The Dower Family

The latest excitement in our household has been Ollie's core strength. He has been capable of rolling from front to back for quite some time and this has been displayed everytime I put him on his tummy (instead of staying on it and learning how to lift himself up, crawl etc). However his ability to roll from back to front has been much like bigfoot - we've suspected it existed however have never had any scientific evidence. Quite a while ago he started to roll onto his side but because we were desparately trying to keep him off the back of his head, I probably stifled this instinct. It is only in recent weeks that he has revisited this trick - lured by well placed toys and other goodies. This week it all crystallised with him making me a very happy mummy indeed when he started to sleep on his side. Despite freaking me out a little bit, I'm thrilled with this as it means when his helmet comes off soon he won't go back to sleep in exactly the same position and theref...

We've had a big week at Camp Ollie. We had Nick with us for the first few days, then we got a fresh batch of visitors with Nanna Freddy and Aunty Alicia both coming to town. Aunty Alicia hadn't seen Ollie since February so she was very impressed with what a big boy he has become. We spent some quality time at Camp Ollie lazing around playing cups and Ollie especially enjoyed having Aunty Alicia read his new book to him that Nanna Freddy had bought him on our shopping expedition (while I filed his nails - to protect him from scratching himself, not because I'm encouraging him toward a life on Broadway). There have been two exciting and entertaining developments this week. Firstly, Ollie has displayed a real interest in Moroccan food. I was feeding him chicken with sweet corn and cous cous when I started to make up a little song about the cous cous that was all over his face. This is when he made it known that he thinks the word cous cous is really hilarious. All week ...

Last Monday was Nick's 30th birthday. We were lucky enough to have him at home on the day so we enjoyed a nice family day. We started off the day Ollie giving Nick lovely kisses, followed by a beautiful card that Ollie got made (describing how much fun he has with his daddy and enjoys playing cups with him). Later in the day we ducked out to get the finishing touches for our costumes for Nick's birthday party and to have some lunch at a Chinese restaurant. Luckily the restaurant wasn't busy but the waitress still managed to steer us toward a table well away from any of the other diners. Ollie sat in a highchair and had his lunch of pumpkin before our food came out. This was the first time we had done this so we were pretty impressed. Unfortunately it wasn't a long lingering lunch with Ollie getting the squeals as soon as he became bored with the stash of toys I'd brought along to distract him. The real birthday celebrations took place on Saturday night with Nick...

How cute is this??

As we have been lucky enough to have Nick off work with us this week, we thought we would take advantage of the beautiful weather and head to the coast for a few nights. This taught us a valuable lesson about the impossibility of travelling light with a baby (think portacot, pram, nappies, highchair, clothes, food etc.) and the other downside to it was having to share a bedroom with Ollie. It wasn't a problem until we would retire for the evening, then sometime in the early hours of the morning (generally between 2-4 am) Ollie would lay in his cot and talk to himself for a good hour or so. At first it was cute but by the third night I was totally exhausted and looking forward to coming home to our separate rooms. One of the highlights of our trip was Ollie's first (and second) swim. We got him all suited up in his rashie, swimming nappy, hat and sunscreen then headed down to the heated pool. The first swim was in the kids shallow pool and he seemed alright but after a little wh...

Last Monday marked one month since Ollie got his funky little helmet and we had our check-up to see how he is progressing. As we suspected, his head is improving greatly as you can see from the before and after pics I've attached. You can see the massive reduction in the gap at the top of the helmet, but amazingly this is the area where there has been the least improvement. The bottom section has really popped out. (You can also see how long his hair is getting these days - it is growing over his ears and he looks like a nutty professor!). We were told that he is likely to still have some area of flatness at the top of his head but even if it is as good as it gets now, we are totally happy with the result and very glad that we took this course. He is going to wear the helmet for another month (one week of that has already passed) and then after that he just wears it at night for two weeks. We can't wait until he has it off - it is getting a bit pongy plus he is really dangerous...

Since the weather has been so beautiful lately, Ollie and I have really been enjoying the outdoors this week. As it was my turn to host mother's group this week I thought it might be nice to spread out on the empty deck (which we had painted last week). I set up lots of rugs and cushions and we had a really lovely time - especially the babies who are crawling(ish), they loved the open space. Ollie and I enjoyed being out there so much that we decided camp out there for the rest of the week. We have dubbed it "Camp Ollie" and each morning we take our stuff out there and laze around playing "cups", singing songs and drumming on stuff together. Another way we delighted in the early springtime weather was a lovely picnic on Thursday at the Botanical Gardens with my friend from work Thalia and her son Percy. We normally meet at the local shopping centre where we have coffee and wander around the shops but I think this is a much better move. Mainly because it d...

Check out the cutie...

Ollie is almost 7 months old and has been eating solid food for 2 months now so it should come as no surprise that he has been putting on a bit of weight lately. But it does seem as if overnight he has just become this solid little (or not so little) unit. It first really became apparent when Nick and I were looking at some videos of Ollie taken not that long ago. He just looked like such a skinny minny compared to now. Then I noticed that he was favouring the skin tight look in all his clothes - we are wearing lots of size 0s now. To top it all off I took him to get weighed at the local clinic today and that confirmed it. Even before we weighed him, the nurse was commenting on what a big boy he was for his age - both for his height and his weight. Then when I nuded him up for the scales I noticed just how chunky his thunder thighs had become - he looks like a teeny version of a really obese man. But a very cute version. Last time we got weighed at the beginning of July he was 8.4 kg...