12 Weeks

Stella is growing beautifully! We had a clinic appointment last week & Stella weighed 5.9kg and measured 62cm! She has put on 1.5kg and grown 6cm from her birth length.

We've been spending lots of time on the beach & visiting friends...

Geoff took Stella to see the sea after his swim

We went to breakfast with the family at Fish Hoek beach for Ren's birthday:

Myself, Joyce & Katherine

The funny expressions side of the table!
Geoff, Colleen with Stella & Ren

We have been spending lots of time at Geoff's shop in Kalk Bay... Geoff loves to walk around with Stella and introduce her to everybody!

Stella visits Daddy at work where there are
fantastic chairs for little people :)

Last Friday we went to town on a fabric hunt! We visited OnSite where our architectural elements for our house plans in Stillbay have just arrived. We went to one of our favorite lunch-spots, Karen's amazing little gem (where Michelle Obama luncheoned by mistake and loved it), The Kitchen for sandwiches with all the trendy townies :)

Stella soaks in the atmosphere at The Kitchen

Stella is getting stronger and stronger every day... She loves her play mat time with all her toys: her favorite toys are her giraffe with the rattle & neck that stretches and then vibrates back into position, and her play cube which has a mirror and lots of textures to explore. She's still not mad about tummy time but she's getting better at staying tummy-time for longer stretches..

Our beautiful blue-eyed girl

Baby Gym time!

Geoff and Stella: my beautiful family

Innocence

in·no·cence

noun

1. the quality or state of being innocent;  freedom from sin or moral wrong.

2. freedom from legal or specific wrong; guiltlessness.

3. simplicity; absence of guile or cunning; naiveté.

4. lack of knowledge or understanding.

5. harmlessness; innocuousness.

The dictionary definition is so clear... Innocence is something that most people really value as a state of being.. the feeling of being innocent is a great feeling: knowing beyond the shadow of a doubt that you have done nothing wrong - that you are "free from sin or moral wrong". It is the feeling of freedom: freedom from having to concern oneself with anything other than the simple truth about how things are perceived when there is no agenda... simplicity: lack of complication.

The innocence of children creates an overwhelming feeling within me to love and protect. Experiencing my own baby and her innocence is so amazing - I love that she naive - that her needs are simple. If she's hungry, uncomfortable, overstimulated or tired, she will let me know so that I can meet those needs. She is an easy baby. I am very blessed.

Stella's existence beyond simple needs is a joy! All her mind and body need to do at this stage is to learn. She's learned to feel happy and to smile.. learned to laugh (although that seems to have been a debut with no follow-on for now!)...she's learning to grab things & hold her head up straight for longer periods of time. She's learning about the sun and sleeping during the night.. the sounds around her.. her own voice..mine & Geoff's.

Being pregnant is a very different experience from having a baby. The selfish days of only having to care for myself - for every aspect of my physical being to maximise my baby's chance of being physically healthy and well, have morphed into a feeling of extreme and seemingly constant exhaustion. Someone said {with regard to breastfeeding} that a baby 'sucks the water out of your blood' . This goes beyond the physical & is a pretty accurate description of the physical and emotional sacrifice one submits to a child. Looking back & knowing what I know now, the mental and emotional preparations for being a mother feel now as though they were completely inadequate. Admittedly, this is most likely because I listened intently with both ears & really understood with half of one. It was not possible to prepare for something that changes one's life so radically - until one experiences it. I can say though that I am extremely happy.

Enough musing.... Stella is 9.5 weeks old now & her hair is growing longer each week! She is so adorable & I have to restrain myself from buying loads of toys to hang from her baby gym!!!!

We have been going down to the beach in the late afternoons on nice days....

Here are some recent pics:

With Daddy down at the Kom

Dress-up time for Daddy's birthday!

Daddy's birthday dinner at WangThai --
What's on the menu, Stella?

Visiting Robsie

Walking on LongBeach with Daddy

Enjoying the sunset at LongBeach with Mommy

Daddy takes great pics of our beautiful girl!! x

And here's our latest video:

Stella Laughed!

Geoff and I went away for the first time with Stella this past weekend.. I was a little nervous about what to pack, so I 'overpacked' and in the end I wasn't short of anything (except for trousers for myself! I only had the jeans I was wearing & loads of tops!). Joyce came to hold her granddaughter and allow us time to pack on Thursday morning... I took some pictures of her in her cute little birdie outfit:

We drove as far as Stillbay on Thursday to go and visit Jackson & Meshell and introduce Stella to them...
Geoff took Stella on a beautiful walk to the milkwood forest:

In the morning we put Stella in a fancy chair in our room to take some photos of our little princess:

I took the opportunity of travel time & other quiet time to work on Stella's baby blanket that has been in progress since I found out that we were going to be having her in our lives.... It still needs about twice as many hexagons as I've crochet-ed, but I'm getting there slowly but surely!

Stella laughed for the first time last night -- her first proper, from the stomach & in response to something laugh :) ...and we managed to catch it on video! :

The video shows Stella's Nanny holding her & her Bumpa making her laugh... well done Bumpa!!!!
(Listen out for hiccups in between!)

Colleen shared a link with me about a baby's first laugh & how it is celebrated by the Navajo people.

Here is an excerpt - FIRST LAUGH CEREMONY:

The Navajo have a tradition of celebrating a child's first expression of joy[...]. The Navajo believe that prebirth baby showers are premature and can bring evil to a child. Instead, they celebrate a child at its first laugh. The child is thought to assume the personal characteristics of the person who makes him laugh. [I was told] that for this reason, they always try to keep stingy relatives away from the small babies. [...]

The Baby and the Holy People
In Navajo theology, babies share a special relationship with the Holy People. Before each child is born, he sits with the Holy People and is granted a certain amount of time on Earth. Reluctant to leave the holy ones, babies must be coaxed into the world with songs. Infants are thought to share a special language with the Holy People, which is why they are unable to communicate with us. Gradually, as the child learns to talk, he becomes part of the human community and relinquishes this connection to the Holy People. Each person then spends the rest of his or her life trying to recreate the intense bond of infancy. Traditional parents do not trim their child's hair until he has a strong vocabulary because the hair is thought to be an extension of thought, and disrupting these early thoughts may prematurely cut the connection with the Holy People.

A medicine man [said] that when a baby laughs for the first time, he signals that he is ready to learn to speak. Thus, in [...] interpretation, the child states his readiness to enter the human world, and the Navajo celebrate by welcoming him to the mortal community with a First Laugh Ceremony. Source
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