An Outward Bound Baby?

Easter was a good week.

Christine was getting back to normal slowly, still in a bit of pain from her section, and her muscles from compensating, but doing quite well. Recovery doesn't come easier when it's coinciding with a lack of sleep. Marnie had a chance to cast her spell over a few visitors; Aileen and Nikki were down for the week, and were a great help around the house; and a couple of folks from Christine's work dropped in on Thursday while I headed out for the virtual head wetting / cigars.

But we also had our first family outing - to Cardiff Bay on Easter Monday. Despite a severe wind, from which Marnie hid in the buggysnuggle, she seemed to enjoy the trip (a relative term at the moment - she wasn't crying and slept for most of it). Didn't even complain when she disappeared completely on rumbling over some cobbles - the snuggle's a little big at the moment.

She does seem to be an outdoor child - she likes to be outside (in the protection of the cot out the wind and rain) - stops crying on going out, and starts again on coming in to the house, to shops (there's a problem...). When she's a little older we'll introduce her to the hills around Cardiff and see how that suits her.

Marnie's started sucking her thumb, something I'm not sure is a totally great thing, but a great relief for pinkies across our household (believe me, trying to sleep hanging over the side of a bed with your pinkie in a very small mouth to keep it occupied so you can try to get some sleep isn't the most comfortable position in life), and apparently another sign that she's surprisingly advanced for her age. (Another one was almost turning herself over a couple of weeks ago - which is fine, except she was on top of a chest of drawers at the time, getting changed...)

Night routine has gone out the window, changing between one and four hours, maybe a bit of gripe, and definately sucking of pinkies - as I write I'm on the edge of the bed keeping her calm enough to sleep. But, being a wee Scots lass, she can scream blue murder when she wants. We're talking "Murder polis Mr Taggart!" (BTW, did you know about the Taggart convention?)

Other than that I'm now back at work, heading towards the end of my short contract at the School of Engineering setting up knowledge transfer workshops and meetings between the School and Welsh industry.

I missed the end of my evening class on Writing Mass Market Fiction, but I'm still developing a couple of stories with David (Melkevik - a friend down here who's also an award winning aspiring scriptwriter) which I hope Richard Asplin (the class tutor) will still review and advise me on. We'll see. Perhaps it's a little ambitious to be thinking of writing a novel while looking after a small baby, but hey, if you don't push things along you wait forever for anything to happen.

I'm not so sure Christine's so enamoured of the change in her activities and the new look to the garden...

And finally. Marnie's PC skills are starting early - she was keen to help write the last entry...