Of Sneaky, Sunny Days

Well those mid-week videos proved popular! :) Glad you enjoyed them.

This week we had a sneaky, sunny, spring day. It all turned back around very quickly and it's pouring today but it was wonderful while it lasted. There was much outdoor frolicking!

In other news, Emily can now, very proudly, say Gabriella's name: Gabeba



Her use of the word "up" has branched out a little. She now very obviously knows that it is a direction. The problem now is that she thinks it means every direction!

When we're holding her and she wants to go down, "up"
When she's outside a room and wants to go in, "up"
Out? You got it. "up"

We'll get there :)

However, when she's in her chair or wherever and wants us to pick her up, it's not "up" she uses, but "come". She's probably picked that up from us telling her "come here" with open arms so she knows that the two work together :)

My clever mouse.

She's so pretty.

She also needs another haircut. A professional one this time.



On Friday she and her friend Robin had a Wagamama's date. They shared a meal (which the floor ate most of) and practised using chopsticks (which Emily later injured herself with). They were so cute sitting there in their little seats clipped onto the table. Not that they cared, their patience didn't last very long and they soon wanted out.

Romantic lighting and everything!

Moments after I snapped this photo, our waitress came to take our order. Robin's mum, Jo, and I had to ask for more time as we'd spent every moment until then taking pictures of the little ones lol



Emily's room has a decorating date and the birdy fabric is in the process of becoming curtains. We're very excited for it all to come together and ultimately, I just hope she'll be happy in her new room.

I'm not sure if I ever explained why the room has a bird theme. She loves birds and can spend hours watching them... (though she currently thinks all birds are ducks but I'm working on that). I just thought that once we were going to decorate a new room for her, now that we know her as opposed to before she was even born, it was fitting that the decor would reflect her character and her likes. If she suddenly becomes terrified of birds in the next few weeks, we're in trouble...! ;)

Video: Climbing the Stairs

See also: Dillydale

xoxo

Of Many Mini Photo Shoots

I'll do things a little differently this week as I've had my camera out a lot so I shall let you enjoy lots of photos. (No, believe it or not, they're not all on facebook!!)

Even more here!

You might notice that her hairstyle changes somewhere in those photos. That is because I thought cutting her floppy fringe (which kept getting in her eyes) would be a good idea. It wasn't, but I think it *could* have been worse. Still, I will not be getting anywhere near her hair with scissors again. And that is a promise.



In other news, Emily has begun climbing stairs this week. She watched Gabriella do it once and then decided it was worth a try. On Saturday she climbed the entire first flight of stairs before bedtime. I had to hold back tears watching my little baby - and her podgy little legs - take herself up the stairs on her own!

She also knows how to hold her balance well enough to stand up without support. I know this because i keep letting her go and making her do it. However she is obviously not mentally prepared for it as she smply refuses to do it alone and gets quite angry with me when I keep tricking her into it - to the extent that if she now thinks I'm going to try it, she'll just sit down! So no more of that, she needs to be able to trust me. She'll stand up when she's ready to.

She is talking a lot, saying "Hi" or "Hello" to everything and everyone, "Dada" is now really clear and you can tell she is very intently listening to key words and then practicing saying the sounds. We also think she's said "Gabriella" a few times. Says a lot about her feelings about her cousin! :)

Speaking of them two, they have finally begun properly playing together. Even communicating, in their own funny way. They were making each other laugh the other day. No idea what they were saying, of course, but it sure as hell was funny!!

And Emily's appetite? OMG exploded lately!

...and that was just her first helping! ;)

Of Cups and Spoons and Pretty Balloons

[There are no balloons actually mentioned in this post but When I wrote "Of cups and spoons" I couldn't bring myself to just stop there or not use a rhyming word!!!]

I didn't update last week because Emily was ill throughout it and very simply, other than tell you about tooth #6 that showed up on the 19th Feb and the several times she was sick, there wasn't much to update about. Any development seemed to be put on hold while we cuddled and worked on getting better :)

Unfortunately the week ended as badly as it started and it involved Emily's first ride in an ambulance (mine too) as Daddy was away and I was in no state to drive her to A&E when her fever spiked and things got ugly. I won't go into it again, it's all here if you want to read about it.



Some pictures from last week...

This was moments before the vomiting began. No one would've guessed it.

I specifically took that pic because that is her latest "oh I'm so cute" thing. If she thinks she's done something cute, she'll laugh and do that, very often with her head slightly cocked to the side too :)


Just hours later, about 5 sleepsuits later, I was trying to show her how to vomit into a bucket.
No harm in trying to reduce the cleaning, right?!

It wasn't very successful, but hey we tried!!


Most of Tuesday 21st and Wednesday 22nd Feb looked like this....

Then I decided to risk it and give her a banana, and then we got a smile!

And we had energy to play!

And on Thursday we even stepped out of nightwear!!

Then came Friday and she woke up with fever and you could tell as she was a bit pale and generally looked unwell again...

And here we are in the A&E waiting room, she was still in just a nappy and blanket at this point but fever was finally coming down.

Needless to say, that week of unwellness sent any mealtime progress into a downward spiral. Things are finally getting back to where we left off before she got sick but there's still some way to go.

Her naps have changed too. We are aware of an ongoing growth spurt* - we moved her into size 5 nappies at the start of Feb and she is now in size 6, I didn't even bother with 5+!! - so that would explain a lot of things. Lots of long naps lately but nights have been good and very settled so Mummy & Daddy are happy chappies.

* Look at that very first pic, of her in the pink striped sleepsuit. That sleepsuit no longer fits her.


This week saw her 13 month jabs. Again, another possible contributor to her long naps. At this point, there is just so much overlapping, I don't know what to put down to what. I'm just letting it all do its thing and as long as she's happy, I'm happy. Which she is.



She is being extremely affectionate recently. She will now actively throw kisses and sometimes she'll give a hug when asked, though that's not very consistent yet.

She has just today gotten into a strange licking thing. The sofa, my knees, her feet!!

In fact...

Self-Feeding

You may remember me mentioning 2 weeks ago that she will tentatively hold her own milk bottle. Well any hesitation is now gone. When I put that bottle in front of her every morning, she knows what to do with it and she'll hold it up for the entire 9oz until she's drained it. Clever girl.

She is also now desperate to drink out of an open cup. I had little choice in this one, she kept grabbing at mine, so I decided to let her try her plastic cup. I poured a tiny amount of milk into it and helped her hands around it and held on to the base to ensure she doesn't tip it over.

She does really well too but every now and then forgets/doesn't realise the difference between an open and closed cup and tilts it right up as she would do her beaker and all the milk floods her face.

She will calmly lower the cup, with a slightly perplexed look on her face and tell me "uh-oh!"

:)

She has, this week, fed herself a few small spoonfuls of yoghurt and we are still practising eating with a fork :)



Vocabulary

Now that she'll let me take away her dummy (she only ever uses her dummy to sleep, but when she's unwell she clings to it for comfort, and I don't have a problem with it. It means she's happier and less moany and it all just works), we are once again hearing her voice.

And it seems like she's trying to make up for lost time. LOTS of babbling and seemingly deep conversations with herself!

She is also imitating longer sounds. Both David and I heard her say "go play" this weekend. She is also trying to say "come", "shoe", and "down" (which she knows is the opposite of "up").

"uh-oh" has become a regular expression. She will now purposely drop things just to be able to say it ;)



Future drummer?

I've recently had to give up one of my magazines. She just loves turning the pages and looking at pictures. It's not even in as bad a state as you'd imagine either and she's had it about a week now!

Dreary day today and we now all have colds. Ugh.
But don't you just love her teeny dressing gown? :)

Back next week! xoxo