Always learning!

I'm used to getting my way... I am by no means pushy (or a push over), but I like to get my own way.  Every time.  And I. Am. Very. Determined.  And quite simply, hate to give in/up/out!  So when it came to starting potty training with Emily on the weekend, I thought 'ha, we have this in the bag' - the combination of my determination, Chris's support and Emily's inbuilt Epic Baby/Toddlerness that she has had since birth ..... we couldn't lose!

However, the plan I had in my head was vastly different to what transpired.... this is what we tried to do ... how hard could it be?? Potty Training in 3 days or less (emphasis on less, how epic would that be?!), accompanied by this video! 

We had our potty party in the kitchen: 

And set up in the bathroom:

But ... it turns out for someone teeny (and I was reminded just how tiny she still is on the weekend), wetting their pants for the first time is a strange and unwelcome feeling!  Freaky, scary even.  So although we got one little wee in the potty (gooooooo ... Emily!!), the rest sadly made her very, very upset.  One may say traumatised.  Chris and I got cross.  There were many tears and tantrums - Emily and Mummy.  And suddenly it wasn't much of a party any more.

Had we misread the signs?  Did we expect too much?  Was it too early?  We're not too sure.  What we do know is that we all need to be gentle and not place too much emphasis on it.  So we took stock and went back into nappies for the rest of the day.  Everyone was happier for it!!  And on Sunday and Monday, Emily happily 'went to say hi to the potty', regularly, and even practised sitting on it, with and without her nappy.  She also loves her cool new Toilet Time for Girls book we got her to help understand what this strange new phase is!

I definitely don't like to be proven wrong, or give up, but when it comes to your Baby, their happiness is paramount.  Not your own.  No matter who in your coffee group is 'ahead' of you in terms of milestones - potty training, big beds and 2nd time bumps, I'm surrounded by it!!  It's definitely hard not to feel behind sometimes.  But I am appalling at taking my own advice.  How often have I said to friends who have felt similar - 'don't worry about anyone else, it's your life, your decisions and your situation', 'be grateful for what you have', 'enjoy this moment.  This Moment'.  So time to sit down, shut up, and cuddle my Baby who is no longer a Baby, and cherish her for who she is, not what she does or can do.  Cos she can do so much and will always be our Epic Baby.     

The evil hairdresser!!

We took Emily to get her fringe trimmed recently, and boy was that fairly nightmarish, for all involved!  It was her first haircut and when I was in the hairdresser's recently, I saw a young girl, about 2 years old, having her hair trimmed so calmly, on her mum's lap and I thought oh how sweet, that will be me and Emily :)   

How wrong I was!!  She screamed, kicked, cried and generally had a major meltdown!  I pitied those who were there for a bit of relaxing 'me time' as it certainly wasn't, when we were in there too!  

Playdough fun!

Lovely fringe trim and even wearing a hairband!  Very rare!

Luckily Chris was with us as he had to hold Emily, standing, as she did not like sitting on my lap in the chair, and I had to forcibly hold her face so she didn't move while the hairdresser trimmed her fringe (it only took 35seconds!).  Oh my goodness, it was traumatising all round!  But a good result in the end and she got over the ordeal pretty quickly - phew!!

Survived the First Week!!

We survived the First Week - well two weeks actually, but I was a bit slow in posting this at the end of last week!!  First Week of daycare full time; and me being back in the office full time and Daddy / Daughter time in the mornings :) Another new routine... it's amazing that when you get used to something, you often have to change it!

Busy girl!  Pottering, her favourite activity :) 

Seeing Mummy at the end of the day! 

Always busy!

It has all gone very smoothly, except for Thursday night last week (and funnily enough, Thursday this week!) when Miss Emily unfortunately lost the plot and was just too tired for anything - no dinner, milk or bath!  That is totally unheard of in our house!  I was at a total loss after putting her into her cot so early - plus we have just changed the clocks due to daylight savings so it was like putting her in bed in full sunshine!  An unneeded mummy, eek!  We think she is also getting some more teeth as there have been a few night wake ups, so that may have contributed to Thursday night!  It's no fun wrestling with a tired toddler I have to say, and man is she strong!!  She has begun clawing and pinching... not a great phase!

Luckily, I finally got some lovely quality time last Friday night and we had our usual calm, peaceful evening of dinner, bath, milk and bedtime story before she happily drifted into the land of twinkle and nod, for 12hours straight.. can't complain!

This week has been a bit mixed - she is sooo happy and doing so well at daycare; sleeping on her little stretcher for as long as she can muster in that different environment, at lunchtime, but we have still had night wake ups... it's very hard with all that is going on to be chipper all the time that is for sure, but hopefully she settles down soon.

We were also advised that a thing called molluscum, a series of bites/spots which children can get and they can turn nasty too (little pimple type things) was going around the centre.. not such a great thing to hear when you pick up your poppet at the end of a busy day that is for sure!  And we were advised that if Emily had any spots, to take her to the doctor to get her checked out.  Once she was checked, she could return to the centre, which was a huge relief with me just having gone back into the office 5 days a week - I definitely couldn't be at home again with her and try and work eek!  Fortunately, it wasn't molluscum so all was well there. 

Friday however brought its own challenges.. I received a phone call to say Emily had had an allergic reaction to something!!  And that I had to fetch her and take her to the doctor as she had developed a very fast rash on her arms and feet.  Oh my gosh, that was pretty scary!!I think I pretty much broke the speed limit to get to her but she was actually fine ! The rash had dissipated and she was pretty relaxed.  Fortunately the doctor confirmed that it wasn't anything serious.. my relief was quite palpable!  And so, we had yet another night's broken sleep and a very trying day yesterday, but whatever 'it' was, seems to have gone away (thank goodness!) as our little EB (Epic Baby) revealed herself again today and all was well... 

Oh and she slept for 13 hours last night!  Here's to another night's good sleep tonight!

Breaking up is hard to do....

As an adult, in a settled marriage, career and life in general, the thought doesn't exactly cross your mind that you're going to have to do any sort of 'breaking up' with anyone.  However, that has not proved true recently.

Over the past couple of months, my amazing little working at home scheme (Tuesdays and Thursdays) has become more and more difficult, as nearly 19 month old Emily turns her puppy dog eyes on me and wants story-time, meal time and play times with me - making me feel so torn between the flurry of emails, documents and phone calls that I have to handle on a daily basis, during office hours.  So after a lot of soul searching and consideration, we have decided that she will attend a lovely local daycare, 5 days a week which will allow me to be in the office full time, and she can have fun learning and exploring and meeting other children.

So we had to say goodbye to Danielle, who has looked after Emily since just after her 1st birthday.  And what a bond they developed together!  Danielle's little baby, Harper has also become a firm friend of Emily's, with 'Harper' being a very favourite word for quite some time now!  Danielle has gone way above and way beyond for us - doing things like loaning Emily extra clothes/shoes/bedding if she needed it, patting her to sleep, rocking her to sleep, cuddling her when she was upset, putting her first hair clip in her hair, making her play dough, and generally loving her like another little daughter. 

And I am absolutely certain that she did even more than that, but never said so.  She is a truly amazing woman, and we have loved having Emily with her. 

We'd get countless photos, videos and online stories about what Emily has done in her little day.  The 'daily book' was amazing - a loving little comment about the day in general - what Emily had loved and done and learnt.  So special.

We can't believe she was so little when she started there!!  Here are a few of Danielle's lovely photos of Emily. Thank you Danielle xXx

Very first day, just 1 year old

     

Flower - one of Emily's favourite words!

Picnic in the park

Making my Mother's Day painting

Fist time with a clip in her hair!

Playdough fun!

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First outing to the local village

In the double pram with little Harper

Summarising the last 6 months!

Well it's no secret that having a bubba takes up 99.95% of your time!  Plus working full time, there is a LOT to juggle, so that's why I haven't been on my Blog for AGES!  But I am back now.  Well I hope so anyway! 

I thought it would be fun to summarise the past 6 months, or try to, to get up to speed.  Emily turned 18 months old on Thursday this week.. it's been 6 months since her 1st birthday party - time flies when you are having fun!  We have settled into the year's routine very well and Emily is very happy with her new carer, where she has been since just after her 1st birthday.  There is a little girl there too who is 6 months younger than Emily and they are firm friends for sure :) 

They have started to venture out to some of the activities the homebased care company puts on and Emily loves them!  Lots of fun!

We have had a few milestone birthdays in the family recently - a 30th for Emily's uncle, a 60th for her Nana and a 21st for a cousin!  Wow!  We made the cakes for the 60th and the 21st - very yummy work indeed, even though Chris is working hard and long hours in his new (since March) Bakery Supervisor role.  Chris starts work at 10am and finishes at 8.30pm but doesn't get home until 9.15pm, so it's Mummy all the way in terms of Emily's care etc!  It is full on but I love spending that time with her!  So I am doing the drop offs and pick ups, but... we get weekends together, for the first time in the 10 years we have known each other!!  So that is incredible and to be honest we are still adapting to it!!  It's weird to have so much time together on the weekends, they feel long and relaxed.... like they should.

In other news, we are soon to have a whole new routine as Emily will be going to daycare 5 days a week as it's getting too tricky to get my work done at home on my Tuesdays and Thursdays with her, so we have a lot of changes ahead!  And there are some things we are trying to help her with in terms of readiness.. moving to 1 sleep a day as she is still on 2 (mild success, still 2 sleeps at the mo, but the first one is much shorter than it used to be) ... attempting to get her to feed herself from a spoon (some success, but she has lost interest now!) ... sitting at a table and chair for her meals (she loves this!!), so we are getting there.  It will be a big change for us all but we feel ready to face it.  Especially as Emily has been walking for 2 months now (I can proudly say that I was working at home the VERY day she took her first steps so I saw it all!)!  And totally full of beans.... Here's to new adventures!

Sneaking out for a quick bite on a Friday Chris wasn't working.. wow, a totally foreign feeling enjoying food without our Princess around!!

Loving the table and chair!

              

18months old - wow!

Playtime while with her lovely carer!

Moving forwards... in leaps and bounds!

Well, Emily has recently hit 2 big milestones... crawling (forwards!) - she was crawling backwards for a while there but now is going forwards and is very, very fast!!  And has also learnt to stand up pulling herself up using the playpen, the feet seats, the TV table... me... basically anything she can!!  

It is so sweet to see her doing these incredible activities when, only a short time ago, she was a little pink blob brought home from the hospital.  My how time flies, especially when you are having fun :) 

We have also recently bought a playpen (!) to keep her safe, especially when I am working at home.  So far she is enjoying it and will often read her books and shake her rattles quietly to herself.. such a sweet little girl.

We are just really enjoying this new phase - every phase is my favourite actually!  She is very active, reactive, interactive - it's amazing, and really starting to copy us, all our sounds and noises!

I think she is getting more teeth.. she has just woken for a cuddle and some Pamol (pretty unusual for her) and that's the 3rd night since Friday night she has done so.  Molars?  Eye teeth?  Eeek!  Here's to another restful night's sleep, night everyone!

O.N.E.

Well, it's official... we have a darling little One Year Old!!  It was Emily's birthday on Friday last week and I would have written but we were too busty preparing for the party and celebrating her birthday!!  We had an absolutely incredible time, and Emily seemed to enjoy it all, even though she was a little overwhelmed at times!!

In our regular monthly birthday photoshoot, Emily proudly plays with the wooden ONE loaned to us by our neighbour... lucky we had Chris there to help this time as Em does not sit still anymore, photoshoot or no shoot!!  Gone are the days when she would lay happily and played with something for ages, now it's what can she grab, and how quickly can she get to it - by backwards crawling, I might add :)  She is yet to master crawling towards things!  Despite mine and Chris's best demonstratiuon efforts!

And so, her birthday... what an exciting day!!  We opened presents in the morning and Emily cried at her main pressie, a toy elephant which sings and shoots air and plastic balls out of its trunk!!  I tried hard not to laugh at her reaction but it was very difficult!!  And Chris started on the cake... A gorgeous 1, with fairies, toadstools and butterflies everywhere.  The fondant decorations were made for us by a friend.  It was exactly what I wanted for the cake!  And mine is the opinion which matters hehe!  Granny arrived too in the afternoon which was lovely so we had a good catch up and she got plenty of baby cuddles too.

On the day of the party we had all our lovely family and friends here to help celebrate Emily's big day.  The weather was perfect - sunny but not too hot; there was plenty of food and lovely $2 shop decorations (can't go wrong there but funny how you spend a whole lot more than just $2 hehe!!) and of course our Birthday Fairy Princess was loving the attention and celebration!  See the wings below... there was a wand, somewhere too. 

I was very proud of us for creating this stunning "1" of photos too - well, that's what it is in case you were wondering!  All of our fave pics of our Baby Girl... where have the months gone??  Happy Birthday Emily Darling xxx