Give the boy a hand!

Cooper has found his hands – but not to look at. The first time we put a rattle in his hand and he held onto it, he held it for about ten minutes, and was so excited with the noise he was making.

Cooper has never had his dummy in bed at home, and during the month discovered the taste of his fingers. Whenever he is tired his fingers go in his mouth, with a loud sucking sound – pretty impressive during the quiet times at church! When we put him into bed or if he wakes up early, you can hear his loud sucking noises. His favourite fingers are his middle and ring finger of his right hand, but he’ll suck on any finger that is close, and often has red marks on his fingers from sucking so hard. My mum keeps trying to take his fingers out of his mouth saying "You can throw a dummy out, but not fingers", but we'll figure out how to stop him when he's a bit older - not just now. Not long after his fingers, he found that if things were close enough to his mouth, he could lick them, including toys, clothes, and his favourite – bibs.

Sometime during the month Cooper stopped crying as much on the change table, partly due to a Noah’s Ark mobile that we borrowed from Aunty Beccy. Bath time is also more pleasant, where Cooper very rarely cries, and he only cries afterwards because he is hungry. He also stopped ‘bobbing for a nipple’, something that he used to do on the shoulder of an unsuspecting person who happened to be holding him when he was hungry.

Cooper - October 2008

We have started to babysit our niece Liana every so often, and I occasionally have to rescue Cooper from his loving one-year-old cousin. One time Liana crawled over to the A-frame play gym that Cooper was lying under, stood up and straddled Cooper holding onto the frame, and I could see what was going to happen and was able to drag Cooper out from Liana as she promptly sat down where his chest had been. When I took the photo of the two of them that you can see in the album, all Liana wanted to do was push Cooper of the couch!

Cooper talks, screeches and coos a lot more, especially when he first wakes up. Sometimes when I put him to bed after his 10.30pm feed he is smiling and talking so much that I worry that he’ll start crying when I turn the light off, but so far, so good. He still hasn’t woken between 11pm and 7am since he was 7 weeks old, and is having three breast feeds and two formula/breastmilk feeds a day.

Cooper started to giggle about halfway through the month, and made everyone smile who heard it in real life or on the camera. It is so funny to hear.

Cooper and I spent more time visiting Poppy in hospital, and Cooper was a real gem. He made so many people there smile, which is what he is best at. One week at church one of our favourite grandmas sat behind us and giggled loudly through most of the service because Cooper was smiling at her – it was so heartwarming to hear!

A great highlight of the month was meeting Aunty Sarah, Uncle Bardie and baby cousin Alison, although it wasn’t under the best circumstances. Cooper loved talking to them and smiling at them, and looks monstrous next to Alison. When we took photos of the two of them, Cooper was so patient while Alison squirmed quite a bit, but it was great to see them together at last.

Little princess

Cooper has a new cousin that we are yet to meet.

Alison Lilly Badenhorst was born on 2 October 2008 at around 1.30pm, weighing 7 pound 8 ounces, and 50cm long, to Adam's sister Sarah and her husband Durr. What was extra special is that Nanny and Poppy were with them in the Hunter Valley in New South Wales to celebrate the birth with them.


Welcome to the family little Ali, and we look forward to meeting you (and seeing all your lovely curly hair) very soon.

The journey begins

On 14 September Cooper was baptised at St Marks Lutheran Church in Melton, where I was one of the first people baptised. Cooper was also the first second-generation child to be baptised into our congregation, and was also the third person baptised in my family for 2008.

My brother Jamie and his wife Rebecca (Beccy) agreed to be Cooper’s godparents, and Cooper was a little angel during the service. I just hope that my brother and sister didn’t annoy the congregation too much with the actions that they were doing to the songs (so, how does the action to the torrent of water go again?!)

It was a very special day for our families, and we were blessed with some extra special guests in the form of Cooper’s great-grandparents Ma Bet and Pa Bob, and Aunty Ale (late Uncle Jeff’s wife), who we hadn’t seen in nearly a year. Grandpa also made a special FaithChest for Cooper to store some of the mementos from his faith journey.

Cooper's Baptism Sept 2008

There were at least 15 people who had said they would come that didn’t actually make it due to illness and other reasons, so we had heaps of food. So much so that my sister-in-law and mum were encouraging everyone to take a plate of left-overs with them, which they successfully did. It was so nice to have a relatively clear fridge after lunch rather than having to eat left-overs for the next week.

May God bless you now and always as you start your journey of faith little man. As I say to you when I give you a kiss and cross your forehead every night before you go to sleep - Cooper, God loves you, and I love you. Amen

Running on air

Not long after my last entry, Cooper seemed to discover his feet. Whenever I laid him down he started to kick non-stop, almost as if he was marching on the spot, or peddling a bicycle.

During September Nanny babysat Cooper for the first time while Adam and I went to the annual Scotia Ball for the pipe band that I play in. Apparently Cooper was pretty boring for Nanny and slept for most of the time, but he did leave his wet (pee) mark on their carpet, as he has done with everyone else’s floors when we have changed him there!

We had our six-week check-up with the doctor and everything is on track. I also took Cooper back for his first needles a couple of weeks later, and I didn’t like having to hold him down while the doctor stuck the needle in, because it felt like he kept there for such a long time (about 5 seconds). Poor Cooper was asleep when the doctor came in with the serum, then he screamed after the needles (I don’t think I’ve seen him go so red before), but then was asleep again within a minute. Nice!

Towards the end of the month Cooper started to sleep consistently from his last night-time feed at 10.30pm until 7am when we start the day. Most times he’d cry at around 5.30am when he heard Adam get up, but he’d go back to sleep again.

Cooper - September 2008

Cooper is a very smiley and happy baby. He coos and makes noises at us a lot, and sticks his tongue out is response to people talking to him. He doesn’t cry very much and I am getting better at working by the different types of cry what the problem is. The first time I blew a ‘raspberry’ on his belly he cried, and the next time he peed on me (I was just about to give him a bath). Whenever we do something different it is awesome just watching his reaction, as he frowns in concentration, and doesn’t seem to know if he should laugh or cry until I smile at him first, after which he gives a huge grin.

I could easily spend all day just holding Cooper and talking to him, but then I'd get nothing done. I am loving watching the changes that we see in him daily and am making the most of it, because he's gonna be big before I know it.

One month of motherhood

I’m not entirely sure what I expected motherhood to be like, but I don’t think I imagined it to be like this. So much washing (how can one baby dirty so many clothes?) and so much time spent feeding (which is the thing I find most restrictive, as I am used to being able to multi-task more than I can now). There are also so many precious times, such as holding your little baby as he snuggles sleepily into you or searches for a non-existent nipple on your shoulder, or having a nap with him. Sometimes I feel that I don’t ever want to put him down.

Cooper and I have spent a lot of time at home during his first month, but we’ve also been out and about doing our shopping, visiting friends and family, going for walks, and going on trips to Melbourne and Ballarat (each one nearly an hour away from us, one east and one west). We’re using the routines in the Contented Little Baby book, and apart from one night when he had a snuffly nose, Cooper has only woken once a night since coming home from the hospital, and has even slept right through from 11.15pm to 7am a couple of times. Despite that, I still feel pretty tired most of the time since Adam needs to be in bed by 9.30 each night before he works, which means that I get about 6 hours sleep most nights. Napping when Cooper naps has helped, but I am constantly tempted to do chores around the house when he’s asleep, which eats into my nap time.

As with most babies, Cooper sometimes ends up in a number of different outfits in any one day. For the most part, he does not like getting changed, and constantly rewards me by peeing on the outfit I have just changed him into. He also rewarded Adam the other night with number ones AND twos whilst he was being changed. I was worried that Adam was going to scare Cooper with the loud outbursts that I could hear coming from the bedroom

August 2008

I love watching the joy on Adam’s face as he holds his little boy and talks to him. At Cooper’s 2-week health check-up we received a bookmark about communicating with babies, and it mentioned that you should use different tones of voice. It makes me laugh whenever I overhear Adam repeating Cooper’s name, first in a deep, gruff voice, then in a high pitched voice, trying to get Cooper’s attention. It doesn’t matter how many times I explain to Adam that he should talk normally to Cooper, he still keeps doing it.

Over the last week Cooper has started to hit the mobile toys under the play gym. He doesn’t look at them, but knows that if he lifts his hands they will hit something that makes a noise. He likes to lay with his head predominantly facing the right, and we are working on getting him to lay the other way, to reduce the flat spot on his head from laying the one way.

Cooper is such a good baby, and when he was having an unsettled night the other night and wouldn’t sleep properly from 7pm – 10.30pm, my Mum commented that he is turning into a ‘real’ baby. The people at church adore him. When he is not asleep there he is very content and everyone comes up to say hello to him after the service. He’ll be baptized into the congregation there on 14 September.

Hope you enjoy the photos for this month. Cooper is changing so fast!

Aren’t first babies meant to be late?

From what I have observed, first babies often arrive after their due date. Not so with our little man. After spending two-and-a-half weeks at home in preparation for the birth, I decided to weed part of the garden on Tuesday 22 July, with the intention of finishing it when the weather was forecast to be clear again, on Thursday or Friday. I think it was the weeding that helped Cooper make his early entrance into the world.

Adam and I had been planning to see The Dark Knight on Adam’s day off on Thursday, and spent Wednesday night watching Batman Begins. When I went to the loo before bed, I felt an extra gush of fluid, and realized that my water had broken. A trip to the hospital confirmed this, but because I was only having Braxton Hicks contractions we were sent home again.

During the night I started to feel a bit of discomfort with the contractions, and consequently didn’t get much sleep. By mid-morning, the contractions started to get painful, so we say that labour really started at around 11am. By mid-afternoon the contractions were starting to get more regular, and I had trouble talking to my friend on the phone during contractions whilst trying not to let on what was happening, because Adam and I had decided not to tell anyone until we were on our way to the hospital.

By 4pm I needed pain relief and Adam took me on the 45 minute trip to the hospital whilst I counted the length and time between contractions. They were 4 minutes apart lasting for 50-70 seconds. After being assessed in the emergency department for an hour, they found that I was 6cm dilated, and finally took me to a birthing suite where I could get some pain relief.

I felt that the gas didn’t help much, but after a little more than an hour in the birthing suite, I felt the need to push, and was horrified when they told me that I couldn’t use the gas any more when I was pushing. After 45 minutes, baby Cooper was placed on my belly, and my first thought was how warm he was, and then, whether it was a boy or girl. When I lifted the cover and saw his ‘bits’ I happily told everyone that it was a boy. He was born at 8.15pm on 24 July.

So, all in all it was a 9 hour labour, and we stayed in hospital for two days. On our way home we took Cooper to meet his Poppy at the nearby Epworth hospital, where he had been after having neurosurgery the prior week. We found out that Poppy Peter’s dad’s mother’s (Cooper's great-grandmother's) maiden name was Cooper, which we hadn’t known about. Pretty amazing.

Baby Cooper

Little Cooper Peter Watson has brought us so much happiness in the short time since we first saw him, and we love him to bits. Stay tuned for more updates on our gorgeous little boy.

To be or not to be a boy or a girl, that is the question.........

I am amazed that nearly every person I have spoken to about being pregnant has asked me whether Adam and I know what we are having. We know that we are having a baby, but we do not know whether it is a boy or girl.

We made the decision fairly early not to find out, although I gave Adam the option so that he could take more time to get used to it, but he said that if he found out that I would be able to tell what it is just by his reaction. Adam is hoping for a girl, so that when it gets old enough to go to public toilets and give the birds and bees talk, that I will have to do it! He seems to think that it is a boy though, seeing that most people in our direct families seem have a boy first.

A lot of people have opinions on what we are having, from doing tricks with wedding rings, to whether I am carrying in front or to to back or side, to whether my skin is oily or dry or whether I have gotten more hairy since falling pregnant. Some people are a bit frustrated that we haven't found out, or they think that we know and just don't want to tell them. They want to buy a gift for the baby before it is born, but don't know what colour to buy. I laugh when I see how frustrated they get, because we want it to be a surprise for everyone.

I've known people that have found out what they are having a long time before the baby is born, and give the baby a name and almost a 'personality' long before the baby makes its debut. I don't want to celebrate this child's life prematurely, and have made the decision not to have a baby shower so that that everyone can celebrate with us even more when we meet the baby for the first time. For now I am just enjoying being pregnant and feeling this life growing within me.

For those of you who are a little impatient, you don't have to wait long now. The baby is due to make its grand entrance in less than three weeks now.