Of One, Two and Even Three

Hello dear friends, I hope you had a great weekend! Ours was - strange, I think is the only way to put it. Emily's daytime routine - the routine we can more or less rely on to base our plans around - completely changed and has not yet settled. Her naps reduced to nothing, she'd then fall asleep in the car at a time we completely weren't expecting, to then have to wake her up after a few minutes and find that she's full of energy and nowhere close to going back to sleep. Confusing all round. I am planning a quiet day tomorrow in an attempt to get a clearer idea of what she needs at the moment.

To start off with, here's a random family photo:

Our week began with her first snow. It was lovely watching her take it all in. I wish I'd captured it on video, but sometimes life just needs to happen. There are times I think I'm too busy taking pictures and video of her doing things and I end up missing the good stuff that I was attempting to capture. I do this because I know that in years to come, I'll want to relive it all, to try and feel the wonder again. But other times I find I just need to accept that some things just need to be enjoyed now. No picture can capture that wonder, but in my head it can live on forever.

'Emily in the Snow' pictures here.



Her hair is finally long enough! Isn't this the most adorable pigtail you've ever seen?!!

Emily has learnt quite a few new signs this week. She now signs "sleep" to tell me she wants to sleep (not that we've seen much of this lately lol), she can also sign "dirty nappy", "carefully" and "clean" (these last three we use within a song while we're changing her nappy and she LOVES it). She also tries to say "carefully" as she makes the sign. Why she'd choose the longest word of the lot to try and say is beyond me, but I'm not complaining, it's adorable!

We are getting somewhere with numbers!! This was entirely unexpected. It started when my mum reminded me of the way I used to count to three when I was little - "two, tee, two, tee" - and we began telling Emily "one, two, three"

On the first day, she'd say "tee" after I've said "one, two, three"

The next day, if I said "one, two", she'd then say "tee"

And the day after that, if she was in the mood, she'd even say "two" (but not "tee" as well!)

We haven't had any attempts at "one" yet!


Here she is saying "hello". It's far clearer now, this was taken on the 5th...





She's begun singing. She's always been very aware of music and now it is becoming so clear. She has certain favourite songs (Jar of Hearts and Move Like Jagger to name two) that she'll stop doing whatever she's doing to listen to. Even drinking her milk!

I don't remember what song it was, it may have been one of her toys, that she was clearly trying to sing along to a few days ago. We realised she was singing because there were a couple of notes that she hit perfectly. David and I looked at each other in utter disbelief.

The other day, she was playing quietly and singing "happy, happy, happy" to herself. It was the most precious thing.



It was the last of the NCT first birthday parties last weekend!

That's Robin, the birthday boy, and Emily playing with (fighting over?) a balloon.

The babies are all 1 now!

These babies:

!!!!!
(that was Feb 2011)



Playing with her blocks...





Do any of you remember me putting Emily down for her naps on our leather beanbag pouffe? She was tiny enough (& swaddled enough!) to fit on it with no risk of rolling off back then.

Well this is her terrorising the pouffe now!

She loves her cheerios for breakfast.

But sometimes we have toast. She's on a huge bread binge at the moment. She's become really good with little sandwiches. She has them with cream cheese, or smooth peanut butter, or pear & apple spread. In the morning we have toast with coconut oil. We're healthy, us.



Hats really suit her. I love this one she has at the moment, so trendy.

Even Daddy's beanie looks good on her!

(Have you noticed my thing about dungarees yet?)



I had to share some more self-portraits of the little madam that I found on my phone. I knew she had taken the first one - but the second, pink one... I had no clue about until I was looking through my phone for pictures I wanted to use in this post!

I *think* that's her muslin cloth she got a close-up of.

She can make me smile even long after I've put her to sleep :) 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