More new tricks

And what a gorgeous little boy we do have! I always known all parents are proud of their children, but words cannot describe the loveliness of that feeling as I gaze in wonderment at our offspring. He is truely awesome...

It's a good job he's so adorable during the day, because, as previously documented, nights have not been easy. Then when tooth number one appeared on Friday 14 December, I felt surprisingly relieved - maybe teething was the issue that had unsettled our sleep pattern, and it wasn't just that I was a useless parent. Then tooth number two appeared on Monday 17 December and we had a few better nights. He did give us the Christmas present we asked for - a whole night's sleep on 24 December :o) Alas, last night I committed a cardinal sin (in some peoples' eyes) and brought him into our bed because I couldn't face getting up and down any more :o( The thought of returning it work in less than two weeks time, with nights as broken as they are right now is fairly daunting. But I'm trying not to dwell on this issue (partly in the hope that it will go away and partly in the hope that positive thinking will work).

He is crawling much more efficiently now and on 23 December he went from crawling to sitting up all on his own - so clever! He is beginning to want to spoon feed himself - this is clearly going to be a very messy affair. He is having little 'tantrums' - head falls forward and bottom lip comes right out - when he is diverted from doing something he wants to do. I actually find this quite cute and I will have to be very careful not to openly laugh when he does it! And, yes, he did a poo in his potty this morning - not that we will shout about that too loudly as we're aware we're only at the start of what could be a two year journey.

He has spent a lot of today pulling himself up on the sofa, toy box and television unit and standing (very wobbly) trying to reach things. The energy he must be expending surely means he will sleep well tonight... I am watching him now, entertain himself beautifully at his toy box. He turns objects in his hands so precisely, presses buttons so deftly and makes connections between objects and ideas all the time - he is truely awesome!

A wee? That's nothing!

Mummy and Daddy seemed to be pretty pleased with me when I did a wee in my potty last night, so this morning I thought I'd really show them how clever I am by doing a poo in it. Now that did get them excited!

Wee-hee!

Today we bought a potty and tonight he did a wee in it before getting into the bath! Pretty good for nine and a half months, methinks, so we've started the long road to getting rid of nappies :o)

So much else has happened recently, but I'm not going to do a Trevor and sit here until midnight typing...

Christmas letter 2007

To save the planet - and, to be frank, money - we've not sent Christmas cards this year except to those we can't reach by email. To avoid annoying everyone by attaching a large file to an email, I put a copy of our 2007 Christmas letter online and just emailed a link. Seeing as it's there, feel free to take a look.

....or maybe not

Perhaps I spoke to soon. Rachael tells methis morning that last night was "The Worst Night Ever". And I slept through the whole thing, knocked out be some pretty hefty antibiotics I'm on for an infection in my elbow.

Don't know what else to say, so here's one of my favourite recent pictures.


Look at this face. Who'd have thought nights could be so hard?

Night-time nightmares. A temporary respite coming?

For several weeks, night-times have been utterly frustrating, emotionally draining, and, to be frank, bloody hard work. Ainsworth went from sleeping brilliantly at a few weeks, through sleeping okay, to sleeping as little as possible. We've had no real pattern: some nights it's been only a couple of wakes - but lasting an hour or more of full-on screaming; others it's been lots of little wakes - as many as 14 in a night. We've tried various things: going through straight away to calm him or leaving him for a while each time; picking him up or not; giving him extra milk; crying into our pillows and wishing it would end soon. All sorts. Leaving him crying was a last resort that we tried but every instinct in us told us it was simply wrong. Cruel, even. And so we've reverted to going through to his room and calming him in his cot, picking him up only as a last resort. But it's really getting Rachael down.

And then this morning we discovered a tooth. Has that been what all the fuss has been about? And if so can we hope for some sleep at last.