After a long days journey we have made it to our new home here in Townsville. The plane ride was long but I passed the time by making a new friend who lives here. The two of us chatted and played with you all the way here little man. You were a little unsettled tonight, so many new faces and somewhere you don't know I am not surprised you were out of sorts but now you are sound asleep in the portable cot next to me and I'm just about to go to sleep too.

Looking forward to starting our new life here with you when we wake tomorrow.

Mummy

Beautiful little man,
Tonight is our last night in Victoria, we leave here tomorrow morning headed for Queensland to live with Nanna in Townsville. It is a big move and I hope that it will be a good one for us. Daddy will not be with us at first but he will get to our new home as quickly as he can. At this point in time it looks like he will be six to eight weeks before joining us. It makes me sad that we will be away from daddy for so long and I know that we will both miss him as much as he will miss us, hopefully time will pass quickly and we will find ourselves altogether again before we know it. There are so many things I want to do with you in Townsville. I want to take you to swimming and music lessons, take you to the aquarium and explore Townsville with you. I want our life to be different up there, better then it has been here.

The last week had seen us busy packing and getting ready to leave. We have spent lots of time with our friends and in among all the busyness you have been your wonderful beautiful little self full of big smiles and gorgeous giggles. You have cut two more teeth this week , another on the bottom and one on the top and everyday you are getting closer to crawling. You even waved goodbye a couple of times this week you clever little man.

I don't know what the future holds for us little man but what ever it is we will face it together, no matter where we go, who we meet or what we do I will always be here for you.

Love
Mummy.

Friday

My little man we have had a rough week, both of us have had the flu and you have been more unsettled then normal. You have not wanted to feed much, or sleep anywhere but our arms and everytime we have put you down you have screamed. Today the reason for this became clear, your first tooth has cut through the gum. You now have this tiny dot of white that is very sharp and have been trying to chew everything. With your first tooth cutting it really hits me that you are growing up so fast. You are no longer my tiny new born bubba and before I know it you won't be a baby at all but will be up and walking and taking with me, you will have dreams about your future, ideas and thoughts on how things should be and you will be your own person. It's scary to think how quickly time is passing.

With the realization that you are not a little baby anymore but are becoming a bigger baby tonight I had a moment that is almost indefinable. I was holding you, singing sweet lullabies and watching your eyes close as you drifted of to sleep and in that moment I remembered why I wanted you so much and knew that all the sleepless nights, worry and tears are worth every minute I get to spend with you.

I have been trying since your birth to put into words how much I love you and the only thing that comes close is this.
It's like when you first fall in love with someone, everything feels special, everything is heightened and you feel like when you look at them you are looking at the entire universe in miniature, it's beautiful and so fragile that you want to hold it and keep it safe from harm until your dying breath. That's how I feel about you little man. You are my world, my universe. You are part of me made whole and separate and I will protect you anyway I can for as long as I can.

Sweet dreams little man, may you always walk in the light.
Mummy.

My little man I can not belive that three weeks has gone by since the last time I wrote to you. The only reason that I have not written to you was because i have not been well and the medication that I have had to take has been giving me some major side effects.

The last three weeks have been interesting. Daddy and I decided that we want to move to Townsville so that we are in a nicer place and close to nanna and you I leave in ten days to start our new life up there. We are gong to be living with nanna for a while and will just see how things go before we decide if we want to get a house of our own.

You have been taking us on a journey in recent weeks. You are now not just rolling from one place to another but are commando crawling with a vengence. Your first tooth has come through so we have been trying to help you deal with the pain that it has been causing you. You have tried a few new foods, met new people and been taking lots of walks with daddy and I. During the day you have been happy as always but nights have been tough as you have not wanted to go to sleep at all. However the last three nights that has changed and you have been going to sleep fairly easily and starting to sleep for longer periods of time overnight.

I carried you in my womb for ten months and loved you before i had ever met you. Before I ever saw your face you were the most beautiful thing in my world. When I was pregnant with you I dreamt of how our life would be and all the things that we would do together. Life hasn't been quite like I thought it would be as I have been unwell and daddy lost his job but it hasn't been bad either. You however my beautiful little man have been so much more and a much greater happiness in my life then I could ever have dreamt. Your smile lights up my world, your giggle breaks through any clouds that may be hanging over us and when you look at me I melt. I love you little boy and can not wait to start our new life in Townsville together.

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

My beautiful baby boy,
I tell you so often how much I love you I could say over and over every minute of the day and still the words would not come close to the love that I have for you in my heart. I hope that one day you will hold your own baby in your arms and feel the love for them that I have now for you. I hope that your life is full of love and that you learn to love and be loved without reserves, without holding back or attaching conditons to that love. It is my greatest wish for you little man that one day you find somebody to share your life with, to love and to love you. I beleive that when you really love someone and they love you together you can get through anything that this world might throw at you.

I love you little man and always will.
Mummy

This time six months ago I had just given birth and was holding you for the first time my little man. I couldn't take my eyes of you for hours after giving birth to you and even now today I still spend a lot of time just watching you and thinking how beautiful you are and how lucky your daddy and I are to have you. I wouldn't change a thing in my life if it meant that there was a risk that I would not have had you. My light in the darkness, the reason I am trying to make my life a better place is for you. You make me want to be the best that I can be and to teach you that anything in life is possable, afterall we were told that we would never have you.

Happy six months little man, may the next six months bring us even more joy then the last have.

Dear Samuel,

Sometimes I wish that I could slow down the passing of time or even stop it just for a little while so that I can enjoy this time for as long as I want rather then feeling like if I blink I will miss something and you will be all grown up. Then I remember how much I enjoy watching you learn new things and take notice of the world around you, how much I love the way that you now snuggle into because you want to, not because you don't have any control over your body but because you want to snuggle with me. I am enjoying watching you grow, and wondering what sort of man you are going to be in years to come but I am a little sad that time is passing so quickly.

This week you have really made devlopmental leaps, you suddenly have a desire to do things for yourself and have snatched the bottle/spoon/cup out of my hands to try and do it yourself a few times. You are now rolling from your stomach to your back more often though still not all the time and today you started drinking from a sippy cup. You show more interest in your toys now and are picking them up, looking at them, banging them around and throwing them as far as you can. You are a happy baby most of time, full of giggles and smiles with the only exception being when you are tired. When you are tired you get very grizzly and still fight going to sleep.

Right now we have attempted to put you to bed five times and each time has ended up in tears, yours and almost mine. I don't know why you don't want to sleep little man and I want to figure it out so that are happy and playful during the day rather then grizzly.

Another week gone little man but again we have not done much. It is winter in Victoria and here in the valley where we live it has been very cold, too cold to go out and do anything and to cold to do much more then curl up in front of the heater or under a doona to keep warm. We have been reading lots of storys and chatting to you lots as well. You are becoming more and more vocal every day making more and more sounds and sometimes it even sounds as though you are trying to copy the words we are saying to you. Your new trick for this week is to blow raspberrys and bubbles at daddy and I as often as you can.

The one thing we did do this week was take a walk to the shops to buy you a booster seat. You are eating so well now and are eating three meals a day that i decided it was time for you to have a proper place to eat so we bought you a fisher price boost chair that makes one of our normal chairs into a high chair for you. You love your new chair and love the play tray that comes with it, every meal time you get so excited the moment i put you in your chair and its almost a fight to get you to concentrate on your food. This week we tried two new foods. You had oatmeal which you pulled a face at but loved it when it was mixed with a little banana and you also had peas which you gobbled down so quickly. It makes me so happy that you enjoy your food. Friends of ours have trouble getting their bub to eat anything that is not sweet but you love everything we try to give you. I hope that as you grow up I am able to teach you the importance of a good diet, I want you to enjoy a huge range of foods and not just reach for the easy to cook foods or the foods that are high in fat, sugar or salt. I want you to know that if you eat the right foods that it will help you to remain healthy and full of energy and that foods that are good for you to not have to be boring. I want you to be able to enjoy the taste of what ever it is you are eating without having to cover it in salt or sugar. Don't get me wrong, there is a place in life for sweets and junk food, they are yummy and fun to enjoy sometimes but not as a every day thing. My big rule when it comes to food is that everything is okay in moderation. I hope to teach you this as you get older.

Love you little man
Mummy

Dear Samuel,
Time gets passing, the world keeps spinning and you keep growing and learning. This week you have been so full of smiles. Everyday you have smiled, gurgled, cooed and gaaed and giggled at daddy and I, at strangers, at the cats and anything and nothing, sometimes I wonder if the fairys are teasing you and that's why your giggling like mad. Your giggle is music to my ears, it doesn't matter how I am feeling when I hear you giggle I smile and if you giggle lots I end up laughing too. You have been such a happy baby this week (at least during the daylight hours, night and bedtime is another story) and your happiness has made me happy.

You practiced some new things this week too, you have rolled from your stomach to your back a few times (although most of the time you lay on your stomach and scream until we place you on your back once again.) and you have even started to caterpilla crawl across you playmat. You want to move and are getting so frustrated that you are unable to go where you want. I really don't think it will be long before you begin to crawl.

At five months old you have a pet, he is a beautful fluffy kitten who you love to watch play and stroke his fur, most of the time you are so good with him and gentle stroke, only occassionaly do you grap fistfuls of his fur but he loves you and is so patient that when you do grap a fistful he doesn't even turn around and scratch you. Quite often when you are on mine or daddy's lap or even in your chair you kitten climbs up and curls up next to you too. It is so special to see and I am so glad that you already like animals and that they already like you little man. Animals are special, they make great friends and if nobody else seems to be around or if you need to talk to someone but don't want anyone to know your secrets, animals will always listen and will never ever tell anyone the things you spoke to them about.

Anyway little man it is late and time for me to go and get some sleep, we are going out tomorrow to meet some new people and hopefully make some new friends and then on Saturday I am having my birthday party.

I love you little man, more then all the stars in the sky, more then all the grains of sand on earth. I love you more today then I did yesterday but not as much as I will love you tomorrow. No matter what happens in life never ever forget that your mummy and daddy love you and feel blessed that you are in their lives. You were a gift from the gods and one that we will always cherish.

Little man, you are five months old today and growing bigger ever day it seems. You are now almost sitting up on your own and only needing a little support, your getting better at rolling and while you are yet to roll from your stomach to your back again you are getting closer all the time. You are getting better at spending a little bit of time on your own too and I find I am often able to put you down on your playmat while I have something to eat or visit the bathroom. These days when you wake up in your cot you play with your Elle and your Scout for a little while before crying to get up. We bought you scout last week and he is now your favorite toy, if you can't see him from where ever you are you cry until we bring him within your line of sight. Scount is a stuffed dog that talks to you and sings to you and you are delighted with him. When I turn him on and you hear the woof woof hello Samuel your face lights up with the biggest smile and at night when we put you to bed and set scout to lullabye function as soon as you hear him say 'snuggle up Samuel' you close your eyes and stare stroking him with your hand. It is so very cute.

Again I haven't posted here in a little while but thats only because nothing has been happening. We have spent a lot of time at home since we got back from nanna's trying to keep out of the cold. After being in the nice warm weather of Townsville it feels freezing here and nighttime tempretures are getting close to freezing at 7.30am on Sunday morning it was actaully getting down to minus 2 degrees and we were snuggled up under a doona while you had your morning bottle trying to keep warm.

Speaking of bottles we are currntly trying you on goats milk formula again as you started refusing the special formula from the doctors (not that I can blame you with how bad it smells) we are hoping that now your little digestion system has had a little time more time to mature that your problems with lactoseat least will be better and so far after four days back on goats milk you seem to be going well and have not had a reaction to it. You are eating more and more now and are still loving your food. So far you have tried rice cereal, avacado, sweet potato and pear. Today you tried banana mixed with your rice cereal for the first time, you didn't seem to like it all that much but i'm not sure if that is because you were already full from your sweet potato.

This weekend just gone you attending two birthday parties, one for dads friends little girl Jess and the first birthday party for Stephs little girl who we see often Nina. Every made comments as they always do on how handsome you are and how you are a very cute little baby and how good you were because you didn't cry much at all.

I can not beleive how much you have grown in five months, yesterday I was putting away some of the tiny baby clothes you wore when we first got home and could not beleive that you were ever that small but you were that small and not all that long ago. As we were laying together in bed the other night keeping each other warm the thought suddenly hit me that women and children have been in just that position for thousands of years, mother and baby sleeping together for warmth and comfort and I suddenly felt connected to all those women who have gone before me. It was such as amazing feeling for me to know that I am connected into this bug web of mothers that spans history and that you are the point connecting me to this web. Life is so much better with you in it then it ever was before you were born. Thank you little man for changing my life is such a dramtic but good way. I love you and always will.

Mummy