Stella turns one!

Stella turned one on May 13th. I don't think any year has ever passed this fast! The actual birthday was quite quiet with cake and a quick round of Happy Birthday to celebrate. On the 14th we had a party with nearly 40 adults and about 15 children. It was crazy but Stella loved it. In fact Tim and I hardly saw her all evening as she crawled around following her friends.

A very exciting development over the past couple of weeks has been Stella's increasing vocabulary. She can now say "teeth" while pointing to her teeth, "moo" when asked what cows do, "brown bear" at the sight of any book (Brown Bear is her favourite) and the latest is "hi" whenever she or anyone else enters a room.

Presents the American way.....

The morning after Stella's party, we were a bit overwhelmed by the generosity of our party guests... No shortage of toys in this house anymore

Reading on her bed

Stella will often take herself off to the bedroom and spends hours leafing happily through her books.

Still enjoying the sling

At 26lbs she's getting quite heavy but Stella still loves being in the sling and for short journeys I can still just about manage it!

Learning to walk

Stella is an independent soul. She's now a super fast crawler and an expert cruiser and is learning to walk with the help of anything that moves, furniture wise that is. She doesn't seem to trust her parents not to let go, so she'll only walk with a solid inanimate object to cling onto.

We've also made big progress on the sleep front in the past couple of weeks and for the last few nights she's slept all the way through the night. Well, until at least 5.30am, which strangely enough we now consider to be morning..... Tonight we erected some black-out curtains in the bedroom so we're hoping for more of a lie in tomorrow. Let's see.

The Cherry Blossom Festival

Just like the Japanese, the Washingtonians like to celebrate the coming of spring with a Cherry Blossom Festival. Unlike the Japanese, the Americans don't like to sit under the trees drinking beer and singing Karaoke. Nevertheless, Stella enjoyed getting her first proper look at these beautiful flowers as we walked around the Tidal Basin at the weekend. Huge crowds had gathered to see the wonderful blossoms and Stella was kept very busy trying to capture the attention of all passers by with loud shouts and waves from her buggy. Much to her delight, some of them were even kind enough to wave back.

Waving "Da Dye"

Ten months old and Stella is having lots of fun waving and using her "first word" a great imitation of Bye Bye, "Da Dye". She's fascinated with doors and hinges, including the dishwasher door, the loo seat (which she loves to eat) and wardrobe doors. On the same theme turning book pages and flicking through daddy's Journal of Economic Perspectives are other favourite pass-times.

Last week we started a babysitting swap with her friend Alvar, who is Finnish-German and was born two weeks before Stella. We'll do it a couple of times a week so that Stella gets a regular break from her mum, something I'm sure she'll enjoy a lot!

On the swings

Ten Months Old

The revolution is in full swing

Returning from England, we discover that Stella's previously-tentative crawling (here made to appear more dynamic by the deceptive skill of the photojournalist) has become genuinely rapid. In addition, she has suddenly decided to pull herself to a standing position on various objects (the shower door, trapping her mother inside; the upper tray of the dishwasher, the one with all the knives, etc. etc.) and also cruise backwards and forwards. A whole new world of exploration has opened up to her. This is alarming, but on the bright side, her mother has started singing songs about poo.

Stella's favourite place to stand seems to be the window-sill, which is at a convenient height of eight inches. She'll pull herself up and stroll backwards and forwards looking out at the city below. Shades of Scarlett Johanssen in 'Lost in Translation'...


Scarlett Johanssen

Stella Harford

Stella is baptised

While we were in England Stella was baptised at St Etheldreda's, where we were married in 2003. It was a lovely day with family and friends. Stella was on good form and amused the congregation and charmed the priest with her broad smiles and apparent willingness to be welcomed into the Catholic Church.

Eight months old

Crawling at eight months

Aged eight months and one day, Stella finally made her first forward motion in the direction of a telephone. It started as a marine like shuffle, but only a few days later Stella was enjoying her new found independence and heading out of any room to explore the world alone.

Other major milestones include two more teeth and plenty of new sounds. Da da, ba ba, a a, hi and eee are some favourites. Not to mention some excellent rasberry blowing and clicking.

Stella's eating lots more solid foods these days too. Favourites seem to be lentils, celery, chicken, sweet potato, cheerios, pears and bananas. Yoghurt and raisins are new arrivals on the menu which seem pretty popular as well.

We have a busy week of activities out on the town nowadays. On Tuesdays it's music and art at the Jewish Community Centre. On Wednesday it's swimming and on Thursday it's baby and mom yoga. Yoga is getting a bit less relaxing for mummy now that Stella would rather spend the class exploring the other babies and their toys than watching the yoga. Swimming is definitely Stella's favourite especially the songs which we sing like "Swimming swimming in the swimming pool" and "baby shark".

All this activity is exhausting and so Stella still takes two naps a day at 10am and 2.30pm... roughly! Unfortunately, not exhausting enough to make Stella sleep for 12 hours straight at night. That is a milestone which I'm hoping to achieve one day soon :)

Ready, Steady.....

....Go!

Photoshoot with dad

Walking at Great Falls

Seven months old

Two teeth and rosy cheeks

Learning to crawl

Stella's latest trick is pushing up on her hands and knees. No forward movement yet though....

Sitting at six months

Six months old

Stella is six months old today and as I write she is rolling herself under the sofa! She's become quite a proficient roller. Spotting an object of interest across the other side of the room she can now roll her way over to it. We're going to have to start paying a bit more attention to where we leave all our stuff.

Other new tricks include sitting up, for short stints at least, before wobbling over and spinning over onto her front. Two new teeth appeared about a fortnight ago as well, so Stella is great at biting anything that she might find in her mouth, especially Tim's fingers.

She is gradually gaining a taste for solid food. Carrot, sweet potato, squash, apple, banana, avocado and rice cereal have all been tried and sometimes swallowed. At the moment Stella's favourite part of the meal seems to be the water...

We're still working on sleep. She usually manages one five hour stretch a night now but I'm still being woken up a bit more regularly than I'd like.

Stella's smiles certainly ease the pain of any lack of sleep. On Friday we went for Stella's six month doctor's appointment and Dr Razi commented that she found the consistency of her happiness to be quite remarkable. So do we, considering the amateur parenting she gets, but we hope it will last!

Rock Creek Park

Stella at four and a half months

Stella is getting stronger by the day and learning lots of new tricks. She rolls over now and spends most of her time on her tummy. Consequently her arms and back are getting strong so that she can adopt the swimming pose (pictured below). She can just about sit in her high chair, with a bit of slumping, and this week ate some carrots for the first time. Stella seemed to quite like the taste, although mostly enjoyed spitting it out again...seems food is going to be a messy business for a while. After our easy first few months, Stella's sleeping patterns are taking a backward course and many a midnight feast is being had, leaving a very tired mummy...

Stella learning to swim

Stella visits the UK

Stella made her first trip to the UK in September to meet up with many of her relatives for the first time. Fortunately she decided that travelling by car isn't too bad if you fall asleep (rather than scream) so our visits to London, Shrewsbury, Oxford and Bristol were all quite easy. It was a busy 10 days and Stella went to her first wedding (Ralph and Liz) and met with her oldest relative, Great Granny Betty Harford (89 shhh..).

Great Granny and Stella

Lunch at Bistrot du Coin

Stella loves to lie on the table when we eat out. Although, over the last week she's been rolling lots from front to back and back to front so I fear this pleasure will soon end!

Three months old!

And she is getting shoutier by the minute. But this afternoon she decided to sleep for hours, so that her parents could work on their respective books. Now we're about to head out for a celebratory meal.

Stella views Baltimore from Daddy's arms

Stella goes to Baltimore

Stella enjoyed lots of firsts today: her first ride in a train, her first ride in a boat - and the first time we've had to pay for her... We all went to Baltimore on a lovely sunny day with a cool breeze; a big success.

Stella grows bigger and livelier by the day. She often wears dungarees (very fetching), and is smiling, laughing, shouting and grabbing more and more by the day. Her neck is very strong and she is very happy on her tummy or slung over a shoulder to take a look around.

Rockers at Harpers Ferry

Twelve weeks old

It's 12 weeks since Stella was born and she's learning lots of new tricks. Stella usually wakes for the day sometime between 6 and 7. I do what I can to keep her quiet until 7, when Tim's alarm clock goes off, but usually the whole family is awake before then. One of the great things about having Stella in our bed is that when she does wake in the morning she is full of beaming smiles and will happily lie with us and kick around until we get out of bed.

Many mornings either Tim or I will take Stella into the shower with us. She seems to love the sensation of the water on her back and head and it's certainly a much easier way to wash her than a baby bath. We don't use any soap yet as the pediatrician said it was good for her skin to colonise with bacteria. I'm sure we'll have to change this approach once she starts getting really dirty!

Once Tim has gone off to work Stella and I get on with our day together. Stella still sleeps quite a lot in the day, up to about 4 hours, but when she's awake she still loves to kick around in the baby gym or under the mobile. She spends hours looking at her fists and putting them into her mouth. She's also just starting to grab and feel things of interest around her and bring them to her mouth as well.

Stella loves playing along when I do my yoga exercises. She particularly likes flying baby, where I put her on my shins and fly her above my head. She also likes lying under me when I do cat pose and finds my dangling hair most amusing. She's very good at sitting on my knees when I do my warrior stances. Altogether a great little assistant. Her neck is getting stronger and stronger and now we hardly need to hold her head at all.

I usually go out at least once a day, either to meet a friend, to take some photographs or to do some errands. If Stella is really restless and I haven't got an outing planned I'll often just put her in the sling and take her to the lovely supermarket over the road. She loves looking at all the brightly coloured packages on the shelves as I wander through the aisles. For weeks I took her over there and she was asleep before we got through the door, but now she's much more alert and charms all other the customers and shop staff.

We're still able to take Stella with us pretty much anywhere we want to go in the evenings. In restaurants we will often plonk Stella on the table next to us where she loves to look around and kick away. Sushi Taro nearby is particularly good for Stella as we can put her on the tatami mat next to where we sit to eat.

We are learning however, that sometime between 7 and 9 Stella is ready to go to sleep for the night. If we're at home I'll take her to bed and feed her and she'll usually fall asleep no problem. If we're out with friends we'll put her in the sling and she'll fall into a pretty deep sleep if we're lucky. If we're not lucky, she'll give us a very sad face and some tears and we'll feel extremely guilty about keeping her away from her bed!

Most nights Stella wakes me up once sometime between 3.30 and 5.30. A couple of night she's slept for 7 hours in a row, but unfortunately I haven't managed to grab the same 7 hours. We're still practising at that.

Looking like Grandad...

Upside-down at the Arboretum

Stella and friends

Five weeks old

Stella was five weeks old yesterday and is currently lying beside me, cooing adorably. She's under the baby gym which was given to her by friends in London, Tim and Angela. She really likes the black and white patterns and toys which hang from it's arches. At least they're enough to occupy her for 10 minutes...

In five weeks Stella has developed a lot. Although she was really alert when she was born and already had quite a strong neck and could hold her head up a little, she now takes in much more than she did, she responds to us and is getting stronger all the time. Just a few days ago she started smiling which is wonderful to see.

For the first couple of weeks she enjoyed watching the light through the venetian blinds in our apartment. She didn't cry very much at first although she's certainly found her voice now! After about two or three weeks she started to enjoy looking in mirrors or at brightly coloured toys. She also loves it when I play melodic music like Norah Jones or Eva Cassidy, and even more so when I sing along. This is a great way to calm her down. The most well used calming trick by Tim is a little finger in the mouth. Stella will suck for hours on his finger, and it almost always stops her crying. The other favourite is the over the shoulder position. Inquisitive little Stella loves to look at the world from our shoulders. Last but by no means least is the sling. Deirdre, our friend in Belgium, sent us a gift of an amazing sling and Stella spends a lot of time in there. It's a great way to send her to sleep and it also helps me to get jobs done around the house and to work on my book. Without the sling I don't think I'd get anything done.

Another wonderful thing about Stella is that she has known the difference between night and day since day one. We have been very lucky to have a baby who sleeps between feeds during the night without any trouble at all. So far at least!

Big blue eyes

With Mummy

Stella eats the monkey

Tucked up with Daddy

Taoist parenting

They say time flies when you're having fun. I think it depends on the kind of fun you're having. When you're lying on the sofa with a coffee, a book, and a five-day old daughter snuggled asleep on your chest, time just drifts amiably by.

Stella is currently lying on a cushion on my lap, squiggling away. She is, of course, a perfect little girl, but then I would say that. My overwhelming impressions of fatherhood so far - to my great surprise - are that it's a very peaceful experience. We find ourselves in a taoist paradise: go with the flow, and all is well. If Stella is asleep, you can talk and cook and do what you like. If she's awake and playful, you need to be nearby. If she's fidgety, she needs to be held - which means that using a computer or cooking a meal is impossible, but reading a book is easy enough. Washington weather is fairly hostile, especially while we're waiting for the sun-hood for our stroller, so if the sun is shining brightly, we stay in. If the sun is weak, we go out. In the evenings, best to walk east. In the mornings, best to walk west. It's a lesson on living in the moment. If you yield, you will conquer... Well, that's what the first week's been like. I will keep this note as a happy memory of the days before she started playing up!

Now we are trying to stretch ourselves with little adventures - on Monday, to the pediatrician. (A wonderful woman. And no problems so far.) On Tuesday, to Kramerbooks for coffee. (Kramerbooks was the site of our first meal in Washington.) On Wednesday, over to a baby-friend's house to watch a video about how to calm down crying babies: it's all about the "Five S's" and "The Fourth Trimester". Interesting - most of the babies looked older than Stella and the parents looked considerably more careworn: we're taking notes for later. So far, the way to get Stella to stop crying is to stop changing her nappy. Yesterday, we all went for pizza. You have to keep your priorities, even in a time of change... Today, we were going to go to the zoo, but the sun was too hot. C'est la vie.

The story starts