This weekend we’re celebrating Harper’s Naming Day with a High Tea.

Hopefully she’ll be awake for the ceremony and not completely covered in vomit.

She had her 4 month needles a week or two ago. Weighed and measured too. Dr asked how she was feeding, I said on Anti Reflux formula yet she still throws up a LOT. He took one look at her and said, “well, obviously that’s not a problem for her” in reference to her sizeable cheeks.

7.18kgs – almost exactly half of her 4 year old sister’s weight. 64cms long. Utterly adorable.

Still sleeping through the night, a few nights last week after the injections were a bit awful, but I can’t complain. Still being wrapped, I am dreading the time when we can no longer wrap, thinking about trying to wean her off it now, but don’t like my chances – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, right?

Full of smiles and chuckles, lots of pitching and squealing. Trying to teach her to say Mummmmm with no luck yet. This week, Harp has learnt to put her binkie back in her mouth when she spits it out. Hooray. Now to teach her how to do it in the dark of night.

Most of her beautiful long hair fell out a few months back, leaving the most bizarre bald ring around the back of her head. Still has the remnants of her most awesome faux-hawk in shades of it’s former glory, now nothing more than a few pesky long hairs standing up like a cockatoo, high above the new baby fuzz that’s grown in and now about 1cm long.

As I write this, Harp is happy swinging away in her, um, swing. We’re going through a pack of Heavy duty D batteries a week with the amount of use the swing gets. Best $200 I ever spent. It’s the only place she’ll have her day sleeps, there or in my arms. I choose the swing.

Love you little Harry-High-Pants.

I can’t figure out how to post multiple pics…eta – yes I have!!

Little Harper is 4 months now, I cannot believe it. This time last year I was only just getting over the fact that I was actually pregnant (after 19 months of TTC). As I write this now, she’s asleep in her rocker, which seems to be her favourite sleeping spot at the moment.

Still a wonderful sleeper, there’s probably only been 5 times since NYE 2008 that she hasn’t slept through the night. Usually goes down around 7pm and wakes anywhere from 5-7am. BLISS!

No idea what size clothes she’s in. Some things that are 000 fit, somethings 00 fit. Hard to work it all out. We weighed her at the hospital the other day, 6.65kgs She’s having between 5-6 180mL bottles each day.

She’s mastered rolling from front to back (sometimes helped along by losing balance!) and can *almost* roll from back to front, just.can’t.quite.get.there. Picks up toys with her feet and brings them up to her hands. Thinks her hands are the most fascinating thing ever.

Lots of giggles and smiles, although still a very serious little person. She’s lost most of her beautiful dark spikey hair, and now has a long tuft on the top of her head and long bits at the back of her neck (terrible description) but still incredibly cute.

Isla simply adores her. It’s so beautiful, lots of kisses and cuddles, helps get binkies, tells me “I’ll look after her Mum” when I need to make a bottle or do something else.

Her naming day is April 26th. I’ve bought her the cutest navy and white dress and bloomers to wear. We’re having a Hugh Tea – can’t wait.

Terribly slack updating Harp’s blog. I have good intentions, honestly I do, but I just seem to forget about this place.

Well, Pumba is 13 weeks tomorrow. I can’t believe she’s 3 months on Friday! Crazy talk.

She’s till lovely, such a cool, laid back kid. She’s having a nice little snooze on the lounge behind me as I type this. She’s still sleeping really, really well. Usually til around 5ish still, going down around 7pm. Bliss.

Still can’t work out what size she is. I bought her a size 0 wondersuit the other week and it fits! OMG! My little baby isn’t so little any more.

Lot’s of babble, sooooo cute. Still wakes up happy, having a chat in her bassinette, usually making “yeah, yeah, yeah” sounds! I bought her a swing the other week, which has been a god-send in getting her to sleep some days, as she likes to be cuddled a lot!

Almost too long for her bassinette. I really can’t wait to move house. Really. Very sick of living here, and oddly we moved here to save, yet never have any money left over at the end of the week, I don’t quite understand it at all! Harp needs to go into her cot very soon, so I’m hoping we find a place SOON so that can be a reality – although should we stay here longer, I could just put her cot into Isla’s room given Isla rarely sleeps an entire night in there – but that’s another story!

What else.

I have pictures of my littlest princess but they’re pretty big,  so I’ll resize and post soon!

Harp has grown so much, she changes every day. She’s still lovely, and sleeeps ALL NIGHT! She’ll normally go down between 7 and 8 and sleeps until 5ish, so I still get a little bit of my Matt Lauer fix!

She’s goo-ing and gaa-ing all the time now, in fact she’s behind me doing it everytime the fan blows past her. She’s coped witht this feral heat SO well, it hasn’t really bothered her too much, other than making her really sweaty!

I can’t quite work out what size she’s in now, she’s outgrown some of her 0000 things and no longer fits into her 000 wondersuits, but some 000 things swim on her, it’s all too confusing!

She’s a pretty easy going little person, lots of smiles and giggles

She had her needles 2 and a bit weeks ago, so she was pretty angry for a few days folllowing, but has come good again, thankfully. I had her hips checked again and the Dr found a click,I’d heard it before-hand, so we went for an ultrasound which she screamed the whole way through.

Results came back on Friday, slight instability, nothing to worry about. Will re-scan in 2 months time to be sure. Hmm. Will speak to Isla’s physio about it on Tuesday.

Which leads to why we’ve been so busy lately, Isla had a birthday, her 4th in fact. Isla had a party which was lovely, and since then I have had little time for anything! I will update her blog for more news on her: islasjourney.blogspot.com

At 8 weeks, Miss Harper weighed in at 5.2kgs and 59.5cms long, and utterly adorable

Harper decided to sleep ALL night this past week – twice in fact! I think she may have done it again last night but I kicked a poweboard when I got up around 1am last night and she woke up But went back to sleep after a quick feed and woke up again around 5.30. She’s having a lovely snooze right now, a complete 180 after yesterday where she was such an unhappy camper, poor little chicken.

We visited a friend for her birthday yesterday, she has the littlest 4ish week old, Makayla. She’s so tiny, Harper looked like a sumo wrestler in comparison! I’ll try and get a pic of them together at Isla’s party on the weekend.

What else can I report about little H? She’s been much more settled this past week, which happens to coincide with me putting her completely on AR formula. Yesterday was the first time in a week that we’ve had a witching hour of sorts (well, a witching 7 hours!) I’m sure it’s the AR. I’m also thinking she may be having a growth spurt, she’s been taking 180mls of formula lately at each feed, but perhaps it’s more to do with missing her overnight feeds because she’s sleeping?

Harper is still lovely, but incredibly AWAKE during daylight hours. Today, for example, she’s been bright eyed and bushy tailed since about 5.30am! She’s only had about an hour or two’s sleep MAX during this time, poor little monkey.

It’s incredbly hot here today and we have no air con, so no doubt that’s added to things. She settles like a champion when wrapped but I just couldn’t do it to her today Here’s hoping tomorrow is much cooler – but I’m looking at rental properties as I type this!

Harper started smiling a few days ago, such a lovely Xmas present! She doesn’t smile very much, usually when she’s just woken up and they are so cute! I forgot how lovely gummy smiles can be!

Still feeding every 3 or 4 hours but it’s not too bad. She’s finally taking the reflux formula which is making her sleep a bit better.

I’m going to try and have her weighed this week!

As much as I hate swaddling, it really works for her, the most important thing for me is to recognise her tired signs, as soon as she’s over-tired, the next few hours are a write off!

No idea how big she is now, she’s still fitting in her 0000 rompers but about to burst out of her 000 wondersuits. Should probably have her weighed again, but we’re having lots of wet and dirty nappies so everything is going well I suppose.

We’ll be off to the dr’s soon, hopefully before Xmas, because I heard a clunk when I lifted her legs to change her nappy the other day, so I really think it would be a great idea to get it checked out ASAP, especially as Xmas is now 3 days away, I don’t want to go over the Xmas/New Year period without having it looked at.

What else…

Isla is still being a wonderful big sister. We had a few issues with her doing wee’s in her undies, we think as a reaction to Harper, but we’ve had no accidents since Friday and we’ve been using lots of positive reinforcement, seems to be doing the trick!

Isla and Harper went to their first birthday party for a gorgeous little girl called Eva on Saturday. Unfortunately, Isla didn’t want to join in any of the party goings-on and chose to play on the climbing equipment for 2.5hours instead *roll eyes* and Harper just fed practically the whole time, but had a wonderful 5 hour sleep when we got home!

I can’t believe my lovely little person has been with us for more than a month now, I can’t remember what it was like before she arrived. I love her so much, she’s such a beautiful little friend.

Here’s my most favourite photo of Harper, and the 2nd shot was taken about 3 seconds after the first LOL and finally, some little toes, Harper’s skin on her feet just peels all the time though I’ll have to moisturise the little chicken first next time!

The little lady already has tears! Has had them for about a week or so, and it breaks my heart when she has wind pain and cries those little tears.

Harper is having bigger feeds now, yesterday she took 180mls which was massive, but generally she’s having 120mls every 3-4 hours. She’s stopped snacking too which is nice

What else…We bought her pram yesterday with a buddy board for Isla – and Isla thinks it’s the best thing ever! She insisted on going for a ‘ride’ at the inlaws place last night when we dropped over – hopefully with this, shopping won’t be the nightmare that I’ve been anticipating!

Nothing much else to report. No new photos – will take some with the family tomorrow.

We’re all slowly adjusting to having Harper here and starting to work out what her different cries actually mean – although generally she doesn’t cry much, only when her bottles are taking too long, or when having her nappy changed.

We had the health nurse come to visit on Tuesday of this week. Harper is doing really well, she’s put on the weight she lost after birth, and weighed in at 3650grams so 10g heavier than her birth weight. She’s 51.5cms long, so now we’re not sure how long she was when she was born, they measured her at 53cms so who knows!

The nurse did point out what her funny looking bum is – a “sacral dimple”. She said that it can be linked to Spina Bifida, but not to panic because Harper doesn’t have that, and also, there’s no hair coming out of it, and it’s complete. She said that when we visit Isla’s paediatrician next time to mention it, they may want to do an ultrasound on it to make sure everything is okay. She also said that with the hip problems on Ian’s side of the family to see whether the paed would like Harper’s hips x-rayed/ultrasound as a precaution. At the moment, they don’t have any click, but the paed at the hospital, as well as the health nurse both said that it can develop later, so we’ll be sure to get that checked out.

She loves being on her tummy up on my chest and often drifts off to sleep like that, and as much as I said there was no way I was going to rock/cuddle another baby to sleep after well over a year of having to cuddle Isla to sleep – I just love having Harper so close to me, and I love knowing that she loves to be close too.

I’ve been trying to sleep when she sleeps, but our bed is quite low to the ground and I swear it feels like my scar is ripping open when I try to get up from it, so I’ve been camped out on the lounge as much as possible, although the nights when Ian stays up with her, I have to go to bed because we have nowhere for Ian to sit otherwise…I think I’ll go to the GP tomorrow or Monday and have the wound checked out, I’m still too chicken to look at it and have a feeling it may be getting a bit gross given that I now have some completely feral stomach overhang which I never had after Isla’s birth.

Isla is still being wonderful with Harper. If she cries, Isla will either cover her ears or will come to us and say, “I think we have a problem here!” LOL The only problem, for lack of a better word, that we’re having with Isla at the moment is that she is really quite loud. Ian and I have different opinions on the matter – Ian thinks Isla needs to be quiet and should be more mindful of the fact that Harper is sleeping/feeding/what-have-you. I, on the other hand, think that Harper should just get used to Isla and the array of noises she makes, after all, most of the noise that comes from Isla is when she walks and considering she has an unusual gait because of her CP, expecting her to walk quietly seems crazy to me. One thing I do know is, I don’t want to have to have a completely quiet house in order to get Harper to sleep. So far, I’ve kept the tv at the same level etc to get her used to the noise, which is what we did with Isla too, and she managed to sleep through any noise.

I haven’t taken many more photos…but here are some that my Mum and sister have taken… .gallery { margin: auto; } .gallery-item { float: left; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center; width: 33%; } .gallery img { border: 2px solid #cfcfcf; } .gallery-caption { margin-left: 0; }