Dear Samuel,
After weeks of your sleep being all over the place the last four days it seems to be getting back on track at last. You are now going down to sleep in your cot for a good part of everynight and even during the day you are taking at least short sleeps in the cot. This is a huge step forward as you have hated the cot since we got home from visiting nanna in Townsville at the begining of May. Right now you are sound asleep and have been for almost three hours, I am expecting you to wake up any moment for your next bottle but also hoping that tonight might be the night you sleep through the night, only time will tell though one glance at the video monitor shows that you are not even stirring yet.

With your sleep being better this week your mood has also been very good. You have been a happy and friendly baby most of the week, full of smiles and lots of cuddles. You are happy to play on your own for longer periods of time but also enjoy playing with myself and daddy. You have learnt how to high five this week. We hold our hand out and say 'give me five' and you do. Its so very cute to see. Something else that you have started doing it coping us. We ask you if you want to sing and then we go la la la and a lot of the time you respond with la la. When you do these things little man you make me so happy, I love interacting with you like this and can't wait to interact with you more as you get older, I can't wait until the day we have real conversations and you start asking me 'why' I can't wait to teach you about the world around us, watch you sing and dance or kick a football with dad or your friends.

I love you my little man, you are the centre of my universe and make even my bad days at least a little more bareable. Sleep tight little man.

Love always
Mummy

Sneak peek of photoshoot

I have been sents a sneak peek of the photos from Saturday's photo shoot. You look so handsome in them little man that I just had to post them here to your journal.

First word, new pram and photo shoot.

You said your first word this week little man and have made mummy so happy because your first word/s was mum mum. When I left the room you watched me go and when you could not see me anymore you called out mum mum, when I came back into the room your face lit up with a massive smile and this time you looked me striaght in the eye and again said those beautiful words mum mum. The words that I had been waiting to hear but thought were going be at least a few months away still if not more and you came out with them a few days before you are seven months old. I went out for a while not long after you said those words and daddy tells me that while I was out you kept looking at my chair saying 'mum mum mum' and then crying and that you were doing that on and off for hours. The first time I heard you say that word I didn't think I had heard correctly but when you looked me in the eyes and said it with a smile everything inside melted and I was so happy that it brought tears to my eyes.

Last weekend we had another photoshoot for you little man, this one was with a local photographer who wanted to use you as a model in her portfolio so the photo shoot was free and we are being given a disk of all the images for free too. This is a massive saving as if we were to pay for this we would have been looking at around $1500! The photo shoot was fantastic, the weather was perfect and you my little man turned on the charm. You were full of smiles and loving looking around at the world about you while we took photos of you out in the backyard. For two hours you were happy to play model, with smiles, giggles and chatter and both the photographer and I enjoyed spending the afternoon playing with you.

The other exciting piece of news is that this week I bought you a new pram. You now ride in the plush comfort of the Icandy apple pram, this pram looks so much better then your old one and you seem much more comfortable in it then you were in your old one. It is a lot softer and you are also higher up. This pram gives you the ability to face me or to fae away from me, at the moment we are using it with you facing me and when we go for a walk I am enjoying looking at your beautiful little face and talking to you about the things that we see while walking. I feel like we are walking and exploring together now instead of like I am just pushing you from point A to B because that is where we need to be. For me this new pram is wonderful, I can push it easily over any surface, it steers like a dream and handles every situation I have thrown at it so far. We have been getting a lot of comments when out and about with it because it is brand new on the market here in Australia and lots of people who have been eyeing it off want to know if it is really as good as it seems, the simple answer to them is yes it really is as good as it seems. So many people tried to tell me that this pram would not fit my needs and suggested heaps of others that would but I tried out all those others and this one won by a long way.

I love you my beautiful little clever man and I am so proud to be your mummy, so pleased that together we will walk this path from baby to what ever you become in the future.

There will be plenty more words in your future, pleanty more cuddles and smiles and always awalys you will be loved and I will make sure that you know you are loved and never ever doubt that fact. I never want you to think that you are on your own and have nobody that you can rely on, I never ever want you to beleive that you have nobody to call on for help. As long as daddy and I are alive you will always have our love, always have our support and always always have people that will be there for you no matter what.

You have been so chatty the last few days little man, its very cute hearing the sounds come out of your mouth and watching you try to figure out how to move you mouth to make different sounds come out. For a while yesterday you were opening and closing your mouth like a goldfish, it was very cute and very funny as well.

We had photo's yesterday with a local photographer who is building her portfolio she thought that you were so cute that she wanted to use you as one of her models and so we got a free photo shoot and will get all the images on a disk to keep as well. I can't wait to see the photos as you looked adorable in your brand new overalls and stripey bodysuit with matching hat, socks and mittens.

You haven't done anything new in the last little while apart from having your first taste of chicken. I'm not sure if you liked it or not but you sat there sucking on the chicken for got a while before you got bored with it so I guess you must have liked it, another food that you have tried and loved in the last little while was egg yolk. When I gave you the egg yolk you couldn't get it down fast enough. Thankfully you have had no reaction to egg yolk so I can continue to give it to you. Your diet is now varied enough that I am going to be able to make you some more grown up type foods like a casserole instead of you just having one or two vegetables and fruits every meal. I look forward to the time when you are eating enough of a varitiy of foood that we can sit at the dining table together and eat as a family, I think that perhaps it won't be that long away and in a couple of months we may be able to do it.

We are a little worried about you this week little man, for some reason you dropped from being on the 50th percentile for weight to the 33rd in two weeks, thats a huge drop for such a short period of time and it also coincides with you being rather unsettled and grizzly. You have had a flu and been teething so I hope the weight drop is just a result of being sick. We will have you weighed again next week hopefully there won't be another big drop.

You are 29 weeks old now, I remember when I was 29 weeks pregnant with you because it was at that time that we moved from Brisbane to country Victoria. It seems like such a long time ago but it wasn't even a whole year ago. At 29 weeks old it feels as though you have been part of our lives forever, it is hard to remember what life was like before you came into it and what I do remember from my life before you is that it never really felt complete with you here my life is complete, with you here I feel like I have started living, when you were born I felt like I was too.

I am loving watching you grow and discover new things little man

Love always
Mummy

We have been having a bad week this week little man, you are still having problems with teething and the tooth not wanting to come through and you have also been sick with your first cold. With these things making you feel so bad you have been so clingy to both your father and I and have not wanted to be put down at all. The moment we try to put you in your cot even if you are deeply asleep you have been waking up and screaming until we pick you up and cuddle you to sleep again. I know that its not going to teach you how to go to sleep on your own if we keep picking you up but i just can't bare to hear you screaming and so upset.

A friend showed me this poem today and I like it so much that I thought I would share it with you here perhaps one day you will have children and this poem will come to mind.

I hope my child looks back on today
and remembers a Mum who had time to play
There will be years for cleaning and cooking
But children grow up when we are not looking
.........Cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow
Cos babies grow fast, we learn to our sorrow
So settle down cobwebs, dust go to sleep
I'm cuddling my baby, and babies don't keep

Too often there seems to be so much that needs to be done and some days I find that I feel like I have spent no time with you because i was doing housework, shopping, cooking or studying, on those days I feel so sad and don't want to put you to bed, on those days I just want to hold you while you sleep and watch you beautiful little face as you smile and giggle in your sleep. I hope that one day you will get to experience this love, get to know what it is like to have a little person of your own that is made off you. Since having you it seems as though my world has shrunk and you are my world yet at the same time my world has grown so big that there is not enough room in the universe to contain my love for you.

Sleep well little man, tomorrow I look forward to holding you and playing with you and telling you how much I love you.

Mummy