Festive times and First words

I have been in a manic, exhausting bubble of work for the Hope semester, which seemed to be slow starting and then go by so very quickly, with still a ton of work to do before the new semester begins in 2 weeks time. Luckily two weeks seem like an eternity at the moment though. We are all off down south to visit the Simmonds zone in Hertfordshire. Having something of a jumping christmas, staying one night with sister Emma, one night with sister Nicola, to a hotel (the lovely Two Brewers in Chipperfield - where we stayed for our wedding) and then on a grand tour of the UK (meandering via Ali's in Wiltshire, hopefully meeting up with Nicola and Lee in Avebury or Stonehenge and up into Shakespeare land to visit Charmaine at her mum's before landing back here for a hermitty new years eve (with Mulled Wine)).
Ms Sienna is a happy little girl. Pottering about, talking her own language and now beginning to speak real words. Such an amazing thing to see. She says nooooooo (very often), Atishoo, Bye, mamma, dadda, noooooooo and night night. she is reinspiring me for christmas! I have shifted from a bah humbug soul who was fatigued with the plastic nature of the season, to feeling very festive and excited, and silly. Made my first christmas cake, and bought far too many things for little one. See photos for Simmonds-Moore christmas silliness!

New President; New Era

Hooray.
This has been such an exciting week in our household. Steve has been glued to the TV and the internet, and tuesday night was a complete nail-biter. However we awoke to find out that Obama is the new president of the USA! Can hardly believe it. Felt overwhelmed with emotion of the significance of this change. And, finally, everything feels exciting and positive for a change. Feel less frightened.
It is also my birthday week, which of course I am stretching out and enjoying for a prolonged period. I love this time of year; halloween lantern parade in the park, fireworks, leaves turning gorgeous colours and birthday....

around the world and back (and a new simmonds!)

It has been a long time since last we(I) scribbled on this blog. We have been VERY busy creatures. And appear to have been half way around the world (and back again).
Following a mightily huge deadline for submitting my paper to the Charting the Future of Parapsychology conference, we hopped to the Parapsychology conference down in Winchester, where I was giving two papers...we stayed a couple of days in Southampton with our Bronwen, where we celebrated Sienna's first birthday....then moved into a lovely hotel in the ancient town of Winchester (how wierd that it used to be the capital of England). Whilst there we pottered around cobbled streets and saw the round table on the remaining wall of the castle hall. There was a "Simmonds" street! and the place just felt alive with history...Conference was good. A balancing act for me as mummy and academic, but I am getting there! My first PA banquet since pre-Sienna times - really fun, but I turned into a pumpkin relatively early (seems to be a current pattern of mine). It was fab to see all the para dudes, in particular Nicola and Louise and Ciaran. Ciaran and I spent some time sharing baby photos and cooing over each others' offspring and the change in life. Which is so unfathomably huge. But wonderful.
On return to the Mighty Pool, I semi disappeared into a bubble of grantwriting (two exciting projects for the next round of Bial - fingers crossed! we find out in november)...broken up by a fabulous weekend of family visitation and friends lurking in the back garden for the official birthday of Sienna Iona Aurora. We had fantastic weather. Beautiful blue sky, and sunshine....with fresh pre-autumn air. Pottered to the farmers market on Lark Lane. Barbecued in the garden. And Ms Sienna was in her element with all her English cousins on board to play with (and her little friends from Liverpool).
After grant deadline came packing up my entire office. And then onto a plane to USA for three whole weeks. Wonderful weather. Lovely time with the Moores. Sienna got to meet her American cousin Angelina, and they were so cute playing together. Sienna wanted to hug Angelina and seemed totally aware that she was a smaller baby. So adorable.
And a LOVELY time with my wonderful friend Ferrell. But it went so fast. I just adored being in the Chapel hill area again.
Dad came out to visit for a week....during which time we took in loads of US history....and zooped up to Old Salem for a visit and up to Charlottesville, Virginia where I gave one presentation to the DOPS group at UVA. And the next day, the same talk to the Rhine Center in Durham...Phew! even on holiday we are busy!!!
Steve spent a lot of time catching up with Brian, and helping him out with his exciting new businness in Greensboro - I am Jacks.
We got to see Kim and Tony, which was lovely....and managed to overlap with Logan and Bernadette and Billy and even (very briefly) with Sharon and John.
And then back to earth. Back to work.
It has been strange being back at work full time. I love my job, and feel so inspired at the moment, and mentally alive and full of possibility. However, I am missing my sienna. It is so hard leaving her in the morning and not seeing her all day, every day. We have all had terrible colds too, which has made everything so hard. No sleep, and even less sleep with the poor little sienna waking up all the time wondering why she feels so bad.
We just got back (literally last night) from the Utrecht conference (in Holland), and just about survived intact ( the colds have not destroyed us yet!). I am swimming with ideas post conference.... and now feel like I can catch up with myself, as the deadlines seem to have slowed up for a while. And life is settling into the new term.
We have some exciting news - there is a NEW SIMMONDS! Little Ryan Thomas Simmonds was born last friday (9th?) October to my brother Mark and Caroline. We are planning on taking a trip down there this weekend to see him. The photos suggest that he looks a lot like Mark! I remember so well as I used to look after him when he was small.
Sienna is turning into a wonderfully inquisitive and adventuresome little girl. She has discovered the internet!!! she loves looking at Teletubbies and Night Garden...and her favourite song seems to be Twinkle Twinkle Little star.
Chocolate is calling me, so I shalt away. I will post new pictures soon - you will see how she has changed. She has thick curly hair and a cute little smile, and just loves showing off her bottom teeth!

We have Toddlidge

Ms Sienna is officially a toddler. Walking everywhere. Quickly. And she apparently has a homing device to anything remotely dangerous (in particular the oven, the toilet and the TV). We are going to have to invest in one of those baby leish type things for being out and about with a "toddler". I cannot quite believe that we have had Sienna in our lives for almost a year (exactly a year next thursday). Seems like she has been here forever, but I still remember the birth far too clearly to consider baby number two at present (!).
I am madly working around the clock trying to finish my essay and get talks written for the conference next week in Winchester. We also have Melanie visiting us this coming weekend, so have an excuse to go to lots of exciting places in the Liverpool zone : ).
Planning on beach on saturday (where there is also a first birthday party for one of Sienna's little friends), and Wales for a couple of days before heading down to winchester.
When we get back from Winchester, we are planning on a birthday party for Ms Sienna - with the Simmonds clan who are all coming up from down south.
We got our passports back on monday morning - hoorah! so have now booked our flights to USA for next month. Going to be in North Carolina for about 3 weeks. It will definitely be good to have some sunshine as the UK seems to think it is dingy autumn right now.
Off to sample some banana and blueberry muffins that I have created now! yummmmmmmmmmmm.

first steps and 4 teeth

Ms Sienna is 11 months old this coming monday. How time does fly. We are having a little birthday celebration for her on her actual birthday (which is actually when we are at a conference in sunny Winchester on 14th August), a bigger party on 23rd August...and no, doubt a party for her when we visit USA (hopefully in September - if we EVER get our passports back - Steve has applied for a new visa to be in UK, and they wanted everything but the kitchen sink to demonstrate that we are who we say we are, and that in fact, we do live together).
Sienna is quite the little lady. A happy, social little thing, who adores other people, exploring the universe, technical things (in particular the TV remote) and people watching. She took some steps this week, which is very exciting as she is still in the 10 month bracket (so, quite an early walker!!!). If she forgets that she is standing, she can stand for quite a few minutes and potter a couple of steps before she realises what is going on and lands on her bum. It is a beautiful thing watching this little being evolve and become a child/tiny person. I didnt realise how quickly she would grow. I am told that is life with a child, and I will soon have a teenager, or twenty something and will wonder where my life has gone.
Currently British summertime is very depressing. Not a lot of sun around. I am wearing my winter attire in July in our house (including steve's thick woolley socks!). Crazy.
We are starting to think about putting in some grants for future exciting research projects....deadlines all looming. Also trying to write my last essay for the Transpersonal course and a big paper for a conference in Holland in October. As always, very very busy. But unfortunately, also very very tired as we are still not getting nearly enough sleep. Sienna has had a few bad nights lately, which are hard to recover from, particularly when you try to go to work the day after (or try to think!!!).
We have been making the most of the few sunny days we have had lately - and had two barbecues in the garden. The first was almost rained out, but finally we braved the outdoors and had a fab day. The second was last friday - for July 4th/Independence Day! lots of US food cooked by Mr Steve Moore (wow - did not know that Steve could cook cornbread before. It was truly delicious, and we are now planning The Great Corn Bread Cook Off competition, to take place in the garden and to be judged by Steve!).

standing and cruising

It has been a while since last we wrote. We have been having some adventures. Following the Portuguese adventure (which floored us financially, but was excellent, if tiring), we have now had the Italian adventure. Steve, Sienna and I took a 9 day holiday to Umbria, Tuscany and Rome, which was a wonderful break for all of us. We spent a week in an apartment on a tiny organic farmlet in umbria, run by a British couple. We had some glorious weather and enjoyed lots of evenings relaxation after Ms Sienna had gone to bed. We had a table, candles and the night sky all to ourselves, which was significantly enhanced by the supping of (very) local wine (one night we had wine made by our proprietors!). Following the week in Umbria and its neighbour Tuscany, which are absolutely gorgeous...we journeyed back down to Rome where we stayed with Steve's friend Melanie from the U S of A. Melanie is working for UN, and we stayed with her for 2 nights and had a tour of the UN food building from which you get to see ALL the ancient sites of this beautiful city.
Sienna was worshipped beautifully by Italians left, right and centre, almost to the point of being eaten up. She also got to sample some Italian food, and was quite the connoisseuse, with the most fabulous pizza, truffle tagliatelle and a teeny tiny schleurp of gelato (we had to let her sample it too. It is too good). Since our return from Italy, both steve and I are obsessed with coffee, as we were spoiled over there. We have begun a cafetiere ritual every morning, so our house smells heavenly in the morning (which starts rather early due to a certain little girl).
Little Sienna is incredibly mobile. She is a fast crawler, only contained by her Sienna Den (she does not always like being constrained by it, particularly when she is tired. But it is a necessity for us when we are cooking/cleaning in the kitchen). Sienna has been cruising for a while, but recently has begun particularly adept at using anything and everything to enable her to "walk" all over the entire house. We have had a couple of tumbles, but nothing stops this little adventurer.
As you can see from the recent photos, sienna has a full head of hair. She really seems to be quite the little girl at the moment, which is so wierd. Why does babyhood go so fast???? She will be 10 months old on 15th June. I can hardly believe she has been in our lives for so long/short.
She has become a little character, and is very silly and smiley. Her smile is contagious and often directed toward random strangers on the bus (who respond by fantastic sienna worship!).
We are still not getting very much sleep, but only waking up once or twice at the moment, which is a significant improvement on our previous situation. Still feeling exhausted though. It is hard being back at work and trying to do everything. I have started writing my book though, which is really inspiring and exciting. I just wish I had more time so I could spend lots and lots of time with Sienna too. Luckily Steve is fabulous daddy and having lots of lovely adventures iwith our sienna wenna whilst I am at work (flexible still - so still around a lot in the house).
We have CP and John coming up to see us this weekend. Very exciting. CP is one of Sienna's Godmothers, and loves her little Godchild. I am excited as it has been too long. Planning some daytime adventures with Sienna and some night time adventures with some wine!!!

Crawling

We have reached a developmental milestone - Ms Sienna is crawling. This is really very exciting, but also slightly panic inducing as our house has not (at all) been baby proofed. We are on a mission to remove all precarious objects and (after payday) to purchase a playpen for the littlun. It is proving to be quite a task keeping her in one place, and you really cannot turn your back for 5 seconds else she will be eating a shoe or attempting to kill the cd machine. Also increasingly difficult to change a nappy (diaper) as she wants to be in the crawling position all the time. She even does it when she is half asleep and gets a bit upset when she gets stuck in the corner of her cot.
She also has a brand new tooth, which she likes to use at all opportunities (not good as I am still breastfeeding...).
Also not good as teething correlates with "terrible nights sleep" for mummy and daddy. We are longing for a night of a few hours (at least 4, please) sleep in a row. The record was friday night where we believe (although our brains may be inaccurate due to sleep deprivation) that we woke up six times due to Ms Simmonds-Moore.
Sienna has re-discovered raspberry blowing, and has happily spent all day doing it! very cute.
I also returned to work last week. I have arranged to work flexibly over the summer so can work a lot from home and still get a fair amount of time with little girl. Not sure how I am going to feel in September when I am going to be proper full time working mummy. Trying to focus on the now, and very grateful to have this transition time. Feeling somewhat swamped with work, as manicly writing conference papers, preparing for lecture, talk and seminar to be given at Hope and about to dive into a rather large heap of dissertation marking (will have to line up the chocolate).

Portugal here we come

We are all off to Portugal on the morrow for the Bial conference. This is quite an adventure as I am going to be giving my first talk in over a year (with my friend and colleague Nicola Holt) and Steve is going to be full time Daddy whilst I am doing the conference thing. The conference is in Porto (north west Portugal and home of Port - think we will be making some purchases whilst we are there!).
Hopefully the flight will be smooth with the little one, as with the US trip. We have some new toys to distract her, and the flight only lasts for a couple of hours. The conference ends on saturday evening, so we will have a couple of days to explore after it is all over, when we are planning on visiting some of the celtic areas north of Porto.
Sienna news: she is flipping herself over a lot. Her favourite thing at the moment (despite trying to walk and run!) is doing a 360 stomach turn/crawl. Unfortunately she does the flip thing in the middle of the night sometimes and finds herself stuck in the corner of her cot! Which she does not like one bit. She is continuing to babble and has been heard to say dadda as well as mamammama. All very cool.
Unfortunately, Sienna is somewhat grumpy this week, and we fear the imminent arrival of another tooth.
Hoping for some sleep tonight....a rare commodity at the moment. And not good when one is attempting to have half a brain cell and process the very interesting results from our study (we have found significant ESP effects!!!!).

walking, talking and sneezing

Sienna wants to walk. We think that she may well bypass the crawling stage for being on her feet. She wants to be on her feet all the time, and loves "walking" everywhere (as well as continuing to bounce, which gets harder as she grows more heavy) particularly to "worship" the dreamcatcher in our bedroom that she just adores (its rainbow coloured and she likes to flap the coloured threads coming out of it!). She has also developed some rather interesting babbling sounds over the last few days, and has frequently been heard to murmer mamamamama.....Perhaps not indiscriminately, but its really lovely to hear it! She has been a little grumpy/upset over the last few days as we have all three been floored by a rather nasty cold. We have been totally housebound and feeling rather cabin fevery, and felt like recovering agorophobics pottering around in the outside world, when we finally went out again.
We took Sienna to the Multisensory Room at the nearest Childrens Centre today - lots and lots of lights and bubbles and mellow music. She loved it at first, and then got a bit over stimulated and upset! Sleeping soundly at the moment.
Food situation: variable. Loves broccoli, avocado and sometimes likes sweet potato. Goes a bit manic for yoghurt, and didnt like my lentil dahl at all : (
7 months old this week - how time flies!

Tooth

Its tiny, but its definitely there! ...after what seems like months of the "teething" process, Sienna finally cut her first tooth yesterday. Its at the bottom of her mouth on the right hand side (if we are looking at her!). This eruption may explain some of the extra nocturnal awakenings of late (or not?!!).....I have discovered some excellent herbal stuff that seems to pacify a grumbly baby girl. Its a white powder that you plop onto the tongue - we have been joking that its "baby drug"! It may be that she loves it so much as its actually mostly sugar. Ah well; whatever works!
New skills: Sienna has recently discovered the art of blowing raspberries. This is very cute and amusing in the daytime, but not so cute at 3 in the morning! We are not sure where this came from, but she loves doing it!
Last night was The Earthquake - arrived at about 1 in the morning. Very exciting. I thought it was mice/rats running across the ceiling, and steve thought it was me moving the bed. Sienna didnt notice!
Sienna and I went to the pool for the second time today. This was a very exciting experience, and lots of splashing was performed by the little one, who loves kicking her legs in the water and had a permanent smile upon her face. We are going back next week with daddy in tow (hopefully that way we can get some piccies!).

splat

We have now begun the proces of weaning. And are adopting a mixture of "baby led weaning" (baby in control, baby has larger food items, rather than pureed puree, and she feeds herself with hands and her spoon!) and a little bit of mush (but trying to avoid over-pureed stuff!). Thus far it has been a rather messy business, with ms sienna enjoying getting herself thoroughly submerged in "stuff", with some of it actually going into her mouth!
Favourites thus far are carrots, broccoli, and avocado....and she seems to love bread with olive oil.
Teeth are continuing to be a pain for Sienna and for us - she is very very clingy and waking up more than she should at night (and in her daytime naps).

growing up

This week Sienna has had her first high chair experience, in the very cool new cafe/restaurant that has opened around the corner from us (The Moon and the Pea on Lark Lane). She thought this was fabulous.... We repeated the experience for her later that evening when Steve and I went out to Tiranos (another new Lark restaurant) for his birthday dinner. The plan for the weekend is to purchase our own high chair, a cot for Sienna and a table so that we can begin the process of weaning with Sienna, myself and Steve all at the dinner table. Rather exciting. And we are hoping that the increase in calories will reduce the nocturnal awakenings, thus making mummy and daddy much happier, with the addition of sleep to our lives.
This week, Sienna has been flipping herself over, enjoying the crawling position (but not crawling) and moving toward her new favourite toy - Clarence crab. She wants to sit up, but is not quite there yet....and keeps toppling over. We dont think it will be much longer!
She has become fascinated by details this week, and loves the Dream Catcher in our bedroom, the gold buttons on one of my tops...and shadows on the wall.
Teeth continue to irritate our little girl, who is constantly dribbling and chewing on anything she can get her hands on....

Icy.

Steve and I are wearing fleeces and woolly socks INSIDE the flat. It is freeeeezzzzing in Liverpool. And haunted-house windy. And our quirky victorian flat is just not built to be warm....
We made the mistake of attempting to go for a walk today and got bombarded with large hailstones of ice. Not at all nice. Sienna was unphased in her new Mamas and Papas (bargain) pushchair with rain shield! Think we will continue to hibernate until this passes - hopefully soon. Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr.

Still Raining....

Sienna and I are hibernating. Steve is off testing participants in our study on subliminal perception and ESP.....The weather is particularly grim and wet and not inspiring us to move beyond the house.
Sienna is almost (but not quite) sitting up by herself, and loves being pulled up to the sitting position by her hands. She is also still enjoying standing up (with a little help) and still loves bouncing. With her now weighing in at over a stone (doubled her birth weight - perfectly on track!) this is a little tiring on our arm muscles. Other favourites of the moment are The Plastic cups - a christmas gift from auntie Nicola - and our Nursery Rhyme cd (a gift from Granny Simmonds). The cd is a big hit, but is already slightly irritating the brains of poor mummy and daddy (especially daddy!).

Capital of culture in the rain

We are back in Liverpool, which is officially the European capital of culture for 2008. While we were down south we missed an amazing opening weekend in the city centre, but there are apparently lots of events lined up this year (including Klimt exhibition at the Tate). It feels almost like we have never been away. Raining and dark and cold!! Sienna and I started back at Baby Yoga on monday....and I went to Transpersonal Psychology yesterday. Miss Sienna and I went into Hope twice this week where she was much admired! We have decided that I should go back to work asap as maternity pay can only stretch so far. So, I am due to return at the beginning of April and will be doing flexible working hours for a while, which will aid the transition back into work. I cannot imagine being apart from Sienna every day, but I think it will be good to be back in terms of brain stimulation.
We are due to go to Portugal in March to the Bial conference in Porto - so more travelling for our little girl! We will probably travel before/after the conference too. The flip side is that Nicola Holt and I have to present our research in front of a zillion big names in psychology.

Bouncing and chilling in Hemel hempstead

Sienna is having a fantastic time in Hemel Hempstead - cousin Alfie has lots of toys, including The Bouncer, which puts a huge smile on her little face. She loves bouncing, and trying to stand up.
In general, she is a little grumpy through sore gums and little 'thrown' with all of the travelling, and different environments but doing pretty well. Sleep patterns are a little dooolllaaley which is not good, but not too bad...especially when compared to her cousins.
Steve and I are enjoying relaxing, but are looking forward to not living out of a suitcase and being back in our flat!

Wedding and a Happy new year!

We are all now back in England, as of last thursday! We had a fab time in USA, being totally spoiled by grandma and grandpa Moore. We have so much extra stuff that we had to bring 2 extra suitcases with us on the plane. Sienna was an absolute angel on the flight, and managed to sleep for the entire journey (unlike her EXHAUSTED parents). Very jetlagged for a few days. Gradually back in UK time now....We have been staying in Chipperfield in Granny's old house. It felt really quiet when we walked in, but we think she would have loved the fact that the house was full of family in the madness of wedding preparations.....
We went to my brother Mark's wedding to Caroline on saturday (we promise to post piccies asap!). It was a really lovely day and really good to catch up with the Simmonds clan under more happy circumstances.
Last night we spent new years eve with CP, Charmaine and Driver Dave, Bronwen, Deb and Matt. CP cooked a delicious three course dinner and we supped wine and saw the new year in.....all of us made wishes for 2008....we are now housesitting for Mark and Caroline while they are on their honeymoon.
Sienna is quite the little girl. Her latest favourite thing is to BOUNCE. We will have to install The Bouncer on return to Liverpool.
Happy new year to everyone!