2012: Week 8

Saturday 18 February


My spotty child - she's not being bothered by them, though, so that's good. I'm no photographer, and I certainly have no idea about post-production editing, but even I managed to get the picture on the left to look like the picture on the right in about 45 seconds using iPhoto. If I can do this, what can magazines do?

Oh, and also, how cute are her bunches???


Sunday 19 February


New favourite DVD. Not to watch, you understand; just to hold. I've tried to watch it with her but she's not interested yet, but is quite happy to pick it out of the bookcase and cuddle the cat...


Monday 20 February


Spot of shopping, anyone?


Tuesday 21 February


Two goggies! Yes, she literally did pick up the box and empty the contents onto the floor. A few minutes later she was walking round the house wearing the box on her head :).


Wednesday 22 February


We go to the Little Stars Toddler Group at the local church on a Wednesday morning. Daisy wasn't keen to leave at the end, and while I was sorting out coats, bags and buggy, she had a wander round the church, just taking it all in. I thought she looked so tiny in such a huge building...


Thursday 23 February


Giving cuddles to whatever's on that page of the book.


Friday 24 February


I love this picture of Daisy and her Nanna walking along in their matching coats :).

Eighteen Months

Daisy's vocabulary is continuing to increase at a rate of knots. Some of the words she says follow the Eric Morecambe principle - all the right sounds, just not necessarily in the right order. For example, she says 'psoon' for 'spoon', 'padan' for 'panda', 'widden' for window etc. Her own name, apparently, is 'Deddiss'. I'm not too concerned right now; the fact that she has a vocab of approaching 200 words at 18 months means she'll probably learn to say these words properly at the same time as most kids are learning them for the first time. Having said that, she has some funny ways of saying things: 'teapot' is 'pot-tot'. which kind of follows the pattern I just mentioned, but 'slippers' are also 'pot-tots'. No idea where that one comes from. My personal favourite, which she just started saying recently, is 'menet' for 'rabbit'...

We've been working on numbers this month, although progress has been a bit 'one step forward, two steps back'. Earlier in the month if I put five objects in front of her and started with 'one', she would follow with 'two, sree, four, fize!'. Then she learned of the existence of seven and eight, and it all went downhill from there... Now when I say 'one' she goes straight to 'sezen, eight, ten!'

Other than in her speech, this month has been a fairly inauspicious one. She's turned into the world's pickiest eater, and as a result hasn't been getting enough to eat in the day so she regularly wakes up at night. Because I don't want to wake the neighbours, I have a fairly low threshold for giving her milk in the night which, having spoken to the health visitor on Tuesday, is probably contributing to the vicious circle, as formula is quite filling and she might not actually be hungry during the day, having filled up at night. So we're changing tack: switching to cow's milk instead of formula, no snacks during the day and if she doesn't eat her meals, she doesn't eat. If she wakes up in the night, I give her watered down milk which is diluted more and more each time until it's just water, by which point she will probably have realised that a) it's not worth waking up in the night just for water and b) if she's not going to get any 'food' in the night, she'd better eat during the day. That's the theory, anyway. The health visitor said she's not too young to be taught to eat properly this way, plus she's a good weight so has plenty of reserves to go a couple of weeks without eating much while she learns to eat what she's given.

On top of that, she's had the pox, of course, so I have made allowances for that. Her spots are healing nicely now, though, and she hardly knew she had it. She's still really clingy and won't try anything new (food or otherwise), which makes Tumble Tots on a Thursday a fairly fraught 45 minutes. I do hate to see her in tears each week but I honestly don't know if just sticking at it will help, or whether we should try a different activity on a Thursday.

But when she's not whining, crying, rejecting new foods without trying them or refusing to go on the slide, she's super cute :).

2012: Week 7

Saturday 11 February

Just reading my book, minding my own business...


Sunday 12 February


Jon and I went to a photo session today - £10 for a 10-minute session, and you get all the digitals to do what you want with. We had 36 photos taken in those 10 minutes, and there are three or four really nice ones, including this one, which is my favourite. Well worth a tenner.


Monday 13 February


Daisy had a bit of a strop this afternoon after we got back from Rob's and wasn't in the mood for photos. This was the best I could do...


Tuesday 14 February


And despite appearances, she was cranky all day long today too. I had hoped to take some cute Valentine's pictures of her, but she spent most of the day whining. Oh well, there's always next year.


Wednesday 15 February


New favourite place to sit.


Thursday 16 February


Daisy's got chicken pox! Maybe that explains the crankiness earlier in the week. We were expecting her to get it at some point - after we spent the weekend in Ipswich a couple of weeks ago, Jon's niece then came down with it on the Monday. So far she has about a dozen spots but thankfully she doesn't seem to realise it. I took her to the pharmacy this morning to get the chicken pox confirmed and buy some calamine lotion and anti-histamine for the itching, and while we were there I finally got round to getting a photo printed to put in the other side of the frame with the hand and foot imprints we did on her first birthday. I knew I wanted this picture, but a combination of the photo printing machines at the supermarket being broken for a long time and me forgetting to take my USB key meant I didn't do it till now. Still, better late than never!


Friday 17 February


She's got a lot more spots today, mainly on her face, unfortunately, but they still don't seem to be bothering her. What is bothering her, though, is the fact that she's been sick 8 times in 6 hours since getting up. I took her to the doctor this morning and was told to make sure she was hydrated and to call them if she's still being sick throughout the weekend. When she's not being sick she's fine in herself, albeit a bit subdued, and she's napped more than usual. This was how I found her when I went to get her up from a nap this morning...

2012: Week 6

Saturday 4 February


We went to Ipswich today, and got back just before the snow started falling at around 17:30. This was the scene outside at 21:00...


Sunday 5 February


And this was the back garden first thing this morning.


Monday 6 February


Apparently the vacuum cleaner makes the perfect prop with which to play peekaboo.


Tuesday 7 February


Daisy was quite snotty and under the weather today. When she wasn't whining, this is how she looked most of the day.


Wednesday 8 February


Modelling her backpack. Needless to say she didn't want me to put it on her back; 2 seconds later she was crying for me to take it off...


Thursday 9 February


'You think I'll be warm enough in this?'


Friday 10 February


It's so rare to get both of them looking at the camera and smiling at the same time!

2012: Week 5

Saturday 28 January


We went across to Ipswich to celebrate Jon's brother's 30th birthday today. This is Finn, Jon's nephew. So gorgeous.


Sunday 29 January


Daisy was really good with Jon's family this weekend - she's not exactly the most outgoing of children, but she quite happily took her book to Katherine, flapped her arms and shouted 'Up!' until Katherine picked her up and read her favourite book with her.


Monday 30 January


Jon had the day off work today and we went to a lovely pub near Cambridge for lunch. Daisy was really good the whole time, and enjoyed eating her mashed potato. Well, eating and playing with.


Tuesday 31 January


'What? I was just looking at what's in the recycling bin...'


Wednesday 1 February


4 months ago I very stupidly dinged my car - not seriously; it was still very much roadworthy, but there was a dent in the rear panel. A couple of weeks ago I finally got round to having it fixed, and this was the courtesy car the garage gave to us in the meantime. The boot was only big enough to fit the nappy bag in, so I had to keep the pushchair in the back seat. It was not a nice car to drive, but thankfully the garage called to say that my own car would be delivered tomorrow morning.


Thursday 2 February


Keri, you'll like this one: 'Who's so cute?' 'I'm so cute!'


Friday 3 February


Loading the washing into the machine while I make breakfast. Start them off early, I reckon.