10 months old

This is one of the official photos taken at Carl and Ella's nursery last month. They really do love being there and I think this photo shows that very well. Last week we received their first 'school report' from the nursery. Both are coming along well and meeting age-specific targets. It was interesting though to read on Ella's report about how much she enjoys seeing and playing with her brother. Carl's report didn't mention anything of the kind!

It's been another month of sicknesses unfortunately. A stomach bug did the rounds, hitting Ella first but just for a day. Carl unfortunately spent 10 days vomiting quite nastily to the point where we had to return to the hospital as he wasn't keeping down liquids at all. As is always the case, that was the point at which things began to change and he started to improve. The never-ending cough and cold is still making its presence felt and eyes, noses and ears are all full of discharge as a result. We are hoping the ear drops will help before the babies' first flight next week to Sweden. 

Weights and Milestones (oh and some selfies as apparently there haven't been many pictures of Mum in this blog so far)

Carl is now 7.4 kg / 16lbs 7oz This is great news as his first weight gain since April and we are hoping this will continue. Although in the picture above he was looking very scrawny, he is now back to having chubby pinchable cheeks again :-) He has dropped down to below the 9th percentile so we need to keep focused on building him up and finding ways to add calories.

Carl sits up on his own much better now and reaches for his toys. He often ends up face down on his tummy though. He used to scream like crazy when this happened but now he is quite happy staying down and rolling over to reach things. He makes crawling movements with both his arms and legs but not at the same time yet. He has started sleeping on his front in the last week or so which I think is helping him with his reflux issues at night. Bumpers have now been removed from the cot to prevent him from using them to pull himself up as he is constantly wriggling and trying to climb everywhere.

Carl has 5 teeth now, 3 on top and 2 below. 

Ella is now 8.32 kg / 18lbs 5oz This puts her just above the 50th percentile so she's done incredibly well considering she hovering around the 9th for quite sometime. It's funny how things have changed as it was always Ella that struggled with food and milk in the early days. She holds her own toast and feeds herself very efficiently. We are still struggling to move onto sippy cups but she sits upright now when drinking from her milk bottle and is getting close to holding it herself.

Ella sits up extremely well and rarely falls over. She can bend from a sitting position to almost flat to reach things in front of or to the side of her. She is starting to enjoy tummy time a little more these days but shows no interest in crawling despite pushing up with her arms and moving her head in all directions when on her front. She has slept on her front for a long time already and always used to snuggle up to the cot bumper which ran horizontally across the top of the cot. Unfortunately we have had to remove those from both cots now for safety at their age so she now snuggles up to the wooden headboard. She still however sleeps across the cot but now her feet stick out through the bars. 

Ella's first tooth is coming through on the bottom now. 

Trip to Shropshire

We went on our second trip away, this time for a long weekend to Shropshire. It's an annual meetup of friends from high school, their partners and children. Last year we were there with a large bump; this year with our 2 lovely babies. It was a very different experience of course with babies in tow but still enjoyable and lovely for us to catch up with old friends and for the babies to make new friends.

The travel itself was far less stressful than Cornwall had been as it wasn't the first time and we had more of an idea what we were doing. The babies did very well in the car, sleeping most of the way.

Family visits

There have been lots of opportunities to see family recently with birthdays and the end of exams etc. and we've really enjoyed being able to spend time with everyone. Carl and Ella are lucky to have 6 wonderful cousins who are fantastic with them as well as Aunties, Uncles, Nanna, Nannies and Grandad.

Trip to Sweden

A week tomorrow we are flying to Sweden for a week. A chance to meet some of Dan's family and see a bit of the area his mum is from. Flying with babies..... excited and nervous! Fingers crossed all goes well.