Its all happening in the Bleakley home with young Joseph, first crawling and then a tooth today. It is a front top tooth and its razor sharp. He was gumming my thumb earlier in the day, with his tooth on my nail. He managed to miss it on one occasion and almost drew blood.

His crawling is improving by the minute. He now frequents the coal at every opportunity, we have to have eyes like hawks or he will have some in his mouth.

He is also getting much better at going to bed. Pop him in, a wee cry for a few seconds and then he is asleep.

Jessica is getting more and more helpful. She helps to tidy up, gets Joseph`s nappies, does a bit of hoovering etc…

I happened this morning, before David went to work.

Joseph was playing on the floor, we gave him a half deflated white baloon. It bounced away from him and he got on all fours. (he already could do this) Very slowely he shuffled after it. Then he chased a toy orange and he has been mobile ever since.

We have an electric fireplace (switched off) he crawled over and checked it out.

He has been much less demanding with this new freedom.

Davids brother Jonathan and Jennie became the proud parents of Grace today. Well done to Jennie, especially.

We are excited to have cousins on the Bleakley side for Jessica and Joseph to play with. We are sure they will make fab parents.

We are quite happy in our new home and are getting into the swing of some new years resolutions. Claire is swimming each week and is dieting. (she is doing great) I have been cycling to work and writing here.

We hope that we can keep it up.

We took down the decorations on Saturday and packed up the nativity. Jessica was great and helped box it all up, ready for next year.

Jessica will be starting preschool this week. She will be going for half days. She has already been for a taster session and really enjoyed it.

Joseph is very close to crawling and likes to be walked around. He is standing and holding on to things. He has big eyes and wins everyone over with them.

David and Claire have both been assigned to speak at church next week, so we have some preparation to do. We are looking forward to it.

2008 has arrived.

Happy new year to everyone.

We had a quiet evening in and watched Oceans 13.

University is now over. It was time to get a real job.

After the extended internship at STMicroelectronics, my love of electronics and FPGAs was confirmed. I took a job with Omnitek in Basingstoke, England. The job began on 23 October 07. We have moved from Edinburh to a little place called Tadley. Its 7.5 mies from work. Claire and the family joined me in late November.

I have just started my first project where I design the board and write all of the code. Its pretty good so far.

We are near Claires sister lisa and we are making friends.

All in all life is good.

Dear Friends and Family,

We hope this invite find you well and happy.

We would like to invite you to the naming and blessing of our wee boy, Joseph Samuel Bleakley, on Sunday 15th April. The service starts at 12.15pm and there will be light refreshments after.

The chapel is at 30A Colinton Rd, parking at the rear on Spylaw Rd (opp the Ruldolf Steiner School)

this is a special occasion for us and we hope you can come along
much love
The Bleakleys

Make your own | Click to play

Dear All

Our little boy Joseph was born at 7:45pm and weighed 7lb15 and was 23 inches long. Mother and baby doing well.
The birth of baby 2 (Joseph for now) all began on Thursday morning. Claire began to have contractions. This was nothing new as she had been having a few practice contractions for weeks. So I took Jessica to nursery and came home. The contractions had not stopped. Claire suggested I went to university (which was only 5 mins away on the bike) so I did. I got a text “Time to come home i think” I excused myself from the thrilling lecture.

Claire was ready to go and her mum was there too. We postponed as much as possible and called the hospital when the contractions were 5 mins apart. They asked us to come down.
We spent an hour measuring contractions etc and were then sent up to the labour ward. Our midwife was Linsay and she did a great job. Claire started with gas and air, which worked for a while. This progressed to morphine which then progressed to a request for an epidural. Just as the anesthetist was about to sterilise Claire’s back, the sudden urge to push came and our little boy was born 5 mins later without the epidural.
There were no complications, or stitches everything went well. Claire was fantastic, I am very proud of her. When I left the hospital about 1:30am Claire was catching as much sleep as she could between the grumbles of our little one.

Claire has been pregnant for a while, but I have only just felt the baby kick. Exciting stuff.

Jessica is teething and was up a fair bit last night. Daddy managed to sleep through most of it, thanks to Mummy. At 5am Jessica ended up in bed with us.

Shortly after Daddy woke up with his eyes stinging; Jessica had found the Vicks VapoRub and wiped it all over daddy’s closed eyelids.

The comedy of parenthood continues…