Proper Grown-up Girl

Emma is now 22 months old and no longer my baby. She has a very advanced vocabulary and often therefore appears older than she actually is. People talk to her expecting her to talk back and she often does! We have mostly 2-3 word sentences but sometimes more and she likes to recite nursery rhymes - after a fashion at least.

Baa baa sheep
Have....wool
Yes sir
Master
One Dame
Little boy..... lannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnne.

LOL!

I love it when she comes up and initiates conversation. She loves to ask "what's that" and ask for "this one" to be explained. She is all too clear about demanding "read it" and has her favourite books. "Duck in the Truck" is much loved as is "The Rat-A-Tat Hat Book". "That's Not My ..." are still firm favourites too. She also adores Charlie & Lola because of her big sister.

She loves to chat and to sing and to just give you a running commentary on her life. She's super cute and super ditsy and we love her to bits. She likes to know that we are all where we should be and will look around the dinner table going "mummy's home", "daddy's home" etc. If her big brother is on a tea date she'll look at his chair in a very puzzled way!

Zebra is still her favourite toy but she now has a small doll to go alongside. Baby is allowed out of the house because I can replace her. Toys R Us no longer do their purple & white zebras and I had such a job when I lost the original that I don't dare put him at risk again!

She still sleeps well and eats well and is generally super chilled and laid back. I am very blessed.

More words

Emma is now 14 months old and, like her siblings, is a regular little chatterbox!

Her favourite word remains "up"! But we also have daddy, mama/Emma (not sure which of these she is actually trying to say), book, shoes, cup, good attempts at both Luke and Naomi, car, off, on, in, out. She makes great lion, cat and elephant noises. She's also really good at giving you things when you ask without you having to hold your hand out as a visual clue to what you've said. Her comprehension really is excellent. Yes, I know, I'm biased, but this IS my blog!

She's also started signing much more and does a great "no" sign whilst saying "nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo". Other times she'll simply turn her head away and say "no". Very definite about what she does and doesn't like is my littlest one. She is definitely signing "eat" although she does it quickly so you have to watch for it if you suspect that's the problem.

In the last week or so she's started cruising and has had a few steps independantly with the brick trolley! And we've had a couple of times when she's pulled herself up and then let go. She doesn't remain up for more than a few seconds but the thought is obviously there. She may yet be walking by Christmas! She is just so fast at crawling and she still bum shuffles brilliantly if she has both hands full.

We now have 7 teeth and the eating is as good as ever. She's weaned herself off the breast now, sniff sniff, so that's breastfeeding now done for me. But at least she chose it, that was what I always wanted, so I'm grateful for that.

Emma is ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! OMG!

Yes, unbelieveably, my gorgeous Emma is one. A baby no longer but developing into an amazing little girl. Time is going by so fast but I'm so enjoying it, she is so much fun and full of everything.

There have been many developments the last couple of months. She now has 4 teeth - 2 top, 2 bottom - which are really helping her eating. There is nothing she won't try, nothing she won't eat, although she is still very forceful at saying she has had enough! After weeks of messing about she has suddenly taking to eating food off a fork with admirable skill once it has been loaded for her and she is trying the same with her spoon.

2 weekends ago she started crawling yahoo! She is SO much happier; she was getting very frustrated at going nowhere or backwards, further and further away from where she was trying to get. So this is a great advancement. There are also signs of beginning to pull up on furniture. I think I can bet on her being the latest of mine to eventually walk - the other 2 were confident standers by now and Luke only 2 weeks off actually walking - but I don't think it is going to take as long as I thought it might.

I also wanted to record her words. She says hiya and yeah, sometimes in context and sometimes not. Naomi gets very frustrated when she asks and asks a question and Emma just doesn't respond! She likes the "p" sound - we have up and pop (when doing up her nappy wrap poppers) - and also the "k" sound - book and milk. She hasn't picked up signing like the other 2 did but I can tell that her understanding is just as good, she's just lazy lol.

Happy Birthday darling girl.

So Many Changes

I haven't blogged for 3 months - oops! And so much has changed. Emma is now 10 months old and it is as if she was never not here.

Eating-wise she just eats everything we do. She cut her two bottom front teeth around the 9 month mark and these have helped but she was doing just dandy without them to be honest. I can't think of a single thing she doesn't like yet - phew, another child who isn't overly fussy. I really feel for those whose children eat a narrow range of things because I know I just wouldn't have the patience. It is still death to anyone who gets between her and an avocado!

We even risked it and took a foreign holiday. Luke & Naomi SO loved Ibiza last year that we went to Menorca and had a fabulous week weather and food wise. The older two, somewhat annoyingly but maybe predictably, turned their noses up at most tapas but Emma just kept opening her mouth for more. A big favourite was some stuffed aubergine. Not sure what was in it but it looked a bit like the baba ganoush from the Middle East. All soft and ever so gently spicy. I was really looking forward to it but barely got a look in once gannet features had had her first mouthful !!!!!

We are still mostly spoon-feeding, she just hasn't taken to BLW like Naomi did. But she is so ready for food that that's OK. She manages lunch herself, sandwiches, mini-quiches and the like. And last night we had BBQ chicken, veg and potatoes so we cut those up into finger pieces and that was fine too. It is just SO lovely to all sit around the table as a family and know that we are planning on doing this for years to come.

I'm ecstatic that I'm still breastfeeding alongside the solids. Even though she has teeth it is still going swimmingly and the goal of a whole year is most definitely in sight woohoo! The downside is that she still won't really drink from a sippy/spouted cup of any kind. In this ridiculously (but nice!) hot weather that means I can't give her a drink for the car seat or the pushchair and that concerns me a bit that she can't just help herself like her siblings did at this age. But it is a small price to pay. In no other way is breastfeeding at all inconvenient - especially with no night feeding and sleeping through no yahoo!

Food glorious(?) food

Haven't blogged for a while but life is SO hectic with 3 children.

Emma was doing really well with her food. I think chilli is the only thing she really wasn't fond of and we were just on the verge of introducing breakfast when she got really grumpy and grizzly and off all food except cold, smooth stuff. After a couple of terrible nights and a really miserable girl, a trip to the docs has revealed a throat infection. So she's on antibiotics and I've just taken her off food altogether. No point her trying to swallow with a red, raw throat. Still, she loves her booby milk so that's OK. And it comforts her so much I'm just glad to be able to do it.

As we are mostly spoon feeding I have decided that, as with ds, there is no harm in having the odd jar of something in the cupboard for when I'm in a hurry or when I want to go out and am a bit concerned about what I would feed her. Things have moved on in 6 years though, unsurprisingly!, so our emergency stocks are now Ella's Organic pouches. Emma loves the carrot, apple & parsnip and the one with sweet potato in - she has a real prediliction for all things orange lol.

I had a whole week of them for lunches when DH was working obscenely long hours recently and I was trying to manage all 3 children their entire waking hours for a fortnight. So easy. But I don't want to fall into that trap either. So to celebrate his return to normal we went to Pizza Express and Emma happily munched her way through half of my lasagne - good girl!

We've now given her both pasta and rice and she has taken to them much more easily than Naomi. She loves spaghetti and also daddy's home-made macaroni cheese. I've yet to try her on an omelette but might do that at the weekend.

I've realised that as a family, at the moment, we aren't eating an enormous amount of veg on the side of the meal. We do lots of carrot, onion, peppers in our bolognaise, casserole or chilli, and of course, we roast lots on a Sunday with whatever meat we are cooking. But I need to get us back into the habit of having peas, beans, corn, broccoli etc., to boost all of our health. So far, touch wood, I have avoided the flu I usually get if I'm not pregnant at this time of year. Not sure how but am not desperate to find out!

What a difference a week makes.

Haven't blogged for a week and things have really changed and developed. Emma has totally got the hang of chewing stuff and moving it to the sides of her mouth so it is between the bumpiest & hardest bits of her gums.

She is also drinking water well from her doidy cup. The first of my 3 children to take to water straight away. Strange but welcome, I really shouldn't complain!

She has had lots of new tastes as well. She is nearly 6 months so we decided, as we aren't a family with allergies, to start giving her the things you are supposed to wait on. So she's had bread and cheese and roast chicken. Bread is absolutely adored and I crumbled half a slice into some tomato and basil soup which made that go down a real treat as well. Like the other 2 she is really liking jacket potatoes and you can mix anything into those woohoo.

So we are now on 2 meals a day and she is down to the one night waking!!!!!!!! She also has fewer short breastfeeds, preferring to have a good long one halfway between her mealtimes. Makes the struggles of the last few weeks feel really worth it as she is really really really enjoying her food.

She even had a good go at some apricot halves. They are slippery because they are out of a tin but she can extract all the goodness and even deal with the stringy bits that get left. An apple wedge didn't go down half as well.....

Switch timings?

After a bit more of the same as before we went away for the weekend. On Saturday night Emma refused to eat barely anything but on Sunday lunch it was a whole different story. She had the inside of 2 roast potatoes, at least 1 carrot stick and a good munch on a green bean.

So I'm beginning to wonder if lunch time is a better time for her even if it isn't for me. She is usually asleep at the time that Naomi and I eat. I might have to start taking food out with me for her although she's not yet old enough to have the finger food that it is easiest to do that with. She isn't 6 months for another 10 days and she isn't having any meat or wheat or dairy until then.

Ho hum. 10 days isn't a long time in the scheme of things for her just to carry on at dinner time and not eat much. She was doing some very good chewing of the potato and a lot less of everything came back out again which is brilliant.

The b's of broccoli and banana

We were having spaghetti bolognaise tonight so I switched back to whole carrot sticks and did some broccoli as well. She found the idea of holding the food a bit odd today, it did look like she was looking for the spoon! Her mouth was open and she was staring at my hand. So I know I'm holding the broccoli in this picture and that that isn't strictly BLW. But she had a good munch. And carrot sticks she was sucking in whole. We had our first gag after she managed to gum off a good bit. If she can get the food into the sides of her mouth between her gums then she chews just like you or I would, which is fabulous.

We also tried her on a bit of banana for pudding. With Naomi we held off on fruit because we didn't want her to get a sweet tooth and it totally backfired in one sense. Even at nearly 3 she struggles to eat fruit, she really doesn't seem very interested. Although she doesn't have that sweet tooth so that is something to be grateful for! She is as disinterested in most kinds of pudding, cake or sweets.

Here is what the aftermath looked like!

More of the same

Tried Emma on more pureed roast veg tonight and it was pretty much the same story. She is definitely loving the taste but struggling with what a spoon is for. Hey ho!

Is she really ready?

Having done one child (my son) the traditional puree way and another (my first daughter) the BLW way, I thought I would see what Emma thought of pureed veg. We had some left over from Sunday night so I let it down with some breastmilk and warmed it through.

Once again she was very eager and seemed to love the taste. There was lots of smiling and gabbling. But most of it came out again. I'm not sure if this means she's not totally lost her tongue reflex yet or it was simply that she was trying to lap it to the back of her mouth like she would if she were taking milk from the breast. We had tried her on a bottle of expressed breastmilk on Sunday night which was a complete and utter failure all round. Again that would be a totally alien type of sucking to that which she is used to.

I'll give the puree another go, as I have a bit left, and see what she thinks. I'm quite happy to go slowly to start with. But a spoon will be useful for giving her our meals whizzed/mashed up. I know that isn't strictly BLW but I am excited by the thought of just being able to feed her whatever we are having. Naomi loved that.