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

It's all a bit of a grind, sometimes

Feeling a bit blah, over here at Silverpear.

Abi has got the what seems like thousanth in a long line of winter/spring colds. She had conjunctivitis early last week, which has cleared now thankfully, but she is snotty and can't hear properly. Unfairly, I find this endlessly irritating as she sniffs and says 'what?' after everything I say. For some reason, she absolutely refuses to say 'pardon' even though generally she is happy to use all other politenesses (is that a word?). She'll say please, thank you, excuse me and sorry, usually unprompted. Obviously at some stage I put too much stress on 'pardon' and it has now become a bit of a power struggle. She reckons she can't say it, but I have been telling her that yes she can, she is just choosing not to.

She thought about that for a while and has since (I think) whispered pardon a couple of times. I don't know why it's so important to me, guess I need to examine the reasons behind my button-pushedness a la Robin Grille, but who has the time for self-reflection? I would rather watch tv.

In Evie news she now has three teeth and is working on the fourth, so her sleeping has gone a bit to shit lately. Not anywhere near the gold-standard suckiness of her older sister's sleep efforts at the same age, but far from the lovely, manageable 9pm and 4am feeds of a couple of weeks ago. She is also still a real early bird, we are up by 6am every day. I can't tell you how much I hate this.

Wow, whinge whinge whinge. I love my children, I really do. Just at the moment though if I could talk to my 33 year old self, I'd be telling her to give the whole children thing a big miss. I miss my old life. I miss travelling and going out and actually talking and having physical contact with my husband and not having to narrate my every action for my darling three and a half year old who still finds Mummy endlessly fascinating.

I think one problem is I really don't get any time without at least one child. Right now is such a rarity; Evie is asleep and Abi is playing with DH. Evie will wake up soon, and luckily she always smells so divine as well as being all warm and kissable when she first gets up.

I don't want to ask any more of DH, I don't think his life is any easier than mine. He's been sick sick sick too and had other big stuff going on, but I am not bearing up well under my burdens right now. Makes our decision stop at two children very very easy to live with.

Sorry for downer post, but I guess it balances out all the sweetness and light of the monthly letters.

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?

video test

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.

So much to say, so few free typing hands

I’m in that state where I have so much to write about that I’m actually kind of paralysed. Like when the Three Stooges all would try to get out the door at the same time, but would get stuck, so no-one went anywhere. That’s my brain right now, a Three Stooges movie. And I don’t even like them.


So. Kinder! Separation sadness! New friends! Fundraising! Car trips to kinder! Crying babies! Dummies! Easter! Horrible virus! Baby’s first cough! Date night! Parents buying new house! De-cluttering! Friends’ babies! Huge hail storm! Pomegranates! Breastfeeding!

See my problem here? Maybe now I’ve released the pressure I’ll be able to come back and write about some of this stuff in the next couple of days.