Growing up

It's really bizarre how you wake up one day and realise you have a little girl, not a baby. It ought to be obvious, after all I see her every day, but sometimes you fail to shift your perception for a while, assume things are the same, and suddenly you turn around and things have changed.

I had my first conversation with Sally the other week - nothing too dramatic, but a conversation all the same. It went like this:

She had had pasta, tomato and peas, some grapes and half a cereal bar for tea...

Me: Have you finished, would you like to get down?
Sally: Geh dow - waaaaa! (grumpy face)
Me: You don't want to get down? Would you like something else to eat?
S: es pees
Me: What would you like to eat?
S: eezins
Me: Raisins? You would like some raisins?
S: pees
Me: Ok. (off to get raisins, put raisins on table)
Me: Say thank you
S: (through mouthful of raisin) ah-oo.

All of a sudden I feel as though we are starting to communicate, which is lovely. Unfortunately the flip side of this is that Sally expects me to understand her every time she 'says' anything. Seeing as most of it is gibberish I am at a loss and she gets frustrated and cross. I'd hope the baby signing might lessen this but as she really hasn't picked it up at all I don't think there's much hope of that! A few more years of this to go through I expect... Argh. I have friends with older todders: it's not pretty. Doesn't matter how experienced/clever/naturally talented at parenting you are, toddlers are like little ticking time bombs waiting to go off.

I do love watching Sally's wordcount increase tough. She fills in the gaps in Meg and Mog, which is quite funny. You can point to the owl, and Meg's hat, and the spider, and she fills in the word. She also says 'Meeow!' in an anguished fashion when Mog's tail is trodden on, and a passable approximation of 'Abracadabra'. When we go outside she points (in vaguely the right direction, her aim is somewhat poor) at the trees and says 'tees!' and she will ask to go on the 'sings'.

All is not well at the moment though. Last Friday she was very grumpy and clingy. Then on Saturday morning she had a gungy eye, which fortunately only lasted the day. Sunday she had a temperature of 39, and then on Monday she woke up covered in spots! She went down for her nap slightly blotchy and woke up looking like she'd been spattered with paint. As far as I can tell it must just be a non-specific viral rash. It's faded a lot since the beginning of the week but I think she's still unwell. I haven't really had to go in and see to her but she's been waking up a couple of times every night, which is a real shame.

A truly stellar incident today as well. I'd forgotten to move the milk-warming glass of water from last night. Really, really a big mistake. I posted this elsewhere:

So at 8:20 this morning after breakfast and getting dressed, Sally and I came into the lounge and within five minutes she had tipped the glass of water over the box, the floor, and to my utter dismay the bottom shelf of her bookshelf. Imagine me in a panic, simultaneously trying to whip the books out of the water before they got any wetter and to stop Sally wading in the puddle which she was very excited to do. Cue screaming from Sally at being removed from the situation. While I continue fishing for books, Sally starts excavating the pile of wet books and trying to drip them all round the room. I leap across the room and remove her again from the situation, trying to explain why she can't have the wet books. More screaming and cries of 'Pees! Pees!'. I return to the wetness to rescue more books, pursued by a persistent and crying toddler, who now tries to grab the back of my T-shirt and climb on me whilst I kneel on the floor peeling back the base of the playpen which is happily drinking the water without restraint. Turn to remove Sally once more, and in standing with some force smack my head on the corner of the (metal) shelf bracket. Swear loudly and collapse in a heap in the puddle in quite considerable pain. "Sh*t!" says Mummy, in ire. "IT!" says Sally, trying to climb in my lap. I remove Sally once again, take the last few books to the other side of the room and head off for some kitchen paper and a tea-towel. Sally, furious at being abandoned and ignored, begins a tantrum which lasts for the subsequent twenty minutes. Armed with tea-towel and kitchen paper I begin trying to dry books, not helped by the aforementioned tantruming toddler, who steals the kitchen paper and starts throwing it about in anger. Dry books whilst trying to explain to someone too young to understand why it is important.

Eventually I get the books to a situation where they are as dry as I can get them without greater effort (Mum was coming for the day so within an hour I was actually able to work on them properly, and prompt action means that only a few are actually damaged) and turn more attention to Sally. She refuses to calm down and as the puddle is now sneaking its way under the sofa and towards the rug I end up balancing her on one hip whilst trying to mop things up with one hand, occasionally pausing to remove wet kitchen paper from her hand as she tries gamely to eat it. Cue more screaming at having tasty kitchen paper taken away.

By 9am, with a sore head, a beautiful lump thereupon, increasing feelings of nausea assumed either to be stress or mild concussion and a desire to ask my Mum to take Sally away with her, things are vaguely returned to normal. After a day's work, all but three books are fine.

The Gruffalo and Penguin have suffered the most; I'll have to see how they look after a flattening!