If You Say So

Emily and I were talking about cousins the other day.

She asked me whether and why she has cousins

and I explained that since her Auntie Denise and I are sisters,

Denise's children are Emily and Adam's cousins - and vice versa.

"No, I'm not a cousin."

"Yes, you're Bekah, Gabby and Edward's cousin."

(dismissive tone) "If you say so, Mum."

"If you say so..."!!!!! 

And yes, she calls me "Mum" now.

I keep saying this, and I'll say it again: what's she going to be like as a teenager?!?

Have a good weekend!

BoyBoy

This kid!

Such a charmer, so cheeky, so smart. He could get away with murder with that smile.

He is inquisitive. He wants to know everything. He wants to know how things work. He will be the kid taking things apart to see how to put them back together again. He will press, turn, twist, open, close. He especially loves anything with wheels. He will spin and spin and spin them, and then try and get a closer look at how they're connected. He'll make them turn fast, then slow, and he'll push things around the room to see how they move and how far they'll take him.

He also loves anything with a stick, but especially if it is a broom or a brush. He will try and sweep the floor from a sitting position. And then he'll hand you the broom (or anything really) and wait for you to say "Thank you, Adam!" and he'll giggle, giddy with pride and pleasure.

He can be exasperating and is sometimes rough and very obviously doesn't understand his own strength, but he is an affectionate one. He loves cuddles and hands them out generously. Then also a sensitive little soul. He now knows when he is being told off and gets very upset. His bottom lip will quiver for ages while he struggles to contain the emotion.

Language is coming along well. He points at everything and says "there!" and he quacks whenever he sees a duck ("Ka! Ka!"), and signs fish and says "sshhh" (lots of dribble and spluttering included) when he sees a fish. He loves animals. He has taken to calling anything edible "nana" because he loves bananas and could eat them all day long. So bananas are "nana", milk is "nana", water is "nana", food in general is "nana". He calls himself "Dada" (yeah, bit confusing that one), so when he's hungry he shouts "DADA NANA! DADA NANA!" until we do something about it. (He is hungry all the time so this is pretty much a day-long thing.)

Twinkle Twinkle Little Star and Row Row Row Your Boat are his very favourite songs, and he does "actions" to tell us he wants us to sing to him. He twirls his hands around for Twinkle Twinkle, and moves backwards and forwards for Row Row Row. He'll beam at you once you start to sing.

Mickey Mouse still holds his heart and his Mickey soft toy gets the biggest cuddles any toy has ever had.

I only wish Adam had more patience to be read to. He loves books, and he will happily sit and leaf through picture books alone in a corner (I remember Emily doing this), but he has no patience for sitting on my lap while I read a book. He'll barely sit long enough to get through a picture book. He will grab the book and impatiently turn the pages, until he finds the one he wants: inevitably, a cat, or a bird, or a duck. "Ka! Ka! Ka!"

And then he's happy.

Up

He crawls down the corridor towards the stairs, his hands clapping along the floor.

Clap, clap. Clap, clap.

It's about time for his nap, and he knows it. He's beginning to feel sleepy.

He stops mid-corridor and sits down. He looks over towards me and shouts to get my attention.

"Eh!"

I look up and say "Hello!"

"Up," he says, and carries on towards the stairs. 

He wants to go up to his room. He wants to sleep. 

I pick him up and give him a cuddle and tell him that he's such a good boy for telling me that. 

We walk into his room, I close the door, switch on his sound machine, draw his curtains.

That's his cue. He lays his head down on my shoulder and snuggles. 

It's time for a nap.

Becoming

It would appear that I am having a blogging mid-life crisis. I know I keep harping on about my muse being gone and all that, but I'm not sure it's that at all really. Part of me thinks I've become that horrible sort of person who is only capable of talking about her child. But I also know that's not the case. I believe I've changed.

Life has changed meaning to me over the last few months. It's not about writing about seemingly useless things, preaching to others, expressing my opinion any longer. I am a person in my own right and I don't need to blog about my thoughts to make them valid. I have become more private too.

Life, lately, is about the precious moments I witness every day, the beauty of the character I see unfolding before my eyes. Life is not about my favourite nail polish colour or the clothes I like wearing or even my thoughts about the world around me. Everything fades in comparison. It's not worth the bother and the effort. Life is the amazing little girl I am a mother to, the family I'm building with my best friend, the memories we're creating for the years to come.

So I apologise if I bore you, dear reader. I apologise (mostly to myself) if my blog has become what I always swore it wouldn't: the dreaded "mummy blog". My life is what it is and right now, I cannot ignore the shining light that is this little girl I spend my day with. I simply cannot close my eyes to it. Maybe I've become uninteresting. Maybe I'll resent myself for shifting my focus off what I no longer consider important. I'll deal with it when it happens. Until then, and until I am no longer spellbound by my miniature companion, my blog will continue to be a Mummy Blog.

(For the record, my favourite nail polish colour at the moment is Essie's Eternal Optimist *wink*)

Choose a Book...

When Emily was younger, I wondered whether we read to her enough. I needn't have worried. She has become the biggest bookworm I've ever encountered in a child her age. Granted, I haven't encountered a vast amount of children her age, but it's still quite impressive.

Her books are all over the house. A full bookshelf in the living room. Some more books on two small shelves by her new wardrobe. More in a basket in her room. Two hidden away in my dresser for when I desperately need to keep her entertained while I'm dressing up. Two more in her changing bag and one hanging off the side of the buggy. Oh and four bath books in the bathroom.

I'm not sure how many books they all amount to, but it's a large amount. A very large amount. I seem unable to walk into a bookshop or browse Amazon without buying yet another book for her. It's good for her, I argue.

Lately she's worked out that she can specifically ask us to read to her.

"Bk," she'll say and sign book.

"Would you like me to read to you?"

She'll nod, carefully. "Yish."

"Choose a book."

She'll scan her bookshelf (we're usually in the living room, which is where her largest book collection lives), while tapping her fingers on the shelf (I kid you not!), and she'll soon pick out her favourites having recognised their spines.

She'll look over to me or her dad and pat her thigh a few times. "Ca, ca!" (Come)

This is what we do to signal to her that she should come over to us and therefore it has become necessary for her to pat her thigh whenever she wants to come to us.

"Come and sit here," I'll tell her, patting my thigh.

She'll eagerly come and sit down beside me or on my lap. "The-tew!" (Thank you)

And we'll read while she follows attentively and lifts the flaps or feels the touchy-feely bits. Once the book is finished, she'll sign finished and the entire process begins again.





Some days, we can go through the entire bookshelf in a day, sometimes twice. And then we'll read more books in her room before she sleeps. I won't pretend I always have the huge amount of patience necessary. Some days are easier than others but since she's started pointing at pictures in books and saying the correct words, I'll admit I'm finding more patience for the whole thing. Seeing the fruit of my labour makes it much easier to appreciate the good it's doing.

This is her living room bookshelf:



My sister couldn't help herself, apparently, and had to organise it in her OCD way a few weeks ago. It lasted all of three minutes.

Emily's current favourites are:
* Baby Faces (Look Baby Books)
* Big Book of Beautiful Babies Board Book
* Moo, Baa, La La La (Boynton)
* Where Is Baby's Belly Button? (Karen Katz Lift-the-Flap Books)
* My First Gruffalo: Colours
* My First Gruffalo: Touch-and-Feel
* Goodnight Moon (thanks to Maureen of Island Fairy for recommending this one!)
* Dear Zoo
* Where's Spot?

(PS: And if anyone is going to buy any of these books, it would be really really nice if you bought them via the links above as I will get commission. Cheeky? Quite.)

I'll Be Honest

Lately, to the large extent, life's been a great, big, steaming pile of crap. Since around the 29th October we've barely had a whole night's sleep. Between teething, an ear infection and God only knows what else, Emily has been up almost every night for hours at a go.

Some nights, even thinking of her smile, her chuckles, her general adorableness hasn't cut it. Some nights have pushed me so far, I've ended up in tears not wanting to go into her room for fear of losing my temper with her. Some nights I've despised her.

Luckily I'm surrounded by some great friends who, while they can offer no solutions, assure me that feeling this way is normal. (Equally, there have been "friends" who have offered no support whatsoever, instead trying to make me feel like the worst mother that ever lived. Always nice, that.)

Days become equally as hard. I'm so tired I'm listless, unmotivated and verging on depressed. Housework has severely fallen behind. I then look at the mess around me and feel even worse. Some days I have no energy to hold a conversation with anyone and avoid meeting friends or socialising at all. This plus my husband's very long work hours sometimes makes for very unfulfilling days, meaning things are already not great at bedtime, when we then need to gear up for the possibility of yet another tough night.

My point? Not sure there is one. But if any of you think my life is a bed of roses all the time....? Not so much.

[I wrote this at 3:30am this morning after having been up for 3 hours, 2 of them trying to get Emily to go back to sleep, one of them trying to get myself back to sleep. Apologies if it sounds somewhat desperate. I was.]


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Update, 22nd November @ 20:50

I have learnt that when I reach rock bottom, I feel the need write about it. And after that, the only way is up. However, thanks to my writing about it and in this case making it public, you've all made it that much easier to find the way "up". Since yesterday's post, the amount of love and support that has come FLOODING in (here, FB, Twitter, email, text, whatsapp, you name it!) is amazing, and so moving. I am in such an immensely different place today - and it's all thanks to you. I am once again able to look at Emily and feel pride and overwhelming love for her, and when she moaned a bit this afternoon, it didn't feel like the end of the world. We just had some cuddles and sang a few songs, and she was happy again. I couldn't do that recently, it's felt so hard, like I'd become a rock, incapable of feeling warmth towards her. We had a really great day today. So from the bottom of my heart, thank you <3

The Evening

As Emily takes over most of our evenings, time that David and I spend together has taken on a very new style. Tonight, while I relax and type while drinking the very rare glass of wine, David dances Emily to sleep (we hope) to the sound of Five for Fighting once again. He's so great with her. We sing together and our eyes meet across the room in silent laughter, hope, celebration when Emily's eyelids become slowly but obviously heavier. Sleep might be close. We may have a bit of an evening after all.