Of Turning One and Mysterious Midnight Outings

We're back after an unscheduled break. Simply put, last week - with visitors from Malta and two parties coming up - I had no time to sit and write. I do hope you'll forgive me!

I have a huge thank you to say though - over 1150 page views for 5 blogposts about a little girl! That's not too shabby if you ask me. Thank you for coming back to read. When I thought to myself tonight that maybe I took on too much when I thought up The Pretty Walrus, it was the fantastic following (alongside the fact that this will be a brilliant place to look back on in a few years) that made me sit down and write again.

So we now have two weeks to write about. But the most important thing is Emily's Birthday! Last Saturday, 28th Jan, she turned one. My baby... is one. *shakes head*



Her parties were a success. In the morning there was the little people party (that we tried out in our first post)...

followed by a family get-together at home in the afternoon where we had Emily's quccija (more about that here).

The downside to everything was that she was sick. The night before her birthday, Emily got up late at night with a fever. We wrote it off as teething issues and tried to get on with things.

But on Sunday evening, no amount of Calpol or Nurofen seemed to make any difference so at midnight we arranged for her to be seen by the out of hours doctor and off we went. (that's the short version anyway, more here).

She really wasn't well, poor pudding.

She had a double ear infection, so was put on antibiotics and was very cranky and clingy and generally unhappy for a few days but seems to be herself again now. Hooray!



The weekend earlier, we went to little James' birthday party.

That is James there charming Emily with his brilliant smile.

You may also notice that Emily is wearing SHOES!

That morning we went to Clarks to buy her first pair. This was after she slipped the week before and I thought it might be wise to help her along a little bit (ok, I just wanted the girl to have pretty shoes!) She had her picture taken at Clarks and everything, and that's safely in her keepsake box which I'm slowly building :)

At the party she spent some quiet time playing with my phone (not much really new there, she loves it), but she has now worked out how to activate certain functions. Like the camera.

Talking about quiet time, when we spend time with our NCT friends - keeping in mind all the other babies are boys - we often notice the difference in playing style between Emily, as a girl, and the rest of them, as boys. The boys are boisterous, love throwing things and chasing each other. Emily will sit and observe and then perhaps quietly pick up a toy (that will no doubt be snatched away by one of the boys within minutes lol) and inspect it.

So it was interesting to see, when we were at a new playgroup we've started going to, that she went over to another little girl and gently interacted.

This is the sociology nerd in me talking now, but it's fascinating to watch. Even at such a young age (and I'm sure we've seen it happen at a younger age but didn't quite register it), they know the difference between boys and girls. They interact entirely differently. Thinking only of babies she's met for the first time, she'll hit a boy but be timid with a girl. I'm sure this changes as time passes, they all - boys & girls - need to learn to stand up for themselves, but for now it just struck me as really interesting.

/nerdy observation

This is her again at the playgroup, practising her cruising...

This week I have decided to try and have her focus on individual toys at a time. I want to try and encourage a focus point. She already has a really great attention span so I want to nurture it. So we play with noise and light toys. Or books. Or toy eggs. Or puppets. Or megabloks.

In the case of the latter I build magnificent structures and she destroys them as I watch.

Here she is strutting her stuff. Little missy is now able to stand alone for up to about 5 seconds. The first few times she did it, she scared herself silly. She was so terrified she'd fall, that she fell every time. After a few days, the confidence grew until 2 days ago, she even clapped for herself while standing. NO HANDS!

Then it really was a case for her supersmile!

Our signing classes - although we haven't yet been to any this term - are really paying off now. It's amazing to know that she is able to make me aware of certain things she wants. She has recently begun signing "eat" and "finished" - which have come in HUGELY handy. She'll need to be very hungry to initiate a "conversation" herself but if I think she's getting hungry, I'll ask her and she'll reply with the sign. And when she wants no more, she'll tell me she's finished :)

I'll try and record her doing them this week.

Older ones that she signs are "milk", her first sign, and more recently "duck"

I'm not sure there have been any new words lately but she's come very far with hello. There's no mistaking it now!



But for now, here's a video of her playing her new drum:



Other new videos:
+ Reading her books
+ Playing catch the ball



We are off to another birthday party this weekend and I'll be back with more news - hopefully none of it involving sickness! - next weekend! Have a good one :) 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