Daisy and Jon spent the morning digging up the potatoes they planted in March. Got one!
Sunday 8 July
We were supposed to go to Ipswich today, to watch the British Grand Prix with Jon's family, but Daisy was sick in her bed during the night and again this morning so we didn't go. Of course, she wasn't sick again after 08:30 but given that she doesn't travel well, we didn't want to risk it. This was her and Jon at lunchtime. She was still in her pyjamas but had decided that she was well enough to put her wellies on...
Monday 9 July
Daisy insisted on wearing her sunglasses today. It wasn't at all sunny, which made her insistence even funnier. I took this photo when we got to the supermarket - I think it's great that it looks like she's giving thumbs up!
Tuesday 10 July
Love this kid.
Wednesday 11 July
Roses from the jungle that is our garden after 2 months of almost solid rain.
Thursday 12 July
Daisy's new favourite place to sit is on the kitchen counter while I make her meals. Here you can see she's demonstrating exactly the thing I ask her not to do - touch the toaster...
When we were at the Bernabeu Stadium, we bought Real Madrid t-shirts for Daisy, Eloise, Jessica and Finn. We gave them out this weekend and tried to take a picture of all four of them wearing their new shirts. This is exactly what I was expecting would happen...
Sunday 1 July
We had more luck when we took Daisy out of the equation :).
Monday 2 July
Daisy loved feeding monies into this machine. One money, two monies, three monies...
Tuesday 3 July
Kisses for Penguin.
Wednesday 4 July
Daisy doesn't like it when I brush her teeth while she's in the bath, but quite often asks to wash her hands and brush her teeth in a morning. I think she just likes standing on the bin...
Thursday 5 July
You might already have guessed by Sunday's entry (i.e. that I took it on Saturday) that I didn't take many photos this week. This photo was taken on 5 July 2011, a year ago. Apart from the fact that she looks bigger, she's hardly changed at all.
Friday 6 July
It's a hard life. Got to have a rest when you can. And a rest isn't a rest without Aggie and Ellie.
Jon was doing a cooked breakfast this morning and showed Daisy the bacon on the grill. 'Oooh!'
Sunday 17 June
We have some lovely flowers in our garden at the moment. Most of them growing under the fence from one or other of our next-door neighbours' gardens, but still ;).
Monday 18 June
Getting more confident with Betsy the cow...
Tuesday 19 June
We saw Harry twice today; he and Debbie came round this morning but neither of the kids was in a particularly good mood so Daisy and I went to see them this afternoon when naps had been had. I hate that I had my camera on the wrong setting so this picture is all grainy, but I still love the picture.
Wednesday 20 June
Daisy often asks to see next-door's dog, Izzy. This afternoon at the park Clare came out with Izzy, and Daisy asked to stroke her. I'm pleased that she's not frightened of animals (more than she is of anything else), as I was afraid of dogs as a kid and really didn't want her to be. She had a great time stroking Izzy - that is, until Izzy licked her face, and she decided she'd had enough :).
Thursday 21 June
I made a trifle today! Actually I made two; one for our neighbours and one for Jon. I was pleased with how they turned out, even if it did take a couple of attempts to make edible custard.
Friday 22 June
Hugs for Penguin. After I took this photo I said something along the lines of 'Is Daisy giving penguin some nice cuddles?' and she replied 'Yes, I love it.' :)
Ugh, it's 12 July already, and if I don't write this post soon I'll forget what she learned in June and what was in July. I usually make notes on my phone so I won't forget anything by the time the 24th of the month comes round, but I don't have all that many notes for June, so this post might be quite short...
Daisy's speech is still coming on in leaps and bounds, and she regularly comes out with full or almost-full sentences. Favourites this month are 'Time to go home now', which usually comes accompanied by the sign for 'home' (touching your hands together at the fingers to make an inverted 'V'), 'Crawling on the sofa' which is a new favourite pastime, and 'Drumming with Numtums', one of her favourite TV shows and the reason she recognises numbers so easily. This one comes with a few drums on her tummy :).
We're still working on left and right, and it's almost there. We'll move on to letters next :).
Talking of letters, Daisy still loves reading her Story Town books. She's read them so many times now that she knows the end of almost every sentence. Here's this week's top story, Queen Clara (which sounds more like Queen Koala when Daisy says it): -
She loves playing 'Catch You' with Jon when he gets home from work - this involves chasing each other around the upstairs of our house. Incidentally, she still calls Jon 'Dee' and we've decided just to do the same. I think it's cute.
She's had a pretty good month this month - long may it continue!
Auntie Clare came to visit this weekend and we didn't take a single photos of anyone but Daisy! Typical... She liked the fact that the sofa was a bed when she got downstairs this morning, and insisted on singing the sleeping bunnies song before we put the bed away.
Sunday 10 June
Daisy found it hilarious to lie at the bottom of the stairs and stamp the wall with her feet. I found her in this position a few times this week. Maybe it's where she does her best thinking.
Monday 11 June
There's a story behind Betsy the Cow but I've tried to put it succinctly and can't, so suffice to say that it wasn't intended for Daisy but we ended up with two, so she got one of them. Her immediate reaction, and hardly a surprising one, was 'No cow.' She did warm to her eventually though, and even sat on her for a moment or two, but this was the best photo I could get as a second later she had got off and decided that cow riding was not for her.
Tuesday 12 June
She does, however, like carrying Betsy from room to room. 'Mind yer backs, lads!'
Wednesday 13 June
Daisy has had a cough and a snotty nose for a couple of days, but she threw up at Toddlers this morning - thankfully only on the floor, not on anyone else. I took her home and by the evening she had a temperature of 101. The middle of the day, however, she was fine; she loved sitting on the kitchen counter watching me attempt to make the lunch one-handed while also ensuring that she didn't fall off.
Thursday 14 June
Daisy's temperature was back to normal by this morning, but she was incredibly tired and I had already decided not to take her to nursery when she threw up her breakfast. So we had a quiet day at home, and again, apart from the time she spent vomiting, the rest of the day she was fine. Here she is taking her own temperature again, just to be sure.
Friday 15 June
Another vomiting incident this morning, this time all over me. And herself, and the blanket that covers the chair in her bedroom, and a cushion, and a couple of her books, and the floor. Same as before, the rest of the day she was fine, but we stuck to crackers and water so as not to induce another episode. I didn't take her to the doctor as we've been before for this sort of thing, and their advice is just to keep her hydrated and see it through, so that's what we'll do. I still managed to get this beautiful shot of her this morning. Get well soon, baby girl :).
Daisy went to Rob's this morning for the Jubilee weekend and Jon and I spent the second half of the day travelling to Madrid, arriving at our hotel at around 23:30 local time. While we were waiting at the airport for our ride into the city I mentioned to Jon that I hadn't taken any photos today, and he took this. So this is the best you get, I'm afraid.
Sunday 3 June
Our first proper day of holiday saw us making a fair few wrong decisions, but none of them had serious consequences. One of the best decisions we made, however, was to go to the Bernabeu Stadium and do the stadium tour, which was excellent. When we got there I took Jen's camera out of the bag - she lent us her hybrid camera, which is smaller than my SLR but takes better pictures than a point-and-shoot - and only then did I remember that she'd said I should put my own memory card in it... So all the photos we took of the weekend were on our phones, and not the best quality, but we still got some lovely shots. Here we are pitch-side.
Monday 4 June
Today we took the train to Toledo, about 50 miles away. It was a beautiful town and we had a lovely afternoon wandering round the tiny streets.
Tuesday 5 June
I didn't take any photos at all today, so here's a shot taken on Sunday of Madrid from the Teleferico, a cable car that goes over the Casa de Campo, a huge park on the west side of town, and gives great views over the city. We flew home today, arriving back into a rainy, cold Heathrow. I wished I'd put some socks and shoes in the boot of the car; my feet were freezing by the time we got home :).
Wednesday 6 June
Another one to add to the collection! I don't actually know which Madrid landmark is depicted in the picture; I've tried googling it but haven't found it yet.
Thursday 7 June
Daisy does her best impression of a robot before heading out to nursery.
Friday 8 June
The weather was awful today, and as it was half term there were none of the usual activities going on, so Daisy and I slowly drove each other crazy all day. We made a tunnel in the lounge, then made a bigger one in the dining room, but the shots I got of her in the bigger tunnel weren't as nice as this one.
Jen spent the post-breakfast, pre-getting dressed time pushing Daisy round the house on her trike. Which didn't take long, as our house is small. Good job the weather was nice today and we could take her outside on it later on...
Sunday 27 May
My two best girls.
Monday 28 May
Daisy likes making eggs in the sand pit (we fill the funner withsand and when we turn it out it looks like an egg. Despite appearances, it really was warm enough to be outside with nothing but a nappy on, although that wasn't my intention: she didn't want to put her clothes on and just wanted her shoes. Fair enough.
Tuesday 29 May
Yoga practice on her Peppa Pig chair.
Wednesday 30 May
She's really got the hang of putting on her sunglasses now, and actually likes wearing them :).
Thursday 31 May
This is my new Facebook profile picture. I love how similar it is to Sunday's photo :).
Friday 1 June
I spent nap time today putting together Daisy's birthday present. I know her birthday isn't for another three months, but I'm a bit worried that a lot of her toys seem a bit young for her now, and I know she loves the kitchen she has at Daddy's, so we decided to give her her present early, particularly as she'll get lots more presents on her birthday anyway. Although having assembled it, I'm not sure our lounge is big enough for it!
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!
