My cousin Craig and his wife, Tracey had a baby girl on Tuesday, 22 Feb 2005, after a spectacularly short labor – I am so jealous. Tracey is a midwife so obviously has a few tricks up her sleeve I will have to investigate.
Little Jaimee was a healthy 8lb and big sister Claudia, Grandma Liz and Grandpa Ken are all over the moon. She arrived on my brother Peter’s 40th birthday so maybe they will have to plan a joint 21st and 61st birthday party.
Wishing Craig, Tracey and Claudia lots of sleep and congratulations on the newest Armstrong. Love, Carolyn, Christos and 2nd cousin Eleni (who is nearly one month older!).
Well it was a big week for both Eleni and me. On Tuesday 22 February (Peter’s 40th birthday) we ventured to the Cambridge Shire Hall for my British citizenship ceremony. There was a group of about 15 people getting citizenship and we had to file into the room and take an oath of allegiance to the Queen and her successors. We were then presented with our certificates and the officials made a couple of small speeches welcoming us to the country. The whole thing took about 1 1/2hrs which Eleni missed as she was with her Grandma Politis having her nappy changed! She managed a very loud and stinky poo just before the ceremony was to start and had to leave to get cleaned-up. (Does this mean she does not want to be a POM too?)
Anyway, Eleni was better behaved when she became an Australian citizen this week. No ceremony at the Shire Hall for her but I presented her Aussie certificate (which came in the mail from Australia House in London) after a feed while she was quietly lying on the loungeroom floor. So she officially is a little Aussie baby – she just needs a swim in the surf now.
Note – the beautiful card at the top right of the page was especially crafted by my friend Emelia in Sydney.
Our little girl is finally here. Eleni Theoni made her way into the world at a snails pace on 31 January 2005. My waters broke at mid-night on Friday and she did not arrive until the early hours of Monday morning – a record 50 hours latter. The labor was long, painful and ended up with an emergency C-section but of course she is all worth it.
Christos’s first words when he saw her were: “she’s got so much hair” and his second words were “she’s huge”. Well yes she has a tonne of hair like her dad – it is thick and black so she will stand out when visiting my family who are all blonde. As for being huge – well I thought she was heavy to carry around in my belly but really she was average weight (7 lbs 8 oz). She was actually a week and a half early so could have made it to 8lbs if she arrived on her due date.
We are now back home and trying to settle into a routine. We are struggling with breast feeding but apart from that we are both healthy. I have some nice stitches which are healing well, in addition to a nice bruised back. I had 4 epidurals before the pushing process was halted due to her position. Unfortunately none of the epidurals worked for me – quite rare but can happen where there has been back injuries in the past.
Eleni will soon be traveling down to London to get her US and Australian citizenships sorted out. She will be christened some time this year with Sophia Paipeti as the godmother (Noona). Sophia was the person who introduced Christos and I at her 30th birthday in August 2001. Eleni will also be making a visit to Australia some time this year to see all her Aussie relatives and go for a swim at the beach.
The name Eleni translates to Helen in English. It means light and she has certainly added some brightness to the dull skies of England for us.
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