A lot’s been happening

It’s been over a week and a half since I’ve had enough time to draw breath and put some words down on paper.  We’ve been to the botanics and the museum, been on transatlantic live broadcast and gone to our first party, all since the last post.  Wow.

So, let’s kick off with a picture of a 7lb 13oz bundle of love having a friendly moment with Mia.  We have been really pleased how Mia has taken to Marcail, none of the jealousy that we were concerned might happen has come to pass at all.  Doglet has taken it all in her stride and shows real care and concern for Marcail.  Today when she came back from the park with Debs, hyper, she ran straight over to the moses basket to say “Hi!” and have a sniff.  Bless.

Meantime Marcail looks like she’s saying something along the lines of “Come on then you Hound.  Marquess of Queensberry rules and I’ll have you on your arse!  What Ho!”  But she’s not, because she’s seven weeks old and has never heard of Queensberry; Duh!

The start of the week wasn’t always so good.  She’s been colicy, well we think that’s what it is, and had some real hum dingers of days. Thursday was especially bad. I got home to find a rather frazzled missus who had been tending a screaming child for the entire day.  It didn’t get any better after that as she kept it going till well after the adults wanted to be in bed. It’s hard when she’s like that, really hard.  But the great thing is that it only takes one little flash of comprehension, a smile or some little thing that she has never done before and it is all forgotten.  All in it is simply the best thing in the world, being a new dad.  Thankfully, since Thursday we’ve had a bit of a reprieve.  In fact, Friday and the weekend she has been an absolute star in every respect.

Of course, there have been great times amongst all of that.  A couple of friends, Alex and Jenny, were up from Chester area last weekend, so a group of us went off to the Royal Botanical Gardens in Edinburgh for some brunch and a wander.  Now, Jenny is not the most maternal person I have ever met, and I am sure neither her nor Alex would object to me saying that. So to those of you who know her, the picture at left will be somewhat surprising.  A rare glimpse of Jenny with Ewan, well any child really!  I had to be quick mind.  It was a bit of a ‘blink and you’ll miss it moment.’

I was going through the, one or two, photos that I’ve accumulated of Marcail in the last ten days, which included her zoning out in the garden in her car seat on the pushchair base; I tell you these travel systems are actually great.  You can take her for a walk in the pushchair and then in and out of the car or hanging in the house, all without a change of sleeping place and the consequent “Ahhhhhhh!

You are placing me on a mattress that you have dipped in the most vile acid! Ahhhhhhh!  Ahhhhhhh!  Ahhhhhhh!” moment.  Anyway, it struck me that I’d got a photo that was a complete ringer for one taken some weeks ago, right down to the outfit.  This really made it sink in how much she really has grown!

She’s now really starting to use her eyes, they are open some of the time, honest.  She not only looks at you and makes eye contact, but is also starting to move her head around to keep track of you as you move.   Vocalisation is coming on in leaps and bounds too with a good smattering of “Oo!” and “Gaaa” coming out.  We’ve even had an accidental “hi…” and tonight a “yess”; quantum theory and discourse on the linguistic origins of Finnish will surely follow in a few months.  In the mean time we’ll concentrate on smiling.  That seems to be becoming well established.  Mummy gets a smiley girl in the morning now.  I’ve been treated this weekend too to the happy morning girl.  All smiles and happy face.

With the working eyes seems to be coming more appreciation of what these slightly pink things that keep flitting past (and more often than not swatting into) her face are.  Another minor milestone happened this morning, when she took a rattle that Mummy manoeuvered into the vicinity of her hand and waved it around for a bit.

Part of the being a little angel phase means that she’s really content and quite happy sleeping.  Even at Jamie’s party yesterday, with half a dozen 3-10 year olds causing chaos around her she managed to look angelic.  Little does she know, she went through half a dozen women’s arms before she ended up being snapped here.

And that brings us to today. It’s a Sunday and we have gone back to open viewing so that meant 2-4pm we could have potential buyers coming to look at the house.  I say could have but in reality we had one gentleman, who arrived while I was grabbing a behind schedule shower and seemed to want to leave as fast as his legs would carry him.  Oh well, there’s always next week…

When she’s all loved up, she has a great time on her change mat – and there have been some impressive outputs, let me tell you.  Oh, and daddy wasn’t quick enough and took it full bore in the thigh on Friday.  But she’ll lie there looking around, smiling and doing her infant aerobics.  Kicking and waving and tensing all her muscles.

Oh, that was another thing.  She’d started to feel, when you’re hoisting her on your shoulder like her joint was creaking or cracking or something.  This was a cause for some minor concern for me for around a day.  Then it became clear.  She’s starting to get some muscles, and it’s these moving over the bone that is making the sensation.  Go ahead massage your forearm and you’ll see what I mean; ladies, find a man and massage his.

So I’ll wish you all the best and leave you with a little sequence of Miss Wiggler on her change mat.