My Mamma Said

My fabulous mum, Sandra has handknitted some beautiful infant and toddler items for us to sell. I have created a page on Etsy.com. The money will be going towards our trip home to Australia. Go shopping people. It is really beautiful stuff. My mum is a genius with a pair of knitting needles. I will post some of the items here as well.

To Oz, To Oz

I am off to London for work next week where I will be catching up with my brother Rob, then Nellie and I are visiting Las Vegas to meet Uncle Nathan and David.

We are all coming to Australia for Christmas but are struggling to afford the airfare. It is going to run approx $9K for our airfares and accommodation. "Luckily" the dollar is pretty weak so we will catch a small break there. We are asking our friends and family to pitch in $10 to help us out. Payments can be made directly into PayPal through my account nicollelbradford@hotmail.com. For those in Australia, money can go straight into my St George account. I will give you the details privately. It pains us to ask for help but I haven't been home for four years and my Dad still hasn't met Nellie!

We have a group started on Facebook to keep people updated about that. It is also called To Oz, To Oz.

It's been so long

Major apologies about the neglect of the blog. Here are the bullet points on what has happened since our last post many months ago.

- We moved from Flatbush to Ditmas Park. We are back in a large apartment building similar to our place on Butler Place. Our flat is large and sturdy and still filled with unpacked boxes. I hope this gets remedied this weekend.

- Nellie has 12 teeth now. She has four gaps where her canine teeth should be.

- Dashiell and Dylan are friends again after some pretty violent months where they had to be kept separated. We let Dylan have first run of the new flat and that seems to have returned a balance.

- The Production Company's next production opens tonight which puts an end to almost three months of rehearsals for Mark. He directed a play at Stella Adler Studios and then went straight into The Most Damaging Wound.


Obviously we have taken plenty of photos and videos recently and I will try to get them up as well.

Buffalo adventure!

This weekend we all went to Buffalo, NY for Tiffnay and Jake's wedding.We had a pretty smooth trip up and the wedding was a blast. Tiff and Jake put together a great day and Nellie danced the night away.

Today is Father's Day and we spent the day at Niagara Falls in both USA and Canada. It was so beautiful and fun. We rode on The Maid of the Mist which goes right up to the falls where you get completely soaked. We made sure that our passports got stamped but to my disappointment, they no longer have the words Niagara Falls on the stamp like they did when I was last here in 1999.

Right now I am typing this on my work Blackberry at Buffalo airport. Our flight was due to take off at 6:05pm and get us in at 8:05pm. It is currently 8:29pm! Our flight may now leave at 10:45pm! Gotta love that JetBlue.

Tiffany is also still here. Her flight was due to fly earlier than ours. She is flying out again in the morning to begin her honeymoon. Fingers crossed that she makes it!

After some overheating and teething issues, Nellie has crashed out in her stroller. I am getting a little jealous of her horizontalness.

Nellie had her second last class on Saturday. She is wearing one of her new birthday outfits (yellow - my favourite). There is no class over the summer so we will have to find a new engaging activity to spur us out of bed on Saturday mornings!

Nellie and Brooklyn Public Library

We have started going to the newly renovated Brooklyn Public Library this past fortnight after class on Saturdays. If you haven't been there before, it is a beautiful building next to Prospect Park opposite Grand Army Plaza.

As book junkies, Mark and I are delighted we reignited our passion for the library.

This photo is from the Children's area of the library. Nellie wouldn't let Mark hold the book for her. As you can see, she has a pretty good handle on the whole reading thing!

Nellie's First Birthday

So we hadn't posted many photos from Nellie's actual birthday. She is wearing a beautiful dress brought back for her from Paris by Anne Sawyer.

Nellie's First Birthday Party at Coney Island

We had a wonderful party at Coney Island last weekend. It was very windy but we still had a good time. Here are some shots from the day.

Nellie Walking

Nellie has been trying out the walking. We moved back all the furniture and let her go. She revs herself up and then takes off. My two favourite moments are when she eats and walks at the same time and the funky move she ends it all with.

Nellie's first steps

These videos are from Nellie taking her first steps in front of me. She has been taking some steps with her babysitter Clara for a couple of weeks and has yet to do it for Mark. I was on the couch so the filming conditions were not great!

Nellie is Stylin'!

Grandma Sandra made this pink helmut for Nellie. It covers her whole face which was great for those really cold winter days when Nellie would always be pulling off her hats.

Today is Nellie's 1st birthday! The second photo is me on my first birthday.

Nellie climbing the stairs

You need some patience with this video - just like Nellie had patience with the first time she climbed the stairs. I helped her on the first two and then she took off. You can see by the end she is in a bit of a rythmn. We went and climbed them straight away again after we reached the top.

Nellie climbing the slippery slide

This is Nellie climbing up the slide the first time she was ever on one!

We all had a lovely Easter. Here is Nellie enjoying her chocolate bunny from the Easter Bunny.

This shirt says "My Mum Rocks". I am so sad that she has grown out of it now. Maybe I will get a version of it for every size!

Nellie is almost 1!

Tomorrow is Nellie's first birthday!!! This time last year, I was sitting/reclining/resting/bored in the delivery room strapped up to things, crap coursing through my veins and not much else going on. Today is Shakespeare's birthday and we thought that would be a lovely day for LP to be born. LP and my cervix had other plans (ewww gross why did you have to talk about your cervix?!)

We can't believe it has been a year! Dad and Nathan still haven't met Nellie yet.

For her birthday tomorrow, her babysitter, Clara, and her two girls are bringing Nellie to Central Park for lunch. Mark is going to trek up as well. Let's hope the weather will hold out.

Nellie's words are - mama, dada, baby, play, up, hi and bye (with different waves!)

She is not actually walking but she can stand and drink! Clara has seen her take a few steps but she hasn't done it for us yet. She can climb the stairs and the slippery slide however! She loves climbing!

She eats everything we give her. She particularly likes rice and beans, pineapple, hot chips, corn chips, broccoli, guacamole and veggie burgers. She drinks formula, juice and water. We can start her on regular milk after tomorrow.

She has started reacting (read - throwing small tantrums) when we walk away or take something from her. These are usually low key and pretty funny.

Nellie has seen a lot of movies this year. Most of them she has either slept through or just sat and watched. Recently she has started to consider them interactive entertainment and "talks" back to the screen. This means that Mark and I spend most of the movie either at the door or out of the theatre. We will have to bite the bullet and start taking her to more appropriate films where she can make as much noise as she wants.

She has been taking Sign-a-Song classes for a few months. We have a lovely time but she is not doing much signing yet. She seems to babble with her hands which is normal apparently.

Everyone says that she is big but she is right in the 50th percentile for her age. Enjoy the photos and video.

Oscar Madness

Last night we took Nellie to her first Oscar party. This was our second year at the Orchard Project's Oscar party. Last year I was almost 8 months pregnant so we sprung for the fancy seats and I rued that I couldn't take advantage of the open bar.

Nellie was wearing her new fancy pants and her movie themed onesy "Nobody puts baby in the corner". She delighted everyone when she was awake and awed everyone when she slept through the bar noise.

I think I would prefer to watch the awards at home. I take them very seriously and like to hear all that is being said. Although I don't think I would have as wonderful cocktails and the food was delish.

Nellie eating chocolate

The Simpson's cast is being interviewed by James Lipton and Nellie is finishing off her Valentine's Day chocolate. She still has a bit of a cough.

Nellie jumping like a monkey at Sing a Song class

Nellie loves this part of class when she gets to jump.

Sign-a-Song

We have started taking Nellie to Sign-a-Song classes in Park Slope. It is a lot of fun. Nellie doesn't seem to be taking very much of it in right now. Mark and I will keep working on her though.

Nellie's Sign-a-Song class

Nellie's Grandpa Jack took this photo over Christmas in Duluth, Minnesota.

Nellie update

Some of you may have seen from my Facebook profile that Nellie and I have been quite sick. We both had a nasty bout of stomach 'flu. It is really difficult to see your baby sick. Especially when she is this young and can't tell you what is going on and you can't explain that it will all be better soon.

I lost 4lbs which is good but Nellie lost weight too and that is bad. Her Buddah belly has lost some of its roundness and her tremendous thighs have been reduced to thunder thighs.

She was weak and morose on Monday but on Tuesday she was back on track. She woke up hungry and happy. Wednesday she ate everything in sight and giggled the whole day! She seems astounded by her recovery. A week is a long time for a baby. She probably thought this was how it was going to be forever. Mark and I got pretty proficient at blocking and dodging projectile vomit and getting Nellie swiftly over to a sink so it could all come out one tube and go down another.