I’ve got a headache and I’m feeling a little shivery. I’m also more in awe of my girl than ever as she’s just eaten 3 fish fingers, 5 pieces of broccoli, some sweetcorn, a tangerine and a small pot of yoghurt (most of which she spoon fed herself). We had a little sing song after supper and during Twinkle Twinkle she sang several lines on her own … some in Hope-ish but ‘Up above the world so high’ was clearly identifiable and ‘like a diamond in the sky’ was sung as ‘like dbon in eye’ but it shows she really is beginning to control language. As I type she’s sitting in her ‘castle’ (the large play pen I used to have as a child) and busying herself with her favorite toys and every now and then stopping to have a little dance to Jools Holland. All is perfect, but as I said earlier, I have a headache and really don’t feel very well, I guess I’ve been pretty lucky while she’s been small, I really haven’t had anything much wrong, feeling grotty with a small person really isn’t fun and of course there is the worry that if it does turn into something then she will catch it too.
We’ve not had great night’s sleep the last few days … well she has, but I’ve been dreaming and felt very restless so I’m probably a bit overtired, we’ve also been zipping around the area seeing people and I’ve been wracking my brains thinking how I can boost our meagre income. So, tomorrow she is going to see her wonderful child minder and I have a day to myself … and oddly and for the first time, I’m looking forward to it. I shall miss Hope, I always do, to the point of tears when we’re apart but right now I feel so weary and so behind with paperwork, writing, work applications, email, tidying and so on that I need the time to catch up with myself, it is hard keeping on top of everything … and to get on with Hope proofing the house more as every day her crawling distance and speed increases and I’m sure it won’t be that long before she is puling herself up on things and even walking. On Sunday she crawled the length of the aisle in church … I’m afraid I let her do it, it was the children’s service, and by the time she got to the group of other children at the front playing just below the font, I think the whole congregation was secretly cheering on the inside … I know that our vicar was! I felt very proud and a little wistful … and did love the fact that every now and again she stopped mid crawl, sat down and looked back at me for affirmation.
So there you are, everything is rosy in our world on one level but on the weary mommy level things are floundering a little this week.
Her firsts and achievements are coming thick and fast and she gives me ever more joy and my heart swells with pride on an hourly if not quarter of an hourly basis … but I do feel the need for a little sleep and quiet order. Maybe it is that there is so much to process and I don’t want to miss any of it, I don’t know … so … time for bed now and then tomorrow in the midst of getting ‘things’ done, I think I’ll perhaps have a walk, one where I’m not pushing a pram or carrying a small warm person, one where I can swing my arms and loosen my limbs, or perhaps I’ll have a small snooze … just a little one.
Then an hour or so before I’m due to pick her up I’ll start hating the silence and start having full and achy breasts and crave feeding my insistent little wolverine and my heart will melt when she reaches her arms out to me and grins when I pick her up. Lovely.
… but right now grumbling over, I’m taking my girl, and my headache to bed.
