These three months have been tough, we’ve had a lot of exciting new things happen, and we have had some wonderful family time. However, the first new year we saw in together very quickly became a sad one, as we lost a close and beloved family member from Ron’s side. There was some improvement when Ron got a new job which could give us hope for the future. However, we are still adapting and learning to breathe and keep moving, I am so proud of how well we’re all doing, and I know G is the reason for this, she is the sunshine of my life, I have never been as organised, motivated or inspired as I am now I have her, it’s something I am now able to reflect upon as she has gone to visit Nanna and Grumps and for the first time in almost a year she is not with me or Ron, and we have just realised how much more ‘together’ we are with her in our life, and if possible I’m even more proud and grateful to call her our daughter.
She isn’t all sunshine and rainbows, she’s stubborn, incredibly strong willed and down right defiant, she screams to the point of giving us a headache a lot recently, she doesn’t really sleep through, she still can’t crawl and makes us worry to no end about her. But she’s developing such a great sense of humour and fun, she’s the cheekiest little muffin that is clever enough to figure out how to get what she wants, which tests us as parents at times, trying give her activities to stimulate her. For example, we’ve really had to be creative to help her to get crawling, and she’s made big strides but still not particularly close to full on crawling yet, but here she’s taught me something, patience, I thought I was already quite patient, but having to wait for her to be born, waiting for her to finally cut teeth, now waiting to see when she learns to crawl – or if she’ll skip it and start walking. I’ve stopped making assumptions now, as I’ve gotten a little annoyed at myself when I was wrong, I thought as she liked standing so much she would be closer to walking by now, but she’s not particularly close to walking or crawling, and I was really quite worried as she has a very clicky right hip, but an X-Ray came back ok and the consultant wasn’t worried, He just said to come back if she’s not walking by 2 years old. So although she’s not there yet, I’ve had to learn that is OK, because we’re doing all I can for her right now and she’s wonderfully happy and healthy otherwise.
Another thing I have stupid guilt over is G not having a mother, but when mother’s day came round and we were able to celebrate it on a very small scale by sending my own mum a card and voucher it kind of lessened, instead of worrying she will be the odd one out, not being able to make a card at school like everyone else. I decided to think of it in a more positive way, That she can just make it for one of her many wonderful Nanna’s or aunties. She’s blessed with a horde of strong loving and wonderful women in her life, and she’s not missing out on a thing, because she has two parents who love her.
So what else have we been up to, well not only has Ron started a new job, I’ve also gone back to my retail work, but only for 4 hours on a Sunday so it would fit around Ron’s shift work. It’s nice to get out and do something I’m used to, something I don’t have to worry about, but I’m glad it’s only 4 hours a week for now.
Here’s a quick summary of what we’ve been up to:
Activities:
- Seeing in the her first new year
- growing 3 more teeth!
- Learning to really use her voice
- Dr’s appointments galore for hips and her string of viruses.
- having a holiday away from dad’s at Nanna’s and Grumps
- wishing aunties Boo and Warley happy birthday
- Wishing Grumps happy birthday by having a weekend away at the races
- visiting family
- Enjoying her friend’s first birthday party
- Dada getting a new job
- her first pancake day
- Papi starting back a work
- Her first mother’s day (we sent Nanna a card and a voucher)
- Her first St Patrick’s Day (she’s 1/4 Irish)
- day trip to London
Skills:
- Sitting, can hold herself upright completely by herself and can sometimes sits herself up when laying on her back, but now has a tendency to throw herself forward to get to things, then shouts because she gets frustrated.
- Head Control is mastered, she loves throwing her head back to look at me when I’m behind her.
- crawling, she gets very upset that she can’t do this yet still, but she is able to turn around and move a small amount by wiggling her bum in the air, but mostly this just pushes her backwards, we have worried about this to no end, but we now accept that she’ll just have to get there when she gets there.
- Standing, she loves standing and will attempt it at any given opportunity, she weight bares very well and is so excited by the fact her feet and legs moving makes her go forward, but tends to look at them rather than straight ahead, but does either take steps or jump (whilst supported obviously)
- She can roll over! both ways but usually front to back to escape tummy time, often she doesn’t bother as she tends to shout till we turn her instead… < still true
- grabbing, she is grabbing everything, passing tricky things from hand to hand and learning to get even the most slippery food to her mouth, she now understands to push the yummy things back in when they’re slipping out and to spit the not so yummy things out, but she has a good appetite and gives anything a go, thankfully her teeth have sped up the process to no end, that and us learning to just let her at it as she eats much better when she has a hand in it (literally).
- ‘talking’ she’s a right chatterbox, she can do all kinds of noises but mist importantly she can do Dada and daddy. Everthing is dad dad dad dad daddy da da da, or she might slip in a hiya, yeah, hello or oh yeah. Our favourite is her attempt at whee!, comes out as eeee! or Eevee (the dog) as E E. Occasionally she comes out with Nanna.
- She understands and gives us fist bumps when we ask and offer our fist, which totally blew my mind and melted my heart when Ron started it with her, and it still does.
Likes:
- food, she’s still loving her food, all kinds of textures and tastes now, she goes mad for avocado, yogurt, cheese and chicken.
- Eevee (our dog) and George (parents dog) She will sit and watch them fascinated, she loves trying to stroke them (we just have to watch the grip, as Eevee is only little) But George loves it, he’s so in love with his baby and now tries to bring her his toys to play with.
- Music, anything to do with it mesmerises her, and she’ll start to smile and boogie. Or just stop and just listen if she’s upset/grumpy.
- stamping.
- Screaming.
- giggling.
- Chatting
- Daddies! (I’m pretty happy about this, we seem to amuse her to no end).
- Grumps, no matter what she will have a laugh and smile for just him.
- Sleep, we’re working on cutting night bottles and a few times recently she’s gone from 8pm till about 6/7am without anything, so onwards and upwards.
- her bunny comforter, she’s getting scarily attached and will just shout until she’s snuggled on the sofa with her bunny with a bit of tv on a bad day. So we’reworking on getting a few spares, unfortunately they’re not cheap
- unfortunately she loves Peppa Bloody Pig, much to my dismay.
Dislikes:
- waiting for things, particularly food.
- not being able to accomplish something RIGHT NOW.
- too much noise or too many people, as she can get overwhelmed with having too much to look at and take in.
- Not standing or sitting up doing things at all times.
- not getting her own way.
Papi Had a Baby 