This weekend you spent lots of time with Daddy, including helping to make pizza dough for our lunch. Weighing out the ingredients, mixing them together then kneading dough ready for it to rise. You are a great cook, and can tell us lots of the ingredients needed to make things, even if you aren’t yet patient enough to understand that things do take time to cook. You already know and understand such a wide range of things that it feels like there aren’t enough things in the world for you to learn. Your language is developing wonderfully and you have started to use new phrases like ‘join in’ and this week have learnt your surname. Your imagination makes me smile and laugh. I asked if you were going to fly planes when you were older and you told me that yes you are, but not in the sky, in space! To the cheesy moon! You are imaginative, joyful, expressive and opinionated.
Greedy Evie is here to stay. You want to try everything and bend over backwards, literally, to get what you desire. You are open to new tastes and textures, everything must be sampled. I’m never quite sure how much you’ve had, but you are happy and content. I need to get you weighed to check how you’re getting on, but I suspect that the introduction of food will have helped your previous centile languishing.
Ever determined you strive to get the things that take your fancy, through a combination of reaching, rowling, shuffling and spinning around. That beautiful smile of yours gets broader but those teeth of yours are causing us some broken sleep. You had started to have a pretty standard routine of falling asleep in daddies arms around 7, sleeping in your cot at 7.30pm and then waking for a feed around 10/11. You had your first swimming lesson this week, and despite being rudely awoken and abruptly thrown into your swim suit, you took to the water with your usual big smile and flurry of kicks. It was lovely to take the time just the two of us, you are such a water baby and it is magical to see you in your element. I get the feeling I’ll be sitting by the pool side for many years to come.
Here you are stealing some beans from your brothers plate, after eating your very first meal out at a restaurant in London. People literally stopped to say hello to you, to see you sitting up in your high chair. They were amazed by you and couldn’t help but stare. You were just concentrating on making your way through chicken, cucumber and beans as if your life depended on it. I am only feeding you 4 times in the day time now and I can feel it won’t be that much longer that you will want your milk. It feels bitter-sweet to see you gaining your independence, grasping these new skills with vigour. Your daddy can’t stand to see you grow up, he wants to cuddle you all day and ensure you’re never a teenager!We have been in the kitchen this week making a mess, perhaps even a little more mess than I imagined. Throwing together some banana muffins, we weighed out the ingredients and then you poured them into the mixing bowl. The … Continue reading
living arrows 28 & 29/52
July 21, 2014 by Jenni Clutten | 0 comments
Your determination and spirit make me so proud. You have a thirst for learning, taking everything in with all your senses, you do nothing by halves. You can pull up to standing and drag yourself across a room, just with the strength in your arms. It was a bit of a killer last week, as you have only taken cat naps before wanting to explore more. You fall asleep in my arms full to the brim with milk, I wait and carefully transplant you to your cot before I exhale. Then, as I quietly race down the stairs and turn to the kitchen, I place my fingers on the kettle. I hear your call and return back to my place on the sofa where you promptly fall asleep, I remain stuck underneath you. Sometimes it makes me frustrated, there are just so many things to be done, but other times I just stare down at you knowing that tomorrow your hair will be longer, your eyes will be bigger and I won’t be able to get yesterday back.
We laugh daily at your theatrical nature, recounting your version of events with your eyes, words and body. I cherish our little chats, especially as you start to remember friends and family and understanding the passing of time. I told you the story of little red riding hood from my memory a few weeks ago and you often ask ‘story mummy’. The story has changed quite a lot now, but the current version involves Nye, who is bringing a buzzby cake to his grandma, the wolf steals it, Grandad says ‘shoo away wolf’, then he says sorry and has tea and cake. When not chatting, you are ‘making cakes’ in the mud outside, offering out stones and rolling out play dough. It’s safe to say you like cake!
Water plays a major part in our life, it is always such a great way of keeping you happy. You make up your own games and sing songs, making up tunes and words if you can’t quite remember them. You love to splash yourself and shock yourself with the cold water, screaming out with joy. Today you sang humpty dumpty like we do at your swimming lessons and jumped into the bucket. You so want to splash that you jump in when you sing ‘wall’ because you can’t wait for the ‘fall’. 
A blissful moment of silence in what has been an exhausting week. I barely dared to press the shutter to capture you, terrified that I would disturb you. You continue to grow up, strong, enquiring and happy (when you’re not causing havoc by refusing to settle in your cot). You are most vocal at the dinner table. When the food runs out, or others are eating without you, you crumple your nose up and inhale and exhale deeply to show your dissatisfaction with the situation. You do it so often now that Nye does impressions of you, laughing to himself saying ‘Evie talking’.
When you are not sleeping or feeding you just coo away happily at us. Even your brother is transfixed by your charms and your blossoming relationship makes my heart flutter. Here you are, hand in hand after we enjoyed some cake at the Black Country Museum to celebrate your brothers 2nd birthday.
