I didn't have a very good photo week this week, but then Jen came at the weekend and took so many lovely ones that I couldn't choose which to post, so a couple from this week have been borrowed from next week...
Saturday 19 May
Just goofing around. A rare shot of Daisy both looking at the camera AND smiling.
Sunday 20 May
The weather's starting to get better, so we've been spending more time in the garden. Daisy loves playing in the sand :).
Monday 21 May
When I went to get Daisy out of bed this morning, she'd pulled her changing mat off the tray and was sleeping on it. By the time I'd got my camera from downstairs she looked like this.
Tuesday 22 May
Trying out my new sunglasses...
Wednesday 23 May
Not sure what was quite so captivating :).
Thursday 24 May
Cheeky!
Friday 25 May
We had an impromptu visit from Alicia today! Daisy loved spending time with her, and we only had to wait an hour and a half after she left before another visitor arrived for the weekend. More on that next week...
Wow, only three months till Daisy's two! News this month is that she's started going to nursery one day a week, on a Thursday. It's a lovely place just at the end of our road and she's settling in really well there. Her key worker is Laura and the other two staff members in Daisy's age group are Carla and Louise, and they're all great. The first week was quite difficult - more for me than for Daisy :). She started to cry when we got to the nursery in the morning (she'd been for three settling-in sessions so knew where she was, and also knew that I'd be leaving soon), and I felt guilty about leaving her and started tearing up myself. When she saw that I was upset she cried even more, so after some sympathy from the staff members they suggested that I just leave and she'd be fine. Sure enough, I called the nursery after half an hour and was told she'd cried for a couple of minutes and had been absolutely fine since then. She did have a moment at nap time as it's a lot different from the way she naps at home - it's much earlier, for a start; they put them down at noon, whereas she naps from 13:30 till 15:00 at home, plus the room wasn't as dark as she's used to, but Carla lay down with her and cuddled her till she fell asleep, and she slept for an hour. When I went to pick her up I took a look in the window before going in the room and she was running round with the other kids, perfectly happy. When she saw me, I half-expected her to cry, but she just said, 'Hello Mummy. Daisy draw a picture!'
Daisy's speech is slowly moving from one- and two-word phrases to slightly longer sentences. For instance, she now asks where something's gone: rather than 'where ball?' she now asks 'where's the ball gone?' She's also learning her right and left, and while she hasn't quite got it sussed yet (if you ask her which foot this is, she almost always says the right one, regardless of whether it's the right or left), she's definitely getting there. I keep having to watch how I praise her - my usual phrase is 'that's right!' but I don't want to confuse her when she correctly identifies her left foot... ;).
She has a couple of really cute phrases that make me laugh every time she says them - evidently if I inadvertently knock her or something, I say 'Oops! Sorry darling', because if she does something to warrant an 'Oops', such as dropping something, she says 'Sorry darling' straight after it :). She got some new slippers last month with dogs on them, and she started calling them 'goggies' instead of slippers. This progressed to us saying 'shall we put your doggies on?' to her now calling them her 'goggie-ons'. She's also started to pre-empt my praising her for doing something really good by saying 'Wen [well] done Daisy!'
This month she's consolidated her love for Peppa Pig, and can sometimes be heard singing the theme tune, although she won't do it when I get the video camera out :). She loves muddy puddles, as Peppa does, and when we go 'gidding' [digging] in the garden she spends a lot of time splashing through any puddle she can find. If there aren't any, she likes it when I pour water onto the mat we have in front of the shed, which has a lip all around it so the water can't escape, and she uses that as a muddy puddle instead. She has developed a taste for the Muppets, which is something Jon was happy to have cultivated but now wishes he hadn't been quite so successful as the 'Best of the Muppets' DVD we have is getting very worn very quickly... She can say Kermit, Miss Piggy, Fozzy Bear, Gonzo and Rolf, and she calls them the 'Nup-pets'.
When I ask her to listen to me, I sign the word 'listen' at the same time as saying the word, by cupping my hand round my ear. She now does her version too, which involves opening her eyes as wide as possible, touching her cheek with her fingers and saying 'Sen!'
Our bedtime routine now includes songs as well as story time. Her current favourite books are The Very Hungry Caterpillar puppet book, 'Doctor Daisy' and her Story Town friends 'Queen Clara' and 'Teacher Tina'. Her favourite songs are Five Speckled Frogs and Five Little Ducks, and my favourite is a Sing & Sign one called 'Open Shut' because the last line is 'Now I need a cuddle' and she throws her arms around my neck ;). I'll try and get her on video singing it. She really doesn't perform on demand - the other day I distinctly heard her singing 'Lighty budda dweam' (Row, row, row the boat), but as soon as I suggested that we sing it together, she said 'No' and that was that :). I have, however, managed to take videos of these three songs/rhymes over the past month.
Finally, she weighs 22lbs 9oz, so for the majority of clothes retailers, she still easily fits into 9-12 month clothes, which are usually up to 25lbs. I love my tiny little girl!
Daisy was at Daddy's this weekend, and he sent me this lovely picture of her stroking a goat in the petting zoo. Of course, she enjoyed washing her hands afterwards as much as she did petting the goat.
Sunday 13 May
I went to a baby shower in Bromley this afternoon. It was lovely, which was just as well as it took me two and a half hours to get there and three hours to get home, for a three-hour party :). The journey home was longer because the trains I needed to take left me with nearly an hour's waiting time at Kings Cross, but this was the first time I'd been since they'd opened the new concourse, so I had a good look around and spent quite a lot of time marvelling at the roof structure in this picture. I also (see next picture)...
Monday 14 May
... found the new Platform Nine and Three Quarters, which wasn't difficult as it was the patch of wall that had a huge crowd next to it. But because I had a while to wait, eventually I caught it at a moment when there was no one else around.
Tuesday 15 May
Daisy and I went to Hamerton Zoo this morning, which is about 25 minutes away. She enjoyed looking at the wallabies, tigers, meerkats and owls, but mostly she just wanted to pick all the daisies and dandelions she could find :).
Wednesday 16 May
Nanna gave Daisy this dress last week. When I put it on her this morning she said 'Daisy got Upsy Daisy!'
Thursday 17 May
Goofing around before bath time...
Friday 18 May
Today when I told Daisy we were going out, she insisted on kissing Peppa goodbye before putting her coat on :).
Jon came home from work yesterday and said 'Let's go away overnight tomorrow'. So we booked a 'top secret hotel' in Knightsbridge on lastminute.com and went in to London. We bought tickets for the 39 Steps at the Criterion Theatre, but before then, we saw Avengers Assemble at the cinema and had a fabulous meal at Hibiscus, where they don't have a menu; you just choose whether you want 3, 6 or 8 courses, specify anything you absolutely won't eat off the list of typical ingredients (I said snails), and they choose a menu for you. We only had about an hour and a half because we had to get to the theatre for 8pm, so we had three courses but instead of having the same dishes, which is what they usually do, we each had different dishes so we could try each other's food as well as our own. It turned out that we had five courses anyway, because there was a pre-appetiser and a pre-dessert - not to mention bread and some delicious amuse-bouches while we were deciding on the number of courses we wanted. When we left we got a little bag with some sweets in and a copy of the menus we were given. The idea to put strawberry with celeriac, make it into a jelly and top it with szechuan pepper cream was absolutely inspired - delicious! And yes, I tried Jon's appetiser of lamb sweetbreads. They tasted quite nice, but knowing what they are, I wouldn't necessarily choose them again :).
Sunday 6 May
We picked up Daisy on the way home from London this afternoon. At one point later on Jon obviously decided to follow the fashion Daisy had set of watching the TV with something yellow in one hand and a cuddly toy in the other :).
Monday 7 May
Nanna and Grandpa arrived today! We went along to the May Day Celebrations on the village green at the end of the road - typically, it was raining, but we still had a good look around and Nanna bought Daisy this book, which they read together when we got back home. Grandpa also did a good job of holding Daisy's 'fower'.
Tuesday 8 May
We bought Daisy a Peppa Pig chair today, and she spent most of the day carrying it from room to room. She did sit on it for a little while. Then she went back to carrying it.
Wednesday 9 May
Daisy and her bag are ready to go to nursery tomorrow. I think she looks really grown up in this picture.
Thursday 10 May
While Daisy was at nursery, Mum, Dad and I went to Ely, which is about 30 miles away. We had a guided tour of the beautiful cathedral and also had time to look at Oliver Cromwell's house - he lived in Ely for 10 years - which tells the story of his life. Whilst I'll admit to having very little historical knowledge, the opinion I had formed of Cromwell based on the little I did know was called into question once I'd looked round the house and read a bit about his background and the possible reasons for his actions. Maybe I should get round to watching A History of Britain while Daisy's napping instead of the not-very-good US crime drama I like so much, then I might learn something...
Friday 11 May
Dad had the BBC News Channel on this morning and I happened to be looking at the screen when this headline came up. Classic.
We went to visit Jon's colleague and her new baby today - actually not so new now; she's 8 weeks old. Very, very cute though.
Sunday 29 April
Today it was our turn to be visited, this time by Jon's family. Daisy spent the afternoon doing anything that Jessica did :).
Monday 30 April
Nice and cosy under the blanket. When she gets fed up she says 'No cosy.'
Tuesday 1 May
We went to Messy Play at the Children's Centre today, but Daisy wasn't interested in the painting (which was fine by me; less to clean up). She loved the ball pit though!
Wednesday 2 May
I love this picture of Daisy reading a book with her friend at his Mum at Toddlers. She'd been there for quite a while before I took the photo, and didn't seem to mind a bit that I was the other side of the room.
Thursday 3 May
First full day at nursery today! As soon as we arrived this morning Daisy started crying. When we went for our three settling-in sessions she cried, but not until she noticed that I'd left. The fact that she was crying before I'd even taken a step towards the door made me upset, and I think she knew that I was upset which made her more upset. I left very quickly and cried until I got home, then I rang the nursery and they told me she was fine; she'd cried for 2 or 3 minutes then joined in playing with everyone else. As soon as I knew she was fine, I was fine. When I went back to get her at 5pm I looked in the window and she was playing happily. In fact when I got inside and kneeled at the opposite side of the drawing table she was standing at, she didn't notice me for a little while, then when she did she just said 'Hello, Mummy, Daisy draw a picture!' Here she is holding the information sheet that the nursery fills out every day - she only ate half her lunch but had all her tea, which included pears and oranges, and she enjoyed playing in the sand and with her new friends. She must have been singing 'Ring a Ring o' Roses' as it's not one that we sing much at home, but she spent all evening saying 'All fall down!'
Friday 4 May
After I'd got Daisy dressed this morning, I put some clothes away in her drawers and when I turned round she had climbed onto the chair in her room, covered her legs with a pillow and was reading herself a story :).
Daisy was at Daddy's this weekend. She enjoyed going to the zoo (as ever) and looking at the penguins, tigers, goats and wash-your-hands, and she also had fun showing us her flowers when we Skyped this afternoon :).
Sunday 22 April
We finally got the rest of the potatoes and the broad beans planted. How very Tom and Barbara.
Monday 23 April
The afore-mentioned bed design embroidery, this one for a soon-to-be one year old. Happy Birthday Oliver xx.
Tuesday 24 April
After I picked up Daisy from Daddy's and brought her home, she decided she wanted to water the vegetables in the garden. I love this shot of her with her 'pink water can'.
Wednesday 25 April
Daisy put her shoe on all by herself! Sure, it took her 5 minutes, is on the wrong foot and she got fed up trying to put the other one on, but still, well done!
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