2 Today!!!

Happy Birthday my big little beautiful girl!

Pippa Rose - today you are two.... and what a remarkable two years it has been!! You are really talking now, being very very cheeky, not taking any crap from your older brother and sisters, and basically just letting us know who is boss!

I'll let you think you are for just a while longer..... you have come such a long way!

Nearly 2....

Well, I cannot believe that in a little over 6 weeks our little girl will be 2 already!

Pippa is talking a lot more these days, and the little monkey is so cheeky, and understands everything that is said to her or about her!

A few of her words are:

no (!) of course!!
mine
yes
quack
disty (christie)
layla
mum or mumma
dad or dad-deeeeeee
truck
dis (this)
drink
peez (please)
tank-oo (thank you)
ball
bye
see u
hello
hi

and a whole lot of other stuff that she just copies!! And she is a real squealer - if she doesn't get her own way then eardrums, watch out!

She is running around everywhere and weighs around 12kg at the moment. She eats almost anything but will tell you if she doesn't want it. Or she just waves her hand at it, one or the other!

Her favourite things at the moment is balls - she just loves them! Throwing them, eating them, pushing them, snatching them!

And she needs another haircut!

Talking

Pippa is really trying her hardest to communicate with us at the moment - she is adorable the way she tries to get her point across using hand movements, high-pitched squeals, shaking of the head, pushing us and things away with her hands and tantrums.......

Her words currently are -
dit-ta which I think is Pippa
dank-oo which is thank you
no which is well, no
and I swear she says Layla all the time!

But other than that she uses some bizarre form of sign language that I am quite positive I have used on a night out more than once or twice in my time in the wee hours of the morning!!!

But she is adorable! Here is a recent shot, just cos I can! We had a fun day at the park - check out her hair in the tunnel!!! Hilarious!!!

Curioser and curioser

Now Pippa is walking properly she has been allowed out in the backyard!!! We were such mean parents before and couldn't handle the crawling in the dirt and screaming when she crawled onto the gravel that we kept her inside for most of her early life!!!
But now she is out and about so to speak, she loves everything - especially eating sand in the sandpit!!!
But she just loves looking at "stuff" on the ground...... so cute! She will pick it up, look at it, maybe have a taste, if she doens't like it she puts it back and wipes her hand on her clothes (my princess doesn't like to be dirty LOL)

Easter Sunday

We ventured down to the beach on Sunday, the day started out nice but was a bit cold by the time we got down there.... but all in all it was a nice day filled with chocolate, hot cross buns and fish and chips!

Pippa is a bit young to understand Easter, so Damo will probably help her eat her eggs!

She has never been to the beach properly before (last year we took her but she was only 4 months old and just stayed in the pram the whole time!) so she was a bit hesitant..... but did enjoy the sand after a while, not so sure about the water... I sat with her at the edge and everytime the waves came a bit close and got her toes wet she let out a little shriek!

Enjoying an icy-pole with Daddy!

Pouting cos she was put in the playpen!

Enjoying a boat ride with Layla and Skye!

We all had a wonderful day although very tiring, and I was glad to get home to bed! Dealing with all that sand is such an ordeal.

Lashes

We get stopped everywhere we go - shops, parks, more shops... well you get the idea. It's not because I am such a yummy mummy (!), it's because of Pippa's eyelashes.
Honestly, she has the most delicious eyelashes - they are long and dark, and her big blue eyes look just beautiful beneath them.

Words

Pippa is now just over 18 months old, but she is only 15 months corrected, so I am not worried about her lack of vocabulary - she is getting there!

Her latest word at the moment is "hi" - especially when she puts the phone up to her ear (or whatever is in her hand at the time LOL).

She is also trying to jump!! It is so cute - she gets down into a squatting position and then sort of pushes herself up until she is on her tiptoes, then just grins at me like she has done the most amazing thing in the world! Well in her world it is!

Gorgeous.

Neglected

I feel I have neglected little Pippy's blog!!!

I will endeavour to update it more - but the big news is that she started walking properly a few weeks ago and is practically running everywhere now! She also needs a haircut (which I will do myself) and she is trying to talk... She does the usual Da-dy and Mu-my but I swear today she was trying to say her name - it sort of sounded like Di-da!! how cute!

And boy does she have a little temper.... well I'm not surprised!

Shoes

Today Pippa was fitted for her first pair of "real shoes"! How exciting! She was a bit unsure of walking in them at first as she is used to only wearing her little leather "ballet" slip-on shoes, but she soon got used to them, and delighted in the noise they made when she walked through the kitchen - walking up and down many times and being quite pleased with herself! So cute!

So now she is allowed outside a lot more - but as you can see she just preferred to have a seat - getting new shoes is tiring work you know!

Pippa Rose's birth

This is a "cut and paste" from another diary that I keep, but it will have to do for now!

I wrote this on 13th September 2006.......

Okay, where do I start? On 30th August (Damo's birthday!) my membranes ruptured (during a walk to the sandwich shop to get lunch!), it was only a slow leak but I knew the all too familiar feeling having experienced it three times before. I was only 26 weeks 2 days so did a little panic but knew that I would be heading to the RWH and be in the best care. So I rang Damien and he came and picked me up and we went straight to the hospital.

After having confirmed that my waters had indeed broken, it was hospital admission for me, steroids and antibiotics galore, and after eight days I started to experience tightenings - they actually only got to the point where I had to draw my breath in, but they were there all the same. On Thursday 7th September (after spending the previous two nights in the labour ward), I started to feel a bit "off" and my pulse had raced up to 125 bpm, and a CTG confirmed that bubs pulse was hovering at 180 bpm, which indicated an infection. I was also losing a lot of green mucuous, was off my food and urgent blood tests confirmed that I had indeed contracted an amniotic infection. So off to labour ward we went at 5pm. Luckily Damien was with me already so no need to ring him!

After being hooked up to the CTG machine and having a very painful internal examination - both speculum and manual - which made me cry, the doctor confirmed that I was 1cm dilated already - and would I be happy to go onto the drip to induce the labour. This scared the crap outta me, and Damien and I discussed this and decided that a c-section would be the way to go. Luckily the doctor and the consultant agreed with me - and from that point on it was just go go go!

Damien didn't want to come into theatre with me (I don't blame him - I didn't want to be there either!), so he paced in the waiting room on the 7th floor of the RWH. I was wheeled into theatre, given my epidural - all the while being my usual jovial self!!! There was about 15 people in the room - but all I cared about was whether the paediatric team was there or not - because I was about to have a 27 week 3 day old baby! The epidural made me shake, but I had a lovely midwife to hold my hand (thanks Emma-Louise!) whom I am eternally thankful for being there for me! Once the baby had been born it was taken over to the open incubator where four people were working on her - Emma kept coming over and at one stage said "I think it's a girl but I can't really see! - then she came back a few minutes later and said "yes it's a girl and she's got oxygen and she is pinking up nicely and making noise!!" That was the best news I had heard in my whole life!!! I started to cry (just like now when I write this), and after about 10 minutes they wheeled her past me with a brief stop for me to wave and say bye baby - all I could see of her was a little face with a white hat wrapped in bubble wrap.

I told them her name was Pippa - Damien and I had only decided on the name for a girl when I was in the labour ward - we knew she was going to be a pipsqueak so we thought the name was very fitting! So Pippa Rose was born at 7.31pm weighing 907gms.

Then came the fun part of them sewing me up - but I didn't care! I had a live breathing baby who was gorgeous!

Damien went up to the NICU with her and I went to recovery where I again had another lovely nurse Dani (thanks Dani!) to whom I couldn't stop chatting to - she said it was actually good that I was chatting as people are usually really quiet in recovery!! Me? Quiet? Never!!!

Damien then came down to recovery - and I swear he looked worse than I did!!! He said that our little girl was doing well - the paed doctor said she did all the work!

After that it is all a blur of going back to the ward, having horrible drugs that spaced me out and made me feel sick, not sleeping at all that night but having lovely night staff keeping an eye on me - and the next day getting up out of bed at about lunchtime to have a wonderful shower, then going up to see our new addition.

I thought I would cry when I first saw her - but I was just so happy to see her that I couldn't get the grin off my face! She was so so so so tiny, but oh so perfect and beautiful - words cannot describe how much she means to us already.

She is doing really well - we are on Day 6 and have had no major complications or problems (touch wood!), and she has even been breathing on her own! She is back on CPAP at the moment as she tires herself out, but I am trying to be positive and strong for her, which is hard sometimes.

I was discharged on Monday afternoon, which was good and bad at the same time - I loved that I could sleep in my own bed and cook my own food and sit on my own couch, but the enormous grief I felt at leaving her behind in the hospital was just awful. And then of course I had the 3 and 4 and 5 day blues, going through all the emotions of guilt, denial, positive thinking, negative thinking, stupid thoughts, sensible thoughts and just crying in general, which I am still experiencing.

One minute I am the positive, strongest mum in the world and the next minute I am so so sorry that I couldn't hold on to her inside me for any longer, and start blaming my body and the infection it produced. But I cannot blame anyone or anything for her being born so early - I am just so thankful that she is here and she is well and she is alive!

And that she is beautiful.

On another note - I would like to thank my wonderful friend Kelli, who supported me throughout all of this. I do believe it was fate that we were meant to meet in that hospital room! Love ya Kels!