Month: August 2017

Travels with Hen: UK Edition

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Our recent family trip to Yorkshire was a little stressful, a lot of fun, and a major learning curve for two new parents who will have to troubleshoot Kiddo Jet Lag many times in the future. I spent a lot of time worrying about the 9 hour flight, not knowing that the 8 hour time difference would actually be the bigger problem. It took over a week of sleepless nights and sleeping-all-day for all three of us to successfully transition to the new timezone. We enjoyed a few blissful days on the new schedule before having to fly home. Luckily, Tom didn’t seem to mind playing with his daughter in a nice quiet house in the middle of the night, and Grandma P didn’t seem to mind making us breakfast in the late afternoon when we woke up for the day!

The first week of our trip we lounged around at home with family – all of us were under one roof for the first time since Christmas 2014 so we had a lot of catching up to do! The second week was much busier – a wedding, Tom’s 30th birthday, and visits with friends and extended family.

Highlights of our trip included:

  • getting to see Hennie spend time with her English grandparents
  • country pub dates with siblings
  • surviving our first outing (sort of) without Hen
  • the majestic Bennett wedding
  • Tom’s 30th Birthday BBQ
  • playing tourist in cute little towns like Harrogate and Ilkley

Big thank you to all who hosted and housed us over the course of our trip, it was lovely to see everyone and we’re looking forward to traveling more with a baby now that we know we can survive it!

Hennie James: Nine Months

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Hennie’s ninth month on the outside has been one of travel and new experience! There have been a few stressful moments for our little fam but mostly just good days and so much fun watching her navigate new skills, new sights, and new faces.

Nicknames: Bugaloo seems to have stuck. Who would’ve thought!?

Life Lately: the past month has been defined by continued separation anxiety. Hen’s early months were a time when we couldn’t be separated from her for any length of time. Only we could care for her and calm her, and though she no longer screams for long hours of the day she has continued the trend of preferring her parents. We don’t mind at all, but we know our families (especially the grandparents!) would probably appreciate sitting with her for longer than a minute before she spots her daddy and reaches desperately for his embrace. But we have seen the alternative and know that there are worse things than a cute and clingy companion so we sorta love it.

Solids: We’ve been away from home for the better part of the past month so we’ve been using that time to try and expose Hen to new foods and flavours. We give her tastes of whatever soft foods we’re eating, from conventional first foods like bananas, yogurt, and mashed potatoes to some more “daring” baby foods, including chicken shawarma with tzatziki, lamb and beef curries, bacon, sausage, and eggs, feta and watermelon salad… so far Hen has loved it all!

New Favourites: after expressing zero interest in being read to up to this point, she has become infatuated with books – “reading,” turning the pages, chattering away to herself, and looking at the pictures. It certainly warms her bookworm mama’s heart to see her crawl past the noisy, light-up toys on the floor to get to a basket of books. I hope it continues forever and ever! Another new skill is pulling herself up and “walking” along the coffee table or couch. She’s been a more amenable baby since the day she learned to sit up so there’s no doubt in our minds that this girl prefers to be upright. She’s been able to crawl for a while and will do it if there’s adequate incentive (food, electronics, books!), but it looks like she may not be super into crawling and just go straight to walking. Every post I’ve done has said that this is our favourite age yet and nine months is no exception!