Busy busy times...

Well, it's been a busy few weeks. We've had the usual hectic lead up to Christmas plus a few extra special events. First there was Dad's 60th birthday party. Then we had the arrival of some very excited grandparents all the way from Ireland. Christmas came a few day's later and now we are on the eve of another new year. The camera has been getting a good ole workout in the midst of all this activity. Where do we start?

The arrival of Granny & Grandad was met with much anticipation. Derrick slept restlessly the night before their arrival & actually heard Maeghan's baby noises through the night. After an early departure for the airport, I was a little surprised to get a phone call from Peter at the airport looking for Derrick. Apparently there is more than one arrival gate and typical that the one that Derrick was waiting at, was not the right one. They obviously found each other and despite the shaky start, they made it back to the house in once piece.

The greeting that Granny gave Maeghan was fantastic and nearly brought me to tears. We had much to catch-up on and while Annete & myself caught up on all the gos, Derrick & his Dad were out checking out the mini. I think that the mini got a run around the block within the first hour of arriving from the airport!

Anyway, after struggling through the jetlag on the first day, there was no time to waste, it was into the city for a bit of shopping and a refresher on the city's highlights. On the sunday, we spent the day perusing through the Rock's markets followed by a trip up the Bridge's south tower for view of the city.

So far everything has been going according to script. The weather has been perfect.. not too hot, but the sun has been out giving everyone the prerequest red noses and strap marks to prove to everyone back home what they are missing out on in the depths of an Irish winter. Maeghan has been on her best behaviour and has been sleeping right through the night, smiling on cue and generally winning the hearts of her favourite Irish grandparents.

8 weeks today

Hard to believe that 8 weeks have passed already since Maeghan came into the world. We've seen lots of the usual progress in babies of this age. Can't really say that we've got a child genius on our hands, but she generally seems to be a happy little baby.

The main things we've noticed lately is that Maeghan is starting to 'talk' back to us, she is much more responsive to our voice and smiling back at us as we talk to her. She is definitely getting much stronger and can pretty much hold her head up most of the time, though it still has it's floppy moments. The other cool thing is that she's learning that her arms & legs do 'stuff'. They are flailling around a lot more and randomly hitting toys that I put in her general direction. Won't be long before she's hitting things with a little bit more intent.

As I said once before, these videos aren't all that action packed, but I have fun playing with them so anyone else that may interested can take 30 sec out of their day to see my little baby fling her arms around. You can almost see the brain ticking over as she works out that her arms might actually come in handy for something.

Our first Santa experience

There's going to be a lot of firsts for little Maeghan over the next few years, but one of them had to be our first Santa photo. I'd say this might be the easiest Santa photo we'll have to worry about for the next few years, after this one, Santa might just be an old scary man in a red suit.

Of course Mum wanted a Santa photo taken with all the grandkids & by chance we happened to be out shopping with all the kids in coordinating outfits. So much for easing the kids into the whole Santa concept, first week that Santa appears in the shops, we had to have the photos taken. Elissa was a bit apprehensive but we told her that Maeghan needed her to hold her hand so she wouldn't be scared. At least she didn't have to sit on the scary man's lap. Isaac was not keen at all. You would barely notice that he's sitting on Susanne's lap, which is covered in a red blanket. Oh well, this is the first of many Santa photo's.

Her father's daughter

I wasn't sure if I'd put this little clip up on the blog, but after talking with Adi, I promised I would. At first I thought we were going to get a whole heap of smiles, but as it turns out, she was just working out a little fart. Another Curran trait coming through! ;-) Looks the start of many bad habits that she's going to learn from her father.

How much have I grown...

Today Maeghan is 6 weeks old and just too cute for words. She is now 5.15kg and 58cm. So in 6 weeks, she has gained nearly 1.3kg and 3cm. She's getting the hang of this night & day business and is nearly making it 7 hours without waking Mum through the night for a feed. The video's at this age aren't exactly action packed, but here is a short clip of us just hanging out on the floor.

We've had some fairly warm weather lately, so we thought we'd see if we had a water baby on our hands. We decided to take her in a pool for a quick swim on the weekend. Wouldn't you know it, the minute I took the nappy off to put the swimmer's on, we had a little piddle. Oh well, what can you do!

The first swim wasn't exactly well received, you know the old saying of "it's nice once you're in", well we didn't quite get that far. The screams were attracting quite a bit of attention from the neighbours & at the risk of being reported for child abuse, we decided to keep the dip a quick one. We'll try again in a few weeks when the water warms up a little bit more.

Elissa & Isaac... the cousins

It's cute the way that even the littlest of kids react to a newborn. Random kids that we come across at the shops point and whisper to their parents... 'look, a baby'. Elissa is very good around Maeghan. She likes to put soft toys in front of Maeghan to stop her from crying and whispers to us that she 'thinks Maeghan likes her', no she 'thinks Maeghan LOVES her'. Which of course she does, or will when she has a little more awareness of the world. She also comments on these cute little things like 'oh.. she's so tiny' and 'she's bewfitul'. I can only guess that she's heard other adults making similar comments and picked them up along the way. Either way, it's quite cute.

Isaac is just funny. Firstly he gets jeolous if Susanne or Nanna are giving Maeghan cuddles instead of him. He even tries to climb up on Nanna's lap as well, just to make sure that he doesn't miss out. Secondly, everytime he sees Maeghan he cries out 'dat' and if we don't respond with something like 'Baby' or 'Maeghan', he then screeches until we say it.

I'm sure there'll be plenty more photos of the kids as time goes on, but here are a few photos from the first few weeks.

Stay tuned for our Santa photos...

4 weeks old already...

Hard to believe, but the first 4 weeks have flown. There's been lots of eating and sleeping and the occassional whinge, but mostly everyone seems pretty happy. At 3.5 weeks Maeghan has grown to be 56cm long, that's 1cm from birth and gained a whopping 800g.

Here are a collection of photos that we've snapped at random times throughout the last few weeks.

Thanks Aunty Pamela for my cute little squeeky toy.

Dad and Maeghan do scary eyes together. We're not quite sure who Maeghan will take after yet, but she seems to have Derrick's short temper already and will lose it quite quickly if dinner is just not delivered quickly enough.

Trying to find the right time to have tummy time on the floor is a bit tricky, especially when full bellies often come up all over the place. This is a photo from one of the good times. At least dinner came up before we were dressed for the day.

Sculptures by the Sea

On sunday we decided it was time to have our first big family outing to the annual event held on the Bondi coastal walk - Sculptures by the Sea. After a decidedly unorganised start to the morning, we eventually made it on the road. This whole baby thing takes a fair bit more effort to get out of the house than first expected. Funny how much harder it is to get yourself ready when there's a hungry baby to be fed. Anyway, we worked it out and got there in the end.

As expected, the first sunny day after two weeks of solid rain saw every man & his dog out on the walk. Maeghan was firmly bundled up in the baby pouch and we negotiated our way through the crowds. Like the good little girl that she is, she slept right through her first ever cultural experience. The nation's best artists have worked tirelessly on this year's submission & little Maeghan missed it all. We won't be too hard on her, she is only 4 weeks old after all.

Despite our slightly uncoordinated start to the day, overall it was a great day out.

Home Sweet Home

When we decided it was time to extend the family, we also decided that the city apartment probably wasn't going to be big enough to keep us going. So we made the big plunge and bought a cute little house out in the suburbs. We moved into the house in Easter of 2007 and have spent the year getting it ready for the arrival of the baby. Weekend after weekend of renovations I think we can almost say that stage 1 of the project is nearing completion. Stage 2 involves a slightly more ambitious effort of adding rooms onto the rear of the house.

So far, we've pulled out the wall between the kitchen & living room and replaced the kitchen. This photo shows the 'before shot' of the kitchen as my Dad helps us open up the space for the new kitchen. We've finished off the half renovated laundry, repainted the interior and had all the floors repolished. Just in time for summer the pool has just completed it's facelift and due to the efforts of Derrick, we now have a fantastic outdoor entertainment deck all ready for the upcoming bbq season, otherwise known as Summer.

There doesn't seem to be an end to the number of jobs on our list, but then Derrick was just telling me that I'm very lucky to have a husband like him! Hmmm... if he doesn't say so himself. I think based on that statement I'll be able to keep him busy till Maeghan's into the double figures.

Despite all the grief that renovations bring, then end result is definitely worth it. The next two photos show the fruits of our labour. The first is the new kitchen & the second is the new deck that Derrick built in the two weeks that he had off work after Maeghan was born.

The fur kids

Introducing - the fur kids of the family.

This is Podger, he is a 2yr old Pug x King Charles Cavalier ... and the cheeky dog of the family. I was most worried about how Podger would cope with the new addition to the family. He has after all, been my baby for the last few years & has been intensely spoilt. Surprisingly he has taken to Maeghan with an enormous amount of affection. He sits there and wags his tail with such enthusiasm that I think it is in danger of developing RSI.
Gemma is 6 month old Sheltie (Shetland Sheepdog). She is protective, loyal and intensely jeolous of anyone that gets attention besides herself. Gemma is going to find it the toughest out of the two dogs to adjust to the new member of the family. Mostly because she absolutely idolises Derrick & finds frustrating when he gives attention to anyone besides herself. She barks and bounces on her front two paws like crazy. Needless to say, Derrick has a new priority in his life and has been ignoring her antics. We'll gradually get her used to the new pecking order in the family.
Here they both are giving the impression that they are peaceful dogs. The reality is... they fought for 10 minutes to get prime position on the cushion in front of the heater.

Sydney Marathon 2007

Here are some photos of Derrick running in the Sydney Marathon on the 21/9/07.

This is obviously fairly early in the race... notice that Derrick still has the energy to smile at the camera!
After a gruelling 3hr 29min Derrick finally made it across the finish line... and even managed a personal best time, beating the 3hr 30min mark with seconds to spare.

Without a doubt running the marathon is a monstrous effort... but Derrick... I know you won't make the mistake of comparing it to childbirth ever again.

Bath-time Fun

Bath-time is quickly becoming a favourite part of our day. It's a great time for Maeghan and Dad to spend some quality time together.

We're saving the x-rated bath photos for Maeghan's 21st birthday. No point in embarrassing her before she's old enough to really appreciate it.

What can we say... she's a cutie (not that we're biased or anything)

Maeghan gets dressed to go home.

Maeghan wearing the special outfit her mother wore when she went home after she was born. (This one's for you Lyn!)

The happy family leave the hospital.

Maeghan in the car.

Hello, I'm Maeghan

Hello, I'm Maeghan



Maeghan's 1st bath

Maeghan Rose's birthday

Maeghan Rose was born on 16th October at 3.33pm. She was 3.88kg (or 8 lbs 9 oz in old terms) and 55cm in length.

Stay tuned.