Sally Snowdrop

Whoops

2010-09-27T21:17:00.002+01:00

There have been plenty of exciting things going on here and I have failed to record any of them. This is a shame because I feel like there will be things about Sally I will forget, funny little moments I won't remember in future unless I write them down. So new resolve now: get it down on here before it passes forever!

She is doing really well. Her word count is well up - must be way over 200 by now. Most things she says are two and three word sentences now, and occasionally longer. She tends not to use conversation, however, which worries me slightly - instead she talks more recitatively about books and rhymes from the television. She remains obsessed by Camberwick Green and Trumpton (her conversation about Dr Mopp has become almost a verbal tic, a habit I'm trying to break) and repeats the Trumpton Clock rhyme all the time too. My plan is to continue to try and take her out more and to encourage her to talk about things we've seen and done, to try and introduce more real life into her conversation.

Her memory remains extraordinary. Over the past few weeks, ever since she went to Focus and asked us what the things were on the trolley (FOCUS) she has been working on learning her letters. Little effort has been made by us, to be honest I'd have been happy if she'd left this until she went to pre-school, but we bought her an alphabet puzzle and she has asked us and repeated letters back to us religiously. She's been bringing us her magnetic drawing board and saying 'letters please' so we draw different ones and she guesses what they are. This week, three weeks after she first asked, it was clear that she had learned the lot. She already knew the digits 1-9 (when we went to a wedding a few weeks ago she kept pointing at the doors in the hotel and telling us the room numbers) so she is now pretty well equipped when it comes to symbols. She has also learned to count to fifty with a reasonable level of reliability. Most amazingly for me she has learned virtually every book she owns off by heart. She will recite (without the books) the whole of The Bad-Tempered Ladybird or the Gruffalo, sentence by sentence, almost every word, provided you repeat each sentence as she does it. The funniest moments are her impression of the bad ladybird ("Ull sho wu!") and her gruff Gruffalo voice.

She is resolutely average when it comes to physical activities, which is fine. I had worried she was a bit behind but after asking around it seems it's perfectly normal for under-twos to still need help using cutlery. She has been finding it difficult to put puzzle pieces in but that is slowly improving, so her hand eye co-ordination is getting better, and the fact that she doesn't throw or jump is not yet unusual. I am torn at the moment on how to proceed - do you make a child focus on their weaker areas in order to help them get better, or do you leave them to figure those out for themselves and encourage them in their strengths and interests? I do worry that Sally is too self-absorbed and bookish - particularly after last week, when she demonstrated a strong fear of other children coming too close to her and trying to engage her - but if it is traumatic and upsetting to force her into those situations, then how does that improve it? I definitely need to work on her socialisation - watch this space perhaps and see how it goes.

She continues to go to Tiny Talk, now on Mondays, and now a toddler class. This is ideal as it is much wordier and more physical. It's a small class but there are children there for her to mix with, and she feels comfortable. On Thursdays we still go to soft play at the leisure centre and she has really been improving what she's doing there. She spends a lot longer playing now before she starts asking to go home, and a few sessions ago she spent the whole time climbing along the monkey bridge using hands and feet, which was a real breakthrough. There she does tolerate the other children but she doesn't like it if they come too close.

The only other thing to report is that based on the way things have been going, the terrible twos are just around the corner... Naughty step, here we come.

Sentences and memory

2010-07-04T21:28:00.002+01:00

We've had a few sentences!

For a few weeks now Sally has become a master of imperative, "Get it!" and "Read it!" being among her favourite commands. She has also discovered the word 'help', which seems to mean anything from 'give me a hand with this, will you?' to 'do it for me now!'

However, tucked in there have been a couple of gems like when she pointed at the TV and said "turn it off!" She has also started using "there he is!" which I think grew out of Panda in Maisy's Bedtime and his habit of hiding behind the curtains... Only Sally says it as if it's all one word, so she greets Daddy in the morning with "THAREEIZ!"

Although I am quite sure it is too early to tell, she appears to have a very visual memory. It would be interesting to know if all toddlers think like that or whether they have different learning styles from the start. Anyway on Friday we were looking at her Richard Scarry's Best Word Book Ever and discussing all the things that Kenny Bear has for breakfast. He is clearly a very hungry bear as he eats half a page of different things! I named them and after a few goes by the end of the afternoon she'd got most of them. Then when she was in the bath on Friday night I said to her "tell Daddy what we were doing today - what does Kenny Bear have for breakfast?" and she looked up in the air - we are convinced she was picturing the page, hence the visual memory - and reeled them off: "bacon, seeweeall (cereal), fwooot jooooss, muffins, c(w)eam, jam, toast, pancakes, butter". I really didn't realise that toddlers could remember so much; no wonder you have to be careful what you say!

Sally has finally got the hang of scribbling a bit better now as well. She managed to draw a 'picture' of two colours (black and yellow) a couple of days ago before she lost interest. Playdough is far more popular - she made a lovely mouse with it, even telling me that's what it was (must post a picture of it) in an early session but at the moment "pattens" are more exciting. I've been pressing "smoov" playdough onto her hands
and making handprint patterns, which she loves.

My favourite moment of the week was with Tiny Owl, however. Sally held him by his wings and said "Wings!" then "fwlap, fwlap!" and flapped them. I said "oh, Tiny Owl is flying, where is he flying to?" and she said "fly high!" and flapped him over her head. A lovely little moment.

Catching up again

2010-06-22T21:30:00.004+01:00

Although to be honest I haven't had much to say!

Nothing major has been happening except more and more words from Sally and slow progress decorating the house. I have picked up some tuition work however which is brilliant - brings in a bit of pocket money and makes me feel useful.

Sally is now using far more words than I can count. Someone said to me today that her vocabulary was huge; I've not much idea because I have nothing to compare it to but certainly she says a lot of things I wouldn't expect her to say!

She has the little hide and seek books that we take out on trips with us, and up to now she's been brilliant at saying what all the animals are (starfish, walrus (tusks!), cat, horse, eskimo (drinking TEA!), husky etc etc) but a couple of days ago I noticed she can now also label most of the things they are hiding behind. This means she will sit there and say "shipwreck", "coral", "seaweed" or "iceberg", "waves", "sledge". But she can now say virtually anything - book, beef, cushion, fruit pot, nuisance, chair, sit, pour, ding-ding (doorbell!), lightswitch... it just goes on. She learns about one new word a day now. My favourite (which was yesterday's word!) is 'delicious'. The other morning she had some dry cornflakes after breakfast and I asked her 'did you enjoy your cornflakes?' She gave me an enormous grin and said 'delishus!'. It was very very cute.

She has finally figured out how to climb so now scales every chair in sight calling 'sit! sit!'. This does lead to some rather lovely moments however: everything will go quiet and I will discover her sat in an enormous chair reading something to herself. That or emptying everything out of the wardrobe drawers...

Sally has also started to sort things. I had been worrying that she was quite slow to pick up the idea of her shapesorter, but on closer inspection I discovered that she does understand it and in fact knows exactly which hole to put each shape in - she just can't be bothered to fiddle with them until they go in! So she will pick up a shape, turn the sorter to the correct hole, have a couple of goes at shoving it in - then get cross and give up. She really has no patience whatsoever, equally in evidence in the way she tries to stand up the flamingo shaped skittle two or three times before shouting at it in frustration!

I've been reading a fascinating book called Mind in the Making http://mindinthemaking.org/ by Ellen Galinsky. It's a discussion of the seven key skills that children need in order to succeed, including things like 'making connections', 'perspective-taking', 'communicating' and, significantly for Sally, 'focus and attention'... It's a great book because it doesn't focus on intelligence - a hugely overrated and oversimplified concept - but on skills that can, she suggests, be improved and developed from a child's natural starting point. There are various games and tasks you can use in it, and it explores issues such as how we ask questions of our children. I think Sally and I may be looking at ways to improve her attention span before very long...

In other, more meteorological news the weather has been very hot. The paddling pool has therefore been out and Sally - who has been very good about every aspect of this and seems to love her hat and glasses - has been suncreamed, be-hatted and be-spectacled for her own protection.

After five months of waiting her canine teeth have also finally popped through. We'd had terrible, painful, sloppy poos for ages and then at last the little white dots appeared - all four within a week and a half!- and now things are back to being a bit more reasonable. The total number of teeth to date then is now 16!

I wanted to use this to record some of Sally's best bits but having been so rubbish I can't now think of things to put down in writing. It is worth mentioning how lovely it is that she understands a lot more now though - I told her to give Daddy his fathers' day card on Sunday and she trooped off through the house, found him and gave it straight to him. I think he was quite pleased...! We have been very excited as well about Sally's counting. She can now reasonably reliably get to ten and the other morning made it to 13 - which turns out to be the number of pictures of Sid on one double page spread in Six Dinner Sid... or 'Sid! Sid!' as it is known! She is a bit overkeen on eight and three however, so if you are not careful that is how many things there are, honest...

Finally I've given up on the Bedtime Hour and the absurdity that is In the Night Garden. We're now onto iplayer, which works beautifully as madam can ask for what she wants. Currently this is 'Ting Tales' or 'Timmy' or 'Lola'. All of which, to my delight, I can understand!

It's been too long

2010-04-26T21:10:00.003+01:00

Too many things going on!

First of all, we finally decorated a room. And I got my way and it was Sally's. Mainly this was because it needed the least doing to it and was the easiest to move the furniture out of! We had a minor disaster when I was doing the woodwork as a cat who shall remain nameless - Sephy, you rat - walked over the windowsill having escaped from the confinement of the kitchen. So I had to sand it down and do it again. Sally coped well with the whole experience, showing no ill-effects from sleeping first in our room, then in the spare room (turns out I can't sleep when she's in with us any more - she moves, I wake up!) She also seems to like the new room a lot. It took a LOT of paint to cover the dark red that the previous owners had left us with. Four coats of white paint on the white walls, and two of white and three of green on the green ones! My parents came up and helped, which made a huge difference.

Anyway, here it is in all its glory:

I love this light fitting: it's from KICO and is just brilliant!

So that's one of the things we've been up to.

Sally finally has new shoes! It has been six months since the pre-walkers were bought - and six months minus two weeks since she's been walking well enough for proper shoes. Typical. Anyway they are really lovely and suitable for going through the spring into summer, so if her feet continue to grow this slowly it won't matter.

The little one continues to astound me with her memory. She takes all of thirty seconds to pick up words. We went out into the city the other week and ate lunch in Caffe Uno. I was a bit apprehensive about how she'd go with it, but once she'd decided that the capers off of my pizza were yummy (what 15 month old loves capers? Very odd) she was fine. I broke bits of my pizza in half and it was like a little light bulb went on. "I'll break it in half" I said. "Haf!" she tweeted. The next day at teatime she had toast, and proceeded to pull each piece in two and say "Haf!" each time. She understands enough now that you can ask her questions about books and she will give you the answer. So - "who tells the story in Down in the Woods at Sleepytime?" "OWL!" "Who does Maisy leave behind the curtain?" "Panda!" We have the three Dr Seuss books sorted now - "Hat!" "Ham!" and "Fish!"

I've been working on trying to get her to use a spoon by herself, and we are now at the point where if I hold the yoghurt pot for her she can spoon it out and eat it by herself. She's still a bit behind on the cutlery front I think but the Health Visitor assures me some kids don't pick it up until they're three - so a while to go yet! She can't scribble yet either. But she'll figure it out in time I suspect - she never likes to try anything until she has some belief that she can do it, or that there's some point to the exercise. I would love to see her sit quietly and draw, but it ain't happening just yet. She has started to stack blocks in the last month now though. The current record is seven. That keeps her occupied for ages (relatively speaking for her) maybe even five whole minutes! She builds them up, knocks them down and says 'Ohhhhw!' then builds them up again.

Wordswise the list is ever-growing. We had a quiet few weeks but over the last week or so more and more have been appearing. To add to the previous list we now have

Matthew
Star
Up
Car
Tigger
Horse
Pig
Panda
Woof
Lola (Moma)
Makka (makka pakka)
Flower
Daisy
Bear
Rabbit (that’s what she’s saying, although it doesn’t sound quite right yet!)
Umbrella
Slide
Swings
Hairslide
Dolphin
Grapes
Mice
Tigger
Sephy (Essy!)
Cat
Hat
Ham
Eggs
Cheeks
Hurt
Shirt

It's really nice to record them as you can see how her interests develop - and what books we've been reading!

The big battle at the moment is to teach her that pain is not funny. She keeps pinching me and saying "Ow.Ow!" which really hurts. It's got to the point where if you say 'hurt' she falls about laughing. It isn't very nice and so I am trying to change it. At the moment when she does it I say "Ouch!" very loudly, tell her that she has hurt Mummy and that that isn't nice, and then if she does it again, she goes straight down on the floor and I walk off. We'll have to see how that plan goes.

What's happening

2010-03-16T21:30:00.005Z

We've now added prawns to Sally's list of likes. She had some prawn and pea risotto the other night and after a couple of them seemed very keen to eat the prawns! Not as keen as she is about the peas - only 'hlives!' and 'cheez!' could possibly be as exciting as 'peez!' - but still fairly enthused.

Our new house is finally shaping up. We have new blinds and new curtains throughout and, if not paint on the walls, at least pots of paint in the hallway. It's a start. I spent my lunchtime the other day dutifully constructing a set of shelves I'd bought to go under the stairs after unscrewing half a million screws and removing the ill-advised boarding that was placed there by our esteemed previous owners. Sally's room has had all its woodwork rubbed down and most of the holes filled. I think her room will be the quickest to complete so I need to pin Sam down to a time to finish it. Failing that I could just move her out into a different room and get on with it myself.

Nothing major to report on the development front at the moment. I think Sally has now said 'bird' and she continues to 'baah!' obsessively over her Timmy Time books. She likes to feel the bricks of the wall on the way to the swings (the NEW baby swings behind the house)and say 'bicks'. She definitely now says breakfast, which is nice, but otherwise nothing new. She is however, indescribably cute at the moment. She loves playing BOO!, especially if it actually makes her jump out of her skin, loves being tickled, having raspberries blown on her... She reads quietly to herself, finds interesting things to do with random bits of stuff, and is usually happy to occupy herself. She is definitely a toddler, and has mini-tantrums over all sorts of things - mostly when she wants something I won't give her, like my wallet - but a firm refusal to give in means that after thirty seconds screaming she gives up.

I've been experimenting with tying her hair in bunches. It's a bit short, but it's nice to see her with a hairstyle for once, and it does look quite cute!

Little Miss Memory

2010-03-07T15:16:00.002Z

Last week, at bathtime:

"Sally, what did you have for lunch?" (intended as a rhetorical question)
"(r)ice"
(shocked silence)
"Er, yes! What did you have afterwards?"
"Cheese!"

Today, without book:

"Sally, who hoots three times at midnight in Meg and Mog?"
"Ooowwl"
"Very good!"
"And what does Mog say when Meg treads on his tail?"
"Mee-OOOWWWWW!"

Definitely definitely have to watch what I say now...

Already a geek?

2010-03-04T21:24:00.002Z

My child is but 14 months old and she is already a book-nerd. To be fair, there wasn't much hope for her, but I am seriously going to have to introduce compulsory playtime or we will spend all day reading books. Sometimes the same book, four or five times over. At the moment it is Bear Flies High (Doo be do, Doo be do, Doo be Doodily do) and Where the Wild Things Are (or aira-ile-nggssarr, as Sally calls it). The Bad-Tempered Ladybird is also in favour but I think that's because Sam does the 'Hey you, want to fight?' voice so well.

Sally's started filling in the gaps in One Fish Two Fish now as well. I just read 'one - , two - , red - , blue - ' and and she says 'fish' for me! She also does 'this one has a little (st)ar' and 'the fat one has a yellow - hat-'.

We were playing with the CBeebies website today (I don't do it terribly often because I have no idea how good it is for little eyes to stare at computer screens)and went to the Timmy Time games. There's a little 'match the sound to the animal' game which we looked at a couple of days ago for the first time. On the first screen is a picture of Timmy and Yabba. You get a couple of speech bubbles on the right hand side with their sounds and when you hover over them they play the noise. Anyway, straight away Sally pointed at Timmy and said 'baaa'. So I played the sound and she pointed at him. Score one for Sally. Then I played the quack quack noise for Yabba and she pointed at Yabba (I was quite excited by the accurate pointing too) and said 'duck'. Bing! Big green tick once more. The next page has four animals, so is more difficult. I played her Mee-you and she pointed at Mittens the cat, then Ruff ruff and she pointed at Ruffy the dog. When I played her oink oink she couldn't point at Paxton but she did say 'ig, ig'. The last page she couldn't do at all, mainly because it consists of all the minor characters like Finlay and Apricot (and after all, who knows what noise a hedgehog makes?) but after that, on the close page with the whole nursery in the photo, she pointed at Osbourne and Otus and said 'owls' and then at Yabba and said 'duck', and then at Timmy and said 'Baa'.
It was really good to seeing her thinking and problem solving. And good to see her doing something other than reading!

Growing up

2010-03-03T22:35:00.002Z

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!

Correction

2010-02-26T12:26:00.002Z

I've gone through and changed a few things in previous posts. Normally I wouldn't do this because it exploits how you can alter the written word - which seems like cheating - but in this case I think it is appropriate.

It's very difficult to read a post that compares children, even in an indirect sense, without feeling a sense of disrespect is meant. And although I think my little girl is the greatest thing in the world, I don't think that she is any way better than any of the other kids out there. In fact anyone who has ever seen me trying an failing to demonstrate to her how to crawl onto a bouncy castle will know that I think she's pretty malcoordinated in a lot of ways!

So I have made use of the advantages of the digital age and deleted or altered things that in retrospect I can see were unhelpful and potentially offensive comments.

How does she do it?

2010-02-15T21:12:00.004Z

The rate of Sally's development at the moment is just extraordinary. She seems to learn up a new word every day, and it's just amazing how many skills she has picked up since Christmas: climbing the stairs, stacking the rings on the post, sorting some shapes in the shape muddler... Incredible.

Most recently I have taught her how to drink from her Doidy cup independently. With occasional mishaps she can now pick it up by both handles and drink from it completely by herself. The only two dangers are that if you are not quick off the mark to rescue her she loses concentration, misses her mouth and tips it straight down her neck... And if she's got that bit right when she's finished drinking she'll sometimes tip it so far back in the other direction that she risks throwing the water out of the other side!

She is also learning how to take off her clothes. We now get her to take off her socks herself(she's been able to do it for ages - it suddenly struck me that we should let her do it before her bath!) And now we take her arms out of her top and vest for her and then she pulls it off over her head herself.

The other thing I thought I should record is how many words she knows and uses regularly. I suppose given my history I did think she'd be pretty verbal, but it does seem that she is doing well! I counted up over the weekend and got to about 25 words that she knows, understands and uses correctly in context. Here is that list as it stands:

Olives
Cheese
Shreddies
Duck
Cheebies
Buloo
Tea
Teeth
Mouth
Ears
Hair
Keys
Fish
Zip
Home
Out
Apple
Down
Please
Owls
Cat
Hat
Kiss
Nice
Car

There are many many more that she parrots back at us if we say them, but they don't count yet. Her understanding seems to be increasing again as well and quite unexpectedly the other day Sam told her to hold her arms up - and she did. She also put the toilet roll back on the shelf when told to.

I can see her brain starting to make connections as well. She knows the word 'duck' from her light-up duck in the bath. Then she found my fluffy cuddly duck - which is a completely different shape, like a duck lying down - and announced "duck". Today, she found a yellow duck glove puppet at a friends house and again got it right! She's barely seen a mouse, although she now knows mice go 'eek' or 'squeak' if she's feeling clever, and yet when she saw the mouse coat hooks in our bedroom she went 'EEK!' with great enthusiasm. Again at a friend's today she found a picture of a cow in a book and said 'Moo!'.

Despite the trantrums and the clinginess (she's all about Mummy at the moment) I think this is definitely the best age so far. There's so much going on in her upstairs its a pleasure to watch.

Buloo!

2010-02-01T21:42:00.002Z

For two days in a row Sally has said 'Bloo!' at the end of Waybuloo, just as the Pipings ascend into the air. She has also been saying 'Cheez' or 'eebees' when the children, ok the 'Cheebies' appear! Slightly galling that she's adding nonsense words rather than real ones to her vocabulary, but I suspect it gets the neurons firing just the same!

New skills

2010-01-31T21:36:00.004Z

Finally, but finally - Sally has learned to clap! I have been waiting for AGES! (some content deleted)

But it is perhaps not in the way I was expecting. For months I've been holding her hands and clapping them together, playing pat-a-cake, saying "clap, Sally, clap" or "look, we're clapping", all to no avail. She wouldn't copy me at all. (This is not a surprise now - gesture copying is not something she does, hence her likely need to attend remedial baby signing classes!) On Friday however I noticed her banging things together (she hasn't done this very much either) so I said "Oh, Sally, are you banging those rings together, that's very clever". A bit later she'd stopped banging but was still holding them so I asked her to bang them together, which she did. Just before bathtime it suddenly struck me this might be a roundabout method of getting her to clap, so I said "bang your hands together Sally, go on" and lo and behold she was suddenly clapping! Magic. I have now clued her in that that is what clapping is, so she will now do it if you ask her to clap, and hopefully she will get better and better.

Her other new skill is climbing stairs. Following the NCT first birthday party where she saw other babies managing to do it she has been able to climb one stair. On Friday with a bit of encouragement she climbed the whole flight - a Herculean effort from one so little!

Sally is also moving on again in terms of language. We've been singing 'The Banana Song', (Mummy's made-up nonsense) which she copies to the extent of 'ba-ya-ya, ba-ya-ya'. She can also says 'fish' if you do the appropriate sign, or show her the puzzle piece. Today she saw her cuddly tiger and said 'Tiger', which she hasn't done since she was about 8 months, and as Sam put her to bed he pointed to the front of her story and said "Who's that?" "Tiger", she said. "Please" is coming along nicely, as she is dropping it in (as 'pees' or 'pliz' or 'eeze') without prompting on occasion, and she even says 'bloo' at the end of Waybuloo when the characters say 'buloo'. SHe understands 'put' and 'in' and 'on' and we are now working on 'hiding' as a concept.

New skills abound - apart from the screaming over food she does not approve of, this is a Good Age. I like it.

(Almost forgot - she also has two new upper teeth, stealthily added when we weren't looking. Brings the total to ten.)

Bye bye breastfeeding...

2010-01-25T22:16:00.002Z

I have finally weaned Sally completely.

Some time before Christmas we replaced Sally's pre-bed milk with a cup of cow's milk, mainly for the practical reason that carting the steriliser and bottles to various families over Christmas would have been a huge faff. She took to that with no fuss and even enjoyed slurping her milk all over Daddy's trousers last thing before bed. I also thought that this would help her get used to the taste of cow's milk before we needed her to make the full switch.

I always planned to finish breastfeeding at about a year. Although I think it is vital that people breastfeed if they can (and I admit, feel very negative towards those who don't even try because they don't want it to interfere with their lifestyle - if you feel that strongly, don't HAVE a baby) I do think that after a year the greater percentage of the benefit has already been reaped. It will probably only be another seven or eight months before we start thinking about trying again, and in that time I would like to have my body to myself. I also think it is important that Sam and I get a weekend away, and I would like to start working in the evenings, and for all sorts of reasons it made sense to stop now. I would have done it closer to her birthday but after the house move and the disruption of Christmas I thought it was important Sally was on an even keel for a few weeks.

Anyway, two weeks ago I dropped the 6:30 feed and replaced it with a cup of whole milk. I didn't expect it to go well, but I wasn't prepared for the complete hysteria that occurred the first time I tried! Sally has never seemed that attached to breastfeeding and to be honest I was a bit taken aback by the screaming, the attack on the cup and the long trails of milk that dribbled down the wall! I was feeling a bit panicked about the whole process after that, so we tried a new tack. On the second night Sam gave it to her instead and she was completely happy. On the third day I gave it to her early, before she started even thinking about milk, and from then on we didn't look back.

We gave her a couple of weeks to get used to that change, and then yesterday I dropped her last feed - the in-the-morning, just-woken-up, sleepy-happy feed. I was going to do it on Saturday but she woke up very upset about something and I thought it would be mean to try then, so we waited until Sunday. Until yesterday the ritual was to get her up, bring her into our bed, I would feed her and then we'd spend ten minutes cuddling in bed - lovely! Instead, to avoid tears and tantrums about where the milk was, we decided to bring her straight down to breakfast in her pyjamas as soon as she got up. Not a whimper. She wasn't remotely fussed at the loss of the milk, and although on Sunday she took very little milk (in cup) with her breakfast this morning she kept waving at it and yelling for more. She polished off a vat of Ready Brek and a bucket of milk all before 7:45. I'll be honest: I miss the cuddling in bed with this new routine, but once she is used to it and doesn't expect milk as soon as she wakes, I suspect we can sneak her into bed for a bit before breakfast.

I feel slightly sad that it's the end of an era, and that that particular kind of closeness is over for us, but it is such a fleeting feeling. We have so much cuddling and closeness that we don't need the feeding, and she is old enough now to do without it. She really doesn't seem at all bothered that we have stopped and I am delighted because that is how it should be. A large part of me is also pleased to no longer be so completely tied to her. If we want to, we can go away for a couple of days and milk will not be an issue - unlike breastmilk you can buy it in all good supermarkets and even your local cornershop!

And what did I do to celebrate? A nice big glass of white wine - the first glass of more than a swallow size in two years. And very nice it was too.

Catching up - again

2010-01-22T21:01:00.002Z

It seems that's all I'm doing these days! Metaphor for life in general.

I've been unable to write for a while, first the house move, then Christmas, then a lack of decent internet connection, then just forgetting because I was out of practice! I want to record all the things that Sally has done and then I can move on and keep things neatly uptodate.

First, we survived the house move: just. It snowed the night we were due to move - six inches of the white stuff, which put rather a dampener on the proceedings. It took my parents two hours to get to us. The van company cancelled our self-hire at 10:20pm, mid-snowfall. In the end, we moved our furniture in two cars, and by hand, trudging through the snow with the sofa, the table, the desk - and a floor lamp left haphazardly like a lantern in the frozen wastes!

Still, despite being late out of the house (not a problem thank goodness as our buyers decided not to move until the following day - after all,who moves in the snow?) we eventually made it into our new house, and I am pleased to say we are very happy here! Although it is still chaos, we are getting the new furniture built (oh the joys of flatpack and the wonder that is Ikea - the thinking person's Argos)and starting to order curtains, and I am enjoying the chance to re-design a whole house. Given the state it was left in (in terms of bad paintwork and bad taste) it is sorely needed!

Sally has been learning lots and lots. Over Christmas she learned how to get from sitting to standing, and then finally a couple of days after that from lying to sitting. Although it was immensely frustrating waiting for her to figure out how to do it, in the long-run we were better off! Already old enough to work out how to get back down again, instead of long periods of standing up and yelling in her cot, she did it twice, then sorted herself out and hasn't bothered since. She is now completely and utterly mobile - apart from climbing which to be honest I don't miss - and walks like an 18 month old.

Her language is developing all the time. She understands an enormous amount and is increasing the words she can say by the day. She still learns and forgets things but I suspect that is typical of her age. Over Christmas she said 'glasses' and at the moment she is crazy about saying 'mouth', which comes out as 'ouf'! If you point to your mouth and say 'what is that' she says 'ouf' and often she'll stick her fingers in mine or Sam's mouth and say it, then point to our teeth and say 'teeth'! We've started playing a guessing game in the bath where once she's washed I say 'what's next?' and see if she can say 'teeth'. Usually I have to say 'toothbrush' first but tonight she actually started saying it to tell me to do them. She copies more and more words, including a reasonable stab at 'dinosaur', and she has graduated to saying 'Daddy' perfectly instead of Dadda. I've heard her say 'water' (watta), 'pasta', (patta), 'banana' - all sorts of things.

We've bought her an open bookcase, as it's an easier way to store picture books, with mixed results. I believe the theory behind them is that they can go and collect the books themselves. This is correct - in Sally's case it means that she spends every hour she can removing books, choosing one, giving it to me, getting on my lap, listening, getting down, collecting another book and so on and so on... I'm glad she would rather listen to a book than watch TV but it would be nice if she would play with me a bit more! She is getting better at playing, and has now discovered how to put things into other things. She was given a ball activity table for Christmas and that has all sorts of exciting funnels and ways to explore that particular skill. It is great to see her exploring and experimenting with putting books in boxes and balls in stacking cups and puzzle pieces in cups and shaking them - especially when she tries putting the remote control and the phone down the funnels in the activity table!

Enough for now, I think; Christmas and her birthday can be left until tomorrow.

Crazy crazy life

2009-12-12T20:49:00.002Z

Wow. This couple of weeks is really turning out to be packed full!

On Thursday I had to collect a stack of paperwork from the solicitor regarding the house sale and purchase. He wanted to see us on Friday at 9am, so although it would mean Sally would have to go to sleep later we assumed that she would cope reasonably well.

The day started badly when I woke Sally up and discovered a cot full of pieces of courgette and tomato, and a large white pile of what used to be chicken and cheese. The poor little love hadn't woken us up, but just rolled to the end of the cot to avoid the wet patch and carried on sleeping! She had sick on her sleeping bag, her clothes, and plastered all over her hair. So instead of a nice calm nappy change and her morning milk she was unceremoniously held under the shower whilst we washed her hair.

I guessed that it was the catarrgh from her chest making her sick, as happens to me, but assumed that having cleared herself out she would be fine. Not so. She threw up most of her milk (all over the pillow, my pyjama bottoms and the bed) and then, far worse, at the solicitor's meeting she was violently sick, reproducing her entire breakfast of Weetabix and banana and liberally coating me in it. Every single layer of clothing I was wearing was covered, and she was a mess. We felt so sorry for her! She was very calm, and very good, and having wiped her down (fortunately it was the end of the meeting) we threw her in the car, brought her home, stripped her off and stuck her in the bath.

For the rest of the day she was fine, eating some of her lunch and all her tea. Although the fact that she had been sick three times was ringing some alarm bells she was so well in herself (although a bit weak and hungry) I decided it was definitely the catarrgh to blame and we would just have to ride it out.

Fast forward to this morning. No sick in the cot (hooray!) Most of her breakfast eaten. On the way to Sainsbury's, it is now 10:18. "Well," I said to Sam,"her breakfast has been in her for two hours and twenty minutes, and no sick yet!" Literally as I finished saying it (and this is no exaggeration for effect, this is the absolute truth) there was a little cough from the back and up came this morning's breakfast, complete with undigested pieces of mango. All over Sally, and all over the car seat.

So, back home we went, out of the car we came (wrapping little one in a towel to avoid dripping mango everywhere); we stripped her off (again), took her to the bathroom (again) and showered her down. She had thrown up down her vest, and it had leaked into her nappy, and it was truly disgusting. She was not impressed with being stripped off midday, although she likes the shower, so the protests were loud but not too terrible.

Eventually the day returned to some semblance of normality after that, but it was not a fun morning. Given the amount of time we are trying to spend packing boxes and sorting things out a sicky baby is the last thing we need!

Anyway, touch wood she has gone to sleep now and although she cried an hour ago I went up to check and there was no vomit involved. So far.

Apples

2009-12-07T21:18:00.002Z

Sally knows a new word - apple!

She has been saying 'a' 'a' at them for a while, then that graduated to 'app-ul' with a sort of gulp after the 'app' - not a bad attempt really.

However the big development happened yesterday when she actually asked for one after her lunch. Normally she has a cheese triangle or a banana, but yesterday she kept saying 'app', 'app' until I realised what she was asking and offered her an apple. 'Yeh, yeh', she said, and ate lots of it. I was very proud; it's lovely to have her using language to get something she wants.

Otherwise life is fairly crazy here at the moment as we prepare to move house. So far all is still on to move next Friday - a terrifying thought - and many boxes are being packed. Sally, of course, gets thoroughly in the way: attempting to steal the scissors, pulling off the newly attached sellotape holding the boxes together, running off with the tape and then having a tantrum when you take it off her. Given that when you have finally chased her down and removed it you return to find a cat sitting in your neatly packed box, squashing everything, it is a wonder that any of us made it through the day. However, I have called in some babysitting help for two days this week, so with any luck I can break the back of it this week.

On a less positive note, Sally has picked up another cold, this time a chesty one rather than a heady/nasal one. So less stuffiness and I suspect less chance of an ear infection, but much more coughing and hacking and a much greater chance of a chest infection. She took thirty-five minutes to go to sleep tonight, but hopefully she will manage to sort herself out for the rest of it.

Walking walking walking!

2009-11-29T21:26:00.004Z

I reckon I now officially own a toddler!

On Thursday we went to Creepy Crawlies at the local leisure centre. Baby gym has finished now for the term, and now that Sally is walking she has outgrown it. So instead we are going to the soft play sessions in town. A couple of the NCT Mums who were at baby gym are also going, so it's a bit of a group effort, which is lovely. Anyway whilst we were there Sally spotted the hula hoops on the floor and she was off! She wandered around happily on the gym floor (which is very very hard, so I was hovering fairly close!) turning corners, heading off in new directions, and even picking up a hoop. She did try to walk whilst carrying the hoop but as it was about the same size as her it was a portable trip hazard I thought best removed! It took her a while to get to grips with the mats and needing to step up and onto them, but soon she had even got that sorted.

This was the first time she has really walked without knowing where she was going, and not bothered about having something to grab on to. I was so proud! Today we took her to the garden centre without her pushchair and let her walk holding a hand; this was only partly successful as (perhaps predictably) she had her own ideas about where to walk to, and they did not accord with ours! We let her do some walking by herself and she managed some good toddling sessions across the shop floor.

The other amazing thing that she did at Creepy Crawlies was to find some monkey bars and swing on them. She took hold of two of them, lifted her feet off the floor and swung a bit, much to my surprise. She didn't do it again, so we'll have to see if she can repeat it this week.

Also on the positive side is again her continued language development. She can now make a decent effort at the noises of a lion, a cat, a sheep and a cow. (According to Sally, cows go 'Mmmm' but that's close enough for jazz). With the lion, she also understands that the noise is called a roar, and if either word comes up in conversation or in a song then she roars enthusiastically! She sits down immediately when asked and understands 'come here' She can find her ears, and my toes, when asked. She does get confused between her ears and her eyes, so if you ask for the latter you get the former, but I think that's just because they sound very similar. And she can also open and shut the door to her playpen on request.

Physically her ability to pull herself up on things has improved hugely, and she looks like she is starting to consider how to stand without furniture. As she still can't sit from lying this might take a while, but again that too looks like an emerging skill.

We are still working on the clapping...

Definitely improved walking

2009-11-20T20:53:00.002Z

Sally had another break-through this week; she suddenly started heading off across the room for quite long distances. At one stage in the week she let go of the kitchen door and then walked all the way through the kitchen to the conservatory without stopping! She has learned to walk more slowly and correct her balance as she goes; she can now wobble slightly but recover herself and continue. I've kept her on her toes by piling up the stacking cups or stacked rings for her to toddle over to and explore. Although today she has been less adventurous, yesterday at baby gym she was practically walking solo through the room. I let go of her on one side of the squash court and she just wandered over to the other side, across the the parachute, past the toys - it was amazing!

The other thing that I am finding endlessly fascinating is her language development, particularly her comprehension. She now has the sound that a cat and a lion make firmly understood. In fact she roars when she sees the front of Dear Zoo, because the lion pictures is on the cover! If she picks up a book I say to her "Ok Sally, if you want me to read it to you, come here and sit down". Over she comes, bends her knees and sits down, handing me the book. She understands "sit down", with or without the sign. She definitely understands the word 'toothbrush' because if she drops it in the bath and I ask for it she fishes around to find it and then hands it to me. Earlier I asked her to find Mummy's toes. After several repetitions but no gestures she came over and touched the toes on one foot, then stood up, moved, and touched them on the other foot. I was very impressed! She can find her ears, too, if you ask - but she will point to them if you say 'eyes' as well, as I don't think she can hear the difference yet. Finally today I also managed to get her to understand that she mustn't throw food on the floor when she's finished with it. I keep saying 'No, if you don't want it, give it to Mummy, DON'T throw it on the floor'. Twice today she went to throw it and then gave it to me instead. Long may that continue!

I love this age. Sally's frustration is gone because she can move by herself, so she is more willing to do her own thing and explore instead of demanding my attention all day. In addition to that, her increased ability to understand me means that I feel like we actually communicate. It is a wonderful feeling. Ten months is now officially my favourite age so far.

So much to report!

2009-11-16T20:44:00.003Z

A lot has been going on here and I haven't updated for over a week, so there is much to report.

First we are selling the house, so I have been spending a lot of time cleaning whilst Sally has been asleep and an equivalent amount of time trying to discourage her from strewing toys all over the place. I laugh at the suggestion that ten month olds enjoy taking things out of boxes and putting them back - my ten month old considers a stacked pile of cups or a box full of things an afront to her authority and will destroy it as quickly as possible and with maximum coverage of the living room. If you tentatively suggest she might like to put it back she looks at you as if you are mad. The good news is that the obsessive clearing and cleaning has paid off and we have a buyer! As I write we are waiting to hear back from the vendor we are trying to buy from, but our fingers are tightly crossed for success!

Sally has learned a new skill. When we read her Dear Zoo we always roar on the lion page. She spent an afternoon with my Mum and by the time I got back Mum had taught her to roar when you ask her "what noise does a lion make?". Now whenever the lion box appears in Dear Zoo she roars before you even say anything! I've spent a few days building on this as she clearly really enjoys being able to answer a question and especially loves it when we roar back! We've now added what noise a cat makes, to which she responds with a sort of strangulated but recognisable 'ow' sound. She is such a clever girl! Her understanding of 'give Mummy the' has matured now as well - she now knows the words for more objects so if she drops her toothbrush into the bath and you ask her to give it back she looks around for it to hand it to you. She understands 'sit down' and 'stand up' and 'open your mouth', too - all useful!

Her walking continues to improve. After a tantrum at the playground after I wouldn't let Sally walk off the end of the slide I decide to give in and get her some shoes. I really wanted to wait as I know barefoot is best - but she wants to walk outside! It took me a while to hunt down a shoe shop as I wanted to go somewhere that would both measure and fit her shoes properly and would have a wide range of options to choose from. I settled on a place in Letchworth which turned out to be very good, so I was pleased. The choice was a bit limited as a result of her thin and slightly funny-shaped feet, but we got some that weren't too frilly and ridiculous. She is a 3F and in Start-rite.

Her skills are now at the point where she cruises at speed around the house and as long as she is not thinking too much about what she is doing can manage quite a long unaided walk. As of this week she can walk to something, stop, bend down, stand up and walk off again, which is great. She does lack confidence however which is really frustrating. She is getting better at falling over but can still be completely put off even just by sitting down suddenly - which is ridiculous because she can now sit from standing all by herself. She is generally a lot less frustrated (and therefore a lot more pleasant to be with) but still gets in a stress every time it doesn't go to plan.

I think if she had more faith she'd be walking properly by now. I've been taking her outside in her new shoes to get her used to walking where no furniture is available, with mixed results. Occasionally she will happily be left standing and then toddle over to you, but mostly she looks around at the wide open space and clings desperately to my legs crying, refusing to be left alone. It is good for falling practice however. It sounds mean but by letting her fall over on the grass where she can't possibly hurt herself she is learning to be less bothered about crashing down, and more importantly how to save herself when she does. So although I get quite frustrated with her clinginess ultimately I think good things are happening.

The newest trick to try is that I have bought her some tradition reins to wear for outside walking. I put them on her earlier and she managed to walk the entire length of the house without touching anything. Although I didn't have to support her with them the feeling of the straps obviously gave Sally a sense of security and she thought I was holding her. Whether this will work long-term or not I don't know, but we shall see!

Guess what...

2009-11-06T22:33:00.002Z

... Sally picked up my cold. We had precisely two days of perfectly healthy baby before broken nights, coughing, a streaming nose and more wobbliness in the walk.

This is becoming tedious. I would really like to have just a few weeks where she wasn't ill so she could just get on and do what she wants to do instead of being hampered by feeling rough. Fortunately she is still moving reasonably well and hasn't lost too much energy, so it's not as bad as it might be. I have now worked out that it is the vapouriser which is the key ingredient in the 'sleeping with a cold' recipe - we ran out of refills and I didn't realise; the nights we had without it were punctuated with hacking coughs and crying. We only had to go in once, but she clearly wasn't having a good night's rest.

She is back to calm quiet sleep now, thank goodness - I hate going in in the morning to find her all cross and heavy-eyed - and I am hoping this is just a short-lived thing.

In general things are good. We went swimming today and as usual she loved it,although she was a bit cross about being dried. Her eating was a bit erratic however; she didn't eat all her lunch and at teatime had a tantrum because she finished the portion of cauliflower cheese and she wanted more. Between sobs it sounded like she was saying 'cheese... cheese...'She showed her contempt for the toast I offered as an alternative by throwing it on the floor, but accepted a cheese triangle (more 'cheese... cheese...') and a bit of apple.

When we've got her fattened up again I am going to have to tackle the issue of her throwing food around in a rage. She has got to learn that it's unacceptable, even if she gets cross when you tell her off. It is driving me mad.

A Good Day

2009-11-02T21:21:00.002Z

Many good things happened today, despite my fears that it would be a nightmare. I was really ill yesterday with a nasty cold and had to have a mid-morning nap, so I was very nervous about being on my own with little miss proto-toddler and all her energy. In the end it was a lovely day.

Sally decided today was walking day, and spent almost all of it on her feet. Today she started just setting off walking without warning, letting go of something and heading off towards me or another piece of furniture without warning or coaxing. She is mostly very steady (and frighteningly speedy) but occasionally is rather kamikaze in her approach and goes shooting off at dodgy angles, ultimately crashing down! Strangely she is very tough about actual pain but is grief-stricken whenever she falls over, so a lot of cuddles have to be administered afterwards - I think her pride suffers!

Most impressively she managed to let go of the fridge, stand alone, turn round on the spot and walk off towards me, totally in control.

She also showed the extent to which her language comprehension is developing. She stole my sock, wandered off and then dropped it on the floor. She stood hanging on to the bed and from a metre or so away I said "Sally, give Mummy her sock back". She picked it up, cruised over to me and gave it to me! Later she also rather sweetly picked up a book, wobbled over to me and pushed it into my face and then sat on my lap - no prizes for guessing the message there!

Finally we started to move towards using her shape muddler (as Sam calls it - he has a point, it doesn't sort shapes!) She picked up a piece, I showed her the hole and she sort of pushed it in the right general direction up against the pot. Clearly the co-ordination isn't there yet. But when I rested it in the hole she pushed it the rest of the way in and looked very pleased with herself.

We've also had a good day for food. In fact the last few days have been brilliant in that respect. She is now eating chunks of apple, and will eat bites out of a banana if you hold it for her. I would let her hold it herself but then she is too busy squishing it to actually consume it. We've added Laughing Cow cheese triangles to her diet to fatten her up, and increased her lunch to include two portions of vegetable. Now more than ever I think that she was about to increase her food intake just before she became ill, so she was actually eating a lot less than she should have been for about a month. Today she ate the most she has ever eaten.

Breakfast: 4tbs Ready Break, 2 tbs pear, almost a whole banana!
Lunch: 6 tbs liver casserole, 2 tbs of sweet potato and the same of courgette, one cheese triangle, half a cereal bar, about twenty goji berries
Tea: 6 tbs of cauliflower cheese, half a cereal bar and some chunks of apple.

I hope for more days like this!

Crazy week

2009-10-28T20:19:00.003Z

Well a mixed week to report. The good news was that having had the ibuprofen Sally was much better. She got her mojo back by the end of the week and was much livelier and brighter. On Friday we went to my parents for the day and stayed overnight. She had a lovely time and was looking much better by Saturday morning. Her walking was back and by Sunday she was doing a fabulous job at letting go of the furniture and heading off towards me very steadily indeed. When she does it she has the most amazingly cute expression of pride in herself. She looks delighted that she's managed it and almost shy with excitement. We give her lots of cuddles and praise and hopefully that will encourage her to keep going.

Unfortunately though with her age has come not wisdom but fragility. She veers between confidence and pleasure in her own success and being absolutely terrified of doing anything by herself. I suspect this is to do with the competing desire for independence and her nervousness at being left. Sometimes she holds on to the end of the coffee table, grins and carefully steps off toward me. Sometimes she holds on, cries, panics, wobbles over to me and cries when she feels herself falling! I think if Sally is going to move forward she needs more confidence and to be less sensitive about falling over. She used to be quite tough about such things but she hates being on the floor so much she is grief-stricken every time she falls down, even if she doesn't hurt herself. I'm quite mean and tell her she's a wimp!

None of this was helped by the rather scary turn events took on Monday. We took her off the paracetomol because she seemed so much better and then all of a sudden at about half eleven on Monday I noticed her bottom lip trembling. She got very upset and then she turned a little blue around the lips and her skin went blotchy. A few minutes later she was very shaky and shivery and I knew something was wrong. I took her temperature and it was way up at 38.9. It had only been 36.5 that morning so it had obviously shot up very quickly and that caused the reaction. We were some way from a full-blown convulsion as she was never close to losing consciousness but it was quite frightening. As soon as I saw her temperature I whipped off her jumper and gave her some more Calpol. She recovered fairly quickly, but not before her temperature hit 39.7. I spoke to the doctor who said not to worry and to keep her on the paracetomol for another 48 hours. In the afternoon I had to give her ibuprofen again to get the temperature under control but by evening she was herself again.

All this made it very clear that the ear infection was still in control, so we went back to the doctor on Friday. Sally is now on antibiotics to see if we can shift it. I'm pleased she had a chance to try and shake it off on her own, but it is now time to use some meds and get rid of it. Whilst I was there I went to see the health visitor because I was afraid Sally had lost weight during the illness. I was right to be concerned. The health visitor said that if I hadn't said she had been ill she'd have sent me to the GP. Sally has dropped from 8.5 kg to 8.38 in four weeks. That's from the 50th to the 25th centile in less than a month. Not good. So now I have to try and get as much high fat food as possible into her and fatten her up. I'm not too worried as she looks fine and she's so active that she is clearly always going to be a bit skinny, but that drop is a bit concerning.

Of course if I fed her cauliflower cheese all day she would be quite happy...

More positively...

2009-10-21T21:00:00.001+01:00

Sally now understands 'Give Mummy the ...' We have been doing lots of practice!

She will even give me the car keys when asked - wonders will never cease...

Illness woes

2009-10-21T20:27:00.002+01:00

Well we've had all sorts of fun this week.

The nasty cold that Sally picked up in Bournemouth continued, and continued, and continued... She was well one minute and down the next. On Thursday she spent the whole of baby gym sat on my lap, sucking her thumb and whimpering (I hasten to add that she seemed fine when I took her out!) On Friday night she woke up five times, and although she did put herself back to sleep on three occasions she was up for an hour or so in the middle of the night. Saturday night we put all the usual strategies back in place and she slept through, but both nostrils were sealed shut by the morning. On Sunday I couldn't get her to wake up from her nap until 3pm. When she did get up, she was burning up and had a temperature of 39.6. We dosed her with Calpol and she was very very quiet the rest of the day, but had perked up a bit by the evening. On Monday morning her temperature was down a bit and she seemed brighter, but in the afternoon she just went downhill rapidly and her temperature hit 39 and a half again. When she could barely lift her head off my shoulder, I rang the doctors and took her in for an urgent appointment.

The doctor wasn't sure what was wrong. Sally was by this point looking really ill, and although the GP suspected an ear infection, there were no classic signs and she couldn't see much in the ear that would explain such a sick baby. So she sent us to Addies for a review from a paediatrician. Off we went to A&E, but clever Mummy, who is now getting the hang of this whole 'needing to be a practical parent' thing, managed to swing home and grab Sally's tea, spoon, water, cup and changing bag before doing so! Sally was unimpressed at being dragged off to Cambridge instead of having tea and watching Waybuloo in a civilised fashion, but coped very well, like the trooper she is. She did NOT like getting weighed, and screamed and screamed whilst unhelpfully covering the measurement up with her arm, and she tried several times to investigate and then remove the monitor that was strapped to her foot, but otherwise she was fine. The crowning moment of the experience was Sally sat on a plastic chair in nothing but a nappy, opening her mouth like a blackbird to devour an entire pouch of Ella's Kitchen vegetable bake. I am SO pleased I keep emergency sachets in the cupboard...

Eventually when we were seen by the registrar she had a good look at Sally and concluded that a double ear infection was the likely culprit, and certainly that there was no evidence for any further infection. She did ask to collect a urine sample however, at which Sam and I exchanged meaningful glances - it took us two hours to collect one last time we were in A&E, the week after she was born! This time however Sally was full of a whole breastfeed and a considerable amount of water. We popped the pot underneath her, I looked over to find my sandwich, and when I looked back, she had wee'd into it!

That done, the registrar said we could go home. Sally by this point had perked up following a dose of ibuprofen from the nurse, and whilst sat on my lap leaned over and helped herself to a bite of my chicken sandwich!

Since then we have been doing as instructed and keeping ahead of her fever by administering maximum doses of Calpol and Calprofen. Yesterday she seemed a lot brighter, but today has been more of a struggle. I think she is simultaneously also teething and going through one of the wonder week fussy patches as she is showing all the cranky signs as usual, on top of being tired and heavy-eyed. We have to stop the medicine as of tomorrow lunchtime, but I have booked a GP appointment for her for tomorrow afternoon in case coming off the meds reveals that she is still suffering underneath the mask of the painkillers.

I am really really hoping she gets over this soon. It is such hard work and that little cheeky face is just not the same at the moment!

New favourite food

2009-10-16T21:02:00.002+01:00

Goji berries, apparently.

I received some in my box this week, and yesterday thought I'd offer some to Sally as she was refusing to eat apricot and raisins again as too much chewing was required. Goji berries are tiny and red, but Sally made a bee-line for them, possibly because of the colour and because they look like something you shouldn't eat (ah, baby logic at work - it's not mine so it must be for me). She was able to pick the little things up with a very neat thumb and forefinger pincer grip (excellent, food that works the brain and fingers as well) and just kept popping them in. She ate about sixteen of them yesterday and another lot today.

A quick Google reveals that they are from Tibet and were used in traditional chinese medicine. They apparently have anti-inflammatory properties and contain buckets of anti-oxidants and beta-carotene. They are a recent hot topic as a celebrity superfood and are very popular in health food shops.

So, good all round then really! She loves them, they are good for her, everyone is happy.

Clever girl

2009-10-16T20:51:00.005+01:00

Well I think she's clever. Objectively of course, lacking anything to compare her to, I have no idea whether Sally is intelligent or not, but I am very impressed with the number of words in her passive vocabulary. Apparently (and this is very reassuring, since she still refuses to say 'Mama' and now only occasionally says 'Dada', walking having taken over as skill of choice) passive language acquisition is a better indicator of intelligence and ultimately language skill than talking. At least that's what I'll be telling everyone!

As of today, she can understand and respond to the following:

No - frequently ignored as an instruction, but giggled at as if to say 'ha ha, just try and stop me'.
Splash - if you say it in the bath she starts splashing
Wave - she will now wave (did I record that she learned to wave? It's been happening all this week) when you say the word, without any gesture
Jingle - if you say it, she shakes whatever is in her hand
Rattle - as above
Shake - as above!
Tea, lunch and breakfast - all met with a head whipping round and 'yeh-yeh!' in excitement
Fromage frais - gets all excited and looks at the fridge
Daddy and Mummy and Granny - clearly knows who's who
Cat - and can still say 'Tiggy-cat'
Clean/brush your teeth - she gets excited and if in the bath looks at the sink for the brushes
Bounce - when standing, she bounces
Song lyrics - when you sing 'See the little rabbit', she snuggles in for the quiet bit and then sits up ready before the active hopping bit starts - she can anticipate what will happen
Ready steady go - sometimes she remembers to wait until 'go!' and then shakes, bashes or does whatever is appropriate at the time.

It is all very lovely. The older she gets, the more fun she is.

Super-cruiser

2009-10-14T21:41:00.001+01:00

Sally is now a super-cruiser. It might sound like some kind of missile, but she has become very adept at cruising indeed. She can now hold on one-handed, let go and take a step to get her closer to the next handhold before grabbing on. She can move herself around the kitchen cupboards holding both the handles and the flat doors themselves. She will swap hands with skill to allow her to move forward and she knows where her feet are and how to rearrange them for balance. In Bournemouth she whizzed around and between the legs of the bar chairs with impunity. Three, maybe four, weeks ago she would pretty much just cling on to whatever was in front of her, and now she is completely in control of her own movement provided she had a means of support. Of all the developments she has undergone so far, this is the most impressive, speedy and visible - it's amazing.

Pufferfish and waving

2009-10-14T21:06:00.003+01:00

Last weekend we went to Bournemouth to take Sally to see her grandparents. She was spoiled rotten (as usual) with plenty of people willing to take her for a wander through their (much bigger) house. The highlight of the trip was going to the Oceanarium on the front, which Sally thought was wonderful. Aquaria are great places for children, as they are usually quite quiet, dimly lit and very calm to look at it - even for adults it is therapeutic and relaxing to watch fish swimming about. Sally really enjoyed it. She was very pleased about the bigger fish and we also saw a surprisinly large turtle or two swimming in the main feature tank.

Her favourite creature was a porcupine pufferfish however. It was housed in one of those glass bubble tanks that stick out in relief from the wall, magnifying the fish. The little puffer came right out into it and could obviously see Sally, as when she put her hand out he kept swimming past and against it! Sally thought he was wonderful. We looked for a commemorative pufferfish in the shop, but sadly they didn't sell any.

We also went to Poole Park, where I used to go as a child and fed the geese and ducks.

There was a sign saying 'Do not feed the Canada geese' but as we didn't see this until afterwards we did not comply. To be honest I don't see how it would have been possible to feed the gulls and ducks but not the geese... It's not as if you can control which greedy bird snaffles up your bread! Afterwards we went on the swings briefly, although as it was starting to rain and Sally had a cold we didn't stay too long.

Yes, Sally has another cold. The last one lasted for nine days and was a proper viral nuisance, giving Sam and I headaches, sore throats and exhaustion. Having got over that one I was rather distressed to realise on Saturday morning that Sally has picked up another. She woke up once each night on Friday and Saturday and it swiftly became obvious that she was very congested and grumpy. She is still suffering today, and is very clingy and fragile, with great big red eyes.

As a result walking practice has had to take rather a back seat. She is very reluctant to let us let go of her for any length of time, making it hard to get her to balance alone to start walking! She did manage some good stints in Bournemouth though, making it up to eight or nine steps in pursuit of the tower of stacking cups which she feels she must knock down at all costs. She also managed at one point to take four steps, stop, knock over the tower and stay standing before taking another couple of steps.

At home she has also learned how to sit on my knee and stand up by herself, before then taking steps, which looks very advanced!

Since then however she has been feeling too poorly to make much of an attempt, so we are a bit frustrated in the mobility department.

Walking away with it...

2009-10-07T20:26:00.000+01:00

Well, more tottering, but we are nearly there!

On Sunday we went to tea with some friends. While we were there Sam put Sally up onto her feet and she took three controlled steps towards him, which she hasn't done since the other week. Later in the evening she did it again, and by just before bed she was up to five clear unaided steps across the room.

It was so exciting. It really was one of those things that makes you go to bed with a big silly grin on. I think in Sally's case in particular as she is really young to be doing this, and because she has spent eight weeks now dragging me around the house in frustration. I just hope that this is now the beginning of the independent mobility she is so desperate for.

It is however, a long road. Careful Googling reveals that it seems to take about a month from first steps to walking, but doesn't reveal quite how stressful the process is. From hour to hour she veers from confidently shooting seven or eight steps across the rug from the sofa to me to crashing down after two. This is followed by anguished yelling - not because she's hurt herself but because she is so cross about being on the floor, shocked by falling down, and angry that I am making her do this! When she manages it she beams with pride and accepts a big kiss and a cuddle. Practising walking by herself is also not something that Sally feels is the greatest thing ever. She much prefers it when I do all the work, so she needs a bit of encouragement... Which is very frustrating! I keep trying to get her to stand by herself so she can walk to me - and as soon as I put her down she grabs my sleeve and dashes off, so I can't let go mid-flight! Alternatively she just won't let go of my hair, my fingers, my arm - anything - so in the end we give up and have to try again later.

Of course in addition to all this, my attempts to give her more space to do things for herself have resulted in far more bangs, bumps and accidents, which is no fun at all!

I think part of the issue is her age. Being so young she naturally has less of a sense of balance so trying to walk now is a lot harder for her. I also received an update email from babycentre the other day which mentioned the emotional difficulties that 9 month olds can have. At this age babies start to develop a desire for more independence and also independent skills - like exploring things alone, crawling, walking etc. However this is also the big age for separation anxiety as they start to panic that you might disappear for ever. Now Sally does not have any issues with separation - she's more likely to cry when I'm there to make a point - but she can be clingy and standoffish all within the space of five minutes, as if she's not sure whether she wants to be close to me or go off by herself. Hopefully as she grows more confident at walking this will subside. Little bits of practise whenever we can is the plan.

Patience, once again, is a virtue.

Two updates I forgot about!

2009-10-02T21:50:00.001+01:00

I can't believe that I forgot to post about the first of these, but on Saturday Sally managed some unaided steps!

We went out for a curry in the evening to say goodbye to a friend who is returning to Australia so I think that's why I forgot to write about it.

In short, she was holding onto the Poang chair in the conservatory, let go with one hand, then the other, and when I said 'Come on then Sally' she took two steps towards me without holding on. Unfortunately she then leaned forward to grab me and so fell onto me rather but nonetheless there were two clear steps in there. She repeated this a couple of times but nothing since. Still, I think she is perhaps gearing up for the next step...

And the other important development is that she has dropped her 2:30 breastfeed in favour of a drink of water. I was getting fed up with fighting her over it - she kept trying to sit up instead of feed - and she was starting to cut back on her 6:30 milk. A quick consult with dear Gina Ford and the suggest was there that we could cut it at some point in the 9-12 month period. At the back of my mind I'd hoped we'd have cut all the midday feeds at about 9 months, and Sally has always been slightly 'early' with dropping them, so after a brief consult with the Health Visitor on Wednesday morning I simply haven't given it to her since. She didn't even notice! Clearly she no longer needs it.

It is nice to think I can now go out and leave her pretty much all day without needing to provide any milk.

A good week

2009-10-01T21:14:00.000+01:00

After the nightmare that was Monday, this week actually improved dramatically. First and foremost we have two breakthroughs to report: pulling to stand and eating Weetabix!

Gradual introduction of Weetabix (which she previously refused to eat at all) has this time been successful, and now I can swap between the two, which is great. I was very pleased with her. It will also get Sally used to having both cold and warm breakfasts, which is useful.

Pulling up on random objects is now well-established in Sally's list of Good Things to do. However, it has had slightly unpleasant repercussions in that now when I put her on the floor to play she is no longer likely to stay there. She manages to scoot over to the sofa and pull herself up, then wander around until she is in a position where I cannot leave her safely. As we are now averaging about three bumps on the head a day, I am anxious to have as few of those as possible on the laminate flooring in the living room, and her precarious position generally means I have to stop doing that which I was doing and go and intervene. Ultinately I think I now have to accept it is time for a playpen. I have to leave her to do things like make her tea, and until she is completely reliable on her feet I cannot do that safely.

Her standing is also improving, very slowly; she can now manage fairly long periods without falling. Once she has picked up a stripy sock - her new favourite things - she will stand for quite some time holding it and looking pleased with herself.

Nine months

2009-09-28T22:37:00.001+01:00

I should record that Sally is exactly 9 months old today. Where has the time gone?!

Much amusement here at the Babycentre updates on your 9 month old's skills: "a few 9 month olds will take a few steps, with support." No kidding...

Am I doing something wrong?

2009-09-28T22:04:00.001+01:00

I'm beginning to think I have got this parenting thing all wrong. At the moment I seem to have the world's most discontented baby. Virtually all afternoon she whinged and moaned and complained and protested. She complains about sitting down, about standing in the wrong place, about walking into the wrong room, about being picked up, about being put down. She appears to have now become bored with the two places (the end of the bed and the clothes horse) that she enjoyed standing against before. We've rearranged the living room so that she can have three sides of sofa and coffee table on a soft surface to cruise around - she cries until she gets to the coffee table and then walks along until she reaches the nice hard laminate floor again and yells until you give her support to walk into the kitchen.

Today she spent forty minutes walking from the kitchen door through into the conservatory, turning around at the back door and coming back again. In the end, when she got so frustrated that she was crying at the fridge magnets because I wouldn't let her eat them, I decided I had had enough. So it was back into the living room, down on the carpet, a handful of toys to play with and Mummy's ears shut to the screams of protest. I left the room and went into the kitchen to get a drink. After a couple of minutes of tantrum she quieted down and played, thus proving to my mind that she is just out for what she can get.

I came back in to keep an eye on her and sat on the sofa. It turned out that this was an error as she then realised I was present and not walking with her - how dare I!? So she somehow managed to shuffle over to me, grab my jeans and pull herself to standing. And there we were again - she cried and cried to be walked back into the kitchen.

I hate this. I cannot possibly express the distress it is causing me to be whinged at virtually continously all day. In the end I go out, because as soon as you pick up the car keys she perks up, looks happy and starts jiggling about in excitement - she knows that means a trip somewhere which is fun by simple virtue of being new and different. I also feel that I am doing her a disservice because she cannot live her life getting what she wants when she wants it all the time!

I think I have a choice: either be at her beck and call, continue to play at being Sally's ringmaster/MC/clown/teacher/personal variety artist and still put with whinging, or play a long game and start instigating some ground rules about independent play and time on her own, without walking, entertaining herself. I sense the latter will be a painful experience punctuated with tantrums, but surely it must be better long-term for her not to expect her own way all the time? She isn't stupid - actually the fact that she starts crying again when I walk back into the room suggests she's being deliberately manipulative - and she will work it out pretty quickly I think. But it's so hard to listen to the screaming and crying and not do anything. Earlier when I made her sit down to allow me to heat up her tea I stood in the kitchen deliberately until she had calmed down. I didn't want to come back when she was crying as I don't want to reinforce the message that yelling and crying brings results. Instead I waited until she was quiet and then came back, full of nice warm voice tones, and picked her up to bring her in for tea.

The more I think about this the more I think I have given into her too much and now need to undo some of the damage. After all, she is at her most easy over naps, the one thing I've never given in on. Looks like playtime needs some boundaries - and Mummy needs some earmuffs.

Colds, cats and sandwiches

2009-09-24T21:29:00.000+01:00

As I write this I can barely keep my eyes open: we all have a very nasty cold. I went out for a (wonderful) spa day with some friends on Sunday and when I came home Sam said Sally was very tired. She woke up three times on Sunday night, which is very unusual (although fortunately they were at 9:30, 12:00 and 5:30, so there was some sleep had in between!) By Monday morning it was obvious she had a cold; the snot was streaming from her nose all day and ever since then she's practically been gargling with it. On Monday she had a temperature of 38, but with a bit of Calpol that was soon brought down again. Fortunately we went straight into Cold Management mode and propped up the cot, put on the Karvol vapouriser, hung up a Karvolled muslin and gave her nasal drops before bed. Since then she's not woken up in the night once. Or at least we haven't had to go up; we've heard her coughing but these days she seems able to wake up, cough for a bit, and then put herself back to sleep. This prompts Sam to shake his head wonderingly and say "she's so good" every time.

However, she is completely stuffed up in the nostril department and hates anyone coming near her nose, so wiping away the long strings of snot has been a trauma. She is also understandably grouchy, and for some reason wants to continue zooming around the house even when her legs are wobbly and tired so there have been a few tears when Mummy puts an end to the wandering on medical grounds. Given my own sore throat, headache and general washed-out-ness, it has not been a happy household!

More positively we have introduced new foods this week. Chicken, cheese and broccoli pasta was accepted with forebearance, and spread cheese and salmon sandwiches (not together!) with some enthusiasm. To clarify: they were sandwiches when they were offered to Sally; it is fair to say that they did not last long in that shape as she tore them to pieces before she ate them! By the time she had finished the floor was strewn with bits of bread, but a significant proportion of it went down eventually.

Finally the one highlight of the day was Sally speaking like a seasoned pro. As usual when we met the cat in the bedroom I said "Who's that? Is it Tiggy the cat?" and a few seconds later Sally said "Tiggy cat" as clear as day. It was almost unbelievable - a proper little person's voice came out, just for a second. I honestly cannot wait for her to start saying more.

Great strides

2009-09-20T21:16:00.000+01:00

The post last Monday was the beginning of a fairly decent week. Although Tuesday was a little difficult, mostly we had a pleasant and fun set of days.

It looks as though the tough phase may be on its way out. It seems as though Sally has had another big developmental spurt. Her cruising is coming on in leaps and bounds: she hangs on now one-handed to the clothes horse (her new favourite place to be) or the end of the bed. She will walk holding only one of your hands and use the other to grab or lean on passing pieces of furniture. She will move from one thing - the clothes horse, the cat flap - to grab another - the chair, the windowsill. She can hold on one handed and bend down to pick something up, and with gentle balance support on her hips she can squat down, pick something up and stand back up again. Her talking continues to develop: she now can say 'Tig-ca' or 'Tig-tig ca' at Tiggy. The new strategy we have adopted of letting her fall onto her bottom every time she leans too far when walking is teaching her balance. And most excitingly of all a few times she has managed to stand alone for up to five seconds, sometimes even when holding things. Actually mostly when she is holding things, as it is then she has no hand spare to hold onto something for support and she forgets that she needs it!

Other exciting developments have been Sally eating an entire pot of tuna pasta complete with conchigliette for the first time, her continued enjoyment of baby pizza made with toast, tomato puree and cheese, and the addition of dried cherries to her extensive menu. Watching her eat dried fruit is hilarious - she is very finicky about picking up each little bit, carefully turning it between the fingers of both hands to get it into what she considers the right position, and then quickly popping it into her mouth and chewing it enthusiastically.

She now definitely understands no and continues to refuse to acknowledge a need to obey it. She thinks it is very funny whenever we say it and then deliberately does whatever provoked it and giggles. She is going to be a real little minx when she gets older.

We have packed up and put away the activity centre as she has now outgrown it. Instead I've bought a four-piece jigsaw playmat which we can use during the day and then take apart and store out of the way easily to keep the room tidy. We are moving on! Sally looks like a toddler now when she moves; she acts more and more like a little girl, and time is flashing on. She'll be one before we know it.

Finally

2009-09-14T20:54:00.000+01:00

A good day at last. I was beginning to think I'd never again feel positive at the end of a day.

I actually managed to keep Sally happy all day. We even spent some time outside gardening: I put her on her waterproof mat with some pillows and toys, and planted the new plants we bought at the garden centre over the weekend. The washing up was done, I put away some of her outgrown clothes and re-arranged her chest of drawers according, and throughout she just happily engaged in whatever was happening. Whilst I was sorting the drawers she stood up holding the edge of one and experimented pushing and pulling it to make it move.

In fact I think the reason she was so happy was because she had a day of experimentation and development. She cruised properly along the end of the bed for the first time, and also stood up against the toilet seat (I know, I know, I gritted my teeth and wished the germs away) and then used her hands to transfer herself a step or two and hang onto the bath. She had a great time swinging the shower screen backwards and forwards, and learning that if her face was in the way it wouldn't shut... She pulled up properly, using her knees, for the first time - although admittedly against me, so she still doesn't trust inanimate objects! And most bizarrely of all, she walked to the bottom of the stairs, lifted her foot up and, obviously helped by me, stepped up onto the bottom step. She then went up the whole staircase, getting her foot on the step, getting rebalanced by me and then pushing herself on and up using her foot. At one point she was going with alternate feet like an adult.

My strange, odd little girl. Won't lie on her tummy, won't crawl, can't walk alone but practically runs with support. Can't stand alone but tries to climb the stairs and the end of the bed and will hang like a monkey on cargo netting.

Eetsa-ca and apricots

2009-09-13T21:31:00.000+01:00

On Thursday Sally said 'It's a cat!' at Tiggy. I kid you not. Admittedly she clearly has no idea what that means, but every time a cat appears near us I tend to say "It's a cat, Sally, it's a cat!". So twice on Thursday she echoed those sounds. Cat appears: Sally grins and annouces "Eetsa ca!"

Today she was reasonably good but this afternoon she was very difficult again over sitting - or rather not sitting - and walking. However, she cheered me up no end by finally cottoning on to the idea that the dried apricot in her bowl is there so she can eat it! A whole dried apricot disappeared piece by piece. I can sense a whole new area of food opening up.

Totally exhausted

2009-09-11T20:38:00.000+01:00

Although Sally was an angel on Monday the rest of this week has been a real struggle. Her constant need to be on her feet is really distressing as you cannot touch her or go near her whilst she is sitting on the ground or she'll grab your hands and cry if you don't let her stand. Once up, she is off, straight through the house to the back door and then back again to the front.

Baby gym started again on Thursday (hooray, something organised to do!) and Litsa spent some time talking to me about Sally's walking. She said we should try and let her walk with us holding her hips instead of her hands, to allow her to balance herself with her arms and learn to control her walking herself. This way she can progress more quickly to independent walking and is less likely to become dependent on having her hands held for movement. She admitted that this was hard work, and having had one and a half days to experiment, I can confirm that it is just as bad as it sounds! For the first 24 hours of this new scheme Sally found it harder to walk and therefore was less keen - fantastic - but by this afternoon she had figured out how to do it and she now shoots off through the kitchen with me clinging grimly to her midriff and trying to keep her upright! However, without a doubt she is looking much closer to being able to manage for herself, which is great. This will help with her cruising as well, I think, because she will learn that she doesn't need to hold our hands to do things.

It seems ridiculous to be trying to get her to walk at 8 months and 1 week, and I'm not under any illusion that it's going to happen any time soon, but I am so sad for my poor little frustrated girl. This isn't just a selfish desire on my part; I certainly have no need to show off an early walker and I'd made up my mind she'd walk closer to 18 months than a year. But at baby gym on Thursday we met up with Emma, one of our NCT group babies - the youngest in fact - who is now crawling. She was so happy, and contented, moving herself to where she wants to be. Sally by contrast was aching to get into everything and assess every corner of the room but was stuck on her bottom and moaning and crying and pawing at me trying to get her to move. Every day is like this until I get up and help her go and visit the oven mitt hanging on the oven door, the cat's scratching post, the swivelly chairs in the conservatory, the coasters on the coffee table, the box of beers that Sam foolishly left out and the CDs in the tower. She wants to see everything, and I just want her to get to the point where she can do that happilyby herself. The more control she has over herself the happier she is, and if I can just help her get there before I collapse in exhaustion and frustration, so much the better for both of us.

Surprise party

2009-09-07T22:05:00.000+01:00

Today is my 29th birthday and I am now scarily close to 30!

Very excitingly, whilst I was tapping away at the keyboard during Sally's nap yesterday, Sam was actually only a hundred yards away (instead of being out to lunch with a friend, where I thought he was) setting up a marquee and food and welcoming the large numbers of friends and family he had invited to a surprise birthday party! I was indeed very surprised, and wondered for a second whether I'd somehow forgotten my 29th birthday had already happened and I was perhaps 30 already - but as Sam pointed out, that was the surprise!

Sally had a wonderful time with forty-odd people dancing attendance on her. She was absolutely exhausted by the end of the day but lasted very well and went happily to bed fifteen minutes early.

Today being my actual birthday I was a little afraid of an anticlimax, but Sally rose to the occasion and was an absolute delight for most of the day. She came into town with me to do some shopping, laughed with me, kept kissing me, ate all her food with no trouble and slept through the vast majority of her nap (not that I ever need to go up any more, but sometimes she wakes early and talks to her toys).

Things only became wearing when she insisted on wandering around the house again so much that she became totally exhausted and therefore incapable of knowing what she wanted except to keep walking on two floppy little overtired legs. We had to have our 'enforced downtime', which I hate, where in order to stop her wearing the last vestiges of her energy I have to hold on my lap and basically restrain her whilst she thrashes about and yells until she calms down and settles, sticks her thumb in and has a rest. She virtually fell asleep on my shoulder in front of Waybuloo, snuggled in on my collarbone with the sniffles on and her legs round my thigh. (I can't get her to show an interest in the TV. I don't really want her to love it, but it would be so useful to have a calm relaxing end to the day in front of fifteen minutes of something!)

Apart from that little blip, it was a very nice day however.

Church

2009-09-06T12:39:00.000+01:00

Sally went to Church with Sam this morning. The first few times she went she was so interested in the novelty of it that she didn't do anything. However, this effect clearly didn't last long as apparently this morning she insisted on walking round the entire church - up and down the aisles, in the between the pews, down the side aisles - until she was completely exhausted. By the time she came home she looked like a baby panda. She was very ready for her nap!

She had bolognese again today and ate the lot.

Food and teeth

2009-09-04T21:20:00.001+01:00

As I am trying to use this partly as a record of what happens when so that I can look back and reminisce in the future, I need to take note of the following!

I have managed to wean Sally off the music at lunchtime, so we can now have food without Disney's Greatest Hits in the background. This is a great relief to me, as I was beginning to wonder how many times you can listen to 'Circle of Life' without ending your own.

She has done a whole week of eating well at every meal. I have got her on to Ready Brek rather than the expensive and highly processed baby cereal, which is good, and she even managed to eat bolognese with bits of spaghetti in, so we are definitely making progress.

However, Sally is now constantly grinding her teeth. All four at the top are now through, which means she is always grinding the bottom two along the length of them. It makes a horrible, horrible noise and sets my own teeth on edge - but I think I have to ignore it in order to stop her doing it; if I reward her with attention, she will only continue. I hope it doesn't last long, but it is really really unpleasant whilst it lasts!

Exhaustion sets in...

2009-09-04T12:37:00.001+01:00

I do not like this phase...

Sally's discovery that she can control her own movement means that she now refuses to sit down. I don't mean that she is reluctant to sit, or cries, but that she actually refuses. After a little while toddling around between the living room and the kitchen my back is quite naturally beginning to protest. So off we go back to the living room rug to sit her down. I sit, and first gently drag her backwards to get her to sit. Sally immediately goes completely rigid, digs her heels into the ground, arches her back and tries to use her head to push off my chest and get herself back to standing. In stage two I try a more aggressive means of putting her legs over one arm and the other behind her back. Again, she does a reasonable impression of an ironing board and then starts crying. Wondering whether I am simply being too controlling and perhaps she would like to sit down herself, I stand her back up, whereupon she clutches my fingers so tightly I can't extricate myself and then have no choice when she takes off for the kitchen again but to follow her. This goes on all morning and all afternoon until I am relieved either by going out (increasingly the answer) or by naptime. Fortunately she will still sit in her highchair, the car seat and lie down in her cot.

How can one 8 month old be so determined, so stubborn and so - inflexible!

This too shall pass...
This too shall pass...
This too shall pass...

Nasty fall and swimming

2009-09-02T22:30:00.001+01:00

Yesterday we had our first proper accident. The first of many, I suspect, given Sally's propensity to forget that she is responsible for her own support. I'm not quite sure what happened, but she was standing up hanging onto the coffee table, as she does, and I think I must have turned, or looked down, and in an instant she was suddenly face down and screaming with her nose on the upturned end of Sam's briefcase.

As you do, I immediately switched into panic mode. Step one: get baby back upright, check for immediate issues. My first concern was her eyes - not easy to see as they were then screwed up with the effort of screaming. No blood, no marks, however, on any visible part of the face. Breathe sigh of relief. Step two: concentrate on calming screaming child. Step two suddenly interrupted by small rush of blood from mouth. Panic redevelops, now my concern turns to her (brand new!) teeth. Step 3: make a decision whether to comfort or check for further injury first, the screaming now intensifying and punctuated with distraught choking sounds. Decision pre-empted by baby's refusal to open mouth. Step 4: try to comfort very upset child with no success.

In the end it was pretty much time for her evening milk anyway, so I just gave her that. It took an entire feed to calm her, and she hiccoughed miserably throughout. I did manage to sneak a peek at her teeth between moments of feeding however, and concluded that no obvious damage had been done. It seemed as though she had just scraped the gums where they were already sensitive from teething; not only did it hurt more therefore but was also probably more likely to cause bleeding as well.

However, come the evening and come today she was fine, with no ill-effects and no obvious tooth problems, thank goodness.

On a happier note, today we went swimming again and this time Sally was bringing her arms to bear on the situation too! It was a slighlty bizarre dog-paddle, with the arms working in phase rather than out, but with the jack-knifing legs and enthuiastic splashing arms, she looked like she might start swimming before she can walk!

Understanding

2009-08-31T14:08:00.001+01:00

I think Sally understands 'No', now. She doesn't obey it, but when you tell her 'no' to say not to do something she giggles and looks at you when she does it again. So I think she understands what it means, but not that we really mean it, if that makes sense! Perhaps we need to be firmer.

She also definitely understands the word 'kiss'. If she's in the mood and you ask her for one, she will kiss you!

The fuss continues

2009-08-31T13:54:00.000+01:00

Sally is such hard work at the moment. She has been this way in the past, but when you are into a fussy phase it is hard to remember when she was last happy and hard to keep the faith that she will be happy again!

At the moment contentment comes only when she is outside the house and there are sufficient people around to maintain her interest. Unless you can distract her effectively inside (very difficult, given her reluctance to play with anything for longer than thirty seconds) then she insists on being upright and walking around the house, which is no good for my back! Whilst I completely support her growing independence and desire to move in a theoretical sense, the reality is less straightforward. I would love to say that a child who wants to explore and develop should be given total freedom, but as she can't yet do it herself she has to accept that sometimes Mummy is in charge and that what Sally wants can't always happen. I'm sure there's a good lesson in there somewhere for her about life not being fair...

This situation is made more frustrating by the fact that Sally is starting to communicate in ways other than crying (although "I'm cross, fix it now" is still the same irritating noise as before!) If she wants to get up she either holds her arms in the air or, more amusingly, grabs my hand and lifts it up into the air as a signal that she wants me to put my hands where she can pull up on them. Whilst I want to encourage her to use this to communicate, I don't always want her standing up! The great balancing act that is parenthood therefore continues; I must allow her to stand after asking enough that she realises that trying to communicate works, but not so much that she thinks she can get her own way all of the time.

With any luck Sally will move on from this phase fairly soon. Perhaps when she works out how to cruise around the furniture she will be happier and have a greater sense of autonomy. Then I just need to work out how to stop her falling over...

General update

2009-08-26T21:47:00.000+01:00

It's been a week since I last posted, so I thought I would do a bit of a summary.

Sally's walking has been coming on no end. She now insists on standing up all the time (which has become very irritating) then sees something she wants and walks straight to it. We are still holding her hands, obviously, but her balance is getting stronger. I have found out that Sam did walk before his first birthday, so I am more convinced than ever that Sally will too. We were in Bournemouth at the weekend and Sally caught a glimpse of the sea and off she went at speed over the sand, little legs twinkling away!

Two of the four teeth are through, and the others are nearly there. The front two are huge, like great tombstones in her little mouth. No wonder it hurts! She's been a real nuisance so far this week, whinging and moaning the whole time, and although I can't blame the teeth for everything (I think mainly it's mobility frustration) it can't be helping. Today I gave her some of the Ashton and Parsons teething powders and she did settle a bit, so perhaps those will help.

She had her 8 month appointment on Tuesday, which was interesting. No great revelations; she has one mis-aligned leg crease but apparently that is only of interest if there is a family history of hip problems. Everything else she passed quite well. The Health Visitor was very amused when she asked whether Sally reacted to seeing herself in the mirror and I said that she kisses herself! (This is her new game. If you stand her in front of the big mirror in the bedroom she rests on both palms then leans in and kisses her reflection.) That apparently does count as a reaction!

We definitely have object permanence sorted now. It is no longer possible to hide things from Sally to take her mind off them; you have to make some effort to distract her now. If you put things in boxes she looks for them, hide them under cloths and she whips it off to have a look... she really has the idea.

Overall, apart from the weariness that results from trying to keep Sally happy and on her feet all day, things are going well.

FOUR teeth?!

2009-08-18T09:31:00.000+01:00

I think we have discovered the reason for Sally's grumpiness.

When I looked in her mouth yesterday all four of her top teeth are coming through at once. In the last week the two front middle ones looked swollen, as if they were on their way, but I didn't even think to look either side. Yesterday it was clear that all four were not only swollen, but white-tipped and coming through! I think (from what I can tell, it's not easy to look in the mouth of a truculent 7 month old) that the front left one has actually come through, but the others are not far behind.

No wonder she's cross - that can't be comfortable!

Biker Chick is Queen of the Swingers

2009-08-18T09:22:00.000+01:00

I don't think I ever posted any photos of Sally on the swings. We have been taking her into the village to the playground there, which has baby swings. She really enjoys the independence and although she was a bit unsteady to start with she has got the hang of balancing now.

Here she is having a wonderful time

Over the weekend we also put her on Daddy's motorbike! This was a great idea as she happily played about with him on it for twenty minutes.

And, just for fun, some other shots that we took of her on Sunday

Weather forecast

2009-08-14T21:46:00.000+01:00

(I wrote this somewhere else, but it so perfectly sums up Sally's mood over the past week or so it is worth recording here...)

Outlook is mostly overcast and stormy, with sunny periods breaking through only occasionally. Precipitation has occurred, and a high pressure area is developing in Mumshire.

Maybe it's her top teeth - who knows? I've given up trying to work out why babies are how they are!

Another developmental leap

2009-08-14T21:22:00.000+01:00

I would have posted about this yesterday but the afternoon became so horrendous that I could do nothing but lie comatose on the sofa once Sally was in bed! This was a real shame because the breakthrough in the morning was very exciting, and the subsequent joy was rather shortlived. (As in fact, it turns out, was the skill in question!)

Anyway, Sally as I have previously recorded has been stepping really well. Yesterday morning we were playing on the new rug (softer, better friction) and I wondered what she would do if I held her up and walked. I got up, held her hands above her head, and set off towards the door. Without hesitation she came with me! One foot in front of the other, taking all her weight herself and just using me for balance, she waddled the whole length of the living room. I was so excited that I immediately rang Sam to tell him all about it. He was also suitably impressed.

However, as I said, the day did not continue in this euphoric vein. Sally ate her lunch well and slept right through her nap, but for some reason woke up in a terrible mood after it. She whinged and complained the whole afternoon. It wasn't helpful that she then banged her head (yes, again) and this time in truly spectacular fashion; I had surrounded her with cushions whilst she sat in her room, and she decided to pick one up, raise it triumphantly above her head, then overbalance and crashland into the space created by the (now understandably absent) cushion. There was a loud bang and one very distressed baby. I think she then had a headache for the rest of the afternoon as she was cross and unhappy the whole time. I nearly had a heart-attack when she was sick some time after the bang to the head (concussion not an ideal result) but reasoned that as she was showing no other symptoms except being a bit unhappy, it was only a tiny bit of sick and it occurred nearly an hour later, it probably wasn't relevant or cause for concern.

By the time Sam came home from work I was ready to drop. Four hours of continous whining is too much to take, and Sally was rather unceremoniously handed over to Daddy as soon as he made it through the door.

Today there were no ill-effects from either the whinging or the bump to the head - but no continued walking, either; the lazy baby now takes a few steps as you hold her and then sits down!

Swimming and stepping

2009-08-12T21:51:00.000+01:00

We took Sally swimming again today at David Lloyd and she had a wonderful time. When you hold her on her tummy she does a natural breast-stroke leg-kick, so we let her propel herself around the pool whilst we held her. She loves it! She is totally unafraid and really enjoys being in the water.

She is starting to get the hang of stepping now. (Walking would be too strong a word!) If you let her hold your hands and stand up a short distance from you she has started stepping to get closer. The realisation that she can do this has opened a door in her mind to the possibilities of movement. In the last two days she has started turning round as you hold her, reaching out from one piece of furniture to another, and putting a foot forward in the direction she wants to go. She has developed the idea that she is in control of where she goes - or can be.

I'm going to make a risky prediction: Sally will be walking by her first birthday.

I didn't walk until 15 months, and if you'd asked me a week ago, I'd have said Sally would probably take that long. But the change in her movement over the past few days suggests she is focused on making those little legs go places. We shall see.

Tesco book section

2009-08-09T21:05:00.001+01:00

This is just a minor rant about something that annoyed me on Friday when I was shopping in Tesco.

I occasionally buy books in Tesco, usually ones I've heard of and take the opportunity to buy cheaply. However, for the first time on Friday I noticed they have a section labelled 'Female Fiction'.

The Female Fiction section basically contained one book in a variety of covers: a comic romance in which a slightly overweight woman lacking in self-esteem and with a tendency to overindulge in alcohol sleeps in error with a devilishly good-looking bloke who ends up cheating on her. At the end of the book she finds love with a not quite as good-looking but handsome and reliable bloke who has been holding a candle for her for some time. The central cast of characters and themes may or may not be accompanied by the following: an attractive, tarty woman with a liberal attitude to sex who acts as a friend or a rival to the protagonist; the mother of the protagonist who is difficult and/or inadequate as a parent; a gay male friend who provides insight and also satirical social comedy of a sexual nature; myriad references to Jimmy Choos, Manolos, Chanel and other high-end fashion name-drops (all of which are out of range of the purchasing power of the protagonist); a vast vocabulary referring to alcohol; a drunk scene and at least one embarassing sexual experience.

Basically Bridget Jones having Sex in the City with Ugly Betty.

The reason this annoys me is the labelling of this as 'Female Fiction'. True, it is unlikely that men would ever read this (they have too much sense) but titling the shelves 'Female Fiction' makes it seem as if women don't read anything else. Being a literary snob (I admit it) I have always avoided any book in which the author's name appears larger than the title - a clear indication to the reader to expect more of what they have already read by the same writer. But I don't think I am being unreasonably insulted by the suggestion that those described above are the sort of vacuous books that most women like!

'Chick Lit' I can live with as a description - it has an ironic note of self-deprecation to it which to be fair is often reflected in the books themselves. You can't take them seriously (at least I hope people don't) and 'chick lit' is a perfectly acceptable term. But 'Female fiction' is a blunt instrument of a heading and I resent the suggestion that all women gain readerly satisfaction from reading the same hackneyed, superficial nonsense over and over again in slightly different forms.

Much happier

2009-08-09T21:01:00.001+01:00

Proof that babies are just fickle: no food woes today. Cheesey cod and potato pretty much all went down and tea was a happy affair too. She was picking up little bits of toast between finger and thumb and very carefully placing them in her mouth, which was quite funny to watch. You forget how much concentration is required to eat when you are only seven months old!

However, I am clearly becoming dangerously obsessed with Sally's eating habits and need to get a life and start blogging more interesting things than just 'what Sally ate/didn't eat today'... I will try to improve.

Hmmm...

2009-08-08T20:53:00.000+01:00

Not a good day for food. Not bad, but not good either.

It started well: even more porridge than normal this morning, probably because I'd mixed it with banana, which Sally likes, but the rest of the day wasn't great. She didn't eat all the chicken and tomato and seemed a bit put-off by it. I went without baby rice again - although I tried a bit halfway through, it didn't make a difference - so I hope I'm not going to have to re-introduce it. She ate a reasonable amount but not as much as I know she can, and she was grumpy, which often means she's not happy with what's on offer but is still keen to eat what she wants. I ended up getting out the fromage frais and alternating spoonfuls; then thought that that was pretty mean and might end up upsetting her, not to mention stopping her current enjoyment of the fromage frais, so I gave her the rest of the pot without interruption. I did then manage to get a bit more chicken down her, but it was not with enthusiasm.

This evening she cut up rough and did not eat a lot of her tea. She had a few spoons of leek, sweet potato and pea and a couple of bits of toast, but nothing much.

I know it could just be due to the heat, or maybe she just wasn't hungry today, but I still feel a bit disheartened.

The stupid thing is that intellectually I know that feeling discouraged by Sally not eating everything for just one day is ridiculous. She had a new food, it was hot, she managed without the baby rice yesterday so there is no reason why she should need it today... and even if none of those things were true babies are fickle, capricious creatures: they don't always need reasons to do things.

I found it astounding how many irrational feelings parenting can arouse. I made another error earlier when I was outside with Sally and she was complaining and whinging and I thought she was bored. I am worried I spend too much time pandering to her need for constant entertainment and will make her demanding, so when she was fussing I kept talking to her but felt a bit irritated by her. I was nagging her and telling her that she can't always have us at her beck and call... And then when I brought her indoors and sat her on her playmat she picked up toys and happily got on with things with out me. I felt guilty for maligning her unjustly and felt again like I need to spend more time mentally going through what could be wrong before I assume she's just 'being difficult'.

I worry that I get this wrong too often. And then I worry that worrying about getting it wrong makes me a bad parent because I am too neurotic and my constant obsession with perfection does not fit with being a stable, calm and contented mother.

So 'enough already': as of now I am looking at the bigger picture. When I get cross with myself and cross with Sally I need to take a step back (oh how I hate those cliches, but what other expression is there?) and remember that she is healthy, mostly happy, seems bright and intelligent, sleeps at naptimes, is putting on weight, sleeps all night, wees and poos appropriately, and gives me a kiss goodnight every time.

Ultimately striving for perfection is only a bad thing if because of it you fail to recognise any successes because they are not the ones you were hoping for. Today Sally held on to Daddy and took three steps: that is a success, regardless of how much tomato chicken she ate.

No baby rice!

2009-08-07T22:31:00.000+01:00

A whole day of happy eating and NO RICE involved at all! We've got a new dish tomorrow; let's hope Sally can deal with that without her staple rice.

Dear Zoo and sloshing bottles

2009-08-07T22:13:00.000+01:00

I popped back in to check on Sally whilst Sam was feeding her the other night and found her holding her own bottle. Apparently she has been doing this for ages but he didn't actually tell me! It's very sweet to see her sitting there carefully holding it as she feeds. Sam says it saves on arguments as she puts it in and takes it out when she wants to, rather than being cross at him for trying to run the show.

She has, however, discovered that the milk inside the bottle makes an exciting sloshing sound when shaken. I had been wondering what the anguished yells from upstairs were halfway through the feeding process; turns out it was Sally sloshing her bottle and hitting herself in the face with it. Every night. Ah well, the girl's got to learn!

The other exciting news from today is that Sally has learned to lift the flaps in Dear Zoo! She started showing an interest today so I helped her work out what to do, and off she went. I realised again what a fabulous book it is as of course all the flaps open in slightly different ways, so the child has to think as they open. Sally really enjoyed it and gave a little giggle every time she opened a flap and found the animal!

Salmon a success!

2009-08-06T12:18:00.000+01:00

Today I gave Sally the salmon, carrot and tomato puree that Mum had made for me to give to her. It was a big hit and she guzzled it up, with very little baby rice and no need to mix with broccoli. The other good thing about it was that it isn't smooth, so she had to chew up little bits of fish, and this didn't bother her at all. I feel like we are finally moving forward again with food.

General development update

2009-08-06T09:23:00.000+01:00

I think that 6-8 months must be a major period of development for babies, as so much is happening with Sally at the moment. She is just generally acting older, and seems more sophisticated in her responses to things. Her talking is taking off in leaps and bounds: the babbling continues with an even wider range of inflections and she is increasing the amount of time she spends talking about things. She has also now mastered standing whilst holding on to something, which is obviously harder than when we hold her hands. I'm really pleased to see this as it took her so long to get the hang of standing that I thought she would always hate it; now she is always demanding to be up on her feet! She obviously now understands the word 'kiss', too, as if you ask her for one and bring her up to face height she leans in and does her open-mouthed wet kiss on your cheek.

Sally has also learned the concept of 'under'. If you put a cushion near her she will pick it up and have a look underneath to check whether anything is there. This is probably a result of the way I hide her books under a cushion whilst we are reading to try and stop her picking up the next one before we have finished it first. It is a little annoying that she has worked out this trick because it limits my options when it comes to hiding the car keys and the TV remote from her. She has an obsessive love of the car keys; you can't go out now without hiding them from her because she insists on grabbing them, won't give them back and then cries if you take them from her. She will even try to throw herself out of my arms to grab at them whilst I use them to open the front door! However I was really impressed yesterday when she stole the shopping list in Tesco and having been told a couple of times not to eat it she settled for holding it sensibly all the way round the supermarket.

I need to buy some more toys for her, but it's a difficult decision. I don't want her to have too many toys but she is bored by the ones she has as they don't do enough for her. She'll return to the soft toys when she can play imaginatively, I suspect, but for now I think she needs things with more activities. The question is, what?

Weight gain

2009-08-06T09:18:00.000+01:00

I was pleased after baby clinic yesterday as Sally has gone up 17lb 13oz. That's a gain of 8oz over a fortnight, which is really good considering all the eating stresses we had in the first week after the last clinic!

She ate a whole pot (5tbs) of cauliflower cheese yesterday without needing the baby rice as a opener. She also ate her cod lyonnaise with some enthusiasm, so I think things are looking up. Today we are going to try salmon with carrot and tomatoes, which hopefully will be well-received - I'd like to get her on to tomatoes because we eat so many! I've bought some little baby pasta shapes as well so hopefully I can introduce those to her soon with some sauces.

Little porker

2009-08-03T22:02:00.000+01:00

Sally ate a huge amount today: two tablespoons of porridge and of pear at breakfast; six tablespoons of chicken casserole, two of sweet potato, three teaspoons of baby rice and a fromage frais at lunch and five tablespoons of leek, sweet potato and pea puree with some baby rice and some toast for tea!

When they weigh her on Wednesday, she must be up in her usual centile again, surely!

Words... words?

2009-08-02T22:05:00.001+01:00

It is very difficult to ascertain when babies start talking. This is mainly because they begin by babbling single vowels and consonants in a way which means they could easily hit upon words by accident. It is not easy to decide when 'Da-da-da' becomes an intentional 'Dada'. In addition, as with everything, babies learn and then babies forget; do you count it as a learned word if they use it, then discard it for several weeks?

With this in mind I have been very sceptical about Sally's language use to date. I thought she 'spoke' early and used her voice a lot, but she started to babble only at about the expected age. As I think I have posted before, she had started to say things that sounded like words but it seemed too early and too optimistic to label them as such. I spoke early, and I admit I would like Sally to be the same, but genetics isn't quite that simple!

However, in the last couple of days she really does seem to be using words intentionally, which surely is the criteria by which we judge them as words. She does not use them all the time, but she does seem only to use these sounds in the appropriate situation, suggesting this is a definite choice. I wonder whether the problem is a lack of voice control; sometimes she hits by accident on the sound she is trying to make, but she has not yet mastered her voice enough to say them regularly at her own volition.

Anyway, the 'words' we have are:

Da-da: originally just part of a string of babble as 'da-da-da' or 'da', now to Sam she will say 'Da-da'. This is the only situation she uses it like this: otherwise 'Da!' means 'I'm excited!'

'Cat': Out of the blue she has two or three times said 'caaa(t)' (the 't' is a sort of swallowed glottal) at the cats. I've never heard her use the 'c' sound at any other time, so I'm accepting this one too!

Eye-ga: A bit more difficult to establish as she has said this out of context too, but she first did this looking straight at Tiger. Since then I've heard her use it mainly to all her soft toys and rarely at other times. Not a confirmed word then, but definitely one to watch.

Fish food

2009-08-02T21:33:00.000+01:00

Sally has now had fish for the first (and second) time!

We did not get off to an auspicious start, however.

My attempt to create 'Fish Lyonnaise' as described in the Gina Ford weaning book was slightly less successful than anticipated. I failed to take into account the length of time it takes to cook the veg-box potatoes; although the top ones in the layer seemed cooked, when tipped into the Babycook the bottom ones were considerably less fluffy than I hoped, and the puree was consequently a little grainy.

Yesterday was the first day she tried it, and it was not exactly a triumph. When Sam is at home I tend to forget to do the same rituals that I do during the week, and it was to the detriment of lunchtime yesterday. The baby rice was exactly the same consistency and colour as the fish puree, with the result that I couldn't tell what I was feeding her! Then the water in the spinach puree leaked out and coloured everything, making it all rather watery and strange. She really didn't eat very much and in the end I had to put her to bed regardless.

Then in the evening I decided to try a completely finger food based tea, which also went wrong. (Note to self #1: don't try two new things in one day...) Sally was still hungry having not eaten a proper lunch, and the length of time it took her to try to feed herself just resulted in frustration and more whinging. (Note to self #2: don't try new things when she's too hungry...) I went to bed on Saturday night feeling quite disheartened again; clearly I am not yet robust enough where food is concerned!

This morning things were for a time even more distressing. Sally refused to eat breakfast. There was no crying or fussing, just a closed mouth and a blank stare of incomprehension. If looks could speak, hers would have been saying 'Breakfast? I'm sorry, why would you think I want that?' After half an hour of quietly offering her spoons of porridge and apple, I gave up and took her back upstairs. Five minutes later she burst into tears, I brought her back downstairs, offered her the same food and she ate the whole lot. Definitely no logic in Sally-land.

Anyway, at lunchtime I put all my systems in place, put the baby rice in a separate pot to avoid accidents, held my breath and hoped for the best. And Sally rose to the occasion: she didn't eat everything, but a substantial portion of the rice, the carrot and most importantly the fish disappeared calmly (albeit slowly), much to my relief. This evening at her grandparents (we had popped over for a visit) she despatched a few tablespoons of courgette and broad bean puree in much the same way.

So what is the best way to get Sally to eat?

Play Disney's Greatest Hits CD2 in the background
Give her three different spoons, including a metal shiny one, to play with at different
moments; one spoon in each hand, plus one to aspire to, is about right.
Feed her two plain spoonfuls of baby rice to start
Mix baby rice in decreasing quantities with the first spoonful of every new food in the meal.
Return to baby rice every time she seems to be getting tetchy

I'm learning, slowly. Next step: remaining calm and not caring when she doesn't eat.

Swimming

2009-07-30T19:53:00.000+01:00

Yesterday my Mum and I took Sally swimming for the second time (the first time was back in May). We went to our local pool, rather than Mum's posh David Lloyd club pool, so it was a real challenge for Sally: bigger, louder, colder!

Being on leave meant I had failed to recognise that it was the school holidays, however, so it was absolutely full of screaming children: overweight, obnoxious children with shrill parents and bumptious friends. Two about eight-year-olds had even commandeered the baby changing cubicle when we came out; standing there with a naked baby who was cold and wet and wrapped in a towel I was quite emphatic about our need to get in there and fortunately they removed themselves pretty quickly!

It was nonetheless a lovely experience though, Sally was completely at home in the water and really enjoyed herself! We put her in her diamond shaped float and pushed her back and forth between us, which she loved, and we moved her through the water without it on her back and her front, and she smiled the whole way through. She was even doing a proper froggy leg-kick (maybe she'll turn out to be a breast-stroker...) to move herself around! I think if we got her into armbands she'd be off! She wasn't phased by the cold, or the loud, echoing atmosphere, or the water. She was a complete natural in there, and I hope that continues. Perhaps the swimming gene will skip a generation and she will turn out to be a little aquatic talent - who knows?

Cleaning teeth

2009-07-28T13:00:00.001+01:00

Since Sally cut her first two teeth we have introduced teeth-cleaning! She has an Aquafresh toothbrush for under 3s and matching MILK toothpaste, which is very sweet.

She has them cleaned just before her morning nap and then during her bath. She's been very good about it so far and has not made any fuss. In fact she shows great enthusiasm and always wants to steal the brush. Here are some pictures from the early days of teeth-cleaning.

Having them cleaned:

Exerting her independence:

Deciding that the other end of the brush is the most chewable:

Successful lunch again

2009-07-28T12:54:00.000+01:00

Right. Maybe I can start to relax now! Today Sally ate until she was full of savoury and then had a fromage frais.

Hopefully by the end of the week she will be settled back into an eating routine!

However, this morning she woke at 6:15 for the third morning in a row. I can't hear that anything is going on outside at that time, so I think I am going to have to bite the bullet and cut out her afternoon nap. This is a shame for several reasons:

1. because I will have to entertain her all afternoon
2. because it means any time I go anywhere she will fall asleep when I don't want her to
3. because there may be a lot of whinging and grumpiness to deal with
4. because I won't get my afternoon tea break!

I think I will move her tea forward to 5:15pm as well, that will help to fill up the afternoon and will also ensure that she takes more milk at 6:30. With tea at half five I have been concerned she's filling up on solids and cutting back on milk (which might also be a cause of the early waking). Anyway, we'll do a couple of days without nap and see how we get on.

Have I finally cracked it?

2009-07-27T21:13:00.000+01:00

The last week has been horrible, mainly due to all the food issues we'd been having. I was in such a state on Thursday; I'd just had enough of upsetting Sally by trying to feed her things that were good for her. I simply cannot describe the frustration and anxiety created by a baby that is crying and not eating. Even now the feelings seem irrational, but as soon as you are in that situation you cannot see past it and the baby's refusal to take the spoon feels like the worst thing in the world. During the first few days of being screamed at a lot of things were hurled around the living room and a lot of cardboard boxes kicked around the conservatory. You can't shout at the baby, even though you want to, because it just makes things worse and scares them even more. I don't think I've ever felt so totally out of control as I did during those mealtimes. In the end, I learned to put the spoon down, grit my teeth and count slowly to ten, all the while smiling at Sally to reassure her as much as possible. The crying, however, continued.

The anxiety was getting even worse because Sally started whining every time I put her in her highchair, presumably because she was anticipating the battle to come. I asked everyone I could think of for advice, all of whom came back with different suggestions.

However, I decided that I did not want Sally to get the upper hand on this. She is so stubborn and strong-willed that I can already see her being an immoveable object as an individual. Visions of me storming back downstairs as a child to have the last word in an argument come to mind; it would not surprise me if she is exactly the same. I was convinced that she was complaining because she didn't like something about the food, or how it was presented, not because of the time, or how hungry or otherwise she was. And that is a war she will not win. I do not want her to think that if she shouts loud enough she will get what she wants, and the fact that she ate the familiar pouch and a fromage frais spoke volumes.

So on Saturday when she moaned, I fed her a few more spoonfuls and then stopped. It was lentil puree, which frankly tasted delicious. But she rejected it, so I gave up. I allowed her a drink of water, kept her entertained for a bit, and then put her to bed for her nap. As was predictable, she did not sleep well, but in retrospect this was due to a) her pooing at 1:15pm which woke her up and b) the fact I'd been giving her 45 minutes of sleep in the morning, which I have now decided is unnecessary (she doesn't sleep at lunch, however much food she's had, if she sleeps more than half an hour in the morning). On Saturday evening I decided to give her the rest of the lentil puree back, alongside her baby rice. She ate it. Enthusiastically.

This was intriguing. Why would she eat at tea-time what she would scream at over lunch? What could possibly be different? I wondered about feeding her protein at tea-time, but reasoned that I want her to eat a 'meal' at midday where possible because that's where the milk-feed has been dropped, and I don't want her too full to eat her evening milk because that's what keeps her asleep at night. So what was different in the evenings?

Baby rice. The one food she has always loved, never rejected. On Sunday, with some trepidation, I gave her baby rice (using half of her portion from the evening) and chicken casserole, with some spinach. I started by giving her a few spoons of baby rice, then mixed some of them with chicken, then gave her separate chicken, rice and spinach spoonfuls alternately. She ate the lot. No whinging, no moaning, no crying. Afterwards I told her she was very very good, showed her her empty bowl and gave her a fromage frais. She ate that too.

Today, still nervous, I did the same thing again, with more casserole and some broccoli. Again she ate it all. And a yoghurt. This is a huge amount of food for a 7 month old, but clearly proves she is hungry! I just gave her three or four spoons of baby rice to begin and then she was fine to eat the casserole.

I don't know if there is a problem with giving her so much cereal, but having split her usual amount now between tea and dinner it isn't like she is having a lot more of it. If it gets the good stuff like meat and veg into her, it cannot be a bad thing. Her digestion seems fine and she is pooing regularly, so I don't think it's doing any harm there, and with any luck as she becomes more used to eating a variety of foods without complaint, I can phase out the rice completely.

The other good news from today is that, having cut her morning nap back to half an hour again, she slept for two hours straight at midday. Clearly the extra fifteen minutes in the morning makes a big difference, as over the weekend she slept really badly at her nap and refused to go back to sleep after 1:30. Today she was still asleep when I went up at 2pm.

Long may this continue. I feel like I have solved a major mystery and I hope the celebration is not premature!

This parenting lark...

2009-07-22T20:59:00.000+01:00

...is not easy. When you don't have children and people say "Kids are such hard work", you nod and agree and assume that of course that's true, but

a) their kids are more hard work than most because of x, y and z and your own will of course be easier because you won't make the same mistakes...
b) that all that hard work is physical, simply chasing a baby/toddler around, and surely if you are young and fit that's not that difficult, you just need a lot of energy. Besides, you can rest whilst the baby is asleep...
c) lots of people have children, it can't be that bad...

I have been the person who thought those things, and although I find it extremely difficult to admit to being wrong I will hold my hands up and say I totally underestimated quite how much hard work this is.

Let us examine the reasons why:

1. Children are heavy
First there is the simple physical aspect. Once they get over 15lb, they feel heavy to lift. But they are not old enough to hold on yet, so you have a big heavy limp thing to carry about with you every time they don't want to be put down. Again, you might assume that 'I'm not one of those parents who's going to carry their baby about all the time', but then how do you move from room to room with a baby who cannot walk, crawl or even sit? Then when they are agitated and stroppy, they insist on being carried about. And there is your first big choice: carry or whinge? The one is physically demanding, the other emotionally so. Several hours of carrying baby about and doing things one-handed takes it out of you, but so does listening to a whining child.

2. They are always there.
They don't ever go away. This is something you would assume is obvious, but it is not so until you actually have a child in your house. On many an occasion I have contemplated walking out of the house just to prove I can do it, only to realise that of course I can't. You cannot take the baby monitor and go shopping whilst they are asleep. The limitation on your personal freedom when you are looking after the baby alone is extraordinary. Cabin fever does set in, and the sense of claustrophobia is again a drain on your resources. You begin to yearn for just two hours without the baby grabbing your hair, being sick on your and pulling off your glasses. You long to have conversations that do not consist of questions you answer yourself. And yet as soon as you enlist a suitable baby-minder and go out of the door, you cannot stop worrying about whether they are ok, whether they are eating well, and whether Daddy/Granny/whoever is doing it properly. So you can't switch off even when you leave the house. The only time you don't think about them is when you are asleep, and then they wake you up in the middle of the night to interrupt that too.

3. They cannot communicate
But they do have opinions. So they will whinge and moan, and whinge and moan some more, and sometimes have meltdowns (see previous posts!) all because they want/don't want something but you cannot tell what it is. This means that your baby will moan (sounding something like a sick puppy or a cross cat) at you relentlessly until you fix the problem. This may entail moving from room to room, trying six or seven different activities, exploring their nappy, offering some food, and so on, until they are quiet. By the time you have achieved this state of bliss you are generally exhausted with the process and too tired to appreciate the silence.

4. They want a personal circus
You are their Cirque de Soleil/Elvis/Broadway show and it's matinee day every day.

5. They don't conform to expectations
I am a great believer in the science of babies. I am a member of Gina Ford's army and I have faith that babies can be programmed to do broadly speaking what you expect. But notwithstanding that they are completely unpredictable and sometimes no matter what you do that chicken casserole will not get eaten (again, see previous posts) and no reason can be found. Spending hours working out why they are doing things is, I am learning, a fruitless exercise, but in the months before you learn this you spend hours going over things in your head in an extremely tiring fashion. Or perhaps, like me, you just keep secretly hoping there is a reason, and if you just keep thinking...

6. They make really irritating noises
Seriously. Other people's babies make noises and you don't bat an eye. You offer sympathetic glances to the woman on the bus whose child is bawling away. You barely register the frustrated whinges of the denied child in the toyshop. But when your own baby whinges at you, and you cannot diagnose it, it is not long before you find yourself sat on a chair, bouncing them on your knee in desperation and willing them to be quiet. Please. Just five minutes would do.

7. The Guilt Factor
Sooner or later you begin to feel that everything you are doing is wrong. Your parenting is second-rate, your food is badly cooked, you are not energetic/intelligent/sensitive enough to be doing this important job. Your baby has lost weight, has nappy rash, has bumped his/her head, and it is all your fault. It isn't, of course; nobody is the perfect parent and these things happen to everyone, but whilst they are happening to you it sets you on an exhausting round of guilt, insecurity and mental self-flagellation.

8. Even when everything is going right, you are tired
Happy babies are lively babies. Dancing around with them to Disney's Greatest Hits, helping them sit back up when they've fallen over for the tenth time today, being enthusiastic when they roll over/sit up/stand up/feed themselves and generally spurring them on like a frazzled cheerleader can take it out of you. Praise is vital, but it is more difficult than you would imagine to chorus 'oh well done sweetie, that's brilliant' having spent twenty minutes disentangling spinach-encrusted hands from your newly coiffed hair and listening to a noise not unlike that of a pterodactyl with some form of serious Triassic stress.

So there you have it. Let it officially be recorded that parenting is difficult and even more difficult than you imagine it is going to be... Honestly. Those reading this without children will doubt me, but I say to you: be warned.

More eating woes

2009-07-22T12:59:00.000+01:00

Re-pureed chicken casserole was not a success. We had more hysterical 'how dare you feed this to me' crying, despite it being as smooth as you can get a chicken casserole in a blender.

Sally started whining from spoonful one, and then after a few more (which she opened her mouth to eat, I didn't force her!) screamed in anger, grabbed the spoon, pulled the food off it with her fingers, threw the spoon swiftly followed by the food onto the floor, then dissolved in hysterics.

Is it me or do I have a toddler, not a 6 month old? She had a meltdown this morning when I took the car keys off her to open the car. (I hasten to add that I didn't give her the keys in the first place, she grabbed them and started a tug-of-war which in the interests of safety I had to lose!) She always knows what she wants and shouts at you if you don't do it. Or, apparently, if you try to feed her good, wholesome homemade food...

This was all the worse because I had been to clinic this morning only to discover that she has LOST weight. I know she was ill last week, threw up a lot and had a nasty cold, but it's not what you want to hear, really. She has lost 3oz, the first time ever she hasn't put on weight between clinics.

Fortunately I had bought back-up food in Tesco this morning. As soon as I offered her an Ella's Kitchen chicken casserole pouch she went silent, sniffed disconsolately and ate it. Then she ate some more, and gobbled up the whole pouch, plus about half of the original homemade casserole I sneakily mixed in with it (although it it was too much per spoonful she shouted again) and then ate an entire fromage frais. At least she has therefore eaten well, but I am still at a loss what to feed her tomorrow. We'll have to have a go with the savoury lentil mix and see how that fares with Little Miss Stroppy. She is certainly not going to be on pouches forever, given how much they cost...

Incredibly cute moment

2009-07-21T21:48:00.000+01:00

I forgot to mention one of the loveliest moments of the last few days!

Sam has been between jobs and on holiday for a week, and Monday was his first day at his new job. He was leaving quite late, so Sally and I had already had breakfast and were sitting in the conservatory.

As he said goodbye, she leaned over, put her arms around his neck and gave him a hug! She has been hugging and kissing for a while now, but I think this is the first time she has shown a conscious decision to move to hug someone.

She is becoming very affectionate as she grows up, a far cry from the rather prickly little baby she was to start with. Anyway, it was delightful to see further evidence of her devotion to Daddy.

Eating update.

2009-07-21T21:18:00.000+01:00

We've had a strange week for eating.

Sally hasn't been well, which hasn't helped, and we had to give her an Ella's Kitchen pouch on Friday and Saturday because we were away for the Christening and we needed transportable food. She had chicken casserole in the pouches and was absolutely fine with it, but since she's been on my homemade casserole she has had a complete meltdown every lunchtime. It's been really distressing to watch and she has worked herself into a terrible state.

All I can think is that it is the fact it is quite textured that she doesn't like. She doesn't reject it, or spit it out, but cries relentlessly whilst eating it.

I blame the Health Visitor, who keeps asking me whether Sally is eating lumps yet. Given that she can feed herself a piece of toast, I shouldn't have worried, but the constant nagging led me to try less of a puree with the chicken. Clearly this was a big mistake.

Tomorrow I am going to try again, but whizz it through the blender again first and see if I can make it smoother. If that works, we are officially ignoring the Health Visitor and carrying on with the Gina Ford book that was working really well.

However, on the plus side Sally is now eating breakfast! Having refused it for a week or so I decided to help things along by just giving her toast to 'play' with whilst I was eating my own breakfast. She got straight on with eating that - much to my amusement, as she would sometimes fail to bite a piece off and sit there chewing on the end of a toast soldier, the rest of which was hanging out of the front of her mouth - and after a few days of that she was happy to move on to porridge. She will now eat a couple of tbs of Organix creamy oat porridge and a pot of fruit puree, which is great, as lunch can now start its journey towards 11:45. Today we managed lunch at 11:30, which was great. As a consequence, we have moved toast to after her tea-time veg and rice and she is doing really well with that; she quite happily and efficiently feeds it to herself now, biting bits off and chewing them well.

She can also now feed herself with a spoon, although this is something of a battle of wills in the making. Today we had a tug of war over the spoon until I gave up and she let me load the spoon for her to put in her mouth. She then sucks it clean and eats it, so I suppose I shouldn't complain. I don't suppose there are that many 6 month olds who feed themselves with a spoon. It is slow and messy though: her aim is unerring, if she wants to feed it to herself she will, but she has a tendency to drop the spoon on the floor deliberately to see what happens. I think Mummy may maintain spoon control until towards the end of each meal!

The best news of all though is that with the addition of chicken to the menu, she no longer needs milk at 11, so I have dropped that feed. We are down to three a day!

Christening

2009-07-21T20:48:00.000+01:00

Sally was pretty spectacularly sick on Friday night, leaving me rather concerned for the Christening on Saturday. She seemed fine when she woke up, and was very keen to feed. Great, I thought - she needed the milk as she couldn't have breakfast (we had to leave very quickly to get to London) and would have to make until 11am in a good mood so that she wouldn't shout at the vicar during the service.

She guzzled away and then having had both sides suddenly exploded. Again. Just as she had on Friday, she snuggled into me and then brought it back as if she were a juice carton being squeezed. It was down my chest, my arm, my neck, my pyjamas, the pillows, the bedsheets... And there she was, ten minutes before we needed to leave, with virtually no milk in her.

Disaster.

I offered her what more milk I could but she didn't want a lot - perhaps unsurprisingly - and had to just cross my fingers and hope she'd make it. We dressed her in just a vest (having learned our lesson from the poo explosion on the way to our friends' wedding), I threw my clothes on (fortunately I had done my hair and makeup before waking Sally up), we popped her in the car and away we went.

She was very grumpy and whingy on the way, so unusual for her. The whole of the previous week she had seemed discontented and difficult, probably due to a cold, but Saturday morning was turning into a bit of nightmare. I didn't want her to fall asleep before 9 because she wouldn't get her lunchtime nap until later, so I deliberately kept her awake until 8:45 and then gave her her dummy. Bizarrely she then refused to go to sleep until 9:10, despite laying her head calmly to one side.

However, things improved dramatically from then on. Once asleep, she steadfastly refused to wake up, despite us stopping in the car park and vacating the car. She slumbered on regardless in the car seat and we got everything into the Cathedral and ready to go. When she woke up, she was on good form and cheerful.

Once inside, we had to change her in the crypt toilets and there was a little old lady cleaning in there. When we told her we were here for a Christening she held Sally's hand and said "And may the good Lord smile on you on your special day, and may He bless you and keep you all the days of your life". Normally I find such earnest evangelism rather unsettling, but in this case it was rather nice to have a complete stranger wishing good thoughts for Sally.

The Christening itself was a great success, and Sally played to the crowd. She kicked her legs excitedly during the hymns, tried to eat the Order of Service, and didn't murmur at all when Donald (the vicar) held her and wet her head. In fact the water so intrigued her that when he turned her back the right way up she pushed her feet forward to try and go for a paddle in the font.

The reception in the pub afterwards was perfectly fine too. Everyone seemed to have had a good morning by the end of it and it was really a lovely occasion. My only regret is that because she had eaten next to no milk in the morning I was desperate to feed Sally and didn't stop to take photos on the Cathedral steps. It is a shame not to have those, particularly as none of the ones inside have come out very well. But Sally's lunch was more important and we know we were in St Paul's, even if none of the evidence exists!

Sally maintained her good humour until her usual nap time, when she started to become a little unsettled. However, having given her to her Auntie Kate, who held her quietly for a bit, she became very sleepy, and when I took her back she snuggled into me and fell asleep on my shoulder. That was something of a magic mummy moment. She's such an independent little soul that she doesn't do things like that very often, and it was lovely.

Anyway, we survived. Sally is now a member of the Church, our god-parents were lovely, everyone had a great time and the little one is now the proud owner of a beautiful silver bangle, a charm bracelet, a white leather Bible, a St Christopher pendant, a Peter Rabbit moneybox, a Peter Rabbit mug, a Very Hungry Caterpillar moneybox and some Winnie the Pooh china.

Here, finally, are the photos. The portrait shots were done at home afterwards when all of us were a bit more relaxed.

New game

2009-07-13T21:44:00.000+01:00

Sally had us in fits of giggles today with her new door bouncer game. This came about quite by chance...

Sally was bouncing up and down so Sam and I jumped up and down as well in time with her. She looked flabbergasted and laughed and laughed. Then she stopped jumping, so we did too. Looking a bit perplexed, she started bouncing again, so we jumped up and down. Well she fell about laughing and bounced even harder. Then, clearly with great deliberation, she stopped, and watched us closely. We stopped again. So off she went again, and us with her, but this she stopped very quickly, presumably to test us! Delighted by what she discovered, that we were copying her, she then set about jumping and stopping for ages and giggling away when we did what she wanted.

She's not daft, this girl!

An amazing week

2009-07-13T21:26:00.000+01:00

I was reflecting yesterday on what a staggering week of development Sally has had. Between Sunday of last week to Sunday of this (5th - 12th July) she has learned the following:

How to sit unaided
She just suddenly took off with this. A few weeks ago she could do it for a couple of seconds, suddenly mid-week she figured it out, started self-righting all but the most dangerous of wobbles, and can now sit for more thanfive minutes without help. We are at the stage where provided there are enough pillows to catch her should she try an illegal leaning move, you can leave her to it.

Standing holding on
This week she has also learned how to stand when she is doing the holding; instead of us holding her hands, she is grasping our fingers to hold herself up.

Drinking from a cup
We introduced water this week and Sally will now drink from a cup (we didn't bother with a beaker, we've gone straight for a lidless cup) . She does brilliantly with it and laps up water like a pro.

Feeding herself
If you load up a spoon she will now take it off you, put it in her mouth and lick off the food. Granted it has to be something fairly sticky so she doesn't splash it liberally all over the kitchen, and granted she sometimes doesn't quite manage to get the food off, but she definitely has the process figured out.

Playing with her music cube
Sally has one of those musical cubes from Leapfrog, which is a brilliant toy. Each side is a different colour and has a different animal on it. It plays a rhyme dependent upon which side is uppermost. They are a bit cheesey, but good because they include colour and animals, and Sally loves the music. By way of example: 'Yellow lion in the African sun/Tickling your mane is really fun.'

Anyway, this week Sally worked out exactly how this worked and has spent many happy minutes turning it to get different tunes out!

Playing with a rattle
Long overdue (she's known what they do for AGES) but finally this week Sally decided to stop just chewing on her rattles and start rattling them! She picks them up and instead of immediately sticking them in her mouth she waves them up and down. She will also take turns: I take it off her, say 'Mummy's turn' and shake it, and when I give it back to her and say 'Sally's turn', she shakes it too!

It is unbelievable how quickly they pick these things up. I had expected 6 months to be a productive period for development, but the speed with which she is learning now is amazing!

Weaning thus far

2009-07-10T20:48:00.000+01:00

Having recorded Sally's aversion to peach I thought I should muse on how weaning is going so far, as I don't think I've written much about it yet.

To this point it has been a great success. Sally took to the spoon readily and despite some (really) frustrating moments early on where I felt like throwing baby rice across the kitchen, we quickly established a rhythm. The biggest problem I have is that she finds the cats more exciting than food, unless it's an absolute favourite, so I sometimes spend several minutes desperately trying to win her attention back again by drumming my fingers on the table, tapping the food pots and saying "Sally. Sally. Sally?" over and over. On other occasions (especially when in a pre-emptive strike I have removed the cats from her line of vision) she does a fabulous impression of a baby bird, opening her mouth and lunging forward enthusiastically for the spoon as soon as the previous mouthful has gone. This is when feeding is fun!

I bought a Babycook to make my own food with and it has proved to be a great choice. I can whip up a few pots of fruit and/or vegetable in about fifteen minutes, and the steaming means that the nutrients are preserved. In addition, because I only have the one gadget for steaming, reheating and blending, I have very little to wash and it comes apart and washes very easily. I am genuinely thrilled to be able to feed my daughter real food and not something out of a jar or a packet. They clearly have their place (and I have my eye on both the Plum and Ella's Kitchen sachets for when we go out on a trip - frozen homemade babyfood is not transportation-friendly) but I do think that this is a better option.

Next week she is due to start both having breakfast and having some tasters of protein, in preparation for introducing chicken and fish the following week. It really won't be long before she is eating the same as us, but until then I still have to hand the world's biggest collection of tiny freezer pots in which to keep her little portions.

All this has also caused me to reflect on how well you learn to know your baby and what they like. I was terrified in the beginning because I didn't know Sally; I had no idea what she wanted when she cried,or what she was thinking. Six months in I can tell you the following about her food preferences:

Favourites: Mango, apple, courgette (I know, I think that's weird, too!) and baby rice
Acceptables: Pear, carrot, sweet potato, broccoli, parsnip, swede (she always looks suspicious when she starts off on anything containing swede, but once she gets going she's ok) cauliflower and avocado.
Absolutely nots: Peach, yoghurt. I dread to think how she'll react to the peach yoghurt I happen to have in the fridge...

Anyway, I am allowing myself some mummy pride for getting going so well on this - with a nod of recognition to Gina Ford and her weaning book which has been really useful.

Sally does not like peach...

2009-07-08T22:38:00.000+01:00

Courgette, yes, improbably. And cauliflower, sweet potato, carrot, parsnip, apple, pear, avocado, and swede. Mango she considers to be delicious.

Peach, on the other hand, is not so good.

Bournemouth and beach

2009-07-06T12:05:00.000+01:00

We are in Bournemouth visiting Sally's paternal grandparents. It had been so hot the previous week that I thought it would turn out to be a fantastic decision: cool sea air to blow away the humidity! As it turned out the heat took a bit of a nose-dive anyway, so it was actually a bit overcast and cool. That said, it has been warm enough to take little madam to the beach without worrying about her burning, which was a positive.

Because of the long journey Sally has not previously spent much quality time with her grandparents - she tended to arrive fairly cross about the time spent in the car, and by the time she'd have cheered up the following day it was time to go home again! Spending a few days down here was definitely the right choice as she has been good-natured and sunny the whole time. The fact that they have a koi pond, two cats and a tortoise has also been fun; watching Oberon the tortoise munch on a strawberry was very exciting for her, and although Sally was scared of Tristan (the world's biggest, fluffiest, 7kg of cat!) to begin with she will now contentedly try and pull out all his fur, much to the chagrin of the poor creature under assault!

With Oberon the tortoise

On the beach

I want to eat the camera!

First paddle in sand and in water!

Feeling hot hot hot...

2009-06-29T21:43:00.000+01:00

...and had enough. It has topped 30 degrees here today - that's too much!

Here is a photo of Sally in the heat - I don't think she had the energy to do a lot...

Wedding

2009-06-29T21:32:00.001+01:00

We went to a wedding of some old friends yesterday.

It was a lovely day, and the storm had blown over by then, so the sun shone down beautifully. It was a little too hot, but as with most weddings the majority took place indoors and it wasn't too much of an issue!

Sally behaved impeccably. I was a bit concerned because instead of continuing her long midday nap she decided to wake up and take part in the service. Clearly annoyed that we were doing something interesting without her, she woke up and cried, but was perfectly happy when we got her up and sat her where she could hear and see everything. She did make some noise, but generally only to join in (late) with what was happening! The Lord's Prayer, for example, went something like this:

OMNES: For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory, for ever and ever. Amen.
Sally: ba-ba-da-da-goo-baa!

Despite missing out on over an hour's sleep, she kept her good humour throughout the day and everyone commented on how delightful she was (cue proud mummy moments)! We did have to resort to reading (twice over) all the books we brought, to keep her happy whilst I gobbled down dinner before feeding her, but otherwise everything was fine.

Our friends had a lovely day and it was a pleasure to be there. The speeches were excellent, and it was a moving and wonderful occasion all round. I was delighted because I had painted them a name picture of the sort I normally do for children, but with a far more sophisticated watercolour bird of paradise flower involved, and they seemed very pleased with it.

It won't be long before all of our generation of friends is married and we will have no more weddings for a while! How sad...

Here are some pictures from the wedding. I was really pleased with the first dance shot, which came out really nicely.

Definitely babbling!

2009-06-27T21:13:00.001+01:00

I think we can safely chalk up babbling on the milestones board! Sally has been very talkative today; she always used to be but recently she's been focusing on physical developments and was only really shrieking like a pterodactyl. However, today the babbling was unmistakeable. We have had constant chatter all day, like a completely unintelligible conversation we've made our best attempt to join in with, and lots of interesting noises. "Ga-ga-ga" was quite popular, as was "da-da-da" (although not as an attempt to say Daddy - tempting as it was to interpret "Ah-oh da-da" as "hello Daddy" I think that's wishful thinking only!). We also had long random strings of vowels and consonants like "Eee-ba-boo-boo-ga-da".

The other delightful moment from today was Sally going completely hysterical with laughter (and proper child laughter, not baby laughter, which seemed bizarre and incongruous coming from her tiny little face) when I said "A-HA" at her unexpectedly. Every time I did she burst out laughing like a little hyena. I have no idea why, but apparently the sound is hilarious.

Standing

2009-06-26T21:43:00.001+01:00

Sally goes to baby gym on a Thursday morning (can't remember if I've posted about that before) and I keep going despite the fact that she always whinges about it because I think she is learning new skills there.

Actually I think we are both learning; Sally is quite nervous about gross motor skills, even though she has proved through the gym lessons that she can do some of them. I tend to avoid those skills because she doesn't like them, but I realised last week that that is just compounding the issue as I am not building her confidence but indulging her nerves. Although I'm not going to force her to do something she doesn't want to do, it struck me that I need to support and encourage her to try it, and have a go.

Anyway, she has always been reluctant to stand, but at gym we do a lot of moving from sitting to standing. At yesterday's class she managed to stand with her arms resting on an activity table, pretty much by herself. This was a major step forward! Buoyed by this triumph, today we did lots of practice, and by the end of the day I could help her up from sitting to standing just by holding her hands! Every time she did it I sang out 'Well done Sally, good girl, well done!' and she just looked absolutely delighted with herself and all the praise. She showed her new skill off to Daddy when he came home from work, and again she lapped up the praise and the congratulatory cuddle.

Here she is on her feet!

Brilliant, on many levels, but definitely a really good sign that she loves praise so much; it makes it so much easier to encourage and discipline a child if they react well to it.

She has grown up so much this week, it is extraordinary. I think in the last couple of days she is also beginning to babble, but I am so desperate to see her make progress linguistically (my only pushy mother weakness - language is my big thing, will she also be a wordy baby?) that I don't trust myself to believe it yet. I'll keep listening and see how we do...

Banged head

2009-06-26T21:32:00.000+01:00

Poor Sally. Yesterday I was carrying her through the doorway into the conservatory (which is a big, sharp-cornered sliding doorframe) and she whipped her head back suddenly and banged it on the metal frame! Immediately this sort of thing happens I find myself replaying the incident and the noise to determine how potentially dangerous/harmful it might be, and fortunately I felt she had probably not hit herself that hard. But goodness me did she cry! Proper wailing, which she rarely does, interspersed with panicky little breathy moments where she tried to work out what was happening and then decided that it still hurts and carried on wailing. As soon as she did it I just wrapped her up in a cuddle and eventually she calmed down to just a whimper.

Poor baby! I felt so sorry for her. When she was calm enough I had a look at her head and she had a tiny but prominent lump where she had hit the sharp edge of the frame. It didn't seem too bad, so I just kept an eye on her for the rest of the day and fortunately there were no ill-effects. By bedtime the lump was still there but the bruising was gone, and by this morning I couldn't even see where she'd hit it.

It's strange though - everyone says you become hysterically protective of your child, and in a sense that's true, but I don't find myself panicking when things like this happen (not that they often do!) Although I was concerned to check she was ok, and felt really sorry for her whilst she was upset and crying, I can still maintain what I think is a healthy perspective that learning to deal with shock and pain is actually part of growing up; you don't want to them to experience it, but learning that Mummy can cuddle you to make you feel better is an important lesson. I don't want her to be a nervous child, I want her to be strong enough to deal with adversity.

Tooth!

2009-06-24T21:10:00.000+01:00

On the way home from Sainsbury's on 20th June, Sam put his finger in Sally's mouth and exclaimed that her bite was sharp. Upon investigation she was found to possess one very small front tooth just peeking up above the gum!

At last! Teething since 2 months and at nearly 6 months we finally have something to show for it. Judging by the amount of dribble she has produced in the last few days, more may not be far behind...

(I would take a photo but it's a bit small to see yet.)

Solid food

2009-06-24T20:50:00.000+01:00

We started Sally on solids on 14th June, which was very exciting. We're following the Gina Ford weaning book, mainly because the feeding times fit with our existing GF routine (obviously) and because it got lots of good reviews on Amazon. (Sheep, moi?) I've tweaked it as I do everything to allow us to start before six months and give us time to introduce foods slowly. Seeing as between us we have several allergies it would seem to make sense.

So we kicked off with baby rice. It was a learning experience for both of us, but we got the hang of it eventually! Daddy took some pictures of our first exciting encounter with THE SPOON:

Sally in her smart apple bib and highchair

Being fed

After a while the spoon became the most enthralling object around and little hands were soon trying to get involved...

She had great fun, and it was a big relief to get it out of the way.

Later in the week we did have some teething problems, especially dealing with the complications involved in going to baby-signing and being too tired to eat afterwards, and whilst I worked out the optimum ratio of milk to baby rice to stop it being a sloppy mess (the trick was to totally ignore the packet instructions: isn't it always?)

So far then we have tried rice, apple, pear, carrot and swede. Tomorrow will bring sweet potato as well. The fruit she has in the evening mixed with rice and it is an absolute delight - Sally opens her mouth wide as soon as the spoon is loaded and giggles after every mouthful. It is immensely satisfying and however hard the day has been it never fails to raise a smile! Carrot she is fairly happy with too; she rolls it round her mouth and having discovered it isn't apple decides it is nonetheless acceptable and swallows it down, then opens up for more. Swede is not as popular but after getting going with it she is generally fine. When that is all that is on offer she seems to be reasonably philosophical!

Hopefully this upward curve will continue. I measure the success of a meal by the cleanliness of the bib - so far we have managed to use the same bib for three meals before it needs cleaning, so it is all going in the right place, my baby's (not so) little tummy!

Sneezing, sleep and nocturnal acrobatics

2009-06-08T21:15:00.000+01:00

Last week Sally had an horrendous cold. The poor little mite couldn't breathe at all and sucking on her dummy was pretty much impossible. She was so unhappy; we've never had a bad night with her and suddenly we were up every hour for three nights in a row. On the Wednesday when it started she had woken three times before half nine and by the time a friend arrived unexpectedly with an overheated car I'd had to get Sally out of bed to comfort her - that is unheard of!

Fortunately with saline drops, Karvol on a muslin and an electric vapouriser we slowly managed to get her back on track. I felt very sorry for her during it though - you don't realise how often illness wakes you until you are waking on someone else's behalf. And during the day she would cry and then produce enormous lumps of greenish snot from her nostrils, so it was obviously painful getting all that out of herself.

We've also had problems with sleeping since we eliminated the travel cot and put Sally straight into the big cot. She has discovered the delights of SPACE and will now spend what is supposed to be sleeping time exploring said space. Limbs are stuck through cot bars, feet bang on the mattress, and sleeping aids in the form of her seahorse and musical bee are discovered, appropriated and thrown around. She has also managed to flip herself onto her tummy several times - we've never seen it but we go upstairs and there she is - prostrate and crying, unable to remember how to get back again, arms stuck backwards like a stranded figurehead. It also means that she keeps moving herself off the sensor mat and setting off the alarm. I'm sure many would say it is perhaps time to stop using it, but I'm reluctant to give it up just yet; the silent flashing of that green light is immensely reassuring.

St Paul's Wedding

2009-05-19T20:56:00.000+01:00

The day the day after we returned from Spain we had to uproot Sally again, to go to London for my sister-in-law's wedding. This was to be held in the OBE Chapel at St Paul's Cathedral (very exciting) where Sally will also be christened.

It was a lovely day, and the bride looked beautiful. The bride and groom were also kind enough to let us have the wedding taxi to go to the reception venue, while they took the London bus with their friends. Hilariously this did result in a few cases of mistaken identity, as clearly it was designed for the new husband and wife. A motorcycle courier drew up alongside in a traffic jam and clapped, clearly bemused at the 'just married' man and wife - and baby! When we got to the reception venue too they rolled out the red carpet before the taxi driver could call out that it wasn't the bride in the back!

Sally did really well again, but by the afternoon the combined strain of returning from Spain and going to London was taking its toll. She was very tired and very grizzly, despite lots of naps, and really had just had enough of seeing people. Even the Very Hungry Caterpillar could not assuage her. However, after an ENORMOUS leaky poo, which I had to change during dinner (delightful) she went down to sleep in the pushchair. And slept. And slept. Through the band setting up, and starting up. Through being carried down the stairs out of the venue. Through being lifted into a taxi. Through being thrown around in the back of said taxi as drived by crazed London taxi-man. Through getting out of taxi and getting onto train. Through the line of drunk teenagers doing the conga through the train on the way home. I have never checked that she was breathing more times than on that journey home.

But we survived. Late nights and routine disruption and rubbish places to feed and changing nappies on the tomb of Sir Arthur Sullivan (he could have seen the humour in that, I like to think) were as nothing compared to our bomb-proof super-baby. The girl done good.

Long time no write...

2009-05-19T20:34:00.000+01:00

Mainly because we have had a mass hospitalisation of electrical equipment!

First, my phone crashed, taking all my numbers, images and several videos (fortunately I had backed up most of those) with it. Then the following day my laptop perished in a spectacular fashion with a stripy screen of death and a high-pitched beeping noise. This was rather frustrating as I then had neither email nor phone - amazing how quickly you feel isolated from the world! Since then we have also had problems with the router making even the desktop's attachment to the net rather a precarious arrangement.

In addition we then went to Spain for my cousin's wedding. Mum and Dad had booked and sorted the holiday for us which was brilliant, and having grandparents in tow was very useful indeed when it came to palming the baby off for a bit of maternal relaxation! We stayed in a Polaris World villa, on a complex which although a bit homogenous was clean and neat and nice.

The wedding was lovely, although the reservation of the English crowd was very much thrown into relief by the enthusiastic verbosity of the Spanish! It was good, but in the end we had to leave early with Sally. I was really nervous about her having a late night (ridiculous really, but you get these irrational fears that she's never going to sleep again) and had decided to just go with the flow, but in the end there was just a very very loud disco available or outside amongst the mozzies, and so we took a taxi home. Poor little Sally was totally exhausted by the whole experience. Needless to say she didn't nap very well on the hop and so by the time we were in the taxi she just stared at us forlornly with big, tearfilled eyes and broke my heart! However, although she woke up every half hour when we got home and put her to bed, once she'd had her usual half ten bottle she went down and slept the rest of the night.

On the whole she was brilliant in Spain and napped and slept really well. It was the first time she'd been in her own room, so it was great to see her cope well with that. The only major issue was getting delayed for 3 hours and 40 minutes on the way home. Instead of leaving at 6:30, which would have worked really nicely for feeding and put her to bed just a bit later, we didn't get off the ground until gone 9:30 and flew effectively overnight. My poor poor baby did really well; she slept in the pushchair (we covered it with jackets so it was dark, definitely a good move) in the airport, and kipped a bit in the plane. She only cried when she woke up on our way onto the plane, but once we had calmed her down she didn't make a fuss at all, which was amazing considering it was 1am Spanish time by the time we got back to our house.

We had a normal day the day after our return and Sally was fine, although we were a bit frantic trying to unpack and sort everything out. However, we had to further demolition test her routine and her sanity the next day when we had to head into London for a wedding... But that's a separate post, I think.

Gu Naughties

2009-04-17T12:09:00.000+01:00

These are the greatest things ever. Especially the Rocky Road bites.

Mmmmmmm. Don't think I should have too many though, breast-feeding isn't that good at keeping off the pounds.

Tough visit

2009-04-17T12:00:00.000+01:00

We took Sally to see her paternal grandparents over the bank holiday, with rather less success than anticipated.

The only thing I can think of is that the length of the journey was too much for her, as for the first time ever she had 3 screaming fits and refused everyone except me. It was nice in a way, as I've never had her keen to be with me, but difficult for everyone else. She kept crying every time she looked at her grandparents and it took her well into the second day to settle down. They were obviously a bit upset but there's not a lot you can do with a baby in that mood. After all, she's only just worked out who we are; it's no surprise that others she is 'supposed' to know she won't recognise, she's just too little! She doesn't know she's related to them!

It did worry me as we are not far off going to Spain, where we were counting on our good-natured, adaptable, flexible baby... Hmmm...

More whinging

2009-04-06T17:23:00.000+01:00

Another whingy day today. Maybe I need to get out more; she's fine when we go off to exciting places because there are new things to look at. I caved in this morning as I was trying to sort out travel insurance and I needed her quiet.... turned on CBeebies and turned the bouncy chair so she could watch it. A good ten minutes of peace reigned and I got several things done on the phone. A little bit of TV won't hurt, especially since at this age she won't understand it!

She was also very unhappy during her naps, and when she woke she was crying and uncomfortable. I think she had wind, which is very unlike her. I'm wondering if it was the mustardy sausages from last night - her poo certainly smelled very strong!

I was trying to do some work today, which probably didn't help. I get so exhausted constantly reading to Sally, playing, carrying her around the house, singing to her... it is endless. That said, I did get two pieces of coursework marked, which is not bad going.

Whinge mode

2009-04-03T13:07:00.000+01:00

Someone has reset my baby to whinge mode. Sometimes nothing cheers her up except for being carted around the house looking at everything. She is easily bored and yet there's nothing she can do about it yet - she's only three months old! She doesn't cry, just constantly whinges and moans once she's cross about where she is or what she's doing. So out come the books, the toys - everything, just to keep her occupied.

At the moment she's worse because the poor little thing is under the weather with a cold and has also picked up conjunctivitis - presumably viral and connected to the cold - which makes her eye uncomfortable. We're off to the doctor's later to get some chloramphenicol.

I hope this stage passes soon...

First evening out!

2009-04-03T13:00:00.000+01:00

As Sally has been going down immediately for so long now, we decided to bite the proverbial bullet and go out to dinner! My mum came for the afternoon and then stayed whilst we were out.

Having Mum there in the afternoon was really useful as Sally is having a whingey period. She's a little under the weather and she's easily bored these days, so having someone else to play with her gave me a well-earned rest! We went out for a walk mid-afternoon and then Mum looked after Sally whilst I got dressed to go out. Clearly having children refines your 'getting-ready' routine: managed a shower, a quick change of outfit and minimam makeup before it was bathtime for baby. Time is, as they say, of the essence.

Anyway, we went out after I'd put Sally down and had a really nice meal in a local Italian. I ate an excessive amount and felt very uncomfortable, but it was good to get out of the house and have some 'us' time - although Princess Snowdrop was obviously the main topic of conversation! When we arrived home Mum had had to go up and settle her once, but that's not too bad at all.

Looks like more dinners out are a distinct possibility!

School and sad news

2009-04-01T09:03:00.000+01:00

I went back into work yesterday to sort out some things to do with the coursework I am marking for Year 13. I had to see a colleague and pass on the names of the miscreants who hadn't done it. I cannot believe that at 18 we are having to chase them for work. They are practically adults and about to enter University. They chose to do A-levels and presumably wish to do well. Yet despite that they refuse to hand in the coursework that will make up one third of their overall grade at A2. What happened to the idea of scholarship and learning for learning's sake? All we seem to have created is a society where they see work as a necessary evil to obtain good grades, and the grades as a ticket to University, and University as a means to get a good job! When I was at school it was the learning I found interesting, but even the brightest students now seem to have no spark and desire for knowledge.

Anyway, whilst I was there I found out some really sad news about one of my students. She's phenomenally bright, was in my fast-tracking AS English group, and I've now taught her for three years. We've done school plays together every year and like most of the school I'm extremely fond of her. She's one of those people who can't help but be high profile because she's such a character. But of course that doesn't protect you from the crap that life can throw at you: her parents were in a road accident. Her mother's been killed and her father seriously injured. She has two younger siblings and she herself is only 16. It just seems so unfair. She's about to do her GCSEs (and should be getting straight As and A*s), she has the whole world at her feet, and this happens. She is a very strong character and hopefully she will get through it, but it's so cruel and upsetting.

The whole school is reeling from the news. They've lost a number of student parents recently and it is always very hard to support these kids, but very very important. In those circumstances the 'normality' of school life becomes crucial to help them cope. And so once again teachers have a do a job far outside their qualification for the good of the students. Why the extent to which we give this support is not more widely recognised I cannot fathom. Instead the news is full of league tables, failing schools, easier A-levels, sex education and citizenship - yet the hand a teacher extends to a suffering student can be far more significant in their life long-term than what percentage they achieved on their maths exam.

Poo

2009-03-29T21:20:00.000+01:00

A reminder to myself that the reason I change Sally's nappy before a feed is because she often poos during it (I assume to make room for more food) and a clean nappy absorbs it better, resulting in fewer incidences of the type that occured this evening when her poo travelled up and out of the back of the nappy soaking through vest, bodysuit and the towel I had placed her on before bathtime... Whoops...

Clock change more trouble than anticipated...

2009-03-29T21:10:00.000+01:00

I had assumed that Sally's day was pretty much a domino effect - the next 'action' of the day building on the one before. Therefore today when the clocks changed it should simply be a case of doing everything an hour earlier and she wouldn't know the difference. Apparently not.

She woke herself up at 7am new time (6am old time). Therefore she should have been in bed and asleep by 9am new time. First, she didn't want much food (fair enough, it was an hour early). Then she fell asleep in her bouncy chair at 9 because we weren't ready to put her in the car to go out. When we moved her into the car seat she woke up. And wouldn't sleep until the last ten minutes of the car journey. Great. Bizarrely though, despite eating hardly anything in the morning, she wasn't asking for food at 11. And then although she hadn't had much sleep, wasn't looking for a nap at 12. When we got her in the car at 12:30 she slept for half an hour but then woke up just before we got to a friend's house, then when we tried to put her to bed there she wouldn't sleep. So by 2:30 she'd had one hour's sleep... We did manage to rescue it in the end, but amazingly she spent the whole day without crying despite having virtually no sleep.

I think the day threw her completely, which interestingly implies that her routine is not just governed by when the previous event happens but actually by daylight and time and those sorts of things.

Mothers' Day

2009-03-24T20:12:00.000Z

Forgot to post about my Mothers' Day cards! I had two - one from Sam and the cats (obviously) and one from Sally. It was clear it was from Sally because she had written the R in DEAR the wrong way round...

The unpredictability of babies

2009-03-24T20:08:00.000Z

We took Sally to see her maternal grandparents on Sunday. She was an angel. Even in her usual grumpy patches she was a happy smiley baby, much to the delight of the aforementioned grandparents. Even her rather nonplussed uncle who met her for the first time grudgingly conceded that she was quite cute.

When we arrived home she had a big old cry about nothing at all! Obviously she had used up all her happiness whilst out visiting. I wondered whether our house and the daily grind are too uninteresting for her, and actually what she needs is more stimulation. That'll be a challenge.

Whinging it out

2009-03-21T13:57:00.001Z

I have been very worried about Sally's failure to self-settle during the day. She doesn't cry much but needs the dummy replacing and then takes half an hour of staring at stuff to go back to sleep. It's really frustrating as it is hard to keep track of how much sleep she's had, plus it isn't helping her learn good sleep habits.

So today at lunchtime I sat on my hands and let her whinge after she woke up the first time. It was tough to listen to her grizzle loudly and sound so unhappy, but we said if she doesn't start actually yelling we should leave her and see what happens. In less than ten minutes (although it felt like hours) she went back to sleep. Yay! She woke up again 45 minutes later, and I tried to leave her again, but this time she really started crying so I had to go in with a dummy and a calming hand to settle her again. However, within fifteen minutes she was back asleep.

Although it's really horrible to see her unhappy, actually she has had much more sleep as a result of this experiment and ultimately that's got to be better for her. With any luck if I keep doing this she will end up learning how to settle herself more quickly.

Fish and Chips

2009-03-21T13:56:00.000Z

There was a fish and chip van in the village yesterday afternoon! I resisted the temptation, but nice to know it's there. Wonder if it's every week...

Friday

2009-03-21T13:50:00.000Z

Was a very nice day. Although we had some whinging during the post-nap phase in the morning again, it was easily calmed with the dummy and Sally sat on her bouncy chair whilst I did the washing up. We had a lovely walk in the afternoon.

Only trouble was she insisted on waking up after only 40 minutes of the walk, and by the time it got to bedtime she was exhausted! It was harder to get her to sleep than it has been for ages, although to be fair three times up the stairs to replace a dummy and place a hand on her chest for a few minutes isn't exactly demanding.

She is definitely going through a difficult phase though - she is generally ok but much more highly strung than usual and fine tuning is necessary to ward off dischord! According to the development chart we received at baby massage this is totally normal, however, so maybe we just need to ride out the storm until next week.

Phew

2009-03-19T09:28:00.000Z

Despite yesterday's travails, Sally slept fine all night (although she woke with the light at half six again). Although I had to put her down early for her nap this morning she has at least slept well and put herself back to sleep when she woke up halfway through. Hopefully yesterday was just a blip.

I'm stuck at home today waiting for a courier to come and collect a broken heater (the second broken heater received since we ordered in November - something of an Homeric epic of a story) so hopefully Sally will be in a cheerful mood.