The Dower Family

I just knew that as soon as we had cut one tooth the others wouldn't be far behind. Despite me sticking my fingers in Ollie's mouth at every opportunity it took Nick to tell me that the tooth next to his first one (front bottom left) was coming through. They are like little razors now. I have to keep inspecting the top of his mouth in case they come through without me even noticing. As Nick was able to take Friday off work, we have had a lovely three day weekend. We started it off well with a family picnic to this fabulous river park nearby. It is absolute chaos on the weekends but on a weekday it is only mother's groups and the like with their youngins (as opposed to weekends where there are preteens splashing about and scaring all the olliebears). This was Ollie's third visit and, like the first two he cried when I put him in the water. But he really warmed up to it and took great delight in a shallow part where he rolled and swivelled around with no regard for the...

It has finally happened! After 9 months, Ollie's first tooth has made its appearance. It has been in the works for the last week or so but thankfully it has cut through the gum now and even though you can't really see it yet, there is a pretty sharp edge you can feel. Now, just for the next 19... In another development which to me is right up there with the tooth, but I appreciate it may not be quite as exciting to anyone else, Ollie has worked out how to make the "mamama" sound. He mastered "dadadada" quite some time ago and has been trotting it out at every opportunity so I was pretty impressed when "mamamama" came along. Now we just need to work on "kitty". Other than these milestones, the week has been a very busy one. We have had Nanna Freddy staying with us still which saw us set up a sweat shop in the end room to make Ollie some cute little outfits. We also had Aunty Alicia and Uncle Guy visit on Saturday afternoon. They were ...

In some respects it has been a very trying week around here. Even though I've been talking about Ollie getting teeth for ages, there is definitely some toothypeg action going on. It appears that the two front bottom teeth are about to come through at the same time (with the one that came suddenly out of nowhere about to win the race). This is causing him a LOT of grief and in turn causing me a lot of sleepless nights. Last night wasn't too bad though as he managed to go a stretch of four hours without crying and needing me to go into him! Another delightful crying experience we've had in the last week was an afternoon walk around the neighbourhood that I thought would be perfectly timed to lull Ollie off to a peaceful slumber. Since I'm writing about this, you can tell that things didn't go to plan. Not only did he not sleep (and therefore threw the whole afternoon/evening off) but he screamed bloody murder the entire time - almost an hour. I swear that people in ca...

Ollie is turning 9 months this week so we went along for our check-up. He now weighs a whopping 10.18 kilos and is 75 cm tall. Talk about a big unit! He scored lots of ticks for his developmental checks and showed off his latest trick - high fiving. The nurse and I spent most of the time sitting on the floor while Ollie rolled himself around the floor of her office. This increased mobility is evident in so many of parts of our day now. Probably the only time it is frustrating for me is during nappy changes, or as I've dubbed them the "Nappy Gymnastics Olympics". Ollie manages to wiggle and squirm the entire time, flipping from his back onto his tummy, trying to get into the nappy bin and quickly grabbing handfuls of wipes to stuff into his mouth. Adorable but tedious sometimes and potentially dangerous too. Ollie's favourite (bargain basement) toy this week - an empty pepsi bottle that he is chasing around the floor! Along with our usual activities last week (swimmin...

It has been a BIG week in the Dower household. Obviously the biggest deal around here was the footy grand final on Saturday. The three of us got decked out in all of our Cats regalia and nervously sat down to watch the game. Ollie got tuckered out from the stress of it all and had a nap for the second and third quarters but was up for the nail biting final quarter. Nick and I were both on the edge of our seats and trying not to sound like we had Tourette's. Fortunately Aunty Hayley helped to distract Ollie from the noise but in the end the sounds were those of victory and he didn't have to witness his parents sobbing!! Check out the pic of Ollie with us - he is totally eyeing off Nick's beer! We also shared the week with a visit from Grandpa Peter and a flying visit from Nanna Freddy and Poppy Mick - literally a flying visit as we went to see them for an hour at the airport on their way home from the Grand Final (lucky buggers). The pic of Mick shows Ollie doing his new f...

This week Ollie and I had a special visitor all the way from Cloncurry - our friend Jesse. Jesse came to play at Camp Ollie for a few hours while his mum had some very well deserved shopping time. Ollie and Jesse played lots of fun games like cups and Jesse was very helpful to me during the afternoon. Another exciting event this week was Nick and my third wedding anniversary. To celebrate we went to the lovely E'cco restaurant on Saturday night, thanks to Aunty Em who stayed over at our place to look after Ollie. Thankfully Ollie was on his best behaviour, as opposed to some of the other nights recently that have seen me popping into his room a number of times in the early hours of the morning. Ollie got to see his Aunty Em again the next day when we went over to the McNaughton/Dower home to celebrate Aunty Hayley's birthday and to catch up with Uncle Luke. Hayley cooked the wonderful family birthday tradition of Flat Meat (hard to describe but kind of like a thinner sc...

After having worn his special little helmet for 8 weeks, Ollie and I went for what we hoped would be our final appointment at the clinic. On the last occasion we had been told he would probably only wear it for another four weeks plus a further two weeks just at night. I was a little nervous that they might make him wear it for a bit longer, but after one look at where the helmet was starting to rub on his (increasingly chubbier) cheeks, it was declared that he was done. On our way to the car he held his helmet ever so proudly as he sat in his pram. I've included a pic of him holding it on the day that he got it taken off. He seems to be a bit fond of it and likes playing with it. At the moment it is being worn by one of his teddies! I'm struggling a little with him not having it on. I keep checking to see if his head has gotten flatter overnight and, more concerningly, he keeps falling back without realising that he hasn't got that extra layer of cushioning anymore. We hav...

Today was the day that Nick had, in his own words "been waiting his whole life for" - his first ever Father's Day. In the lead up to the day Nick had told Ollie and I repeatedly that all he wanted was a Dad's bag from Darrell Lea. Well we made sure he got one of those (1.5 kg of chocolate and liquorice) as well as a big print of Ollie's beautiful smiling face to hang on the wall of his new office (when he starts his new job next Monday - congratulations Nick). I also managed to get a book called "I love my dad" the same as the one we already have of "I love my mum" about the zebra-ish character called Ollie. And to top it all off, Ollie wore a special shirt we bought for the occasion that said "My dad is a super hero". We kept the day itself pretty quiet, just hanging around the house together and going for a walk to the local patisserie for coffee and yummy treats. Throughout the day Nick and Ollie had lots of cuddles and kisses...

Monday was Ollie's first swimming lesson and despite the unseasonably warm weather we have experienced lately, it was absolutely freezing when we woke up. Luckily the pool is heated to a toasty temperature and the walls keep the breeze out. Because he is such a wonderful Dad, Nick took half of the day off work so he could join us and document the occasion. Our swim class consisted of half of our mother's group so that was really fun. Ollie was the only boy along with Ruby, Olivia and Emma. You'd think that Ollie would want to put on a show of being a big macho man for the ladies but no, he was the one in the group who started sooking as soon as he got into the water. Thankfully this only lasted for five minutes before he started to enjoy himself. The lesson lasted half an hour and involved singing lots of songs, splashing and jumping around. He isn't likely to be trying out for the national team anytime soon but we hope that he gets more comfortable in the water and le...

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...