Surprise gifts - awesome!

Today I got surprised with a free term of Mums and Babes for Hope and I!  I went to the first class to try it out and then the wonderful instructor just gifted me with a free term.  It was totally unexpected and I felt so blessed it might my heart happy ...and now 'm so excited because I have a mums and babes class to go to every Thursday and a whole bunch of new moms to make friends with.  I don't know if it's because Hope has Down Syndrome but she sure is good at spreading the love and everyone tells me how beautiful she is...could be they are just being kind but I like to think that God gave her such a beautiful little soul that everybody feels compelled to just share the love!

Rainy Day

It seems that we have finally moved into cooler weather as today arrived with gentle rain and a welcomed coolness after a stinking, hot summer.  Hope once again wrangled her way into our bed with much niggling at 5am but the bonus of her sleeping in bed with us is that she wakes up much later in the day so we had a 8am start ...woohoo!  I dressed Hope up in a blue jersey and her new tracksuit pants (pink booties were all that indicated she's a girl) and off we went to La Leche League (breastfeeding support organisation).  The meeting was rather random but it was nice to see our new friends Julie-Anne and baby Georgia and afterwards we visited my aunt and uncle and then Grampa. Hope found shoulders to doze on throughout the day so I watched beautiful smooshed lips and angel lashes today.

Later in the afternoon we had a tea party at a friend's home and we all clutched onto our bubba's and fed them and rocked them to sleep (although Hope was a rebel and pooed twice and whipped away her blanket after I thought she was out for the count).  The other bubbas behaved more sensibly :P

So here is the thing about rainy days, baby's seem to sleep more, eat less and are generally much more chilled...I used to hate rainy days but after a lazy day today I suspect this will soon be a thing of the past...so hooray for rainy days to refresh our parched land; new found friends; sleepy bubbas and early bedtimes. 

Snuggling in bed

Last night was the first night of 2011 where the temperature in our room dropped below 25 degrees!  And as Hope has now reached 3 and a bit months and is weighing in at a hefty 6.5kg, she now no longer fits the beautiful little clothes that I thought would last for ages.  So in the middle of the night I sent Bryan out in the rain to go fetch the baby bag left in the car which I knew had one of the few long sleeve babygros in it.  Shame, as he went I heard the rain just start pouring and it only poured like that for the space of his trip there and back!  We did a nifty little change as Hope was rather cold and fidgety and I just popped her into bed with me wondering if it was a bad idea.  Turns out she slept better than ever...of course this could be because she went to sleep at about 9:30pm after her mom and dad paced the floor humming and patting for 2 hours...but we all ended up getting some decent sleep for once. 
There is something just so lovely about sleeping with your baby cradled in your arms, I just want to to soak her up into my bones, even the stiff body and cold back that I woke up with didn't take away that goodness.  We all slept until 8:45am (Hope and I had a few waking moments at 5am and 7am where she nuzzled and pawed at me for feeds but we took them in our stride while dad snored away).


The result of the night was a shopping trip to the Pav for long sleeved and long legged babygros...I found an adorable fluffy outfit to keep her warm, the kind you want to cuddle and stroke but when I put her in it this evening she just whined and flapped her one trapped arm about so I think we are returning it :(

I've been worried that I'm not stimulating Hope enough and giving her all the attention and play that she needs to reach her best potential so I'm trying to be more intentional about talking to her and making the most of opportunities ...this morning I sat eating my cereal on the floor next to her on the mat and dangled my spoon over her in between bites...that kind of thing, I need to figure out and do more of.  It gets pretty exhausting though and learning to do this and still manage to achieve things is the goal for now.

Right now she is growling and grunting away in her crib and it's late, so I'm off to bed for 30 minutes before feeding frenzy begins again.