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Thursday, February 18, 2010

Please Pray for Grandpa

MaGogo and Grandpa came up from Cape Town last week for Bella's 2nd birthday. On the morning of Bella's birthday Grandpa accidentally fell down a step in our house and broke his neck. Luckily it did not severe his spinal column so he still has function in his arms and legs but he is still in ICU. The doctors tried to operate on Thursday last week but were unable to fuse the spine. He spent a few days in Halo Traction which seems to have stabilised his neck. He is still weak but seems to be improving. Please pray for Grandpa's speedy recovery.

I will write an update on Bella and my long awaited post on New York as soon as I can.

Tuesday, February 9, 2010

Another brief update and a guest appearance

Since I have been back from New York I have been to the Pilanesberg and Cape Town. It is now 2 days from Bella's 2nd birthday and I am still battling to get back into my routine. I have not yet had a chance to write up a post on New York. GaLou has been far more diligent and given me her post which I have included below.

Briefly on the Bella front, Bella stood up all by herself last week without holding onto anything. I unfortunately did not see it and she has not done it since, but she can and she will when she decides to... She can also do all the actions to the song "Pat a Cake" which is amazing.

MaGoGo arrived today to be here fore her Great Grandaughters 2nd birthday. Its going to be a great week.

Without further adieu....

GaLou's New York post

It is now over a week since we returned from New York, and Cathy has asked me to write something for her blog. By way of introduction, I am one of Bella’s “extra” grannies, affectionately known as GaLou, so named when big brother Max was first learning to speak. I was lucky enough to spend some time with Cathy and Bella in New York last month, a city I had never visited. I guess January is not the ideal month to see New York for the first time – somewhat grey, and definitely chilly to very cold but none-the-less, it was a wonderful experience.

I went to most of Bella’s therapies with her, and it was really nice to see it first hand, but more so, to see the progress she made so quickly. Marcy worked a lot on trying to get her to stand and one evening, when Cathy and I were sitting on the hotel floor, Bella calmly put her hand on my knee and stood up! Not for long, but she definitely made a stand! She also worked on getting Bella to use her fingers to press buttons on her toys rather than giving them a heavy whack to get the music to play, and we also saw progress in this regard.

I managed to do a bit of sightseeing both with Cathy and on my own at times. I visited the Intrepid Museum, a retired World War II air-craft carrier which I thoroughly enjoyed, although I did not enjoy getting home afterwards. None of the taxies would stop for me and I ended up walking about thirty blocks back to the hotel, through some very dodgy areas, promising myself never to go anywhere without Cathy again. However, I did venture out alone again, went up Rockefeller Centre (in the mist), walked through Central Park and saw Grand Central Station. In between the three of us also managed some Harley Davidson shopping for Grandpa, had some wonderful meals, and cruised the shops in Columbus Circle, as well as Toys-R-Us in Times Square.

Most of all, I enjoyed spending so much time together with Cathy and Bella who, almost all of the time, was the most delightfully smiling little angel, as you can see in the pictures Cathy has already posted. Her smile slipped a bit on the flight home, when she decided it was definitely not sleep-time and I got to spend nearly two hours with her on the jumpseat in the galley playing “Pat a Cake” – but that’s just one of the many joys of being her granny!

Friday, February 5, 2010

New York photo reel

I have been wanting to write up a long post on our time in New York but have just not had the time. GaLou sent me the pictures she took while we were there so have posted them here in the meantime. Enjoy....


Having fun in the bath!



Bear standing


Bear walking



Just being too cute



Kissing her new puppy toy



Patting her new puppy toy



Loving her duck in her new "beary" cute winter pyjamas


Just taking a break... note the crossed legs



Peeping out our hotel window at the last remaining christmas lights



Shopping



Enjoying a taxi ride




In Times Square


Enjoying her new electric toothbrush