A quarter of a year. It feels likes yesterday that I was writing about 2 months. I must have blinked.
I have no recollection of life without you in it, but yet in my head you're still brand new. Actually, after a fussy week 12, you've proved yourself a bit of an old timer. You want to push up on your legs, sit up in the pram in a proper seat and you grin for everyone who locks eyes with you. You can lift your head right up when you're on your belly and you almost rolled over from your back to your tummy this evening for the first time. There's no stopping you!
You work like clockwork now and life finally feels normal again. You are incredibly chatty and love to shout! You chuckle when people pull silly faces at you. You can grab hold of toys on your play mat and you've found your fingers and your mouth. I suspect you have a tooth on the way because all you do is chew on them. We got the Jumperoo out of the loft this week and you think that it's brilliant being upright!
You will settle yourself to sleep now 90% of the time, and you sleep better now you are in your cot in a room with your big sister. She prods you and sings to you and puts all kinds in your cot, but you're not bothered at all. You often spin around on your belly during the night. You love Effy most of all.
I can't believe how far we've come already. And now the fun really starts!
With every day that passes, my big girl is becoming more articulate, more confident in conversation, more developed in her sentence structure and more hilarious. We're a dry, sarcastic humour kind of household, and she's starting to get that. Her ability to do stuff baffles me, and her little sister kicking around the house just opens my eyes to how much stuff these kiddies learn in the first years of their lives. It's astounding.
But with the articulate, chatty and bold little girl comes a more sophisticated trouble maker too; the ability to actively go against what you've asked, procrastination that would challenge my own, problem solving that makes me realise although she will always be my baby, she just isn't a baby any more.
At nap time, I found her standing on top of her beautiful wooden walker that has lived in her room for some time, about to straddle the baby gate and make her escape. I had to take a breath to stop myself from laughing, and force myself not to applaud her ingenuity. I had to tell her off for this one.
I had to be her mother first and her friend second.
She was not best pleased. But one day she may thank me for saving her from a tricky situation, and hopefully the walker will be good for her sister and to pass on to her own children. I can still be sentimental.
A mother first.
