Little hands

Catherine discovered her hands and actually helped herself to get to sleep by sucking on one of them. However often her hands miss her mouth and she just ends up whacking herself on the head.

Travelled places

Since PJs and Eugene posted the maps of places they visited, here is mine for comparison:

you can create your own map here

The great news is that from 1 January 2007 the citizens of Australia no longer need to obtain short stay visas (visas for stays not longer than 90 days within 6 months, from the date of the first entry) for Romania. So I'm adding visiting Denya in Romania to potential travel plans for this year.

Six weeks mark

Well we reached the magic six weeks mark last Sunday, though due to the business of our clinic the six weeks check up will happen next week on Wednesday. We are definitely much better at taking care of Catherine now, she is interacting more and more with us and now that the guests have left there are signs of developing some type of routine.

She usually (ok, usually means for the last week – week and a half) wakes up at around 6am to say good morning to the new day and her parents. It’s one of the best times to get her to smile, but she falls asleep again pretty fast to wake up again at 9am for the feed and nappy change before the morning walk. I usually manage to get us out of the house by about 10am and we go for a nice long walk in the nearest park. She sleeps really well and doesn’t wake up until 12-1pm. The afternoons are still very chaotic, but I try to do baby massage and get out of the house again for a shorter walk. She sleeps well again after 6pm, but sadly Clive and I have to gently rouse her for 8pm bath. She loves bathing, but hates the drying up and putting on of clothes. Clive often gets her in the good mood again by signing silly songs and pulling funny faces. This is another good time to get few huge smiles out of her. I try to get her to sleep by 9, but she rarely falls asleep before 10. At night she wakes up for 2 feeds at around midnight-1am and anytime after 3am. Today she woke up at 5 for the second feed, which meant that she was awake again to great the new day less than half an hour after falling asleep after the feed.

Current favourite pastimes while awake are:

• Looking at the word from parents shoulders
• Staring at the mobile
• Chewing on the bear. She usually knocks it away from herself and tries really hard to get it back before getting frustrated.

Best locations for sleep are:

• In the pram during the morning walk
• On parents shoulders

New Year Resolutions

Last year I wrote a very long personal growth plan for 2006 instead of the usual short list of the New Year resolutions. Today I re-read it. It’s interesting to see how things changed and became clearer thanks to pregnancy and the birth of my wonderful daughter; but how many thoughts, feelings and decision from last year are still very valid. So here is the updated version for 2007:

Friendships
This blog hopefully helps my far-away Australian friends to know what is happening in my life, but the flow of information is very one-sided and I need to get better at keeping in touch via email and phone to be up-to-date on their lives. And I should send out real paper Christmas cards this year!

I need to work on expanding my circle to include people with children, as it will get very lonely being on my own with a small child during work hours.

I also should try to organise more group events/parties, because I love seeing people having fun and integrating together/interacting with each other. It would be lovely to manage to mix my Australian circle with Clive’s South African one.

My new family
I will treasure my closest people, Clive and Catherine, and remember to show my love for them even when I’m busy or feeling tired. I will try to be honest and open about my feelings, wants and beliefs (especially when I’m annoyed and want to sulk instead of resolving any issues we may have).

Personal improvements
I will strive to cultivate positive attitude about myself and notice the magic of every day. I’ll practice listening to what people saying without trying to project my own personal experiences and beliefs on their stories. I’ll judge myself based on my own goals and values, instead of other people's values or by comparing myself to others.

Volunteer work
Last year Clive wanted to raise some money to buy pencils, exercise books, etc for underprivileged South African schools. Due to my pregnancy and his house renovations our enthusiasm fizzled out, but I think we should revive this project. Anyone has any funky fundraising ideas?

Miscellaneous
I should finish reading through OpenLearn’s Play, Learning and the Brain course and maybe do some courses from The Open University.

I’ll do at least one Ramblers’ Families Group walks

I’ll try to use any free time I have efficiently by having a list of things to do and avoiding procrastination (otherwise I won’t be able to get anything done beyond taking care of Catherine and housework).

Thrush?

Cat developed a white spot on her bottom lip, which from my limited baby experience looks like thrush. So I took her to the doctors. It is almost impossible to get appointment with our GP (last time I had to book one week in advance), but the great thing about mentioning any problems with tiny babies is that the receptionist tells you to come as soon as possible for the emergency appointment. And therefore I saw a different doctor and not our wonderful, super-helpful and sweet Spanish lady, who I totally adore. Liking a doctor is very rare for me as after few crap experiences of Russian hospitals and doctors during my childhood; I have subconscious dislike and distrust of all things medical – doctors, hospitals, clinics, etc (the fact that London hospital had to take my blood THREE times after Catherine birth, because they lost first 2 samples, also didn’t help to improve my opinion of public health system). Anyway the doctor wasn’t 100% sure that it is thrush, because according to him it is very rare to get thrush spots only on the lip and have none on the tongue. But he prescribed anti-thrush medicine anyway just in case. I also used this chance to mention horribly dry skin on my hands and he was sweet enough to prescribe some hand cream.

The pharmacist suggested that I should get maternity exemption certificate so I don’t have to pay for prescription medicine and promptly gave me everything (medicine & cream) for free even though I don’t have the certificate. I always seem to have good experiences with pharmacists unlike doctors.

Getting heavier

Cat's weight is now 4720 grams and she is onto Pampas size 3 nappies. It took few damp spots on her clothes due to the leaks for us to realise that size 2 were getting too small.

New Year

Happy New Year! Hope it started well for you and will progressively get better.

For my two last years in Australia I had New Year parties. My New Year Eve started with grocery shopping, continued into cooking, greeting people, encouraging everyone to eat more and spending the night happily in the circle of my friends. My first new year in London was totally different. It was a work day, but there wasn’t much work to be done and I was able to leave early, but didn’t know what to do as there was no need to cook and prepare. I felt depressed and homesick for most of the day. The actual night worked out ok - I went to someone else’s party in Docklands and they had fantastic view of fireworks in Greenwich and other places along Thames. Next year was better as few of my Australian friends moved to London or came to visit and we met it at the pub together.

This new year was approaching really fast and my friends and visitors couldn’t decide what to do and where to go. And since Clive and I couldn’t join them at funky nightclub parties, I decided to host a small lunch/dinner gathering. As usual the invitation list grew at alarming rate and at the end I invited everyone I knew in London, who wasn’t away (luckily for my and Clive’s sanity some people already had other plans).

Early in the morning, while Catherine was asleep, Polina and I made Russian potato salad (Oliv’e), Clive marinated chicken, extra groceries were bought and we could relax until later. More food was prepared in the afternoon and guests started to arrive slowly at around 6pm. Soon the living room was full of people. There was plenty of food & drink and Anna (wife of Julia’s cousin Simon) & Polina started a dare game, which provided lots of amusement for everyone. Few people were delighted to meet Catherine for the first time. Her defensive reaction to all the noise and attention was to hibernate, so everyone commented on what a wonderful quiet baby she is. Since I didn’t want to overtire us the invitation stated the end time of 10pm and I started wondering how politely to send people off to the next location, when Jack efficiently organized everyone and took them all away. (Jack, thank you!)

Once everyone left Catherine opened her eyes, had a feed and got her nappy changed and went back to sleep. Clive and I were very tempted to follow her lead, but we cuddled all together on the couch untill midnight to great New Year and watch London Eye fireworks. For me this was perfect way to welcome New Year.