Daniel's One Week Old

Well, Daniel is a week old today - I can't believe it's been a week already! And we are settling down nicely as a family. If I'm honest, I was quite worried about how I would be with the two boys on my own but I had to cross that bridge last Thursday when Bob got tied up at work and I had the two together in the afternoon. The day was made easy as Daniel slept in his car chair for most of it and I could give all my attention to Ben... We are really just loving having Daniel around, he is such a relaxed baby so far, a good eater and to this point a very good sleeper. I'd forgotten just how much newborns sleep! And even as second time parents, we still have a little healthy paranoia - on Saturday we called the hospital again because Daniel wasn't too keen on waking up - at all... After a rather confusing conversation with the nurse, (who asked me if he was still breathing!!!! Of course he's still breathing, if he wasn't I would be calling 999 not YOU...) she assured me that all was well and that newborns sleep most of the time they're not eating...

Ben is still taking the whole new addition in, and while he's not overly physical with the baby, he's really gentle with him actually, he is acting out a little - whether that is his age coming into play (being nearly two) or Daniel I'm not sure, but he definitely is a little more challenging. In a good way though, as both Bob and I can see him trying to establish his boundaries with us... And I'm learning too, I'm learning to choose my battles and I'm learning stuff can be replaced - cd players, digital camera's and every other electrical device in the house worth investigating... :)

Here are some more pics of the new boy and the family...

Baby Daniel's Arrived

So it's official now... and Ben is a big brother!... Daniel arrived at 9:23 Monday morning, rather quickly to everyones surprise, including my own. We only got to the hospital at just after 7 and both Robin and I though it would be at least lunch time before the little guy made an appearance - but he had other plans. The stay in hospital wasn't bad this time either, in fact it was really good. The nurses were fantastic AND I got my own room for the second night which was fabulous too.

Daniel is a very relaxed baby so far, and I'm loving being a mom to a small baby again. I am so much more relaxed this time too, and can enjoy this precious time instead of stressing over every little cry and peep...

Ben has also surprised me in that he is very interested in the baby, and doesn't seem too upset that Daniel is around. Everything has to be given to the baby, or thrown into the moses basket for the baby (whether Daniel is in it or not)... The only funny thing is that we've had the moses basket downstairs in the lounge for almost the past month and Ben hasn't shown any interest in it at all... Until yesterday when he had to climb into it and sleep in it and be rocked! :)...

We are having difficulty deciding whether the two boys look the same and who they take after - what do you think?

Daniel a few hours oldBen a few hours old

Take care everyone, and I'll post again soon x

Finally A Summer Day

Hi, just a quick update in that we had our first Summer Saturday yesterday. The weather was gorgeous! Hot and bright - which doesn't often happen in Ireland. Here are a few pics of the day...


Three little kids in the garden



Our first Braai of the "Season"


Me and my Dora Straw


Hard at work with Dad


Swimming in the Evening (it was about 8pm at this stage)


I'm a model, you know what I mean?

Sleeping after a hard day of fun...

Family shot with me ready to pop


Ben and Sean reading the paving brochure - don't ask me why, but it was the book of choice for the day

Ben looking very grown up


Us again...


Ben and Me in the garden

Ben's new bed


Peek-a-boo Mommee!

This is going to be a short post with lots of photo's ... As you can all see I'm ready to pop, and feel it believe me, only a week to go 'til D-Day... It's a bank holiday here this weekend which means we get Monday off... But as my husband loves to inform me I'm on permanent holiday now... :) Bob is going into work on Monday as he's trying to keep as many days leave for when the baby finally does arrive...

Ben has his "Big Boy" bed now and was delighted when we put it up. We aren't going to change him from the cot to the bed just yet, but I wanted it in his room for him to get used to before the baby came, he just looks like such a little boy now and not my baby anymore... The next time I post will definitely be to introduce the new addition... Take Care til then...

Only Two and a Half Weeks to Go

Hi Everyone,

So here we are with only two and a half weeks to go until baby boy two arrives!! Time is just flying by and my next post will probably be an introduction for our new arrival.

A lot has been happening in the last month and because of it, I'm ashamed to say that I'm not very ready for the baby to arrive yet, don't even have my bags packed!! Which I am planning to get done today sometime I hope. We have had a deck built in the garden in time for the summer, and we are in the process of landscaping the rest of the garden. It has made a huge difference to us and Ben loves playing outside on it. We have also had the whole house painted and it is wonderful to have some subtle colour in the house now... I am really happy with the transformation :) And to top it off we bought a new car - a Renault Grand Scenic... and so now I really feel a bit like a soccer mom... It's lovely to drive and the space is amazing. It's a seven seater - specially for when the family come to visit ;)

Ben is doing really well - I finally took him for his MMR on Monday and I flinched more than him when he got the injections. He didn't cry at all and was fabulous throughout. He is talking a lot more now and has quite a large vocabulary (Bob and I are trying to count it now and we would say in excess of 50/60 words)... The most popular at this stage being juice and cheese - two of the five food groups in case you didn't know. "Daddy" is also a big hit, with "Mommy" only being used when he wants something - I suppose I have to get used to that :)

He also has some concept now that there is a baby on the way, and will point to my tummy or his and say baby. The lucky little thing also gets a few kisses every now and then when he's in the mood :)... While I can't say that I'm not a little sad that his world is going to change completely soon, I am looking very forward to seeing how he adjusts to the new arrival. I am learning that Ben adapts particularly well in almost any situation - and I look forward to telling you all that he had no problem adjusting to his brothers arrival :)

Here are a few recent pictures to catch you up. We went to the botanical garden a few weekends ago and the kids were in their element chasing the squirrels. Hence the pic of Ben and Sammy looking up in the tree and the squirrel ran up...

Hope you are all well, and I'll post again soon

At Long Last

I cannot believe that I have left this update so long! But what a busy year 2007 has been so far... As most of you know, we travelled to SA again to visit the family and had a lovely time. Ben travels amazingly well, and adjusts to almost any situation. That is not to say that there is a lot of hard work behind the scenes to keep him happy... I have realised that for the next few years at least Bob and I will not really have holidays per say... No lounging around the pool and sleeping til 10 - oh on, we will be on duty from 06:30 in whatever time zone we've adjusted to until the kids fall into bed at night. And this duty will be made doubly difficult as we will not have the comfort and familiarity of home to help the process :)

We went down also for Lisa's wedding which I must say was beautiful. It was a lovely day and very enjoyable - Lisa made a beautiful bride, Jason a dashing groom and a beautiful reception afterwards topped off the day.

Once back in Dublin things started falling apart a little... Bob headed off to Hawaii the day after we got back for a week - and in that week I had to have emergency dental surgery, the boiler in the house broke and cost a fortune to get fixed, and Ben got really sick - tonsilitius and an ear and throat infection. So the first week I was due back at work saw me actually at work for a day and a half. Ben hasn't really been well since and was back at the doc's yesterday with spiking temperature and thrush... I'm hoping that this course of medication will see him get over the last of it and back to his bubbly self. Although, at this point I don't know if we've lost bubbly ben to the terrible twos for a while! My little guy enjoys getting his own way these days and protested VERY loudly and dramatically when things don't go his way - I'm told that this is normal, but you have to second guess yourself a bit when the performance is Oscar worthy!

To top it all, I find myself seven months pregnant now... I don't know where the time has gone, honestly! I am stuggling a little with the concept that in a few weeks I'll be a mother of two... I've been very well in this pregnancy, but things are getting a little harder now that I'm getting bigger. We are trying, somewhat in vain I think, to get ben to understand that his brother is on the way - but sure, in eight weeks reality will hit... Us all - not just Ben :)...

I must say though that I'm really starting to look forward to the summer - the weather here is glorious at the moment and the days are getting longer, and it's difficult to let anything get you down... We go for walks inthe evening now and Ben is loving playing outside and it's wonderful to see him run and play and learn... We're most proud of his recent ability which is an Houdini-like talent of opening doors - which has led us to learn our most recent lesson - turning our house into Fort Knox and adopting a jailer like disposition :)...

I'm sorry for the long winded essay - but we had a lot to catch up on... I will keep the blog updated more frequently now, which will mean less in the way of paragraphs.... Hope you are all well... Here are a few pics from the easter weekend and our egg hunt...

Merry Christmas Everyone

Well, can you believe that Christmas has come and gone already? And after all the preparation and work? We had a lovely day, and I'm proud to say that I cooked a turkey for the first time (it wasn't such a big ordeal! thank goodness) with the onion and sage stuffing, made my own cranberry sauce (I'll never buy store made again) AND made Brussel sprouts edible! Which I think was my biggest achievement - I used a Delia recipe for Caramelised Brussel Sprouts with Shallots and Pancetta. They were lovely. Now that you've had a run down of the menu I can get onto the more important stuff - Ben LOVED Christmas... He had a ball opening his presents, and we had such a lovely morning playing around. It was one of my best Christmases... We got him a Smartville Train set which has lots of different animal characters that fit into different parts of the set and talk and teach - he's really spending quite a lot of time with it which is great. He got a plane that you can put things into from Riaan and Cathy and that was another favourite of the day - he spent ages putting things in and taking them out again. I also got him is own mobile phone, which I hope would take some of the attraction away from mine, but it is definitely only a stop gap until he gets the real thing.

The pregnancy is going well too now, after a bit of a rocky start... I'm starting to get my energy back now thank goodness, but for those of you in any doubt, pregnancy forgetfulness is a very real condition - I think this child will be a genius, as it is sapping all of my intelligence... I won't even launch into the litany of stupid things I've done over the past couple of weeks! ...

We hope that you have had a really good holiday, and that you've enjoyed spending time with friends and family, and for those of you we were far away from know that you were never that far as you are always in our thoughts...

Merry Christmas Everyone :)

Long Awaited Pictures

Hi Everyone,

I can't even begin to explain how hectic things have been here on our side... And while I have every intention of updating Ben's blog regularly, finding the time is becoming a challenge. We are all really well, Ben is just getting bigger and bigger.... and it is wonderful watching him develop into his own little person...

So here we are facing the last week before Christmas 2006 - and thankfully I have most all the shopping done... Admittedly, I only started and finished on Saturday, but it's done! The Kents are coming over for Christmas this year and I am looking forward to the day. I've put a lot into the planning to make sure that I'm not running around on the day... I really want to enjoy the day with Ben and Bob and not be a slave to the kitchen...

I hope that you all have a wonderful, merry and stress free run up to Christmas... Enjoy the holidays :) We send love to you all...

24 Days to Christmas and Counting

I haven't been neglecting my blog lately, but between computer problems, single parenting and full time work I've been a little busy. Robin was away in SA for a week on business and I took on morning, noon and evening duty ... It would have been okay except for the fact that Ben got conjunctivitus again which basically put us in quarrentine for the weekend and we nearly drove each other bananas. He was really bored and I didn't have the energy to entertain him 24 hours a day... It wasn't the best weekend I've had... Thank goodness Bob is back and we're back to a two parent family.

We've been looking forward to our trip to London for about 3 months now and finally on Friday the day came for us to fly out... Except that Robin left his passport and drivers licence in the office and Ryanair wouldn't let him on the plane... So our trip to London was suddenly cut short!

We are looking very forward to Bob's aunt, Linda coming to visit next weekend. We had such a lovely stay with them when we went to LA and I'm looking forward to returning the hospitality...

I hope you are all keeping well, and there is only a few more weeks until we come down to visit you...

Here are a few shots of the boy...

Empty Nest

Well, everyone's come and gone... Bob's mom flew back to JHB on Friday and Euan left this morning... It's very quiet around the house now... I've had the last week off work to spend with the two of them before they left... It was lovely, but I caught a cold towards the end of the week and so the last few days haven't been to pleasant.

Ben had his third hearing test on Tuesday... He's failed the last two, and this one went much better or so I thought... He was turning for everything except the really quiet sounds ... Once it was over I was convinced all was okay until the tester turned around and said `My Dear, he has fluid on his ears` She then proceeded to test his ears with a thermometer thingy and was shocked to find that he physically didn't have fluid in his ears... I could see she was stumped. She then questioned me a little on how we interact with him - and the verdict that followed had me laughing out loud... She decided that we overstimulate him! and that we are doing to much with him... What followed then was a lecture in how to talk to my son, as apparently I have taught him to tune me out - but only when I speak softly :)...

Anyway, here are a few more pics - we had a lovely walk on the beach yesterday and I've included some of Ben's Halloween Party at the creche... Don't know the legalities of publishing pics of other people's children, but then, what are the chances of them finding and logging on to my blog??...