Of Moving and Walking and Moving Some More

It's been a long and intense week. And it began in a ball pit at Joshua's first birthday party (while the party boy himself slept!)

For the first time ever, all 8 of the 9 babies in our NCT group were in the same place at the same time. The 9th lives in Brazil, so that makes things difficult.

We piled them all into the ball pit and had a good laugh while taking hundreds of photos between us all. The babies themselves... less amused.

But they did love that ball pit!

Emily ate sausages, cake, ice cream, jelly. She was a happy bunny.



The weekend is Daddy time. Mummy very often disappears for many hours at a go over the weekend, in an attempt to catch up on things that she just hasn't had enough hours in the day to tackle during the week. Emily loves Daddy time but also complains about Mummy not being around. So that's when we all do something together. Like visit a cafe for a yummy hot drink (though not for Emily). And we take pictures of Emily and Daddy on the comfy sofa at the cafe.



And because sitting still is now a thing of the past, we try and bring it back by offering her books and other fascinating things. Like mobile phones.





Like I said, a thing of the past. So we now practice our standing and walking any chance we get. Naptime, for example.

Ah but Mummy has properly graduated and been given those eyes in the back of her head that all mummies have. Emily can't for the life of her work it out. It's very funny.



When she does eventually sleep (I'm exaggerating, the above very rarely happens!), she has to sleep horizontally. We always put her down in a normal sleeping position, she then twists and turns - mostly in her sleep - to get to this...

Sometimes at night she's so far north, we can barely see her on the monitor!



At the party last weekend, seeing the very "advanced" drink bottles Emily's peers were drinking out of, I decided that it was time to move on from basic cups. Cue a slight and sudden bottle obsession. I spent a few days looking up every type of bottle I could possibly buy for her. And it left me more confused than ever.

In the end, Emily and I walked (well I walked, she grumpily sat in her buggy) over to the shops where I spent about 15 minutes picking up bottles and then putting them back and choosing another (over and over) until FINALLY we had a winner.

She loves it, so that's a relief!



Other than that really, this week has mostly been about her walking around the living room. And trying to avoid more disasters like the one we had on Thursday (especially now that she's pulled the corner guard off the most dangerous corner she possibly could find). Having said that, it really was just a matter of time.

But knowing that made no difference to me that day. My baby was broken and bleeding and I was an emotional, blubbering disaster (once I'd dealt with the situation).





That video was taken on Wednesday. She's moving twice as fast now and so much more confidently. It's crazy watching the daily changes at the moment!

(No there are no photos of her covered in blood....!!)

This weekend we are planning on getting her her first pair of shoes! *Excitement!!!*



This week we have begun having DaddyTime even when he is at work. This is FaceTime with Daddy. Now known as DaddyTime. It makes a huge difference to both David and Emily to be able to see eachother, if for a few minutes, throughout the day when he is at work. Otherwise during the week, they only get to see each other for about half an hour in the morning... and that's assuming little miss lazy bones hasn't slept in!

This is us after DaddyTime yesterday...

She is getting very feisty. Wonder where she gets that from.

But she can say hello now. And sometimes she says hi.

And she is most certainly saying quack now, although it sounds more like cack at the moment. Which isn't great, I know.



We've had lots of cuddles this week. It's been amazing. I love my snuggly girl.

More parties on the horizon tomorrow, and then it's officially a week until her birthday.

Here she is running away from me chasing her down the corridor...

Teehee.

And on that note, I wish you all a great weekend xoxo

Of Ooks and Gras and Quiet Reading

The weeks are really flying by. Two weeks until Emily's one. Crazy!

And when you ask her how old she is, this is what she does...

This month is packed with parties of little babies turning one. We've had lots of fun choosing gifts for the birthday boys and outfits for Emily.

This week has mostly been about more words and newfound mobility (don't get too excited), with some new games and a huge amount of understanding thrown in. I will elaborate on all points.



The day after my last post, she worked out how to pull herself up into a standing position using furniture. ON HER OWN. The pride on her face the first time she cracked it was amazingly clear. She still looks around for cheer and applause every time she does it now but that first time was something else (and Lord knows she did get that applause!!). She can also now sit herself up easily. She makes it look like she's done it all her life and not struggled with it at all. (hah!)

There was one morning we woke up to find her waiting patiently stood by the side of her cot. It was a lovely little moment when we walked in and she clocked us and waited for the "good girl!" cheer. (It's not as great when she tries to do it in the middle of the night because 'yay I'm awake so I may as well practice my standing up'.)

Her sense of balance is improving every day. The living room is now a series of challenging obstacles rather than furniture. Which led to the introduction of corner guards...

I am told life will never be the same again.



Another reason life will never be the same is her discovery of a narrow hiding place underneath the sofa. We've already lost a teether to it and I have saved several books, toys and muslin cloths from being forgotten in what is sure to become a dusty resting place for several toys.

Sure, I'll move the sofa one day and recover them all but it might be a while.



Now that she is on the move, I have bought her a pair of slippers in an attempt to
1. keep her feet warm
2. reduce the risk of slipping on the wooden floors

She seems to like wearing her mocc ons and hasn't once so far attempted to pull them off. They do an excellent job in keeping her from slipping too.



She has suddenly become very sensitive to being told "no" - however she has a selection of reactions.

One reaction is the shaking of her head back at you. She will usually do this as she's trying to do whatever you've just told her not to do again. It's not an easy one to keep a straight face through.

Another reaction (usually when she's sitting in the high chair) is to burst out crying. I am talking full blast, need-to-get-her-out-of-the-chair-to-comfort-her, crying. It will generally start again once you try to put her back in the highchair. Not great when it's half way through a meal.

The other one is where she will get really angry at being told she can't do something. She will hit and shout at me so as to say "how dare you tell me I can't do that, I want to do it and who do you think you are to think you can come in here and tell me not to?!" Strangely enough that is the one that seems to be followed by obedience. Or distraction.



If I want to make her smile quickly though, all I need to do is mention a duck. I'm not quite sure she knows what a duck is but she does love the idea of it!

She also thinks she is making the sign for "duck" but she is actually making a "milk" sign (following our Sing & Sign classes). Still, I know she means "duck" because she makes the sign very specifically when I mention a duck or say "quack".

She loves "quack" and I am convinced she is trying to say it but hasn't quite gotten there yet.

She also loves it when I say "moo" (though nowhere near as much as she loves "quack"), although she is terrified of a book she has about a cow that makes a "moo" sound. Every time she presses the "moo" button, she cries and comes quickly towards me. I shall be donating the book to charity shortly.



Her mealtimes finally seem to have settled into some sort of pattern. She mostly snacks through the day and has a big meal around 4.30pm or 5pm.

One of her favourite snacks are these Plum Baby cheesey rings. I put one on her finger and she bites it off. She thinks it's a hilarious game.

In the morning, we bring her into our bed for some chill-out time. She's begun a new game this week. She'll sit between us and turn to me and press my nose and then turn to Daddy and press his nose. What she is doing is making our noses honk, supposedly. Of course our noses don't in fact honk (did I need to tell you that?) so we make our own sounds and she LOVES it. The more imaginative the sound, the better. She will do this to us in turn for a long while!

Then I'll do it back to her and her big smile will become a laugh.



I finally got round to weighing her before her bath the other day. At 49 weeks old, she now weighs 9.4kg and is 77cm long.

When I just think of that 3kg, 52cm long baby I gave birth to almost a year ago, I can barely believe this is the same child.

Speaking of bathtime, great things are happening in that bathtub. I was reading her Baby Vogue to her (no, it's not really Baby Vogue, it's the Boots Baby Bath Time Book - the same one that features the walrus that lends it's name to this blog), and she took great interest in the crab.

"Gra," she told me (proudly).

"Yes, crab!"

"Gra."

She leafed through the book some more, then put it aside. I asked "Emily, where is the crab?"

She looked for the book, turned the pages until she found it, then pointed at the crab. "Gra."


Oh and for the record, the picture of the "gra" was in the "ook" (book).

Leaps and bounds, I tell ya!



Now that she is no longer limited to ground-level, she has access to things that are slightly higher up. Like her bookshelf. Until yesterday, she kept going for the old photo albums and heavy books that are on the lower shelf (because they're big heavy books).

Yesterday she discovered her shelf. She spent a quiet 5 or so minutes on her knees, exploring her bookshelf. Until now, it's always been me who's chosen what books we read. Now she has a say. She didn't make a big mess like I thought she would. She just chose a few books, pulled them down to the ground and got comfy while looking at them. And after a short while, she got up again to get some more.

...That was until she came across the cow/moo book I mentioned earlier and that was the end of quiet reading time. Mummy and her cuddles to the rescue.

xoxo

Of Perfect Sleeping Faces

Happy New Year to all you Emily fans out there!

We spent a lovely week in Malta after Christmas so Emily had a good dose of family which she absolutely adored and was quite hard to keep entertained upon our return. If the look on her face could be translated, it would have said: "What? It's just you? How do you expect me to have fun like this?!"

Cue lots of time spent with Gabriella (which always subdues Emily because I secretly suspect she's quite terrified of her as Gabs shouts at her and steals her toys LOL - she'll get her own back one day!). We are all loving having Aunty Nese living so close by.

But for a quick recap... Christmas was fabulous and Emily enjoyed it far more than I expected her to. She loved opening her gifts and it wasn't mostly the paper she was interested in after all!

  

   

Yes there's lots more I could say about Christmas but most of the people reading know it already so I am moving on. If I'm honest, I left this post very late so it will probably not be as fulfilling as the last but I promise to procrastinate less next week.

(Procrastinate!!?! I've been blinking busy!!) 

The tree has come down. I have yet to get round to taking down all the other decorations but that tree had to go. It was all Emily could think about and I got tired of playing that game. I stuck her in the playpen while I took it down and she was NOT impressed to say the least. She sat and watched me with a semi-panicked, semi-furious look on her face. And she shrieked at me through most of it. 

Then once I was done, I got her out and she very forlornly looked at the closed boxes of things before getting on with her playing.

   

Her playing, having said that, is not what it was. It now mostly involves practicing crawling. And as of Friday it also involves using furniture to try to pull herself up to stand. She hasn't quite managed it yet, keeps slipping back down and then shouting in frustration until I help her back up and onto her feet at which point she looks at me, proud as punch, as if she did it all herself.

   

She's going to be a handful, this one.

Have I ever mentioned how much I adore her, though?

   

When I'm pottering around in her room, sorting things out, putting clothes away, etc, she chills out on the floor and plays. Sometimes just watches me. This was Thursday:

   

Earlier that day, she'd spent an hour helping me organise the kitchen (It was one of those mad winter-cleaning days!!). 

I popped her in the walker and, as she hadn't been in it for a few weeks, she was more than happy to oblige, excitedly walking around (look! no hands!) and trying to open every cupboard in sight unsuccessfully of course because the walker itself was in the way. 

In the end she busied herself playing quietly with apron strings, mostly just inspecting them. She did that for ages, every now and again looking back at me to check I was still there, with a little smile... then back to the apron.

There are two aprons - that are never actually used - hanging off the kitchen door, which she has always loved. Her eyes lit up at the sight of one of them in particular from a very early age. Each time we pass them, she must touch them. So having them to herself for a whole hour must have been a little bit of heaven for her.

   

You may have noticed I've added a few new words to her vocabulary list during my absence: baby, tickle, and there. 

Baby first paired up with pretty to make pretty baby (mostly said when she looked at herself in the mirror). But I've noticed that over the last couple of days, she is saying pretty a lot less! (Noooo!!!!) There is some confusion as she is using baby for both babies and things she likes... Often instead of pretty. So there's a bit of confusion between those two words at the moment, but I'm sure she'll work it out soon enough. 

She said tickle a lot while we were in Malta, simply put because there were lots of tickles! She'll now put her finger up in "tickle" mode and say it. Also, when we tell her we're going to tickle her, she'll try and tickle herself and have a giggle over it. Here is a picture of her doing it on Christmas morning!

   

There is her latest. She says it when she wants to go somewhere. If she spots a toy across the room, she'll start moving towards it while saying "there" over and over. She also uses it when she wants to go to someone, again we heard a lot of that in Malta as there were so many people around. 

We also think she may be saying girl, but that has yet to be proven! Milk hasn't been said in a few days (becoming less and less important to her), and she does still say happy every now and then but again, not consistently.

   

Oh did I mention she now has FOUR teeth? Yes, sirree! Tooth #4 showed up on Christmas morning! She now has all central incisors and we are pretty certain her top lateral incisors are on their way next, if her drenched muslin cloth and desperate finger-chewing is anything to go by.

   

Can you see? 

(That was after her last bath of 2011!)

   

When 2011 became 2012, she was sleeping on a makeshift bed on the floor of Uncle Daniel's bedroom. We checked on her every 20 minutes or so and most times, she looked so peaceful, it was hard to walk back out. One time, I laid down near her just to be able to get a good look at her perfect, sleeping face. It's been a long time since there hasn't been a cot barrier keeping me away from doing that! x