A good day

Seven and a bit months is a great age. She can sit up and interact and is interested in things going on around her, but isn't on the move so I'm not constantly chasing her around (although side note: I'd love for her to start crawling . She can be incredibly clingy if i put her down and figure if she was crawling she could just move to where she wants to be).

Today we went to Archbishop's Park in Waterloo and met up with Allie and Poppy. Ada had been in a really good mood all morning (side note two: we don't set alarms anymore because Ada normally wakes us up around six-thirty with her chatter, and wants us to get her out at around seven. This is usually great until she sleeps into seven forty five and Dave has thirty minutes to get ready for work which means I have thirty minutes to feed her, shower and express) and was in a jolly mood when we got there. We headed for the sandpit as the swings were busy. Ada has always like the sand (or rather putting it in her mouth) but this time she loved it (and my feet).

The week in review

Monday
 We went to see out health visitor to get Ada weighed (she's seven point eight kilos). I really love our health visitor, Faith. She was the person who came to our home in the first week that I saw her, and has just been a really lovely person to talk to about any concerns I have with Ada, without passing judgement. Afterwards we went to the playground at Clapham Common and played on the swings and the sandpit. She also ate (and loved) pasta for the first time. She is her father's daughter

Tuesday
 We met Allie and Poppy for a lovely lunch, where the girls were on their best behaviour at the restaurant. Then we went to Southwark Park and played on the swings. 

(photo credit - Allie Keys)

Wednesday

 We stayed closer to home to make sure we were home for a delivery that we missed the previous day, but once it arrived we went for a little walk to Clapham Common again (most of these walks involve me getting a much needed coffee to see me through the rest of the day). We didn't make it to the playground, but had fun playing with the grass and watching the crow, watching us eat our food

Thursday
 We made a trip to Camden to surprise Dad for lunch. We ate lunch in his office with his work friends and then went for a walk around Regent's Park and managed to squeeze a little swing in the playground. On the trip home however I completely got my tube lines wrong (I've been living here for eight years!) and had to walk down a (spiral) staircase of around fifty stairs. Silly mum!

Friday
 Friday is swimming day. We started the new term last week. We moved up from Floaties to Splashers and it's been a bit of a rough time for her. I'm hoping she just has to get into the swing of things after such a long break over summer. She pretty much cried the whole lesson. But then we took a long walk home and she fell asleep in the buggy and woke up much happier

A letter to Ada

My sweet love, you are seven months old today. Just writing that blows my mind. Seven months in the grand scheme of things is a mere drop in a vast ocean. But for me it has been everything. I wasn't able to be with you for most of the day. I was studying. I am conflicted about this, even though I shouldn't be. Even though I'm only gone for seven hours, and I know you're having an amazing time with your dad, I still feel guilty, like I should be there with you. But I want to show you that, when you're older, you can be a career women, a student, a mum all at the same time. I am striving now to be a better person for you. I fail, and will fail, but I'll never stop trying.

A case of the giggles

Ada and Sophie

When I found out I was pregnant it was my dream that the baby and Sophie would become best friends. Not straight away, but eventually. This was always going to be difficult because Sophie is a very particular cat (aren't they all). She won't sit on your lap unless you are sitting on the her expensive armchair with a cushion on your lap (never, ever directly on your lap). She won't sleep anywhere in the bed - it must be in the lower right hand corner of the bed i.e. exactly where I want to put my feet. 

Now that Ada is sitting up and taking things in she loves to look at Sophie and watch her walk across the room, jump onto things/out the window. For her part, Sophie has a healthy tolerance over her, coming over for a sniff or a hand nudge every now and again. She has never shown any aggression towards her (well apart from the first day we bought Ada home and she hissed at her, but I'm putting that down to her thinking it was another cat or something) which is good.

A couple of weeks ago Ada and I were lying in her room in the afternoon, just being silly. The afternoon is the best time to get Ada to laugh - she is just the right amount of contentedness and tired to find anything I do amusing. However that afternoon, she reacted to Sophie in a way that I've never seen her do. Although I found it really funny, I quickly picked her up and reassured her that everything was okay

For the record their relationship is usually like this

Ramblings about the last six months

I still find it odd to know what I was doing 'x' months ago. This time six months ago I was waiting to get discharged from hospital and take Ada home. (Side note: my anti-natel teacher told us when we want to get discharged to be incredibly insistent to everyone who came into to see us. And I mean everyone. Every nurse, porter, person bring me food, we would tell them that we need to get discharged, we are leaving today. The post labour ward was horrendous. The midwives there were awful, and the polar opposite of the midwives on the delivery ward. Part of me understands their attitude - they probably have twenty or thirty mums and babies to deal with, but it didn't stop me hating them any less. At one point during the first night, Ada was crying and crying and I couldn't get her to stop. Dave had gone home and I felt all alone. I called a midwife to help me and she said that Ada was probably hungry and why not try feeding her. Because she was little and I think newborn babies get tired very easily she wasn't feeding well. The midwife put her hand on Ada's head and practically shoved her face into my boob. A lot more roughly than I would have done. Again, I understand that babies are a lot more resilient that one would think, but she wasn't even a day old. It a lot to take).

Where was I? Oh yes, 6 months ago. I feel like having a baby has both made time stand still and fly by. A complete contradiction, but babies, or at least Ada, always is. I think some of the reasons for this, for me, was that I was living day to day, and then week to week. When she was say, two months, I wasn't looking down the line to five, six months. I was just in the moment, dealing with whatever was happening in that week. Consequently, when you stop and take stock of your life you think 'do I really have a six month old baby. How the hell did that happen?'. 

I was looking back at a video I sent one of my sisters when Ada was around two months, and said something like 'Ada really loves the toucan (a toy she had on her playmat). Looking at it now she was so disinterested but I was so excited. Comparatively, Dave and I took her to the playground yesterday and she loved the swings (not like last time)                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 and was so expressive. But it makes me think, in six months from now, will I think the same about her and the toucan? Who knows, but it will be fun to find out 

I'm still breastfeeding her (except at night when she has a bottle of {expressed} milk). I really didn't think i would be at this stage, especially since she has one tooth that has broken through. In fact I remember saying, aloud, I'm going to stop breastfeeding her when she gets teeth. But there is something really special about breastfeeding her. A connection that only her and I share. Don't get me wrong, I'm not going to feed her until she's two or three (not that there's anything wrong with that) and I completely and utterly understand why people do it. It's just not for us, long term. Also I'm going back to work in November (sob) so logistically it just wouldn't work.

Dave's boss at work said to Dave before we had Ada, watch out for the NCT mum's group - they tell each other everything. Dave laughed it off, thinking 'yeah right, that will never happen', but we probably do. I certainly don't (consciously) censor myself. I love my NCT mums. It's an odd concept NCT. Pretty much pay a couple if hundred pounds to make friends. And it really is pot luck as to whether you'll all get along. But we all do. There is something comforting about going through the same together, roughly around the same time. We catch up every Tuesday and take about everything under the sun, but poos always feature. I don't know what I would do without these girls. In the first weeks, months, I would be messaging the frantically about something that Ada was doing (pretty much always feeding related) and they would always reassure me that everything is okay, that their babies are doing the same thing too.

                        

Flying solo

On Wednesday Dave went to Lisbon for work. I say work in the looses possible way because it was more eating and drinking. And by eating and drinking, I just mean drinking. Which meant that I was playing single mum for a couple of days, which is hard work. 

We tried to keep busy by filling our days up. On Wednesday, Allie, her baby Poppy, Ada and I went to 'The Cornershop' a shop where everything is made entirely out of felt. It was pretty impressive. I wish I had the dedication to sit for seven month and make endless amount of felt crisps. 

(continued after the jump)