Grandma Chris' Visit

My mother Christine just visited us from Seattle for 2 weeks. Maya had a wonderful time playing with Gramma Chris, and Gramma Chris was very patient playing with her favourite 2 year old, day in, day out! This gave us time to focus more on little Solomon. Sol just turned 6 weeks, and seems to be settling in a bit better to his digestive system....we hope. Still wakes every 2-3 hours at night for feeds, but haven't had to get up and burp him or change him until 4-5 am. But if there's one thing that's certain with babies (or at least my children, anyhow), is that no pattern stays put for very long. Just when you think you've got it 'worked out', your baby changes and does something totally new.

Maya seems to have taken fairly well to the new addition in the family. She holds his hands and feet, and says 'don't cry, boy'. Maya also calls him 'Somolin', as Solomon is quite a big word to say. However, she also wants to jump and climb on him at inopportune times, like when I'm trying to get him to sleep. I feel bad saying' don't' and 'stop' all the time, but what can you do?

The final picture is of Maya and Solomon with both their grandmothers - Ruth and Christine.

On the night shift...

Hi All

Little Sol is 3 weeks old today, and growing well. His big sister Maya thinks he's pretty cute and loves to kiss his hands and toes, but doesn't seem to like it when I feed him all the time (which is what one does at this stage!). She's also 'reverted' back to babyhood, by wanting to be wrapped in baby blankets and carried.

Poor Solomon seems to have a lot of 'wind', unlike Maya did at this newborn age. He sleeps for maybe 3-4 hours from 8pm, and then by about 3pm seems to get increasingly uncomfortable - arching and groaning. I think my milk is still settling in, and hopefully this will improve around 4-6 weeks?!

I guess I will need to get up more and sit him upright, but was being lazy and trying to avoid all of that. I have to remember that Sol isn't Maya, and is a different being altogether, with different needs.

hope you're all getting more sleep than we are!

It's a Boy!

Hi Everyone

We are thrilled to welcome Solomon Piper Nielsen into the world:

Born Tuesday, 14th October, at 8.48am, Murwillumbah Hospital. 3.5 kilos (7 p 11 oz!)

Had a beautiful birth - all went very well! 7 hour labour, so much shorter than last time - thank goodness.

Lots of love

Erica, Noah and Maya

Spring is Here

While we're waiting for baby 2 to come around October 11th, we are enjoying our growing vegetable garden and the flowers.

At the end of winter, we enjoyed eating our own potatoes, sweet peas, silverbeet, chard, leeks, spring onions, coriander and other greens ... now waiting to eat corn, beetroot, radish, parsnips, artichoke, more leeks, lots of onions, garlic, chinese cabbage, and of course, more greens....

Maya loves to help in the garden, by watering and planting seeds, and sometimes chopping leaves up :) At 2 and almost a half, she also likes to walk on top of the garden, but mostly we encourage her to stay on the paths if possible! Maya has also been happy with the recent warm weather, as her new favourite past-times are bathing in the outside sink or swimming in the creek with Daddy.

We will let you know when baby arrives - could be any day now. This time we are going to Murwillumbah hospital, with their new midwife-run antenatal clinic. There was a scare there for a while about the baby maybe being breech, but thankfully it had its head down, so we can now carry on as planned.

And congratulations to our friends Sharen and Ewan, on the birth of their little baby boy, George, 5 weeks ago (and to big sister Zoe)!

Waiting for Bush Baby 2

It's been awhile since I've last posted! In the meantime, Maya is getting very excited about my growing belly, or 'baby', as she calls it. Due date is October 11th. Sometimes she says it's a brother, sometimes a sister. Somehow, she seems to know what's going on, and has become fascinated with our pregnancy and childbirth books (which I finally dug out again quite late in the pregnancy, figuring I'd better refresh myself on the whole thing!).

Noah and I have decided to book into Murwillumbah hospital this time around (45 minutes the other direction - same distance as to Lismore). I've been taking Maya to my midwife visits there, and she says 'hopital baby'. She was very good sitting on my lap for the first hour and a half booking in session!

Only 3 more weeks of on campus work at the university, and then time to get ready for baby's arrival - need to do nesting things. One good thing this time around is that we have all the baby stuff, so the drawers are ready with baby clothes at least. We did first time around without a cot, nursery, etc, so same will happen this time if all goes to plan. As we are still enjoying Maya sleeping with us, the time has come where she is going to get her own bed - Daddy is going to build her a little kids bed, which we will put next to ours, and baby 2 will come into bed with us!

Enjoy the latest pics. The last one is very recent - of my friend Michelle's visit with Jade and Lilly, from Townsville.

Maya, Doors, Pizza and Birthday Parties

4 generations of Thomson women!

As promised, here are some photos from our trip to Cairns to visit Great-Grandma Marian, and Grandma Chris who was visiting Australia from Seattle for 2 weeks.