Lunch with Paul and Bernice - Elsie pulls herself up

Today we visited Joel’s uncle and aunty Paul and Bernice for the afternoon in Devonport. It was lovely to catch up – embarrassingly for the first time since Joel and I returned to New Zealand (the time is flying!). We spent a charming afternoon, yes charming, in their garden. It was a lovely sunny afternoon and we enjoyed sitting on a picnic blanket with Elsie and Joel’s cousin Bryn, his wife Wendy and their beautiful children Charlie, India and Boris. Elsie surprised us all by pulling herself up for the first time on the picnic table.

Great Barrier Island 2

Joel and Francine took the car ferry across to Great Barrier Island for Labour weekend. They saw four or five schools of dolphins on the way over. Then they saw humpback whales on their return ferry ride and more dolphins. Awesome!


Here are some of their snaps...

This yacht was in distress - I think it had ripped it's sails or something. Anyway the ferry shepherded it into safer water. A bit of drama en route!

Labour Weekend – The Troops Arrive – Elsie swims in the sea!

Joel, Jenni and Francine were all scheduled to go to Great Barrier Island this wekend for Labour weekend. With a broken arm, however, this got questioned because I couldn't even pick Elsie up - let alone change a nappy, put her in the high chair etc. Fortunately Mum and Dad saved the day by coming up to Auckland to help me out with Elsie over Labour weekend.  They came up Thursday night and we spent a really nice weekend doing this and that in Auckland. On Friday we headed up to Matakana to the sculpture trail there. We had a wonderful time walking around. I was pleased to see a sculpture there by a friend from my Otago days, Regan Gentry. Elsie celebrated by throwing her toys out of the pushchair the entire way around. We had to double back a number of times in order to collect them. Day 1 and already the lack of control was driving me crazy! (I would never have given her toys in the pushchair). It’s weird when some else is zooming off in the distance with your baby!

It was a really sunny beautiful day so we headed to Snell’s beach for a picnic lunch. The bay was really flat and the water in the shallows had become quite warmed by the sun so we stripped Elsie off and gave her her first paddle in the sea!

Elsie Crawls

Elsie crawls. Properly. No more dragging her legs around or doing the crab for our little lady. I suppose it's kind of typical that she finally starts moving around just when I break my arm. Fortunately it's still a pretty slow process - it reminds me of a tortoise!

Broken Arm!

Uh Oh.  In a senior citizens moment for me I managed to trip over a bike rack, while walking towards the ATM (okay yes and concurrently ferreting around in my wallet) in the supermarket carpark.  It was all set to be a fabulous day – Joel was looking after Elsie who had gone down for her morning nap beautifully. I had a master plan; visit the organic butcher (for Elsie), visit Harvest Wholefood (Elsie again), visit Moa to see if I could score any nice dresses for work in their end of season sale (that one was for me). To begin with I wanted to get some cash out of the machine. And then I fell.

I knew the moment that I hit the concrete that I had hurt myself. You just know. Normally, when I trip, I’m immediately back up on my feet, talking a million miles a minute, heart racing and blushing. This time everything seemed to go very quiet. In fact I didn’t even know I had fallen until I was lying face down on the concrete. I stayed down there for a moment thinking through, did I hit my head? Can I moved my legs? Everything seemed to be in order so I started gathering myself up. I knew my arm hurt and immediately thought of snowboarders – who are always falling over and sticking their arm out to break their fall. Snowboarders always seem to hurt their wrists – so I checked mine over. Amazingly, a physiotherapist popped up from nowhere. We ascertained that I could move my wrist okay. A passing mother assigned her toddler to collect and return my purse and all its contents to me. And I decided, bugger it. I’ll carry on with my day. Off to the butcher I headed. That went well. Then off to Moa. I tried on about 10 dresses. It was a bit difficult as increasingly I couldn’t move my left arm, but I soldiered on purchasing three. Off to harvest wholefoods. I got a great deal on organic apples – I was rather embarrassed at the till when I couldn’t lift my handbag and I struggled to get the money out of my wallet to pay. “My arm hurts – I fell over this morning” I said apologetically to the man behind the check out as a queue began to form. Having completed all my assigned tasks I headed home . By this time I could hardly move my arm – it had become quite bruised and swollen – so I hid my shopping in the wardrobe and off to WhiteCross we went. Yep I’d broken my arm. Well, fractured my radial head to be precise. Everyone kept telling me that it was the best fracture to get and should heal really well. The only problem was that Joel was heading over the Great Barrier Island at the weekend and I could lift Elsie, put her to bed, breastfeed her, get her in and out of the high chair or change a nappy. Uh Oh indeed.

Lunch with JJ and Charlotte

Jaron, Charlotte and Rosa came over on Sunday to try and help us deal with all the leftovers from Saturday's BBQ. It was another beautiful afternoon in our sheltered backyard at Webber Street. Joel and I are loving this flat, it just seems to function really well for us and when we're entertaining and Elsie LOVES it. Wall to wall carpeting and a layout that ensures Elsie is always in the centre of the room (and everyone's attention) equals a very contented baby. Rosa is crawling around now and moving quite quickly too! Joel and I have worked out that whatever Rosa is doing, Elsie will be doing the same thing in a few weeks. So obviously it's time to start thinking about child-proofing the house! Elsie is currently moving around, slowly, but she's still trying to run before she can walk (or walk before she can crawl I suppose). So she keeps trying to put the flat of her foot down rather than kneeling. She is moving around in this way - we call it the crab - on one knee with one foot on the floor but she hasn't properly crawled yet.

BBQ!

Yeah Boy. In celebration of Kara and Jonson's return to New Zealand we sparked up the BBQ for our first BBQ of the season. Yum yum yum

Elsie Stands!

She can't pull herself up yet - but if you put her down in the standing position she can hang on. And she is very proud of herself

Elsie blows raspberries

On the way back from Taranaki Elsie entertained us by blowing raspberries the entire way along the Waikato expressway. I'm not sure who she thought she was having a conversation with in the back of the car. I think she was copying her friend Rosa who is the master raspberry-blower. Joel and I giggled away in the front of the car - it did keep us entertained on an otherwise extremely boring part of the drive. Another day another milestone.

Taranaki 4

Joel, Elsie and I headed down to Taranaki this week to catch up with the Grandparents and to demonstrate her new found rolling skills. Check out these lovely photos of Elsie enjoying 'tummy time' on the lawn in Taranaki.

Elsie gets her second tooth

As if rolling over yesterday wasn't enough Elsie cut her second tooth (bottom centre-right) today. Her Grandma is going to be so proud of her when we head to New Plymouth this weekend.

Elsie rolls over!

Finally! Today Elsie finally properly rolled over from her back to her stomach. She has been rolling over from her stomach to her back but never the other way around. Never a fan of 'tummy time I suppose Elsie never really had a reason to roll onto her stomach before. This is really important milestone as she needs to spend more time on her tummy to strengthen her back muscles in preparation for crawling. It's also a means to get around the place until crawling begins. It will be so great once Elsie can 'self propel' however she chooses to do it as then she can start to entertain herself - and hopefully grizzle at us a little bit less often. Perhaps Elsie was inspired today by her friend Maia who is very good at tummy time.