Just picked up the photos from yesterday's swim...

look at her little toes....!


what a cutie little water baby!

Fidget is 11 weeks old today, not the usual format for her pictures today as daddy had taken the day off to go swimming with her and mummy (among other exciting things such as picking up a piece of stone for the new fireplace), so by the time it came for photos she was tuckered out.

Fidget did seem to enjoy the swimming, (photos to follow). She was a bit suspicious at first, but took it all in her stride, only getting a little put out when she started to get abit cold.

Fidget has been getting better with her hand-eye coordination, and has been able to grab Millie the bear or her book with both hands and pull it towards her mouth to give it a good gumming. But today she managed to reach out and grab the rattle and then hold onto it. It took alot of concentration as it is a much smaller object than Millie or the book.

Today Fidget and I became ladies who lunch! We went out to a local Italian with some other mums from our postnatal class, and then on to Sainsbury's for tea and cakes with one of the mums and her 7 week old little boy, when the Italian closed!

Went for our first proper outing today, ie not within striking distance of home. We went to visit Fidget's Great Aunt and Uncle for lunch, along with her Grandma and Grandad. It was a beautiful day for it and all went very smoothly, with Fidget taking the new surroundings very much in her stride.

Prizes for guessing what is happening in this picture!?...

Yes, blackberrying!

And Fidget tried out a new position in her baby bjorn (and also some stylish new headgear)...

Fidget is 10 weeks old today, and we got some cracking photos, it was so hard choosing, so I have thrown in quite a few.

She is starting to make lots of quite distinct sounds now, "oooo", "aaaa", "eeee", "aag" and my favourite "nang", which does lead her to make alot of funny faces.

I don't know about anyone else, but I think that in this final one she looks alot like her daddy....

As promised, a few pictures of our beautiful new wardrobes...

It is fantastic to have them, as for nearly 3 years now, we have been using rickety, dusty frame wardrobes which were too small, so when you put something in at the bottom, half the contents of the top would fall out.

They make the room look so neat, and being mirrored, make that end of the room much lighter. I have been waiting a long time to get these in and I am not disappointed!!!

Fidget had a visit from her other Grandma & Grandad at the weekend.

M and his dad were kept busy, first with laying a concrete hardstanding out the back of the garage.

Then with installing a new chimney liner for the back room, in preparation for getting another wood burning stove installed.

They also put together our wardrobe (photos to follow). And of course M's mum & I had a very busy time looking after Fidget!

Fidet is 9 weeks old today and was 2 months old yesterday, she has another infection and so has been rather sleepy and a little grumpy today so wasn't really interested in her photo session, but i did get a couple of nice images.












On Tuesday night and Wednesday morning, M & I respectively thought (quite suddenly) that Fidget had started to look much more like me. We can't quite put our finger on it and think it might be in some of the facial expressions she is developing.

I did take some lovely pictures on Wednesday, of Fidget with her new little friend, Milly the bear (real name has not been changed to protect Milly's identity). Fidget has really engaged with Milly and is very good at grabbing her ear or label and the staring cross eyed at her (at close range) before giving her a good shake, the start of a beautiful friendship?...

I have seen a fox passing through the garden sometimes in the early morning, but this evening at 19:40 I spotted a fox taking it easy on my bed (the one in the garden), fortunately there is currently nothing growing in that particular spot or I might have been less interested in photographing it and more interested in chasing it on!

Just also like to throw in a very cute photo of Fidget at rest on her daddy... little baby monkey with the chimp-daddy.

Everyone was loving their photo oportunities with Fidget this weekend and she had a good weekend, being cheery for pretty much all of Saturday and fed really well.

M looked after us all with delicious food, his pot chicken will now be legendary.

Fidget is 8 weeks old today, we went today to get her first jabs, so it is amaizing that on her return home we got such lovely photos.

She was very brave at the doctors, she had stopped crying from the first jab, before getting a second jab, which she felt was very unfair, but again she had stopped crying before we left. The doctor was impressed with how she is developing and said she is very strong. He was pulling her around in all sorts of directions that I didn't realise she could go in and she does indeed seem to be more robust than even I thought.

She is looking very pretty today in some nice pink dungarees kindly handed down from a colleauge' s daughters, one of my favourite things in the bags we received was this lovely sun hat. She is certainly her mother and father's daughter in that she does suit a hat!!

Fidget is looking forward to a great weekend, with a visit from her Grandma and Grandad, her Great Grandma and Great Aunt and her boyfriend. I am looking forward to having my hands free for a while and more oportunites for lovely photots.

The nappy experiment continues... we are now down to three contenders:

1. Totsbots fluffle - microterry nappy, this one is the bulkiest, but dries quickest and has performed well against poo and wee. No poo leakage, but as with the others, some wee leakage if left on too long and it gets too saturated.
2. Totsbots organic bamboozle - this is a nappy made from bamboo fibre and has the best absorbancy and is not so bulky, but that means that it takes longest to dry. It has performed well against poo and wee. It is a good fit and feels nice, the drying time is the only downside. Both the totsbots are for 10-18lb babies (would need to get a bigger size at some time before she gets to using a potty.
3. Motherease Sandys - these are cotton and have the best, slimest fit, the drying time sits between the other two and the absorbancy is fine and performance against leaks is good. This nappy will only last until she is 14lbs though, and as it has poppers has less flexibility on the adjustment.

I think the bamboo totsbots are going to be favourite, as the drying time can be helped by buying a few more nappies in the set, and my first concern is for how comfortable the nappy is for Fidget, ie not too bulky and good absorbancy so she is not sat in a wet nappy.

We have a few more days to try out the nappies and make our mind up, so watch this space to find out the winner.

Update on the Fuzzibunz... poor... the absorbancy was no good and we had leakage even when she was in the baby bjorn sling (so sat upright). When the nappy came off, she was soaking wet, so no good at all.


We then tried another "all in one" (ie nappy has integrated waterproof outer). This one looked good in that it had a good leakage barrier (rather like on a disposable). It was very bulky on and I was concerned she wasn't too comfortable. The absorbancy on this one was better but we still had leakage out of the top whilst she was feeding. It also left red marks across her stomach which didn't look very comfortable.


She is now in a totsbots organic bamboozle with velcro (having finally dried!). The velcro was helpful in getting a good looking fit, but she is still quite skinny so there was quite a bit of bulky overlap. There is really only one more from the pack that I have much hope for (the rest seem too big or bulky before we even start), which is a totsbot fluffle microterry nappy (didn't have the drying problem), that uses a "nippa" to fasten it so it will be interesting to see if this gives a better fit.

Fidget is 7 weeks old today...

Today we stareted trialling re-usable nappies. How has it taken so long? Well, we were advised to wait and see what size and shape bundle was born before buying the nappies, which only a short while into this trial already seems like excellent advice. You can end up spending around £200 on your whole kit, which is small compared to what you can spend on disposables, but very expensive if you buy the wrong things. So she was born and for several weeks I was hardly on this planet never mind in a nappy buying place. Then there was making an application to a money off scheme, and then making an appointment with a nappy lady. So here we are 7 weeks later with a hire kit that consists of one each of a wide range of real nappies.

We started this morning with Motherease one size, which I had high hopes for and you can see here being modelled by Berrie the doll for my trial run...

But no sooner was it on, then Fidget decided to get right down to the testing with a big poo, at this point I established that the leg holes were not snug enough. Leakage was avoided, but only through careful handling of the cheeker!

We then went for Mothereaze Sandy's which were a much more snug fit and handled well against a big Fidget poo, but this is because they are in a range of sizes so the current size she will quickly grow out of.

We are now on the delightfully named Fuzzibunz pocket nappy. It looks promicing but the poppers would be better as velcro, as getting the sizing absolutely right was a little difficult.

My favourites before we started were totsbots bamboo, but they have already suffered a signifcant settback in that they take so long to dry. When we recieved the pack, we were advised to wash them again in our own detergent, which I did yesterday. Everything else is dry, but these are still in the tumble dryer, after having been tumbled dried once and put out on the line. So we will see.

Tune in soon for more nappy updates!!!

Little Fidget is very lucky to have been given lots of lovely clothes, yesterday she was looking particularly lovely in her skirt and yellow t-shirt.

She is certainly getting more active and keen to be played with. Up to now she has really only been happy and alert for a little time in the morning. But this week she has engaged with us much more, smiling and sticking out her tongue when we smile and stick out our tongues at her. Yesterday evening she was getting rather cranky but cheered up considerably when put down on her baby gym and able to enjoy some "tummy time"!

It seems that blogger now lets you load up video directly (rather than via u-tube) so I am going to try and test it out with a short video of Fidget with hiccups from last night....

M was kept busy this weekend with putting in a soakaway in the front garden for the downpipe.

On Sunday he spent the day looking after little Fidget so that I could get out and do some work in the garden, which was great. And on Monday he dug up the rest of our potatoes which are really rather beautiful...