Oh my baby!

Darling Evie Flora,

Mummy is so slack, I missed your 21 month letter and I am only just sneaking the 23 month one in three days before your birthday!  We had a little party for you yesterday, but I think I'll let Daddy tell you about that in his 24 month letter.

It's hard to know where to begin.  You fill my life with such joy, how can I describe all the funny and wonderful things about you?

One thing I always love is putting you to bed at night.  We used to have our last breastfeed sitting at the computer desk, but you have put a stop to that.  "Go bed!  Evie have mi' in bed!'  So now we lie down, ("Fan on?  Mummy iPad? Evie have mi' in bed RIGHT NOW.') 

You have gone through lots of funny little games during our go-to-bed ritual.  For a while you liked to look up at me and say 'Evie happy.  Evie cuddle mi'.  Evie kiss mi'.  Evie happy'.  That was my cue to say, 'Mummy happy too, because Mummy has Evie!  Mummy is very happy.'  We would go back and forth like that a few times and then you'd go back to drinking your mi'.

Then it changed and you decided that what Mummy needed while wating for you to go to sleep was a hair cut.  So you would sit up and pull my hair over my face while saying, 'Haircut?  Hair on your face, Mummy.  Evie cut it.  Cream?  Evie put cream on your face.'  I don't know why you decided to open up your own little salon, but I loved it.  You would also often sit up and lie down with your cheek on my cheek and say, "I love you so much.  Evie love Mummy so much." and I would say, "I love you so so so so much." and we would have a big cuddle.  Right now we mostly have cuddles and mi' with the occasional request to look at a picture of your birthday cake, which was/is in the shape of George from Peppa Pig and his dinosaur, who you love.

You talk and talk and talk all the time now.  You and Abi chat away in the back of the car and I adore listening in on your conversations.  Abi says, "Evie?" and you say, "Yes Abi?" so politely.  You are often very polite with your 'yes please', 'thank you' and 'sorry'.  You even say ''scuse me Mummy' when you are squeezing past me in the doorway.

Knock, knock jokes are very funny to you right now, even though you haven't got the script quite right yet.  You say, "knock, knock, who's there, Mrs Cow Poo Head!" all at once, and then laugh and laugh.  You and Abi also like to do your version of Mary, Mary which goes something like this; "Mary, mary, qui' contrary, how your garden grow? With a plop of wee and toilets all in a row.  Your turn Abi!"  Do you see the theme emerging?  Daddy and I don't help matters by laughing hysterically at all the toilet humour that surrounds us.

I am so so grateful I get to be your Mummy and spend time with you every day.  I am torn between wanting you to stay the same forever and being so excited to see what you do next.  Next year you might start kinder in third or fourth term, and I'm not looking forward to the time away from you.  You're my chatting little companion and you make everything we do together so much more entertaining. 

I love you.  I love you!

Mummy

19 months of Evie Flora

Happy 19 months my darling littlest girl,

This letter is late, I confess. It's hard to find the two-hand-typing time needed to write down all the wonderful things you do and are, but I think about them all the time. Soon Daddy will be writing your 20 month letter, in fact you are 20 months tomorrow, so I am only just in time.

I continue to be enchanted by you, Evangeline. Your name means, 'good news', you know, and from the day I knew you were on your way you have always been the best of news. You are a shining star, a joy-bringer and a soul full of such beauty. I am blessed to be your mother and so lucky spend every day with you.

So what are you doing at the moment? You continue to leap and bound along with your speech. You put two and three words together often, sadly, one of your first three word sentences was "No tiss Mummy', but you have since come out with "Baby bump here. Baby bump Wiwi [Evie]", "Do 'way Abi", "Abi si' here", "My Daddy too" and many others. I love hearing your little voice, or watching you sit with the little Baa Baa Black Sheep book, singing to yourself "Baa baa sheep, baa baa sheep, yeshir yeshir, baa baa sheep".

You love to play with Abi, of course, and she often sits with you and reads you a book. You listen very attentively and often ask her to read it again. You both love playing with the babies and we recently bought a smaller pram which is just the right size for you to push around the house. You like to put a baby in the pram and get a bag too. Then you say, "Bye bye. Shop!" and we have to ask you about your shopping plans for the day. Your favourite baby at the moment is probably Baby Ro Ro (Rosie), but you also love Baby With Teeth and a new baby we got from the Op Shop, which I have lovingly christened Manky Baby. Daddy scrubbed her with the grout cleaning brush though, so I think she is okay now.

Right now you are in the playroom with your beloved daddy and Abi. You don't really like sharing Daddy with your sister and usually insist on him carrying you around whenever he is home, but it sounds like you are having fun in there at the moment. We got some new dress ups which you like very much, and a puppet theatre from thetoy library.

We all love you so much, precious one.

Mummy

I'm back! And a letter.

To my darling 15month old baby girl (still my baby).

I love a million things about you precious one, but here, in no particular order are:

10 things I love about Evangeline Flora

1. Your dear little pixie face which is the most vivid, expressive, passionate little face I have ever seen. Joy, tragedy and fury washing over and through those beautiful blue eyes, that pretty pixie nose and those rosebud lips many times a day.

2. The way you sit in the big bed every morning and 'read' books to us all in this funny sing-song voice. Turning the pages and reading like such a big girl in such a little package.

3. Hearing a happy 'eyoh' or 'dedoh' everytime you see a family member anywhere in the house.

4. Watching you carefully straightening your legs from a squatting position to a standing one with your arms up. Then you smile hugely and say "Yay!". Sometimes I will just hear an imperious "Yay!" and look around to see you standing impatiently waiting for me to notice your cleverness.

5. How you say "dere-a-do" (there you go) whenever you give something to someone. You also sometimes say it when you want something; for example, when Abi was eating an easter egg in the car I heard a sad little 'dere-a-do? dere-a-do?' from your carseat. My heart melted, although not far enough to let you eat an entire egg. I did give you a biscuit though.

6. Snuggling up with you in your bed at night when you wake up for your 'mi'. My warm, sweet-smelling baby girl who is growing into a little girl so fast, too fast.

7. How much you love your daddy, even though it gives me a little shock of sadness when you curl away from me and give one of your decided 'no!'s when I try to take you from his arms. I call you our little Daddy-seeking-missile because as soon as you are down on the floor, off you crawl to find him.

8. Watching you and your big sister play. You love to join in with all her games and refuse to let the fact that you are nearly three years younger interfere. You jump on the trampoline together, push the doll pram together, cuddle the babies together and draw together just to name a few of your shared activities. I hope you will be friends like that all your lives.

9. Waking up with you, even though it is earlier than Mummy would like. You sit up in bed and I crack open bleary eyes to see your smiling face in the half-light. Then your smile comes closer as you lean in for a lovely wet kiss. Mmmm, baby kisses.

10. Every moment I spend with you. Truly every moment. You have made my life complete my darling, beautiful, funny, determined, loving, wonderful little girl. Thank you for choosing me to be your mother.

Love always and forever,

Mummy

9 months

Darling little peachy one,

9 months old! Such a big girl. This month you have mastered a very cute kind of commando crawling that I refer to as the caterpillar crawl. You bring both arms forward with your hands together and pull, while digging your toes and knees in to push forward. You are getting around very efficiently like this, and although you also get up on your hands and knees and rock, I don't know if you will crawl soon as you are such a quick little caterpillar.
You can also sit up very strongly now and love to play with anything that makes a noise, such as bells, zills, maracas and saucepans. You love it when any of us join in with the noise making and laugh and laugh.
You laugh and smile all the time anyway, especially at your big sister. We usually give you and Abi a massage together now and it is very funny to see two nudey gigglers rolling around on the mat as Mummy and Daddy try to rub almond oil into you both. Our massages are not the relaxing gaze-fests they once were, but seeing your gorgeous little bare bum as you flip over and determinedly wriggle off to the window makes up for it.

We have had a bit of spring sunshine recently and you have been enjoying spending time outside playing on our deck. You haven't put too many gumnuts in your mouth which is lucky as you are very crafty about keeping stuff in there. Often I have to make you laugh before I can scoop whatever you have found out from behind your two sharp little teeth.



Food continues to be fun for you and you like to eat anything that we are eating. Your favourite things seem to be porridge with fruit, Baby Mum-Mum rice crackers with hommus, toast crusts with anything, broccoli, cantelope, strawberries and kiwi fruit. You love to throw stuff off your high chair, so there is always plenty of stuff for Mummy to sweep up after a meal and if I am not quick enough, your plates and bowls join the food on the floor with satisfying crashes. I am considering buying one of the bowls that sticks to the table for you.

I love you darling, darling girl. What a gift you are.

Happy 7 months to my little clapping girl,

Darling Evie,
You still love to clap and wanted to add a video of you doing just that, but it won't upload, sigh.

Lots of things have been happening for you this month, and we have discovered the joy of Baby Led Weaning. Why didn't anyone tell Mummy about this earlier. It is so easy, it feels like there must be something wrong with it. Instead of laboriously cooking, blending and freezing in little tiny plastic cubes which always fall out of the freezer and hit me on the foot, I steam some broccoli, cut some avocado and paw paw and hey presto! Breakfast (or lunch or dinner) in a bowl! So far you enjoy any food that you can feed yourself, stuff off a spoon is regarded with more suspicion.
You are very good at getting stuff into your mouth, which is a wonderful life skill, and one that you enjoy practicing on any number of lethally tiny Barbie shoes belonging to your big sister. I am always fishing stuff out of your mouth and you are not that co-operative either, and who could blame you when there are delicious things like vinyl butterfly stickers and tiny hammering tacks to eat?

You are the happiest baby ever, always ready with a smile or a laugh, especially at your big sister who you find hilarious. You love to chat to us now and make all kinds of funny sounds, sometimes so loudly that Abi asks me to turn up Playschool, or her cd as 'Evie is making ots of noise!'. We all love to hear you chatting though and you seem to enjoy taking part in the conversation.

Right now you are asleep in your Kozy sling and I am bouncing you on the fitball in the hopes you will stay asleep for a little while. You were up at 5.30am this morning, and even though Mummy tried to pretend you weren't and to convince you to snuggle on the couch for a bit longer you were too keen to get up and on with the day.

I love you so much my beautiful, wonderful girl. I am astonished every day at my luck in getting to be your mother.

Mummy

Here are some more photos of both my gorgeous girls at a fantastic park we went to last week.

Hey! Where did that preschooler come from and why is she holding my baby?

Hi! Hi? HELLOOOOO? Anyone still there?

Probably not. Never mind, here I am with a very late 5 month letter to my little peach.

Darling Evie,

Five months old, it's hard to believe. You are still just a little thing though; I think you have inherited your Daddy's metabolism, along with his impish face. You are also active, active, active, although you can't get around just yet, which causes you much frustration.

Let's see, what have you been doing this month? Lots of smiling and laughing as always and rolling rolling rolling. You like having a bath now too, which is handy, as they are a necessary part of a well-balanced baby's life. You kick so enthusiastically that you are actually quite hard to hold onto and I need to use two hands. This makes it tricky to actually wash you; you like to keep Mummy on her toes.

You chat and talk all the time now and make lots of funny noises, including "Da da da daaah DAAAA" in this deep, gruff voice which makes me laugh and laugh. You also say "Mumumumum" and I like to pretend you are saying Mummy.

Toys are lots of fun for you now, which is good as it makes the car less traumatic. You love your crinkly butterfly and your wooden ring best, as well as random kitchen items. Spoons are a big hit, and so far you don't seem too sad that there is no food on them.

You very rarely cry, unless ou are in the car or I am trying to get you dressed. Something about getting dressed makes you furious, although you never h old a grudge, which is nice. This month you have had your first cold, which turned into a little cough, but it wasn't too bad, luckily.

Unluckily for Mummy you have taken to waking up at 3am and deciding now is an excellent time to play. The first two nights I got up and bounced you on your beloved fitball, but after getting to 4,000 bounces on night two I decided this must stop and started bringing you out to lie on the fold out couch in the dark. You lie there and chat and coo until you get bored enough to go to sleep and I get to lie there and smell your beautiful little head and snuggle your chubby little body, so really, it's win-win.

Have to go now as you are awake and requiring my attention.

I love you so much precious one. Light of my eyes.

Letters to my girls

Darling little Evangeline Flora,

My little peach-girl, if we were Japanese I would have called you Momoko. As soon as you were born and I saw your dear little round face with its light covering of the softest of down I christened you my peach-perfect baby. I will never ever forget how blessed and joy-filled I felt on that day you were born and I could finally hold you in my arms. If I could keep only two days in my life, it would be the days you and your sister came into the world.

I am a little late with your first monthly letter, but I am just sneaking in before your Daddy writes your two month one. You have been such a wonderful little baby right from the beginning with your early smiles (three weeks) and your generally good night-sleeping. We have just had a few feeding problems - I think you are just too impatient to wait for your milk and it often makes you cross. We spent a couple of weeks feeding you Mummy's milk from a bottle, but we have stopped that now as I was worried you were getting much too keen on the fast-flowing plastic container...

So after a bumpy start, our breastfeeding relationship is improving and I know it will continue to get better as you get bigger and stronger. Your big sister has become resigned to sharing and likes to hold your hand and stroke your cheek as you both nurse in the early morning.

We think your eyes are going to be blue, but they are very dark - almost navy in some lights. At first we thought they might be brown like your Daddy's, but they seem to have settled into a very beautiful deep blue. You don't really look much like your sister or me, even though you have the same cupid's bow lips and dimpled chin. I think maybe you will look more like your daddy although you have the Goldie dimples when you smile. One thing you have definitely inherited from Daddy is a particular expression where you stare with huge eyes off to one side with your little mouth hanging open in what looks like puzzlement. My funny little thing.

And do you smile! Such a smiley little girl, especially when you first wake up. You hardly ever wake up crying, I know you are waking up when you start to wriggle and grunt like a little piglet. Then I pick you up and kiss your fragrant little cheek while you smile and continue wriggling energetically. I have even heard you chuckle in your sleep and I don't think it will be long before you add laughing to your adorable coo-ing noises.

Right now you are fast asleep on our shared bed with the fan going as it has been horribly hot and humid the last few days. This makes things difficult as you like to be with Mummy in the Hugabub or the Kozy, but then you just get too hot which makes you sad. So I put you down, and that makes you sad too. Most days you are very happy except when it is time for dinner, then you get a bit whingy and Daddy says, 'it must be Crank O'Clock again'.

I am going to finish now, my little love. Thank you for making our family complete.

Love

Mummy



Dear Abigail Pearl, the almost-three-year-old girl,

Oh my darling darling girl, you are nearly three. Three! I remember when you were three months and Daddy and I were enrolling you at your kinder, three years old seemed impossibly far away and grown-up. But, here we are and my love for you increases with everything new you do and learn.

It is hard to fit a year's worth of growth into one letter. This year you continued coming to work with me and you started attending music on a Wednesday with Daddy. You continued learning to talk, ask questions, disagree and describe how you were feeling. (Mummy, I a bit sad, I need a tuddle). You had your first Easter eggs, fell in love with your Auntie Lucy, looked forward to Christmas and became a big sister.

Sometimes I look at you and cannot believe such beauty can exist, especially, I'm sorry to say, when you are a bit sick as when your perfect pearly skin is flushed with fever you look completely ravishing. You like dressing up as a fairy now, and sometimes go shopping that way which causes you a few problems as everyone likes to talk to you about how lovely you look, but you are still working on becoming comfortable talking to people you don't know. Usually you ask me to help you and I say what you want to say for you. I know it won't be long before you are able to chat away to anyone you want to.

Soon you will be starting kinder and you are looking forward to it very much. You often talk to Daddy and me about all the things you will do, like learn to mit (knit), paint, count, cut up fruit and make lots of new friends. You always say that you will give your new friends "ots and ots of tuddles" - what lucky children, to have such a loving little girl as a friend. You know that Mummy will drop you off and come and pick you up later, and you seem very confident, but I am anticipating a few tears in our early weeks.

I am feeling sad and happy about kinder. Happy because I know it is a beautiful place for you to learn and grow and begin to make your own way, but sad because it is the end of our exlusive time together. Now you will start to move away from me into a brave new world of other children and wonderful teachers who will influence you during your next stage of growth. This is as it should be, but I have loved every moment of your first three years when you believed the sun rose and set with Mummy. You are such wonderful company, from our shared cup of tea/hot chocolate when we first get up, to when we snuggle up telling stories and singing songs at bedtime. And all the times in between when we sit together in cafes, go to the library, play in the park or you help me with the laundry, cleaning in the bathroom or washing windows.

It is time to start letting you go, but I will always always have you in my heart, because you are my heart. I love you effortlessly and forever with every breath and every dream.

Love

Mummy