End of year report

So Saskia's first year has come to a close, with a flurry of family visits, away breaks, her first Christmas and - of course - the big first birthday at the very end of December.

The month started with a welcome few days away down in Devon with our friends the Steeles, including Sassy's fellow 11-month-old Elsie. We stayed at a lovely cottage on a farm, out in the middle of nowhere, about an hour's drive from Exmoor. Sassy spent the first evening unpacking her bags, before we settled into a slightly ad-hoc few days of trying to fit in an hour or two out and about in between random naps and mealtimes, and before it got dark...



We did manage a few walks though, and Sassy was notably better behaved in her rucksack than when we were in the Dolomites in the summer. She even posed for a photo with Elsie.



We followed this with two successive weekends visiting our families. Firstly we were off again to Cambridge for Naomi's birthday. After the usual feast on Saturday night, we went to walk it off on Sunday morning at Wimpole Hall.



The next weekend we went across to Kent to stay with the Butchers for the night. The weather wasn't great so instead of doing something outdoors we risked our sanity at the nearby Fun Drum, where a friend of James was having his birthday party. While the older kids rampaged around the main play area, Saskia and Ryan took shelter in the toddlers' section. Despite being barged off a few toys by older children (welcome to the real world) Sas still seemed to have a grand time.



Back in Cheltenham, Saskia started to spend longer days at nursery with a full 9-5 stint on Wednesdays, allowing her mum to prepare for her upcoming translation exam - and to clear up after Sas! As you can see in the picture at the Fun Drum, she has also steadily been pulling herself up to standing, although still for now clinging on to the sofa/bed/Daddy's legs for dear life.

Towards the end of November, Tim took a week off work and had the opportunity to go and watch Wendy and (in particular) Sas swimming at her lesson on Tuesday afternoon. After months of hearing "round in a circle and UP in the air" whenever we ventured near water, it was edifying to see the rhyme in context as Saskia and her fellow water babies enjoyed their various ducking and diving maneouvres. Needless to say, Sas was so distracted playing up to Daddy and his camera that she seemed to forget most of her carefully-crafted moves - but we'll give her the benefit of the doubt.



From there on it was a steady countdown to Christmas, starting with the Nelson Thornes kiddy Xmas party early in December. Sas enjoyed crawling through ball pools and watching puppet shows - and stared at Father Chris(Powley)mas suspiciously, even when he gave her a present.



There was still time to have some more friends to stay before Xmas itself, and Pete, Clare, Sarah and Simone (and their son Leo) obliged by coming for a festive reunion with obligatory big Sunday slap-up lunch at the Horse & Groom in Upper Oddington.

Sas meanwhile gained an early Christmas present in her own beanbag armchair which matches her bedrom curtains (fittingly given they're in different rooms). She's been showing more and more interest in bedtime stories - so now has the ideal place to catch up on her reading!



And so Christmas itself came, which saw us in Cambridge on the 24th and 25th this year, so Sas could get her first taste of the Weiss Xmas Tree decoration ritual, before the traditional bingeing on food, not to mention masses of presents. She got lots of lovely gifts to play with - although by mid-afternoon she'd had enough of the whole thing and conked out on her Mum's lap.



The next day we decamped to Hitchin to join forces with Butchers, Larsens and Drivers-to-be for another blow-out meal. Saskia got into the spirit with paper hat and all at lunchtime, before tearing through her second wave of Xmas presents, and running amok round West Hill with her two cousins.



A few days later came Sas' birthday and the end of a very exciting first year! We were still at the Larsens, and our daughter was able to enjoy her third round of presents within a week. Pride of place went to a brilliant walker-come-car from Granny and Grandpa which Sassy has since been enthusiastically pushing round the house, wobbling along behind it as she gets used to the idea of life on two feet.



We finally made it back in one piece (and substantially overfed) to Cheltenham. The last knees-up of the season came on New Year's Eve, when Edmund, Em and Hannah came to see in 2008 with us. We made it out on New Year's Day to the Races at long last, where Tim lost all his bets, Wendy won most of hers, and Sassy spent all day studying the form guide.

Here's hoping we all have a lucky 2008!

Creepy crawly

September and October have rolled on by, as what there was of summer drizzled its way into autumn. Saskia has also moved on during this time - literally, as she has finally worked out how to crawl around the house, leaving her parents desperately playing catch-up to stop her climbing into the washing machine or anywhere else equally unsuitable. She has also at long last got some teeth!

At nursery, Sas has started spending three mornings a week with her new pals in the Baby Suite. This means that Tim can take her into Circus on the way to work - a very convenient way to get into the educational mindset before arriving at the office! She seems to have taken to the extra time there very well, in fact seems much happier there now she actually has a chance of recognising the place from one visit to the next. She's getting all sorts of opportunities to show off her creativity and has brought home several works of art already - quite abstract in style it has to be said, but there's no denying the quality.

Sas has still been going swimming weekly, albeit in a different pool while the normal location has been out of action following the flood. As this new pool isn't warm enough, the babies have had to wear mini-wetsuits. Very fetching too, even if they make them so buoyant that swimming underwater is even more of a challenge than usual.

She was able to show her swimming off again when we went for a luxurious short break for Wendy's birthday to Calcot Manor in Tetbury - not far away but still far enough for us to get hideously lost on the way there and almost run out of petrol! After this seamless start, the hotel soon lived up to its reputation as blissfully baby-friendly, with a fully-trained crèche staff and a baby-listening service to allow you to have your dinner in peace. We made the most of both with a slap-up birthday meal followed by a relaxing morning in the spa while Sas made some new acquaintances in the crèche.

At the end of September Saskia had her nine-month check which confirmed that everything was in fine working order - she is bang on average weight, although in the top 25% for height: not sure where she gets this from... To celebrate we went to have a lovely lunch near Oxford with Weiss grandparents, Naomi and her new boyfriend Sam.

In amidst all this, Sas has steadily been perfecting her crawling technique. She started off with what we affectionately call the "wounded soldier" move, where she drags herself across the floor at quite a pace but without moving her legs much. This has now developed into a fully-fledged crawl on all fours, so the time has come to bolt everything down and baby-proof Laventie!

October saw us catching up with several friends with new (or relatively new) babies. We went down to Surrey to stay with the Taylors first, to meet little Isaac and see how Annabel and Alastair are finding parenthood. Sas showed them what to expect nine months down the line by crawling merrily around their living room and delighting in opening and shutting the doors.

Then just a week later Sophie, Dan and Phoebe came to see us in Cheltenham - so we took the opportunity to have several pub lunches nearby, with both babies winning over nearby diners with their best butter-wouldn't-melt expressions. Dan and I also babysat the two while Soph and Wendy went shopping - OK, OK, so there was the football and rugby on in the background, but this was of course just happy coincidence...

Last but not least surrogate Aunties Caroline and Ems Vaudrey popped in for a cup of tea en route to see their own Auntie. Sas was a bit shy after just waking up but soon obligingly sat on laps and posed for photos - she's getting quite used to this now!

And finally, the last guest appearance these two months has been from Saskia's first two teeth. She's been showing all the right kind of symptoms to suggest these were on their way for ages, so we were relieved to see the evidence at last. We've immediately (of course) started brushing her teeth now that they're there, which Sas finds pretty amusing and quite tasty too - not sure whether she's got the point here just yet... So she's now got a cheerful big grin with her lone two teeth: surely the perfect look for Halloween!

Sitting pretty

August has been another busy month in Saskia's life, which has seen sitting as the most notable running theme. That's sitting as in Sas beginning to sit up, but also sitting in her baby rucksack, sitting in her new high chair, and not to mention being babysat again by Pat!

It all started with an exciting week on holiday in the Dolomites in North Italy with the Weiss side of the family. Sas is of course a travel veteran after her trip to Corsica, so the whole flight experience was fairly straightforward. This time round she was transfixed by the safety demonstration and info card - a model passenger! Having brought our own car seat this time (rather than risk ending up with another one looking like it was from 1970s East Germany) the drive from Milan to Völs am Schlern was hot but comfy for Sas.

Once there we soon settled into our rented villa and got into a healthy daily routine of walks in and around Völs and the nearby Völser Weiher lake, balanced out by a decidedly unhealthy intake of Eiskaffees and apple strudel.

Highlights included:

• Sas showing off her swimming skills to an admiring public in the lake
  
• getting lost on the way to see frescos in a pretty old church
  
• walking across the rather windy Seiseralm meadow with a grumpy Sas in tow wearing her mum's top as improvised trousers to keep warm


• taking a cable car up to the spectacular Geislergruppe peaks, and then getting attacked by a herd of cows as we ate our lunch.

Most of this saw Sas perched in her newly-acquired baby rucksack - which was basically successful until whenever she started dropping off, when she'd usually wake herself up with a start as she bumped against Daddy's shoulder.

After a sunny week it was all over too soon and we were back in the disaster-zone of Gloucestershire to sympathise (probably rather unconvincingly) as we heard of the plight of all our friends who hadn't been able to wash or drink for two weeks without having to go up the hill to fetch a pail of water first. Auntie Di and Uncle Matt came to visit for long weekend to help us collect water from bowsers, and in return we took them to Stratford to see Henry IV (pt 2) while Pat came round in Mary Poppins mode to babysit.

Saskia saw quite a lot more of her friends and family through the rest of the month. Alise, Matt, Amelie and Isaac dropped by for a picnic from their nearby holiday home in the Malverns. Two of Sas' contemporaries had parties of one sort or another - we went for a day trip to Jack Worrell's christening in Watford, and at the end of the month joined in little Joe Crawley's naming ceremony in Hitchin. Sas saw her grandparents, aunties, uncles and cousins over the bank holiday weekend, squeezing in time in both Herts and Cambs. We also went for lunch in Cambridge with Sophie and Dan, and met baby Phoebe for the first time. Sas always gets very over-excited when she sees other babies now, and enjoyed meeting and man-handling Phoebe too.

Finally, August saw the delivery of a spanking new high chair with a grinning yellow teddy bear face on the seat. Sas sits happily in the chair, looking fascinatedly at her shadow on the floor and occasionally even eating what she's offered - now an increasingly diverse menu ranging from puréed veg to lumpy beef stew!

Water, water everywhere...

July has been a month of steady progress for Saskia - more swimming, more eating, more nursery and more seeing friends and family left, right and centre. It also had a distinctly wet last week as the mighty Chelt burst its banks after days of rain, and turned the town upside down for a chaotic fortnight. Fortunately Sas' world wasn't badly affected, even if baths became a bit of a rarity for several days...

Saskia started off the month getting a taster of the exciting world of big kids (well, relatively speaking) at Hannah Wilson's first birthday in London. Quite a busy few hours for Sas trying to avoid being trampled on by the cosmopolitan Kensington & Chelsea NCT baby contingent as they showed how good most of them are at walking, opening presents, not to mention reorganising the Wilson living room. She found it a bit safer being held by her mum instead! At least the next day she got a go on Hannah's baby walker (see below).

Swimming classes have been carrying on weekly, with Sas getting more and more confident as she gets used to the trauma of her mum splashing her in the face - part of the lesson incidentally, not just Wendy getting frustrated. Unfortunately the last lesson of the month was cancelled following the floods as the swimming pool sank underwater (!), so Sas is waiting to test her new-found paddling skills somewhere else. We'll see if her holiday at the end of the month helps on this front.



She's been continuing to eat well, showing this off to Auntie Naomi when she came to visit early July. Cauliflower cheese is the latest favourite, and although we've taken the precaution of trussing her up head to toe in a giant bib she's not half as messy an eater as we feared - famous last words of course.

Granny and Grandpa also came to visit, just in time to have their grandparenting skills put to the test while Wendy was taken over by an urgent translation job! The three of us stretched our legs round rainy Cheltenham on several walks wheeling Sas around Pittville Park and Battledown leaving Wendy at home to work.



And finally to Cheltenham's semi-biblical flood of the 20th July. Wendy and Sas firstly got drenched in the rain as they went into town to get hold of the last few bits and bobs for our holiday, after which they turned up at nursery looking like a pair of drowned rats. A few hours later, Tim was on pickup duty and found himself literally coming through hell and high water on his way to the nursery - well, a flooded NT carpark, some Dr Foster-on-his-way-to-Gloucester-sized puddles and an improvised ford across Old Bath Road. Sas waited patiently at Circus contemplating putting her swimming skills to good use to get home, but fortunately things didn't quite come to this and we all got home safely.

Miraculously, while most of the rest of town was out of running water, Harp Hill seemed to have its own private supply and we were able to keep on washing etc for a few more days. Sas had to be washed in the basin though, as we had to fill the bath to use as our emergency supply! We didn't have to use the infamous bowsers - or not immediately at least.

So our holiday to the Dolomites came just in time, when our water did finally run out on the 26th. We packed up the car once again and set off gratefully to the airport looking forward to some welcome sunshine and (hot) showers.

Hip hip purée!

What a busy month Saskia has had! Since coming back from holiday she has gone to and fro across the country several times, eaten her first meals, learnt to swim underwater (kind of) and has gone to nursery for the first time.



Sas has seen her family quite a bit in this month. Firstly Gran and Grandad Weiss came to stay over the second May bank holiday weekend, when it rained almost continuously! We had a nice dinner though indoors as Sas slept peacefully upstairs, and went out to the pub in Lower Oddington for lunch the next day - the same pub Sas went to when she was a few weeks old in fact, although now she's twice the size.

Shortly afterwards Wendy took her on a three-day expedition to Hitchin to clear out her old bedroom. After a marathon six-hour journey through horrendous traffic (including an emergency feed on the hard shoulder), the two young ladies got safely to West Hill, where they then received multiple visits from surrogate aunties bearing gifts. After a few days of not knowing what to do with all these unbroken nights' sleep, life got back to normal for Daddy once more when W&S got home again, having visited Nicky and baby Jack in Watford en route.



No sooner than they were home, we went off to Rickmansworth for the weekend to stay with Pete and Clare. This was back in the glory days of when we thought we were in for a nice summer, so we all had a lovely few sunny days in their garden and around the parks and shops of Ricky. We also saw Sarah and Simone and their baby Leo for dinner on the Friday night. The only downer was Tim having to go bleary-eyed and hung over to a meeting on the Saturday morning in London - not sure how convincing I was talking about Economics in these circumstances.

The following Friday marked an exciting step for both mother and daughter as Sas started going to nursery. Only one half day a week for now, but a big event for everyone nonetheless. After her first afternoon at the Circus, the staff generously said she had been "a bit unsettled" which - reading between the lines - probably means she spent most of the time in tears... On the plus side, she seems to have got to know the entire staff from being passed round for a cuddle to cheer her up, and they couldn't stop saying how cute she is!

Seeing as we couldn't let a few days go by without introducing Sas to something else new, the next week saw her moving onto solid foods for the first time. Or almost solid, that is. She has now already gone through virtually the full menu of purée options - carrot, potato, courgette, broccoli and sweet potato, and that was all before the end of June! Sas seems to prefer her veg to her fruit for now, and enthusiastically grabs the spoon as it comes her way, sticks it and her thumb in her mouth at the same time and soon gets mushy veg smeared all over herself, Mummy, the table etc.



We were off to Cambridge later in the month to see the grandparents again, admiring the blooming gardens at Lansdowne Road and Clare College. This was one of the few nights when Sas has lulled us into a false sense of security by sleeping through from 7 till 7 - don't worry, she soon realised how ridiculous an idea this was and has resorted back to her usual 7-11-4-7 routine. She also wowed Gran and Grandad with her eating prowess, while splattering their kitchen with semi-liquid courgette...

Finally, at the end of June Sas had her first proper "Waterbabies" swimming lesson - having dipped her toe in the water (!) in Corsica and with the NCT crowd at the Leisure Centre. The teacher wasted no time and dunked Saskia and the other babies underwater before they realised what was happening. Sas and her friend Elliott (Seonaid's son) were the big rowdy kids of the class, splashing about while the younger babies cowered in the shallow end.

What an action-packed month then - July will see us go on holiday again though, so Sas won't be getting bored in the near future!

Like a duck to water

In May Saskia ventured outside the UK for the first time in her short life, as we went off on our hols to Corsica with the Wilsons for a week.



Having booked our villa in Porto Vecchio in advance, we set off on the 13th to Birmingham airport, laden with six times our usual amount of baggage! Makes a change from just grabbing a rucksack as we head out the door I suppose. We checked in at the airport nice and early and wheeled Sas up to the departure gate where we were able to hand over the pushchair and carry her onboard. Once on the plane she was as good as gold and actually slept most of the two hour journey - not even crying when she did wake up.

Once we arrived in Corsica and got out of the airport, we were given a comfy Megane hire car - but things weren't so hot with the baby seat, which turned out to be 653 years old and to require a PhD in engineering to fit to the car. Undeterred we drove off down the coast to Porto Vecchio a couple of hours away telling Sas to "grip fast" all the way.

We got to the villa easily enough, although were then stumped as the owners didn't materialise to let us in for a good hour. It then transpired that it had been open all along - zut alors! But we weren't disappointed by the house itself - ludicrously luxurious with a beautiful pool area overlooking the river and trees, a huge living room with giant TV screens everywhere, big kitchen, lovely main bedroom and shower with water jets to buffet us from every direction.



The Wilsons soon arrived and we all settled in for our week ahead. Which was a lovely, relaxing and sunny time. Sas seemed to enjoy it hugely. Her most exciting new experience (apart from the funny lingo and seeing her Dad in his trunks) was no doubt going swimming for the first time. She donned a colourful swimming hat and waterproof nappy and then happily floated round the pool in an inflatible armchair while we followed her round ready to intervene at any moment. But no need to worry: Sas took to swimming like the proverbial duck to water.



Her other swimming excursion was in a much bigger pool - the Mediterranean to be precise! We went to the nearest beach once earlier on in the week, but the wind was up and Sas found being blown in the face not that much fun and suggested we should go home instead.



So a few days later we went back to Santa Giulia when it was a bit calmer. Saskia sported her sunhat and dress on her own lounger (see below), and then went for a dip in the sea for ten minutes or so, by which time she was a bit bemused by the whole thing but still sportingly putting up with her parents' determination to get her wet.



We shared babysitting a few times with the Wilsons, although while Hannah didn't make a sound when Ed & Em were gone, we were hastily summoned back from our evening out to a yelling Saskia - who had woken up to find that not only was she in a strange room in a strange house in a strange country, but Maman and Papa were nowhere to be seen either! So we scoffed our main courses and rushed back to look after Mademoiselle. Fortunately on our last evening all the grown-ups were able to go out, and Sas was well-behaved enough that we didn't get any emergency phone calls from the babysitter.

At the end of seven warm days that rushed past ridiculously quickly, we made our way sadly back to Birmingham and then Cheltenham. And just for good measure decided to leave a bag with most of Saskia's clothes on the transfer bus - zut alors encore une fois! Luckily she had grown out of most of them...

You put your right foot in...

May has now arrived, and as spring fast becomes summer Saskia is continuing to grow and develop as quickly - if not quite as chaotically - as our front garden.

The last month has included both Easter and the first May bank holiday so in a short space of time Sas has been able to see her entire extended family. Over the Easter weekend the Weisses came to stay. This entailed our rather brave trip to Stratford to see King Lear while Naomi held the fort back in Cheltenham, after our months of strategic preparation and stocking up on emergency milk rations. All went well and we came back to a peacefully sleeping babe. If only I’d managed to stay awake all the way through the play it would’ve been an 100% successful evening, but you can’t have everything.



We followed this up with a trip to Hitchin for the Larsen Easter gathering – where we ate outside in the sunshine, roll on global warming etc. – so Saskia could see her other grandparents, Matt, Diana, Tracey, John, James and Ryan all in one go. Sas smiled at everyone merrily and the only downside was that (looking down proudly at our daughter bent double in her carrycot) we came to the rather overdue conclusion that she is getting a bit big for her little shoebox of a cot. Time was when she was dwarfed by it, now though she has graduated to true Weiss pedigree with her feet sticking out the end...

So once we returned home Sas made the transition to the full-size cotbed which has been waiting for her since her birth. And all went remarkably smoothly, with none of our fears of how badly she might take the move realised at all.

A few weeks later Auntie Catherine was over from deepest darkest South America on a conference, so we met up with her and Naomi in Oxford for a lovely picnic in the New College Gardens. Unseasonably warm once again, so we were able to lounge around in the sunshine trying to keep Saskia amused. Her aunties helped out brilliantly on this front as can be seen below.



Come the second bank holiday, the Butchers came to stay again. Saskia and Ryan got to know each other a bit better (Ryan did get his hand back eventually), and James played big brother/cuz to both very well when he wasn't thrashing the pants off his uncle on the Gamecube. OK, OK, so it was a nice excuse to get some gaming in for the first time in months - but hey, I'm just trying to entertain my relatives at the end of the day.



James posed for loads of pictures too, although he was somehow out-gurned in this one by me.



Last but most definitely not least, Sas managed one more feat, or should we say feet!!, this month - discovering how tasty her toes are! This started in the bath but soon she was contorting herself on the changing mat, in her cot and anywhere else it seemed like a fun idea. Amazing stuff - at least if she doesn't become a nuclear scientist she might have a career in the circus.

Shake rattle and roll

Another month goes by in the life of Saskia and here she is the end of her first quarter. Every week brings something new now so things are continually exciting, and just when we feel we've got used to one new trick then another one comes along just behind.



As hinted by this month's title, the two big events in recent times have been (in reverse order) Saskia grasping and shaking things, and rolling from side to side and even all the way over too. The rolling started a few weeks back as she began to kick her legs about in the air when lying on her rug, then soon discovered that with a slight wiggle of the hips - presto! - she would roll over on to her side. More proof that she might be left-handed - not only does she usually suck her left thumb, but she virtually always rolls on to her left side too. Unfortunately the latter sometimes makes the former a bit tricky, but Sas carries on undeterred.

A few times she has gone 180 degrees onto her front, only to discover that this isn't really so much fun, making it very clear that please can she be turned back again PDQ. A few times she has stayed content long enough to pose for a picture (see below), and she is steadily getting used to life the other way up. As she starts reaching out it makes us think she might yet become a crawler in months to come...



...which brings us to the grasping/rattling/shaking side of things. As is normal Sas has always squeezed our fingers when given them to hold, but this hasn't been much more than a simple reflex until recently. Oddly this coincided with Naomi giving her a rattle which says "Sassy" on the label, and as if by magic she started reaching out and trying to pick it up last weekend. When given it to hold she then started shaking it like a seasoned percussionist (see pic below). One week on, if you try to hand her anything she's right onto it and trying to grab it - and usually then plonk it in her mouth. I see trouble ahead - time to baby-proof the house perhaps?



Easter weekend is upon us now, and the Weisses are all coming to stay, and - drum roll - we are going out all the way to Stratford for Saturday evening, leaving Naomi to babysit and feed her niece with (yes!) a bottle. After a week or so of reacting like we were trying to force-feed her castor oil, she's finally realised that this is the same stuff she's been drinking since birth, and is getting used to this just in time.

Even more exciting - six weeks down the line she'll be going on her first holiday, a trip to Corsica with the Wilsons. And we'll probably be investing in a few new suitcases to fit in all Sassy's wipes, suncreams, pink outfits, pushchairs, vanity cases, deckchair, lilo etc. etc.

The rule of thumb

Saskia is nine weeks old today! This is the first time I've found time to write up the blog, and for the first time there's a bit more to talk about than just her sleep patterns and family visits (however welcome these are!). So first up, at about 5/6 weeks old our daughter started smiling. We had spent weeks dismissing this as wind or it had only happened in her sleep - who knows quite why - so when it became clear she was genuinely grinning at us it was quite a special moment.



Secondly, and OK this is sleep patterns again, but she has now seamlessly started going to bed without any objection at all. Famous last words of course, but ever since the evening several weeks back when Wendy kissed Sas goodnight and walked out her room without for once summoning the bedtime jukebox (i.e. me), she's settled herself to sleep all by herself. And there was I thinking my nightly Police/Beatles/U2 medley (to name but three) was helping...

Thirdly, and this has been the biggest factor in Saskia getting herself off to sleep, her mouth has finally found her thumb (and vice-versa). For weeks we've been watching her wave her hand past her mouth in frustration, sticking fingers in randomly, then taking them out again and wondering who's to blame. But at last she's managed it - albeit in a slightly unnatural position where the rest of her fingers are more or less up her nose. And it keeps her, and us, very happy for ages.

Fourthly, she can obviously see much further now as she'll quite happily kick back on her activity mat or furry rug and spend ages staring round the room. Her choice of what she stares at (e.g. the wall) is sometimes a bit baffling but again it keeps her quiet and happy which is definitely a good thing.



Finally - visitors in the last month have included the Weiss grandparents coming to see her before they migrate to Cape Town for the winter. We managed a whole Sunday lunch in the pub in Upper Oddington with Saskia asleep in her carseat which was a first! And ten days ago, the other newborns from our NCT class (from left: Evie, Sam and Paddy) plus their parents came over so we could compare nippers - and the mums could go to the pub for an hour! In the meantime we staged the very amusing photo below. As you can see Sas is becoming quite the natty dresser.



Today at nine weeks Saskia had her first set of vaccinations, but despite feeling a bit sore is sleeping peacefully upstairs as I type - fingers crossed...

I'm sure the next month will be even more action-packed - watch this space as ever!