Photoshoot

It had been a while since I took any photos of Marisca so I took advantage of a lazy Saturday morning (Elspeth having a lie in) to take some shots when she was in a good mood.

Here's a happy smiling girl, in her modest attire.

The Skwish is probably Marisca's favourite toy for picking up and sucking (not that she's too fussy). Lots of bits to hold, and a variety of different colours to check out.

And this is my favourite photo of the moment. Marisca loves her tummy time, and the pose here as she relaxes on her elbows with a lovely chilled expression was as lovely as it was fleeting.

New toy

There's the perfect picture of a happy girl playing with her new toy. She seemed entirely unbothered, but we reckon this will start coming in useful especially as her other sources of bouncing get too small (bouncy chair) or have to go back to work (daddy).

What I did on my holidays

Mummy is letting me write the blogpost today. She says that when I go to school I will write lots of essays on what I did on my holidays, so I can practise now...

Last weekend we went on holiday to visit Gran and Grandad in Yorkshire. I had lots of fun. First, we visited Gran as she was looking after a level crossing on the Wensleydale Railway. Between trains, she gets to wait in a caravan beside the tracks. I'm not sure about this as accommodation:

Then Mummy and Daddy took me on my first hill climb. Here I am with Daddy at the bottom:

There were some lovely views from the top, and Mummy and Daddy seemed to be very happy up there. I expect they will take me to climb some more hills soon!

The next day we walked along beside some waterfalls instead. This meant Daddy could show off how 'off-road' my pushchair is. And while we were there we reached 100 miles of pushing. Haven't I worked hard?

After all that sightseeing it was good to have some time to relax at home. Grandad let me sit in his chair:


That's when I wasn't being cuddled by him or Gran - that happened lots over the weekend. I think I like holidays :-)

Elephant is counting to ten

Marisca is looking a little confused. Firstly everyone who sees her today will think she's a boy. I reckon she'll get over that as she's always keen to eschew traditional gender sterotypes through her clothing choices. She's more concerned about elephant, who is counting to ten. Hide and seek is fine, she's learned that from her cousins, although she's still trying to work out how someone the size of daddy can be so hard to find sometimes. Marisca can see that elephant is counting to ten, but the numbers only go as far as six. Six! That's only just over halfway to ten. Elephant might be counting to six, seven, ten, one million as far as we know. It's a good job that she's bright enough to see that elephant is counting to ten but hasn't got there yet. Lesser 3 month olds may be confused by that. What's really concerning Marisca is that elephant appears to be counting backwards. The number closest to elephant is one, not six, and the suggestion in the representation is that the numbers are floating away from elephant as they are spoken. So if elephant's counting backwards, what happens in this game of hide and seek? If it's in reverse, does monkey then come looking for elephant? Or does elephant have to wander around the jungle backwards trying not to fall into some kind of elephant trap?

Fortunately, Marisca has a while to think about the problem, as the tshirt is 3-6 months and today's the first time it hasn't looked like a tent on her, so it will be fitting for a while.

Swimming, swimming, in the swimming pool

Yesterday we took Marisca swimming for the first time. Later on I think this will be a daddy-baby pursuit, as Elspeth's not so keen on swimming herself, but yesterday the three of us went down to Robinson Pool to give it a go.

It was a really lovely time. Marisca was clearly unsure at first (she had her bath hands on) but after a bit of cuddling and rocking she started smiling and gurgling. Elspeth and I used the classic parenting trick of being really smiley and enthusiastic to convince her that things she wasn't sure about were actually a Good Thing. I think we were the most enthuiastic people in the pool, and that includes all the older kids there who were clearly having a great time.

We'll definitely be going again, hopefully as a family; Elspeth seemed to cope with the baby pool almost as well as Marisca.

Three months

We've reached the magic twelve weeks/three months mark, where 'they' say things get even easier. I don't know who 'they' are, but I haven't noticed any sudden changes! Lots has been happening on the development front this month, though. Marisca loves tummy time (see above), and is now very keen on being upright and looking around. She loves burbling away to herself or anyone else who will listen, so we spend a lot of time having 'conversations' together! And she is suddenly much more aware of her hands, and the toys she is holding.

It's not all plain sailing of course. Marisca sleeps well at night, but during the day she has started crying rather than sleeping. She will eventually fall asleep, but only after ten minutes or so of wailing, which can be hard to cope with sometimes! She's feeding well, but at the last weigh in she had dropped down the percentiles, which of course has made me worry! But as you can see from the photo she's the picture of health, happy and alert, and that's what really matters.