Recently in Romilly & Willow Category

Today WIllow "technically" started to crawl.. not the most efficient of crawls but a crawl all the same.. well done Willow :)

When I took Romilly into day care yesterday about 6 or so kids came running up to her to greet her all yelling her name. It was cute.. she is obviously well liked there. One girl in particular said "Romilly I missed you. I love you" and proceeded to give her a big hug. How cute.

Here are some pictures that I have taken over recent weeks - but havent had the time until now to edit and upload them.

This week we have started to give Romilly "time outs" when she is misbehaving or playing up. We call it the naughty step and she has to sit there for 2 minutes or until she decides to 'be good' again. So tonight little miss was starting to play up and wanting to get in early before it escalated I threatened her with the naughty step by saying "do you want to sit on the naughty step?". To our amusement she replied with a "yes" excitedly like it was a treat. She then started to cry when we didnt put her on the naughty step.

Kids hey.

We have successfully (it would appear) rebooted Willow. When we came home from hospital it seemed that young Willow had her days and nights mixed up. She slept longer during the day and seemed to spend more time awake at night. It looks like that we may have flipped that around and corrected it. Yay!!

So I went into the city today to buy Annabelle a push present today and as I was walking past a book store this book was screaming out to me. I have no idea how I even noticed it - it wasnt as if I stopped to look in the bookstore window. Infact I walked straight past the book store and then something made me turn around and walk back to the window. And in the window was this book. It was very uncanny.

Its the story of "Willow - the fairy of bravery". I just had to purchase it.

After much huffing and puffing from mum - and quite a long labour - baby Willow Lucinda Phoebe Gjessing was born on 20th January 2009 at 9.05pm. Welcome little one.

For those who want to know, 8 pounds and 50cm.

Special thanks to mum for all for hard work :)

When Romilly says "Thomas is in the chicken" what she really means is "Thomas is in the kitchen". Chicken, kitchen, it's all the same.

When I sleep I sleep on my side with my top arm hanging behind me on my back so to speak. It's an odd position to have my arm in bit I find it quite comfortable. Annabelle says that I am strange.

The interesting thing is that Romilly likes to sleep in the same way. It's a very unconventional way to lay with your arm so I am quite intrigued as to why she sleeps like this. Is it because of me? Is it just a coincidence? Surely not as she lays like this regularly. Has she observed me sleeping like this? It's possible but I don't think so. Is it in our genes? May be. I mean surely we would like similar things like foods etc so why isn't it possible we would find the same positions comfortable. We share similar genes afterall.

Further to my previous post, Today when Annabelle was struggling to open a packet of biscuits Romilly asked "need the scissors mummy?". What?! I didn't even know that she knew what scissors were let alone was smart enough to use them to problem solve.

Romilly used "because" in a sentence this morning. She asked me to turn the light on in the kitchen and when I asked her why she wanted the light on she replied with "coz it's dark!". How old is she again I thought to myself.

You may not be aware - I cant recall if I have mentioned this elsewhere - but Romilly will soon be a proud older sister - its all expected to happen on the 15th January 2009. My bet is that it will probably occur about a week earlier then that though. Im thinking the 7th or 8th - dont ask me why, I dont really know. Its just a feeling.

Go the sleepless nights (again)..

Romilly is - what - a little over two years old. For someone so young she has a great gasp of technology (being able to use my iphone and the digital camera with no problems) - and as shown here - she has a great eye and a steady hand. Pretty good composition hey..

I love the fact that Romilly can talk. Its the simple things like that which you take for granted.

I find it quite incredible that whilst Romilly isnt even two years old yet - she pretty much is able to understand everything that we can - and follow out quite specific commands. Yesterday I noticed that she had a pocket on her pajama top, so I said to her - put your dummy in your pocket. Not even thinking she knew what a pocket was - she proceeded to take her dummy out of her mouth and put it in the pocket of her pajamas. I could not believe it.

The range of her vocabulary is quite incredible also, she is coming out with new words every day now.. some of them I dont know where she gets them from - for example she slipped off the lounge the other day and simple said (as clear as day); "Oh! Dear!". She obviously got that from day care.

She is able to repeat most words now, and even the ones which are more difficult she can say after a day or two of coaching. The interesting thing that we have found is that if she can say a word then she will just come straight out and say it. But if its a word which she doesnt think she can say, she wont even attempt it. She will just look at you and you can see in her eyes that she is trying to say it in her head - but she wont verbalise it. But, if you keep saying it to her and asking her to say it, within a day or so she will normally just come out and say it - and get it pretty close to spot on. I wonder if thats unusual - that she waits until she knows she can say it in her head before she attempts it.

This morning she said "bum"!!

Little Romilly is also somewhat or an organiser. She likes to make sure that things are in a row (the correct order), or that things like pillows are all lined up. I also find that quite interesting.. she likes to open and close things also.

Such an interesting little thing is our Romilly.

I like it how Romilly will now wake up, get out of bed and then open the door up and come up/down stairs to greet us after a sleep.

Sleep.

Tonight Romilly pointed to a picture of my mother and said "Nanny". This in itself isnt note worthy except the fact that my mother passed away a year before Romilly was born.

It was kinda freaky when Annabelle told me what she did, as I dont ever recall that we have pointed 'nanny' out in any photographs before.

It amazes me just how quickly an infant - Romilly in this case - develops. The amount of words and things she understands is incredible. And her vocabulary is forever increasing at a rate - she said "Poo" today for the first time - which raised a giggle from both me and belle. We really need to watch what we say now as she is starting to repeat what we say.

But the other day she managed to put two words together for the first time. She has been able to say 'more' and 'no' for ages - but when Annabelle was reading her a book the other night she said 'no more' indicating that she had had enough of the book.

The other cute thing that she does is she puts her hands up and says 'all gone' when something is well.. all gone.

So I turned up at Romilly's day care the other afternoon to pick her up and take her home. As I entered the main room I thought I saw Romilly in the distance, so I entered the room and declared "Hello sausage" (which is what we call her). To the amusement of her carers they said - ermm thats not her. She is in the back room having a nap.

Well it looked like her :) Rest assured that Im confident that I wouldnt have come home with the wrong baby. It was embarrassing all the same.

Well now Ms Romilly can say "I want that".. its not perfect but its pretty clear what she is saying.. and also knows "mine"... [worry].

This week we moved Romilly into her own room.. its only taken us almost 18 months. Thats only half true I guess. As we vacated the main bedroom several months ago and left the master bedroom with the en suite in it to Ms Romilly whilst we slept in other parts of the house. Who is the master of the house you ask? "Mine".

We have started to get into the habit of taking Romilly to the park. She loves it! She particularly likes the swing, closely followed by the slippery dip. We have our own naming convention for the parks we visit (straight from the Daniel Parking Naming Convention). We have 'dark park'; which is the park closest to our house. Its called dark park because - simply, its a dark park. At night it looks quite seedy - but we dont visit it at night so thats ok. There is also 'chrissy park' which is the park near where my cousin Chris lives, and then there is 'after work park' which is the park we take Romilly to after work on the way home. She particularly likes a trip to the park when we pick her up from day care after work.

Here are some picture taken today.

Today in the car Romilly said "Water". Over the last few weeks she has start to say quite a few new words, with "Nah" and "No" being the favourite at the moment. She also knows "Yes" and "Yeah" and understands more words that she can say. Its interesting now that we can offer her choices (she doesnt always make the best choice and at times I wonder if she even knows that she is making a choice) and more so that she is able to tell us what she wants. Today she also picked up my work building pass which has a picture of me on and she she pointed it at and said "daddy". That was nice :)