Two front teeth

Joe has continued his "textbook baby" timing by producing two front teeth on Christmas Day. You can't see them in this photo but he's keen on grabbing fingers and shoving them in his mouth to prove they are there - lower centre.

We had a great Christmas with Breda and Conor and Liz at the Postbox around the corner (it's a restaurant, we didn't just hang around the post office). Will be booking up for next year I think.

Joe really likes all his presents!

Took Niamh to the ballet to see Swan Lake (the one with blokes) on her birthday. I've agreed to go and see Mary Poppins some time in the future. Must have been all the half-time gins.

We had a visit today from Suzy and Adie and Sophie and Chloe. All had fun!

Happy New Year

Hope you all had lovely Christmas' with your loved ones. We had a lovely Christmas. Mum finally made it over two days later than planned which curtailed her shopping plans somewhat. Joe had more presents than he knew what to do with. Thank you to all of you who sent him presents, I'll get Simon to put some photos on here asap. As predicted he was most excited by the wrapping paper but he'll be putting them all to good use soon.

Thankfully I didn't have to do any cooking as we went to a local restaurant and had a fantastic meal. Joe slept all the way through it, what a star!

I had a nice birthday too. Thank you to everyone who sent a card, not always easy to remember in the middle of Christmas madness.

So 2007 is almost here, must think of a new year resolution...

Trials and tribulations

As I write we're still crossing everything in the hope that Mum makes it over for Christmas. Her flight on Tuesday morning was cancelled because of fog in Derry, so was the evening one. The next day's flights were cancelled because of fog in England. She transferred to the morning flight today and we haven't heard from her so far so no news is good news. She's spent every day driving to and from Derry, not nice. Even if she can just make it over to Britain, that would be a start.

Went to my work Christmas party last night. I won a raffle for the first time in my life, an extra day's holiday - hurrah! Sat next to a man with the worst social skills I've ever come across!! When I asked him where he was from, he answered 'Why?'!!

Joe's cough is still causing him bother, he also has a spectacularly runny nose. Coupled with his conjunctivitis he's one crusty little guy! I took him to the doctor on Tuesday and he wouldn't give me anything for it all. Made me feel like I was wasting his time.

Winter blues

Poor wee Joe's not too well at the moment. He has a rattling cough, a runny nose that he wipes all over his face which means that he also has conjunctivitis (sp?) None of which has affected his appetite or sleeping I might add (just like his father!) but it meant that we missed our NCT Christmas lunch but there's always next year. Hopefully he'll be well enough to go to Tiny Teds on Thursday and round to Jane's on Friday.

Thank you to everyone who sent Christmas presents for Joe, you're very kind. He'll love the wrapping paper! This year we have Conor's girlfriend Liz joining us for Christmas (should we start saving up for hats?) so hopefully we won't put her off.
Mum arrives tomorrow and Simon is picking her up from the airport. She's staying until the 27th. We put our tree up on Sunday and Joe has so far managed to not get his mitts on any baubles.

Christmas is coming!

Not long to go now!
Our Christmas shopping is done, the tree is going up this weekend and the wreath is on the door. Joe's Tiny Teds singing group did a Christmas session last week and will be doing another one next week so we look forward to more of Joe's frenetic bell shaking during Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer again. Those other babies better move out of the way this time!

It was Conor's birthday yesterday and he and Liz came round for dinner with us. He was very pleased with the studio time that Liz organised for him so many thanks to all of you who contributed to that. Joe has offered his bell shaking services already.

News of poor Mr Mackie has reached us from Singapore. After a year of not working he badly needed a swim to release the stress of working again. Luckily his appartment block happens to have a swimming pool but they hadn't mentioned that Mr Mackie would not be able to have a swim because pool was being used for filming the swimsuit round of Miss Singapore - what a hard life. Our thoughts are with you Neil! Be strong!

Blog changes

Google have changed the interface for their blogs, meaning that it should supposedly be easier to manage ( but I don't think they'll write Simon's posts for him) and you should notice that posts are now labelled so that eventually you should be able to choose by an index which category of post you'd like to see!! Not sure about how that's going to work but I'm sure the folks at Google know what they're doing!

Joe's a little dipper!

So, we took Joe to his "little dippers" classes over the last 3 days. Half an hour per day: Friday, Saturday and Sunday. There is a link to the right, to the Little Dippers website, that explains everything - but basically it is underwater swimming for babies under 12 months.

It turns out that babies have natural insticts to protect and help them - they hold their breath under water, they naturally kick to move them forward - amazing really.

I wish we had some photos, but cameras are not permitted at the classes. Anyway Joe (and the 5 other babies in our class) did really well. He loves his bath, and I had taken him to the swimming pool last weekend, so he had some preparation. He loved the water and all the exercises.

I started off just holding Joe in the water so he was comfortable. Then I used the instruction "Ready? Go!" and poured water on his face. No problem.

Next was the first little swim, on his front, me supporting his shoulders, a little bit of kicking. Then some gentle floating on his back.

Next came the action. Joe sitting on the side of the pool. The instruction "Ready? Go!" then the instructor pulled Joe from the side, fully under the water, then into my arms. Again he was fine.

Over the 3 sessions Joe did a number of underwater swims, progressing all the way to a couple of "free swims", again underwater, when I pushed Joe towards Niamh, and she caught him and picked him up. He was never bothered, and never cried. We're a bit proud!

Highly recommended!

Hello there

Simon has promised to write up Joe's Little Dippers course so I won't mention it here.
Still all go with the wee man. We had a lovely afternoon at Claire's last week and all the babies seemed to enjoy playing with Max's toys. Isabel, who has a reputation for making the boys cry and stealing their toys, met her match with Joe who didn't take any of her nonsense. My heart swelled with pride as he refused to hand over his toys and rescued Finn from her!

We bought a Christmas wreath for the front door as this is the first place we've lived in where people put them up without worrying about them being pinched or set on fire!

Zoe came to stay last night while her Mum and Dad went to see Placebo in Wembley. I'm checking out gigs that I can go to when they return the favour! Tomorrow night is the NCT girls night out in Richmond and we all fully intend enjoy ourselves. We've also managed to arrange a Christmas lunch for the NCT Mums, Dads and babies this Sunday in Petersham - a table for 21! I feel sorry for anyone else intending to eat there at the same time as us...

Bah humbug

Blimey can you believe it's December?!
Joe and I managed to get just about all of our Christmas shopping done on Friday in Kingston, despite all the bedlam! Thank goodness.
We have a busy week beginning on Monday. Lots of lunches and maybe a trip to Docklands for Joe. Dreading taking the tube with a buggy - ho hum.
Conor and I will be another year older this month - so lots of drink will be imbibed this month in celebration/comiseration - have a drink and think of us!

Mealtimes with Joe have become quite an event nowadays as you can see and like a good boy he tries to help Mummy in the kitchen...!