Afternoon nap

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Being home the last couple of days with an illness I hope isn't pig related, I've been able to see a bit more of Emily.

Part of that has involved trying to get her to stick to an afternoon nap as part of her daily routine. It's never easy to get a child to sleep, especially when they're nosy and they think they might miss something.

Yesterday and today, however, I have hit the magic bullet ... for now. At the first sign of any tiredness (yawn, glazed look, eye rubbing) I put her on our bed with a couple of her favourite board books, Clifford The Red Dog being a current fave. After a few minutes, she invariably falls asleep. She looks at her books so intensely, studying them like a doctor would study a patient, I'm not surprised she nods off.

I hope this instils in her a love of books though, and doesn't make her equate them with falling asleep.

It's just nice that she's taking her afternoon nap and not waiting until 7pm to begin her evening tiredness grizzle.

Child minding issues. Continued.

With our previous child minder out of action for a bit, we are now currently searching for new services.

Thankfully, we have a stop gap in my aunt, so we can search with a bit more leeway and not take the first child minder that comes along.

We have the first appointment tomorrow around noon with a woman who lives around the corner from us in Wallington. Bonus point here - it's on the WAY to work, not 25 minutes the other way.

I imagine we have a wonderful few weeks of interviews, reference checking and other sundry vetting ahead of us. Oh happy days.

Child minding issues

For reasons I won't be going into we've suddenly found ourselves child minderless. Having processed this information last night, I was trying to find the silver lining to the cloud. The only one really being that Sue and I might be able to source one a little closer / more convenient to my work.

I did a cursory look around NetMums last night and there seems to be a few choices out there. It's just a question of narrowing down, contacting, checking references, etc. Not something we can really do tomorrow and Friday.

Up until this point, I was happy to drive Emily in completely the wrong direction from work as we were completely happy with our child minder and didn't want to uproot Emily from what had become her routine. How fate intervenes.

Today Emily is in emergency childcare at Deutsche Bank and Sue doesn't plan on repeating the trip any time soon, as Emily is getting to the age where her attention span is short and her means of letting you know this quite vocal.

Hopefully we'll have an option surface that will afford us a bit of breathing room. Today I'm feeling all sorts of odd, as I guess it's hitting me that Emily is actually child minderless and we really have no light at the end of the tunnel yet.

Almost walking

It's the pre-milestone moments that are the most amazing. The milestone moments themselves are quite bittersweet, as you know your child can finally do something is amazing, but the build up over the previous weeks and months is no longer there. All that work - trial and error that went into the activity is now over, and all you're left with is your child being able to do something they couldn't do before.

I guess this is just natural, or else my mum and dad would call me up every day and a) be amazed I can talk and b) be amazed I didn't kill myself with them not around to look after me.

As I write this, I am currently committing to memory the last few pre-walking milestone days we have left with Emily. She's able to take a couple of steps by herself and then either teeters over or collapses. It's been a lot of work for Sue and I, as well as a lot of work for Emily, constantly being told, "c'mon Em, you can do it", like you'd say to a pet dog or trained chimp.

After this milestone, I don't really know what's next - talking? brushing her teeth by herself? eating WITH chewing?

It's a lot of fun seeing development through a child's eyes and long may it continue.

Resentment? aka wishing I had a summer

For the record, Em is the best thing that's happened to me. Having said that, I do sometimes feel a bit resentful - or maybe remorseful - for a life once lived.

The summer really brings it out. My current evening routine involves picking up Em, playing with her and putting her to bed. I really can't remember the last time I spent a nice evening outside. Part of me believes this is down to me being lazy (as I COULD take Em for a walk, etc. etc.) but there's stuff to do when we get home - dinner, bath, getting ready for bed, etc.

I do miss being able to have nice evenings in the summer, and I imagine life would probably be that much better if we had a garden and I didn't suffer from cabin fever. I guess as Em gets older and she goes to bed later, we can go for walks in the evening.

I think Sue feels a bit of this cabin fever to an extent, as she works overtime to ensure our weekends are spent doing things out of the flat.

I love being with Em, as any dad loves being with his children. I just can't explain why, she doesn't even talk, but playing peek a boo with her has become one of life's great pleasures, as is seeing her big ole grim.

I guess every parent comes to terms with these feelings eventually. It's not like I really miss the activities I used to do in the summer all that much, I just look outside at the dusk evenings and get all wistful.

Oh well, I wouldn't trade it for parenthood so I guess I'll just shut up and deal with it.

Boundaries for Emily

At the moment, Emily is pretty much allowed to fun amuck, unencumbered by any boundaries. I realise that as she gets older we need to set parameters and instil in her a sense of right and wrong about a great many things but I really don't know when this should become priority number one.

Case in point - sleeping. At the moment, to get Em to sleep we take her to our bed, play with her, sing to her and read to her. She eventually drops off. All school of thought (and my tingling Spidey sense) tells me she should be falling asleep in her own bed. This is a "boundary" that I'm keen to put in place soon, but I don't know if our current regime is causing her any lasting harm.

I've been reading about boundaries, or discipline, lately and a lot of it seems like common sense, but I feel that as Sue and I get older and get more and more tired, it's just easier to give in. SelfGrowth.com lie out a number of scenarios displaying why discipline and boundaries are needed.

At the moment, Emily is causing havoc in the living room throwing stuff around, but I firmly believe that as long as Sue and I are helping Em figure out right from wrong, we're a good step along the way.

I imagine discipline and boundaries will be a more common theme as Emily gets older and we tread this very long path together. I just hope we tread it correctly.

Menace II The Flat

It's happening and we can see it, like a car crash happening in slow motion. Em's becoming more and more mobile with each day and her increased mobility comes more and more disasters waiting to happen.

Today she was standing in front of the telly, trying to pry the centre channel speaker from it's home, while simultaneously trying to stab the screen with another piece of electronics. Points for multi-tasking there!

I think we may get to the point where the whole living room is barricaded from her l'il devil hands.

Of course it's not all bad news, this increased mobility WILL result in her walking at some point which is a massive milestone I can't wait to see. Having said that, I'd like it if all my gadgets and electronics could see it as well. Thankfully we haven't had any casualties, but I can imagine the day will come soon when I have half a controller or a DVD player with "peanut butter discs" inside ...

The wallet shudders.

Jabbingtons

The doctor's went well and Emily has now had all the jabs she'll need until she 3.5 years old.

She had the MMR jab, which attained controversial status a couple of years ago. I really do hope it is as safe as the government is leading us to believe.

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Developmental concerns?

Every child develops at their own rate, and we're recently begun an offensive on Emily to get her development up to scratch.

Having said that, I think we missed the boat on her doing baby rollerskating breakdancing.

The girl who doesn't age

Whenever I complain about Emily, in the back of my mind I know I should count my blessings - she has all her appendages, she's growing well, and doesn't have any physical impairments.

When I read tales like the one about Brooke Greenberg, the 16 year old girl who is the size of an infant with the mental capacity of a toddler, I really feel thankful for Emily.

When you have a child you naturally have the highest expectations for them - they'll cure cancer; they'll colonise Mars; they'll marry the other best person the earth has ever created they'll grow larger than an infant. More times than not, you'll be disappointed in some regard, but to expect your child to grow and mature shouldn't be one of those disappointing "didn't happens".

Apart from Brooke being mentally and physically 14 years younger than she actually is, I can't help feel for her parents. They're not going to be "parent age" for ever, and what will happen when they're in need of old age care and their child is still a two year-old?

I love Emily and her toddler ways, but the knowledge that development and growth is constantly happening is one of those anticipations that parents look forward to. WHEN will she walk? WHAT will her first word be? With Brooke, these expectations will probably never come to fruition and that's sad.