19.09.11
Dear Matilda
You are 10 weeks today!! I can’t believe how fast you are growing! I have been wanting to write down some of my thoughts for you to read one day but keep getting distracted by other things. Right now you are having a nap so I thought I should get started.
Firstly a little summary of how we got to where we are today! You were born on the 11th of June at 3.03am. You made us wait for a LONG time as you were nearly 2 weeks late!
We were dying to meet you and were so happy when you arrived. Your Daddy cried and he almost never cries!
We were dying to meet you and were so happy when you arrived. Your Daddy cried and he almost never cries!
I’ll tell you about your birth – it was long and it hurt a lot but it was also amazing and so worth it to have you in our arms afterwards.
We had to stay in the hospital for one night which was tough – you were sad and lots of other babies cried. Mummy cried too! We were so glad to take you home at last the next day. You slept all the way home and kept sleeping for hours and hours!!
We spent the first few days getting to know you – you fed a lot, cried a bit and slept lots too. Your first outing was to the park – we practised putting up our tent (we will be doing lots of camping together soon!).
On Friday your Gran arrived from New Zealand. She stayed for 3 weeks and we had a lot of fun with her!!
Lots of people came to visit and meet you. Everyone was very impressed with how well you could hold your head up already!! Elin the midwife thought you had the most perfect shaped head and everyone agreed that you are very beautiful! Over the next few weeks you put all your effort into growing putting on lots of weight and turning into a lovely chubby wee thing!
When you were nearly 2 weeks old we had a party to welcome you to the world! You were a little angel and slept almost all day so everyone had lots of cuddles.
Gran went home when you were nearly 4 weeks old. We were very sad to say goodbye but it is not long until we see her again.
Just after your Gran left you gave us your first smile (nearly 4 weeks old). Now you smile all the time but those first smiles were so special!!
Since that first smile, you have started cooing and ‘chatting’ with us which we love. I watch you talking away to your zebra when I am in the shower in the morning and wonder what you are telling him!
Between week 4 and week 10 you have grown so much! Last week you weighed 5.72kgs!! You are also getting really tall and love to stretch your legs out. You hate lying down when you are awake and want to either sit or stand so that you can see the world around you! When you are on the couch with Daddy you like to watch me all round the room. Your playmat is one of your favourite places and you are getting really good at holding your head and shoulders up when you are on your tummy.
In the last week you have started to discover your hands. We sat on the bus coming home from some shopping last weekend and you were practicing holding onto Daddy’s fingers. He says you are practicing to be a climber!
You have stopped looking like a little baby already and everyone says how alert and interested you look (you are a right nosy parker these days!). When we go out people stop to tell us how cute you are. Of course we already know this but it’s nice to be told!!
We are counting down now to moving to New Zealand. You will be both English and a New Zealander and your Daddy will tell you lots about England and London. We will bring you back to visit one day and show you all the famous sights and places we used to go.
We call you pickle or sometimes pickle pie! I don’t know why but we do!! In fact we probably should call you Matilda more often otherwise you will start thinking pickle really is your name. Speaking of names, your Daddy came up with the name Matilda after we disagreed about names for a while! We both loved it but kept it a secret until you were born! Turns out everyone else loves your name too! I hope when you are older that you will think it’s a pretty cool name.
10.09.11
Dear Matilda
Wow you are now 3 months old! Well tomorrow you will be but we will be busy all day (massage, yoga, afternoon tea – it’s a tough life!) so am writing to you today!
I can’t believe how fast the time is going. You have learnt so many new things in the past month and grown a lot. We had you weighed and measured when you were 12 weeks and you weighed 6.24 kgs and were 60.5 cm long!! We also had to have your jabs done again – you cried and Mummy nearly cried too.
Some of the new things you have learnt this month:
- Rolling!!! You are so clever to have learnt to do this already! You were 11 weeks old the first time you managed to roll from back to front by yourself. You must like an audience as you did it at baby massage showing up all the other babies!! It took you a week of trying and I was so proud of you. Now you can roll easily left or right and look so pleased with yourself when you do.
- Grabbing – you are starting to grab onto things now rather than just hitting at them. Sometimes its a bit tricky and we have had to get some new toys that are easy to hold onto.
- ‘Talking’ – you are now such a chatter box (although mostly at home not in front of other people!). You make lots of funny noises and chat away to us or your toys (especially your peacock or zebra). You have started to do a comedy yawn. Each time you yawn you add sound effects so that it sounds like a yawn you might pretend to do to let someone know you think they are boring – very funny, it makes us laugh. You also love to smile and talk to your reflection in the mirror. At the moment you think it’s a great new friend who smiles at you a lot!! I wonder when you will work out that it’s you?
- Swimming – well you can’t actually swim yet but you went for the first time and seemed to really enjoy it. Lots of looking round and staring as its a new experience for you. This week we are going to try and float on your back and maybe even go under if Mummy is brave enough!
We had a heatwave for the last week of September (up to 29 degrees!). So lovely so we spent most of it in the park. You liked being in just your nappy and did lots of rolling and waving your arms and legs about like a beetle on its back! Your legs are getting so strong now and you love to stand up holding our hands. Maybe you will be an early walker like your Mummy.
Sleeping – most nights you sleep from 7pm to about 2am and then to about 7am. Occasionally you decide that you should start the day at 5.30am. Mummy thinks this is WAY to early and is a bit grouchy on those days! Still trying to get you to sleep for longer during the day. You manage it sometimes so we will get there eventually!
The other very exciting thing that happened this month is that we found out that your Aunt Laura is going to have a baby in May next year. So you will have a cousin who will be about 10 months younger than you. I can’t wait to watch you grow up together and we hope that you will be great friends. You seem to really like other babies so I hope this means that you will enjoy making friends as you get older.
It is so lovely to watch you become more aware of the world. You notice things happening around you much more now like a van driving down a road outside the park or me tidying up while you are playing with Daddy. We went to your Daddy’s work and met his colleagues – they all thought you were very cute!!
Dear Matilda
Congratulations – you are 4 months old!!! You look so grown up now that it’s hard to believe that you were a little baby! Your Dad and I look at pictures of when you were small to remind us!
There has been a lot going on it your little life and we have been on some adventures this month. First we went on the train down to Hastings for the night. We went in Frankie’s car a few times and you weren’t very impressed at all. I hope you get used to it because once we get to New Zealand it will be goodbye bus/tube/train and hello car!!! We also went and stayed the night with Grand Annie in Salisbury which was fun although you got a bit overwhelmed to start with. You met your first dogs – Tui and Peggy and were quite interested in them. They were a bit scared of you though!
You have learnt a lot of new things this month.
- Playing with your feet! You like to grab hold of them to help you roll or stick them in your mouth.
- Laughing!! You don’t do it al the time just yet but when you do it’s a beautiful sound and your Daddy and I will do whatever we can to try and get you to do it again. At the moment singing Old MacDonald makes you laugh if you are in the right mood – is the song funny or Mummy’s singing?!!
- Playing with toys – your hands are so clever now and you love to grab at everything including Mummy’s hair! Now you will happily play with your toys for a while – your zebra and peacock are still favourites. You also like Skinny Bunny for sucking on and the current favourite is an old crisp packet – cheap tastes!!
- Playing in the door bouncer – you are starting to learn how to bounce so you do a combination of marching and little jigs! It’s a great way to keep you happy while I do the cleaning.
- Spinning in circles – this is new in the last couple of days. You will work your way around more than 180 degrees to get something you want or chase a toy that keeps moving.
- Trying to move forward. So far you can pull your knees up under you but don’t go anywhere! Your Daddy wants you to crawl now, Mummy would like you to stay put for a while longer.
- Standing – you can now stand while holding onto something for a wee bit – very clever!
I need to have you weighed again but you must be over 7kgs now. You are getting so tall and will be growing out of your first jeans very soon! We had a bad patch of sleeping while you were doing a big growth spurt but you are now only waking up usually once which is good for Mummy!! You are also napping for longer in the day which makes you a much happier baby!!
At the moment I am fascinated by watching you learn how things work – trying again and again to pick something up until you work out the best way to do it. Sometimes you get frustrated but mostly you just keep trying. Apart from when you had a cold, you are a very happy baby and everyone always comments on how smiley you are. Your smile lights up my day but you are very generous with it and you make strangers smile whenever we go out.
We now only have 2 weeks left living in London before we move you to New Zealand. This is going to be a huge adventure for all of us!!! I hope all the changes don’t upset you too much. Your Daddy and I can’t wait to do lots of exciting things with you when we get there and there are lots of people dying to meet you.
