Meet The Engineer’s Baby

It’s pretty obvious given the title, but this blog is about a baby.  A gorgeous and wonderful baby.  I think most people reading know at least a few of the details, but for anyone who doesn’t, here’s a quick introduction to the reason we’re all here.

(Disclaimer: it is pretty much impossible to talk about your baby without getting cheesy.  But turns out this baby is worthy of cheesy – in fact all babies are – so I’m just going to run with it!)

The Engineer’s Baby was born on 18 July 2014 at 5:05pm, weighing in at a sizeable 4.4 kg (9 lb 12 oz).  At the time of writing she is 16 weeks old (I had to count that one out; we usually go with three and a half months right now) and weighs an even more sizeable 7.9 kg (17 lb 6 oz).

She can currently roll tummy to back and back to tummy, but far prefers to be on her tummy, so does the latter far more often.  Once she’s over, she likes to push up to her hands and her knees.  She’s pretty convinced that she will be able to crawl any day now, but we think it will be at least another month (we hope it will be another month!)

She has the cheekiest wee grin and will usually share it with anyone who smiles at her, but sometimes when she gets a bit tired she’s a little bit shy.  She giggles, mostly when her mum (that would be me…) makes funny noises or blows raspberries on her belly. It’s probably the most amazing sound in the world.

She sleeps fairly well at night generally.  She still wakes a couple of times for a feed, but goes back to sleep quickly and no longer likes to party at 3am (long may that continue, we say!)  During the day it’s a little bit more challenging – she’s curious and seems to think sleep is rather boring.  But popping her in a carrier and walking or bouncing is still a fairly foolproof method of convincing her to nod off.

Her favourite toys include a black and white book that crinkles, a giraffe/zebra toy with plastic rings that rattle together on the feet, and a ball with a rattle inside.  But she’ll bypass all of those if there are some fabrics that she can bunch together and chew and drool on.  She also loves to chew and drool on hands (hers or ours) and stare in the mirror.

At the moment she likes hanging out with pretty much anyone.  When we go to play bridge, or to meetings, she will be happily passed around the group.  But when she gets tired, it’s all about Mum and Dad.  She will sleep on either of us, but Dad seems to get her to sleep for ages (which makes me rather jealous!)

She is just finding her feet, and loves to grab them when she’s on the changing table and to stare at them when she’s sitting on a knee.  She also likes my feet, especially when those funny orange toenails at the end wriggle around.

She is a truly amazing wee thing (or not so wee thing!) and The Engineer and I are pretty damn stoked at the way our genes have combined. We are astounded at how she has grown and changed already, and can’t wait to see what else she has in store.

 

 

 

 

 

Baby brain

I’ve been blogging over at The Engineer’s Wife for a couple of years now.  You wouldn’t guess it had been that long, based on the number of posts.  But I can promise you that it has.  Although the posting has been sporadic, I have really enjoyed having somewhere to document my experience as an expat in Brunei.  I have also met some wonderful people as a direct result of the blog.

Part of the reason that the blog has been so slow is that for the last year I have been really caught up in pregnancy and baby raising.  And for six months before that, I was pretty baby focussed as we went through the physically and emotionally draining process of fertility treatment.  In fact, not having and then having a baby have pretty much dominated my Brunei experience.  But I was adamant that The Engineer’s Wife was not going to become a baby/mum blog.  So rather than find other things to talk about, I just didn’t write.

Now I am coming out of the fog of newborn babyness and coming into a rhythm with this at home parenting thing.  And I have recently found myself getting a bit down in the dumps.  After a bit of soul searching, and conversations with some very wise women, I have realised that I am bored.  Our baby is wonderful and fascinating, but that doesn’t change the fact that parenting a small child is a fairly relentless process.  I would love to say that I can watch her all day and just be amazed at how she is learning and growing.  But the fact is, I can’t.  I am absolutely amazed at how she is learning and growing.  But I also need to focus on my own  learning and growing.

So I am now resolving to make better use of nap times.  I have to keep in mind that nap times still often look like this:

But even with a baby strapped to my chest, there are so many better things I can do than skulk around Facebook and Tumblr.  I need some creativity and somewhere to calm and process my overactive brain.  Writing has always been something that has helped me, so as part of this nap time overhaul I am going to get back into writing my novel, and I am also creating a space where I can talk about motherhood without taking over my existing blog.  I also hope (quite possibly in vain) that by getting the motherhood stuff out, I might find a little bit more to say about expat life.

And thus The Engineer’s Baby is born… I have no idea how this nap time experiment will go, but I’m excited to find out. I think this blog will be a useful part of it, and I hope that maybe it will even be a bit interesting for others to read.  Let’s see how it goes!