Well its been 9 months.. 9 months ago shallow.end went off line, but not its back.. 9 months is an appropriate 'incubation' period and it would therefore be deemed quite appriopriate to consider this first post as the 'rebirth' post as shallow.end is reborn.

Mind you its not the only thing to have been created and born in that 9 month period.. alot has happened and you can expect some 'back posts' to make up for lost time.. the first one will probably be dated 03/10/2006... welcome to the world Ms Romilly Charlotte Norma Gjessing.

I have uploaded and started a photo gallery "Romilly's World". It can be accessed via the menu at shallow.end, or directly via this link here - Romilly's World.

Images are best viewed at a resolution of at least 1024x768. Larger versions of each image may be opened by clicking on each image thumbnail.

How can a new born baby know the difference between me sitting and me standing when I am nursing her in my arms. The position of the top half of my body - the part that she is being nursed in doesnt change between my sitting and standing - yet she seems to know the difference.

For the record she prefers it when I am standing.. I dont know why - nor can I ask her why as she cant understand or answer me yet.

Romilly is now able to actively bat at and swipe at the toys that hang from her bouncer/rocker. Whilst she doesnt yet have full control of her arms - she is able to take swipes at the toys that hang down in front of her. You can see her looking at one of the three toys - focusing on it - and then taking a determined swipe at it with her right hand - looks like she may be right handed I guess. She then focuses again and takes another swipe at it - pleasing herself if she makes contact with it.. clever little thing..

On Thursday - 08/08/07 - Romilly started crawling. It was kinda cool as she did her first one in front of both of her grand dads - so that was nice. Whilst Annabelle reports that she witnessed Romilly crawl a few steps a while back.. it seems that the crawl on Thursday was the one that has cemented it - as the last few days she has been crawling everywhere.

And then yesterday she started clapping hands all by herself. Again for a while we have been saying clap hands and she has clapped her hand against your hand, but she never mastered the art of clapping both of her hands - until yesterday. And she has been doing it all day - even upon request.

Its so nice watching your child do things for the first time - and with Romilly becoming more 'interactive' it just shows you what a joy life really is.

Romilly managed to lock me in the shower today - I know as silly as it sounds its true.

This morning we both slept in - Annabelle got up early as she had to go to Melbourne for work. Usually I grab a quick shower in the mornings just before Belle heads off to work. So this morning I figured I would put Romilly down on the bedroom floor where it is quite safe and where she could amuse herself for a few minutes whilst I jumped in the shower.

Low and behold, I looked down out of the shower and there she was sitting in the ensuite looking back up at me - which was fine until I had finished in the shower and found that she had crawled right up to the glass door and was sitting facing it. Of course the shower door opens out ways. So I had no way of getting out! I couldnt really open the door as she was sitting in the way.

Had an interesting night last night - you may recall that I reported that when we were in Melbourne Romilly was "sleep crawling" - well she did it again last night - exactly the same thng.. she rolls onto her tummy, pushes herself up to a sitting position, pivots around and then crawls a few steps and then falls down back to sleep on my legs (remember we co sleep)... its quite odd watching it being done.. she isn’t awake when she does it.. she is asleep.

Also, last night she kept clapping her hands in her sleep! How odd!! Sometimes she managed to clap, other times she tried to clap and would miss.. other times she would just bash her arm on her leg and clap her leg.. again she is doing this whilst she is asleep.

The other thing which I wanted to report - was when we were in Melbourne, I had Romilly with me on the bed, and I was making shadows on the wall with my hand, you like the shape of a Rabbit etc.. Romilly was fascinated.. and then she started to do it herself. It was incredible.. I couldn’t believe it. At first she was watching my hand and then she would look at the shadow on the wall and then back at my hand - so she knew what was going on.. and then she lifted her hand, made a fist and opened and closed it.. and then looked at the shadow that she was making on the wall and kept doing it.. she kept looking at her fist and then the shadow that she was making on the wall and back at her fist.. etc.. she was mighty pleased with herself and I think she even managed to give herself a clap for doing it :)

PS: Romilly said "mum" this morning - Annabelle is over the moon :)

This morning I was going about my business and I turned around to see what Romilly was doing - and this is what greeted me. She had managed - by her own accord - to stuff two dummies into her mouth - I dont know how - but she did it. And wasnt she pleased with herself.

Well its not really artificial milk - its cow's milk - but its not the human kind. Eitherway, Romilly had her first bottle of cows milk yesterday, in preparation for when she starts day care. She seemed to like it, infact she gulped it down no fear. She had had it before on her weetbix, but this was the first time she had had a full bottles worth.

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.

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.

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.

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.