I’ve been trying to post this Abby update for the last couple of weeks, so I’m going to bullet-point some things because there’s so much to say!

• Can wave “bye”. This works most of the time on demand.
• Starting to share her food. Usually this is by way of thrusting a fistful of food in your direction and waiting for you to respond.
• Smacks her lips and kicks in excitement when there’s food on offer.
• Calls out to other babies, and Fez. When I say “call”, it’s usually “shout”.
• No longer using her SafeT Sleep and often ends up at one end, and wakes up with bar marks on her forehead…
• Has had a taste of a Big Mac pattie but wasn’t so impressed.
• Has three teeth now – she just cut a top tooth and its partner is on the way. Still protests teeth-brushing.
• Says “Ta” when you give her something (you have to remind her though). Then she repeats it while she’s eating – “Ta ta ta ta ta”.

Cheeky

Attack of the babies

Abby and Baxter having lunch

I strolled around Lyall Bay last week with Harriet and Baxter from our PIN group. Abby wore her snow suit (another awesome hand-me-down) and looked like one of those Eskimo lollies you get in Pascalls Party Packs. (If you want to read more about the controversy surrounding Eskimo lollies, there’s another article Imagining a world without eskimo lollies – it isn’t hard to do. And how about Eskimo Pies? Funny how the recent New Zealand Eskimo lollie controversy made it to Wikipedia yet Eskimo Pies have been around since the 1920s!)

Pink and marshmallowy

Anyway, back to Abby. Here she is looking like a pink Eskimo lolly again, ready for another nippy stroll with the whole family, even Fez this time.

Abby ready for a Wellington stroll

Oh, I forgot to mention how I took both Abby and Fez for a walk one day, by myself. It really hurts your hand pushing a stroller and trying to control an excited pup at the same time! I’m looking forward to more sunny walks, as soon as we both get over this damn cold.

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Someone's crying and it's not me!

I really do enjoy being out with her just after her lunch – it’s the couple of hours when she’s just laid back, awake and not grumpy. It’s great how you can distract a  baby with food too. As Abby was approaching the ’so-tired-I-might-cry-now’ stage, she was lucky enough to have roast potatoes when the mums finally got their lunch at the rebuilt Maranui Cafe in Lyall Bay.

Second cousins

Abby’s been getting lots more finger food lately. Toast with a smidgen of marge and vegemite seems to be a favourite, or a luncheon/cheese club sandwich also goes down well. I’m not quite sure how much to give her at meals now that she’s having finger food too. She has about 4-5 tablespoons of mashed food, and then I let her munch on some finger food like toast, broccoli or egg, and then a piece of fruit, for example. Often she’ll also get a rusk to chew on afterwards. She has about half a cup’s worth in total. I think it’s enough – for now. I’ll be increasing the amount of her meals gradually as she’s supposed to be getting most of her nutrients from solids at this age. Also, I’m cutting down from 4 to 3 bottles a day as one is being replaced with an afternoon tea snack.

Waar's me parrot then?

Her second tooth has just cut through. Hooray – we can now say “it’s time to brush your teeth” instead of “tooth” :D Brushing is still a joke though. I hope she’ll learn that licking the toothbrush is not what she’s supposed to do or we’ll have some problems later on.

Abby loves her baths these days. She knows what’s coming when the tub is being filled and can’t wait to get in and play. She even has a little cry when you take her out!

She naps twice a day now – usually one shorter nap (less than an hour) and one longer nap (2 hours). We try and get her to bed around 7:30-8pm, and she usually has around 10-11 hours sleep a night. It’s awesome!

If you throw it, I will fetch it

Fez has realised that Abby is a human being who can play with him – and she will at some stage. He often throws his toy her way (and sometime drops it on her) and waits for her to play fetch with him. She of course grabs and commences to shove it into her mouth only for her fun to be ruined by mummy.

My babies playing with their toys

Oh, and I’ve started looking into daycares for October. I know I’ve left it really late, but there’s a couple with vacancies for Abby at Greta Point in Lyall Bay. Just need to visit them and sign her up. I’m still in denial about returning to work though…

One of those times is when writing business emails or letters. It might be ok if you are friends with the people you are writing to, but certainly not if you are a customer service person responding to a customer complaint.

The Accor Group has been giving me a headache with their numerous telemarketing calls, and I’ve repeated myself to several of the callers and have even resorted to Twittering them to ask them to stop (I couldn’t find where I should be sending a general complaint to via email). They “assured” me that I have been put on the “Do not call” list and yet I still got calls. Anyway, my last Twitter message to them was responded to with a smiley face at the end. And you know what, it wasn’t just a smiley face, it was a winking smiley face!

I’ll get back to you as soon as I get a reply. ;-)

Are you flirting with me? Or are you only joking about getting back to me? Gah! That completely invalidates the seriousness of the issue, as well as your professionalism.

And using a smiley face in a work email does not make up for something stupid that’s happened, nor does it make up for or an “urgent” request that is made at 4:30pm when it could’ve waited until tomorrow afternoon. Also, if we obviously don’t and will never get along with each other, then a smiley face will not make me like you more. And you know it.

:)

(FYI: I’ve emailed a couple Accor people after asking for some contact details via Twitter, and I have been put on both the New Zealand and Australian “do not call” lists – let’s hope this time that means something.)

I only found out about this as I was filling in my tax return this year. I’m not sure why I still get tax returns sent to me, but I suppose it’s probably something to do with my contracting that I did a while ago. Anyway, turns out, as I’ve been on maternity leave for a big part of the last financial year and earnt bugger all, as well as the hubby and I not qualifying for the Working for Families tax credit or any benefits, I can claim the IETC for the last 12 months – that equates to $520! Woop!

So all you New Zealand mums who qualify – maybe it’s worth requesting a Personal Tax Summary (if you don’t normally receive them) and filing an IR3 tax return to claim the IETC at the end of the financial year. I think I will qualify for the next financial year also – yus! (Don’t forget though that if you request a Personal Tax Summary and you owe them tax, then you’ll have to pay it).

No longer is she forever babbling “da-da-da” and “dad-dee”, she’s now saying “ma-ma-ma”, “mum-mum” and “mum-mee”! Yay, finally some recognition! Of course she probably doesn’t know what those words mean, but she can say them. I’m so proud.

Abby with her mum-mum

Abby is now 8 months old. We’ve managed to drop her evening catnap so we’re down to just two naps a day. Her naps are around 1-2 hours long. Dropping the evening nap has resulted in an earlier bedtime. She’s down around 8-8:30 most nights now instead of 9-9:30. We put her to bed at 7:30pm tonight so we’ll see if she stays asleep all night or if I’m in for an early wakeup call!

Rusk-faced cousins

She’s also well on her way to crawling. She gets her butt in the air and uses her legs to push up and her arms to pull forward – looks like a commando shuffle is progressing…  she’s not quite there, but she certainly can move herself around now (in all directions) especially when there’s some tasty fluff or dog toy she can see!

Her one tooth is growing nicely (it’s damn sharp by the way), and another is just about to break the surface. Brushing is still a joke because she’s decided she likes the taste of toothpaste and sticks her tongue out to get it, making it almost impossible to brush her tooth. Might have to just rub on some toothpaste with my finger now and then.

I has scrammed eggs

Abby is eating more challenging food now. She’s had some fun with toast fingers, scrambled eggs and steamed broccoli – unfortunately she likes to shove more than she can chew in her gob and ends up choking and gagging every now and then.

Abby on the swing

She had her 8 month Plunket checkup today. According to their scales she’s 9.52kg and 74cm tall – on the top end of the charts. After her visit, I decided to give her a go on the infant swing in the park. She chuckled with delight. Must do this more often.

“It’s ‘poo’. There’s no ‘p’ at the end.”

“There is at the end of ‘poop’.”

- Two dads having an indepth conversation (my brother-in-law and his brother, my hubby)

First was an entry into the Threadcakes competition. I’ve been wanting to make this baby Godzilla cake, based on a Threadless shirt design, for a while and finally found the motivation (and time) to do it.

Cute and delicious

I baked a couple of test cakes and found a delicious madeira recipe (which I tweaked to make it an orange madeira cake) that was perfect – delicious, moist and something I could carve into. It was a lot of work, but I think I did well for my first sculpted cake. More details and photos can be found on my Threadcakes entry.

The other cake was for a friend’s grandaughter’s third birthday party. The wee girl wanted a yellow castle cake and I decided to add Rapunzel into the mix.

Yellow castle cake

Waiting for her prince

The main cake was a dense banana cake (I think I’ll use another recipe next time), and the skinny tower was a chocolate roll. Both are filled with a delicious butter cream. The skinny tower gave me troubles as it started leaning and sagging a bit – oh dear. The top tower was also a challenge to cover.

Just a bit of practice to better my cake decorating skills. I have lots to learn still!

At 30 weeks

• Went on her first plane trip to Auckland. Not so fun when she got tired and had her usual bedtime cry!
• Moves around in her walker in all directions. She only used to be able to roll backwards but she’s all go now.
• Moving onto lumpier solids – gradually.
• Sits up well and can rebalance herself most of the time.
• Can hold her water bottle by the handles and drink by herself in short bursts. She likes to chew on the teat and fling the bottle around though.
• Plays in the bath.
• Shakes her toys.
• Plays with Fez.

Abby's first plane ride

Mmmm tasty dog-chewed rag...

At 31 weeks

• Caught a cold – boo.
• Likes dropping things to watch them fall.
• Bangs her toys to make noise.
• Can “give you five”, but only down low.
• Noms on rusks.
• Sits and happily plays with the toys in her toy box. Still needs cushions around her because she likes to jerk backwards without warning and she has a flat-enough head as it is.
• “Chews” food with her gums.
• Has breakfast and lunch with mum at the table. Her dinner is earlier than ours though so she ends up watching us gobble our food while she has to make do with a rusk.
• First tooth requires brushing. Ridiculous task – how do you make a baby spit out toothpaste? She just eats it. I put water on the brush, lean Abby over the sink and hope gravity does most of the work.

It's all smiles with her rusk

Bouncing in her slippers

At 32 weeks

• Over the worst of her cold, and just needs to blow her nose if only she knew how…
• Might be teething again as the red cheeks have reappeared.
• Has outgrown her 3-6 month clothes and mummy is sad to be putting them away.
• Zooms around in her walker – mind the Fez! (Sorry about the cellphone quality of the video.)