Hymn

Inflation

“Every time I feed her, she looks like she’s inflating like a balloon.  She’s growing so big already.”

Looker

Baby hasn’t really opened her eyes much yet.  She’s starting to look around more and more though.  Especially after feeding or changing.  She’ll glance around the room and you can almost hear her thinking “Who’s that?  No, not you - you’re too close.  You, you, the funny looking one.  Yes, you’re interesting.  Now I’ll nap again, thank you very much.  Just one last look at you.  Yes, very funny.  Ha ha ha.”

Sugar and spice

She weighed the equivalent of three bags of sugar when she was born.  Now, a week on, she’s gained five ounces or about twenty spoonfuls.

Dig Her

Baby and I have found a mutually soothing position.  She falls asleep almost instantly if she’s laid on my lap and we hold hands.  Of course it’s not actually that equal: I end up holding her entire arm and she clings to my thumbs.  And then she contently wrestles with them like she’s controlling a JCB.  That’s my girl.  Now where's that train set?

Fried

I’m not sure this parenting lark is as easy as some people make it look.  Baby’s quietness drives us into a “is she still breathing” paranoia; her cries - “what are we doing wrong?”  No one has a definitive solution but everyone has an opinion and of course every baby is different anyway.  But T’s in painful recovery (God only know what it must be like for women who have a difficult birth) and her post-natal hormones are all over the place.  I’m juggling essential tasks from work, errant nursery furniture and troublesome washing machines (with immaculate timing ours died last week).  We feel pampered if we get more than three hours sleep in stretch.  And now, the smallest of things, butter not spreading, phone calls clashing with Little One waking up or taking out the wrong sized sleep-suit makes us snap or cry.  We’re a little fried. 

Listen

She looks like a new born chick craning rapaciously for food.  And when she finds it, she makes the cutest sounds I’ve ever heard.  She looks so content as she sucks away, pausing for gasps of air before returning with little “ewlp, ewlp, ewlp” noises.  (You try spelling it)

Dirty Mouths

Oh dear.  Oh dear.  Oh dear.  It’s happened.  Poo has become one of our primary and most satisfying pieces of conversation.  Although I’m used to talking shit, this is not the same.  We’ve moved seamlessly from marmite-like tar to pesto-esque glue to Dijon mustard slime.  All perfectly normal.  And every time, we’re so proud.  We have stepped through the one-way door into the parent world of toilet talk.

Cloud

I know what people say about babies skin but I’ve never had that much contact with it before.  Now it’s different.  She has the most adorable softness about her.  It’s so velvety and spongy its almost impossible to feel.  It's a bit like cuddling a cloud.

Top Marks

‘Look Love.  That stain on my tee-shirt is sick and that’s wee.’
“That’s nice Love.”

Perambulation

We’d managed to get Baby to sleep by midnight (after three-quarters of an hour’s crying) but at 4, I made a bad decision.   All three of us were dead to the world, but Daddy worries that someone needs feeding.  So he wakes both sleeping girls.  An hour later, one is asleep and the other screaming whilst being pushed up and down the kitchen in her pram.  Silly Daddy.