Getting an early mark

My 2 sweet children were absolutely exhausted today, wayyyy too tired for their normal bedtime routine. So after a quick dinner and clean up they were both tucked up in bed and asleep at 5.30pm. Duane and I didn't know what to do with ourself. Didn't take long to get used to the quiet though! We made a yummy dinner of oven-baked salmon on cous-cous and had a rare meal alone. Felt weird not having Grace dining with us, but also nice not to have her steal all the salmon off our plates & actually be able to have adult talk.

After our yummy dinner Duane went and rested his tired muscles in the spa. I would have joined him, but Grace has called out a few times - so was keeping an ear out for her. Poor little darling is so exhausted because she didn't sleep at all today. I really thought she would as she was up and down all last night. She ended up sleeping in with us and cried all night, complaining of sore ears. They were so red and hot, so I suspected then that she had an ear infection. She settled a little bit after some panadol, but was still waking up crying in pain.

Mr X was so tired because he only had the 1 sleep today from 9.30am until 12 noon. It was a strange time for him to sleep considering he only woke for the day at 7.30am. He did wake at 5am, just as Duane was getting ready for work though. He bought him into me, where he had a lovely feed then dropped off to sleep again. Not sure how he slept though as Grace was on the other side of me crying in pain and screaming about her ears hurting. I couldn't get out of bed though as leaving X alone when he woke no doubt would have ended in him launching himself of the bed. I did make a quick trip to the kitchen to get another dose of panadol for Grace though. She was fine after we did get out of bed, just a bit grizzly but she said that her ears didn't hurt anymore. Just to make sure I took her to the Dr and lucky too cause she has a horrible infection in her right ear, so is now on A/b's and has to go back to be checked on Tuesday. She was ok all day but got very tired in the last few hours. I was quite surprised that she didn't have a nap though, probably because Nicole and Logan were over and she didn't' want to miss out on any of the fun!

Anyway...back to our early child-free night. After complaining that there was no "treats" in the house, my darling husband is rushing out to IGA to get either ice-cream or chocolate!! Yum-Yum, can't wait!

And something very exciting happened today, my beautiful friend Nicole came around with her son Logan and presented me with 2 lovely gifts.

2 brand new, shiny Camilla charms for my Pandora bracelet. A pram from her son Logan to me and a butterfly from Nicole.

Finally my lone heart charm has some friends! Although Grace was given a new charm by Tim last week and I had been "borrowing" it to give my poor lonesome charm some company. I can give it back now.

Oh...it is so nice to have new charms, I love hearing them jingle around as I tap away on the keyboard! Now just have to work on Duane to get me one for X's 1st birthday. I know, I know Xavier is the one that is supposed to be getting presents, but I thought it might be a good opportunity to get either the letter X or his birthstone. lets hope Duane gets the hints for more charms, he obviously missed the big hints I gave out about getting one of the above for X naming day. Maybe I need to slip him a mud map to the shop, with the correct money tied into the end of a hanky, just like his Mum used to do for him!

11 months 1 week 2 days

My little boy has started taking real steps today!

It was totally coerced and with a lot of over-excitement from Mummy & Daddy - But who cares he took 7 steps alone!!! He actually did it quite a few times, enough for me to even get video! Clever little pumpkin!

So how did I finally get my little darling to stay upright and move forward? Using one of Grace's "No Xavier, that's Grace's" toys, Of course! We put her ride-on bike right in front of him, dangling it like a carrot and then slowly edging it away from him. Worked a treat, and now he is doing it even without the lure of the bike! Seems he just needed to get his confidence.

It also seems my children don't want to outdo each other in the 'taking steps' department. After sitting down and working it all out, Grace was 11 months 1 week 4 days when she took her first decent steps. Xavier is 11 months 1 week 2 days. So only 2 days apart! Grace only took a week or so to go from "few steps" to full-on walking.

Wonder what the little Mr has in store??

I'm back!

Sorry for just dumping you like that little blog! I know it is no excuse BUT I have been so busy and just haven't had time to write it all down. Add to that I am having a little bit of a Blog Block, I just wasn't that motivated to sit down and spend some time with you.

I'm ok now though....ready to fill you with way too much mindless dribble!

I do have a heap of back entries that I will finish over the next week too.

Ok going back now to make a start on them.

Xavier is 11 months

My sweet little boy is in his last month of babyhood.

Only 1 month is left of his precious first year. Then he will be entering the toddler years. Ahhhhh......that means I will have two of the delightful toddlers to deal with.

Anyway, just an update on what my little boy is doing now.

Xav is turning into a real little character. Lots of lovely (and not so lovely!) traits are emerging, giving me glimpses into the person that he is becoming. He is such an endearing little boy that has all of us wrapped firmly around his finger.

He loves playing peek-a-boo, breaking out into his favourite game at any random time. Also using random objects to hide behind - they can be the curtain, his t-shirt, the side of the couch, a teddy, basically anything that he can peek his cute little face out from behind. It's a guaranteed way of making him smile and getting one of his gorgeous cheeky little laughs out.

Xav is learning lots more words. His vocab now includes Mum, Dad, got-it, waissit, gog (I think Dog?), Days (I actually haven't heard this but Mum insists that he is saying Daisy!!) & lots of other little sounds and gurgles.

He is standing so well by himself, but yet to take more than 1 step. He confidently walks behind things, just hasn't go the courage to go alone yet! I really don't think that he will be that far off though, not that I really want to encourage it. Imagine chasing 2 of the little blighters around!!

Xavier is still a great day sleeper. He would happily have 2 sleeps a day, but Mummy is forcing him into only having the 1. It means that both kidlets sleep at the same time which is too great a thing to pass up. I really enjoy that quiet time when both are asleep. Would it be bad to actually say it is a "highlight" of the day? That sounds terrible, but geez the silence is nice! Ok so maybe not the highlight, but it sure is up there!

Night sleeps are ok. Xavi goes to bed easily at about 6pm, sometime stirs at about 10 - usually just for a dummy or blanket though. He then wakes about 2am, when either Duane or I go and bring him into bed with us. That is something I was never going to do, but stuff it. I love having my little hot water bottle to snuggle up to. Stuff this getting out of bed in the cold. I'll use the nipple vasospasm as my excuse and also that he potentially may be my last baby so I am not going to waste precious cuddle time. He just has a feed, rolls over and slips off to sleep. He has started crawling over to Daddy and cuddling him....so cute! He has been sleeping into about 7am, which is fantastic (Pity the other one didn't get the memo and still wakes at 6am!!)

Feeding is going well. Xavier is having a morning, midday and night feed. He loves his feed before bed of a night. He is just like Grace was. Duane says to him "milk" and he does this cute little half cry/laugh thing. It's absolutely adorable and I love that he still enjoys our special time. It was about this time that Grace cut herself down to only 2 feeds a day, wonder if X will do the same?

Xav loves being outside. We are enjoying some beautiful winter days at the moment so we spend lots of time in the back yard. He loves playing in the cubby house and digging with Grace in the sandpit. He is also obsessed with the sliding doors and could spend ages constantly opening and closing it. Well that is before he jams his fingers, which he always manages to do.

Xavi is a little stunt man too. He climbs on everything, which also means he falls from everything. Including the bed. He crawled straight off our bed at last week, but he did manage an impressive commando roll mid fall. No damage down, except my heart stopped when I heard the tell-tale thud. I think once you have heard that noise you never forget it. X was ok though, just had some boob and was fine again.

He has a few obsessions at the moment. The toilet being one of them. As soon as he knows the door is open, he is straight there. He has worked out that Grace is his best chance of getting in there, so he always follows her when she is heading in. Maybe I should cash in on his interest and start plonking him on there?

He really is such a sweetheart. I adore him. He is just such a delightful little boy who has totally stolen my heart.

Xaviers Naming Day

In keeping with tradition we had a beautiful Naming Day for Mr Xavier. In hindsight, we really should have done it at a younger age. Being 10 months he wasn't really in the mood to just stay in Mummy's arm during the ceremony, he really just wanted to go!

We had it at Duane's work, The Grand Golf Club. It's a beautiful venue, such a gorgeous setting and so fitting to be at Duane's favourite course. Our good friend Emily Okeefe did the ceremony, which was so lovely as she had also been the celebrant at Grace's. She is such a great public speaker and has such a knack of making everyone feel comfortable.

Xavier woke a cute white collared shirt and blue cords for before and after the ceremony. He wore the Christening gown for the actual ceremony, which Duane wasn't really sure about, but hey it's tradition! He did put a stop to the matching bonnet and booties though (not that they would have fit my big little boy anyway!)

The ceremony was lovely, Emily spoke about Xavier's name and how we had chosen it. She then talked about the tradition of the christening gown and that many of my family had worn it before, including Grace and myself. We had chosen the same Godparents that Grace had. Tim, Chris (my brother), Nicole and Trudy. We didn't really want to use the term "Godparent", but couldn't really come up with a better alternative. We really just wanted to name some important people in the kids life, who would always be there for them. Duane & I feel good about the people we have chosen, and are positive they will always play a special part in our kids lives. My brother Chris wasn't able to make the trip up this time, we made mention of him in the ceremony though.

Xavier was starting to get a little antsy at this stage. He just wanted to go for a crawl, so after wrestling with him for a while I gave in and let him go. Well it seems the gown is a little too hard to crawl in. He tried but couldn't get anywhere...so of course that frustrated him more! Lucky Yu-Yu has some biscuits so he got to munch on them for the rest of the ceremony and photos......kept him nice and quiet!

Grace was an absolute angel through it all. She looked absolutely gorgeous in a beautiful white dress. Absolute little stunner that she is!

After the ceremony we had a lovely afternoon tea in the club house & all just sat around and chatted.

I had also asked everybody to bring along something that could be placed in a time capsule for Xavier. There were plenty of lovely things added to it.

Coins, newspaper, Smash Hits magazine, Rolling Stones magazine, Ralph magazine, casino chip, shot glass & AFL scores. That will be interesting for him to open on his 18th!

It was a lovely afternoon and a great way to welcome little Xavier into our circle of friends and family.