Ed's Home

Our new home

edporteous — Fri, 11 May 2012 22:52:20 +0000

Today we completed on our new house in Kings Heath. It’s been a long road to get here – we started looking almost 18 months ago and have had a baby in the meantime.

I’m really excited by the house. It’s over a hundred years old and unlike so many similar houses, has survived refurbishments and still has most of the original features, such as a superb Minton tile hallway, original coving and sash windows.

I took Vashti there straight after picking up the keys, and she was initially unimpressed, remaining resolutely asleep.

However, we discovered that it has two huge steps. How on earth did we completely fail to miss that when we looked around? Was it the snow? Did we somehow not have infants on our minds? Anyway, the little girl was unimpressed with my stair + buggy climbing technique and was kind enough to let me know…

She calmed right down after being introduced to the garden.

Later Katie arrived and we had a good mooch about the garden. The previous owner had left a note that the newts should be fed (he had kindly left some flakes for this purpose), that there is a garden hedgehog, and that the route between the two ponds should not under any circumstances be obstructed, because the frogs need access.

Secret path

Ahhh... spring. My favorite season.

Getting bigger

edporteous — Sat, 05 May 2012 11:35:27 +0000

Vashti is getting bigger. You can’t notice it so much in her size, except that she is taking more space in the moses basket. The changes are more apparent in her general awareness. She now seems to distinguish between day and night a bit more, and really responds to comforting. We find that we can settle her much more easily by singing and talking to her, a strategy which had no effect in the first week or so.

We’ve got incredibly kind friends. Lou and Jane both came round and cooked delicious dinners for us:

We had a visit from our friend Anne from the Italian class who visited bearing gifts:

I bought a flash for my camera with my birthday money which has made it possible to take pictures in the evening.

We went to the tea room in the park with Kim on Friday. Kim managed to avoid crying meltdown with her ninja baby calming skills.

Back to work

edporteous — Wed, 02 May 2012 22:19:25 +0000

The little girl is doing really well at the moment. The Infacol seems like it might just be helping with the wind. We’ve had still more visits from members of the family, including Uncle John and Auntie Rachel, and my sister Claire. Now I’m back to work, so I need to be extra careful to get to bed as early as possible and grab some sleep. Only one person so far has told me I look tired.

Our baby is official

edporteous — Mon, 30 Apr 2012 14:49:18 +0000

I’m just back from the registry office with a birth certificate for our officially named baby – Vashti Grace Porteous Day. There were some challenging questions – where was Katie born? When were we married? At least the piece of paper has the right information now following a few frantic calls to various members of the Day family.

On the way back I stopped in to see the girls from the parenting class. Last time we met they were all pregnant. Now they each had a baby in their arms, or at their breasts. Upon arrival I was immediately handed a baby – not mine – to hold while some milk was prepared. Just two weeks this would have petrified me. How things change.

And how babies change. They grow so quickly – the variation of sizes of the assembled infants born within four weeks was remarkable.

How to stop a baby crying

edporteous — Sat, 28 Apr 2012 14:13:28 +0000

Well I’ve found a few techniques, but unfortunately, I seem to be able to use each technique once only. If I distract her by making a funny noise in her ear or similar, she forgets she is crying and sometimes stops for up to a minute. Her Godfather Johnathan gave her a stop crying tape, purchased in T K Max just weeks ago. This worked once.

Here she is with The Godfather:

And considering whether she should exercise her lungs some more:

Wind, poo, wee, sick, screaming, more screaming, sleep

edporteous — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 16:53:35 +0000

After what has emerged to have been a honeymoon period, the little girl spent most of yesterday more how I had always feared in my pre-baby days. She spent the whole evening wailing inconsolably, the poor thing. We are now going to try some stuff called Infacol which supposedly helps to clear the dreaded wind.

Having said all that, today she has been an angel again. I guess there are just going to be good days and bad days.

My birthday. Yes, it’s all about the baby.

edporteous — Thu, 26 Apr 2012 05:40:28 +0000

My birthday came and went. The little girl was of course the centre of attention…

The dawn chorus

edporteous — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 04:21:57 +0000

A beautiful moment this morning. A marathon winding session was followed by a cathartic bowel movement precipitated a nappy change. That wasn’t beautiful. However, just as we were finishing, the birds started chirping and she turned her little head to…

Visit from the cousins

edporteous — Tue, 24 Apr 2012 14:15:09 +0000

The little girl got a visit from her two cousins on Saturday. They were very pleased to see her, and Rafi even suggested a name.

Slow motion stupidity

edporteous — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 23:13:17 +0000

I enjoyed watching very silly things being done, very slowly. Looks amazing in HD.