Its the most wonderful time of the year!!

I'm sorry to all the Grinches out there but.....I love Christmas!

 It's my favourite time of year and I know as you get older the excitement of it dies down but the fact that I get to relive it all with Ruby makes me so happy. I know she is too young now to understand it but when she is at the stage where we can put out milk and carrots for Santa and his Reindeer and she is too excited to sleep on Christmas Eve, I'll be a happy woman. 

Seeing as it is Missy Moo's first Christmas, we had to go see Santa! She didn't have a clue what was going on and was only interested in his beard but hey! No Tears! haha! Santa doesn't look too impressed in the photo though.

We are having a Mackay Christmas this year and then we are lucky enough to be flying down to the Coast for a week over New Years so we are getting the best of both worlds.  

Bring on the festive season!

6 months

Our beautiful Ruby is days away from the 6 month mark and I have to say this is my favourite age. 

Don't get me wrong I have enjoyed every minute so far in the world of Ruby but right now she acknowledges your presence, she eats and talks and rolls over and plays but you can still pop her down somewhere and know she will be there in a few minutes when you return.

 I can still go to the movies without any dramas. Im savouring all these little things because I know in a month or two's time she will be wanting to crawl and getting cranky that she can't! 

She is just starting to sit up all on her own and when she is propped up she really enjoys it. Our bright eyed girl is so clever and only has to be shown once or twice how to do something and she is onto it. We have also started the process of unswaddling her. It's just so hot here now and I dread how hot it is going to be in summer. Her room is 30 degrees at 10 in the morning so I started off cold turkey with both arms out in a light sleeping bag and instead of the usual 5 mins it takes for her to fall asleep, we were going on 45 mins. She did eventually fall asleep but only for an hour max. 

So I did buy a swaddle suit a while ago that you could zip the arms off to transition them. I put her back in that and unzipped one arm. Hallelujah! We are back to 5 mins to fall asleep and she even slept straight through the night with it out. Another week or so and I will unzip the other arm and we should hopefully be in the clear. My little girl is growing up. Tear ;'(

Our Seasoned Traveller.

It has taken me 27 years before I got to visit Melbourne.

 It took Ruby all of 5 months. 

For our wedding anniversary we decided to take a trip to Melbourne. It was freezing!!!! Poor Ruby went from playing all day in just a nappy to 3 layers with shoes and a beanie! 

She did so well on the plane ride to and from and really was such a good girl the whole time we were away. If she got tired. She would just fall asleep in the pram. Done. We made sure we got back to the hotel in the afternoon to give her a good 2 hour or so nap before we would go out to dinner so it wasn't too much on her. A girl needs her beauty sleep. 

We visited the Aquarium and I guess all the excitement got to her and within half an hour of being there she fell asleep in the pram. Most of our photos are her crying or asleep in front of the exhibits. 

We are saving these for your 21st my dear. 

Ruby Rolling

5 months down....

Well Miss Ruby is has just turned 5 months and is truly a wonderful baby. 

No more night feeds. She is sleeping from 6pm-6am with maybe one call out for her dummy to be put back in and if thats all it is, I am not complaining!! She is having 3 meals a day plus 4 bottles and is growing so big. She is now in 00 clothes. Weighs 7.2 kilos. I cant believe it. 

She can roll over from her back to her tummy pretty easily. Sometimes can roll back but other times lies there and calls out until you roll her. She is so vocal. Lots of raspberries and cooing and aahhhhhing. She cries vary rarely and something has to be very wrong. She knows what she wants and if she sees you with that bottle in your hand you better give it to her! STAT! 

She has been quite the socialite. Between swimming classes and floating in her tube to movies to her first Melbourne Cup! We play with Ella all the time and now they are older they are a lot more aware of each other's presence. 

They lean in for each other and hold hands(not intentionally but its still very cute).

We are off to Melbourne tomorrow for the weekend for our Wedding Anniversary and hopefully she will be a little angel on the plane. fingers crossed!!!

Ruby and her food

Our beautiful brown eyed beauty has started eating solids and she is going great guns!!! 

Dont get in the way of her and that spoon. Nick and I cant keep up with her sometimes. As quick as the spoon goes in her mouth and your reloading it again she is there with her mouth open having a winge! 

Little Stropbot!

There is nothing she has turned her nose up at and she is eating all the regular 4 month old foods. Sweet Potato, Zucchini, Pumpkin, Apple, Carrot, Pear. Notice everything is orange at the start?

 I just pureed up some steak and she woofed that down. We plan to keep introducing new foods to her every week. The way she keeps grabbing at the spoon indicates to me she wants to feed herself so i'm going to cut up some bread and steam some finger size bits of carrot and parsnip and see if she can feed herself. She is also taking small sips of water in her sippy cup as well to get used to it. There is nothing you show her she wont do herself. Such a smart little cookie!

4 months

Well 4 months surrounded by the wonderful world that is Ruby has gone by. 

When she was first born and everyone says to you that the first 6 weeks is the hardest and those 6 weeks feel like years. Now 4 months have come and gone and time is flying by. Christmas is fast approaching and I dont know where 2013 has run off too. 

We have been in Mackay for 2 years in January and there is no finish line in sight yet but it is certain that if we were still living on the Gold Coast, Ruby would not be here. We financially just could not do it. So it's a double edge sword really. To make a family of our own we had to leave the family we love. 

Here are the latest photos of our happy, smiley girl that has just learnt to blow raspberries!

Milestones

Ruby has teeth! I repeat Ruby has teeth!! 

She sprouted two bottom teeth while we were away. Unknown to myself until pointed out by Aunty Ricci that yes indeed she has cut two teeth. Again, the mother of the year award goes to....... How did I not know that my child had two very white, very sharp little chompers in her mouth?

 Lucky I wasn't breastfeeding. That would have been a very unpleasant little surprise! 

Mum informs me that my sister Claire cut her first tooth before 3 months so looks like it runs in the family! I hope for Ruby's sake that she has received a few genetic gifts from her father's side of the family including nice straight teeth and the metabolism every girl dreams of. We found a photo of Mum and I at 3 months and the similarities are ridiculous. You might be stuck with the Anderson genes Ruby and god help you if you are!

Me on the left at 3 months and Ruby on the right at 3 1/2 months

First Plane Ride

Well time has flown by and our impending trip to visit all the relatives on the Gold Coast had finally arrived! Ruby was such a good baby on the plane ride down. Took a bottle on take off and slept sucking her dummy on decent. She did so well on this trip. She was passed around from person to person and dragged here there and everywhere. Very overwhelming for her and after a week she had had enough and boy did she let me know about it. Conveniently at a girls dinner thrown in our honour! 

Ever since then Miss Ruby has gone from one wake up at night to three. Apparently it is known as "the 4 month regression". This time is a huge learning curve for babies as they learn to roll and chat away and grab things etc. Because they are learning so many new abilities, their little brains are on overload and they find it hard to settle to go to sleep. 

But as always with our little Gemini, its gone from one extreme to another. She now goes down during the day pretty much without a hitch all thanks to the white noise app on our Ipad that plays the sound of a vacuum cleaner. I find it just blocks out the daily noise around her and she just settles so well to it. She now sleeps in her cot up to 3 times a day for anywhere between 45 mins to 2 and a half hours at a time.

Ruby also met her cousin Raphael who is 6 weeks younger then her and a hell of alot hairier! Here are some pics of the trip.

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3 months already

Our Ruby girl is 3 months old already!!! Time has really flown and the thought of her going to daycare at 6 months just scares the crap out of me but you gotta do what you gotta do!

She is now starting to try and giggle and is discovering her hands and feet. She is so much more aware and now instead of sleeping when we would go to lunch or the movies she is wide awake and wants to see whats going on! 

She is also now only waking once during the night at about 4am for a feed and then it's back down till 7am! She is still not sleeping that well during the day and wants nothing to do with the cot but baby steps. At least we are getting some solid sleep at night. 

Ruby is now 4.8 kilos as she put on 500 grams in 2 weeks. She is really filling out and looks so different. My poor hungry skinny baby. I hate looking at earlier photos of her now as this is how she should of looked!

Lots of smiles and to be honest we have a very happy, very loved little girl. 

Midnight Meltdown

It happened. Every parents worse nightmare. 

1am this morning. Get up to a crying baby to give her a feed and its not there to hold her off while making a bottle. I look all over the cot. I look under the cot. I even look around her neck in the swaddle suit. It cant be found. What to do???

Lucky I had back ups in the car. So with a frantic dash to the car I retrieve it and give it to her. She just looks at me...... she knows.....its not her dummy. Its a fraudulent, cheap knockoff. How dare I?

I didn't want to give her a dummy in the first place but she was a comfort sucker and as soon as I saw her sucking her thumb, I knew it was now the option of choice. I can take away the dummy. I cant take away her thumb. I cant wait for the weaning battle to start. People say to get rid of it before she is 6 months but who knows how this will play out. 

The original was found this morning. Down the bottom of her swaddle suit as I was taking it off to change her. God knows how it got down there but what Ruby does at night in that cot is a mystery. I put her down one end of the cot in her swaddle suit. In the morning she is at the opposite end facing the other way. Not bad for a kid that cant roll or hold her head up on her own yet! 

Ruby now has a little friend called Ella (as do I with her mum Fiona). Ella is 4 days younger then Ruby and we get together for weekly play dates. It is good for Ruby to interact with another baby and also for me to keep my sanity. 

Ruby gets weighed tomorrow after 2 weeks so should be interesting to see how much weight she has put on. Her 0000 suits are getting snug and I have actually started dressing her in normal clothes. She has chubby little thighs and a double chin to boot. As Nick lovingly says "just like her mother". Grrrr