(Day 61) How much you have grown!

On day 16 I posted a picture of you next to your first two dolls here so that I could take a progressive picture and ooh and ahh at how much you had grown, every time that we took a new photo of you and your teddies!

That was only 45 days ago (a little over a month and a half) and here I am, marvelling at how much you have grown! 

I love to see everything about you change as you get older, and yet you are still the same, my adorable little angel, only with longer legs and chubby cheeks

What a miracle you are Layla-Rae!

(Day 60) Transfixed

Today you are 8 weeks and 3 days old. It has only been very recently that you have even started to notice that there is a whole world going on around you!

Today you are working very hard concentrating on the toys hanging from your bassinet. It is very short lived, because you are picked up and cuddled so much by your brother and sisters that it is almost impossible for me to put you down for more than five minutes when they go off to school.

But today you are absolutely fascinated by this strange object in front of you!

(Day 58) Sleeping like a baby

When you were first born, the phrase 'sleeping like a baby' seemed like it was created by somebody who had never met a baby (let alone seen one sleep)! 

Today you spent the night partying (breast milk must be yummy stuff) until the break of dawn, swimming (or doing a very good impression of swimming) all day, and then you collapsed on Aunty Sarah...and slept like only a baby can!

(Dy 57) Part of the action

It is so funny watching you grow - one day you are doing nothing but eating and sleeping, the next you open your eyes and suddenly want to be a part of everything going on in the world. 

This is a photo of you propped up in your bassinet, watching everybody having dinner. Not wanting to be left alone, Mummy is now having to either carry you around 24 hours a day (my poor arms!!!) or wheel you around the house in the bassinet so that you can be a part of absolutely everything!

You are so precious Layla-Rae and we are so excited to share the big, wide world with you!

(Day 56) Breastfeeding - in PUBLIC!

I am cheating today, posting a photo of day 55 in day 56 (naughty Mummy!) but I really, reaaaally wanted to include this photo of you breast feeding at the baby naming ceremony for Australia Day. 

As many babies were wriggling around and excitedly ogling all of their new baby friends, you and your bestie Sophie (featured in the background behind your big sister) were happily having a feed, oblivious to the fuss - and nowhere near the makeshift 'feeding room'! 

Sophie's mum and I have talked a lot about this in the last 8 weeks and have come to the conclusion that we are both happy to feed you and Sophie wherever you happen to be hungry. Not in a toilet, and not locked away somewhere (as if we are doing something that should be hidden), and not always in the baby change room (which is sometimes the size of a very small closet, and crammed with 50 Mums, all trying to feed babies, warm bottles, entertain toddlers and change dirty nappies). 

Some of the baby feeding rooms are very civilised, with their own little cubicles, some with an added television, and feeding chairs, but with toilet locks on the doors so that you can sit in there, in solitary confinement, for however long it takes for babies to feed, locked away from public view. 

I would prefer not to be locked away. 

I would prefer that you are able to eat in a restaurant if we are eating in a restaurant. 

I would prefer that you be able to eat at a park bench if we are eating at a park bench.

I would prefer that we be able to sit and talk with friends and family when you are thirsty, rather than being locked in a stuffy little room with lots of other Mummy's who are also locked in their little rooms, not talking to each other (it is a bit hard through locked doors). 

I love that your big brother, in particular, is learning that breasts are for food for babies, so that when he grows up to be a man, he might not be one of the (many, many) men who stare at me while I am feeding you in a public space (with no breast visible whatsoever) as if they weren't aware that this is what breasts were for! 

And I love that as we were waiting today, in a room full of new babies, for a certificate from the mayor, that you and Sophie were able to have a quick feed (rather than running off to find a feeding room) and be on time to meet the mayor, happy and content, with a belly full of milk 

(Day 55) Better people

You make us better. 

They say that when you meet somebody and fall absolutely in love with them, sometimes you want to be a better person for them, and that is one hundred percent true for us, with all of our children. With our first baby we were rebellious and ridiculously self-destructive teenagers, and Aidan made us want more. We didn't want to party anymore. Or smoke and drink and carry on like crazy people. We wanted to give her the whole world, and a little bit more. 

Her arrival made us parents. 

With our second baby we both started studying and building a life that had a vision beyond today or tomorrow, but sought to build a foundation for our girls that would give them a better life, and all of the things that they needed. Bella brought our family together as a unit, and we were so blessed to have two beautiful girls. 

With the arrival of our little boy, we worked on our marriage, building family and extended family connections, creating a community around us of amazing friends with which we embarked on wonderful adventures; camping, fishing, swimming, going to parks and music festivals and holidays to give all of our children a fulfilling and fun life. And we thought that our family was complete. 

And then there was Layla...

It is hard to quantify the changes that you have made and will make to our family just yet, but already you have changed us irrevocably. You make us want to be better for you. 

This photo is of you and your Dad swimming for the very first time. Your Daddy has had problems/ a fear of swimming for a very long time, and it is always extremely difficult to impossible to get him into the pool. But today (on Australia Day) Daddy packed his board shorts in the car (in secret and without prompting) along with a little swim outfit for you, and enthusiastically jumped into the pool with you for your first swim. It is beyond words how much this shocked your brother and sisters, and how much it continued to shock them when Daddy has been planning on getting you a little floating chair and taking you on more swims.

 It is amazing the magic of loving another person so much that you just somehow want to be better for them...

(Day 52) Your number #1 fan

This is your big sister Bella, and she is possibly one of the best big sisters in the whole world. 

Scrap that - she is definitely one of the best big sisters in the whole world!

Bella begged us to try for a baby for about three years (although I was not too hard to convince - I had been having dreams about you for many years). She jumped up and down and cried tears of joy when she found out that I was pregnant. She wanted to play nurse-maid all through my pregnancy, rubbing my back and fetching cups of hot chocolate when I couldn't waddle far from the couch. 

Bella read all of the pregnancy books and recited them to me word for word (even teaching Daddy a thing or two) and begged to be able to watch birthing video's because she was so desperate to see you being born!

Bella joyfully washed and folded all of your little clothes and cloth nappies with me, wondering what you were going to look like, organising and re-organising my hospital bag, and cooing over all of your tiny little singlets and socks. One day she went over a friend's place, where they were fostering a little baby with a disability and announced 'Mummy wouldn't it be lovely if we had a baby with a disability so that we could love it and take care of it?"... because that is just the kind of person that she is!

When you were born we couldn't stop her crying tears of joy. She didn't want to leave your side, and immediately took over with changing your nappies and rocking you and getting you whatever you needed! There are many times that we need to give her that little kick out of the door (to go and see her friends, go for a sleep-over, be a kid for a while!) because she would be perfectly content to play with you, her little doll, for every moment of every day.

Of all of the people who love you the very most in this world, Bella is definitely one of your number #1 fans 

(Dy 51) Waking up to you

I love waking up to you

Gorgeous little pink toes, chubby knees, little hands that reach out to clasp on to Mummy's top

Murmers and yawns as you stretch and wriggle around, not quite awake but looking for Mummy to give you your morning feed

Gurgling and cooing and smiling as your nappy is changed, and drifting off back to sleep

It is one of the favourite parts of my day, and even when the day starts at 4.30am I am so very grateful to be waking up to you

(Day 50) Your step-Grandma

This weekend you got to meet your step-grandma. We shall call her 'Aunty T'.

Or 'Grandma T' (the suggestion of your 11 year old sister)

Or GT (suggested by your 13 year old sister)

or G-Tiz (currently tentatively used by your big brother)

There is a current (and very important) debate going on between your brother and your sisters about which name is most fitting, and I think that it is so particularly difficult because it is hard to find a name that conveys how they feel about their step-Grandma, but doesn't offend anybody or denote the roll of the other Grandma's in their life. 

Up until now, your step-grandma has been called Aunty. But your birth seems to have sparked this debate, with your big sister declaring that 'she isn't our Aunty, she has always been like our Grandma since we were born"

"... plus it is kinda weird having our Aunty be married to our Grandad"

You can't argue with that logic. 

I am sure that we are not the first family who has more steps, halves and other combinations than you can poke a stick at. Mummy and Daddy both have step brothers and sisters, and half brothers and sisters. Which means that you have a step-Grandma and a step-Grandad too. 

Regardless of the internal politics of adults and society, to your brother and sisters, your 'steps' and 'halves' are simply no different or any less important than any other people in your family. 

They are people who they have known all of their lives (or as long as they can remember). 

People who they have laughed and cried with. 

People who have held their little hands as toddlers

People who have taught them how to thread bait on to a fishing rod correctly (step-Grandad Anthony... the jury is currently out on a fitting name for him also!)

People who have fed them too much ice-cream when Mummy said "no"

People who their Aunties call 'Mum" and their cousins call "Grandma"

People who have been a fixture of their lives for as long as they can remember

And regardless of the labels put on them by the adults and society around them, to you and your brother and sisters, they are simply your family

(Day 49) Meeting Grandad

Today, at almost seven weeks old, you met your Grandad for the first time ever, and you cuddled into him like you might have known him for your whole life.

Sometimes when family lives a long way away it can be really easy to forget how important family is.

 Everybody gets so busy and it always seems like there are more pressing things to do than to pack everyone up into the car and go for that road trip to see Aunty-someone or cousin whoever

But it was so lovely for you to meet even more people who think you are one of the most special people in the world

(Day 48) Unconditional love

Unconditional love

The kind of love where you would rock your tiny baby for hours and hours when she has belly pain from colic, and doesn't want you. She wants Mummy instead. But you do it anyway.

The kind of love where you offer loving kisses and cuddles in exchange for full nappies and spew all down the front of your shirt, but the kisses and cuddles are always there for you anyway.

The kind of love where you pick up that little person who holds a piece of your heart, and she cries straight away because she was expecting somebody else. And your heart breaks a little bit, but you keep doing it anyway.

That is the kind of love that your Daddy has for you.

Yesterday you got your immunisations and Mummy was so stressed and anxious about seeing you in pain that Daddy absolutely insisted that he hold you while you got your needles. Mummy protested (a lot) but was going a little bit green in the doctor's surgery, so Daddy insisted, rationalising that "she doesn't like me all that much anyway, so it can't hurt". Poor Daddy.

You have been grumbly and sore and out-of-sorts ever since, and all you want is Mummy. But Daddy picks you up and holds you, rocks you and kisses you anyway. He is a persistent kind of guy.

You are crying and sooking and not very happy at all. Then Daddy picks you up for the hundredth time, and you are suddenly very quiet. For the first time, you are pretty ok with Daddy holding you. You even offer him a tiny little smile. 

Maybe you have decided that Daddy is not so bad after all.

( Day 46) Finally a day alone!

It is a rare day that you get to wake up like this...unhurried, stretching and waking in your own time.

You decided to be born on the first day of school holidays, so with three big brothers and sisters we are most often woken up by bangs and clangs, arguments for the remote control, or little people sneaking into our room to see if you are awake yet!

This morning is bliss... everyone's at Nina's house and you are all alone in our big bed with Mummy, free to wake up when you please!

(Day 45) Making Nonna's Day

One of the advantages of having our children so young is that each of you has been able to meet and form a special relationship with at least one of your great-grandparents. After a crazy-hectic day, almost at the end of six weeks of school holidays, with each of us exhausted (and Mum and Dad contemplating running away from home!) we do a last-minute stop off at the nursing home for a cuddle with Nonna. You lay on Nonna's chest, oblivious to your big brother throwing a tantrum because he has come off a sugar high and isn't allowed to have a hot chocolate, your eldest sister (almost 14!) getting in trouble because she has written 'bum' in condensation on the window of the nursing home, your other big sister stamping her feet because she has been up until 3am at a sleepover and doesn't want to be out of bed, and your Dad curled up in the corner trying not to rock back and forth, lol. For you and Nonna this moment is perfect. You sleep on her chest for over an hour, smiling in your sleep while she marvels at your little fingers and toes, runs her hand over your soft hair and wraps your little sheet around your ears so that you don't get cold. And when we leave, tired, grumpy, going back to a house of dishes, making dinner and getting ready for bed, Nonna is completely content, and I know that you have made her day.