Two weeks old

At two weeks Eve:

- Takes big long sleeps, only really waking to feed
- Has had two baths, the first she enjoyed, the second she hated
- Spends maybe 15 minutes a day being bright and alert, looking around, looking you in the eye and taking everything in
- Prefers the sling to the pram
- Doesn't cry often, but when she does she gets furious really quickly
- Is official, we took her to Greenwich registry office yesterday
- Will hold your finger in her hand really tightly
- Likes to scratch her face, she's already had her nails trimmed twice
- Will focus on a teddy if you hold it about 10 cms from her face
- Still sleeps in the foetal position with her knees tucked up

5 things about Eve

1 - She's a rainbow baby!

2 - She's super long, born at 58cm, she's 11cm longer than her brother was at birth and is in the 98th percentile.

3 - Her name, Evelyn Katherine Grace, means 'To Breathe', 'Pure' and 'Lovely, Graceful'.

4 - She sleeps a lot, almost ALL the time, only waking to eat. Her brother,who had colic, was never comfy sleeping for long, but Eve will happily sleep for hours, sometimes I have to wake her to feed her.

5 - Her hair colour is an enigma, at the moment it's a very pale brown, but seems to change every day when the sun is on it she has auburn and blonde tints, it's very dark brown at the back and light at the front.

Evelyn Katherine Grace

She's here, Eve arrived at 5.45am on Tuesday 12th August 2014.

Nursery Graduation Day

Last week Charlie graduated from nursery. Tom took a half day and I kept C home in the morning to enjoy some more mama/son time before baby arrives. The three of us walked over to the nursery in time for the ceremony, it was a hot hot day with a brilliant blue sky and a few wispy white clouds.

The graduation was a little OTT, they are only 4! But lots of effort had been made to make it as much fun for the kids as possible. The temperature didn't help, with a lot of people sitting on child size chairs in a hot marquee, but otherwise it was a lovely afternoon.

It started off with the nursery choir singing some songs, then each child was called up by his/her key carer to 'graduate' and collect their goodies - certificate, teddy bear, photo of them in a cap and gown and a medal. After we'd got through all the kids, they all went up to the front to sing a special song - it was the goodnight song from CBeebies, but with the words changed to say 'The time has come to say goodbye...' Then it was time to release some balloons and a general melee at kids and parents were released from the hot marquee!

Charlie is actually staying on at nursery until school starts in September. We felt it best to keep his routine as similar as possible with the new baby arriving, as we didn't want to hit him with leaving his friends at nursery (only 3 are going to his primary school and he doesn't play with any of them...), new baby AND new school in just one month. Some of his friends with older siblings on holiday have now left so this last week he's been having fun helping out with the new 3 year olds who have joined the class! I'm also taking him out of nursery at least one day a week to spend some time with him before the baby arrives.

- Drinking Daddy's water in the hot marquee
- C&T with graduation pic
- Proud boy with his medal
- Collecting his medal from carer Daisy (and nursery manager Mandy). Another carer, Ana is on the left and the little girl on the left is his very best friend from nursery, little miss M.
- Admiring his medal and teddy bear
- Released balloons

39 weeks pregnant

Woah, one week left. I'd love it if she came a little early but suspect she'll be like her brother and arrive late.

Baby is roughly 50.7cm long and weighs 7.2lbs, the size of a mini watermelon. She still moves around a lot, but has run out of room to kick too hard, so she tends to push and squirm rather then jab, it's fun to watch my stomach move all over the place on it's own accord! She reacts to sounds, particularly when her big brother comes and talks to my tummy. At the 38 week midwife appointment her heartbeat was lovely and loud, she's in the correct position though not engaged and probably won't be until actual labour starts.

Mama is fed up of being pregnant in the middle of summer. The heat makes my feet swell and it doesn't help that I have toe infections which the doctor says won't heal until after I give birth due to my low immunity at the moment. I'm tired a lot of the time so taking things pretty easy (or as easy as you can with an energetic 4 year old). Only occasionally getting heartburn and indigestion, this has eased up a lot over the last few weeks.

Today is the official start of my maternity leave as the last few weeks were taking up unused holiday so I'd be very happy if she came soon. The nursery is ready and the study (where we put all the junk that was in the nursery) is now completely tidied thanks to a blitz my mother-in-law and I had yesterday. This weekend T and I will be taking things to charity shops and the dump and then everything will be pretty much ready.

I've also met up with some other Mums and Mums-to-be through NetMums and have a couple more meet ups in the diary for next week.

C and I have spent the day together today, doing all the things he wanted to do to make the most of time without baby. We got out the easel and magnets, we read stories, played with the aquadoodle, made a lego castle and watched How to Train Your Dragon (again). We also had lunch at our local Pizza Express, it's just a 5 min walk from home and it was fun to eat out just the two of us.