Becoming a family

Two plus the Baba Ganough just before we left for the hospital to be induced on 21 October 2012

First family picture in El Nada Hospital three days after Leila was born

Home for three on Leila's first birthday, 21 October 2013

Leila's Birthday

Present opening part 1 (morning)

Present opening part 2 (evening)

We celebrated Leila's birthday at the BCA Baby Group as we didn't want to do a huge party, but did want to have some cake with friends!  Alice made two dairy free banana loaves (we had joked that the poor little girl was going to end up with a 'rice cake' for her first birthday!) which the kids and parents enjoyed and Leila was totally bemused by the blowing out of candles but she did enjoy the singing.

Leilas Twelth month

Wow!  Here we are - a year of Leila!  This month has been spent doing lots of pressing, pointing and sorting.

Leila loves pressing buttons and so often will walk around the flat with her phone in her hand pressing the same button again and again (she doesn't look where she is going sometimes - how did we get a teenager already?!) She has discovered light switches although is better at switching on (down) than off.  What is really cute is that when she can't do the switch, she grabs our finger and puts it there to flick the switch instead!

Leila will point at things she wants to look at, such as pictures, or things she just wants, like food! She has a little 'after dinner' routine when she is taken down from the table of pointing at all the photos of her grandparents that we have on a nearby shelf - very cute :-)

We have recently made Leila an 'in and out box' with a lid that she likes to open and put things in  take things out of.  'In and out' isn't just for 'stuff' though, as Leila likes climbing in and out of things as well. Her favourit is the blue washing up bowl, followed by the ukulele case.  Leila also enjoys climing on and off the sofa and the bed - although she doesn't always do this properly!  To get up on the sofa I have to give her a 'leg up' but she loves this as she then sits on the back of the sofa looking out of the window onto the street below  She can climb onto the low bed in her room where we change her herself, but when it comes to getting down she forgets she can 'scoot' down on her bum and instead stands up and tries to walk off the edge of it!

Leila is gradually getting over being shy in large gatherings (like at Music class or Bounce and Rhyme) as she is becoming less clingy when we first arrive places. 

Sleeping, eating and health
Leila spent most of the last month with a cold and has been a right snot monster!  Being older she is now more 'squiggly' and doesn't like having her nose wiped (who does?!) so goes round snotty all day if I can't get a good swipe in! She had the cold for a good two weeks, then took a week off (!) before getting it back.  Scott has been pretty much the same too.  The cold has meant that she has been very cuddly some days (no problems with that) but other days hasn't been wanting to nap which has made it a long day for her and en
This month Leila has been a bit fickle about whether or not to take a long nap each day.  Her long nap is usually in the morning if she has one, but sometimes she just takes two shorter ones (instead of a long and a short - she still does two naps a day).  It's blooming typical that she chooses to take a long nap and sleep in when I have something planned (like Bounce and Rhyme or Music class at 10am).  I can't bring myself to wake her up from a nap to go out, and I still prefer her to nap in her cot rather than the buggy (as the buggy journey is a good 30 minutes and so I guess I'm worried that if I wake her up from a nap at 9.20am she might not fall back to sleep again).  Getting out to these events is really good for her socially and so I might need to change my tact if I want her to keep seeing other babies.
Leila can do most nights with just one feed now at the later time of around 4 or 4.30am  She can then wake up for the day around 5.30am (sleeping to nearer 6am is a rarity) which is pretty tiring, but she seems raring to go!

Eid

This week was 'the big Eid' - which, for us, means a week off work.  We decided to have a few days at home, but then to also get away for a bit of a break.  After faffing a bit with hotels and flights we ended up in Sharm at the sister hotel to the hotel we last stayed at in Luxor.  We managed to get a larger room and an all-inclusive deal for less than the cost would've been in Luxor, so quids in!  What made the holiday a real treat though, was that Nanny and Grandad were there too! :-)

Our days were spent in part by the pool, and in part in the comfort of the AC in our room.  The downside to having great warm weather was that it made the pool feel rather chilly on first entry!  This didn't stop us taking a few dips each day and Leila enjoyed her rubber ring in the big pool and stomping through the knee-deep water of the kids pool.  Out of the pool, Leila spent her time charming the staff at the hotel; by the time we left they all knew her name and she was waving, smiling and even high-fiving them all!

It was nice to have a break from life in Cairo and to have some fresh air and pool time, but the holiday wasn't as relaxing as it could have been.  I had been feeling rotten with a cold in the days leading up to the break and although Scotty had recently recovered from his cold it came back with a vengeance in Sharm, accompanied by terrible back and neck ache from the bed/pillow combination. 

Holidaying with a toddler is pretty full-on we have now found, and is very different from all the holidays we have taken before.  We realise now that not only will we not get a peaceful flight for another 17 years, but we'll not get a chance to finish reading a book by the pool either!

Travelator at Cairo airport

I think lots of people can sympathise with parents whose child is starting to walk on their own.  You're constantly chasing after said child, bent-double in an attempt to catch them when they fall. While waiting for our half-term flight to Sharm El Sheikh, we found the perfect solution in Cairo airport.

Leila's ID badge

The best part of the day is coming home from work and having Leila run over to me for a hug.  However, she's recently been running over to me to get my ID badge instead!  This vid is of the first day when she worked out how to put it on and take it off.

Leila's first Stavolta

It was a mango sorbet!

Early version of Dance Around (to see whether Leila liked it...)

Toddler +Skype = new webcam

Before Leila was born we bought ourselves a tablet pc and this proved an excellent buy as it meant we could easily video Skype with home without clogging up the main PC and being able to roam around the flat.  Leila has always been fascinated by this device that talks to her and of the people who live in the 'box' which was funny at first, but now she is able to grab (and move!)  it has been proving very difficult to have a successful Skype with home - we just spend all the time moving the Gadget (as we fondly call it) out of her reach, or endlessly turning it round so that folks get a glimps of her before she rushes to another part of the room.

Recently we decided to change our strategy and found our old webcam (a Grand Mall special from our first year here!) and set this up above the big telly with my old laptop hooked into the TV for a screen.  It worked a treat with Leila now transfixed in front of the TV and everyone being able to get a much better view of her comings and goings.  Having established that this new set up was working we decided to invest in a new webcam which is working well (although its autofocus is not totally compatible with our toddler!)

Here are a few pics of the new set up:

Leila shows Grandpa her favourite book 'Zoopermarket'

'Who are these strange people on the telly?'

First blood

Poor Leila has had a tough few days. It started on Sunday with a runny nose and ended with a real wallop today!

Sunday evening Leila was so full of cold that she struggled to sleep. After 45 mins of restlessness we got her up for some Calpol. It makes sense now that she was so clingy over the weekend if she had been feeling this rotten. Luckily I was off work on the Monday and so could give her the cuddles and milk that she needed to start to shift it.  Although her nose was still running on Tuesday, she seemed to be over the worst of the cold itself.  

A few nights later though and she was feeling a lot better in herself (although her nose was still running like a tap!).  So much so that she was shrieking with joy at a game of chase around the living room and then along the corridor.  It all ended in tears though when she fell on the tiled floor and had a right whallop on her face.  Scotty tried to console her, but she was still wailing a few minutes later, so I took over.  It was only when  he passed her to me that I saw the streak of red blood on his white shirt where she had been leaning on his shoulder!  Poor little girl had cut her lip on her sharp teeth as she had fallen forward.  We gave her a bm ice lolly to try and stem the bleeding ad stop any swelling and she finally calmed down and felt a bit better.  This first blood though was a real shock!

EDIT:  A few weeks later we had our second blood. This wasn't self inflicted, but was the result of her habit of pointing and shouting at any cat that she sees!  Leila loves cats and meowing and the BCA garden cats are very calm, well behaved and tolerant of small children. It seems though that this week one took a friendly swipe at her outstretched arm and managed to scratch her.

Being typical first-time parents we were more upset than Leila was about this and so called our doctors immediately.  Looking at the scratch we could tell really that it was just a small one, but felt that it might be slightly negligent of us to not have the doc take a look at it.  Of course the doctor comes to our house and says that it's not even a 'small scratch' but superficial too! What fuss-pots we are! Luckily Leila is up to date with all her jabs (and the cut so small and clean) so she didn't need any further jabs.