Random musings on my wonderful daughter...

We were going to get a height chart to monitor the growth of our little (but getting bigger all the time) girl, but now we've decided just to see which shelf of our CD cabinet she can reach to pull all the cds off with both hands (we're up to the fifth one on tippytoes).

Sophia is, at age 11 months, a little hurricane known affectionately as 'my little destructor'. She grabs everthing she can reach and lobs it onto the floor, and has now worked out how to open her clothes drawers and takes great delight in grabbing each item of clothing, investigating it, then chucking it behind her before going onto the next one. The lower two shelves of her bookcase meet with the same treatment. I probably shouldn't crack up laughing when she does but I can't help it!

She was fitted for her first pair of 'Start right' shoes yesterday (size 2G - she has very wide feet just like her mummy), and managed to lose one of them within 5 minutes of wearing them this morning. Unfortunately I didn't notice until we were 15 minutes down the road, so we backtracked all the way back up the hill, couldn't find it so continued on our way, but then on the way home noticed it perched atop a fence railing so it has now been reunited with its pair. Good thing too, I can't believe how much they charge for such teensy tiny shoes!

My poor little one hasn't been very well the past few days, and has needed extra cuddles and sleeps to get her through her grumpy grumps. This morning she woke after only 15 minutes so I took her into bed with me and we fell asleep nose-to-nose with my precious darling nestled in my arms against my body, and we stayed like that for the next hour and a half. It was perfect, just bliss. I love being next to her when she awakens, her eyes half open so sleepily, then close and open a few more times as she works out where she is, and then when she sees me I get the sweetest sleepy smile.

I go back to work in two weeks and am in agony at the thought of missing precious days with my beautiful girl. We have spent the past year together, every single day, and it's going to be a huge shock to the system. I have been told that she is young enough to adjust to a new care situation quite quickly and easily...I'll guess we'll just have to wait and see. She might adjust quickly, I'm not so sure about me.

She is surprisingly robust and takes tumbles and knocks that would have me in tears but she just gets back up again and keeps on with what she was doing. She's very determined (stubborn?). She's also very strong and can lift and move things that I would have thought were too much for her. It means another sweep of the house for the next level of child proofing - what can she now haul down onto herself?

I bought her three plastic trucks to wheel around and gave her one to play with before her bath time tonight. When I went back into the bathroom the truck had vanished and Sophia was standing waving at the bath - she had lobbed it over the quite-high-side of the bath into the water and was peering over the top and watching it sink into the bubbles!

We have moved to the next stage car seat, as we now have a car (gratitude and appreciation in VERY large quantities to Neil and Alison) and I now have a UK licence (after intially being turned down by the DVLA, long story, but we found a workaround ;) ). Having a car has changed my life! Walking? What's that? Surely only something you do to and from your car?! Sophia was hating her old baby seat even though she still fitted into it, so we are now the proud owners of a Maxicosi Tobi in a soft purple velvety type fabric - practicality be damned! - and Sophia has stopped crying when she sees the car now, and in fact finds it so comfortable she can be asleep within 30 seconds. Plus she looks sooooo cute in it.

We are in the final stages of organising Sophia's christening and early first birthday party on July 5th. We are hoping for good weather because the plan is for a picnic lunch in our park. If it's raining we're going to try to fit 30 or so people into our small flat - ack!

Sophia's little personality is emerging more and more. She is full of laughter and playfulness and smiles, is affectionate and sweet, and is developing very firm ideas of what she wants and doesn't want. She now stands unsupported for a few seconds at a time, and cruises around the furniture in a very cute baby toddle motion. This week she has started to take the spoon and feed herself and has mini tantrums if I don't let her, pushing her water bottle and anything else she can reach onto the floor and yelling loudly. She says mumumum very clearly now (poor Stu, still no 'dada' yet!), and is starting to make a wider range of vocalisations including a sweet 'aaah' when she works out how to do something. This week she has also worked out how to undo her nappy tabs, so I have to get her pants over the top very quickly, and is starting to hate her nappy being changed leading to a 'game' of her flipping onto her stomach and trying to roll off the table and crawl away, followed by us flipping her back, followed by yelling and fierce kicking of legs in protest. Ah it's all good and we wouldn't have it any other way!

We went to the park today with a friend and sat drinking the prosecco she kindly brought for me and eating cake in celebration at finishing exams for this year - the last (and worst) one was Friday morning. I *think* I passed them all. And when I say 'passed', I unfortunately don't mean anything above the equivalent of about a 'D', or maybe a 'C' if I'm lucky. It's been a ****ing hard slog, trying to do this as a Mum, I really don't know what I was thinking. I am beyond shattered. Really must dust my superwoman cape off and send it to the drycleaners. Ah hindsight. At least I have a year before the next ones, and having staggered third year over two years I only have to contend with two exams next May. And with all this stress I've dropped a much needed dress size. Not the most ideal weightloss scenario though.

My little darling girl, my precious, giggly, sweet, cuddly, funny babe is coming along in leaps and bounds. I swear she is developing a sense of humour, she cackles when she thinks she has done something funny, a kind of 'hehehe' sound, rather than a giggle. It's priceless. We took her stroller to the park with us today and she had a fabulous time zooming over the grass at speed. She can't walk independently yet but put her behind the stroller and she is incredibly mobile. She hasn't worked out how to turn it around yet so she just keeps going in a long straight line through the park, occasionally turning around to wave and grin at us all lounging on the picnic blankets. I love this pic Stu took as we were going home, she loves stopping and waving at everyone and anyone, me included!