11 months. Wet hair. Dogs.
Baby is just over 11 months now. Incredible. In my head our little one is still a small baby!
If you saw my last blog post (poem) you'll know my maternity leave ended in May and I returned to work, secondary school teaching. At first, like many working parents- I imagine- I was dreading the idea of leaving our little one. I'd loved spending all my time with her! However, the first day back at work felt like I'd never been away- which was actually quite a welcome feeling at the time- especially when you hear the same old:
"Misssss, what's the date?"
(Umm...it's on the board.....like always???)
(It's lesson 5- surely you've written it about 5 times today already??)
(I've just come off maternity leave- I don't know what day it is, let alone the date! Before work today I was up at 5 watching a baby chewing a coat hanger, licking the bedroom mirror and slapping her own belly...)
(To tell the absolute truth, despite always writing the date up on the board, I did have a couple of incidences where I wrote '2015' on the board and was informed by the students it was '2016...' Another clear indicator I'd been churned out of a maternity leave time warp!)
In all seriousness though, I do enjoy my job and working with teenagers is rewarding, entertaining and no day- or even lesson- is ever the same!
And no day is ever the same with baby around, so basically, I've got no real idea what's going on in life anymore! Sorry, family and friends- bare with me for the next 18 years..??
It seems like baby develops so much each day, however small I still think she is! Lately, her favourite activities include: opening and closing books, doors and drawers; emptying the laundry basket; and pulling DVDs off the shelf. Some of these activities are a tad hazardous so we have introduced a firm, 'No," which much of the time is received with a cheeky grin and a giggle! Since she doesn't really seem to understand it particularly well yet (or at least pretends not to; she does respond sometimes) my Husband reckons we need to say it in a more 'growly' tone.... bit like a dog...
Thing is, she's started copying this noise and just growls back.
Talking of dogs- "dog" has been her first word (other than Dada and Mama!) She's taken a real liking to the dogs on both sides of our family, so at the moment she loves pointing at them cleverly saying, "dob."
Cute!!! Dob dob dob.
Although she did have one incident where she didn't apply the word correctly and it was a tad embarrassing for us. We went to McDonalds (I know, tut tut- Costa was too busy, alright?! And no- of course baby didn't eat McDonalds before you wonder!!) Two elderly ladies walked in. Very respectable. Wearing macs. Holding handbags. Grey perms. You know- nothing to resemble anything dog-like. Yet our lovely little girl decided to start pointing at them, tracking them as they moved. And then she began excitedly shouting: "DOG! DOG!" It was the sort of moment where we were unsure whether to acknowledge what our daughter was doing and smile sweetly- she's just a baby, after all- or try to distract her. "DOOOGGG!! DOG!" She kept shouting. People were looking at us. Panic! Did they think we were the sort of parents to teach our child to hurl abuse in McDonalds?! It was getting really awkward. We tried shh-ing her but, "DOG! DOG!" prevailed! When shh-ing didn't work, we opted to just look down and eat our chips, making out this was all very normal. We stayed focussed. Eventually, the shouting and the pointing passed. When we looked up, baby was just grinning at us, proud as punch!
Yeah...she knew what she was doing, I'm sure of it...!
Despite this episode of shouting, shes's actually still a fairly quiet little girl. In fact, she quite favours whispering! One morning, my Husband was in bed and baby crawled around to sit beside him. She just looked up at him and hissed, "Daadddaaaa." Honestly, it was parcel-tongue! The little wizard frightened the life out of my poor Husband. What a way to wake up!
On the topic of waking up, a couple of weeks ago baby was a bit under the weather (a cold we think? Teething too?) so we resorted to bringing her into our bed because she seemed to be so uncomfortable. Eventually she settled down with us and I'd also changed her nappy to eliminate additional discomfort. However, in the hazy darkness of the night, I must not have done her nappy up quite tight enough. About 3am I woke up and had a bit of a panic: why on earth was my hair all wet?! Who's bleeding? Is she sweating? Is there a flood?!
You've guessed it: her wee had delightfully leaked out of the top of the nappy and I had absorbed it all with my large mop of hair!
....It gets better... I was so tired that I didn't care as much as I should have done, so I just laid towels down, put my hair up, and went back to sleep with very wet wee in my hair!! Parenting at its very finest, huh?!!
I've got a few more stories to tell: it's the summer holidays for me and so I get to spend more time again with our very mobile, excitable little being! This, in turn, has brought about more tales of baby 'bumblings' and parenting faux pas! But- I'll save them for another blog post. I'm hoping to write a couple more during the holidays.
With baby's first birthday approaching, I'm sure any number of things could happen yet- particularly as she's discovered how to drop items into the toilet...
Uh oh indeed.
