Playgroup photos

Unfortunately Andrew was away for golf when the shots were taken so the family shot is missing him. Dad, one of these is on it's way to you now.

9 months update

Each night as I have laid in bed before drifting off to sleep I have thought "I must do Maddy's 9 month blog post" and even thought out what to write, but now with the blank screen in front of me I have writers block! But seeing as I missed the 8m one I must push forward!

At 8 months old, our darling girl was really starting to show her personality: cheeky, adventurous, snuggly, and sociable. Of course we already knew how placid and happy she has always been since the colic left her months ago. Her newest trick at 8 months was giving people "high fives" and the more tired she was, the funnier this trick became. She started waving and even adding sounds similar to "Hi" and "Bye" when she did it. She got around pretty well by rolling and then from her tummy, walking her hands up into a sitting position. She was also sort of crawling but doing it backwards, which lead to frustration when she found herself "trapped" into the corner of the room and not knowing how to uncrumple herself from the walls. She started putting ehr arms up for me to pick her up, and enjoying being wrapped for sleep, knowing that cuddles and milk were to follow. We still wrap her and tuck her into her covers as opposed to the sleeping bags we used for Austin as she sleeps like me - she doesn't move until she wakes! A snug wrap and firm covers are a comfort to her just as I like to be tucked in tight to sleep. Austy has been a wriggler since the moment he learned to roll and will toss and turn several times, losing covers and quite a hot sleeper, the carbon copy of his Dad!

At 9 months she has started clapping using her "princess clap" as we call it, tapping the back of one hand with the other. It's quite cute, and she is quite pleased with herself doing it. Of course her biggest love in the world (other than Mummy milk!) is her older brother and we even think she has attempted the word "brother" a few times, although it's not completely clear. We are quite impressed with her language skills and her urge to communicate with words. Austy was pretty advanced too, saying Mum and Dad from very early on (5 months) and using themfor the right person, and then "dieda" (tiger) and "durdoo" (turtle) at 10 months. While we can't be sure yet with Maddy, we think she tries to say Princess whenever she wakes up and we see her. It is a habit of ours that when we pick her up from her cot we say "Hello Princess" (Princess was the first thing we ever called her, the moment she was born). So now, before we get in with that, she says "Zez zes!" and giggles. So cute.

And her latest achievement, at 9 months and 3 days she started CRAWLING! No commando crawling for this little princess (of course not, that's not how princesses do it!), but perfect crawling from the very first day she did it. What made her motivated to crawl? None other than her big brother Austin! She looked like she was close for a week or three up to the day as she would get on her knees but then flop to her tummy. Last week she looked particularly energetic and enthused so I asked Austy to sit at one edge of the rug and sat her at the other. She had been watching everything he had been doing and he had just been having a ball crawling in circles around her. I asked him to call her over and sure enough she got up on those knees and made tiny little knee shuffles over to him. When she got there Austy and I clapped and cheered and she squeeled with delight, very proud of what she had done. I tried to get her to crawl to me, but she just put her arms in the air and grizzled - she knows I can pick her up if I want her!

Less than a week later, the world is a huge adventure playground! She is crawling everywhere, into everything and quite frustrated when she can see something but can't touch it. Apparently now she can crawl everything should be there for her to play with! We have already had her tip Austy's playdough toys on top of herself from his little play table in the family room, and therefore start eating the tiny dried up playdough bits that were in the tub. And Austy's coulouring in things are fun to tear up apparently! I think it's time to dust off the playpen and bring it in from the shed to keep her occupied in moments when I have to turn my head. Hopefully she takes well to it, otherwise we will have to put it around Austy's table and put the toys in there that she can't have. When Austy was little we used it to cordon off the TV area and anything we didn't want him to have ended up in there as he didn't like being penned in. We'll see how she goes.

9 month stats

Weight: 11kgs

Length: 76cm

Wearing: Size 1 (12-18m)!

Number of teeth : 8

Newest trick: Crawling!

To finish off, here's a photo that a passerby took of me and the kidlets when we were walking at Waterfall Gully on a lovely sunny day last week. Austy had a fabulous time and it was nice to feel some sunshine agaion before the rain (and hail!) returned to Adelaide.

And here's a couple more cute shots from our walk:

Goodbye Gryffin

Just under 4 weeks ago I noticed Gryffin had lost a little weight. I picked him up and weighed him, and sure enough half a kilo of him was not where it should be. I figured I'd better get him checked since he wasn't a big cat and the news was not good.

An ultrasound showed an unknown mass in his liver. The cost for operating was in the $2-3K range, and even then, it was highly probable that the surgery would be too complicated and he'd not be woken up. If by chance they did remove the lump, the average cat with liver cancer will only live for another year after the initial cancer is removed. We decided that the cost was too high for the low survival rate, and thought it best to keep him home and say goodbye our own way rather than take hm in for surgery and possibly not take him home. Especially since Austin was quite distressed about a year ago when Gryffin had to stay at the vet's for the day to hace teeth pulled (the result of picky eating that meant he wouldn't eat biscuits or hard food and therefore had tooth decay).

Sadly the disease turned him from healthy to emaciated at a very rapid rate and after he started using the whole house as a litter tay and didn't seem to realise he was doing anything wrong, we decided that perhaps his time was up. I took him in, and the vet had a lot of trouble finding a vein since he was just skin and bone with a very low blood pressure. She agreed that we really couldn't let him suffer any longer. So I said my goodbyes and brought home an empty cage, giving Austin his collar on a little toy siamese kitten which he is now snuggling in bed. "Goodbye Mog" is on order at the book shop to read to him. He's taking it pretty well for a not quite 4yr old.

We'll miss you Gryffy. Even Maddy who doesn't know you're gone will miss squealing with delight when she sees you and trying to pull your ears. Austin will miss chasing you for cuddles. Andrew will miss you curling up on his lap in the evenings when he's not at work. I'm not so sure he'll miss you climbing on him to lick his desert bowl clean when we have apple crisp or chocolate self saucing pudding, but he will miss spoiling you with the cream at the end. I will be cold tonight without you to cuddle as I dream.