Festive Celebrations!

Jingle Bells! Jingle Bells!

Jingle all the way…

Are you feeling festive yet!? Yes, yes i know its the middle of July but i can’t tell Tiny’s story without filling in the gaps, especially her first Christmas! Christmas of 2017 was one of those special moments i’ll treasure forever for so many reasons. We had managed to register our little T-rex the month before so she was officially official and shortly after that was when we got the best christmas gift of all…her first real smile!

It truly was a glorious moment, we were all up in our jigsaw puzzle of a bedroom just enjoying those little nuggets of time whilst Tiny napped. Then a little shuffle sounded from inside her moses basket, so Will scooted down to the end of the bed and peered inside as she slowly stirred awake. I stayed at the top end of the bed with most likely a coffee in hand and big fluffy slippers protruding from beneath the covers.

“Hey baby!” Will greeted our little one. “Awwww, oh my god Sian, come see!” I then saw Will whip out his mobile and quickly start taking a few snaps. I tried to move as swiftly as those remaining stitches would allow and joined my little family. As i peeked inside that basket a beautiful gummy smile greeted me! It truly was glorious and i shall never forget it…especially the laughter that followed as Tiny’s face turned that familiar shade of red, wrinkles spread across her brow as she grunted.

Initially i was nervous and a little disheartened by the approach of Christmas. We had originally hoped that we would be in our own little place by the time it rolled around but as anyone who has had to use the local council to get housed will know, that wouldn’t happen. So i was anxious about where all the extra stuff was going to go, how our day would actually pan out and if we could even decorate the bedroom. With a little creativity and patience we made it work and we got to thoroughly enjoy our first Christmas as a little family.

We excitedly planned out an outfit for Tiny for our family meet up, Christmas Eve, Christmas day and Boxing Day as we knew we were seeing a lot of eager family members over this month so wanted to make the most of it. The outfits ranged from cute little winter dress and tights, to The Elf, Mrs Claus and a cue little present. My gosh they were totally worth it! During this time we also had to take Tiny on her first ever long journey in the car, which she took in her stride…or should i say in her sleep.

Thankfully because our little one loves being in the car we managed to visit everybody and it was such a heart warming experience. Getting to witness everyone we know and love finally getting that little snuggle or in other cases stealing another. We also got to enjoy all that glorious food without a newborn in our arms, we had plenty of willing arms to take her shortly so we could take the time to really enjoy the feasts (I didn’t waste anytime gorging myself, i knew nothing would set off a vomit explosion anymore) and oh boy did i! Hot roasted turkey, crisp and fluffy roast potatoes, fat juicy sprouts and every vegetable under the sun, oh and lets not forget that satisfy pool of gravy that brings it all together. The various mountains of sweets, puddings and biscuits, i was in heaven! Christmas is definitely my favourite time of year, i love the atmosphere and families coming together but most of all i love the FOOD!!

This also made me very very excited about Christmas 2018, Tiny would be at an age where she could truly enjoy it, we would hopefully be in our own place by then (meaning i could unleash my festive decorating skills) and we could even host a get together. I was also looking forward to not having the weird family tradition fall on me this time. Every Christmas one of us is always sick, for no real reason at all and unfortunately it was the turn of both Tiny’s and I. Luckily by boxing day we managed to shake it off and enjoy another family get together, with food and presents galore!

Christmas for us was also a moment of relief, we had finally made a breakthrough with Tiny because for a long time she would decide at least every other night that at about 10ish (her dream feed time) or sometimes even earlier that she wanted to be awake, not to play…oh no,she decided it was time to have a screaming meltdown and most nights these would last several hours. One night it went into the early hours of the morning and literally NOTHING would help soothe her, other than an intense rocking session or turning the light on, which is really quite counter intuitive.

I can’t clearly remember what exactly it was that we changed to curb it but i know we narrowed it down; it wasn’t colic, it wasn’t a wet nappy, it wasn’t because she was hungry or cold. We tried everything and we got much stricter with her bedtime routine, we weren’t to talk to her if she was to wake up, we made sure to have very dim lights on in the bedroom and that any screens / extra light was switched off after a certain time of night. This sometimes meant we had to eat our dinner in the darkness and that we could only use our mobiles for entertainment but it was all worth it to be able to get a reasonable amount of sleep and a happy baby (and happy parents) the next day. We also invested in a white noise machine and it was the best decision we’ve ever made, it isn’t 100% fool proof and of course every baby is different but nonetheless it worked, even if it was just to keep her calm and slowly but surely we all managed to claw back some precious minutes of sleep…it really was a Merry F**king Christmas!

*If you have any questions or would like to discover more about our story feel free to comment or visit The Tiny T-Rex Backstage area via the link on the home page!*