A busy weekend!

Isaac and I did quite a lot this weekend! A few firsts too.

On Saturday Simon, Isaac, Rinny and I went for Isaac's first excursion to the Peaks. The Peak District is close to where we live and it's really quite  a beautiful park of the UK. And quiet. I love that countryside silence; only broken by the bleating of sheep and a polite "hello" from other walkers.

We decided to go for a mooch around Stanton Moor in the White Peak, so called because of the light colour of the underlying limestone rock, common around the central and southern parts of the Peak District. I think. Anyhoo, we have a book called Kiddiwalks in the Peak District which we had yet to use. Turns out it's pretty good (especially if you can remember from school how to read a grid reference [thanks to Google for refreshing my rusty brain!] to find the starting point). It allowed 2 1/2 hours for the route we chose, but took us only 1, I suppose because we weren't walking at child speed and didn't really stop to look around/explore much.

I forgot my camera :-(

Even the point & shoot.

All I had was my phone. :-(

So this is all I took before I got peed off and turned my phone off out of frustration.

It was a lovely walk and the book points out lots of cool stuff, like the Nine Ladies Stone Circle with the Fiddler Stone, the Trig Point (from which you can see for miles!), the Cork Stone & an old overgrown quarry that sheep used for resting ledges.  Living in a city, it's marvellous to see such lush greenery and escape (what you don't realise is) contant background noise.

Isaac completely fell asleep in the carrier! I couldn't believe it! Bless him.

We're pretty excited about the rest of the walks in the book and so will be going up into the Peaks again with more planning done next time; it was a bit last minute, but still really nice to spend some time together. What next - camping perhaps?

On Saturday evening through 'til Monday evening Isaac and I went to see his Nanna & Grandpa (my Mum & Step-Dad) at their house in Leamington Spa. He always sleeps well there and likes the change of scenery. Nanna recently invested in a hot tub and so (after adjusting the temperature accordingly) Isaac took his first dip!

He. Loved. It.

Splashing his little arms all over the place, playing bongo on the filter cover, floating on his back (with some support from Mummy of course). He face planted the water a few times, but got over the initial shock quite quickly. I couldn't take pictures of him in there because it was just me and him at the time, but here's the cheeky scamp afterwards...

 ...and after dropping the towel on the floor for the 6th time, just to watch it fall...

I can't believe we're having such good weather at the moment and that we've made the most of a weekend when we don't have other commitments! I'm so pleased and am really looking forward to more; Grandad's come to stay with us for a bit so we'll see what else we get up to :-D

Introducing...

...Isaac's tongue!

Today, Isaac has been [mostly] introducing his tongue to the world and using his mouth to make a clicking sound; hilarious! Today is the first day he's really done this & he CAN'T GET ENOUGH! He finds it very amusing, as do I if I'm honest.

Over the past few weeks he has started to really like to passing things to you, as long as you give them back. Well, I don't think he has any expectations, but he's always pleased to get the item in question back. What a generous wee chappie young Master Turner is!

We also went to TinyTalk for the first time. It's excellent! The woman that runs it is possibly the most enthusiastic woman in the world, which is a good thing when teaching babies to sign. We learned the signs for hot, cold, rain, heavy rain, water and look/see. I also picked up the signs for all gone, water and happy from Steph (NCT chum). We're going back & even bought a CD of songs. There are only 3 more classes this term so will have to make the most of them. I'm glad we've finally gone - it'll do us good and Isaac seemed to enjoy it!

On a sunny June afternoon...

Bread!

I've tried to make bread before. Well, I've made bread before, but it resembled a door stop or small rock. Not the sort of bread you'd like to eat unless you were the Rock Biter from The Neverending Story. Which I'm not. So, my lovely mother (at my request) bought us a bread machine for our birthdays. (Mine &  Simon's birthdays are within 4 days of each other). It's bloody fantastic! Even Simon thinks so & he hasn't even used it! Long gone is the arduous task of kneading & the first proving. The beautiful machine does it for me! I made a garlic focaccia the other day for lunch when some friends visited and today I made  something that was bloomer shape, but the recipe was forwhite bread roll dough so it had that texture, but a bit lighter. I'm quite big on food aesthetics (believing that half the battle is won if it looks pretty) so I clearly need to work on presentation, but it tasted great - really fresh and went perfectly with what-veg-is-left-in-the-fridge? and lentil stew for tea - yum!

Isaac liked it too :-D

No more store bought bread for us! I never thought I'd see the day...

Finally!

After a few weeks of dadadadadadadaDADADADADADA...(you get the idea) I heard the long awaited mumumumumumumuma! My eyes prickled and my heart swelled. I know they're just sounds for now, but I was truly bowled over by how it made me feel and was reminded that one day my baby boy really will be calling me Mummy :-D

Isaac and his Nanna.

We've come to visit Isaac's Nanna and Grandpa for the weekend and today Mum, Isaac and I went to Stratford-upon-Avon for the afternoon. I'd forgotten how lovely it is. In fact, I'd forgotten how lovely most of Warwickshire is. All the little black and white beamed houses, groaning under the weight of age and history, keeping  locked in the walls and doors their secrets of lives past.  Not something I appreciated as a child growing up there, but now...it's just so charming. I could sit by the river for hours and watch the people go about their meanderings.  Heck, am I getting old?? Anyhoo I digress. Massively into my own musings. Apologies.

What I wanted to show you was this...

It's so incredibly terrific to see Mum with a smile this big on her face. She's been through a hell of a lot in recent years and it's not over yet. It makes me  happy and so utterly proud that our Little Man can instigate a beam like this.

I love you Mama and so does your wee grandson, he just can't say it yet.

I'm not even home...

...and I've found what I want to make next. Aren't they soooooooooooooooooo cute? I need buttons. Buttons buttons BUTTONS! Any excuse to shop for buttons, my primary one being - I don't have any suitable for this project. Which is, I guess, a pretty good reason to shop for buttons! SELINA! Where are you when a frenzy takes hold???!

Actually, I found the pattern months ago and queued it in Ravelry, but have decided that (as I'm about 60 miles away from my stash & hooks) I desperately want to start making them RIGHT NOW. The irksome thing is that (if I were at home) I could totally make them because I have a ton of Vanna's Choice solids & heathers (as you'll remember from my delivery delirium - amigurumi have blurred into my [now epic] Ravelry queue - damn you Ravelry for being so efficient at teasing me with a never-ending supply of completely beautiful things to make!).

I suppose the urge is upon me because I'm not at home and not being at home means I'm not surrounded by the endless-pile-of-stuff-that-needs-to-be-done-while-Isaac-is-asleep.

Anyhoo. I found them on Ravelry, but here is a link to the pattern for those of you non-Ravelers; shame on you! I like lots of her patterns...*sigh*...if only there were more hours in the day...

6 - 12 month review

We had our 6 - 12 month review today. He's doing everything he *should* be doing (i.e.: sitting on his own, passing objects from hand to hand, eating solid food regularly and other such NHS check list items).

The biggest news is that Isaac is now officially [just] back on the WHO breastfed baby weight-for-age chart! He had dropped off, which was of course, a concern (!) for my local HV team, but not so much for me. I adopted the stance that he's always been healthy, extremely happy and doing everything he should, while being a little on the small side. I'd much rather he was underweight (within reason) than overweight; there are so many awful diseases and illnesses connected with childhood obesity. Childhood obesity; it's just not right, but that's a whole other post on a whole other blog!

So, as of 9 months (ish), Isaac is 16lbs (approx 7.25kg). Which is still on the small side according to a piece of paper, but at least the crazy [almost] vegan lady's son isn't a worry for the Abbey HV team anymore. He didn't even cry on the scales! I speak to a fair few Mums who mostly all tell me the same - their breastfed babies were "small".

Anyhoo, he looks good enough to eat to me!

Not for Florida - finished!

I've noticed that I'm incredibly slack about posting finished projects on here. In a bid to un-slacken myself, here is the finished Not for Florida poncho! It's the first item of clothing I've made [excluding hats & scarves] that I'm happy to wear out in public! Go me!

The tension [gauge] thing was resolved by (after going back to Michael's & buying more hooks, trying the tension square on 4 different hooks) crocheting slightly more loosely on the original 5mm hook. Grr. On the plus side, I now have a lovely set of aluminium hooks which are nicer to work with than my cheapy plastic ones.

Anyhoo, here is my Carousel Capelet!

I love love LOVE IT! I can't believe I want to wear it! Out in public! I like how girly it is and I really like the Bamboo Ewe. It's not too scratchy, for saying that it's nearly half wool (45%). I bought far too much, though, not knowing actual required yardage for pattern and substituting Alpaca Love with Bamboo Ewe, so I now have 2 & a bit skeins  of the Beach Glass left over. I've got nearly full skeins of  the other 2 colours too (Geranium & Snapdragon) which is just as well because I totally want to make more from the booklet, but have just seen this incredibly cute jumper on the Stitch Nation website which I might have to make right now, although  it won't fit Isaac for a while...*scrolls down pattern*...uh oh, it would mean the dreaded circular needles. Hmm. *ponders*

I could make something else from the booklet, but stripy perhaps?

D'oh! Still needs blocking. Never had need to block before. Gah...watch this space.

Orlando part III: The never-ending last day

We knew it'd be a long one and so decided to make the most of it. We'd only been to Universal for a few hours this trip and I really wanted to see Seuss Landings (being a fan of Dr Seuss since my own childhood [Islands of Adventure weren't built when I was there last]). So, after a final mad packing scrap, breakfast & Isaac's morning nap we toddled off to Universal to see as much as we could in a short time. It was so worth it.

Sarah - ridiculous mega grin - Isaac, not really sure

It really is exactly like the books, from the Fox In Sox to Circus McGurkus :mrgreen: Can you tell I was a bit excited? Anyhoo, this blog is about Isaac, not my childhood nostalgia.

We walked around as much of the islands as we could, which was pretty much all of it without going on any rides, not easy with an infant unless you leave beb with one of you & join the lonely looking single rider line. Bad planning there. Note to self: wait for Isaac to be old enough to A) enjoy it himself or B) be old enough to stay with Nanna for an afternoon while parents go on big scary rides!

Having had enough of getting hot & sweaty for one day we went back the apartment to cool off & Isaac & Mummy had a little snooze (Mummy's was unplanned & sort of knocked her out!) Next thing I know it's time to go to the airport! Which we did. No delays & we'd pre-checked in so just had to rock up & get to the gate. We sort of forgot to feed Isaac (whoops), but he was so busy watching everything that it didn't matter & worked out quite well because it meant he had something to do while we sat for the final 35 minutes by the gate before boarding. Got on the plane, Isaac slept most of the way. Simon & I tried to sleep, but having a baby does something funny to you in that, neither of us could. We were checking on wee man every 5 minutes & generally couldn't sleep.

So, come landing time we're both shattered & I'm actually drinking coffee to stay awake for the drive home! I don't do coffee. Felt very weird! We stopped a couple of times on the motorway to give Isaac some stretching time & us all some food time. Thought we should capture the highly amusing hair (badly on a mobile phone):

Several different kinds of sweat in there:
Universal sweat, sleeping blanket sweat
& car sweat. Who needs gel??

VERY glad it was sunny at home :-) The drive seemed to take forever, but Isaac was very good & didn't peep once. Goodness knows we were grateful for that. We landed at 8.30am & got to bed at about 11 so I was up for approximately 34 hours (I couldn't get back to sleep after Isaac woke for his early morning feed at 4.30am), give or take the odd snoozeroo here & there.

So now we've been home for 4 days and he's just about getting back onto UK time although he has more teeth coming through. So we're all over the place anyway!

Verdict: lovely holiday, but might stick closer to home next time so less trauma for Isaac in terms of time difference. No doubt we'll go back again in the future when he's old enough to drag us around the different parks!