Can’t believe we’ve been home two months already. Ceinwen really has settled in very well and it is as though we have always had her. She is changing all the time and her personality is really coming out. She is a very placid, happy little girl, always on the move, and boy can she crawl fast. She loves going after everything Gwion is playing with, which needless to say doesn’t go down well with him most of the time. Gwion does like playing with her, though, and will sometimes give Ceinwen a train and carriage to play with, to stop her grabbing the rest of his trains!

Ceinwen loves to be on her feet. She’s always pulling herself up against us, and the chairs, table, etc. She’s cruising around the furniture very easily, but isn’t letting go yet. She does let go when standing, but when she realises she hasn’t got any support she falls over! She’s also got her first pair of shoes, which we had fun getting as she’s got narrow feet, but luckily you can do the buckles up quite tight. She likes her shoes, especially to chew on!

She’s doing well in Gwion’s swimming class, and has amazed everyone that she doesn’t cry when going in the water. She enjoys the pool. I was hoping that having Ceinwen there might get Gwion doing more things in his class, like he used to before he was two. He used to like jumping in the pool, going under water and doing star floats, but once he turned two he refused to do anything, and seems to have gone “backwards”, although he is confident in the water and loves to go swimming. Apparently it is quite common for toddlers to start refusing to do things that they have always done, and it comes back again when they are three.

We went down to my parents for a long weekend in the middle of November, as Morgan’s youngest daughter, Hollie, was getting christened. Rhodri couldn’t go because of work, so it was just me and the kids. I spent a night with Olwen first, which Gwion enjoyed as he could play with Charlie again. Then we spent three days with my parents. The christening was nice, and it was good to have all the family together, and everyone could see how well Ceinwen was coming along, and settling in. It also meant that I finally could meet my latest nephew, Harvey, and he is adorable!

Gwion wanted to take Hollie, Lola and Harvey home with us. I think Rhodri was quite glad that he wasn’t allowed to!

We spent another night with Olwen on the way home, so it just broke the long journey up. At the end of November, we went to our local CACH Mother and Tot meeting, and at last I was able to show off Ceinwen to everyone! Everyone was so pleased to see her at last, and they said that I looked much more relaxed now I had come back from China. Before it was as though it was never going to happen to me! This was the first meeting that Gwion was also very relaxed at. We’ve only had these meetings for the last year and they are held every other month at a different person’s house in the huge catchment area of NW England and N Wales. And we’ve been to every meeting! Another girl, Kit, had just come home from China with her daughter, Anna, who is a month older than Ceinwen.

Ceinwen had her 9 month check up (at 11 months) with the Health Visitor at the end of November. She is doing everything she should be doing, and weighs 8.4kg. She’s put on 1.4kg since we got her in China! She’s also had her 2nd lot of immunizations. She did have some done in China, but not complete courses, so with the polio, tetanus, diphtheria, whooping cough, and Hib we’ve started all over again, and also given her Meningitis C. She still needs a 3rd dose of all those, and also the 3rd dose of Hep B. I also took her to see our GP as she’s got this funny white mark on her tongue which starts in one corner and moves across her tongue and then disappears for a few days. I knew it wasn’t thrush and it didn’t bother her, well she’s eating extremely well, but I did wonder what it was. The GP said it's Geographical tongue and there’s nothing you can do about it. It will just come and go. Oh well as it doesn’t bother Ceinwen I won’t worry about it!

Finally for this month, Ceinwen has discovered the stairs in our house. She’s liked sitting at the bottom of them since we’ve been home but hadn’t worked out how to get up them, but in the last day of November she did, and she got up to the top very quickly! Now I really need eyes in the back of my head, because she’s got a huge fascination with the stairs, and if you turn your back on her for a couple of minutes she’s disappeared out of the room and is halfway up the stairs before you know it. We didn’t have this problem with Gwion because although he could go up the stairs when he was about 12 months, he didn’t bother really trying to until he was walking at 15-16 months, and then he preferred to be carried up! Oh well, it’ll keep me fit running up and down the stairs all day!

Next....December, 2005