David Ellis

We’ve been exceptionally delinquent at keeping our blog up to date in the past year, although Karen has just about managed to save our blushes by posting quite a lot of photos of Charlotte and Jessica, which do tell something of a story.

Charlotte’s year

Charlotte’s year has been one of monumental development. It’s quite extraordinary to think that a year ago we had a sociable, crawling little baby or many smiles, but very few words. Now she is an energetic little girl who is not only quite articulate – stringing together really quite complex sentences – but also very polite, with “Please ta”,” thank you” and even “Excuse me, Daddy” coming out of her little mouth.

One very cute Charlotteism that clearly won’t last very much longer is that she is very confused by ‘me’ and ‘you’. Charlotte is convinced that the meanings of these words are reversed, such that her name is also ‘You’. “You do it”, “That’s Your high chair”, “You have it” are easily mis-interpreted by the uninitiated guest to our house... much to Charlotte’s amusement.  Our favourite, however, is “Yay you!”, which is Charlotte’s unique way of letting everyone know that she’s done something particularly impressive.

At the beginning of the year, Charlotte was quite a tricky sleeper. The nights spent pacing around her room and the hall do seem distant memories, but they certainly left their mark on both “Mama” and “Dadda”  - particularly if this immediately preceded one of Dadda’s many 6am flights to Wellington.

Charlotte now almost always sleeps through the night, and will wait patiently in her cot – usually “reading” her books, or enjoying the company of Shepo Bear, Mick the Dog or various other favourites  -  waiting for Mama or Dadda (usually Mama) to come in and lift her out of the cot.

The only disappointment in the past year for Charlotte has been that neither of her two eye operations has been successful.  She has ‘strabismus ‘ – her eyes are not aligned (as can be seen in a number of photographs) and she has no binocular vision. We are seeking another specialist opinion in Sydney in late January... more will no doubt follow.

My favourite moment?  So hard to pick one, but I absolutely loved Charlotte playing her piano as I was playing ‘mine’. There are some very cute photos on the blog, if you can find them.

Jessica’s year

Jessica – being almost exactly a year younger than Charlotte – is somewhat where Charlotte was last year. She is just getting on a major learning trajectory – starting to standing up and surprising us with more words daily. She craves attention from Mama and Dadda, but rewards this with the warmest smiles and giggles you can imagine.

In truth, Jessica’s first year was a really tough for both of us, but for Mama in particular.

Jessica was a normal birth weight but – in a most unexpected departure from both Ellis and Potter family protocols – she shows very little interest in food. As such, she continues to be a lightweight who barely registers on baby weight/ age charts.

As she’s been light on fuel, she’s also been really slow to power through the night. At the most challenging, she was awake for little ‘micro-feeds’ 4-5 times through the night. Karen has had probably two years with no more than 4 hours of consecutive sleep, and probably months at a time with no more than 2 or 3 hours.

Thanks largely to parachuting in reinforcements from Australia – Nana Betty, Aunty Jenny and Aunty Debbie – we’ve now managed to get Jessica onto formula (after resistance that the Red Army would have been proud of), and we’ve somewhat turned a corner. We’ve had a few nights when she has slept through from before midnight until after 6am... including last night – yay!

Jessica stubbornly refused to learn the words “Mum”, “Mama”, “Mummy” or any similar variant. These entered Jessica vocabulary just this week... along with “Giraffe”, counting to two, "dog" and “Grandad”. She certainly knows how to keep Mama waiting. Incidentally, “Dadda” has been part of the lexicon for many, many months – much to my amusement and continual delight.

In the same way that Jessica’s lightweight frame doesn’t seem to have had hindered brain development, her physical development has been pretty much on track. She started crawling just before her first birthday (10^th December), and can now stand without support for a few seconds. She would probably be able to stand for longer but she is so impressed with her achievements that her arms wave around excitement, making balance particularly challenging.

My favourite moment? Her bobbing and swaying with happiness is a much-loved feature of every day, but I particularly love it when she performs a 'fully body wriggle' of excitement when I twirl her around the living room.