2012: Week 12

Saturday 17 March


Daisy and Jon planted potatoes this afternoon (see here for the full set of photos). They both had lots of fun, but I must buy her some wellies so she doesn't have to wear her lovely pink leather boots...


Sunday 18 March


We went to Ipswich for the day so Jon could cook lunch for his Mum on Mother's Day. Daisy started getting really cautious around strangers or people she doesn't see all that often from about the age of 10 months, but since about Christmas she's been a lot better, to the point where she even asked Mark to read her a story today. Mark was thrilled and only too happy to oblige :).


Monday 19 March


Now that the weather's a bit warmer, we've been spending a lot of time in the park next to the house. Daisy generally doesn't like to go on the equipment (surprise surprise), but she does love playing peekaboo behind the sign at the entrance!


Tuesday 20 March


More peekaboo, this time with a scarf.


Wednesday 21 March


I took this as we were walking home this afternoon. Unfortunately I only had my little camera with me so the quality's not great, but I love it when trees are in blossom.


Thursday 22 March


Daisy likes to try and put her own shoes on these days. She doesn't manage it, but she has fun trying :).


Friday 23 March


The first thought I had this morning when I woke up was that I have a Groupon voucher for a 12" x 16" canvas that expires on 28 March. I had expected to have a suitable photo from the shoot we're doing with Jon's Mum, but sickness bugs, operations to have grommets inserted and chicken pox have meant we've had to reschedule the shoot three times already, and it won't happen until 7 April (or later, if someone else gets ill on that day!). We took Daisy for a photo shoot last Sunday as we had a voucher for a free 12" x 10", but the shoot didn't go very well - Daisy was unhappy with the unfamiliar surroundings and cried every time I left her on the mat on her own - so we didn't buy any of the extra shots that were taken. I remembered that Daisy felt most settled, though, when the photographer got a tea set out, so I did the same thing this morning and took nearly 100 photos of her on our bed. This is the one I chose to upload for my canvas.

Nineteen Months

I was going to skip this month and just do a post every other month about stuff that Daisy's learned, but she seems to have learned such a lot this month that it warrants a post of its own.

First up, she got two new teeth this past week, although I'm not sure exactly when they came through. Her upper canines were both visible on Wednesday, but her right one is further through than her left, so it probably cut through a day or two earlier.

Her eating has got much better since we started the new policy of three meals a day with no snacks and milk instead of formula. She regularly sleeps from 19:00 till 07:00 or later - sometimes I have to wake her up at 07:45. I try to wake her up earlier than this, though, because a couple of days this week she hasn't been tired at nap time and has just sat in her bed chatting to her toys for an hour and a half. Which is fine, until we get to about 18:00 and she starts getting really cranky... :). She still doesn't eat much in the way of vegetables, so I hide loads of them in pasta sauce, but she likes chips - I make my own with spray oil, which are free on Slimming World, so don't worry, I'm not overdosing her on oil or salt. Fruit-wise, she's started eating grapes, and she loves the Annabel Karmel bags of freeze-dried apples and bananas, probably because they have Mickey Mouse and Winnie the Pooh on the packets, but as long as she's eating them, it's a step in the right direction towards eating actual fruit. Talking of Mickey Mouse, her speech is still coming on in leaps and bounds. Check out this very short but equally very cute video :).



She will attempt to repeat pretty much any two-syllable word you tell her, and her new vocab this month includes words like kisses, crazy, garden, animals, water can, garlic and silly.

Her main area of development this month has been in counting. She's moved on from last month's 'one, sezen, eight, ten!', through actually counting properly, to the current counting craze which is trying to count to ten as quickly as possible, so it sounds more like 'one, zzzz seveneightnineten!' We were looking at nurseries this week and one had mobiles hanging from the ceiling. I pulled one closer to me as I was holding Daisy, a blue star with a number 5 on it, and asked her what it was, I was expecting her to say star, or even blue, but she said five. The lady showing us round the nursery was amazed and said most kids don't learn to recognise number till they're about 2. There's a five-minute show on CBeebies called the Numtums, which she loves, and I think it has had a lot to do with her progress in recognising numbers. It's basically a counting show using cartoon animals with numbers on their tummies and since we started watching it a week ago, she's learned to recognise 3, 5, 7, 8 and 9. It makes walking to the post box fun because she looks for the house numbers on all the doors we pass. She also makes a point of looking out for the house with the 'red door', then there's 'black door', 'blue door' and 'brown door' before we get to the post box.

We've spent a lot more time in the park this month since the weather's got a bit warmer. Daisy asks to go to the park, then spends her time sitting at the bottom of the slide. I keep asking her if she wants to go on the swings, or down the slide properly, and she says no. I've come to the conclusion that encouragement is not necessarily always well received - at Tumble Tots on Thursday she was perfectly happy exploring a balance beam but as soon as I suggested she stand on it, she said no and walked away. Miss Independent, I guess :).

Happy Nineteen Months, (not so) Baby Girl!

2012: Week 11

Saturday 10 March


We went on an excursion today, to a nature reserve in Senegal, which meant I got four new stamps in my passport (out of Gambia, into Senegal, out of Senegal, back into Gambia). It really was an experience! We got a bus to the ferry port - Gambia is named for the Gambia river, which runs straight through the middle of it, from east to west, and getting from the south bank, where we're staying, to the north bank requires a ferry journey - and as it turned out, of the three ferries that travel between Banjul on the south side and Barra on the north, only one was working today. There should have been a 6am ferry from Banjul but it was cancelled as the only working ferry had ended its working day yesterday on the Barra side, so the 9am ferry, which is the one we wanted, was absolutely rammed. Literally, there were cattle as well as people and vehicles on it. We all surged onto the boat, and the lucky ones got a seat on the top deck. We, however, just stood where we were, with just enough room to turn our heads and look around every so often - that is, until the lady in front of Jen decided to sit on the deck where she was, thereby increasing the surface area she needed and encroaching on everyone else's, to the point where Jen was almost leaning forward over her as she had nowhere else to go :). Still, it was no worse than the Northern Line on the London Underground on a Friday afternoon... We saw giraffes, zebras, warthogs, monkeys, hyenas and a rhino in the nature park in Senegal, then we turned round and did the same crazy ferry crossing again :). We at least managed to get a seat on the way back, although the journey took twice as long as it should have because the captain of the boat got lost due to fog. Our guide did tell us that all timings for the ferries are in GMT - Gambia Maybe Time - and he wasn't wrong!


Sunday 11 March


We didn't take any photos today, so here's a shot of the aforementioned zebras from yesterday.


Monday 12 March


Best. Sister. Ever.


Tuesday 13 March


Our return flight was delayed by 5 hours, meaning that after we checked out of our rooms, we had an afternoon to kill before our bus took us to the airport. We spent that afternoon watching this man, Ibrahim, paint this picture of a baobab tree. £50 - cheapest commission ever!


Wednesday 14 March


A consequence of our flight being delayed was that instead of getting into Gatwick at 23:00 and to our B&B by midnight, we didn't get in till 03:45 and got to the B&B at 04:45. We had three hours' sleep, then a lovely cooked breakfast, then dropped Jen off at Gatwick station to get the train home to York, then picked up Daisy and drove home. One of the first things Jon did when we got home was take Daisy to pick daffodils for me from the garden :).


Thursday 15 March


Daisy's spent most of her waking hours over the last day sitting in the laundry basket and singing 'row, row, row the boat'.


Friday 16 March


Teddy and his Mum Sara came to visit today! It didn't occur to me to take a photo until he was ready to leave and had his coat on, then when I did grab my camera, all the shots I took had one or other of them either out of focus or not smiling, so this was the best I could get. Lovely to see you, Teddy!

2012: Week 10

Saturday 3 March


Fun running under bridges...


Sunday 4 March


And even more fun with Auntie Jen!


Monday 5 March


Cuddles for Jen before Daisy goes to Daddy's for a week...


Tuesday 6 March


... while we go here for a week! We're in the Gambia, and it's 37 degrees, with a lovely sea breeze that makes the temperature just right :).


Wednesday 7 March


We were sunbathing this afternoon and a herd of cattle walked past on the beach. Guess it's a common occurrence round here as no one batted an eye lid.


Thursday 8 March


The view from my sun lounger. Bliss.


Friday 9 March


This is a baobab tree, and I love the look of this one. Puts the lone cypress to shame in my opinion. I also love how it's growing out of the side of the hill, with not much but the surrounding guest rooms to support its roots... :)

2012: Week 9

Saturday 25 February


Cornflake? Don't mind if I do, thank you Grandpa...


Sunday 26 February


Jon bought some seed potatoes this morning and Daisy helped him plant them. I love the look on her face.


Monday 27 February


Daisy's loving her independence now that she's really steady on her feet. I have trouble getting her to come in the house when we get home from wherever we've been, and usually end up chasing her down the street and bribing her with food to get her to come in...


Tuesday 28 February


Every time we go out or come home Daisy has to have a look at the 'fowers'...


Wednesday 29 February


I proposed to Jon today. This is the 'ring' I got him :). Oh, and he said yes.


Thursday 1 March


Daisy was a bit cranky when we went grocery shopping this afternoon. I gave her the packet of kitchen roll to hold because it had a picture of an elephant on it, and she was very reluctant to give it up when we got back to the car, so she travelled home holding it.


Friday 2 March


Nothing calms her down quite like Aggie - so called because it's the closest Daisy comes to pronouncing 'Blankie'.