Alphabet lead to the following exchange between father and daughter:

Daddy: "A"
Caíthlyn "A"
Daddy: "B"
Caíthlyn "Bzzzzzzzzzz" Yup, that's what the Bee says......

You gotta love the way that little brain works!

Octopi and the Gods

2005-05-17T08:41:00.000+01:00

My apologies for the lack of entries. I have no other excuses than that I was just too beat to drag myself in front of the laptop. Now, with Little Miss fast asleep upstairs (Note to the Gods: I am kidding of course, she is wide awake and causing mayhem in the place, no need to get tempted in to taking action!) and Darren off fishing, I will do my very best to commit a few more lines to, ehm, screen…..

For the bazzilionth time in her young life she has battled with a cold. A constant stream of the yucky stuff came from her nose and her poor eyes were so watery that they kept overflowing. I felt so bad for her. When I think of the millions of kids in the world that are battling far worse things than a common cold however, I just feel blessed that that’s all it is.
I think Kleenex must have had a great profit the last two weeks because you would not believe the amount of tissues we went through in this house! She was getting chased around by me wielding a handkerchief practically all day!
Then one day she was sitting on the sofa behind me when I was sitting on the floor and I hear the crisp “whoosh” of a tissue being ripped out of the box and then my head was pulled back by the pony-tail. She stuck a tissue in my face and proceeded to wipe my nose. Then she spoke approvingly and nodded her head before tucking the tissue away again. It was SO funny! She was dead serious.

(I KNEW the Gods were listening, I am just after putting Little Miss back down after a heartbreaking crying session. She had a big style case of gas and was in some serious pain. Bless her cotton socks, she didn’t know WHAT was happening to her! When I picked her up, she wanted down and when I put her down, she wailed even harder…..)

I have also started taking part in Bath Time again. In the winter time my hands start to crack and bleed (I know, there’s a gross mental picture for you) but as soon as the nicer weather comes around it’s time for Mamma to hit the bathroom again!
We bought her a bath-toy consisting of a Mamma Octopus and 8 Baby Octopi. They have bright funky colors, different faces and numbers on them.
Boy, was this a successful purchase! She will start off by sticking them on the side of the bath and point to them as if she’s counting them. She will wash them with her face-cloth and squirt water from them over the side of the bath if we are not careful!
When the time for bed approaches we ask her to start saying “Night Night” to her bath toys. So she knows: “Say Night Night = Bed Time”
Last week, after a particularly enervating day, she was absolutely knackered by the time bath-time came around. Yawns (she has THE cutest yawn, I have thought so ever since the day she was born!) and eye rubbage galore. We usually let her play to herself for a bit after all the essentials of bath time have been dealt with.
But on this particular evening she decided enough was enough and started kissing her octopi goodnight before even having been prompted do so. After every kiss, she neatly put them back on their base on the side of the bath. She couldn’t have made it clearer that she was ready for bed if she had used the actual words. I just melted at the spot! She is getting SO BIG! The poor little Mite almost fell asleep on the changing mat. As soon as I put her down in her cot she turned over, gave a sigh of contentment and was gone.
I always thought that those scenes in movies where the Mom stands in her child’s bedroom doorway and just stares lovingly at him/her were just sappy bits added for effect. Now I find myself having to force myself to leave the room quickly and quietly so I don’t do the very same thing!

I will tell you all about the trip to the petting zoo and the tumble she took out the back door at some later time.

Have a good one everybody!

"Now, where was that bit of dust?"

Bears and Princesses

2005-05-03T09:11:00.000+01:00

(Written on 29/04/05)
As I do not seem to have the time to update the Blog during the days, I will make an attempt to update it in the evenings.
Here goes:

Yesterday, Bear in the Big Blue House was on. Don’t know if any of you are familiar with this particular piece of children’s entertainment but it’s really funny. I have to admit to having watched it, BEFORE I became a Mamma! Something about a Big Bear dancing the Samba tickled the hell out of my funny bone!
Anyhoe, at the beginning of the program Bear will turn to the camera and say something like: “Do you smell Cinnamon buns?” and then he’ll sniff towards the camera and say:” It’s YOU!” some more sniffs right up to the camera and: “You smell GREAT!”
Caithlyn was watching the telly full of interest but when Bear moved right up the camera it was a little to close for comfort for Little Miss! As if she thought that he was going to step right through the screen into the sitting room! She backed away from the television a little bit more with every sniff, ending up in my arms! Bear staid inside the telly and little Miss carefully left the safety of the Mamma’s arms again. There’s nothing quite like having your child look to you to feel safe. To be able to offer that kind of comfort to your daughter…..

Her old shoes are still in the sitting room. This afternoon she had managed to get one of them on Barney’s feet and she was taking him for a walk around. She was holding him by the hand and looking down at him as if to say: There’s a good Boy, a few more steps now, there you go!”

Little Miss and I had a great day today. The sun was splitting the rocks and this day was not going to be wasted indoors. After a frantic search for my runners (still haven’t found them by the way, can’t wait to find out where she hid them on me this time) I decided on my boots and then had to leg it to the bus as we would not have made it on time if we had walked in to the village.
Quick stop in the post office, Little Miss of course charming the pants off of everyone with her smiles and “Hi!” to everyone. Then, off to the playground we went.
The route goes past the harbor and we had a wave and a “ooh” and “aaah” at the sea-gulls and the boats. Then we went on past the pubs and hotel to the playground. Unfortunately we had a little bit of rainfall and the place was soaked. A big huge puddle spoiled the fun on the swings though as she is so tall now that her footsies get wet when she swings. She was not impressed. After a bit of a struggle she was quite happy to be back in her buggy and waving to everyone we passed!

(Updated 03/05/05)

On May 2nd we had a trip to the petting zoo planned but that idea got rained out! We ended up in Auntie S.’s house having a Princess Dress Up Party. Little Miss loved it! She as twirling and smiling with the best of ‘em!

Be prepared for some heartstoppingly beautiful pics!

Amazed Princess

Princess Nieces

Lady in the Hat

What can I get up to next?

Crayons and Phones

2005-04-25T09:30:00.000+01:00

At Nanny's house there are crayons and coloring pencils galore. It's a virtual feast of color and Little Miss loves it! And Nanny also has kiddy chairs, which rival the crayons as sources of joy. Therefore, Darren and I took it upon ourselves to obtain a kiddy chair, crayons and a coloring book for herself ( Caíthlyn, obviously, Nanny already has some!)
So off we went, to the Big Toy store! We emerged with a Little Red Plastic Chair, a packet of Crayons for 1+ yrs and a coloring book. (No. I am not deluded enough to think that Little Miss will actually color in the pictures but it beats the hell out of paper being scattered all over the place!)
We have a coffee table next to the sofa and we set up Little Miss at that. Of course, the Mamma had to whip out the video camera and record this for posterity!

Some would consider me snap-happy and I suppose I do point and shoot at everything that could even remotely be considered an "EVENT" but what you wanna ask yourself is "Does Nynke care?" The answer is a resounding "NO!!" If I wanna record my little Honey doing her thing, I will. When I look back at tapes from the first months I am just SO happy that that video camera was almost fused to my hand. We will now always be able to see Little Miss as a new born. Even her grandchildren! (Woooww, There's a thought!)

A Great Big THANK YOU to my parents for giving us this video camera.. It really was a priceless gift!

Caíthlyn loves talking on the phone. Almost anything can be changed in to a phone in her book. Be it the Baby-Monitor, the remote control, a Lamp Attachment, it all works! She will walk around with the implement of choice kept up to her ear and just yap away. Entire conversations are conducted this way. She will laugh, give out, pause for response.... she really IS having a conversation! Nothing beats an actual telephone though! Saturday Morning she came in to the bed with us and after playing "Tent" (I can still hear the squeals of delight!) she got her hands on my phone.
I own a Motorola V525, it's one of those flip open yokes, and I still haven't sussed out how to lock the keypad. She opened my phone and started pushing buttons and yapping away " ya ya ya!!" When all of a sudden I hear a man's voice! Oh Cr*p! Little Miss had actually called Uncle A. and Aunt G. in Cork! Uncle A. was a little bit confused (understandably so, you don't expect to hear an almost 16 month old gabbing away at ya when you answer the phone now do you?) but was a good sport about it!

She'll be playing with Daddy's phone going forward!

Today is Daddy's and Auntie G.'s (Not the one in Cork!) Birthday! Thirty-One and Seventeen respectively.

Happy Birthday!!!!!

Wonderfull things about Little Miss

2005-04-19T12:42:00.000+01:00

Little Miss got new shoes at Easter. Her little footsies had grown a whole size in 6 weeks!
Anyhoe, she got really pretty 'uns with Velcro. Dark Blue with a little flower on them. One excellent added feature is that when she walks, these love-heart shaped lights start flickering in the heels.

Last week she was really out of sorts (The Chest-infection from Hell!) and she would not go to sleep. Not a hope of her going for a nice snooze. So, in the end, I asked Darren to dim the lights in the sitting room and I took Little Miss down to see if I couldn't get her to fall asleep in my arms on the sofa for just this once.
That would be a big fat NO! She wriggled off my lap and started wandering about the darkened sitting room.
Seeing as this is not a regular occurrence by any means, we just let her do her thing. At one stage Darren exclaims:"Well would you look at that!"
There she was: sitting at the kitchen door with her shoes in her hands, banging the heels on the floor to make the red lights start to flicker! She obviously thought it looked so pretty in the dark!

She is getting SO big. I know it's a major cliché, but these 15.5 months have FLOWN by. I couldn't imagine life without her anymore.

I love everything about her. From the way she will take forever to wake up in the morning but will reward you with a dazzling smile when she cops you are standing next to her cot to the way she will grab your hand and guide it to whatever task she requires to be completed.
The way she will sip the medicine from her spoon ever so delicately and goes "Aahhh" after.
The way she will try and wash your face with the wash-cloth when she's in the bath and includes Ducky for good measure.
The way she will grab "Zippy" and give her a big huge squeeze.
The way she will hold up her arms at you and wait to be picked up.
The way she will wrap her little arms around your neck and push her cheek to yours and play with your hair.
The way she will brush your hair and then lean in to you and start talking to you as if to check if it's to your liking.
The way she will lean in to you when she's tired and start twirling her hair.
The way she smells in the morning
The way she smells ALL the time!
The way her eyes light up and she smiles when she sees you walk in the door.
The way she talks to herself when she is lying awake in her cot in the morning.
The way she belly laughs when you make a "YUCK!" face when you pretend to smell her socks
The way she giggles when we make a tent our duvet and the three of us "hide" under it.
The way she will rip up the duvet when I bring her in to us and her Daddy is hiding under the covers.
The way she says "Bye!"and then walks out the door only to re-appear and do the same thing over and over and over again!

I could go on forever and ever.

Little Miss Rules!

Dental Hygiene

2005-04-18T11:21:00.000+01:00

Little Miss is growing an impressive set of snacks (teeth). Some molars are protruding and the two teeth at the top front have now made an appearance as well..
Do you know what this little feat of oral development facilitates?? Do you? Huh? Huh? No? Let me enlighten you! TEETH-GRINDING! Yup, I kid you not. For some obscure reason she loves the sound of it. And of course: We don't!
Not only is the sound such to rival nails on a blackboard, it's also extremely bad for her pearly whites! Baby teeth have a lot less enamel on them than their adult counterparts. Therefore Grinding = Not Good!

Watching a program on Living TV, I was treated to a picture of a toddler's rotten baby teeth. I was shocked and horrified. The poor child!
The lady proceeded to elaborate on dental hygiene for babies and BOY, I PAID ATTENTION! A bottle of milk last thing before bed? BAD! BAD! BAD!
I knew this already but wasn't aware of the extent of the damage that could be done in such a short period of time by milk pooling in their little cheeks and being left there to do its worst during the night!
So, that was cut out of the routine that very night. Miss Thing now get's a bottle before her bath. Daddy brushes her teeth during bath-time and then she gets a few supsies of warm water before bed just for transition. Then in the morning after breakfast, I go brush my teeth demonstratively and then I do hers. Being the little copy-cat she is gave the Dad this great idea for implementing the tooth brushing. Whatever we do, she does! And so, what I feared was going to be a big ordeal, is actually going smoothly! :-) No flies on the Da!

On the Health Front: Not Good. Little Miss has a chest infection and a severe case of the sniffles. Combine this with teething and a fever and you can imagine how she is feeling! I had to go to the Doc's myself and decided to take Little Miss along to get checked out.
Our doctor's surgery consists of a husband and wife team. And the wife is a Muppet. I can't put it any nicer. She is forgetful, rude and totally useless with Children. I had no choice but to go see her for this and I can only thank (the) God(dess) that it will be another three years before I have to go back for that. Little Miss is never EVER going back to see that wench! It amazes me that this woman has children of her own! Caíthlyn got really upset when she saw the examination table. Do you think this woman showed any patience whatsoever? Try and distract the child? No, all we got were dirty looks and exaggerated sighs.....
When I asked if she was done with her and could I bring her out to her Nanny I got a "Yes Please!" Had to really hold myself back from lashing out at the B*tch.
Anyhoe, Little Miss got anti-biotics and is on the road to recovery.

Now if we could only arrange a personality transplant for the Doctor.....

Water and Remote Controls

2005-04-05T12:12:00.000+01:00

Not a day goes by where Darren and I are not amazed at the wonderfulness that is our daughter. There are so many (little) things she does in a day that invoke either full blown belly laughs or exclamations of "Aaaaahhh, look!" that it's almost hard to keep track of them all.

We are trying to faze out the bottle. She get's one first thing in the morning and one last thing at night. (Once this teething nightmare is over and she is back to "normal" we will cut these last two bottles out too. I am thinking 1, maybe 1.5 more months tops)
So, during the day she get's her water/milk in a non-spill cup. She LOVES her water, nice and cold and fresh. No fizzy or neon-colored drinks filled with E-numbers for our Little Miss! She will toddle around the house happy as a pig in muck with her beaker in her hand. She will have 1.5-2 beakers a day.
Last week she was sitting in her highchair, head tilted back to get the good flow of water from the cup going and being a generally happy bunny. Darren was the first one to cop it..... Little Miss was taking big gulps of water and then letting it trickle down her chin. Like a little mini waterfall. She was doing it so subtle that her bib and t-shirt were drenched by the time we copped it!
Once she realized that we had seen her and thought it was dead-funny she squinted her eyes in this laughing face. She also moves her lips in to this shape as if she is biting the inside of her cheeks whilst trying to make a "fishy" face. So FUNNY!! We have to pay double-attention now because before we know it she will be soaked!

Remote Controls! Those wonderful Magical things! If Caíthlyn walks in to the sitting room and the telly is off, she will grab the remote and start pushing buttons until the telly switches on! Also, when the channel changes, she will look around to see where the remote is. She knows that that things has to be near for anything to happen. Last week, she had her hands on it and turned the telly off by accident. Whoops! Horrified she looked and the telly whilst walking back to me. Then she whipped her head back to me and gave me back the remote with both hands. Looking at me intently as if to say:"Fix it Mamma!" Bless her cotton socks!

That child does not need to learn to speak, she communicates with her eyes. There is no mistaking her intent when she just focuses those blue peepers on your face. Be it her soother (which she only gets when she goes to sleep or when she is really out of sorts. I HATE the idea of her walking around with that thing in her mouth all day and do not allow it) or more water or something else. I am really impressed with her non-verbal communication skills.
My favorite is the "I love you" hug. Can't top that with anything. Because she is so Daddy-Mad, he get's the lions-share of the hugsies. But sometimes, she will just wiggle off his lap and in to my arms for a great big "I love you" hug. It's the best!

Mamma loves you too Honey!!

Easter and Lionesses

2005-04-04T11:42:00.000+01:00

Greetings and Salutations

Finally, I can add new pics so here we go!

So, Easter!
Technically this was Little Miss' 2nd Easter but as this was the first one she could actively partake in, I count this one as the first proper one!

Caíthlyn LOVES interacting with other kids. And as: Easter Egg Hunt = Lots of Kids, she had a fantastic time. When we arrived at Nanny's house, everyone was still in Church. It didn't take long however before the house was a cacophony of people talking and kids singing. (You wanna hear the nieces version of that song by the Killers, "Somebody told me" they cracked me UP! ) Caíthlyn kept squealing with delight. Running after the other kids, being chased by them, hiding with them under the table. The fun just went on and on!
All the Easter Goodies were hidden in the back garden and the kids were set up single file and marched out the back door. After receiving their instructions they were let loose. Darren had the video camera and I had the digital. This was one well documented Easter egg hunt! Darren's sisters' sister-in-law (still with me?) took Caíthlyn by the hand and Little Miss had SO much fun! She understood the concept of the hunt and was really going for it!

Here's a few pics of the event:

First Find, look at that face!

Hands Full, now what do I do?

Look what I found! (her face is red from Strawberries!)

And this close up of the first pic, just 'cause she's so gorgeous!

When I saw the video footage later, I saw one of the kids snatch an egg right from under Caíthlyn's nose. She was reaching down to it and he grabbed it. Thankfully she just continued the hunt. That was the only low point for me. That kind of thing really gets under my skin and I should just learn to let it go but........ hhmmppfff!!
This protection thing is SO fierce! I had heard about the "Lioness" feeling and people had told me to expect it but I was not ready for it to be THIS strong.
For instance: I had to take Little Miss to the Doc's and in the waiting room she was holding court. Toddling around the room. Smiling at everyone and gabbing away at them. People that came in got a big blinding smile and a "Hi!" She even went so far as to take some of their hands and "guide" them through the room. Everyone was really nice to her and were obviously charmed by her.
Then SHE came in...... Pigtails, cute colorful clothes.... about 5 years old.
She came in and sat down on a little car Caíthlyn had been pushing around. "Not to Worry" you can hear Caíthlyn think, "we can BOTH play!" (I know, a 15 month old is not SUPPOSED to know the meaning of "together". My daughter does a lot of things she is not supposed to.....) and bends down in front of the girl to make eye-contact and gab to her and nod her head as if to say:" I am going to push you on the car 'Ke?" and proceeds to go around to the back and push. I know I am biased but the collective "Aaaahhh" from the other people backs me up here:
She was Flipping A-DORA-BLE!
But the girl was blanking her. Ignoring my beautiful, lovely and friendly daughter to the point where Caíthlyn, after a few more attempts at making friends, toddles on to the corner of the room, defeated. And there she stood, chin on her chest, her little lip pouting..... She was SO visibly confused and upset.
Had this big lump in my throat and really had to stop myself from grabbing this 5 year old and asking her what the flip her issue was whilst shaking her vigorously. I know I can't force anything but Come On! She's 15 months old! Give her a break! Then again, Chloe (Little *bleeps* name) is only a little girl herself and little girls can be just mean.

That's life and even fiercely protecive lionesses-eat-your-hearts-out mamma's have to deal with that.

No Posts this week

2005-03-29T12:24:00.000+01:00

The brown stuff is hitting the fan in work this week so no time! :-(
Also, I have reached my upload limit for pictures this month and so can't add any illustrations!
I will tell you all about the Easter celebrations etc. when I can add pictures again. This will be next week.

Nocturne

2005-03-23T09:17:00.000Z

Last night.....00.03 hrs. I was resting comfortably in Morpheus' arms when himself darts out of bed. As always, it takes a few seconds for the cobwebs to clear from my cranium. Little Miss is wide awake and sobbing intensely. Fair Play to Darren; he tried to sooth her back to sleep in her own bedroom for an extremely long time. In the end though, she came in with us. Normally this works just fine. She will mooch for a little bit and then doze off.

NOT LAST NIGHT HOWEVER!!

I have no idea what came over the child but she must not have received the memo that says that the hours between 21.00 and 8.00 are for slumber!
She was full of energy. Her Daddy and I tried to get some more shut-eye (he, my alarm goes off at 05.45 hours, mercilessly) but she was having none of it!
She sat up straight in between us, grabbed my hand, grabbed Darren's and then tried to make us clap hands. She does this in the mornings sometimes and could not grasp the concept of appropriate times for such undertakings.
She also has a sadistic streak...
I was facing away from her, when I felt someone pulling at my hair. Sometimes she plays with my hair to sooth herself. My hopes soared: Sleep Must Be Immanent!
No such luck, she proceeded to pull my hair out, one strand at a time...... her little midnight project.
At this stage it's around 02.00 hrs and I decide enough is enough and put her back in her own cot. I am ready for a few tears but think (read: Pray) that she will settle down once there are no more distractions around. And, for the briefest of times, it's looking good. Then..... tears... lots of 'em. I attempted tough love (not going in to her straight away) but neither Darren nor I are very good at that. When Darren went in to her she started wailing! I could have joined in with her right there and then. When she came back to our bed, she burrowed in to my chest and cried some more........ Poor Little Honey.
last time I checked the clock it was about 04.00 hrs ( I think). Somewhere along the night we all must have fallen asleep 'cause I was woken up by my alarm wayyyy to early again. She was sleeping like a eeerrmm ..... well.... A Baby really, next to me. Face like a little Angel.

I feel an early night coming on tonight! :-)

Have a great one People!

Sunshine

2005-03-22T09:29:00.000Z

Little Miss has had a rough few days. She was out of sorts, not a happy bunny. It breaks your heart to see her like this because you know she is such a happy child normally.
She will rub her nose as if it's annoyingly itchy, slouch her shoulders and walk around with a big frown and pout. Last week she walked around the living room then stopped in her tracks, changed direction, took a few more steps and changed direction again and then just started to cry.... Like she didn't know what to be doing with herself and it was just getting to her.
I know the feeling so well, but at least I can B*tch and Moan about it, vocalize my feelings. She can't and that must be adding to her frustration! She will not be comforted when she is feeling that way and that makes you feel so helpless. That's what the Mammy does! She makes the nasty feelings go away...... But as I don't believe in forcing points like that, I just let her be and give her lots and lots of luvin' when she eventually does come up for some cuddles.

So when I arrived at Nanny's house yesterda, I half expected to find my daughter with a little thundercloud over her head. But I found a little ray of sunshine! When I went down on my hunkers and spread my arms, she ran in to me and gave me a monster squeeze! You can't beat it with a stick people! The "Mamma, you're home!" smile is priceless!
After a lovely dinner (Thank you Nanny!) Caíthlyn came to get me. She held her hand up to me for me to take it and proceeded to take me on a "tour" of the kitchen/sitting room. "Here's the dishwasher" (pointing at Nanny putting dishes away in the machine) and here is the kiddies table with the book I am reading. (Pointing at the book of Teddy Bear Nursery Rhymes) I swear, it was like she was talking to me.

She also has a new "Party-Trick". When you tell her:" Show me your tongue Caíthlyn" She will stick out her tongue fast as a flash! (The things she picks up at Nanny's house! ;-) ) I know it doesn't sound funny but when you see it, believe me, it is!

That concludes today's musings.... Show me your tongue everybody!

The Dad's Morning

2005-03-21T12:16:00.000Z

The below was sent to me by Darren this morning, have a read of the below account of the start of their day:

You wont believe it, but I’m only in about 10 minutes. We slept it out this morning. My phone went dead during the night and she didn’t wake up till 10am on the button!!! Hahaha!! I heard her starting to mooch so I picked up my phone to see what time it was. Clue number one, battery dead. I started to get a little suspicious that I might be running late, but was still quietly confident that she normally wakes up between 7:30 and 8am so wasn’t going to be too bad. I take a trot down stairs to iron my jeans and jumper and look at the clock………oh my God its 10 O’Clock!!!! Well you wanna see me leg it around the house. My jeans were creased and still wet, feck it, on ya go!! Up to herself whos in like great form at this stage!!! Full of barks and tweeting!! Got some clothes on her and away down stairs with us!! Now to call work. Do you think I could remember the number for here…nah, not a hope. After a couple of wrong numbers, I called dir. enq. And got through. They were sound about the whole thing and found it actually funny!! So there ya go, that’s our lot for the morning!! Talk to you later during the day!!

Ain't Monday's a B*tch?

Big Sap Alert!!

2005-03-21T09:42:00.000Z

Big Sap Alert!!

During the (seemingly) endless months of pregnancy I spent a great deal of my time fantasizing.... Now stop it right there, you dirty dirties!
Fantasizing about my BABY thank you very much!! How was he/she going to look, what kind of personality was he/she going to have. And about family things we would do together.
I imagined the three of us in our bed on a lazy morning in the weekend. Having great cuddles and lots of fun together. And this is exactly what we do. We will retrieve Little Miss from her cot and snuggle her in with us. Sometimes she snoozes a bit more and sometimes we are declared "Human Climbing Frames" and "Instruments Of Loads Of Other Kinds Of Fun". Making a tent under the duvet and popping our heads under it elicits great giggles. Also "hiding" under the duvet and exclaiming "Peeeeep!!" when she "finds" you is rewarded with shoulder-shaking belly laughs. Obviously we are great parents who are dead-funny!

Another fantasy came true this weekend. I know it's sappy and people will probably go:" Oh, puhrlease!" but I still have to share. This weekend we walked back to the car from the supermarket with our little girl walking in between us. We each held one of her hands and off we went. I went all mushy inside. Holding my little girl's hand as she is stepping around in the big outside world......

We also took Little Miss for a walk and a go on the swings.
We live on the coast and the playground is right at the sea, it's a lovely place for a stroll.

Caíthlyn was strapped in all nice and snuggly, hat, scarf and gloves in place and there we went.
She is amazed by animals: Birds, Cats, Dogs, they all get greeted with high levels of enthusiasm! The girl has hawk-eyes as well. She will point and say:"Kog" (=Dog) before I even realize there is one of them trotting around!
I ADORE seeing her get such a kick out of these things. Don't know if it's a saying in English as well but we have one that goes:" A child's hand is easily filled" and that is SO true. Making animal sounds and looking at the various specimens darting around gives her a great kick. A go on the swings topped it all off for her. She is fearless! She will hold on to the chains and her eyes light up with the joy of it all.
All good things must come to an end though and so we had to walk back to the car. Negotiating the grass was a bit tough, so we opted for the gravel. I held her left hand and as her Daddy came up on her right, she put her hand up for him to hold without even looking up....... Just trusting that Dad would be there.

You can't buy the kind of happiness that gives...... (All together now:" YOU BIG SOFTIEEEEE!!"

Daddy

2005-03-16T09:19:00.000Z

Hello There,

The lack of posts in the last few days was due to the flu. The flu sucks eggs and is NO FUN! I am back in the saddle now though, so here goes:

First, my lovely boyfriend has written a poem about our daughter and his love for her:

There's a place in my heart where angels could dwell,
But that placed is filled by one.
To look but a moment in those eyes you see,
The beauty and good, those angels have done.

Perfection personified in one small tiny being
Yet, reflected back in waves constantly.
To hold her is to know a prize immeasurable,
Oh my darling, my darling baby.

I know I have talked (gushed) about him before but I can't help it. I have to just indulge myself a little bit more.
Starting a family with someone is always going to be a gamble. Parenthood is such an overwhelming thing that you never really know what kind of impact it is going to have. No matter how well you know the person.
In my case, I couldn't have asked for a better father for my child. From the first moment I saw him hold his daughter I knew I had been Bang on the Money sticking with this wonderful man. The tenderness with which he held his daughter touched me deeply. ( I know it's hormone central just after the birth, you Cynics out there, but believe me, Icebergs would have melted!)

They have their own evening rituals together. They will throw two cushions on the floor and lie down on their bellies. They will have their cheeks on the pillows and their noses almost touching. They can be doing almost anything in that Daddy and Caíthlyn time together.
Darren will put Caíthlyns hand in to a fist and then uncurl the fingers one by one, counting with each finger. And she will make sounds in the same tones as him. She's counting with him! They can be doing shapes, reading books, she can be using him as a climbing frame...... The possibilities are endless! They LOVE that time together. Then they have bath time.
(In the winter my hands crack like mad when I immerse them in water. So, until the summer sets in, Bath-Time is Daddy-Time. I will be edging my way back in that bathroom come this summer though!)
Little Miss adores the water and the squeals of delight are testimony to allot of fun going on in there! However, as I am not there. I will attempt to twist boyfriends arm to write a bit on the subject.

I had been at home sick yesterday and had attempted some folding of the washing. I have left the last bits in a hamper under the table to be disposed of later. But Little Miss toddled on to it and started systematically removing items from the hamper. He, if she get's her giggles from that particular activity then who am I to stop her? Anyhoe, she found the lot of odd socks (one of life's mysteries: the whereabouts of all the left socks in the world) and proceeding to try and put them on my feet! She looked at the socks and looked at my feet on the poof and decided that draping the socks over them would be far easier. After she had draped the sock on my foot just so, she patted it and looked at me with a look of:" There, all done, there's a good Mamma" at 14.5 months old she could be a great Mamma herself already!

Pictures

2005-03-09T08:56:00.002Z

It was tough, it was a struggle but I prevailed over the German-Manual-From-Hell and managed to get some pictures from the camera to the laptop.
So today, no musings about the total fabulousness of my daughter for the moment (although I cant make any promises to not get inspired again later in the day).
Instead, here's some pics of Little Miss!

Check out them Blue Peepers!

The (In)Famous Barney Book

On the "Phone" (Check out the left hand!)

Mad as a brush!

Whhaaahhaaa!!! She is SO funny!

She LOVES the swings! (Can you tell?)

Quickie

2005-03-08T08:12:00.001Z

No long Blog today. Have a few things to wrap my head around.
(The) God(dess) works in mysterious ways is all I can say. I got upset about something last night involving Little Miss, there were tears, it wasn't pretty......
When I switched on Dr. Phil this morning before heading off for work however, the topic showed me how things COULD have been and that we are really lucky and I should just learn to deal. Am now diligently trying to untie the knots in my stomach and to come up with a mantra that will make me feel better.
Curious? Tough! 'Cause that's all the sharing I will be doing on this today.

Love and light

Honey See, Honey Do

2005-03-07T10:44:00.000Z

You don't realize (well, I don't anyway) how observant a child is until you see them copying something you do. Last week, I was sweeping the floor. (We have parket floors, easy to clean but you have to do it ALL THE TIME!) when I turned around and saw Little Miss take the small brush and pan and sweep merrily away behind me. She was even looking around to see if she had missed anything!
The pan and brush are used in day to day crumbs-and-other-questionable-dirt-and-grime-removal so they aren't the cleanest. Knowing Little Miss's love of having things end up in her mouth I felt it would be wise to put them away. WRRRRONG!! The Hysterics! No way in HELL was she giving up her new toys. So, taking the path of least resistance (I know, Puriteins out there, I KNOW! But I am strict in LOTS of other things so I am allowed this one teany tiny little slip of parental consistency!) I decided I would let her play with it and just keep an extra close eye. She obviously LOVED it. Seeing as this was Thursday and the new camera did not get delivered until Friday, here's a pic taken with my phone:

Yesterday it was Mothers' Day over here and I got the loveliest card from my sweety! I will take a picture of it and post it here so you can "ooh" and "aah" to you heart's content! ;-) The manual for the new super duper camera, that is also for Mother's day (and every other special event for the next few months) was delivered in GERMAN however. This means I can't actually do any of the Technical Stuff (transfer to laptop) with it yet so the pics will have to wait for a bit.

Anyhoe, yesterday I took her upstairs to get her dressed. She has a suitcase of clothes that are too big for her and every so often I check if she can fit them yet. So, on the floor we went for a good root 'round. She sat down next to me on her hunkers and starting taking things out of the suitcase one by one and depositing them next to her cot. Making sure they were where she wanted them to be and then returning for the next item. Peering down her nose in to the case, extending her left hand ever so daintily whilst picking things up with her right. Could have cuddled her to pieces!
When I put the suitcase away, she decided to move the pile of washing around from in front of the wardrobe to next to her cot and back again. Then she stood there, looking at the fruits of her labour and having the most content expression on her face!

We have her books in the TV stand to facilitate easy access for the Munchkin but she decided some of her books belonged in the actual book case. So, off she went, putting a few books of her's next to Mamma's books. Bless!

As I may have written before, she is Daddy mad. She LURVES her Daddy and when Daddy leaves the room, it's NOT GOOD. When he left the sitting room yesterday to tackle our kitchen, Little Miss decided that that just wasn't good enough and trotted on after him. But, Evil Being that he is, he had the nerve to close the Kitchen Door! Only one thing for that so........ Opening the door yourself. Yes, ladies and Gentlemen, Caíthlyn has mastered the fine art of door-opening. I see stairgates and lots of locked doors in our immediate future.....

2005-03-01T11:58:00.000Z

Our Honey

2005-03-01T10:40:00.000Z

Little Model:

Kamikaze Baby, she did this all by herself! :

Happy Baby:

On the swings in winter:

Early Birds

2005-03-01T10:11:00.000Z

March 2005, in Fair Lovely Town where we lay our scene. It is 04.40 hrs, the room is dark, the bed is warm: The baby is awake....... Darren is getting up to her and it takes me a few minutes to cop on to the situation. The poor thing seems to be in some kind of pain again. After trying to get her back to sleep in her own cot, and even an ambitious return to our boudoir sans bébé, she ends up in with us anyway.
My alarm is set for 05.45 hrs and I had the (slightly naïve, granted) hope of an hours more kip. She was still out of sorts though. When she is tired, but for some reason can't sleep, she will twist her hair with both hands and make a groaning sound. So too this morning. YOU try sleeping through that....... So when the alarm went off and I staggered in to the bathroom (en-suite) this woke her up completely and Darren (who normally get's another hour's sleep) was left holding the baby, Literally. After I had my shower, Darren decided to get his now too, as long as I was there anyway.
Now, don't get me wrong, I am fully aware that a good night's sleep is what Baby's, Mamma's and Daddy's need. But for this one morning it was SO lovely to have hugsies and cuddles with my Honey before heading off in the cold! I was secretly enjoying it SO much! She was wide awake now and (amazingly) in great form!

Bring on the Day! I am ready for it! :-)

Sniffles

2005-02-28T12:15:00.000Z

The poor Little Mite is not feeling the "Mae West" ( not the best, for all you non-rhyming, normal people out there! :-) ) I think it's an evil cocktail of teeth (will those blasted things come through already!) and a dose of the sniffles.
We are blessed with a very affectionate daughter, she's a lean-mean-hugging-and-kissing-machine and we LOVE it. But yesterday, she was even more hugg-y and clingy than ususal.

At one stage, she had had her breakfast and I was rinsing out her bowl, when I heard the most heartbreaking little whimper from the highchair. When I came to check on her, she just gave me the saddest big eyed look and there were tears rolling over her cheeks. She had the sniffles so bad that her eyes were just watering with it.
I lifted her from her chair and she just draped herself over my shoulder, one arm hanging down, the other one clenched around my neck..... Could have cried......
Later I had given her some Dozol for much needed relief and she fell asleep on my lap for three hours..... Sleep is the best thing for them when they are like this and I am always happy to add "Sleeping Aid" to the list of Multi-Tasking-Mamma-Duties.

........ Even when I was bursting to use the little Mamma's room after 2 hours.....

Sleep

2005-02-23T11:30:00.000Z

Arriving at Nanny's House yesterday, I saw that the children's chair had been moved to the hallway. It made me smile because I know exactly why they were there! You see, I have a Kamikaze Baby!
Two of these chairs are made of wood and one of plastic. Little Miss is fearless and has sussed out that if you climb on top of things, you are closer to objects that are otherwise out of your reach! Also, if other people can sit on chairs, why shouldn't she? All this ofcourse makes PERFECT baby-sense! It puts the heart cross-ways in the rest of us though!
She clambers on them so fast that one blink can make the difference between Safe-Baby and Going-For-A-Tumble-Baby!
Nanny used the head and banished the chairs to the hallway. Now, she has moved the highchair to it's lowest position and Little Miss can get in and out of that safely and easily

God Bless Dozol!
The poor little Honey had been having a hard time sleeping the last few nights. Our guess is that it's her poor little teeth. (She only has two so far) So, last night, just before her evening bottle, we whipped out the Dozol. She is SO cute drinking from that little spoon. She lifts her head up for you and takes the Dozol off the spoon in tiny little sips.
It took a little while for the Dozol to kick in, but, after moaning a little bit, she slept all through the night again! Result being that I had such a great night's kip that I slept it in this morning!

That's all for today Folks!

Tea

2005-02-22T16:21:00.000Z

At Nanny's house, there is a tea-set. And Caíthlyn LOVES that tea-set. She is forever stirring in the cups and "feeding" the dolls and us.
Darren then had the lovely idea to get her a tea-set for our house too. So, last Saturday we all piled in the car and off to Smyth's (Large Toy-Store) we went!
I ADORE shopping for Little Miss, be it clothes, toys, Hell, even Babywipes! Strolling around a toystore (with intent to spend mind) is SO my idea of a great time!
Toys are big business, people! You would not believe the things that are made for kids! It's actually quite a good thing we don't have a playroom as I would do some serious spending if we had the space! There are complete kitchens! Every kind of educational toy under the sun and if you have a creative kid, there's all you need to bring out the Salvador Dali in your child.
We found the desired tea-set! Happy Days!

What is it about men and kids together that makes you melt? Darren is the most interactive, loving and caring Daddy any child could ask for. As soon as we were home, the tea-set was opened and set up. There they were, Daddy and Daughter, playing tea. Barney and Zippy side by side yet again at one end and Darren and Caíthlyn at the other. Cups were stirred, plates were "filled" ADORABLE!
I had to stop myself from going "Aaaaaaahhhh" whilst sitting in the corner with the video-camera.

The last two nights she has not been going down to sleep for us. The poor little thing seems to be off. I have no idea what causes this, it could be teeth, it could be something completely different. That's the most frustrating thing about Parenthood with babies. THEY CAN'T TELL YOU WHAT'S WRONG YET! As time goes by, you learn to recognize some things, but then there is something that doesn't fit any of the molds and then what do you do? Do what you can and hope for the best I guess!

I am going to look in to having our digital camera fixed by the way so hopefully we will be able to show you some more recent pictures soon!

Little Mamma

2005-02-21T09:20:00.000Z

Now that her Daddy is back to work again, Caíthlyn and I have Thursday's and Friday's all to ourselves. It took us half a day to get used to it but then we were back in to the full swing of it. The poor little sausage, she was so used to having her Daddy with her all day, every day, and then we went and changed the whole routine on her.
She was very tired that first morning and so we had lots of tears and tantrums. Truth be told, it put the sh*ts up me!
After she had a great sleep in my arms though, she was back to her loving, cheery self! Thank Flip for that!

I was doing the dishes in the kitchen when Little Miss came in with her "Zippy" (An "Early Learning Bunny: zipper, buttons, velcro) and "Barney" (Yes, the Purple Blob has infiltrated our home aswell...)
Like a real little Mamma, she lays them beside each other, next to the kitchen chair. She sits on her hunkers and chats a bit to them. Then, with a decisive nod of her head and a "ya ya" towards her babies, she gets up and gets a plastic tumbler out of the kitchen press. She closes the press-door again, every so matter of fact-ly, and croutches down again next to "Zippy". She puts her left hand under her (Zippy is a Girl) head and holds the tumbler to her lips. Making sucking noises and when she puls the cup away again she says:"Aaaahhh" Then she does the same for Barney.

I was so amazed at the TLC she exibited towards her Teddies. She was so methodical. When she went back in to the livingroom, she held them in her arms and patted them whilst saying "There, there there" (Well, she said "Tè, tè, tè" but we know what she meant!)

When I took too long finishing up the dishes, she and Barney just planted themselves at my feet on the floor. Mohammed and the mountain or what? She looked up at me with those huge, beautiful, innocent eyes which spoke Volumes. "What's more important Mamma? Dishes or me?"

Within seconds we sat on the sofa and did our shapes.........

The Best Medicine

2005-02-15T09:24:00.000Z

Usually I get a lift to my BF's mother after work. Yesterday I had to "bus it" though.

My God(dess) what a nightmare! Dublin bus has the un-equalled talent to make me sick in the space of 5 minutes, imagine what I was like after 1.5 plus hours......
With a churning stomach I walked up to "Nanny's House" and there was the best medicine waiting for me. Standing next to the sofa. As soon as she saw me, the grinn that crossed her face was blinding! You should bottle the stuff and sell it! Cure for all!

Nanny is the best. We could not have asked for a better, more loving and more caring person to take care of our daughter. She has dinner for us when we come in and Caíthlyn loves her so much that leaving is never a pretty sight!

Sitting at the dinner table, having my dinner, Caíthlyn stretched her arms out to me. The Mamma will never turn down the opportunity for great hugsies! So. on the lap she went!
Ever so delicatly she pretended to take some mashed potato from my plate between her index-finger and thumb.
Pinky extended, she proceeded to "feed me" my dinner. Eyes focussed on my face to make sure I gobbled it all up. There was a puddle of melted Mamma on the chair at that point.

I know I am repeating myself but she is such a caring child! Her Nanny has a tea-set and Caíthlyn loves pretending to make dinner and feeding the dolls and us. Saying: "Mmmmmmm" and "Ja?" while doing so.
Also, she loves brushing hair. She will take my big hairbrush, which she can only just wield, and brush my hair so gently. Then she will put her hands on either side of my face and bend her face in to mine and ask "Ja?"

I just did not want to put her down to sleep last night, could have just held her in my arms and cuddled her for hours and hours! Once I did put her down, she was wide awake. She stirred a bit, but decided to go to sleep then eventually and we didn't have to go back in to her.
When I go to bed, I check on her. And there she was, head at the foot-end, snoring away softly. Could have crawled in to the cot with her. She was on top of her soft blanket. (I think she likes the feel on her cheek) so I tucked another blanked in around her.

Anyone that says Angels don't exist, should come and have a look at my daughter sleeping....

March 2004

April 2004

Apologies!

2005-02-14T11:19:00.000Z

Greetings and salutations.

First, my humble and sincere apologies for the lack of entries the last week. I just did not get the chance to "Blog" at all!

My daughter is changing before my eyes. I swear to the Big Man (Woman) upstairs that if you listen carefully, you can actually hear her grow! This is such an amazing time of her life!
It's wonderfull to see from the "Mamma" perspective (absolutely everything she does is met with praise and hugs and kisses!) but also from a psychological, anthropological ( is that even a word??!!) and linguistic viewpoint.

I can't imagine an adult picking up new things at the same speed at which our little honey is. Her dedication to learning is admirable.

Her Daddy (Who is at his first day on his new job as we eeuuhhh....... write: Good luck Honey!) spent yesterday afternoon going through shapes with her. Repetition, Repetition and Repetion is his motto. So: Triangle, Square, Circle, Star...Triangle, Square, Circle, Star...Triangle, Square, Circle, Star... And she was handing him the shapes so that he could name them. Great fun altogether! And there it was: ciwka.
The child is actualy trying the sound and rhytm of the words on for size. She kept saying these tones and you could see her thinking "No, that's not quite right..... Her vocabulary and skills are litteraly growing everyday.

She can slap your hand in a "High Five" motion and grinns from ear to ear when doing so. This great little twinkle in her eyes that I hope stays there for ever!

Also, when stacking her "Kipper" boxes and managing to keep them on top of each other, she will say: "Yeaaaahhhh!!" and clap her hands and look at you to make sure you have indeed witnessed this feat of toddler architecture.

With al this new awareness and skills, she has also gained the knowledge of "How to get what I want" Well, she has decided on the course of action that has the best chance of success according to her. She will drop herself on to the floor and sob, and sob and sob. Tears flowing over her cheeks and when you go to pick her up to comfort her she wriggles out of your arms while saying: No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No! No!
Obviously we are not giving in to this kind of emotional blackmail (heartbreaking as it may be) but try to comfort her in other ways, without giving her whatever it was she wanted: playing with the oven, grabbing papers and who knows what else. But I have to tell you, it's tough! She will be spending three days a week with her Nanny again now. And with 30 years of childcare under her belt, I am confident that she will help put an end to this new Battle of the Wills!

This is however a small part of the overal joy of having her as a daughter.

A whole new world is opening for her and I am so proud that her Daddy and I are the ones that get to show it to her!

Happy Valentines Day to All!

Grandparents; July 2004 Visit

2005-02-08T22:17:00.000Z

Pake, Beppe and Caíthlyn

Beppe, Mamm and Caíthlyn

Beppe and Caíthlyn

Daddy and Caíthlyn

Little Heartbreaker

Teddybear

2005-02-08T13:13:00.000Z

I work three days a week. And on those three days, I get up at the unGodly hour of 05.45. So too this morning. When I stepped out the door, I decided to err on the side of caution and just check my bag for my purse. Not there. *rse! B*lls! Grrmmbbll!!
No purse, no busticket, no change, no way in to work...... And so I ended up watching Dr. Phil and Discovery Health at 06.30 AM, waiting for little Miss to wake up so that himself could drop me in to work. (Smart Man by the way, that Dr. Phil, no flies on him!)

I had heard her moaning a bit and at 09.00 hrs I decided to heat up the bottle and have a gander to check if she was awake.
Opening her door ever so slightly, I could see her lying on her side. Hugging her teddybear and smiling at me with a grinn from ear to ear. MELT!!
I had a Teddybear made for her at the Bearfactory and that's in her cot with her now. It wears a little T-shirt that says "I Love You" and when you squeeze it, you hear my voice saying "Mammie and Daddy love you Caíthlyn, you're our best little girl".
Cheesy, I know, but I was SO chuffed to see her all snuggled up to that bear..... Her face still all warm from her sleep and that lovely dozed look in her eyes. That wonderfull baby-just-out-of-bed smell....... EADIBLE! She gives SO much love, you can't help but adore her.

Now I am in work, missing her (them) like mad!

Sometimes even just three days can feel like too much........

Birthday Girl

2005-02-07T15:57:00.000Z

Could'nt resist. Here's our Little lady on her first birthday. The console she is playing with was a pressie from her Nanny. And yes, it is a loud as it looks! ;-)

Age

2005-02-07T15:53:00.000Z

MMMMMMmmmmmmm!!!

2005-02-07T10:16:00.000Z

The latest thing to have us in stitches is her enthusiastic exclaiming: "Mmmmmmmm!!!" When she sees her: Porridge Bowl, Bottle, Liga, Fruit or, wait for it: her Highchair!
Even the sound of plastic wrappers get's a "Mmmmmmm" The look of anticipation on her face is priceless! This little lady likes her grub!

Turns out Miss Thing's vocabulary is larger than we expected.... Whatever way she uttered a few cyllables last week, they suddenly made sense!
Had her in my arms (either dancing or a retrieval mission from the kitchen, can't remember which) when she stretched and pointed at the wicker lamp dangling from the ceiling.
A breathy and amazed :"Stat?" followed.
CLING! The penny dropped! We always say: "What's that?" and point. So "Stat" = "What's that?" Also : "Woo-ooo" is "Dog". Who'd a thunk it?!

I am meant to speak Dutch to her..... And I do..... sometimes... But believe you me, it's hard to keep up when there is nobody else around that also speaks the language.

Thankfully her Pake and Beppe (Grandparents) sent her "Bear in the Big Blue House" DVD's in Dutch. That, combined with a few Dutch story books should inrease the quantity of Dutch sounds to reach her cranium.

Oh, here's a pic of Caíthlyn on the Winnie the Pooh cart we got her for her b-day... dya think she likes it?! ;-)

Gonna enjoy my Cadburry Cream Mini Eggs.... MMmmmmmmm!!

Shoes

2005-02-02T16:57:00.000Z

Caíthlyn spent yesterday afternoon with her Nanny and her Nanna (Grandmother and Great-Grandmother)
Off a-shoppin' they went. Seeing as Caíthlyn is spending a lot more time on standing upright, Darren and I had decided to buy her her first proper shoes this coming Thursday.

When I heard the destination of yesterday's shopping trip, I got a feeling that our trip might not be neccesary anymore..... And low and behold: I was right! :-)
Nanny has bought the first shoes for her other grand-daughters, and when I came home I saw two of these cute shoes on my Honey's feet:

The shop meassured her feet and they have a reputation for being very good. So I was well happy! She looks SO grown up with her shoes! THANK YOU NANNY!

Thank Crispie she went to sleep last night! The poor Sweetheart was absolutely knackered.

Her current routine is Bath, Bottle and Bed. But as she is getting older, we want to first go to: Bottle, Bath and Bed and then faze out the Bottle altogether. She should be drinking from a cup by now.
Truth be told, it's so nice and cosey and snug giving her her bottle that I am not entirely sure I will not have withdrawl symptomes! :-)

Teeth

2005-02-01T09:32:00.000Z

Caíthlyn's first tooth took forever to make it's appearance. But for a few weeks now, there it is: shiny and white in the bottom jaw. Right at the front.
She discovered it's usefulness when munching on her Liga.

( She does not get sweets, cakes, crisps, chips or ice-cream. She also does not get anything to drink that is not water or formula. Have to keep those pearly whites pearly white! Plus, her little body has absolutely no need for those things! Baby Liga is the only "Exception")

When we saw the piece of Liga she was wielding in hand, we could see the streak the tooth left in the Liga. She will cock her head to enable best access for her tooth!

The tooth can depend on re-inforcements soon, as there is one edging to get through right beside the first one.
Truth be told, I believe there is a onslaught of teeth on the way for the poor sweetheart.
Rosey-Red cheeks that glow in the dark are accompanied by a general dip in good spirits. She is normaly such a happy little bunny but the last few days she's been clingy and just a bit out of sorts. I hope they all show soon and she can rest easy again. Baby Nurofen or Dozol can only do so much...
Her whole rythm is off. And that makes bed-time LOADS of fun! Well, for her anyway. She get's her second wind at 20.15 hrs. So when we are trying to get her to go beddie-bye-bye's, she's gearing up for an evening of chat and laughs......

Oh well, this too shall pass!

Mamma's eye, Daddy's eye, Barney's eye........

2005-01-31T16:46:00.000Z

Yes, honey, that's Mamma's eye, yup, that's Daddy's eye, uhuh, that's Barney's eye. indeedie, that's Zippie's eye.....

Have you guessed the new word yet? :-) The endless repetition (especially by her Dad) of "Eye, Nose, Mouth, Ear" has paid off! She confidently points at everyone's eye and declares "EYE!".
I am SO proud of her! I love the way you can almost see her little brain absorbing the information, turning it around a bit, having a good look and then just making the connection.

Her favourite book is "The Wheels on Barney's Bus" it's a "lift the flap" book that proves a never ending source of entertainment, wonder and amazement.... The fact that she's walking now has opened new avenues of making clear what she wants. She can now walk, and carry the book at the same time. And so we will often have the book heave-howed in to our laps, and two arms extended towards us. The frown and pout make it clear that swift action is expected!

The concentrated look on her face once she's in your lap is priceless! As soon as she's perched there, she will grab you hand and point your finger to the page.
Only when you are animatedly pointing at Barney and his friends and making enthusiastic exclemations about the Purple Blob, will she sit back in to you and enjoy the show!

She's the bizzo

We LIKE the Swings!

2005-01-31T11:05:00.000Z

One more blast from the "past"

2005-01-31T09:01:00.000Z

Bed-Time

2005-01-28T21:39:00.000Z

It's 21:45 hrs now and my lovely daughter is racing around the living room in her jammies...... She's getting in to all kinds of mischief and is loving every minute of it.
The last few weeks she has been very good for going to bed, but tonight it just ain't happenin'!
She's full of the gab and having her Dad and me in stitches!

Right now, she's pushing her V-Tech Stroller and carrying a bag of pj's around as if she's going shopping. The energy the child has a this time of the evening is baffling!

When I turned around earlier she was sitting in the corner, looking ever so seriously, trying to get her foot in her mouth! It was such a great sight! Not the fact that she was trying to get the foot in, but the face with it! This was her project and she was going to get stuck in to it!

Ow, she wants to type now.... yyyjuiu0--ghnfjj jkuyasawe\\\\\\\\\\4frr3rmjyyjtytyhh77rte

That concludes my daughter's contribution to today's blog, gonna have cuddles now!

Way in the beginning

2005-01-26T13:52:00.000Z

Walkies

2005-01-26T09:09:00.000Z

Our little girl is 13 months old. She was born 27 Dec 2003 at 12.29 hrs.
I still can not believe it sometimes - that I am lucky enough to be her Mamma!

Last night, my lift dropped me off at my boyfriend's mother's house. My Paddy and my daughter pick me up from there.
Caíthlyn was playing in the kitchen/sittingroom. I'm telling you, that smile could melt icebergs!
She took her first few steps on January 10th and the developments since then have been amazing! (Well, to the biased Mamma anyway! ;-) )

Her Nanny (grandmother) and Daddy urged her to show off her new walking skills. Arms wide, smile from ear to ear and squeals of delight!
I know I am risking severe mush-dom here but I just melted at the spot. There's nothing quite like having your daughter squeeze your head tightly in an "I Love You Mamma!" hug! Especially if she walked over to you to do it!

She is such a loving child! I feel like we are doing things right when I feel her little arms around my neck and hear her say "Awwwwww" The same way we do when we hug her. And that happens A LOT! My lips are permanently attached to the child's forehead!

The one good thing about working is the welcome you get when you come home. The walking skills increased so much in just ONE day that I think that within the next week she will be running! :-) I can't wait!

Parenthood just get's better every day!

BLOG Virgin

2005-01-25T15:19:00.000Z

Well lookie here! Made myself a BLOG! After being introduced to the phenomenon by a close mate I thought making one for my daughter and myself would be most excellent.

I am Dutch, Himself is Irish and our honey is the most beautiful mix of the two you could ever hope to meet!

She is a little sweetheart and my family are missing SO much that I thought this would an ideal way to keep them all up to date.

As the entry states: I am a complete Virgin to the land of Blog and it will probably take forever for me to get to the stage where it will be an interesting read!

Bare with me!

Love,

Nynke de Vries