Tuesday 13 March 2012

And she's off......

The madness has begun. My little monster is mobile, she has upped her game from being a human rolling pin to crawling across the room at torpedo speed, stopping only to drag, pull and chew things in her path. The poor mite will be sick to death of hearing her name, it's all I ever hear myself say, Tilly Tilly as she heads precariously towards the tiled fireplace, tills, Tilly monster, don't pull that, Tilly tillllllly please don't eat mummy's grazia, gnaw on daddy's shoes or bite the door stop. That's another thing, she likes to taste test everything,and I mean everything, shoes, table legs, cables and she has a particular penchant for lint, the child has a hawk eye, she can spot a fleck of unidentified matter at ten paces, I wonder if perhaps I watched too much CSI while I was pregnant, she is a human microscope, better still she can pick up these bits despite them being invisible to the naked eye and guide them into her mouth.
We have made the usual vain attempts at Tilly proofing the house, plug socket covers, sponge clips on interior doors to stop them closing on little fingers (which every single time i leave the house forget are there and find myself getting frustrated when I can't get the damn door to shut) The stair gate has to be my favourite new piece of kit, it narrows the possible square footage she can cover, and to be fair the new found independence is good for her, she was showing signs of being a little clingy and tearful if I was out of sight which I now realise was more likely to have been boredom and a touch of jealousy at my ability to drift from room to room with ease. another plus point to her being so active is that she tires herself out and is more than happy, you could even say grateful to be put down for her naps, off she goes to the land of nod still wearing her baby knee pads (bought by a friend purely for our own entertainment) no doubt dreaming about what how many DVDs she can pull out in one go, what tight space she can get wedged in and cry to be rescued and her new favourite what lightweight, unsteady item of furniture can she use to drag her self into the standing position while her legs do a darn good Elvis impression......my little bear gryls is keeping me busy

Friday 2 March 2012

Desperate measures

8 months, 8 months old and my baby girl has gone from being a baby to being a little Girl, an animated, interactive miniature person with a mouth full of teeth and an iron will. I can't believe the new baby stage passes so quickly. She is clapping hands, lip smacking in an attempt to blow kisses, along with the obligatory hair pulling and perhaps more original, teeth grinding.

She is now finally in her own room, This selfish new mum wanted her near me while she slept, my excuse was seeing to her when she woke was quicker and easier if she was in the same room, but alas I realised it was time. There were tears the first night (mine) and again the second nights (hers) I even relented and put my wriggling, coo-ing gro bag wearing early riser in our bed, which resulted in me sleeping horizontally on the end like an old dog, such is my fear of suffocating her. Do all babies take up so much room? Do they not understand the art of spooning to conserve space? Tilly doesn't, she prefers the star fish position, ensuring maximum mattress coverage for her and minimum parental comfort, this co - sleeping is not for me , unless we forsake all other bedroom furniture and replace it with a room sided mattress and several duvets.

It's amazing what you will do to encourage them to sleep, last week after a particularly eventful day which resulted in Tilly wanting virtually no sleep and thus buzzing with tiredness we were driving home and bam off she went into the land of nod, a peaceful nap which I had no intention of disturbing, on arrival on our driveway I left the engine running, radio on and sat there, unsure of how long she would sleep for I made myself comfortable, seat reclined, iPad out. This may sound crackers but moving her inside would have definitely have woken her, it was only when the boyfriend brought me a cup of tea out and i considered the possibility of catching up on some zzzz's myself, I knew I was on rocky ground. But this wasn't the point i realised I had descended in parental psychosis, this came earlier. On a recent day trip we (baby, boyfriend and I) were sat in traffic, baby has the patience of her father which in metric terms converts to absolutely none and on this particular occasion she was being very vocal about it, screaming at the top of her lungs to be exact, so her dad and I decided to divert her attantion by launching into a competitive animal noise sparring match, back and forth we went baaaaaaaaaa, hissssssss, rooooooooooooaaaaaah, chirp chirp, chirp chirp. The point being no one animal could be repeated (I have to give him credit his mooooooooooooooo was pretty impressive, very life like) clearly we were amusing her selves more than we were amusing Tilly as it took a few minutes to even notice that Tilly had completely stopped crying and was gazing out of the window, probably pretending she didnt know us.

I am now facing the challenge of returning to work. Getting ready for a trip to the shops takes planning for me, getting ready for work with Tilly in tow is going to take military precision. I have takes steps to prepare myself, a very kind friend accepted my request for a written run down of her morning itinerary, she has 2 children and a full time Job, so i was very grateful, she has better things to do. I almost broke into a sweat when I read it, mornings are never going to be the same again. I found myself feeling sorry for Victoria Beckham last week when the media were giving her a hard time about looking tired, she is a working mother with a young baby after all, and apparently she doesn't have a nanny, which is refreshing to hear. But what she must have is someone to watch baby Harper while she gets dressed and has hair, nails and make-up done before she faces the day, plus she doesn't have to clean her own house, and it's unlikely she cooks her own food...and that is worth a dozen nannies!