Sarah at 14 months

Almost everyone said wait till she starts walking then everything will be worse, it's a lot of work! I'm yet to experience it. I'm loving every bit of her.
Our little angel turned 14 months at the end of January, and she is continuing to grow.we are happy with her development and so is the paediatrician.
She weighs 9.92kgs, I was concerned that she is tiny but the doctor is very happy with her growth. She is 75cm long and her head circumference is still the same 46cm. Prior to taking her to the doctor we took her for her shots and this child of ours didn't cry or flinch. I on the other hand cried till we left the clinic. Sometimes I wonder who she is lol. She definitely takes after her daddy when it come to handling pain.

She is sleeping through most nights from 8pm to 6.30 am. I know it's early but we aren't complaining because we have had sleepless nights so this for us is bliss.
She is saying a few words but talks a lot of baby talk. I think she thinks fudge is her sibling as sometimes we find her trying to feed him using her spoon or trying to brush his teeth using her tooth brush which is gross but we have managed to explain to her that fudge uses his own and when she wants to brush his teeth she collects his tooth brush.
She has developed a love for shoes!!!! Trying to explain to her that you cant wear two shoes on one foot!!!! eventually after an hour I gave up and just wore two different shoes. She walked all day in one pink and one white shoe very contented.
 She has 8 teeth, four at the bottom and at the top , although tonight as I was applying teething gel I felt another tooth probably a molar. Part of it has cut through. we are so blessed that she doesn't get fussy or sick when she is teething.
Loves the out doors, and will literally bolt as soon as the door is opened.

She is a fussy eater and we are still feeding her baby food stage four though. Loves anything with chicken, lamb and pringle chips.
She still wont have any cereal for breakfast, instead loves her fruit. I'm not complaining about that.
Is such a daddy's girl.
Loves her bed time story time, she even gets up after getting dressed after her bath and picks up her favourite book and hands it over to either daddy or me to read.
She is absorbing a lot of what we do, like laying the bed- I always flip  the sheets and its so cute finding her doing the same. This morning after I changed her diaper and placed it in the disposable bag, she got up picked it up and walked out of her room with it. I eventually followed her and found her putting it in the bin in our bathroom.
Loves to share her toys and food.
Is still afraid of people and will run and hide behind me when someone approaches up.
Still has separation anxiety big time, and thanks to that we cant have anyone baby sit he besides Wayne and I.

Loves her bath time, and has learnt how to unplug the bath so after I have bathed her I leave her in the bath until all the water is drained, then she calls out to be picked up.
She is wearing 12 to 18 months clothes and some 18 months depending on the cut.
She is still on breast milk. She wont drink any juice but loves water.
She is able to climb up an down the couch.
She is a busy body and I'm  thankful for that because we do things together all day.
Sarah loves to unpack the dish washer, especially the cutlery, she picks them one at a time and hands it over to me to put in the drawer. She is such a little helper.
She has also developed a love for writing, the other day I found she had scribble on the duvet in black ink, not looking forward to washing it as I'm the one who hand washes it, So we got her come coloured pencils and she is having a ball with them. I hope he doesn't start writing on the walls.
All in all she is doing great and we cant complain. We love her to bits. its strange how we were talking that we actually miss her when she is sleeping. Sometimes I'm so tempted to wake her up but I wouldn't do that. I cant thank Wayne enough for giving me the opportunity to stay at home with Sarah and get to se all these lovely things she does and watch her grow into the lovely child she is.

Baby sitting/ play date

On Friday morning I received a call from our friends Daniel and Camilla, they were asking if I had received their message. Thanks to Sarah, I hadn't seen the message. They asked if I could baby sit their adorable baby Thomas, so they could go to the temple.

 I gladly accepted the opportunity to spend time with their little one and knowing Sarah would be over the moon to have him around. It had been a while since we had him over. The first time I baby sat him he was just 7 days old. She loves him and he loves her too, how can I tell? Every time she stands in front of him and bends over to look at him he smiles and chuckles and when I do the same I receive nothing no smile.
He is so laid back and just having two babies in the house does something to my heart. I vision us in the future with Sarah having another sibling and getting on well. She loves sharing generally with every one and when he is around she wants to share all her toys and food with him. Then I try to explain to her in a way she can understand that he is too young to eat but they can share her toys. She sits next to him most of the time and even when he is on the swing, she pushes it gently while cooing over him. Its so cute. She isn't jealous of the attention he gets from me, when he is being tended to.
I love more each day, never thought I could this kind of love.

It was wonderful to experience this stage of babyhood again if I may say.

13 months old

Sometimes I find it hard to believe that our baby girl has grown this much and is now a toddler. sob sob. Sarah turned 13 months and time has flown it feels like she was born yesterday.
She is such a strong and active child. sometimes when she gets hold of something that she isn't allowed to have, to get it from her I have to use two hands.
she has such a charming personality though is scared of people.
 That is anyone besides mommy and daddy. when we are out and someone walks towards us she will run behind me while clinging onto me.
she is very talkative, says the same words, come, dada, jiji and udgy for fudgey our dog which sometimes gets fudge so confused. when he is being naughty and asked to go to his bed, as we tell him go to bed, Sarah shouts come so fudge just stands confused not knowing what whether to go or stay.

she has eight teeth, still eating mostly bottled food, though has a love affair with pringles and french fries. she does love chicken as well.
she is wearing size 12 to 18 months dresses and some 18 to 24 months. I think this all depends on the make. the last time we took her for a weigh in was in December and she weighed about 9.9kg head circumference was 46cm and she was 74cm long. she has  now moved to her room and is sleeping through the night woohoo. Loves story time before before bed, she always picks the same book- guess how much I love you.

 She loves to dance and her favourite song is lights by Ellie goulding. she always brings the ipad to me asking me to play the song. And loves to sing especially the hive song. she loves to watch the Disney channel and her favorite is mouk and she also enjoys Jake and the neverland pirates. Although I think I enjoy all the Disney junior shows way more than she does.
she is still breast feeding and will not drink juice but loves water. I'm not complaining about that .
how could I forget, she started walking at 12 months, it was such a bad day for us as a family, I will blog about that when i have the courage. but Sarah just got up and walked across the room.

 

she is still daddy's little girl. Last week she was fussy before bath time so when I put her in the bath she screamed pushing her head out towards Wayne's direction for him to come and when he came into the  the bathroom she stopped crying.
loves to bath, and loves the outdoors, waling about bare feet on the grass or pushing her doll pram and walker around.

Still has separation anxiety and is overwhelmed on Sundays at church as lots of people want to carry her but instead she slaps me. It's like she is mad at  me for allowing people to touch her.
Im just so gratefult to wayne, for giving me the opportunity to stay at home with her because there is nothing in the world that I could compare to the time we spend together, of watching her grow and have her firsts. Which we have been so blessed to be there when all her first happened. Daddy has been there with it too.
Sarah words can't express how much we love you and what you mean to us. Thank you for making our world perfect. That been said, this is a rare side of Sarah that we see.

Nursery Transition

 Two months before Sarah was born I moved to Durban and lived with mom and dad because my gynae is based  there. When I left joburg for Durban I didn't take time off to work on the nursery. I think Friday was my last day and we drove down that very night. So when Sarah was born, for the first three weeks of her being around we stayed in Durban with mom and dad. When we got home her nursery was no where in condition for her to sleep in. We decided she would sleep in the  bassinet and when she outgrew it, we would move her into the camp cot in our bedroom. 13 months later she was still sleeping in our room and had even graduated from sleeping in her bed to sleeping in our bed! I would put her in the cot and when she woke up in the middle of the night, mama was too tired to feed her and put her back so I would just bring her into bed with us.
 
she was on a routine so when she went to bed at 7pm, we would have to be so careful, shower in the dark, look for stuff in the dark , had to whisper and most of all no watching TV in bed so we wouldn't wake her up. and instead of sleepingnthrough thennight like she was doing before we went to kenya, she would wake up about 6 times to feed and go back to sleep. we werent getting enough sleep, it was ok during the holidays as Wayne was on leave but when he returned to work it was a different story because of breast feeding I was basically sleeping on one side as sarah only nurses from one breast, I woke up sore every morning and I decided enough was enough we were evicting her from our room. she plays in her room everyday goes and unpacks the drawers and toys so I didnt think she would freak out sleeping there without doing it gradually. At 9 months I had decided it was time for us to move her to her room but Wayne was like its too soon, lets wait.

It's now a week today and we are having the time of our lives! Sarah is sleeping much better waking up once a night and I have cut out the breast feeding at night. The first night was scary, she literally was looking for my boob in her sleep and slapping and pulling, I felt so guilty but I had to persevere. She woke up about 5 times and at some point I ended up sleeping on the carpet in her room while saying mommy is here. But it has since gone down, although I'm not getting enough sleep. I keep on waking up thinking I didn't hear her cry.
she has come to accept that its her room and well she seems pretty happy. There is positive progress.

Dinner with friends.

Last night we went to our friends Yolande and Koffi's house for dinner. They are an expert couple from the US in kenya. They have two gorgeous children. Yolande and I have arranged play dates since we have been here. It was a first for Sarah and I. Boy, how I wish I had friends with babies or toddlers to have play dates with. I'm really going to miss seeing Sarah getting along with other babies.
 

Lovely family, shame Eli was already asleep by the time we got there.

It took us two hours and a half to get to a place that usually takes 20 minutes to get there thanks to the lousy driver who forgot to check their fuel gauge. The traffic was murder, we even switched off the engine and just chilled out on the high way. We thought there was an accident but there was no scene and next to  the car stood the driver with his jerry can filling up. Even after notifying them in advance that we would be late, we had to call again to extend the time.
As usual the cooks are always late we are never on time however early we leave the house. when we finally arrived dinner was served, delicious and the company was even better. We chatted till past mid night and  then headed home.
 
We shall definitely miss them soo much. We have met some of the nicest people here in Kenya. My heart is heavy. We do plan on visiting again though.
 
Its past midnight we leave tomorrow for joburg, I wish I could rewind the clock. I'm so tired. Typical of the Cooks, we leave everything till last minute, we pack on the day we travel. Wish us luck!!! I'm going to bed now. Not looking forward to the flight tomorrow. Lucky for us munchkin is a very chilled baby. She flies so well. we have flown three times and this will be her forth. We haven't had any problems. Keeping fingers crossed.

My two favorite people in the whole wide world

Almost the end -Kenya

We have been in Kenya for two whole months!!! Loved every bit, the weather, the food, even the annoying traffic.  When we left joburg it was the coldest it had ever been, Sarah was in a snow suit when we let home and was still cold. we couldn't feel our fingers and to make matters worse electricity went like four hours before we left for the airport. I was so glad to get out of that place and say hello to tropical sun and paradise. But boy was I given a rude awakening when we got here, it turns out it was their winter too!!! but their winter has been summer to us. Perfect weather.It's so sad that we have to go back, I have fallen in love with this place. If our dog fudgie and cat jiji were here I don't think I would look back or even blink if we had to stay. All this as a result of my wonderful hubby's hard work and I'm so grateful for all his has done and for this opportunity for us to live here. We are so proud of him for all he has done for our family. It's been crazy for him as he has had to do two jobs but even with the hard work we spent more time together as a family which was the best part of this adventure.

In the kitchen playing with the broom. She moves around the house with it.

Chasing after the cat

The cat running away from munchkin

the cat taking a breather after being chased around

So excited with herself

We have been living in Andrews apartments in westlands, I'm not going to miss their laundry services but the place was good. Yesterday Sarah and I took a walk around the premises just to soak in everything one last time. She chased after cats and we even found new members of the place. Three cute kittens that she is scared of and wouldn't dare to go near unlike the cats!! If we lived here I would have taken them.

One of the kittens, they were so adorable!!!

Sarah so excited to see the cat she almost jumped off the chair as I was trying to take her pictures

So cute!!!

The cat decided she would be a prop in the picture

During this time munchkin grew and has continued to blossom into the lovely little girl she is. I must say I am kinda sad that she is moving past the baby phase.
Since she started crawling, we have become more active around the house. She is not crawling like a soldier in training its more like little leaps. So she is every where and any where including the suitcases.

I left the suitcase in the lounge so I could pack some stuff to send home and when I came back from the kitchen this is what I found.

 I'm enjoying having her as my shadow and she keeps me company in the kitchen, bathroom and around the house.
The first time she crawled properly, I was in the shower. I usually left her on the bedroom floor and went in to shower. As I showered I felt something touch my feet and got the biggest fright ever. To look down it was munchkin hehe . She had such a big smile on her face, for the big accomplishment and insisted on entering the shower with me, which we count as her first shower.
Tonight we are going for dinner at our friends Yolande and Kofi's house.Looking forward to it.

Munckin 6 Months

Its been a while, well blame it on ... the list is long, being a mom moving away from home for two months but I guess better late than never. yes she turned six months and i did take lots of pics  but didn't get the time to blog about her growth but i did write about it in my journal.. These days there isn't enough time in a day. I usually get into bed after mid night and very exhausted that I battle to sleep and end up sleeping at about one am. Any way we are deeply in love with our little princess. Here are some pictures I took of her at 6 months.
 
 She is such a daddy's girl.

Our little angel turned 6 months on the 28th of may!! Unbelievable how time flies. We are so blessed by her and she  continues to bring so much joy in our lives.
We took her the doctor 2weeks ago and

She weighed 7.3kg
64cm long  and her head circumference was 41cm.

She still loves to bath and splash around and get us all wet while bathing her. She screams blue murder when taken out of the bath. At times I have to change the water in order to keep her in the bath longer

She started on solids this week and her favorite foods are butternut and apples

She is still under routine though with teething it's been here and there. Se is getting back into routine.

She is very curious and into everything around her..she has learnt how to dive for things out of her reach since she can't crawl to get them..

She is still laid back and rarely cries.
She loves to watch cricket rugby and Dora the explorer..

Cries for her daddy when he leaves for church in the evenings or when he leaves the house during the day.

Loves to smile
At the moment everything that she touches goes into her mouth.

She is still breast feeding but at this rate I'm not sure what will happen when the teeth come as she is biting for dear life.

Loves to make faces and she is very expressive.


All in all she is an awesome baby and we couldn't be happier with having her in our lives.As you will see she literally wrestles with the prop instead of just looking at it. :)

we couldn't be any happier as a family and as parents. We love you so much munchkin and thanks for being such a joy in our lives.