Twelve Weeks Old - Really, This Time

Apparently I can't even count to ten. I messed up Seb's age way back at Week Nine, and he's actually only twelve weeks old now, not last week. Durrrr.

Never mind. I'll edit all those posts some time. Anyway, the real week twelve was dead exciting! For starters, Seb graduated from his darling little mosey. He was just too long, I couldn't even tuck the blankets in without mashing his little toes. So it was time for the BIG BOY BED. He went down very happily.



But by the next morning his head was jammed against the end and he had fought his way free. Noodle! Still, after a couple of slightly disturbed nights (I actually had to get up, one time!!!) he seems to have adjusted well and last night slept an astonishing 11.5 hours.



He also met a GURL. This is Molly's friend Gaby. She comes from an enormous family and is well used to babies. Seb adored her from minute one. This is Seb and Gab on their first date, watching telly. (He's not normally allowed, but we made an exception because we didn't want to embarrass him in front of his chick of choice.)

Gab thought that he might be a bit young for her, but we told him to come back when she's a bored forty-year-old housewife and he's a bronzed 26-year-old surfie and see if things have changed in his favour.



Also, he learned to dance. I'm sorry about the sideways video, what can I say, I'm a dork.

A post about that other kid

My gorgeous daughter had her haircut today! And she looks completely gorgeous*. I am having great trouble not kissing her neck, but she yells at me when I even suggest it.

Look at that neck, though!



And this is the front view, though not a terrifically flattering photo of my No. 1 Monkey. Still: pocket Venus, anyone?!



Now she has to learn to 'zhuzh' her hair instead of brushing it down flat a la PeeWee Herman.

While I was taking pictures, she let me get this one of her posing with the new bag that she made, using a pattern from her Chrissie pressie book, and some of the fabric which she bought with her surprise pressie of $10 from Mutti. It looks amazing and she's planning to use it as her school bag! Next bag project is already underway, too... top pressie choices, chaps!



* Don't you wish you could look this good for an $18 kid's cut?? I surely do. At that price she can have it done more than once a year!

A Milestone Met

In the last couple of days, all of a sudden, Seb's gained majority shareholding in the control of his head. (Minor shareholders: gravity, momentum, and unpredictable lurching.) As soon as we put him on his tum now, look what he does!



Is that a "Check me out!" expression, or what?



It's all very adorable and accompanied by much familial cheering, clapping, exclaiming, etc. At this point he probably thinks that every time he lifts his head for the rest of his life, chaos will erupt around him. It's like a superpower.

Aside from that, the additional head control makes him much easier to tote around. As Molly has discovered.



Aren't they lovely? Moll's having her hair cut tomorrow, and she wants CHANGE. Stay tuned.

Twelve Weeks Old

... which sort of sounds like he's three months, but he won't be that till the seventh of Feb, which is also my eighteenth wedding anniversary. Crikey O'Reilly.

Anyway, look how much he's grown in that time! This was Seb in his bouncer when he first came home:



And this is him now:



Oh, those yummy leggies!

And now I'm going to try and be clevver and embed a video.

This was my poppet waking up this morning. He is SO YUMMY when he wakes up, full of smiles and wriggles until he remembers that he hasn't eaten for 784593572 million years, and then woe betide anyone who stands between him and boobies.



(Next time I will make my subtitles bigger. Ah, it's all a learning curve. I'd fix this one, but you know what? Can't be fagged.)

And just to finish off, here are my three darlings lolling about on the floor together.

Kids: The Best Toys Ever

What could be more amusing than bathing this gorgeous, plump, smily, scrumptious baby?

(Look how he's filling out his bath already!)



Well, if you're Daddy, you'll have an inspiration: it would be even MORE fun if we pretended he was a girl. Willy? What willy?



Sebby's face was too funny for words. What was even funnier was, after we looked at the pic and rolled about the kitchen laughing, our daughter managed to get her breath back for long enough to say:

"Oh man, you guys are SO mean! Did you used to do that with me?"

Er... no, baby. No.

Eleven Weeks Old

Seb spent lots of his eleventh week with his gorgey Big Sis - what with her being on holiday and all - when she was not caught up in the Social Whirl of sleepovers, movies, etc. Some of this was nice. Some of it was undignified.

But see how happy he is with her?



Right up until she starts taking part in an experiment to see what he's going to look like with hair, by draping hers over his head. Heh heh.



Answer: Baby Hitler.

Anyway, he really enjoyed it out on the lawn with her on a sunny day:



And then we couldn't resist it and started using him as a big dolly again. This is Seb doing Maverick from Top Gun. Pretty staunch huh?



And yesterday he had a very exciting experience, being his FIRST SWIM. Daddy took him in the river at Lee Valley. It was dead picturesque and Seb, while not being completely delighted by the whole thing, was pretty chilled for most of it (metaphorically chilled, that is... Well, actually, literally as well) and shows definite signs of being amenable to further swimming. Despite the terrible effect that the cold water had on his Manhood and the amount of laughter his shrinkage generated in his cruel, cruel nearest and dearest.

There's video evidence of it too but I'm going to work on that a bit before I post it.



Finally, he had a Plunket visit yesterday, which is actually his last till he's five months old. This surprised me, apparently the 7854932574832 weekly visits that Molly and I got were not normal. Who knew? Am still trying to decide whether all the extra visits were generated by concerns for her or for me. God knows I was not particularly normal at the time. Anyway, Seb's now 5.7kg, aka 12 and a half pounds, which is smack on average (yay!) and 61 centimetres long, which is well above average. Also yay!

Know what else is yay? Ten hour sleeps at night. Oh yes. Give that boy a medal, stat!

This One's for Mutti

No, your eyes do not deceive you. That is a bogey. And it came from my darling's eeny-weeny nose. We christened it "Rogue Bogey II" in honour of a particularly massive piece of nose-jam that Molly once produced.

A bit disgusting but huge fun. It just kept coming... and coming... and coming... like a magician with a rope of silk scarves. I bet Sebbo felt FAB when it was all out! I know I personally felt quite triumphant.

I do apologise to those of you who are not of the snot-and-scabs-and-pimples-are-interesting persuasion, but Mutti and I are, we can't help it, so there you go.

Ten Weeks Old

He's made it into double digits!

Still being Mr Happy, even when dealing with poo-filled nappy changes. Daddy and Sister are appalled that I am posting this one, because it has ACTUAL POO involved, but hey. That's our daily reality. Check out those little plump leggies!



Daddy is also unimpressed with my portraiture here, in which he seems to have about 75839207 prickly chins. Disclaimer: I concede this is not a representative image of my husband, nor an attractive one. I think he looks pretty rugged, but. Anyway: the Sebby/Daddy love was too lovely to pass up this pic.



And last but not least: Sebby makes everyone smile, even himself. What a doll!

Two Months, Exactly

I am already breaking my own rule about posting once a week. Curses! I am totally unreliable. My excuse is this: it's Seb's two month birthday. Cue singing of Happy Birthday song!

Seb has celebrated it by sleeping lots, waking only to eat as much as he can and lie around till he yawns, then goes to sleep again. Personally that is how I, too, would choose to celebrate a birthday, given the choice.

But I thought I should record, monthly, what he's like; because I know how easy it is to forget. So here goes: a Two Month message to Seb. This makes a lot more sense in the context of my long-term plan to make a baby book out of this blog, honest.

Dearest Sebby,

You are simply a delight. I couldn't have wished for, or even imagined, a better wee baby than you. You've slept through the night for nearly a week now, waking up between five thirty and seven thirty, and who can complain about that? Every night you go to sleep without a murmur, and even though your napping is becoming a bit more erratic during the day -- sometimes you sleep for two hours, sometimes it's only 45 minutes -- you're such a charmer when you're up that it's really not a problem.

You are just so full of smiles, from the moment when I walk in to your room in the morning, and there's your little head sticking out of your tight-tucked blankets, and you just grin, full on, crinkled eyes, the works. You don't require much entertaining yet; you just like to watch whatever's going on.

Once you've got up and fed, you're usually happier on your blanket or in your bouncer than you are being cuddled; you're an independent wee chap. You've been spending time out in the garden with Daddy, while he weeds and plants the vege garden, and every afternoon, weather permitting, you come out for a walk with me around Brightwater. Mostly you sleep through that, though. You still love your bath, and now Daddy helps you to lounge against the end of it, propped up almost to sitting. You also love having no pants on, which is our Go-To Cheerer-Upper in the evenings, when you're waiting for your bathtime and we're having our dinner. "Seb's getting grumpy!" "No worries, let's take his pants off."

Yes, this has resulted in the rug being Anointed. I won't go into details. More importantly, it makes you happy. And you make me happy too, little Seb. You and your sister and your daddy. Thank you, sweetheart, for the last two months.

Nine Weeks Old

And finally I am caught up to today. Am glad I only intend to do this once a week!

So anyway, here we are at nine weeks old, and as you can see he is the most handsome, smiley, and all-round adorable boy in the world. He's slept straight through for the past four or five nights, which certainly helps in the adorability stakes, but really, he's a complete charmer. The smiles! And even when he's sad he's adorable, with a downturned mouth and a quivery, stuck-out lip that makes your heart explode with the need to make it all better.

So I'll try to do this with something approaching regularity, and to include both my gorgeous children, not just the wee one. Because I'm sure M is going to change just as much, as she continues plowing ahead into full-blown adolescence. Yesterday she went to an all-day concert by the beach, accompanied by a girlfriend, all eyelinered up, wearing her mirrored aviators, and came home with a new wallpaper on her phone, a picture of "this really hot guitarist". So who'm I kidding -- she's a complete teenager :)

Eight Weeks Old

Sebby got some cool clothes sent over by his friend Bridie in Australia. He loves this shirt!



And at the end of Seb's eighth week, it was his Daddy's birthday. Seb was a star, coming to Tahunanui for a picnic after Daddy did a sea swim event, and coming out for dinner at the Moutere Inn, where he lay on the table and was charming and delightful for the whole meal.



He didn't manage to stay awake for cake, though.

Seven Weeks Old -- Christmas!

We spend Christmas morning, just the four of us, at Auntie Will's place. That's where we stayed, while they were all in Australia. We even had a Christmas tree -- thanks, Will and Anna and Soph! And then it was down to Mutti and Bunce's for our biggest family Christmas in forever. All fourteen of us, with our visitors from Afar. A huge meal was had by all, and Seb was a darling and slept agreeably while we were eating. In the afternoon, full and spoiled, we went down to Cheltenham beach, and Seb had dinner al fresco. It was a great Christmas, and he was a great baby.

Six Weeks Old

Seb's first flight, Nelson to Auckland; he slept all the way. Best baby ever.

Five Weeks Old

First meeting with FOREIGNERS!!! Seb with his Pseudo-Auntie Paula. They got on like a house on fire, she has the magic baby-touch and Seb could barely stay awake in her arms, he was so comfy. His other rellies were here too: David, Leah and Caitlin, all the way from Wimbledon.

Four Weeks Old

For a whole week Seb had no visitors! What, is he a Nigel No-Friends???

Luckily he still has friends overseas. Here he is modelling a shirt and sockies that came all the way from England! Also, you will note that he is SMILING. This first happened when Auntie Fuf was heading home, he did it at the airport. At the time I wasn't totally sure whether it was a wind incident or not. But no! He's been a smiler since very early on. Love your smiles, Sebby.

Three Weeks Old

Auntie Willa came to visit. Seb was most pleased by her bath technique. As you can see, by week three we had given up on the bathroom as a location for babybathing, because our ancient backs (me) and knees (Daddy) couldn't take it any more. So now we just have to tidy like mad after dinner, so's we can bath him on the kitchen bench. He doesn't seem to mind.

Two Weeks Old

Auntie Fuf came to visit, and cousin Pearl. Mummy took bad and out of focus pictures.

One Week Old

For Seb's first couple of weeks, he had the pleasure of his grandparents' company. Still, once the milk arrived and he stopped starving/screaming, he was pretty dull company. He either slept, which is admittedly picturesque, or wished he was asleep. Boring babies to sleep: a Mutti and Bunce Specialty. Which is a compliment, btw.

Newborn

So, this is an experiment to see if I have even a quarter of the persistence that my sister does.

I know I'll never manage to post every day. I'm aiming for once a week, for at least the first year of Seb's life, because that's the year in which he's going to change the most and the quickest. When Molly was born, well, it was a long time ago, when we still used FILM, so we have albums and albums full of Baby MoMo. But now it's all digital, and if (God forbid) Gennady should have a conniption and implode, chances are that the bulk of it would all be lost. And I would blub.

Let us avert such a catastrophe, and put our trust in the serried humming ranks of Blogger's servers instead. And then maybe one day (this is a glorious plan that will probably never eventuate) I will archive off a year's worth of entries, and make them into a real, paper book, and give it to Seb. Who would chew it up, so no, scratch that. I'll keep it.

So here's our newborn, who arrived at 7 minutes past 11 on the 7th of the 11th, weighing 7 pounds and 11 -- nah, actually 14 ounces, but 11 would've been nice, eh? He, or rather we, had a bit of help from forceps, so he had these two little red bruises on his temples, but they disappeared fast. All I could say was, "He's so beautiful!"

Now, looking at this pic, it seems I should have said, "He's so insanely angry with me for the whole business he would gladly chew off my head!" But no, I just thought he was beautiful. In my defence, there were a lot of drugs and hormones zooming around my system. Besides, it quickly transpired that I was right.

Going home, aged three days, was scary for everyone concerned:

But soon he was happily ensconced in his little home, with his sister and his mummy and daddy and his Mutti and Bunce.

And that is quite enough about being a newborn, or I will be here forever. On to Week One!