This is how most day's should start. Nice and lazy and relaxed reading a book in bed. Zachary si getting really good with his hands now and starting to learn to turn the pages in the books on his own. His favourite book is still the Ladybird Playbook but he also loves the 'That's not my ...' series. He likes them because the pages are quite easy for his fingers to get into and turn. They are also bright and bold with touchy feely bits. This is one of my favourite parts of the day lying cuddled up all comfy and warm and still slightly dozy reading some of the baby stories and talking together. I have never been a big fan of morning's - more of a night owl really but these precious moments with Zachary make being awake with the birds and animals at the crack of dawn just about worth it! No matter how knackered I am I have to grudgingly accept that once I see him smiling at me from his cot, reaching up for me to pick him up I could forgive the fact that its dark, cold, miserable and wet outside and I have only had 6 hours sleep.

9 Month Old Photographs (7 months corrected age)

My adorable cheeky little boy is growing up. He is 23lb now. Not quite the lightweight we brought home from Hospital!

Zachary can sit up reallyw ell on his own now. His favourite thing to do is sit on the playmat at the bottom of my bed and root through the brick box. I bought him a set of wooden shaped bricks from the Early Learning center way back when I was still pregnant and have only just opened the. What a hit. He loves them. Typical boy just wants to watch you build a tower then knock it down. Again and again and again ........ I know who will get bored of this game first and it won't be Zachary. Taking the photo's as ever is harder since all he wants to do is wriggle and chew the teddy's tags. We did go for a walk later in the day and I managed to get some nice snaps of him sitting in his off road buggy! That Bob & Blossom Cheeky top is just perfect for him.

September 9th

Little rotter was laughing hysterically while I was dancing to Robbie Williams in the kitchen. For some reason me trying to sing and dance absolutely cracked him up. I am not that bad I am sure. He is worse than an X Factor judge! I like being Mum an awful lot. I was reading about Post Natal Depression last night and it made me think a lot about how lucky I am that I have found being around Zach such pleasure. How lucky I am in fact that I can enjoy that pleasure because I realise that Mum's that suffer from PN Depression miss out on all that. Zachary is such a happy little boy as I am sure most babies are because how do they know to be anything else. What a gift to have in my life every day and how fortunate to be able to take pleasure in it even on the days when you are tired, run down and not feeling on top form.

Dad says that Zachary reminds him of me when I was a child. Apparently I was always happy and laughing. I think that I was lucky to be able to be like that because I had such a lovely environment with no family stress or trouble which I am sure helped. I only hope to try my best to make sure Zachary has the chance to be happy all the time too. I hope to make sure that he does not have to live around stress or trouble and can simply laugh and smile all day. What lucky people we are !

September 10th

I drove up to Bangor with Dad to pick up some more of my things from the house while Zachary stayed with Mum for the day. It is too far really for him to travel just for a day besides we needed the space for boxes and things. I seem to have so much .... junk all over the place. For the time being while we are living at Mum & Dad's most of my things will stay in box's. I guess it gives me the chance to try and sort out some things anyway. Perhaps take some of my old clothes to the charity shop and actually cut down on the .... stuff that I keep putting back into the boxes... just in case. I should be more ruthless but you know that the one thing I decide to throw out I will wish I hadn't. So Mum and Dad's house now really does look the homeless have moved in. Cardboard city in the corridor and black bag alley in the porch. I don't even want to imagine what most of my clothes will look like once they emerge from the depths of a bin liner after a month or so. Time perhaps though to have another clean up - perhaps I will try listing a few of the better items on Ebay and maybe even make a few penny's back!

Monday September 11th - First Baby Teeth - Two bottom Front Teeth

I have been trying really hard to get a photograph of Zachary's teeth. They started to come through on tuesday (September 5th) and now a week later he has both bottom front teeth. He has been fine with them in fact I did not even realise he had cut his first tooth until I saw it. I even made a comment that he was no trouble cutting his tooth at all. Then the following two nights he was up and down in tears all night long. Mum tells me that my brother was like that. You knew every time a tooth was coming through. Apparently I made no fuss at all. I have a feeling Zachary will let me know. He is fine during the day it just seems to disturb him at night. Of course that also means it disturbs me too !! Great !!

I have been thinking about us being so fortunate and wondering if perhaps as a Christmas gift we could do something like sponsor a child somewhere like Africa? I must make sure I do my operation Christmas Child box again at least! The weather is still really warm for the time of year so today we had a lovely long walk in the nature park with the dogs then afterwards actually sat in the Hammock.

Saturday September 16th - Spring Cleaning

Mum and Dad have agreed to rearrange their house to accommodate two new lodgers for the time being. It does feel sort of strange to be considering moving pretty much permanently back into my parents house but for the moment it is the best and pretty much only option. At 30 something having lived away from home for almost 20 years I can imagine there will be times (there have been) when there are bound to be clashes I think its inevitable. I think it is pretty normal for people that live around each other all the time to rub up now and then anyway and really it is testimony to the fact that I have such a good relationship with my Mum that we actually manage to live quite well together. For the moment this is home and certainly the decision of moving again will have to wait at least until next summer anyway. Meantime with some spring cleaning and furniture shifting I am sure we can make ourselves feel less like nomadic lodgers and a bit more like this is really our home. As a start Mum decided to spend a few days clearing out the office. Zachary sat really nicely among all the black bags and box's chatting away and examining things. He found a toothbrush and decided to give it a try. Must make mental note to read about brushing baby teeth! As in what with, how and when etc.

September 17th

Had a look through the Ikea catalogue last night. Trying to plan furniture for the move. I am moving back into my old bedroom. Very surreal. Zachary will have my brothers old bedroom. I can see a proper little personality shining through Zachary these days. More and more as each day passes he really becomes less a baby and more a little boy. I must confess although I loved holding that tiny baby I am enjoying him growing up tremendously. It is hard work with a very new baby and Zachary had a rough early few months which was hard work for both of us. I am finding this stage so much easier. It is so rewarding too. Each cheeky smile, babbling chatter and gorgeous laugh is worth more than I can begin to express in words. He is starting to interact with his world and the people in it so much every day. He adores his books and loves being read to and with but he is also discovering the joy of being able to sit and play with toys around him His favourite book is still the ladybird play book and his favourite toys at the moment are the wooden assorted shape bricks and the box they are in. In fact anything that will go in the box is great. he loves to sit with the box and delve into it pulling things out until eventually he ends up tipping up the whole box. I simply cannot imagine anyone wanting to hurt a small person like this. His joy at the world around him is so wonderful that even the intermittent bursts of frustration at teething aches do not seem to dampen his spirits for very long. I am sure most babies are like this but to me this is a wonderful adventure every day.

To think that not so long ago I had a life, career, brain, studies, fab sexy sports car, lunches with the girls, nights out every week ..... gosh it seems such a world away now. Some days I miss my life but perhaps that is one of the benefits of being an older Mum. I do not miss those things that much that I am unwilling to put them aside for a while and concentrate all my time and energy on the creation of a wonderful world for the most important man in my life. I only hope he remembers to thank me the day he goes off and gets married and another woman starts to be the center of his world. I guess though that even if he doesn't remember to I will still not regret one moment of my time that I have given. How could I he is simply my world!

September 19th - Toy Library, Cheeky Wasps & New Baby Teeth

Gosh today was a bust day indeed. We borrowed Great Grandpa's car today and went out! Escaped into the big wide world very exciting! Actually its really nice of my Grandpa to lend us his car so that we get to go out. I must confess that one of the things I miss very much is my car. My gorgeous beautiful racy sports car that just had to go to make way for a more baby friendly mode of transport is sadly missed. As yet I still have not replaced it so for almost a year now I have had no transport at all. In the early months I really did not even notice. Well for a start we were in hospital for a month. then I was told Zachary couldn't really go out until he was over 5lb in weight which took another month. Then to be honest the days passed so fast that really I was so busy I hardly missed a car at all. Now though I can't wait until we have wheels again - of our very own. Meantime Grandpa's vectra will do the job.

So what happened today. Well I got stung by a cheeky wasp that actually flew up my skirt. I am allergic to wasp stings so by the time we got home I had a huge swollen lump which was really red and felt quite ill. Meantime Zachary has cut his first top tooth. No wonder I was up all last night with a tearful screaming baby. I have a feeling Zachary will prove to be just like Uncle James and each tooth will come with fuss. Something of a drama queen. So to cheer him up and celebrate we visited the 'Toy Library'. It is a great scheme based in Barnards Green in Malvern. You pay a years membership then like a book library you can borrow 4 toys at a time for 2 weeks at a time. We borrowed a sit in activity center which zachary was thrilled to bits with.

September 20th - Sleepless Nights and Babies Cutting Teeth

Cutting teeth ! Need I say more. Cute as a button by morning time he was all smiles and none the worse for having been up and down in tears all night. Meantime Mummy looks like she has slept in a bus shelter and is as grumpy as a bear who should be hibernating. In fact I wish I were hibernating. I could cheerfully climb back into bed and snore like the bear in Zachary's book all day long. Unfortunately when I suggested to Zachary that we stay in bed all day because mommy was really tired he did not seem too impressed. So here we are at afternoon nap time. He looks adorable in a Timberland outfit that Liz & James bought him last Christmas and I am still wearing my pajama's. I love being mummy but I can't wait until the day when he gets his own breakfast and goes to watch a Disney Movie leaving me to sleep! Ok so I can dream can't I?

September 24th - Sitting up and playing while I straighten my hair.

Great Grandad fixed my hair straighteners! My gosh I feel like someone has just given me an amazing present. I couldn't wait to wash my hair and then treat myself to sleek flat straight hair. Amazing how after your time being monopolized by a small infant something like being able to straighten your hair is such luxury. I have got used to the fact that the things I do I now do at light speed. Superman was an amazing superhuman who could fly, run etc really fast. Well that pales into comparison to the speed that most women live their usual daily lives as well as fit in time to be the world to small person who demands all your attention. Basically 24 hours becomes 48 all squashed up into one day. You eat really fast, shower in 3 seconds flat, dress in whatever comes out of the wardrobe first because there is a small child about to chew up today's mail, do laundry, cooking, cleaning etc in a third of the time you ever had before and then if you are lucky you get 2 blissful hours when they are asleep. You plan to take a long bath, sit in a chair with a latte and a magazine, do that 30 min stretch and tone DVD, give yourself a manicure. You can bet your life that what actually happens is this when the Tesco delivery turns up, or work call, or you realise that the washing is on the line and you still have the machine full, or that mate you have wanted to chat to for ages calls. You know you really want to chat but also want to be really selfish and just have some time to yourself. Actually I think that you begin to realise that your own time becomes incredibly precious. Then you also realise that if that tiny person was not around you would wonder what to do with yourself.

I was watching Malcolm In the Middle the other day. The mum is in the supermarket and looks at her watch and realises she is 15 minutes ahead of schedule. She does this checklist of things she should have done or be doing then amazed tells the checkout girl she has 15 minutes spare. The girl asks what she did. 'Did you loose a kid or something?' I laughed at the irony of realising for the first time in my life I totally got the whole mummy in the supermarket scene. 18 months ago I would have laughed but never really cringed with understanding. Life will never be the same again!

September 28th - Sunny September

It was so nice today that we went for a long walk to the local nature park. I can't believe it is almost the end of september and still so warm. The lovely blue suit he is wearing was bought for Zachary by my friends in Bangor while I was still pregnant. It is a lovely colour and so easy to put him in because the trousers are the pull up sort with elastic waistband. I may not have passed any university exams this year but I have learnt quite a bit about baby clothes. Pull up comfy trousers must be a favourite of all Mum's. Actually he doesn't like hat's or hoods so this is the only photograph in this outfit where he isn't pulling the hood off his head.

I can't believe it is September already. All the students are going back to college and autumn is on its way. We have actually been really busy as I have volunteered to help Mum visit all the student houses. Makes me feel quite jealous of them going back to study. Which reminds me I must speak to the Open University about transferring my points. I have been talking to Bangor about using my credits to enroll on a distance course but I really think for a while the best thing would be OU. At least then I can finish my science degree. then I will have lost of letters after my name. Of course the best job comes with no letters. Apart from the ones that you wee one says to you. Mam Mam Mam !