Nine months old. See-saw day. Leona has been out of the womb for as long as she was in it. She's developed amazingly since she was born. When I look back at the photos from her first week I barely recognise her. We did a bit of a recap at three and six months and now she is nine months old.

It's been a very exciting three months really, when it started we were just making our first tentative steps in to sitting in a high chair and being fed very very liquid goo. Now Leona is quite comfortable sitting in a high chair picking up segments of satsuma all by herself (pre-checked for pips of course) and eating them. She is crawling around rooms, getting hold of things she shouldn't and generally being a lot of fun. We are still loving the whole parenting thing and it's still no where near as bad as the hype suggested.

Leona is now crawling around...

She is sitting up on her own...

Getting expressive...

Something else Leona has been getting in to is books. Obviously she can't read yet but she has a few books with lots of pictures and (really impressively) she has learned to turn the pages.

Here's a nice photo of Leona and her mum...

And here's a photo of Leona and some old rocks we saw in a field...

She really has been growing...

In each of those photos, Leona is three months older than in the previous one. See how she grows! I don't suppose that babygrow will still fit her when she hit's the big one.

Every week I get an email from Baby Weekly. This weeks e-mail for new mothers says...

Ella, do you look at James differently since Leona came along? Most women do. Fatherhood can be very sexy!

They have clearly never met James! Since Leona came along I have done nothing but fear for her safety and try not to think about how precariously James is balancing her when I am not there. This is anguish not lust! So do I look at James differntly, yes, definately... with despair!

Sleepless nights are not a myth.

A week in the life of a baby, nay, the baby...

By the time she was born at 6:17pm on Monday 12th of March our baby girl didn't have much time left to enjoy her first day. By the time Ella had showered, got some clean clothes on and made it to the postnatal ward it was 8:30pm. At 9pm the dads (sorry, partners) are thrown out, because we had just arrived they allowed me an extra half hour. At 9:30pm I left for home and sent a text to quite a few people.

On Tuesday James awoke bright and early for a 6am driving lesson. It had to be this early because I had a test at 3:27pm and my lesson on monday was cancelled due to our new arrival. The driving went okay and by 9am (ish) I was at the hospital, Baby and Mummy had slept all night - labor had taken it out of both of them. I came in just as Ella was attempting to breastfeed, the baby was just about awake enough to open her mouth and fall asleep again. Having failed at that the midwife decided to wake her up a bit by showing us how to bath her, it's all pretty straight forward really. Don't put her head under the water and don't leave her unattended. She was wide awake in the water but happy as anything with a big grin, no sooner was she dried off again than she was back to sleep and not planning to eat any time soon. No cause for alarm though, apparently lots of babies don't eat anything for quite a while after coming out. James nipped out for his driving test and at around about 3pm Ella got visitors. Granny Haswell (Babcia Natalsha) came with Grandad Haswell (Dunno if Grandad trumps Prof or not) and Granny Preece (the old 'G') showed up as well. James' Mum brought a tasteful card (which plays Brahm's Lullaby when opened) amd some chocolates shaped like ducks, a bunch of flowers and some clothes including a t-shirt which reads 'My Mummy is the prettiest Mummy' and 'My Daddy is the Handsomest Daddy'. Granny Haswell brought a marvelous cuddly Reter Rabbit which plays a clockwork tune that we do not recognise. She also brought a wonderful pink smiley face balloon and some Ferrero Rocher in a heart shape box. James failed his driving test, he only got 7 minors but managed to bump over a stealthy hidden piece of cerb just outside the test centre which is an instant fail. It's for the best really, I would have been too smug if I had passed. In the evening Grandad Preece came to visit and gave us some sagely advice, he said: One day when she is older, you would be tempted to lift her on your shoulders and carry her around. Remember - doorframes are not high enough for you plus a child, as Eve found out when she ended up on the fish and chip shop floor. Somewhere around 10pm tuesday evening the baby finally started to feed...

On Wednesday morning the baby was still feeding when James arrived after doing a mammoth £110 shop at Asda. In fact, she fed all day. At 3pm on Wednesday she was due to come home but at 2:59pm a doctor came in to have a chat... just after birth they swab babies ears and do a test, our baby was positive for.. umm.. PK03D or something like that. The doctor said it's a nasty bug but that usually babies get it in the first 24 hours (which we were clear of) so he said we could still go home. The catch was, he had to check it with his superior, that took about four hundred hours. We got home at around 6pm. Still feeding. The first night home was pretty bad, she fed and fed for quite some time. She was struggling to feed towards the end though because she was so tired. Eventually we decided she wasn't hungry at all and was just comfort eating - I have a suspicion we hadn't worked out the difference between hunger and tiredness. Last time I was hurting eating fixed it, perhaps it will work this time. James stepped in and played the Big Bad Dad carrying her around the house singing the tune from Bonanza until she fell asleep. Once she had cracked sleep things got a lot better.

Thursday morning the Midwife came for a visit and apart from that little happened. We watched Midsomer Murders and Poirot. Ella needed some Grapeseed Oil and some Cypress oil for an aromatherapy remedy the midwives recommended so Baby had her first trip out in the car (apart from the trip home from Hospital). We drove from home to Anlaby Road, Calvert Lane, Priory Road, Newgate St to Holland & Barrett where we got Grapeseed Oil but no Cypress. I told the lady "I am looking for Cypress" and she said "It's in the Mediterranean love". Dead witty that. So we drove back down Newgate St, Thwaite St, Hull Road, Cottingham Road to Newland Avenue where in a shop called Mana Tree where I got Cypress. Mission Accomplished. We headed home in time to find my brother stood in front of our house, my mum and old 'T' soon arrived also for a quick visit. My mums tip: Keep the feet warm. Warm feet equals sleeping baby. The baby had a reasonable night tonight, she seems to be settling in to a routine. I think we were up every two hours for a nappy change and a feed which is not to bad at all (better than having the flu).

Friday we got up late (the baby had a lie in so we did too) and we didn't hear the midwife knock on the door. We discussed buying some baby socks after my mums advice yesterday but no sooner had we resolved to do so than Ella's sister and her friend came to visit with a gift of... socks. It was Grandad Haswell's birthday today so we went to visit Ella's parents. Granny haswell said Ella's sister had to give us a lift because Ella is not to drive (Granny Haswell doesn't know that Ella drove yesterday). We got Ella's dad an Oregon Scientific Barbeque Master, had an argument with Granny Haswell about whether Ella should have a glass of Calvados while breastfeeding and were home by midnight. The baby slept well, we were only up every three hours. We got our eight hours of sleep and only got up for a wiped bum and a feedtwice.

On Saturday the midwife came to do the 'heelprick' test. The baby has her heel pricked with one of those spring loaded needle things that the blood donating people use to prick your finger when you give blood. She didn't cry at all, our Baby is a brave baby. She was weighed, the midwife reassured us that almost all babies lose weight in the first week, ours kept it steady at 6.5lbs. After that we did another trip out to mothercare for essentials, Ella was appalled at the lack of breastfeeding vest tops with unhookable straps in her size. Another night done in three sleeps, only up twice. The whole 'sleepless nights' thing is a wild exaggeration. Getting up every few hours is not 'sleepless'.

On Sunday morning Ella got a mothers day give from the baby, a card and some DIY chocolate flowers. Granny Haswell called to say that she knew we would not be silly enough to take a less than one week old baby out in the stormy weather for mass but that she was just checking. We reassured her that we would definitely not be that silly and would definitely not take the baby to mass. If we had gone to mass however I reckon we might have arrived a few minutes late on the tail end of the first hymn. Ella would have been keen to sit at the back but there would have been no room so James would have lead the way and we would have sat at the front. The baby would have been good as gold throughout and not made so much as a whimper. At communion James would have bravely taken her out of the car seat/baby carrier and taken her up for a blessing and she would have continued to behave. We would have been inundated with wellwishers after mass. Ella would have been given a large quantity of daffodils for her first mothers day as a mother. That is, if we had gone to mass, which of course, we were not silly enough to do. The rest of Sunday consisted of a quick trip to James' mum (Granny Preece/The Old 'G') to deliver a metal fish for mothers day and then the evening at Granny/Grandad Haswells for dinner and to deliver a metal bumble bee. Of course, we got a lift to Granny Haswell's for dinner because Ella is not driving. We got home about 10pm, another night in three sleeps.

Finally, on Monday, our six day old little girl awoke for her seventh day. We stayed in the house pretty much all day to get jobs done including all the paperwork, washing up and laundry. Michelle and Jessica came to visit in the afternoon and at 6:17pm we noted the time and celebrated our daughters one week birthday with a nice cup of tea and biscuits. Mmmmmmmm, Biscuits.