timandfee

We’re back over a week now and have been very busy relaxing, open our mail and getting into the Barcelona routine again, including Alina who seems to be impatient to start moving around; it’s not going too good yet

<

Ok so i knew it would be like this, but i am surprised at how quickly it happened. Alina has been smiling since she was 4 weeks old - her first big smile was to her dad. I didn’t think much of that, he was just lucky. Since then there have been lots of smiling and even laughing, more all the time. I would have thought this was fairly evenly split between mum and dad, with some for nana and some for sandra, and indeed any other lucky person that took her fancy. Today though, it cannot be denied that she seems to have a special sparkle in her eye for daddy. She is only 7 weeks old, and despite the fact that it is me she needs for food, it is her dad she saves the big smiles for. And even though I guess I always knew she would be a daddy´s girl - i know the dad and i know me - i am seriously impressed with how quickly she is working that charm! If she is anything like me and my dad, it will be a long and wonderful relationship. And despite me knowing that I could be feeling just a little left out with these two over the years, i know it is the best relationship she can have…well at least for the next 20 years!

P.S. i got my first smile on the 18th of august…just for the record

Last weekend my mum (or Meme as she wants to be called by alina) came over for 4 days, to see her grandchild and if possible help is out a bit. And she certainly did; we were able to go out by ourselves for 2 nights in a row! Of course I had a vicious hangover on Saturday and Fiona could not wake up, but Meme took over and allowed us to sleep (AFTER she had changed the sheets our little angel had soiled at feeding time).

We had time to do things too: the park on Thursday to compare our babies, Arianna’s birthday party with Gary performing his amazing “disappearing cake”-trick, and a stroll and swim by the beach on Sunday.

It was great having her here and made is realise how important the support of family is ! Let’s hope we see more of them in Barcelona soon!

Alina at just over 5 weeks

It´s after 1am.  I went out tonight with a girlfriend.  I had a cocktail in my old favourite haunt in Barcelona, Betty Fords.  Last time I had an alcoholic drink there was when the Dutchies where here 11 months ago.  Tim gives the late feed to our princess so i had no reason to rush or indeed feel guilty for having two drinks (i did indeed have 2 with water in between -  i am now a lightweight), but even though i was not thinking about her all the time or wanting to get home, i was also a bit disconnected towards the end.  I left them there and in the taxi on the way back although i was tired, i was also excited - the thought of getting home to tim and alina was just so warm…yes thats the word, warm!  I got home and tim was feeding her and my heart melted. I yet again realised how much things have changed.   While I had a great evening, my scene is now a different one.  There is no place in the world i would rather be then right here. This new baby has changed my life.  And I have never been happier.

Today Alina is 5 weeks old and I guess we can now say she is sleeping through the night, well if you agree with what some of the experts say, and 7am is the normal time mums (or dads) need to get up with a baba.  (I am hoping to get her to 9 but lets see about that.)  I bought the books - Happiest baby on the Block, The Baby Whisperer and the too strict Contented Baby - but I haven´t managed to get half way through any of them.  In the end we just did it our way, and we were lucky that our princess was a champion night sleeper right from the start.

So what do we do?  Sometime between 7pm and 8pm go to the bedroom, we close the curtain, have only one low light, put relaxing music on (we have only 2 cd´s - thanks claudette and arianna, but God they are getting to us now) and get into quiet mode.  We bath or wash Alina, and then feed her.    This of course does not mean she falls asleep right away, she fights it nearly always.  So after the feed it is wind down time, where we burp her, walk her around, tell a story, sing a song, rub her head, sometimes rock her, whatever until she is sleepy and relaxed.  The soother is often employed during this stage.   Then we swaddle her (still loving the miracle blanket)  and put her to bed.  Sometimes she sleeps straight away, sometimes there is still “shushing” (literally saying shush a  few times as she lies in the crib) to be done.  She may even cry again when we leave the room, and we go back for a little more “shushing”.   The whole process takes an hour or sometimes an hour and a half.  We know now it will take this time, so we dont mind it and we dont rush it (that could add another half hour at least).  Generally I take this session, although often tim does the putting to bed part.  Then comes the good part…when she sleeps, she sleeps.  We always have to wake her for her last night time feed.  This happens sometime between 11.30pm and 1am, depending on when Tim is going to bed.  Often she does not wake up, we (well mostly tim) unswaddle her, feed her, burp her and back to sleep - could take 10 mins.  And then that is it until 7am,  well for the last nights at least.  I actually got 8 hours of uninterrupted sleep a couple of nights ago, and that is impressive when you have a 4 week old baby and you are breastfeeding!

Still though 7am us too early for me, as generally we are not in bed before midnight, so I manage to get in another sleep.  She normally goes back to sleep around 8 lying on me on the couch, and i can sleep then too.  But otherwise tim gets up around 9 or 10, i feed her again,  and then he takes her while i go back to bed for another hour or sometimes 2!

So if you are wondering why it is that we dont have bags under our eyes, more grey hairs and are generally relaxed and happy, it is because, 1 we have a sleeping beauty as a daughter, and 2 there is two of us minding and adoring her.  No wonder I am loving being a mum

Click here for more pictures

This guy mounted a supercomputer in an IKEA chest of drawers. ah it must be great not having a life so you can actually play around with this! I think Fiona would divorce me asap if I told I’d be building one of this…

Building home linux render cluster

Message from the machine: “there are currently no bikes available at this station”