Salsiccia

Eighteen Months

2012-02-24T07:32:00.001Z

Daisy's vocabulary is continuing to increase at a rate of knots. A lot 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...

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 actual 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

2012-02-21T06:03:00.003Z

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

2012-02-14T07:12:00.003Z

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

2012-02-07T06:50:00.002Z

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.

2012: Week 4

2012-01-31T07:10:00.000Z

Saturday 21 January

Not the best photo ever of Daisy and Grandpa, but the best one I could get at this session.

Sunday 22 January

Dad wallpapered the bathroom over the last few days and put a new cabinet up over the sink, and it looks brilliant now! Before a before shot, check out Monday 21 November (Week 47) and for a WIP shot, Saturday 3 December (Week 49).

Monday 23 January

'What do you think will happen if I give one of those green things a pull?'

Tuesday 24 January

Geronimo! After the corner in the kitchen between the washing machine and the bin, this is Daisy's new favourite place. She just sits on her 'seat' against the wall and smiles. Here she decided to get a bit more adventurous.

Wednesday 25 January

'You lookin' at me?'

Thursday 26 January

Sorry for being soppy, but I love this beautiful girl so much!

Friday 27 January

Daisy's been learning colours the last week or two. Here we have wed, boo, geen and lellow. She also knows pick, wat, purpoo and ayash.

Seventeen Months

2012-01-24T19:51:00.005Z

Well, Daisy's vocabulary has positively exploded since the start of the year. I reckon she's learned about 70 words in the last 24 days and overall is up to about 100 words, not counting animal noises, ranging from those easily understood by everyone to those only discernible in context. I won't list them all, but some of the more easily understood words include raisins, toast, apple, burger, cheese, hat and omelette, and some of the less easily understood words include flakes (as in corn flakes), fireworks, yoghurt (sounds more like 'gok gok'), butterfly and snowman. She's also learned that an owl says 'witterwoo', a crocodile says 'snap snap' and a train says 'choo choo', among others.

She says Hello and Bye Bye to absolutely everything - every time we leave a room she says goodbye to whatever she's been doing. When she gets up in a morning she shows me her toys: Ellie, Aggie (Blankie), Bear, Baa, Ribbit, Bunny and Cake, then says bye to them all as we leave her bedroom. She's still at it when we get downstairs: 'Bye bye Aggie, bye bye Ellie, bye bye Bear...'

Her hair is getting crazy long, and would look even longer if it were straight, but as it's curly it sits just on her shoulders. When it's wet, though...

And when it's been under the hood of her coat for an hour, as it was last Tuesday when we went to Cambridge, she looks like an entirely different girl :).

At the moment she's a bit snotty and dribbly so I wonder if she's teething, although I can't see any new teeth. She might just have a bit of a cold - she woke herself up coughing this evening and after I'd given her some cough medicine she fell asleep in my arms. I think the last time she did that she was still breastfeeding; it was so lovely to sit and watch her looking all peaceful...

2012: Week 3

2012-01-24T07:10:00.000Z

Saturday 14 January

Jon and I made the most of a Daisy-free Saturday by going to Cambridge, although we didn't go punting on the river (and the weather certainly wasn't as nice as in this picture!) - we went to see two films at the cinema. We saw the new Sherlock Holmes movie, which I loved (as I do the first Sherlock Holmes), then we had a couple of hours to do some shopping before going back to see The Artist, which I enjoyed, but I wasn't sure it was as spectacular as the reviews/critics say it is. Maybe I just don't know enough about film... Anyway, a really enjoyable day.

Sunday 15 January

Just hanging out.

Monday 16 January

Hmm, not sure I thought this through properly. How do I get my right leg in now?

Tuesday 17 January

Alicia came to visit today! She was a real hit with Daisy and we had a lovely day. We went into St Neots for lunch then decided to go to Cambridge in the afternoon so I could exchange some jumpers Jon bought at the weekend, plus Alicia had never been to Cambridge before. With the exception of a poo explosion, Daisy had a really great day and loved spending time with Alicia!

Wednesday 18 January

While waiting for Nanna and Grandpa to arrive, Daisy decided to read some books. Clearly she wanted to find just the right one, though, and none of the ones already on the floor fit the bill...

Thursday 19 January

Here she is in her favourite place again.

Friday 20 January

Trying out the potty. I'm not planning on potty training her just yet, but she likes to sit on it nonetheless :).

2012: Week 2

2012-01-17T12:12:00.001Z

Saturday 7 January

We spent the morning at a soft play area in Bowness with Sarah, Chris and Fin before heading home.

Sunday 8 January

This picture was taken yesterday on the way home, but I don't have a picture for today and liked this one so much that I had to post it. This is a kids' ride at the service station on the M6. I honestly didn't think Daisy would want to sit in it as she's the world's biggest scaredy cat, but she really enjoyed driving the car - in fact, about 30 seconds after this photo was taken, we had tantrums when we had to leave...

Monday 9 January

I love this outfit :).

Tuesday 10 January

You'd look a bit cheesed off too if someone had put your pyjamas on back to front last night...

Wednesday 11 January

Leaning in to give the baby kisses.

Thursday 12 January

"What? You mean next to the kitchen bin isn't the best place to sit and play?"

Friday 13 January

No, she's not dead - although she's lying in a classic chalk-around-the-body pose. Nope, just having a rest.

2012: Week 1

2012-01-10T12:09:00.001Z

Sunday 1 January

Happy New Year! I didn't take any photos today (great start to the year, I know), so here's one from a year ago, when Daisy was 4 months old. What a difference!

Monday 2 January

We left our New Year place today, which was this lovely farmhouse in Bishop Auckland, County Durham. We had a great time and are looking forward to next year already :).

Tuesday 3 January

"I'm just looking to see what's in the bag..."

Wednesday 4 January

I don't have all that many photos of me and Daisy, and while it's not a great picture of me, it's a lovely one of her.

Thursday 5 January

Mum and I spent the evening doing this. That's right, we're living the dream :).

Friday 6 January

We left Mum & Dad's today to go to the Lakes to see Sarah, Chris and Fin, but there was just time before we left to take this photo. I only let her play with her tea set on the toilet seat long enough to take the picture. Don't call social services just yet.

A Year in Pictures: Week 52

2012-01-03T11:33:00.012Z

Saturday 24 December

One more sleep!

Sunday 25 December

Merry Christmas! I'm not sure I understand what's going on, but I like all these presents I'm getting... ;)

Monday 26 December

I'm not sure why Daisy felt the need to show off her tummy...

Tuesday 27 December

We drove to Mum and Dad's today for our second (and Daisy's third) Christmas. It took us almost 5 hours to get there, as opposed to the usual 3, due to a combination of accidents, diversions and vomiting, but we got to open more presents when we eventually did arrive ;). This picture is indicative of Daisy's favourite bit about Christmas this year - playing with the ribbon and wrapping paper...

Wednesday 28 December

Dad's collection of Father Christmases is growing every year.

Thursday 29 December

Daisy got 45 books for Christmas, which is great as she loves them and we're getting bored of the ones she currently has ;). This is her favourite; she picks it up (no mean feat for her as it's the biggest book she received), walks over to her chosen adult, hands the book over, flaps her hands and shouts 'Up, up!' until she's lifted onto the adult's knee, then they read the book together.

Friday 30 December

I took about a dozen shots of Jen and Daisy, including one where they're both smiling, but I prefer this one as it tells a funnier story: 'She's laughing at me. Why's she laughing at me?'

And just to round off the year:

Saturday 31 December

We drove up to Bishop Auckland yesterday afternoon to spend New Year with friends. One of these friends is the gorgeous Teddy - Daisy learned to say his name quite quickly and spent much time giving him kisses, whether he liked it or not ;). Dinner time today wasn't going very well, until Teddy's Dad played an episode of Waybuloo on his iPad, and this was the result ;).

Happy New Year!

A Year in Pictures: Week 51

2011-12-27T11:29:00.003Z

Saturday 17 December

We went with Jon's family to see the pantomime in Ipswich today, which was excellent. There were 10 performers and they did EVERYTHING - when they weren't speaking or singing they were playing all the instruments, including drums, keyboards, saxophones, guitars, recorders, trumpets, plus all the sound effects to go along with the dialogue. Very funny, very professional, a great evening.

Sunday 18 December

This year's Christmas card. This was the best photo out of approximately 250, over three sessions... I had loads where she was smiling and looking away from me, and loads where she was looking straight at me but not smiling. I kept thinking I could get a better shot but in the end I went for this one, which was taken in the first session we did :).

Monday 19 December

This picture and the next two are not authentic (there's a surprise - I wonder how many of my 'Year in Pictures' photos were actually taken on the day I've posted them to??) as Daisy was with Rob until Wednesday and I started having a second wave of being poorly so I can't even post pictures of what I did in Daisy's absence. Unless you want to see a photo of my view of the TV from the sofa. Instead, here are a couple of other photos I took during the reindeer shoots...

Tuesday 20 December

This was after the first reindeer session. She didn't seem inclined to move once I'd got her dressed so I took the opportunity to get a few more shots.

Wednesday 21 December

This was probably my second choice photo after the one I used for the Christmas card. She's smiling AND looking at the camera, but in the end I opted for a full body shot of her, as opposed to having half of her behind an advent calendar.

Thursday 22 December

Someone forgot to brush her hair again last night ;).

Friday 23 December

Daisy loves these ear muffs - but she won't wear them. She happily wanders round with them 'on' her head but as soon as I try and put them over her ears she starts crying... :).

A Year in Pictures: Week 50

2011-12-20T19:16:00.001Z

We didn't do very well for photos this week as Daisy was away most of the week and we were both poorly. I did, however, find some photos on my little camera from a few weeks ago that I forgot I'd taken...

Saturday 10 December

'Hmm, I wonder if what's in here is for me?'

Sunday 11 December

Mum made this Christmas decoration out of old milk bottle tops and I put the buttons on. Except a cheap, recycled-material Christmas decoration turned out to be relatively expensive as I didn't have enough green buttons and had to buy a load more...

Monday 12 December

This picture was taken about a month ago when Daisy and I went to visit Jon on his residential course in Henley-on-Thames.

Tuesday 13 December

We get Christmas cards from Deputy Prime Ministers, don't you know.

Wednesday 14 December

Another photo from a few weeks ago, this time in Felixstowe when we stayed with Jon's Mum for the week while we had no bathroom.

Thursday 15 December

One of the many (hundreds of) photos I took for this year's Christmas card...

Friday 16 December

Our postman loves Strictly Come Dancing, and we chat about it every week, particularly on a Monday after the show's happened on a Saturday. I was out today when the post was delivered, but check out this envelope!

A Year in Pictures: Week 49

2011-12-13T07:47:00.002Z

Saturday 3 December

The bathroom is finally taking shape! The builder has now finished, and we just need to paint the woodwork and paper the wall above the tiles. I have a feeling this will probably still need doing the next time Dad comes to visit in January... :).

Sunday 4 December

I bought this snow suit for Daisy a little while ago, and whilst it's the 'right' size (up to 21lbs), it's a little small, so I'll get her a bigger one soon. Still looks cute though.

Monday 5 December

You'll notice a theme running through the pictures for the rest of the week - these gorgeous little shoes that Bieke sent from Belgium when Daisy was born. They're called 'playshoes' and are perfect for keeping her feet warm while we're in the house now the weather's got colder. I love them!

Tuesday 6 December

We went to the weigh clinic today and - wait for it - she weighs 20lbs 1oz! So I spent her nap time working out how to fit the forward-facing car seat. We didn't actually need to drive anywhere after that today, though, so here she is just hanging out.

Wednesday 7 December

Daisy woke up at 4am this morning, and when she didn't go back to sleep I got her up and gave her a drink. I asked Jon if he'd brushed her hair last night before bed, and, unsurprisingly given the state of it in this picture, he said no. This was taken at around 9am, after she'd gone back to bed and slept on it for another 4 hours...

Thursday 8 December

Peekaboo!

Friday 9 December

So the reason for Daisy waking up in the night the other day became apparent last night - she's got a sickness bug. She woke up at 8pm last night and threw up, then had an unsettled night after that. Today she was generally lethargic and under the weather all day, so she spent much of the day looking like this... I noticed this afternoon that she's also had another tooth come through since yesterday, so it's all contributed to her feeling pretty poorly. Get well soon, baby!

A Year in Pictures: Week 48

2011-12-06T06:42:00.000Z

Saturday 26 November

We arrived back home today to a bathroom that's still most definitely a work in progress. The toilet works, but it will be a few days before we get a shower or bath back. Nice tiles, though, huh?

Sunday 27 November

Daisy's bath for the next few days. I have a feeling she won't be having a bath every day like she normally does...

Monday 28 November

Surveying the damage. She had bolognese in her ears and everywhere...

Tuesday 29 November

Let me out!

Wednesday 30 November

I love this outfit!

Thursday 1 December

Trying out the new car seat - she doesn't weigh enough to use it yet, but it won't be long. I hope.

Friday 2 December

I LOVE this cardigan that Mum knitted for Daisy. I think she made it to a fairly small size - maybe 3-6 months - but by her own admission her knitting is a little slack, and at 15 months, it's a perfect fit!

A Year in Pictures: Week 47

2011-11-29T08:56:00.000Z

Saturday 19 November

A rare opportunity for a family photo :).

Sunday 20 November

Daisy loves Auntie Jen xx.

Monday 21 November

Daisy and I went to Ipswich today to stay with Jon's Mum for the week while we have our bathroom refitted (we decided to go the whole hog and get that done too) and Jon stayed in a hotel near work. Here's a 'before' shot of the bathroom. I know, you're all jealous of the red suite...

Tuesday 22 November

I love this picture of Brenda and Daisy watching In The Night Garden :).

Wednesday 23 November

Jon's niece and nephew, Jess and Finn, came to visit this morning. Daisy loved having people to play with!

Thursday 24 November

Daisy had a tooth come through today but it didn't seem to bother her at all. She was more interested in looking at the 'goggie' out the window...

Friday 25 November

Just realised I haven't posted a photo of the finished kitchen, which is a good job as I've run out of photos for this week :). We're really pleased with it - it's still not the biggest kitchen in the world but we've made good use of the space we've got. A million times better than what it replaced!

Fifteen Months

2011-11-24T20:30:00.004Z

Headline news this month is that Daisy has mastered walking unaided! She's motoring round the place now and loves her new-found freedom - at least, she would if the stairgate didn't confine her to the lounge :).

She hasn't added all that many new words this month, as she's been concentrating on walking, but she has learned home, drink (sounds like 'diss'), teeth (also sounds like 'diss', so you have to know the context), keys (sounds like 'diss'... you're getting the idea about context, right?) tea, pea, toast and thank you (sounds more like 'agu' but she's started saying it after being given something and without being prompted, so that's good), and she recognises and will attempt to repeat quite a lot of words, including 'I love you' which sounds like 'awuwu'. She's also learned that a parrot says 'caw caw'. Well, according to Mummy it does, anyway.

She's still quite clingy when I'm around but not available, i.e. if she can hear me in another room, but that soon passes. She got another tooth today; her eleventh - four at the front on the top row, three on the bottom including the new one, and one molar on each side, top and bottom.

Breadsticks are so last season, and have been unceremoniously dumped in favour of oatcakes, and she loves homemade burgers. She's not keen on trying new foods, particularly fruit, so I'm still spoon-feeding her pureed fruit, but we'll keep persevering with things like blueberries, bananas and grapes.

Here's Daisy demonstrating toast and please, and giving kisses :).

A Year in Pictures: Week 46

2011-11-22T14:21:00.000Z

Saturday 12 November

Happy Birthday Jon! As ever, Daisy wasn't interested in posing for the camera...

Sunday 13 November

... Not even my birthday could persuade her to smile :).

Monday 14 November

I took photos of her today in a reindeer outfit for this year's Christmas card. I don't want to spoil the surprise, but here's a teaser...

Tuesday 15 November

Until she was about a year old, Daisy didn't have a bedtime blanket or similar teddy, but over the past few months 'Blankie' has emerged as the go-to toy for an easy bedtime routine, to such an extent that when we forgot to take it with us to Manchester in early October, it made for quite a stressful bedtime. We bought another one from the same store, but apparently it just wasn't the same (think Huggsy, Joey's bedtime penguin pal from Friends). These days when we say 'Is it time to go to bed?' she says 'Aggie, Aggie, Aggie!' In fact, if we say 'Shall we go and find Aggie?' she knows it's bedtime.

Wednesday 16 November

Mum made this beautiful cardigan for Daisy before she was born, and I tried it on her today. It's still a bit big round the shoulders, but I love it!

Thursday 17 November

Nanna and Grandpa (also known as Nanna and Apa) arrived yesterday and Mum took this lovely shot of Daisy. She often sits in her chair and contemplates life.

Friday 18 November

Jen, Sandra, Robert and Laraine all arrived today, and Jen babysat this evening while the rest of us went to watch the Classical Spectacular at the Albert Hall. I love this sign at the train station - only in Britain would you find a revised timetable to account for leaves falling on the track...

A Year in Pictures: Week 45

2011-11-15T06:30:00.011Z

Saturday 5 November

We went into London today to see Keri, Carla and Juliet who were visiting for the weekend. Jen also came down from York so it was lovely to see her too. Juliet was so well behaved and so beautiful!

Sunday 6 November

Having had such a long and exciting day yesterday, Daisy spent much of today asleep :).

Monday 7 November

Keri, Carla and Juliet came to stay overnight before going back to Heathrow in the morning. Typically, I couldn't get a good photo of the two of them looking in the same direction, but I love the expression on Juliet's face on this one :).

Tuesday 8 November

Daisy weighs 19.5 lbs so is half a pound away from a forward-facing car seat, but we borrowed this one from next-door so we could put Juliet in Daisy's seat for the trip to the airport. Daisy loved facing forwards, but I had a moment when I realised she's no longer a baby :(.

Wednesday 9 November

As ever, I took as many photos as I could and the best one has Daisy behind a milk bottle...

Thursday 10 November

Busy week. Just having a rest :).

Friday 11 November

No caption necessary.

A Year in Pictures: Week 44

2011-11-08T09:26:00.001Z

Saturday 29 October

We're having a new kitchen fitted on Monday, so before she and Dad left, Mum and I spent some time yesterday afternoon clearing out all the cupboards and setting up the dining room as a makeshift kitchen. Here's the 'before' shot of the kitchen...

Sunday 30 October

And here's the dining room, which is now packed to the gills, but we have access to the microwave, toaster and kettle, and we've borrowed a George-style grill and a camping stove. I made enough soup to last a week, and I have sausage casserole and chilli portions in the freezer, so we should be OK...

Monday 31 October

This is the kitchen at the end of day one. It's going to be a long week.

Tuesday 1 November

So peaceful :).

Wednesday 2 November

And so cheeky!

Thursday 3 November

Daisy got her walking award today at Gymbabes! They get a certificate when they can walk four steps or more. Daisy's been practising all week, then when we got to Gymbabes she spent all her time crawling :). I kept asking her to walk to me, but she just kept saying 'No'. The class organiser said parents quite often come in saying their child is now walking and they then don't, probably because it's a noisy and unfamiliar environment. But Daisy eventually did walk towards me, so she got her certificate!

Friday 4 November

Under-floor heating down, floor half-tiled. It's taken a lot longer than originally thought this week because once the wood cladding was taken off the walls, it revealed an unholy mess of stuff that needed sorting out before progress could be made, plus the electrics took much longer to do, so we won't have a sink back until probably Wednesday. So my long week has now turned into a long two weeks...

A Year in Pictures: Week 43

2011-11-01T16:58:00.000Z

Saturday 22 October

Daisy had spinach sauce with her pasta today. I cleaned one of her hands then took the bowl into the kitchen and when I got back she'd used her other hand to rub her eye...

Sunday 23 October

This is our stair 'balustrade'. Apparently the woman who lived here before was over the moon when her husband cut squares out of the wood to make this stepped design (there was another one in the space at the bottom but I forgot to take a 'before' picture). I was not so impressed, so I asked Dad if he would like a project when they visit this week...

Monday 24 October

Apa's here!

Tuesday 25 October

This is the balustrade after Dad worked on it all day. Marked improvement already :).

Wednesday 26 October

I went to Southampton today while Daisy stayed with Nanna (and didn't miss me at all, apparently) and visited this lovely lady, Harriett, while I was there. She's nearly 3 weeks old and so beautiful :). She has two older sisters, 4 and 2, but they weren't interested in having their photos taken so I just had to make do with this little bundle of gorgeousness.

Thursday 27 October

Woohoo, aren't Dads great??!!

Friday 28 October

I know Mum hates having her photo taken, but I love this one of Daisy and her Nanna.

A Year in Pictures: Week 42

2011-10-25T15:18:00.000+01:00

Saturday 15 October

Jon and I had a trip to Ipswich after dropping Daisy off. Good to see Jon's getting his 6-month-old nephew Finn started off on the right foot...

Sunday 16 October

Apparently playing 'pretend to be asleep' on the sofa is a lot of fun at nearly 14 months :).

Monday 17 October

I can't remember what she was looking at, but she was mesmerised enough for me to take a dozen pictures and choose this one as the best.

Tuesday 18 October

Daisy spent much of today getting into and out of her booster seat. Whatever makes her happy :).

Wednesday 19 October

"I'm deliberately not looking at you. I know you've still got the camera…"

Thursday 20 October

Daisy's all smiles in the morning as long as she has her milk.

Friday 21 October

Daisy brought this whizzy thing back with her when Daddy took her to In The Night Garden Live a few weeks ago. She loves it!

Fourteen Months

2011-10-24T09:28:00.000+01:00

Time really is flying now. Daisy's been working hard on her walking; she will happily now push her walker around our lounge (although the lounge is so small that it takes longer to turn the walker round and send her back in the other direction than it does for her to walk from one side of the room to the other), and on Saturday she took her first steps unaided. She didn't do any walking on her own at all yesterday - didn't feel like it - but she has done some today so we'll keep working on it.

Daisy's vocabulary has grown too - she has added mouse, house, doggie, duck, fish, baby, bath, teeth, socks, shoes and all gone to words she can say this month, and she can now recognise the names and make the noises of a camel, giraffe, frog, rabbit, duck, fish, mouse, cat, dog, elephant and horse, to add to the lion, cow, chicken, sheep, snake and monkey last month. Here's a video, although apparently she could have tried harder for the camera :).

She's started to get quite vocal when she doesn't want to do something, and she has learned to scream, so I'm learning how not to react to it. It's not easy!

A Year in Pictures: Week 41

2011-10-18T13:18:00.000+01:00

Saturday 8 October

We went into Cambridge today, and saw these on special offer in Marks & Spencer. I'd like to think that they were on offer purely because they've got a fairly serious spelling mistake on the box and M&S were so mortified that they just want rid of them as soon as possible, but that's probably not the reason...

Sunday 9 October

Mum bought this rocking cow for Daisy in the January sale. It's age 12 months and up, so we got it out after her birthday. She's pretty scared of it - she's never liked being put on anything like that - so we're just slowly working up to putting her on it. So far she knows it's a cow, knows it says moo, and knows it moves when she touches it. And that's fine. She'll even kiss it to let it know she likes it. But she won't get on it just yet. Give it time.

Monday 10 October

Daisy had a fairly horrendous night, culminating in both of us falling asleep in the chair in her room at about 05:45. I took her to the doctor this morning and was told she has a viral infection, so we got some antibiotics to bring home. She didn't feel up to having her picture taken, but Jen took this lovely shot while we were taking the scenic route into town this morning along the river.

Tuesday 11 October

Daisy walked with the walker for the first time on Saturday! Literally as soon as she'd taken two steps, I made everyone stop while I got the video camera, so I at least have her third step and onwards on video. Here she is today showing how she's now a pro.

Wednesday 12 October

Still feeling rough today, but I managed to get this 'who, me?' shot.

Thursday 13 October

Camera shy...

Friday 14 October

Daisy fell asleep with her foot on the 'on' button of her musical entertainment thingy in the car. So we got to listen to it the whole journey. The towel round her neck is not because I want her to be a boxer - it's so that when she falls asleep her neck is supported and she doesn't wake up with a crick, as has happened on many occasions...

A Year in Pictures: Week 40

2011-10-11T19:22:00.001+01:00

Saturday 1 October

We're experiencing an Indian Summer at the moment (although it's not projected to last more than a few more days), and the temperature today was 28 degrees (82F for you Yanks), which is at least 10 degrees warmer than the average for this time of year. Daisy made the most of it by playing outside in the only clothes she needed. Here she is squishing Jon's face.

Sunday 2 October

We went up to Manchester this afternoon for a couple of days - Jon's work has sent him to the Conservative Party Conference so Daisy and I came along too. Daisy's really into her animals now, and she loves reading this book that Nanna and Grandpa bought her.

Monday 3 October

Jon was busy with work all day, so Daisy and I visited our friends in Manchester - Nikki, Evie, Oliver, Clare and Matilda in the morning, and Catherine and James in the afternoon. Here are James and Daisy taking a break from checking each other out to look at the camera.

Tuesday 4 October

We set off from Manchester later than planned and I hadn't brought any lunch for Daisy, so when we had to make a stop for a 'comfort break' (apparently that's what they call a loo break these days) she stocked up on breadsticks until we got home.

Wednesday 5 October

Lately Daisy has been spending a lot of time lying on the floor. I don't think it's tiredness, because she doesn't show any other signs of being tired, but every so often she just stops what she's doing and has a little rest for a few seconds...

Thursday 6 October

Pasta bolognese for tea today :).

Friday 7 October

I was making Daisy's lunch today and I heard the bars of the stair gate (which is between the lounge and dining room) rattling. I thought she must be standing up and holding on to them, as they make the same noise when she does that, but when I went to look she was having another rest. While keeping an eye on the TV, of course :).

My Little Conversationalist

2011-10-05T07:56:00.003+01:00

Daisy and I just had our first 'proper' conversation. We were standing at the bedroom window looking at a cat across the road, then it disappeared round the corner. The conversation went like this:

D: Mummy?
Me: Yes?
D: Where where at?
Me: The cat's all gone.
D: Oh no...

Woohoo!

A Year in Pictures: Week 39

2011-10-04T07:51:00.000+01:00

Saturday 24 September

Mum got given a load of apples from various people's gardens, including this one, er, three...

Sunday 25 September

Lately Daisy has taken to crawling to the corner of the room by the front door and leaning against this cushion we put there to stop her from playing with the water taps. She looks so funny just relaxing on her 'couch'!

Monday 26 September

Not sure what was so exciting :)...

Tuesday 27 September

I thought we had gotten all the use out of shorts sets that we could this summer, but apparently we're going to have a week of great weather, so this cute little all-in-one has made another appearance.

Wednesday 28 September

It promised to be a beautiful day today - and it was, but first thing this morning it wasn't all that warm so we road-tested the dressing gown that Daisy was given this summer.

Thursday 29 September

Another attempt to get a good shot of cushion relax. I still haven't managed to capture it quite right, but she looks gorgeous nonetheless.

Friday 30 September

This sign at the entrance to an office car park makes me chuckle every time I walk past it, in an I-studied-law-for-a-while geeky kind of way. Trespassers can't ever be prosecuted, because trespass is a civil offence and prosecution is a criminal procedure. Yep, I am that person.

A Year in Pictures: Week 38

2011-09-27T06:15:00.000+01:00

Saturday 17 September

Daisy was still suffering the effects of the MMR jab today but she still posed for a couple of pictures.

Sunday 18 September

Auntie Sarah came round to visit today; we were supposed to see her the other week when we visited Mum & Dad but she was busy being birthing partner for her friend :). Daisy loved it when Sarah bounced the ball on her head...

Monday 19 September

Today Daisy woke up feeling much better - rash gone, no temperature, not cranky any more :). She spent a good 15 minutes this afternoon laughing at a blank piece of paper that my Mum gave her. I wished I'd brought my video camera with me because although I took a load of still pictures of her laughing, they don't convey it anywhere near as well as I hoped they would. In the end I've chosen this shot of her today, in her catalogue pose...

Tuesday 20 September

Ta-da!

Wednesday 21 September

We left Mum & Dad's to come home yesterday, but before we did I took a couple of shots of the back of her head. All weekend we've been bombarded with compliments, most of them focused on her eyes, or her hair, or both. Her hair really has got very long and curly in the past couple of months. I love it!

Thursday 22 September

I was taking down the washing from the line outside with one hand while holding Daisy with the other. When it came to getting the basket and the baby inside, I decided one trip would be easier, and she didn't seem to mind at all :).

Friday 23 September

Daisy went to stay with Daddy this weekend, but before she left I got a couple of shots of her in her new dress. She wasn't in the least bit interested in posing for photos, though. As usual :).

Thirteen Months

2011-09-25T20:14:00.002+01:00

Wow, this child is literally learning something new every day! Things she can do now that she couldn't do a month ago: -

When you say 'Where's Daisy gone?', instead of covering her eyes and playing peekaboo, she says 'Boo!'.

She can recognise various animals from her farmyard set that Auntie Jen bought for her birthday, and also from a wooden puzzle that Uncle Tom got her. So if you say 'Where's the chicken?' she'll find it and hold it up. She knows chicken, cow, horse, sheep, doggie and pig from her farmyard set, plus butterfly, rainbow, house, bear, flower and cat from her wooden puzzle. She can also say 'bear', 'ball', and she says 'poo' for 'spoon' and 'at' for 'cat', and not just in the context of looking at the puzzle - we were walking round the supermarket today and she started saying 'at'. I looked up and realised we were walking past the pet food and there were pictures of cats all over the place :).

She can make the noises of a few animals, including lion (the cutest 'rah' you ever heard), cow, chicken, sheep (for some reason until a couple of days ago her 'sheep' was a silent one - she would say 'baa' but without actually making a sound so it looked more like a goldfish, but she's started actually saying 'baa' now) and, as of this weekend, snake and monkey. I've been trying to get them on video but she hasn't been playing; will persevere.

She can also point out various parts of her body, including her hair, nose, mouth, ears, tummy, knees and feet. I decided against teaching her 'eyes' because she does tend to prod the particular body part named quite vigorously :). Again, video to follow.

She's learned to say and sign 'please' when she asks for something. So instead of just hearing 'mo, mo' all day, now I hear 'mo', then I ask 'What do you say?' and she says 'pees' while putting her hand to her mouth. Still working on a video of this too :).

Her walking is coming on, although she's still not all that interested in walking unaided, or even holding on to my hands. She's cruising round the furniture a lot more, and I would say that whereas a month ago crawling was her main method for getting about, I think now it's about 50/50 crawling and walking. If she can get to where she needs to be by cruising the furniture and not having to sit down, she will do.

She loves to High Five if you put your hand up, and as well as saying 'Nanna' she now says 'Apa' for Grandpa. She's still working on the 'J' sound for both Jon and Jen, so at the moment it's more like 'Doh' and 'Deh', but she'll get there.

If you ask her to give kisses to whatever she's holding, she will lean in and do it, whether it's a toy, a bottle top or a coaster, but ask her to give kisses to a real person and she'll smile, shake her head and say 'Nah' :).

She's very aware of what she may and may not do, especially in the living room, the place where she spends most of the time when we're in the house and she's not sleeping. For instance, I heard her saying 'No' today; I turned round and she was shaking her head and smiling while holding the remote control...

A Year in Pictures: Week 37

2011-09-20T09:07:00.001+01:00

Wow, I've taken no pictures at all this week! After her MMR jab on Monday 5th, Daisy started feeling unwell on Monday 12th and didn't stop feeling unwell until Monday 19th, so I didn't get the camera out this week. Instead, I'll put pictures up that have been my second choice on a few occasions over the past few weeks. Sorry!

Saturday 10 September

Woohoo, got another one! A lady I know from church in Winchester moved to Singapore earlier this year and she very kindly sent this back with her son who went out to visit recently. That's another one down, and 18 I've got now. There are another 23 on the list of places I've been to, and therefore mugs I could have (assuming they do them for all those cities), plus hundreds more mugs to collect from places I haven't been yet, so it will keep me busy for a while :).

Sunday 11 September

How beautiful is this child???

Monday 12 September

When Auntie Clare was here, we wondered what Daisy would look like with long hair. Daisy wasn't all that impressed... :).

Tuesday 13 September

First meal on a proper plate!

Wednesday 14 September

This is a slightly over-exposed yet lovely picture that Mum took a few weeks ago when we visited. I've tried to enhance it but this is the best I could do.

Thursday 15 September

This is a screen shot of the card I put together to celebrate Daisy's first birthday.

Friday 16 September

Daisy and I went up to Mum & Dad's for a few days today. She was still feeling cranky from the MMR, but enjoyed crawling round the extra floor space and putting fingermarks over all the glass she could find...

A Year in Pictures: Week 36

2011-09-13T06:06:00.004+01:00

Saturday 3 September

Every time Daisy hears someone say 'Good girl!' she claps her hands...

Sunday 4 September

My favourite of Daisy's presents (let's face it, it's really a present for me) is this beautiful wall hanging that my Mum made. It was originally supposed to be a quilt but I told Mum a few months ago that there was no way I was going to risk ruining it by actually using it, so she backed it and put tabs on the top instead. I bought the various pieces I needed to hang it on the wall in her room today and I love how it's turned out!

Monday 5 September

Daisy had her MMR jabs today, so rather than put up a picture of her screaming, I went for this one instead. I made it for my lovely friend Catherine and apparently it now has price of place in James's nursery, so that's good :). I have a backlog of about half a dozen of these to do for various people, so I'd better get on with it...

Tuesday 6 September

Keri sent this really cool top for Daisy almost a year ago. Because she's so small for her age, I have lots of clothes queuing up and I'm worried I might forget about them and she'll grow too big to wear them in the meantime, so I go through the 'waiting' box every couple of weeks and pull out a few more things to add to the 'current' collection. But even more important is that she's wearing her first ever proper pair of shoes! We went to Clarks today to have them fitted. Size 2 :).

Wednesday 7 September

We went swimming this morning (she whimpered for 10 minutes then laughed her head off for the next 40) and on the way back we stopped at Mothercare. Now that I know her shoe size, I couldn't resist these little boots ;).

Thursday 8 September

Alicia came to visit today! Daisy had a really good day, so it was a perfect day for visitors. We went into St Neots and had some lunch, then just spent the rest of the day watching Daisy be cute.

Friday 9 September

Another shot of the boots. Although she's finding it harder to walk now she has these great clunking things on the end of her feet. The woman in the shoe shop on Tuesday said she might regress with her walking but would get back on track fairly quickly.

A Year in Pictures: Week 35

2011-09-06T06:36:00.000+01:00

Saturday 27 August

We travelled up to Mum & Dad's today for the Bank Holiday weekend, and when we arrived there were lots of birthday presents for Daisy to open! Here she is showing off a couple of them.

Sunday 28 August

I love this picture of Mum playing with Daisy's toys and Dad & Jon trying to figure out why the remote control isn't working...

Monday 29 August

Jen's friend Catherine was staying at Mum & Dad's this weekend too, so we took the opportunity to ask her to take a group photo. She took about a dozen, and there wasn't a single one where all of us were looking at the camera and smiling. This is the best one - Jen's eyes are nearly closed and Daisy's thoroughly fed up with all the picture-taking, but apart from that, it's not bad :).

Tuesday 30 August

This girl's hair has grown loads in the last few weeks!

Wednesday 31 August

I absolutely love the farmyard scene that Auntie Jen bought Daisy for her birthday (well, I should love it, as I chose it...). Daisy loves the farmer and his wife, and she has been seen making them kiss :).

Thursday 1 September

One of Daisy's favourite times of the day is bath time (it's one of my favourite times too, because usually Jon does bath time and I get a break, although I usually spend the time washing up or tidying away the living room, aka Daisy's play room). I took this lovely picture of her today brushing her teeth.

Friday 2 September

Blurry, I know, but still beautiful :).

A Year in Pictures: Week 34

2011-08-30T13:43:00.002+01:00

Saturday 20 August

This picture wasn't taken today, but ssshhh... There aren't many pictures of me and Daisy as I'm usually the one behind the camera. I love this one.

Sunday 21 August

Who, me? I didn't do it...

Monday 22 August

OK, we didn't actually start her birthday 2 days early but I didn't take any pictures today (or tomorrow). She was very excited to open her presents, so she could play with... the wrapping paper :).

Tuesday 23 August

Auntie Clare arrived today! Daisy was clearly very excited about that...

Wednesday 24 August

Happy Birthday Daisy! I just cannot believe my baby is a year old. I bought this kit last week and decided that today would be a good day to do it, particularly as Clare was here to help. It was sooo difficult just to get the clay in the frame for a start, then Daisy started putting her pokey fingers on it, but there was no way I was going to try and roll the clay out again, so the imperfections will just have to be part of the story of making her hand and footprints on her first birthday. There's space for a photograph on the other side but I haven't had one printed yet. Might take another picture of it once it's finished and use it on a day when I forget to take any pictures...

Thursday 25 August

I know this is absolutely the wrong angle to have taken the picture from, as her face is in shadow, but I love her casual pose and facial expression :).

Friday 26 August

Let me out!

Daisy at Twelve Months

2011-08-24T19:31:00.003+01:00

OK, OK, so it's actually 26 September today. I've been meaning to write this post about things Daisy can do at the age of one for a while now, and I've realised that the longer I leave it, the more things she learns so if I don't write it soon I'll forget what she could do and when. As it happens, I made a photo book of Daisy's first year, which I'm super thrilled with, and I wrote in there all the words she could speak and signs she could do at the age of one, so anything she can do now she must have learned since then, and can go in the 'thirteen months old' post I'll write after this one :).

So, Daisy is a year old already. As I mentioned in the caption for the picture on 17 August, her one-year measurements put her in the 9th percentile for height, the 25th for weight and the 85th for head circumference... She is able to stand up from sitting, but she hasn't shown much of an interest in walking anywhere yet. She can say Mummy, Daddy, Daisy, Nanna, no, more, up, down, bye and baby, and can sign 'all done', 'where?' and 'more'. She claps when she hears someone say 'good girl' and she does a sitting-down dance when she hears music.

She LOVES playing peekaboo with anything to hand - when she's lying down having her nappy changed, she finds Ellie, her favourite toy, puts her above her head and says 'Where, where?' while signing 'where'. I ask where it is, then she reaches above her head, finds Ellie and shows her to me. Another variation on this theme is if you say 'Where's Daisy gone?' she'll cover her eyes with her hands and give you a big smile when she takes them away and you shout 'There she is!'

She says 'more' a LOT - I think she thinks it means 'breadstick', because that's usually what she wants when she says it. I'm trying to teach her to say or sign 'please' but we're not quite there yet.

Her method of crawling is so funny. I guess it would be categorised as a bum shuffle, but I honestly don't think she will crawl properly before she walks. She plants her right foot on the ground and pulls herself forward with that and her left hand, dragging her left foot with her. She seems to get around fine like this, though, and she even has a hand free to carry things in... :)

Happy Birthday Daisy Bear!

A Year in Pictures: Week 33

2011-08-23T07:58:00.000+01:00

Wow, am I in trouble this week and next! I hardly took any photos. But I do have lots of pictures for the days I did take out my camera, so I'll just spread them out over the week. Sorry it's not authentic...

Saturday 13 August

We went over to Ipswich today for the first of Daisy's four birthday celebrations. Jon's Mum and brother-in-law had made a cake with her photo on it, and she got some lovely presents: a hammer & peg set, a 'my first gadget' set including a phone, a remote control and a set of keys, and a wooden puzzle with farmyard animals that makes the relevant animal noise when you put a piece in. Here's her cake...

Sunday 14 August

... and here she is enjoying her new toys.

Monday 15 August

Jon baked schiacciata yesterday. How delicious does that look???!!! It tasted delicious too.

Tuesday 16 August

Happy Birthday Auntie Jen! Here's the view of Jen's screen as we were Skyping with her today.

Wednesday 17 August

The health visitor came round today to carry out Daisy's one-year health check. She's 27.75 inches long, which is the 9th percentile. She weighs 18lbs 1.5oz; the 25th percentile, and her head circumference is 46.5cm - around the 85th percentile! Maybe that's why she hasn't shown an interest in walking yet; she's got a lot of weight at the top to carry on those legs! The health visitor said she is doing really well in terms of motor skills and brain development, so it's a good job she's got lots of room for all those brain cells...

Thursday 18 August

This is how she looked this morning when I went to wake her up from her nap :).

Friday 19 August

I had an impromptu trip to Southampton today to sort out that carnage that was the defrosted contents of my freezer, after Clare went round the other day to find there was no electricity in the property. I had some time to kill before returning home as I didn't want to hit the M25 at rush hour, so I went to Hobbycraft to buy some frames and while I was there I finally figured out what I could do with the ceramic coaster Daisy made 5 months ago. I'd been trying to work out the best way of displaying it, and while this isn't exactly a ground-breaking idea, it was difficult for me to visualise how it might look as I have no imagination. I put it together after I got back from Southampton and I'm really pleased with it.

A Year in Pictures: Week 32

2011-08-16T06:54:00.001+01:00

Saturday 6 August

Cambridge always has such interesting buskers. We walked past this guy as he was setting up, and I wondered what he might be doing with a steel frame and a violin... He was actually standing on one leg for most of the time I was watching him.

Sunday 7 August

We went to Wimpole Hall this afternoon, which is a National Trust place about half an hour from us. We had Daisy with us and just wanted a change of scenery, and it was such a lovely day that we didn't want to spend it inside, so we didn't bother with going inside the house but just walked around the grounds. Nice, eh?

Monday 8 August

Mothercare was doing Buy One Get One Free on ball pit balls so we got two bags on Saturday and gave the paddling pool a dual purpose. The last time I took her to a ball pit, she wasn't too keen, so I suggested to Jon that he put her in the paddling pool and add the balls a few at a time. I went upstairs to the loo, came back a minute later and she was already surrounded by balls, smiling away. I guess she's over her dislike of ball pits, then.

Tuesday 9 August

I took Daisy swimming today. It was not a success. She's been swimming with Rob quite a few times, but she didn't like it this morning. I thought the water was a bit cold, and I think that's what was upsetting her, as she didn't cry if she was distracted by a toy or another child, but after half an hour of crying I decided enough was enough. She was very cute in the changing rooms though :).

Wednesday 10 August

We went to Leo's Funzone today, which is a small soft play area at the Leisure Centre. It's free for under-1s, but when you get in there you realise why - there's not vast amounts for pre-walkers to do. However, as it's the summer holidays and we don't have Sing & Sign or Gymbabes to go to, a change of scenery is a good start, so I think we'll probably go back a couple of times before her birthday. Here she is at lunchtime. Apparently she really, really likes Diet Coke...

Thursday 11 August

Pulling herself up to standing is old news now. She's not really moving along very much once she does stand, but she has done it a couple of times. If you tell her 'Up' and 'Down' she'll stand up or sit down accordingly, though.

Friday 12 August

I've said before that I'm not keen on babies having things in their hair, particularly when they don't have any, but I figure she actually does have some now and I tried out this hair band this morning. I thought it looked quite nice, but I wonder if she had different ideas, because by the time we had walked into town it had disappeared...

A Year in Pictures: Week 31

2011-08-09T09:08:00.007+01:00

Saturday 30 July

We left Keswick today after a lovely week with Nanna, Grandpa and Auntie Jen. On the way home, we stopped at my friend Clare's house and met her 2-week-old daughter Matilda. Helen and Dave also came round with Sam, who turned 5 a couple of weeks ago. Here he is trying on superhero costumes with Clare's son Harry, who's 3.

Sunday 31 July

Today Jon, Daisy and I went to Dunstable Downs, which is probably the nearest set of hills to here, at one end of the Chilterns. It was a beautiful day and we had a lovely walk along the buggy-friendly pathway looking at the gorgeous views, but it's this view that I like the best :). Coke's youngest fan? [NB Before anyone calls the NSPCC, she didn't drink any of it; the ring pull was still attached.]

Monday 1 August

I bought a paddling pool today as it's so hot, which gave Daisy the opportunity to try on her new swimming costume...

Tuesday 2 August

Cute from every angle.

Wednesday 3 August

More splashing in the paddling pool today. It was warmer than it looks in this photo!

Thursday 4 August

Daisy loves playing with her Gymbabes ball. She specifically likes it when you throw it at her head. Seriously.

Friday 5 August

This isn't my picture, but it's pretty much what I saw on the other carriageway as I was on the motorway today (except I was at ground level, not in a helicopter). I went to Southampton to check on the house, see Liz, Caitlin and Ava and have lunch with Clare, then as I was driving home there was an accident on the other side of the M25. It took me 3.5 hours to get home, as opposed to the usual just over 2 hours, but I was just glad I wasn't going in the other direction...

A Year in Pictures: Week 30

2011-08-02T06:49:00.009+01:00

Saturday 23 July

This is our home for the next week. Isn't it cute? It's called Woolstore Cottage and is in Keswick, where Daisy and I are on holiday with Nanna & Grandpa and Auntie Jen. It's got a lounge/diner/kitchen on the ground floor, a twin bedroom and shower room on the first floor and a king bedroom and bathroom on the top floor. Daisy and I arrived after the other three, and they decided that it would be easier if Jen and I shared the king bed and Mum & Dad would have the twin room, so Daisy could have her own room too - the bathroom on the top floor :).

Sunday 24 July

We spent today getting our bearings and having a walk round Fitz Park, just across the road from our cottage. A passing stranger offered to take our picture. Unfortunately she wasn't prepared to hang around long enough for Daisy to look at the camera.

Monday 25 July

We went to the Lake (Derwentwater) today after Daisy's afternoon nap. I worked out how to put my camera onto continuous mode, so I got loads of Daisy being gorgeous, but I chose this picture for today as Jen is just as gorgeous and we haven't seen her on here for a while.

Tuesday 26 July

Two pictures in two days! And talking of gorgeous, I think this is a really lovely picture of Jen. Today she, Daisy and I went to visit my lovely friend Sarah, who moved to Bowness, about 25 miles from Keswick, in the last year, and had this little man, Finley, a month ago. Apparently this is not the way he normally behaves - usually he's more vocal than this - but we didn't mind at all.

Wednesday 27 July

This one's a cheat, as I didn't take it - Dad did - but it was definitely taken today :). Most evenings after dinner Dad's been for a walk round town, and tonight he took some beautiful shots of the sunset over the Lake.

Thursday 28 July

Today was the only day we saw any rain - which for the Lake District is some sort of record, I think. It was also the day that an invitational Twenty20 cricket match was being played at the local ground. As it turned out, the rain was very quick to pass in the morning and the overcast conditions made it a good day for playing sport. Dad went and watched the match from the start and after Daisy woke up from her nap, we went and joined him for the second side's innings. Here are Daisy and Jen sharing a joke.

Friday 29 July

Today we decided to have a game of bowls at the park near the cottage. Dad won, with Mum a close second (6 to 5, although they play twice a week so they have an advantage), and Jen and I only got 1 and 2 respectively. I was playing with Daisy on my front in her carrier, and I'd like to say it made it more difficult for me to play well, but I don't think I would have played any better anyhow... Here we are celebrating our first point.

A Year in Pictures: Week 29

2011-07-26T06:48:00.003+01:00

Saturday 16 July

This is Jessica, Jon's niece, modelling a creation she made herself from an old mailing bag. It's called Mildred...

Sunday 17 July

When I put Daisy in her pushchair, I usually assemble it outside (it lives in the boot of the car) then bring her out to it. This morning I brought her outside then realised I needed two hands to put the pushchair together, so she just sat on a box of nappies in the boot while I sorted it out.

Monday 18 July

I bought Daisy a gilet to take on holiday with us to the Lakes next week. It's 6-9 months (she's almost 11) and is enormous on her - I'm glad I didn't decide to get the 9-12... When she turns her head the coat stays where it is and she just sees the inside of her hood ;).

Tuesday 19 July

Love those puppy-dog eyes :).

Wednesday 20 July

Daisy's getting really good at standing up. She sometimes needs a hand to get there, but once she's on her feet she can stay there for ages.

Thursday 21 July

Always up to date on current events.

Friday 22 July

In the last 48 hours she's really mastered the art of getting to her feet. Easy peasy.

A Year in Pictures: Week 28

2011-07-19T06:47:00.000+01:00

Saturday 9 July

Just doing some reading. Hmm, interesting...

Sunday 10 July

Today we had salmon for dinner, with broad beans, red onions and courgettes from the garden. Just call me Felicity Kendal. Actually I didn't grow them, so just call Jon Richard Briers...

Monday 11 July

I always put Daisy in the middle of the lounge, and she invariably moves immediately to underneath the TV and stays there. Just in case she misses anything from three feet further back.

Tuesday 12 July

First time in a big girl shopping trolley :).

Wednesday 13 July

Daisy helped me wrap some birthday presents today. OK, maybe 'helped' is overstating it a bit, but it was nice that she wanted to get involved.

Thursday 14 July

First time on the swings! There's a little park right next-door to our house, with a small playground, and while she's a bit small to enjoy any of the other things, she loved the swings.

Friday 15 July

We went back to the park this afternoon as it was such nice weather. I attempted to get Daisy to model her sunglasses but literally a second after I took this, she had taken them off...

A Year in Pictures: Week 27

2011-07-12T06:59:00.000+01:00

Saturday 2 July

We had pasta for lunch today, with broad beans straight from the garden :). We also concluded our week off work (or, in my case, parenting) with a trip back into London to see Les Misérables, Jon for the second time, me for the seventh. Alfie Boe and Matt Lucas are both currently reprising their roles from the 25th Anniversary Concert at the O2 last year, Jean Valjean and Thénardier respectively. They were both excellent, but really no more so than every other member of the cast. Everyone sang really clearly and was easy to understand, particularly Javert, who was played by Hadley Fraser, coincidentally also a feature of the 25th Anniversary Concert, although playing Grantaire, a much smaller part. This occasion marks the first time I haven't cried at a live production of Les Misérables. Wow, I must be growing up ;). Actually I think it's more to do with the fact that the last scene, where I usually cry, contains one of my now-favourite songs in the show (now that I'm sick of the usual suspects: I Dreamed a Dream, On My Own, etc), and I was concentrating so hard on listening to every note that I forgot to cry ;).

Sunday 3 July

Daisy came home today after a week with Daddy. Here she is sharing a joke with her octopus.

Monday 4 July

Daisy spent much of today putting assorted toys into my slippers, then taking them out again and grinning.

Tuesday 5 July

After having a really good day yesterday, Daisy decided to top it off by throwing up her entire dinner just before bath time. Fortunately for her, she was standing up and using me as a prop at the time, so I was able to direct the vomit away from us and onto the floor. Unfortunately for us, she had had pasta with a tomato-based sauce for dinner. It would probably have been easier to clean up if she had got it all over me instead of the floor, but I didn't think of that at the time. I spent half an hour scrubbing the floor while Jon put Daisy to bed, but didn't get much of it out. Here's Daisy admiring her handiwork this morning. I'll be ringing the carpet cleaners later on today.

Wednesday 6 July

Although she still hasn't mastered proper crawling yet, Daisy leans onto her hands from sitting, puts one foot on the floor and takes a 'step', dragging her other leg along with her. Which means she can get around the room pretty quickly now. Just 10 seconds before this photo was taken, she was at the other side of the room, and the next thing I knew, she was picking out DVDs.

Thursday 7 July

Boo!

Friday 8 July

Daisy got quite warm in her car seat this afternoon. I don't think it's the air temperature as much as the material the seat's made of, which doesn't breathe all that well. When I got her out of the car her hair had gone curly in the heat :).

A Year in Pictures: Week 26

2011-07-05T18:13:00.001+01:00

Saturday 25 June

We went into Cambridge today and had lunch at Jamie's Italian. It was nice. Not excellent, as you might expect a Jamie Oliver restaurant to be, but nice all the same.

Sunday 26 June

I love this picture of Jon and Daisy reading the papers. Caption competition, anyone?

Monday 27 June

My two favourite girls in the world, both looking beautiful.

Tuesday 28 June

As we are child-free all week, we've made the most of it and are seeing one or two shows/concerts. Tonight was the turn of Glee Live, which kind of played a part in getting Jon and me together. Here we are waiting for the show to start. It was really good, and I wasn't the oldest there, not by a long way. I was expecting there to be thousands of teenage girls and us, but there were actually just as many over-25s as under-25s, if not more. You can't see it in the picture but I'm wearing my William McKinley High School cheerleading top (it's actually the top half of the pyjamas that Jon got me for Valentine's day;)). Excuse my hair, by the way; I had a mobile hairdresser come round last week and I asked her to cut me in a 'growing out'-style fringe I could sweep across to the side. She cut it way too short and I'm still trying to work out what to do with it for the best until it grows a bit longer...

Wednesday 29 June

No show today, but we did go for lunch in this beautiful building, which happens to be a Michelin-starred restaurant called Paris House. The food was delicious, and really reasonable at £30 for three courses. We both had profiteroles for dessert, which were served with salted caramel and were the best I've ever tasted - and I've tasted a lot. We spent the afternoon visiting the house we've bought in Milton Keynes and watching X-Men: First Class at the cinema. A great day.

Thursday 30 June

The second show of the week was Take That at Wembley Stadium. Jon booked tickets before we got together, but he found himself with a spare ticket, so I took it, then another person in his group couldn't make it so I asked the lovely Clare to come with (sorry again, Jen). It was a great concert, particularly as I'm not a huge Take That fan - I don't dislike them, but I haven't ever bought any of their albums - but just as great was seeing Clare, who I used to see at least once a week and who I haven't seen for two months, since I moved up to St Neots. She said she missed me and I cried ;). Anyway, here are Take That singing my favourite of their songs, The Flood, on stage at Wembley. On the big screen is Robbie; he and the rest of the band are standing on the silver rigging below the huge statue on the right of the picture.

Friday 1 July

We went to see Betty Blue Eyes tonight, a musical based on the 1984 film A Private Function which starred Maggie Smith and Michael Palin, among others. It was very good - a bit too farcical for my liking; I like my musicals to have a bit more substance, but definitely value for money. During the day we spent a good three hours looking round St Paul's Cathedral, somewhere I've never been, despite having been to London dozens of times in my life. The entrance fee was £14.50, which I thought was a bit steep, but it was well worth it as the audio tour which was included in the price was excellent. And the audio tour headsets were iPods - hope they got a deal from Apple ;). However, given that photos are not allowed anywhere in St Paul's and it's difficult to take a picture of the outside as you can't stand far enough back, here's a picture I took while walking there this morning. It's of the famous 30 St Mary Axe, or 'The Gherkin', as it's more affectionately known, and I think it's beautiful. Maybe I missed my calling and should have been an architect...

A Year in Pictures: Week 25

2011-06-28T07:39:00.002+01:00

Saturday 18 June

Bit of a cheat today and tomorrow because I wanted to put both these pictures up, even though they were taken on the same day. We went over to Ipswich today for a barbecue to celebrate Jon's brother's girlfriend's 30th birthday, which was a couple of weeks ago, and his sister's birthday, which is on Tuesday. We managed to avoid the rain showers and cook and eat a barbecue outside between downpours. Jon's Mum and brother-in-law made these two cakes for the birthday girls. This one is Louise's...

Sunday 19 June

... and this is Katherine's. They tasted as good as they looked too. Although I resisted the urge to eat any of the choccies.

Monday 20 June

Another slight cheat because I didn't take this picture - Rob did - and I suspect it was taken yesterday, but I didn't see it until today :). Not quite sure how I managed to make such a beautiful girl.

Tuesday 21 June

This is how she looked when I went in to wake her from her nap this afternoon.

Wednesday 22 June

The washing machine broke on Monday. I could hear a buzzing noise, and saw that the fuse looked like it was burning through the plug, as there were brown scorch marks on it, so I turned the machine off at the wall. I managed to pull the plug out of the socket today (the plastic had melted the two together a bit) and this was the state of the plug - and the socket. Once I got the plug apart it looks like it might just need a new fuse (and plug and socket plate) and the machine itself might just be fine. Well, apparently they do say that you're not supposed to put the washing machine on then go out. It's a good job I wasn't out on Monday; dread to think what would have happened if the sparks had turned into a fire...

Thursday 23 June

This is Daisy's innocent face, when she's knows she's being naughty. You know, something like going for my handbag when I've told her not to a hundred times :).

Friday 24 June

Auntie Jen arrived yesterday and she's staying the whole weekend!

A Year in Pictures: Week 24

2011-06-21T07:16:00.003+01:00

Saturday 11 June

Mum, Dad, Daisy and I went to the Swiss Garden at Shuttleworth Air Museum this afternoon before the forecast rain came (which it didn't, until much later in the day). This peacock was contemplating showing his feathers to Daisy but she was entirely non-plussed, so he changed his mind.

Sunday 12 June

Baby Einstein still holds her attention like nothing before or since...

Monday 13 June

So beautiful. This was taken before the screaming started (see below)...

Tuesday 14 June

I was cutting Daisy's fingernails last night and she moved just at the wrong time and I got a bit of the skin on the end of her thumb instead. She cried lots, but I think that was less to do with it hurting and more because I wouldn't let her have her thumb back as it was bleeding and I didn't want it to go everywhere, so I put her thumb in my mouth and she fought me for a good 20 minutes to get it back. Once she did calm down, she actually almost fell asleep, she'd tired herself out from crying so much. The main issue was that it's the thumb she sucks when she's tired, but tonight she was asleep before she'd finished her bottle so there was no real problem there. We did eventually get a plaster on it after about the 7th attempt - it took me, Mum and Dad to do it - and this is her with her poorly finger this morning. By the time I got her up from her nap at noon the plaster had come off and it was all fine.

Wednesday 15 June

I'm not keen on putting bows or ribbons in babies' hair, particularly if they don't have any, but I'm fed up of people telling me what a beautiful boy I have, even when she's dressed in pink...

Thursday 16 June

"I'll watch this one please, Mummy."

Friday 17 June

I was trying to get a better shot than this but she would not keep still :).

A Year in Pictures: Week 23

2011-06-14T07:16:00.001+01:00

Saturday 4 June

Having gone to Jo & Duncan's wedding in Glasgow three weeks ago, we were then invited to their 'London Celebration' today, which was held in the State Rooms of Speaker's House inside the Houses of Parliament. This picture of Big Ben is taken from inside the courtyard; not an angle I've ever seen it from before :).

Sunday 5 June

I managed to get halfway through pressure washing the paving stones at the front of the house today before the pressure washer died :(. I'll have to borrow one from the next-door neighbours then find a spare couple of hours to finish the job. Might be a couple of weeks yet...

Monday 6 June

This picture is a screen shot of what Jen saw while we were Skyping with her today. What you don't see on the picture is that when Daisy took her mouth away from my wrist, she left teeth marks behind...

Tuesday 7 June

I love this picture of her with her hood up.

Wednesday 8 June

Having had absolutely no success getting Daisy to drink out of a 'weaning cup', I switched tactics today and went for a sippy cup. It was much more successful, but the good thing about the weaning cup is that it didn't spill when it was turned upside down. This one, on the other hand, does, unless the lid is down, and I didn't get to it in time before Daisy had poured a lot of the water in it onto her jeans...

Thursday 9 June

Daisy has now mastered the art of crawling backwards, although going forwards is still a feat to be accomplished.

Friday 10 June

I bought these foam mats today and Daisy loved her new extended play area :).

A Year in Pictures: Week 22

2011-06-07T07:06:00.009+01:00

Saturday 28 May

Getting so close to crawling now :). She spent most of yesterday leaning forward like this, building up the strength in her arms, and she just needs to learn to push her front leg out behind her and not then flop straight onto her tummy... Won't be long.

Sunday 29 May

We saw this busker in Cambridge today. Yep, he's actually playing the guitar from inside a litter bin.

Monday 30 May

Jon and Daisy were playing 'Hide the Shoe' this afternoon. Jon found the perfect hiding place. Until Daisy looked down, anyway.

Tuesday 31 May

We tried 'Popeye Pasta' (spinach and cheese sauce) for the first time today. It was a hit! This is also a good shot of the new teeth.

Wednesday 1 June

We were just about to leave the house this afternoon when these were delivered! I'm so spoilt ;).

Thursday 2 June

This is the effect In The Night Garden has on Daisy... She was transfixed.

Friday 3 June

We went up to Rutland today to the beautiful wedding of Rachel and Matt. Here's Daisy and me waiting for the ceremony to start.

A Year in Pictures: Week 21

2011-05-31T06:51:00.000+01:00

Saturday 21 May

Another one :). Bev brought this one with her last week when she came over for Sarah's wedding.

Sunday 22 May

I was making a cup of tea this morning, heard Jon come downstairs so turned round and this is what I saw :).

Monday 23 May

When Daisy wakes up she doesn't always cry; sometimes she just lies there, looking around, sucking her thumb, until I go and get her. This is how she looked when I went in this morning.

Tuesday 24 May

Nine months old today! We celebrated with a trip to Sing & Sign (which we were going to do anyway) and a photo shoot (which was probably more fun for me than it was for her). Afterwards we played on the bed for a while and I tried to take a couple of shots while she was sitting on my tummy. Of course as soon as she saw the big black thing in front of her she wanted to grab it...

Wednesday 25 May

How cute is this child???

Thursday 26 May

We went to an introductory Gymbabes session a couple of weeks ago and, now that we're back from holiday, went along today to sign up. She was a little bit grouchy today (see tomorrow's picture) but she loved sitting on this low bench and practising standing up!

Friday 27 May

I thought so! Both of Daisy's front teeth have cut through in the past couple of days. She's been quite snotty and was a bit grumpy yesterday, but otherwise her first four teeth have not proved to be too much of a problem. Woohoo!

A Year in Pictures: Week 20

2011-05-24T08:43:00.001+01:00

Saturday 14 May

One of my oldest friends, Sarah, got married to Jon (a different Jon, not mine!) today in Stockton, my hometown. She looked so beautiful that I not only shed a tear, I actually cried bucketloads as she walked down the aisle. My Jon took this cool picture of them saying their vows.

Sunday 15 May

It actually felt a bit weird not to be going to a wedding today ;). What we did instead, once we'd picked up Daisy, was go to this lovely house on the Norfolk Broads to spend the rest of the week with Jon's family.

Monday 16 May

This is Finn, also known as the Finnster, Jon's 6-week-old nephew. He spent a lot of the week sleeping, as you'd expect a tiny baby to do, and he was so well behaved.

Tuesday 17 May

I love this picture of Jon's niece, Jessica, fishing off the balcony. We since found out that it isn't fishing season and the fine for fishing out of season is £50,000...

Wednesday 18 May

Here are Jess and Daisy being very cute. I actually have another one of them looking even cuter, both smiling at the camera, but as is always the way with me and photos, it came out blurry. Must find my notes from that 'How to use your SLR Camera' course I went to a while ago...

Thursday 19 May

Finn and I were worn out towards the end of the week...

Friday 20 May

The purpose of our little sojourn to the Norfolk Broads was to celebrate Jon's Mum's birthday, and here's the awesome cake Jon's brother-in-law, Mark, made for her. The diet starts Monday.

A Year in Pictures: Week 19

2011-05-17T09:24:00.003+01:00

Saturday 7 May

Jon went for a haircut in Cambridge this afternoon. Actually it was supposed to be this morning, but Daisy threw up on the way and just after she did, the hairdresser rang and asked to change the appointment to later in the day, so we went home and tried again later. While he was having his hair cut, Daisy and I bought him a present from Hotel Chocolat as they were selling off all their Easter eggs at up to 70% off (the only time you get value for money in that place, in my opinion). Daisy wanted to keep it for herself, though :).

Sunday 8 May

We went to a christening this afternoon and Daisy looked beautiful in her pink dress.

Monday 9 May

A rose from the garden again ;). Jon picked this one for me the other day and it's opened out loads.

Tuesday 10 May

Daisy overbalanced when she reached forward for a toy. Instead of crying for me to pick her up, she just carried on watching the TV from there ;).

Wednesday 11 May

We have a scooter! Over the course of a 15-minute period, she scooted over to the sofa and looked very pleased with herself once she'd made it.

Thursday 12 May

I took Daisy into London this afternoon then at 18:00 Jon and I set off for Glasgow. We arrived at 00:30 and Jon pulled up outside while I ran into the hotel to ask where the nearest car park was. The guy behind the desk told me that the nearest one was closed, so I said, 'Right, and where is the nearest one that isn't closed?' Anyway, we stopped for dinner at KFC at Keele Services on the M6. Here's a picture of the service station. Non-stop excitement for us ;).

Friday 13 May

Isn't this a lovely room to get married in??! It's the 'House for an Art Lover' in Glasgow, which has been built to showcase Charles Rennie Mackintosh's beautiful signature designs, and Jon's friends Jo and Duncan got married here today. I'm not allowed to post a picture of them, though, because they're both MPs and have asked everyone not to. I go to weddings of important people now!

A Year in Pictures: Week 18

2011-05-10T08:49:00.002+01:00

Saturday 30 April

This is all the stuff we unloaded out of the van last night that needs to be given a new home. It might be a long process...

Sunday 1 May

I picked up Daisy from Rob's this afternoon and she slept the whole way home. When she woke up she had crazy hair going on but I don't think the photo adequately captures just how crazy it was. It does a good job of capturing just how cute she is, though.

Monday 2 May

There's something immensely satisfying about using a pressure washer. I didn't finish the whole pathway as Daisy woke up, but I actually got more done than I thought I would as she napped for almost twice as long as she normally does. Just need to find the time to finish the job now.

Tuesday 3 May

Daisy doesn't often sit in the baby seat of a supermarket trolley - usually I put her in the carrier if she's awake or else I just wheel her round in the buggy. Last time she was in a trolley it was so big and the harness was so loose that I had to pad it out with blankets. Not so much any more - and she really loved being 'carted' around!

Wednesday 4 May

Still loving the bouncer...

Thursday 5 May

Again, I have lots of pictures of Daisy from this afternoon where she's smiling and laughing, but I loved the expression on her face on this one: 'What you lookin' at?'

Friday 6 May

We had a Skype call with Auntie Jen this afternoon before bath time. This is what Jen saw... :).

A Year in Pictures: Week 17

2011-05-03T08:29:00.005+01:00

Saturday 23 April

We went to Titchfield Abbey this morning, which turned out to be some very lovely, albeit not very extensive, ruins of an abbey that was later converted into a house, then abandoned. But it was a lovely day and we had a rare photo opportunity so we took it.

Sunday 24 April

I took quite a lot of pictures of Auntie Jen with Daisy today, and whilst I have some great ones of them both smiling at the camera, I chose this one for today as I love how natural it is.

Monday 25 April

The collection just keeps growing! Jon got back from a trip to Paris, Dijon and Stuttgart this past weekend. I don't know if Starbucks do mugs from Dijon and Stuttgart, but it wouldn't matter as I haven't been there, and rules are rules ;).

Tuesday 26 April

Nanna and Grandpa went home today, but not before another great photo opportunity. Daisy loved having them to visit us.

Wednesday 27 April

I saw this tonight, for the second time. It really isn't a see-it-more-than-once show, but it was playing in Southampton and Clare asked me to go with her and her family. I enjoyed it, but then I knew not to expect too much from it. And I clearly enjoyed it more than the couple sitting on my left, who didn't return after the interval...

Thursday 28 April

I spent all day today packing stuff from this house into boxes. Originally I wasn't going to be moving much, but then I started making a list of non-clothes items I'd need to take, like Daisy's cot, a couple of chests of drawers etc, and the list kept growing...

Friday 29 April

In between packing the van and moving house today, we made time to watch the wedding - I thought Kate looked so beautiful, and I absolutely loved the lacework and veil.

A Year in Pictures: Week 16

2011-04-26T17:30:00.001+01:00

Saturday 16 April

Keri sent this gorgeous dress before Christmas. It says 3 months on the label, and whilst it fits her fine (at nearly 8 months), I thought I'd better take some pictures of her in it in case she has a growth spurt. I have a few lovely ones, but this is the best one from the session, and one of my all-time favourite pictures of Daisy. Her hair was a little crazy today but I decided against flattening it down ;).

Sunday 17 April

So cute ;).

Monday 18 April

One of her favourite pastimes - eating a rice cake while watching Baby Einstein.

Tuesday 19 April

I converted the carry cot part of the buggy into a seat, as she's now big enough for it, and she seems to like it :).

Wednesday 20 April

Daisy's Nanna & Grandpa (my Mum & Dad) arrived yesterday for a week. Mum took this picture today, which immediately became a favourite of mine. There aren't too many pictures of me and Daisy together, as I'm usually the one taking them, so I'm really glad this one came out well.

Thursday 21 April

Got another one! Ben and Andy went to Portland with work last week, and Ben brought this one back with him. They connected in Vancouver, but Andy didn't let me have one from there as I haven't been. I suppose if it's my rule, I'd better stick to it :).

Friday 22 April

A lovely picture of Daisy and Grandpa to round off the week.

A Year in Pictures: Week 15

2011-04-19T08:25:00.001+01:00

Saturday 9 April

We had a busy day today. We'd had tickets booked to see The Children's Hour in the West End since January, then a few weeks ago we were given tickets to see Peter Kay this evening in Birmingham. We drove to Birmingham in the morning, got the train to London, met Sarah, Clare, Ben, Claire, Jill, Andy and Cathy (taking the photo) for lunch, saw the play (which was fantastic), got the train back to Birmingham, saw Peter Kay (also fantastic), then drove back to Southampton. It was a 19-hour day and involved a lot of travelling for just over 4 hours' entertainment, but it was well worth it :).

Sunday 10 April

Jon's next-door neighbour lent us their baby swing and Daisy loved it!

Monday 11 April

I took this while we were walking to the shops. I often wonder what she looks when she's in the carrier ;).

Tuesday 12 April

This lovely little building is really close to Jon's house. The plaque on the wall says: 'This ancient lock-up was built in 1826 for the confinement of malefactors, and was restored in 1968.'

Wednesday 13 April

Daisy and I went into London to see Daddy's new flat today. Daisy's looking forward to staying in her new room in a couple of weeks!

Thursday 14 April

We were in St Neots this afternoon, browsing round a lovely little gift shop, and I saw this, which is the box for a double-thickness glass bowl. It's supposed to keep hot foods hot and cold foods cold. And for those who like their acidity unadulterated, it will do that too.

Friday 15 April

All week at bath time I've meant to bring the camera upstairs because she looks so cute in her towel, and I finally remembered tonight. I have a few pictures where she's smiling too, but I love this Little Girl Lost look :).

A Year in Pictures: Week 14

2011-04-12T07:33:00.002+01:00

Saturday 2 April

Got another one. I'm up to 12 now.

Sunday 3 April

Daisy drew me a lovely picture inside my Mother's Day card :).

Monday 4 April

We tried rice cakes today for the first time. Note to self: buy plain rice cakes, or apple flavoured ones. These tomato ones just mean her hands, clothes and anything she touches get covered in red powder...

Tuesday 5 April

Weigh day! The scales had come straight out of the midwife's car and were still cold, hence the face. I actually have another picture of her on the scales and smiling, but there are lots of smiley photos on here; I thought we'd have a change :). She weighs 15lbs 10oz now, and has put weight on exactly according to the growth chart, despite having a tummy bug and only eating formula for 6 out of the 14 days since her last weigh-in.

Wednesday 6 April

Daisy got these pyjamas from Auntie Clare for Christmas and I realised I'd better take a picture of her in them as they're starting to get a bit small. Clare wanted to get ones with horses on them to annoy Rob (who is adamant that Daisy is not going to be a rah-rah horsey type like Clare), but she couldn't find any so got these farmyard ones instead.

Thursday 7 April

Another one! This one came from eBay as well, but I'm not buying any more that way; too expensive.

Friday 8 April

Daddy got these pyjamas from New York the other weekend. They're so lovely; really soft. The only downside is that she keeps undoing the bow on them ;).

A Year in Pictures: Week 13

2011-04-05T07:09:00.002+01:00

Saturday 26 March

Daisy's got a tummy bug. She threw up her breakfast yesterday as soon as she'd eaten it, in fact before she'd finished, and I didn't think anything of it until she threw up her lunch as well. I rang the doctor, as it was Friday and I didn't want to go the whole weekend without speaking to someone about what it might be, and I was told to keep her hydrated, let her eat if she wants to, and it would probably just be a 24-hour thing. We drove to Jon's this morning and five minutes before we arrived, she threw up all over herself and the car seat, and then she brought back her lunch as well, so she's gone back onto formula, as she's keeping that down, at least. She thing is, she's not unhappy; and if she weren't puking you wouldn't know there was anything wrong as she's still full of smiles. But seeing as I didn't take any pictures of her today (believe me, I was tempted to take one of her smiling through the puke, but I decided even I wasn't that cruel), here's a placeholder showing the aforementioned tummy.

Sunday 27 March

How cute is this??? It was dropped through the letterbox this afternoon. I really hope they found it.

Monday 28 March

Daisy still isn't better and is only having formula (I tried a spoon of baby rice in with the formula on Saturday but that came back up), so I took her to the doctor today. He examined her and said he couldn't find anything wrong, and seeing as she's clearly not unhappy it might just take longer to get rid of this bug. He told us to go back in 10 days if she wasn't better by then. On the way home, I passed a shop that had this slogan outside. The security may well be at its best, but the punctuation clearly isn't. Sigh.

Tuesday 29 March

This is Daisy's new favourite pastime: waiting for Mummy to build a tower then knocking it down...

Wednesday 30 March

Looks like the end is in sight for the tummy bug, although I felt really rough all day today and even had a nap when Daisy did; something I haven't done in months. So again, no pictures today. Wow, if I can't even make this last three months, I don't know how I'm going to keep it up for a year... Another placeholder, but such a cute one!

Thursday 31 March

I felt much better today, until about 17:00 when I went downhill very quickly and actually ended up hugging the toilet myself at about 19:45. I felt much better straight away, though, and after a full night's sleep was right as rain in the morning. I didn't get vast amounts done today, but I did manage to coat part of one wall of Jon's bathroom with tile paint. The tiles are flowery, and while I'm pleased with how easily the paint went on, I think it will probably take three coats to cover the pattern completely, and in the week that I've been here, I've only managed to put a coat of primer and a coat of paint on part of one wall, so I have a feeling it might be a long job... :)

Friday 1 April

Today I picked up the pottery we painted last Thursday, and it came out really well, considering I wanted a 7-month-old squirmy child to keep her hand still for long enough to imprint it on a tile - twice. This is the one we sent to Nanna in the hope it would arrive tomorrow (it did :)).

A Year in Pictures: Week 12

2011-03-29T10:24:00.004+01:00

Saturday 19 March

Jon went to the Spurs match today, so I got a lift into London with him and met a friend for coffee. I had an hour to kill before meeting him after the match so instead of going shopping and spending money I don't have on things I don't need, I went here, the National Portrait Gallery, which was free. I really enjoyed myself; I chose the floor that housed pictures from 1900 to present day, and there were some really lovely ones. Some not quite so lovely, and some just plain bizarre, like the self-sculpture someone's done using his own blood...

Sunday 20 March

We have a tooth!

Monday 21 March

Now that Daisy's sitting up on her own a lot better, I converted the doughnut ring thing she had (which she didn't use all that often) into the playmat with sitting support for if she loses her balance. She did lose her balance after a while, but she seemed content just to lounge around and watch TV...

Tuesday 22 March

I decided that for the time being, I'll collect Starbucks mugs from places I've been to personally (except the one that Jon brought back from Dublin...). I've been to San Francisco twice, so I didn't consider it cheating to buy this one from eBay. I did consider it daylight robbery when I factored in the postage, though - it would almost have been cheaper to fly there myself and get one. Won't be doing that again in a hurry. At least, not once the one I bought from Chicago has been delivered...

Wednesday 23 March

You know how babies are so difficult to photograph, and you take dozens of photos just to get one decent one? Well, this afternoon I took about 7 or 8 in a row that were all beautiful. Here's one of them.

Thursday 24 March

We went to the pottery cafe in Eastleigh this afternoon with some friends and had a lovely time doing hand and footprints of the kids. Here are Eden and Daisy, receiving some bad news by the look of it.

Friday 25 March

Peekaboo!

A Year in Pictures: Week 11

2011-03-22T16:38:00.001Z

Saturday 12 March

When we got to Auntie Jen's yesterday, our cousins Oliver and Alicia came over straight from work for the evening, as Oliver hadn't met Daisy yet and Alicia couldn't pass up the opportunity to see her again :). I had already undressed her for her bath but I couldn't resist a quick photo - I think babies never look cuter than when they're in the nuddy. Not quite sure about the expression on my face though - and this was the least 'surprised' of the 4 or so that Jen took...

Sunday 13 March

Auntie Jen and I took Daisy to the Build-a-Bear Workshop in Leeds to see Alicia yesterday, and while we were there we thought it would be rude not to build a bear. So here's Auntie Jen and Daisy Bear playing with her new friend, Daisy Bear.

Monday 14 March

We travelled from Jen's up to Mum & Dad's yesterday afternoon to spend the rest of the week with them. But no trip up there would be complete without a little day trip to Durham to see the lovely Susie.

Tuesday 15 March

Daisy's been interested in her feet for a few weeks now, but she hadn't managed to put them in her mouth yet. Until now...

Wednesday 16 March

It's been 2 weeks since I sprained my ankle outside my front door and made my knuckle swell to twice its normal size, and I still can't get my ring on my finger. It probably wasn't helped by the fact that Phoebe stood on my hand at toddler group last week. Hurry up and get better!

Thursday 17 March

Last time Auntie Sarah saw Daisy, she was three days old and weighed 5lbs 4oz. She weighs almost three times that now :).

Friday 18 March

We travelled back home today, but we had time for a few quick snaps before we left. Of course.

A Year in Pictures: Week 10

2011-03-15T11:37:00.007Z

Saturday 5 March

I love getting flowers. Especially when they're from the garden ;).

Sunday 6 March

I mentioned to Jon that Mum used to make smoked haddock on toast for Saturday lunch when we were kids, and I hadn't had it for years and years, so he made me some :).

Monday 7 March

Since she's been on solids, Daisy only wakes once in the night, sometime between 11pm and 1am, then she sleeps till about 7.30am. When she wakes up in the morning, it's not usually because she's hungry but because she just isn't tired any more. So this is generally what I see when I go in her room in a morning.

Tuesday 8 March

Nothing particularly memorable happened today, although we did go to the weigh clinic and she weighs 14lbs 9oz, which is a bigger gain than the growth chart suggests; I put that down to solids. She's still small for her age at just above the 9th centile, but in the past 6 weeks or so she's jumped up from the 5th centile. I forgot to take my camera to the weigh clinic so here's another shot I took of her today when we got home.

Wednesday 9 March

The bald patch on the back of her head is slowly regrowing some hair, now that she can sit for significant periods unaided.

Thursday 10 March

Daisy had her first train ride today! We went into London to see Eva, Juergen and Fabian and the day was pretty much a success. She was really well behaved all day and she and Fabian took a liking to each other, although it doesn't appear so from this picture. Fabian seems content to read Daisy's book while she parties :).

Friday 11 March

Fresh off the back of our train trip yesterday, we went on a road trip today - to Auntie Jen's in York via Manchester, which isn't really on the way (it's a 50-mile detour) but we couldn't resist a visit to this little man and his Mummy. James is 11 days old and weighs less than half what Daisy does - and I could definitely tell when I picked him up :). Catherine looks fabulous. Jealous.

A Year in Pictures: Week 9

2011-03-08T09:04:00.005Z

Saturday 26 February

Spring is on its way! This is what I see when I pull into my estate.

Sunday 27 February

Daisy, Jon and I went to Jon's niece's 3rd birthday party today. Daisy was really well-behaved. Well, unless you count farting loud enough to stop all conversation...

Monday 28 February

I love this casual, arm-up-on-the-sofa look :).

Tuesday 1 March

On four occasions in the past week, I've put Daisy on her back on the play mat, then gone to the loo or even just turned round to do something, and when I looked back she was on her front :). I'm pleased that she can do it, but I just wish I could have seen it, even just once! I've sat and watched her for hours, then typically the times she rolls over are the times I'm not watching ;).

Wednesday 2 March

As well as mastering rolling over, Daisy has really got the hang of sitting up this past week. She's gone from being really unstable a week ago to being able to sit for periods of a few minutes without toppling over. In fact, I put all these cushions round her in case she did lose her balance, but she didn't for the whole 20 minutes she was there :).

Thursday 3 March

I stepped out of my front door yesterday in flat shoes and promptly went over on my right ankle, ending up in a pile on the ground. Daisy was already in her buggy outside - I've run up and downstairs with her so many times, and yet thankfully I wasn't holding her the one time I fell. I sat on the ground for a minute or two, assessing the damage. My ankle actually didn't hurt as much as I expected it to when I got up, so we stuck to our plan of walking into the village. However, by the time it came to walking back from the village, it was quite painful and I had a bit of a limp. I also bruised my back, where I hit the doorstep on the way down, and my left arm, when I put it out to break my fall. But the thing that hurts the most is my right middle finger - I had my house keys in my hand and I think I twisted my finger when I hit the ground. It's really swollen and painful this morning :(.

Friday 4 March

I see this face a lot. This is her inquisitive look.

A Year in Pictures: Week 8

2011-03-01T18:47:00.009Z

Saturday 19 February

I didn't take any pictures today, but if I had they would probably be of the M25 or the M3 as I spent much of the day in the car, so instead, here's a picture of something far better looking than the motorway.

Sunday 20 February

Awwww...

Monday 21 February

Got some beautiful roses today :).

Tuesday 22 February

This girl is getting more and more determined - this was the result of her reaching for a particular toy on the play mat :).

Wednesday 23 February

Up to now Daisy's been having her 'proper' meals in the Bumbo, but she hasn't been all that keen, so I decided it was about time we got a big girl chair for her. So cute!!!

Thursday 24 February

My Starbucks mug collection has grown from 3 to 8 in the past month...

Friday 25 February

I took a video of Daisy eating her porridge this morning, and somehow I also took a couple of still images. I really need to learn how to use my video camera... Anyway, this looks like it was taken not long before the bit on the video where I tell Daisy she's got porridge on her eyebrow :).

A Year in Pictures: Week 7

2011-02-22T20:10:00.004Z

Saturday 12 February

This is the face of a baby who's slept much better on the return flight than she did on the outbound... :).

Sunday 13 February

Anyone who knows my boyfriend won't be surprised to learn that he got me Glee pyjamas for Valentine's Day ;).

Monday 14 February

Happy Valentine's Day!

Tuesday 15 February

We started solid foods this week. It was a qualified success - some foods (carrots) were better received than others (bananas) - but one thing I can say with certainty was that it was a very messy affair...

Wednesday 16 February

Becky and Ethan came round to visit this afternoon. I remember when my baby used to snuggle like this...

Thursday 17 February

It was the final Baby Sensory group of this term today. We had a great time at the classes and I've learned a lot about how to keep a baby entertained :).

Friday 18 February

I rode the Waterloo & City line for the first time in years today. It was about as busy as this too (this isn't my photo; I stole it from Wikipedia again. I draw the line at trainspotting).

A Year in Pictures: Week 6

2011-02-15T09:25:00.003Z

Saturday 5 February

A 9.5-hour flight to Orlando. For the 30 minutes that she did sleep, her arm was like this most of the time...

Sunday 6 February

We spent the day lounging around and getting over our jet-lag, then we had burgers and watched the Superbowl in the evening. Actually, everyone else watched the Superbowl - I went to bed at 20:00 as Daisy had decided that from 03:00 to 06:00 that morning was her awake time...

Monday 7 February

Annabelle bought herself and Daisy some co-ordinating outfits. So cute.

Tuesday 8 February

Annabelle's 5th birthday. We went out for dinner at the Melting Pot. Tuesday was also the day that Keri found out that her new baby will be a girl :).

Wednesday 9 February

Miss Ginny took some photos of Daisy in the Florida sunshine.

Thursday 10 February

Daisy & Annabelle's co-ordinating PJs.

Friday 11 February

At the zoo with Auntie Jen.

A Year in Pictures: Week 5

2011-02-04T18:35:00.006Z

Saturday 29 January

This picture is a total cop-out as I didn't take it - I stole it from Wikipedia :). But it does show where I was today, and I loved the show the fourth time even more than I did the other three...

Sunday 30 January

The ubergeek strikes again. I even have a porta-puzzle carrier for it :).

Monday 31 January

This girl just loves bathtime.

Tuesday 1 February

On the left, the number of dirty nappies we usually get through in a week (roughly one a day but not every day). On the right, the number of dirty nappies we've been through in the past 24 hours. And also the number of outfits.

Wednesday 2 February

Kisses with Daddy.

Thursday 3 February

Phone-quality instead of camera-quality, but I still love it.

Friday 4 February

I finally got started on packing for Florida tomorrow...

A Year in Pictures: Week 4

2011-02-01T07:09:00.002Z

Saturday 22 January

I make carrot & coriander soup on average every 4 or 5 days. Carrots, onion, vegetable stock and coriander. So simple even I can't mess it up.

Sunday 23 January

This kid is going to grow up with square eyes...

Monday 24 January
This is what my weight loss chart looks like so far. 14lbs down, 20 to go...

Tuesday 25 January

Isla came round today. They were both full of smiles until the camera came out ;)

Wednesday 26 January

In a bid to stop my brain from atrophying, I did this jigsaw puzzle this evening. That's right, I am a geek.

Thursday 27 January

We went to see Becky and Ethan today. He's 5 weeks old tomorrow, and his due date was 3 days ago :).

Friday 28 January

This is what the lounge looks like on any given day: toys all over the place, a child in the bouncer and Baby Einstein on the TV...

A Year in Pictures: Week 3

2011-01-25T18:33:00.001Z

Saturday 15 January

I spent most of the evening playing Jumbline on the iPad. I'm a girl who knows how to party on a Saturday night.

Sunday 16 January

She wasn't entirely sure what to make of her new bath-time pal...

Monday 17 January

This was Daddy's idea :)

Tuesday 18 January

We went to the play barn this morning for Bethan's birthday. This is Joe; he's nearly 4 weeks old and he weighs about 6.5 lbs. Today was supposed to be his due date. I know everyone says it but it's hard to imagine that Daisy was this size not that long ago...

Wednesday 19 January

This huge pile of clothes is what Liz brought round for Daisy today. That girl is so spoiled :). Included in the pile were three swimsuits, so we're all set for Florida.

Thursday 20 January

Thursday mornings we go to Baby Sensory Group. Today it was all about different textures, and it turns out Daisy's favourite was the whisk...

Friday 21 January

Uncle Ryan bought Daisy these Converse (and another pair that look like Nemo) when she was newborn. She's very excited that she's big enough to fit into them now!

A Year in Pictures: Week 2

2011-01-18T08:49:00.012Z

I have a feeling it's going to get tough trying to find things to photograph later in the year, but I did OK for week 2...

Saturday 8 January

Daisy and her friends went to Lily's first birthday party today, and we attempted to get a photo of them all together. Daisy was overdue a nap and was quite cranky, but we still managed to get a couple of shots before she stopped co-operating. From left to right we have: William, nearly 5 weeks old; Robert, 3 days older than William but 5 weeks premature when he was born; Dougie, nearly 4 months; Daisy, 4.5 months; and Lily, 1 year and 1 day.

Sunday 9 January

A friend gave us this bouncer and Daisy loves it! She doesn't actually bounce yet, as her feet only just touch the floor, but this is officially her new favourite thing.

Monday 10 January

Daisy doesn't just drop off to sleep during the day. She usually needs to be in the car, so I tend to schedule my trips to the shops etc around nap times. But I refuse to take her out in the car purely so she'll go to sleep, so if I don't need to go out, this is what we do instead - put her next to the hob with the extractor fan on full power.

Tuesday 11 January

All legal and above board! Daisy's passport arrived in the post today, which I thought was mighty quick as I only submitted the application last Wednesday. I was getting a little worried that it might not come back in time for our trip to Florida on 5 Feb, especially when the woman at the Post Office said it could take around 3 weeks to come back, which I thought was cutting it a bit fine. But in the end there was nothing to worry about. 24 days and counting till we see Annabelle & Corgan (and Keri & Keith of course)!

Wednesday 12 January

Someone's found her thumb :-). I wasn't keen on the idea of her sucking her thumb but as she won't take a dummy (I was even less keen on this too), at least she can self-soothe now.

Thursday 13 January

Non-maternity jeans! Granted, they're men's, but they are quite big - round the waist as well as the length and at the knees - and they'll have to do until I can fit into my regular jeans. I refuse to go out and buy another pair when I have 9 or 10 perfectly good pairs waiting to be worn.

Friday 14 January

Nanna sent Daisy a present. Because, you know, she doesn't have enough clothes :).

A Year in Pictures: Week 1

2011-01-11T23:15:00.004Z

Right, I need a project. Something that will require me to blog on a regular basis, otherwise this year's entries will be even fewer and farther between than last year's. So I'm going to take a picture a day and post them here each week. That will mean at least 52 blog entries. I'll post Saturday to Friday and will put the posts up the following Tuesday, which gives me three days to get the previous week's pictures organised into a blog post. The photos won't all be of Daisy (although let's face it, most of them will be), and will be of everyday stuff that we do. Here goes:

Saturday 1 January

Having gone to bed before midnight on New Year's Eve for the first time since I was at school, I spent New Year's Day with my two favourite people.

Sunday 2 January

This is a video still, hence the poor quality, but all my regular cameras had run out of battery and it never occurred to me that the video camera has a still camera function as well. Daisy rarely sleeps anywhere but in her cot or the car, so when she didn't immediately wake up when we got home, I had a little fun. It's not the same quality as the ones I saw on an e-mail forward, but then I don't have much imagination, nor do I have all sorts of materials lying around to get creative with, plus I was just desperately hoping that she wouldn't wake up :).

Monday 3 January

This is what my house looks like with all the Christmas lights on. No, it's not on fire. I really must learn how to use my camera properly...

Tuesday 4 January

Daisy's teething. She has had two little buds on her lower gum for about a month now, and in the past week or so she's started sucking her fist a LOT. Then the wet fist comes out of her mouth and onto her clothes.

Wednesday 5 January

This is what I see when I look in the rear view mirror. Which obviously I only do for genuine driving-related reasons, and not just to remind myself of how cute she is.

Thursday 6 January

My photo frame was finally delivered this week. It originally arrived in November, but when I opened the box it was in a mahogany frame, and I'd asked for an oak one as all my furniture is oak. Actually the mahogany looked really nice as it matched my hair colour, but I thought it was probably better to get an oak frame than to buy new furniture, so I returned it. Due to snow and Christmas, it didn't arrive back until today, but I'm really pleased with it.

Friday 7 January

This is one of the presents I got for Christmas: a '4D Cityscape' of New York. First you put together the base, which includes the rivers and surrounding boroughs, then you put the islands on (Manhattan, Liberty, Roosevelt etc), then the buildings go on top of that. And to satisfy the fourth 'D', you put the buildings on in the order they were constructed. Except some of them weren't so easy to identify so we had to do a bit of time travelling. Unfortunately there are two pieces missing, but don't worry, I've e-mailed the company and asked for replacements :).

Three Months Old

2010-11-24T19:57:00.004Z

I know everyone says it, but I honestly have no idea where the last three months went. Sure, at the time some days felt like they would never end, particularly in the first 6 weeks, but overall the last 90 days seem to have flown by.

Daisy is holding her head up for significant periods now, so a couple of days ago we broke out the Bumbo and she loves it.

I found a load of clothes on Sunday in one of the drawers in Daisy's room that I didn't know were there. I thought that drawer was full of 3-6 months clothes but there's quite a lot marked newborn or 0-3 months, so I'm trying to put all the outfits on her over the next few weeks before she's too big for them. It's a good job she's small for her age!

Talking of small, we went to the weigh clinic this morning and she's 10lbs 7oz, which is small but she's roughly following the 5th centile line on the growth chart. That's to be expected for a 3-week-early baby. I actually like the fact that she was small - it means we got to experience her as a tiny baby. I've lost count of the number of babies I've heard of being born in the past three months at 8 or 9lbs - makes me glad Daisy was small; I thought delivering a 6-pound baby was painful enough!

Night times are getting much easier. I bought a blogging app for my iPhone so that I could blog while I was up in the night, but she only usually wakes up once a night now (although when she wakes up for the second time around 7am we go back to bed for a couple of hours) and only then for about half an hour, so by the time I've checked Facebook, Twitter and my RSS Feed there isn't usually time for blogging as well :). For the past few weeks we've got into a routine of bath at 17:30, then a feed, then bed at 18:00 and a bottle at 23:00. This will send her through to anytime from 03:00 to 06:00 - usually closer to 04:30 - then we get into a 3-hour cycle during the day. I'm happy with that; much happier than if she was insisting on being fed every three hours at night. She has got the idea that the day is for being awake and the night is for sleeping, which is great, but she hasn't realised that she still needs to sleep a good portion of the day, and she only really sleeps if she's on the move - in the car, in the buggy or being carried. Unfortunately all of those things require me to be awake, but as I'm getting a lot more sleep at night I rarely need a nap during the day.

Every morning when she gets up I see a load of hairs on the sheets, but I guess that's to be expected. She sleeps on her side, switching from one side to the other each time she feeds, and during the day when I'm not holding her she's on her back, so she's losing hair all around her head. She looks like a monk in reverse ;-).

Another picture? OK. Here she is in her favourite place.

A Matter of Black and White

2010-11-22T11:22:00.002Z

I had a day off parenting duties on Saturday so Clare and I went to the theatre to see the new touring production of Chess. Clare had never heard of it (born in the 80s, you see) and the only time I saw it was more than 20 years ago so I didn't remember much of it, other than the action revolves around the World Chess Championships in 1979 and 1980 (racy, I know) and its most famous song is I Know Him So Well.

I have good memories of it the first time round, but having seen it again I'm not entirely sure why. I remember the song One Night in Bangkok at the beginning of the second half, but I'm fairly sure that most of the plot must have passed me by the first time I saw it. It relies on a certain amount of understanding of what conditions in Soviet Russia were like at the time, and at least a passing knowledge of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 against Soviet-imposed policies. Which obviously we all had before we arrived.

Actually, the reason this particular rendition of this particular show isn't up there among my all-time favourites is precisely because it required a knowledge of those things, and the reason knowledge was a prerequisite was that the singers were, as ever, largely drowned out by the music and it was extremely difficult to hear what they singing. If it weren't for the fact that the female lead was almost always understandable, I would have blamed the sound desk entirely, but as she was much clearer, my conclusion is that the other actors were simply not enunciating. Which was a real shame, because I'm pretty sure we missed a lot of what was going on, and came away feeling a bit underwhelmed.

This production was choreographed by Craig Revel Horwood of Strictly fame, and this side of the performance was very well done. A lot of the instruments were played on-stage by the supporting cast, which was very unusual and worked really well, but all in all, my impressions were that one of the male leads behaved like a spoilt child, the other was totally flaky and it didn't take much to turn his head, and the female lead, whilst a great singer, was just a bit of a cow. I'm sure if I had been able to hear the words being sung I would have come away with a lot more than that...

A Week at Nanna & Grandpa's

2010-11-19T20:57:00.000Z

Daisy and I just got back from a lovely week at my Mum & Dad's. We left last Thursday and drove to Manchester - the journey was fine; she slept all the way and when she woke up I pulled into the nearest service station and fed her, then we got on our way again - and we spent the afternoon with Grandma & Grandad (aka Rob's Mum & Dad), Auntie Kath and Uncle Tom, then we went round to stay the night with my friends Catherine and Ben, their dog Betsy, cat Chester and as-yet-unnamed 24-week-old foetus. The following day we drove up to Mum & Dad's, and Jen arrived after work for the weekend. Mum had arranged to have people round for a meal that evening before I decided to come, so there were 8 of us for dinner. I got Daisy up at 23:00 for her bottle and everyone cooed over her.

Saturday was my birthday, and I got the best present from Daisy - she didn't wake up till 06:20! Saturday was also the day that my old recorder teacher, Jane, was in town from her home in Peebles with her husband and son. I haven't seen her since her wedding day over 7 years ago so we arranged for them to come round for lunch. We also invited the four girls I used to play in music groups with - first I was in a trio with Lisa and Anna, then Anna and I joined Laura and Louise in a quartet. Lisa and Laura couldn't make it, but Louise and Anna came round with their girls - Anna has Tamsyn and Louise has Eden and Saffron. I haven't seen Anna for 10 years and Louise for 15, since I left for university, but neither of them has changed all that much, except that Louise has done what I've done and ditched the high-maintenance blonde highlights in favour of chocolate brown :).

We made a few attempts to have a group photo, but with 5 kids aged 6, 4, nearly 3, 9 months and 11 weeks, it wasn't all that easy :). This is the best we could do - there's another reasonably good one but Eden is mid-fidget and has come out very blurry ;).

Back: Jane, Timothy, Louise, Saffron
Front: Me, Daisy, Tamsyn, Eden, Anna

Later on my uncle, aunt and cousin arrived from Huddersfield, so there were 7 of us for dinner that night, and again for lunch the following day.

Sunday morning we went to church, thereby killing lots of birds with one stone as we saw quite a few people who wanted to see Daisy. On Sunday evening Mum & Dad babysat while Sarah, Jen and I went to the cinema to see a recording of the 25th Anniversary Concert of Les Miserables, which took place at the beginning of October at the O2 Arena. It was fantastic - Jen bought me the DVD for my birthday but it isn't released for another couple of weeks; can't wait to get it and watch it again!

On Monday my Godmother and Aunt came round for dinner (that's 6 for dinner that day, for those keeping count - Mum did a wonderful job feeding everyone!), on Tuesday morning Suzanne came round, Tuesday afternoon Jen and I went to visit Carlie and her boys (Noah is 2 and Ben is a couple of weeks younger than Daisy), and on Wednesday we went round to see my friend Sue and her son Theo, who's just turned 1. Jen went back home on Wednesday evening as she had to go back to work on Thursday, while Mum, Daisy and I went up to Durham to see Susie, who I worked with last year in Winchester and who is now at the university studying Music. So not exactly a quiet week, but we had a really lovely time and are looking forward to seeing Nanna, Grandpa and Auntie Jen again in a month.

I took this photo while we were there; makes me laugh every time I see it ;).

Ten Things I Didn't Know Before I Had A Baby

2010-10-27T23:36:00.005+01:00

1. I'm not too proud to leave the house with no make-up on and baby sick on my clothes and in my hair.
2. The first few weeks are really not rewarding at all.
3. Mums never catch up on lost sleep - they just learn to live with less of it.
4. Poo consistency really is a legitimate conversation topic, but only with close family/other parents/health professionals/friends who know you really well and love you regardless. Don't try and talk dirty with just anyone.
5. There's no such thing as too many muslins.
6. It's not just boys who can pee directionally when having their nappy changed.
7. 'Sleep when baby sleeps' is absolutely essential but much easier said than done when there's laundry to be done, dinner to be eaten, bath time stuff and toys to clear away, milk to be expressed, bottles to be washed and sterilised, groceries to be bought...
8. When I breastfeed, my feet tingle.
9. My stomach muscles ache every time I stand up, and have done since she was born.
10. The world is a much better place after a hot shower.

A Day in the Life

2010-10-14T11:50:00.002+01:00

One of my Twitter friends (she's an IRL friend as well) brought my attention to the fact that Greater Manchester Police are tweeting general information about every phone call they get for 24 hours from 05:00 today. They are highlighting the fact that they have to deal with a broad range of calls, most of which take up considerable time and energy but are not the kind of incidents included in crime statistics, so the work goes largely unnoticed by the public and, more importantly, the politicians.

I've been following them for an hour now and have seen about 150 calls logged, some serious ones like a 3-car accident in Wigan and various street robberies (mostly in Salford, where I used to live), some unexpected ones like 'calling to inform us that door-to-door sales will be taking place' (it looks like it's a requirement for the police to be informed if you're going to do this), and some bizarre ones like 'man shouts "you're gorgeous" to woman' and 'man locked out of house, wants police to break in for him'. Plus there have been 25 or so prank calls or silent calls - either children playing with the phone or people making inadvertent 'pocket calls' from their mobiles. And there were 39 arrests between 09:00 and 11:30.

It's only a quarter of the way through the day and it's had the desired effect on me - made me realise just how much the police gets involved in. And how little we give them credit for.

A Month of Numbers

2010-09-24T15:36:00.004+01:00

Daisy is one month old already. Here's a numerical summary of her first month.

Weight lost in first 3 days: 9oz (down to 5lbs 4oz from 5lbs 13oz)
Weight gained since then: 1lb 14oz (now 7lbs 2oz)
Net weight gained: 1lb 5oz
Inches grown: 1 (19.5 from 18.5)
Days before umbilical cord fell off: 8
Visitors to the house: 38
Midwives/health visitors seen since being home: 6
Bunches of flowers received: 7
Teddy bears received: 5
Balloons received: 7
Cards received: 54
Baby-gros received: 67
Baby-gros that are still a bit big: 66
Nights spent in own room: 6
Hours' sleep at a time: 2
Average dirty nappies per day: 10
Feeds per day: 8
Cotton wool balls used: 100s
Loads of baby laundry done: 18
Trips to Hedge End: 6
Trips to Southampton: 1
Trips to Winchester: 2
Sundays we made it to church on time: 1
Sundays we made it to church, albeit a little late (OK, a lot late): 1
Trips to the swimming pool: 1
Days Mummy hasn't cried in the last month: 2
Times people have said 'She's so tiny!': lost count

Here's a picture of her in the only baby-gro that currently fits her :)

Pregnancy Perks and Pitfalls

2010-09-19T19:01:00.003+01:00

In no particular order, here are some observations on the highs and lows of my pregnancy: -

1. Morning sickness isn't just reserved for the mornings
I had a pretty textbook first trimester. From the day before my doctor's appointment to confirm that I was actually pregnant until my 14th week, I felt sick in the mornings and the evenings. Not every morning and evening, but enough to notice a pattern. I didn't realise that the sickness comes in the form of lightheadedness, rather than a stomach ache. I had a fairly unpleasant flight to the US in February, and I had some degree of morning sickness every day throughout the 5-week trip - its abatement coinciding with coming home, actually :-(. I found out that it was worse if I didn't eat within about half an hour of getting up in the morning, so I developed a routine of having half a packet of ready salted crisps first thing while waiting for Rob to wake up so we could go to breakfast.

I have to say, I don't know how women manage morning sickness during subsequent pregnancies, when they already have a child (or children) to look after and all they want to do is lie in bed. Medals all round.

2. Great skin and hair!
Actually, I didn't notice the hair all that much as mine is really thick anyway, but I LOVED the fact that I no longer had teenage skin. Unfortunately it's come back with a vengeance now :-(.

3. Back pain like never before
I'm no stranger to back pain. I've had it in some form or another for 20 years, but around my 30th week I developed a pain under my right shoulder blade which became almost excruciating at times. I was quite worried about driving 5 hours up to my parents' house at 34 weeks, and even more worried about driving back home again at 36 weeks. I won't lie to you, it wasn't pleasant, but I managed to find a seating position that wasn't ridiculously painful. Thank goodness I was driving an automatic, though - my seating position involved putting my right hand behind my head at times, and I couldn't have done that if I'd needed one hand for the gear stick and one for the steering wheel...

4. I've got a secret...
I've always thought that parents can sometimes come across as a little smug when talking to non-parents - 'until you've had a child, you don't know...' - and I'm afraid I've now joined those ranks, although I do try to keep my advice to myself unless asked for it. But I honestly did feel while I was pregnant that I had a secret that no one else knew. I know women have been having babies since the dawn of time, but being pregnant made me feel very special.

5. No charcoal or gherkins!
I was looking forward to seeing what kind of food cravings I would get. But apart from eating everything in sight during my first trimester (only in the afternoons though; mornings and evenings were reserved for throwing up), I didn't have any food-related oddities. Shame.

6. So that's what the inside of my belly button looks like...
I've had an inny for as long as I can remember. At around 28 weeks, my inny became an outy, and it looked weird ;-). I bought a silicon belly button bar from a place online, which said it would move with the shape of my belly, so I thought for £3 I would give it a try. If it didn't work, well I can't remember the last time I knowingly bared my stomach in public, so it wouldn't be the end of the world if I had to take my belly button ring out. I'm not 18 any more, after all - and even then, I didn't have a flat stomach so my belly button rarely saw the light of day. Anyway, the silicon bar did work, and my once-outy is now back to being an inny again.

I thought of loads more while I was pregnant, and kept thinking I must write them down before I forget them... If I think of them I'll do another post.

Pregnancy Photos

2010-08-30T21:29:00.001+01:00

Keri gave me the idea to take photos of myself regularly throughout my pregnancy. I not only did that, but I also ripped off the style of picture that she used when she was pregnant, standing in front of a window and turning the flash off to create a silhouette. Good for me she doesn't mind ;-).

I usually took the pictures on a Thursday or Friday, although this became more difficult after I no longer lived at the house I was using to take the pictures, so I just took them when I could. I'm really pleased I persevered with this: I think it will be a nice reminder in years to come.

I need to work out how to make a collage of these pictures, but in the meantime, you can view them here.