Funny Faces

Having a baby is fantastic source of entertainment. Granted, it is a lot of hard work, but you can't help but smile at some of the things they do. Lydia sits (and occassionally sleeps) on a sort of bean-bag designed for babies in our living room, and it's great to just sit near her and watch as she pulls a variety of faces while she sleeps. I guess this must be her way of practising the various facial expressions that she will use as she gets older and starts to discover more about the world.

Happy baby or gassy baby?

From grimaces to smiles, and looks of surprise to looks of pain, it is often more entertaining to watch her than to watch the TV. Even though Lydia is asleep, her little arms and legs move around like they have minds of their own, giving the impression that she is dreaming about starring in a kung fu movie.

Lydia also makes a lot of noise while she dreams, emitting little squeeks and heaving tiny little sighs. She even seems to occassionally laugh in her sleep, a short giggling noise that surprised us as we hadn't heard it before. I know that at 3 weeks old any smiles or laughs are probably just gas, but it is still very cute to see.

The other day I sat next to her bean bag and asked her a question (probably something along the lines of "have you done a poo-poo for mummy?"), and she looked straight into my eyes, frowned, and then brought her clenched fist up slowly in my direction. Less than a month old and she's already threatening her father. Looks like her teenage years might be fun!

Her First Mothers' Day

Last weekend was our first experience of a commercialized holiday as parents, as Sunday was Mothers' Day in Switzerland. Thinking that, at 2 1/2 weeks old, Lydia might be a bit too young to buy some treats and pamper her mum, her dad stepped up to the plate.

What did I do?

Well, I spent most of Saturday evening and Sunday morning preparing an Indian feast. We had invited Christelle's sister (Caroline) and her fiancé (Pascal) around for the meal, and they had been piling the pressure on my shoulders in the build up to Sunday by saying how much they were looking forward to it. As someone who doesn't really know much about cooking indian food, it seemed to be an enormous challenge.

I scoured the Internet for recipes, printed off a few that I liked, and went out to the supermarket to get everything I needed. My plan was to do a proper three course meal, consisting of starters, a main course and a dessert. Deeming this to be somewhat overambitious, given my limited skills in the kitchen, Chris thoughtfully offered to provide the dessert, so that was one less thing to worry about.

My preparation started on the Saturday evening, as I spent roughly 3.5 hours chopping onions, garlic, chilli, ginger and peppers, and carefully filling Tupperware with spices for each of the dishes I had planned. I know I often make fun of Chris for her love of Tupperware - she has loads of plastic containers that have taken up box space during 6 separate house/apartment moves, some of which has never (to my knowledge) been used - but on this occassion I was truly grateful, as I used just about every pot and bowl in our cupboards to hold either vegetables or spices. I lined the containers up in small piles according to which meal they were for, and stuck the printed recipes on the cupboard doors in the kitchen for reference the next day.

Exhausted, I went to bed. Lydia woke us up during the night for a feed, and I made the mistake of trying to rub the sleep out of my eyes. I wouldn't normally consider this to be a mistake, but as I had not washed my hands properly after chopping chillies I soon regretted my actions. My eyes felt like they were on fire and became redder than a robin's breast. Ouch! I had to lay down with a cold flannel over my eyes to try and soothe my pain.

The next morning I woke up bright and early to get cracking with the remaining preparations and the cooking. Thankfully the pain in my eyes had gone and my eyesight was intact, so I was able to concentrate on what I needed to do.

Life's Greatest Gift

On Thursday 21st April at 11:49am, a new little person took her first look at the world, as Lydia Reed-Peck was born. She had certainly kept us waiting - she was born nine days late - but it was well worth the wait.

Trying to write a blog that captures in words the feeling of becoming a parent for the first time is not an easy task, but I will do my best!


Our gorgeous little girl

I remember a whole rollercoaster of emotions washing over me as the nurses placed our little girl into the arms of her mother, from delight and elation of becoming a dad, through to doubt and anxiety over how we will cope.

The most prominent feeling I can remember is that of sheer love, and the knowledge that even though I had only known her for a few minutes I would already do anything for her.

As soon as I held Lydia in my arms, I was overwhelmed with pride at having such a beautiful little girl, and immediately felt my protective dad instincts kicking in. I cut the umbilical cord (which was tougher than I thought it would be; I had to give a couple of good chops to get through it), helped the midwife run through the initial baby tests to check her reflexes, and also gave Lydia her first bath the following day.