How do you go from this:
to this:
Amazing!
My tiny little Valentine baby is a walking, talking bundle of joy and mischief these days.
That happy easy-going baby who I could never imagine having a tantrum now screams when I don't let her push the shopping trolley, or when I use an electric whisk, or spend too long on the phone.
When she's not screaming and making demands she chatters away at me. If she doesn't have anything much to say then she resorts to, "Mummy? Mummy? Mummy?".
If she's not chattering she's dancing, jumping or trying to make me laugh. She puts her baby dolls to bed, pushes them around the house in her pushchair, pats their backs. She brushes her own teeth, makes attempts to get herself to the toilet, even insists on reading her birthday cards by herself.
Every day she is coming up with new words and phrases and is so keen to learn. She swims, and sings and tells stories. I ask her what she did at daycare. I say, "Did you sing?" She says "Yep". I ask her what songs she sang and she says, "La la la", and then laughs.
She helps me find things in the house. She puts rubbish into the bin. Her favourite phrase is, "My do it" (I'll do it) or "Amma do it" (I want to do it) as she displays her increasing independence.
She has moved up a room again at daycare and is now in with the 2-3 year olds. She is now a Pixie, which to be honest, seems to be a much more apt description than Cherub. Although she's still a Cherub on Wednesdays. (Although, she wasn't much of a cherub this morning, I can tell you.) I can only imagine her development is going to go leaps and bounds now she's hanging out with the bigger kids.
But perhaps the most amazing thing of all is that Phoebe is about to become a big sister. She's so excited about the baby and I can't believe we're going to have another one of the things in the first picture, and that in two years it'll be another little person, like the second picture.
When I first got pregnant I was worried about how it would affect Phoebe, and I do still have concerns. But in these few short months she has gone from throwing a fit if I dared to cuddle another child, to making her displeasure known but pretty much getting on with it. When we took Amelie to the Let The Children Come to the Beach show the other week Phoebe was quite happy to let her sit on my knee throughout the show. (It's a very loud event and tends to freak kids out the first few times). Later on when they went to get musical instruments and then dance to Hokey Cokey she took hold of Amelie's hand and looked after her. It was so cute. And when I took a friend's 9 month old baby whilst she went to the toilet, Phoebe started to whinge a bit but pretty much got over it. Although she wasn't happy that I carried the baby out to the car and not her. But even then I took her hand and she walked until I handed the baby back. I really do think she's going to adapt quite well and be a loving caring big sister.
Phoebe had a wonderful birthday. She was talking about it for weeks. She'd wake up and say "Phoebe's birthday" or "Phoebe's birthday cake" and she kept singing the first line of "Happy Birthday to you". I think that was her favourite part of the whole birthday thing; she absolutely loves having that sung to her. We had a little tea party for her at home in the afternoon with some of her friends and their brothers and sisters and mums and dads. It was a gorgeous day, which was lucky as the next day, her actual birthday, it poured down. We had the paddling pool and play gym up in the garden, with the play gym slide going into the pool. The kids loved it. Phoebe's birthday cake was a green train, roughly based on Percy from Thomas and Friends, at her request. It was also chocolate at her request. She ate the smarties, biscuits and sweets that were decorating it and licked off all the icing and then left the cake.
After our guests were gone my Mam and Dad (Nana and Grandad) skyped and Phoebe opened her presents from them. She got a tea-set and a scooter. She immediately started pouring me cups of tea (complete with sound effects). The next morning they phoned back and sang Happy Birthday to her, which of course, she loved. I took her to the show that morning. They always get the kids who've had a birthday in the last week up on stage and everyone sings Happy Birthday to them. We'd been talking about this for a while and Phoebe was pretty excited about it. She hopped up on the stage with her friend Ruby, who was two a week ago, and got a birthday sticker. Then it all became too much and she spent the entire song cuddling into me and sobbing. I bought her a fibre optic magic wand and a flashing dolphin necklace for a few dollars, just to make the day a bit special and not just like any other Monday. She opened her presents from us and my family that day and the following day received more presents in the post and from Lucie. She must think birthdays last forever.
One of her favourite presents was a playhouse from our friends Cher and Eddie, and their three kids, Nathan, Benjamin (who is a few months older than Phoebe) and Xander. She rather hilariously managed to get herself stuck climbing through the tiny window of the house and bent one of the poles in doing so. I had to help her through. Thankfully we didn't have to wait a week for her to get thinner, like Winnie the Pooh when he gets stuck in Rabbit's doorway.
I have some photos to share of Phoebe's birthday party but they will have to wait until I have resolved a few technical issues with my hard drive. Watch this space!
