23 Months and a New Year

Happy 2015! Things continue to go well for us, but we can't wait for all of Little Djinn's classes and playgroups to start up again. The ones at the local theatre ended in early November so they could use the rooms for rehearsals and storage for the Christmas Panto* so we've been missing her favourite Wednesday class. It starts up again in a fortnight and hopefully it will be a similar mix of mellow kids. Swim lessons and soft play at the leisure centre (gym) have been on a fortnight hiatus for the school holidays; they resume next week and we have two sessions left. I want to enrol Little Djinn in the 2-3 yo swim lessons but she doesn't turn two until the Sunday after classes start so I'm not allowed. She's blowing bubbles, jumping off the wall, and putting her whole face under water to pick the ring up from the bottom of the pool and the other babies...aren't. Her friend, C, turns two this week so they'll be moving up without us.

Little Djinn isn't making huge progress on feeding herself. She eats pretty well if you give her something to do and spoon it in for her, but she's not interested in feeding herself unless it's cereal. If we leave out bowls of snack foods she'll graze through the day, but not "enough". The first half of December she ate really well, asking for food (which we had to feed her) and then she grew again and had pretty much zero interest in eating for a week and her ribs were standing out again. Getting her to feed herself is definitely a goal for the early part of 2015. I suspect we're going to have to go cold turkey on her food pouches and let her get hungry enough to feed herself but she's so slender, she can't really afford the week or more of not eating. And yes, I honestly think, based on past behaviour, that it'll take weeks of not eating for her to decide to do it for herself.

She's starting to pick up words, though most of them are missing key letters. She has a lot of "b" words like Blue, Ball, Bowl, and (light)Bulb but not the L's. She can stay Story, Star, and Stool but not that first S. She says "please" (sometimes, mostly she signs it) and up, on and off which she uses for conceptually different things like lights, wearing clothing, and stacking blocks. She gets new words weekly if not daily but you largely have to work it out from context.

Little Djinn loved Christmas. Christmas Trees are her new favourite thing and she always wanted to poke at the baubles, the lights, and the stars. We put ours up pretty early for her, a potted tree we'd bought last year and put on the table so she couldn't pull it over, and it dominated the room. Every morning she'd ask Daddy to turn the lights on first thing, then when I came down I'd turn on the snowflake fairy/Christmas lights in the windows. We had a fill-your-own advent calender which I filled with the conveniently sized 24 mini-bar Green & Blacks tasting box. Each day I'd break the little bar in thirds and LD would hand the first piece to Daddy, take one for herself, and feed me the last piece. Except for the day, about halfway through, when she ate the first piece, then, having been chided, spit it out and offered it to him. Cheers for that. We also had an Eric Carle pop-up advent with ornaments and presents to decorate a tree which she liked but sat on fairly early. I mentioned to my mother that I want to get an ornament tree advent calender like we had growing up and she offered us the one she made, but then later she said that she wants it for the Christmas Open House in her neighbourhood next year so I'll look into getting our own.

We took Little Djinn to see the mall Santa twice but, while she liked the trees in the grotto and the animatronic mice, she wasn't interested in going anywhere near Santa. Oh well, maybe next year. We let her open presents as they arrived so as not to overwhelm her, but I think present opening could have ended after stockings and she would have still thought herself the luckiest little toddler in the whole world. She's hardly let go of the two little matchbox cars she got. My most notable gifts were a tea-of-the-month subscription from the cats and an auto-brewing teapot from Little Djinn (C must have seen me blanche slightly at that one as he hastened to let me know it was a deal-of-the-day and we did not pay full retail for it). It's shiny. I'm going to be ruined for the average cuppa. C got a pie maker (like a waffle maker but for individual pies) and cookbook, and a weather tracking kit which we'll put up at the new house. The kitties got a larger litter box (Oliver is a heffalump) and mat, and a bunch of catnip mice. Little Djinn keeps playing with the latter.

We had to take down the tree on NYD. It wasn't happy inside and was in serious danger of losing all its needles. Little Djinn screamed a bit when she realized what I was doing, and was sad this morning when it was still gone, but she's largely okay with it. I showed her where the tree is outside so we can check up on it from time to time.

In non-Christmas news, her favourite things are playdough and youtube videos. She's actually learning things from her videos even though studies say kids don't, she's much stronger on her colours and shapes and that's largely the videos. This was all well and good until her first gen fruit tablet (the one I replaced with a second gen mini because it was no longer supported, I couldn't get new apps, and the old ones kept crashing) finally died so now we're having to time share mine. We're going to get her a replacement android tablet with a less than stellar battery life (we used to leave her tablet only partially charged so she'd have a built-in time limit).

In older news, we once more hosted a successful international Thanksgiving. From California we had B and K (he was in country for a conference and she was doing a semester abroad in Cardiff). A came up from London, and our down-the-road neighbours T and Miss A came around. Little Djinn was delighted to have everyone except T, with whom she didn't want to share her toys. At one point she took her tricycle away from him so I pointed him to the push-pram and she scooted over and started pushing it while riding her tricycle. It turns out he really wanted her toy police car which was perfect because she didn't care if he played with that. Clearly we need to work on sharing on the home turf.

*Pantomime, a slapstick musical comedy, usually based on fairy tales or the like. Huge Christmas entertainment over here, usually aimed at families but there are "adult" ones as well.

9, 10 A Big Fat Hen

Nine was not a good month for us. We've had rough patches before, a fortnight at 4 months, a fortnight at 7 months, but this rough patch lasted pretty much the entire month. There was another cold, a cough this time, which she passed to Chris and then myself, and she decided that being asked to lay on her back whilst having her nappy changed was the worst thing in the world* (which got even more festive when my normally backed up booboo got diarrhoea) except for being put in her high chair which was also the worst** but the absolute worst was that she wouldn't sleep at night unless she was in bed with me. As she wanted to go to sleep at 7, this was also the worst for me. This was also the month with two nights where she threw up on me three or four times. At least the second time she threw up on her Daddy first. Some experiences are best shared and if it had been all me all the time I would have been bitter.

Thank god that's stopped (though she sometimes fights me over nappy changes or going in her chair, but only once every day or two, not Every. Single. Time.). It was only just this last week that I got her sleeping on her own without nightly hysteria: we hug over the rails of her cot until her legs give way and she lays down, then I rub her back, cover her with a blanket and rub her back. The first two nights this involved a wash-rinse-repeat action with some protracted cuddle sessions but now it's mostly just once and a minute or two at most. You can't even believe how much better this is for everyone. Part of me wants to beat myself up for not working this out earlier but the ruling majority is just happy it's working now. And, in fairness, I did try this earlier and she just stood there and cried.

But it wasn't just being in a funk; Little Djinn has a tooth! Just one on the bottom that broke through on Thanksgiving. In the Bad Month she regressed slightly on the food and figured out that boobies still exist even when they're hidden under my shirt. She can now indicate a specific desire to nurse by trying to tug my clothes off, which was cute for two days but now I'm trying to teach her to ask more politely. Between the eating less and being able to request boobs on demand we've been nursing more and she's currently waking up twice in the night to nurse. 

Since my last post we started (and this week ended) another playgroup, a free one sponsored by the Scottish government, from the same woman who taught baby massage and the weaning class. It was the same group of mums so LD was still at least 3 months older than the other babies, she's on the verge of walking unassisted and they're just sitting on their own. But they're all about the same size. We had a little Christmas party for the last session and some of the mums requested that the babies dress up. I was thinking party dresses but didn't get my act together to buy one so instead I put her in the Santa Suit Karen gave her. Turns out that was exactly the right thing as the other babies who dressed up were all in "fancy dress" (costume) as well. Another baby showed up as Mrs Claus but not in time for the impromptu group picture.***

Little Djinn is continuing to do really well in swim class, though we wound up in the Friday session (we're back on Monday now) and it never quite worked for us. We were always running late, and never quite warmed up to the instructor though she did figure out how to stich the foam bricks to the wall and later put them back in the bucket. She's very interested, in general, in taking things out of containers and putting things into containers. The other day she sat in Daddy's office and started dropping his unused coffee pods in the rubbish bin, one at a time. She's also put the cat food back in the box (minus a few pieces she ate) and even tried putting individual grains of rice into a cup. She has a 2" square Tupperware that I keep her Cheerios in and she can put the lid back on it and even pop it closed. 

She's standing on her own, though briefly, and can do things while standing like bounce up and down. She loves bouncing and will bounce for ages if she has something to hang on to. She likes to push walk chairs around and will hang onto the back of my trousers to push me around, too. She walks if we hold her hands and does her own steering. I only give her one hand so she has to do her own balance. At the pool on Monday she got hold of a tiny kickboard and walked around in the shallow end hanging on to it. It wasn't floaty enough to take any wait so it was purely a confidence/counter-balance thing. She's just adorable. 

She definitely understands us (though as the baby book points out, she's also developed enough to decide to ignore us), and will seek out favourite toys such as Monty the Monkey and His Motorcar when prompted.  She figured out how to play "chase" and spends a fair amount of time trying to coax Daddy to push the little car after her. We bought rubber mats for the lounge with the money my godparents sent for her Christening and can I just say how nice they are on adult knees? I mean, I bought them for her so she doesnt bonk her head when she falls over, and they're less slippery than the floor, but man oh man, the difference in playing on the floor with her on the mats vs without them is astonishing. 

Little Djinn has also started babbling with a vengeance. Mostly when she's happy it's "dah dah dah dah dah", when she's upset it's "muh muh muh muh muh" and when we're being told off it's "bah bah bah bah" though she's getting more sounds including "dis" and even starting with cadence.

For Halloween Little Djinn and I went as The Incredibles. For Thanksgiving we had 4 (American) friends up, three from London and one all the way from SF, though he was in the country for business. Chris keeps saying he wants our Thanksgiving to be world renouned, which appears to be working, and to convert all the Brits to Thanksgiving which seems to be going backwards since we went from three Brits last year to 1.5 this. Two of our guests are coming back for Christmas and, other than putting up a tree (on top of a table) and hanging lights we're pretty unprepared. Good thing our baby has no expectations, right?

*and as a consequence spent most of the month in disposable nappies.

** though once she was in she was in she was usually fine if only briefly

*** the elf kept toppling over, falling backwards out of the ball pit. 

8 ate 7

We appear to have missed the seven months update, which of course I blame on my mother* who came to visit for three weeks, starting the week my beautiful, strong, curious Booboo started "swim" lessons and "dance" class and promptly decided to flip the [redacted] out if I wasn't holding her at all times. Prior to this Little Djinn would play happily near me and sometimes I could leave her long enough to rotate the laundry, get lunch, or pee depending on the needs of the moment but that week and most of the next if she didn't ave one hand clutching me she was convinced she was going to die. It was, um, challenging. I gave up on getting anything done including blog updates and mixed myself a drink each night as soon as she fell asleep. Oi vey.

Despite her unwillingness to be without me, by 7 months she was "cruising", walking around while holding on to things, and just this past week she figured out crawling! We're super excited, super proud, and super belatedly baby-proofing the house. She also figured out how to climb up the stair and yesterday climbed the big staircase (11 steps) and then crossed the landing to get to her Daddy. That was her first proper crawling, her previous efforts mostly entailing snow-ploughing across the bed with her head pressed against the mattress. She moves really fast but tends to pick a direction and you have to be there to catch her at the edge. Chris and I are ageing daily. 

The second week my mother was here Chris brought home a cold (we think from the toy store where Grandma bought Little Djinn's Christmas present). By the weekend I was sick, followed by the baby and then Grandma (who shouldn't have let LD stick her wet fingers in her, Grandma's, mouth. Just asking for trouble) just in time to be poorly on her transatlantic flight. I woke up sick on the Friday before Little Djinn's christening, the day her out-of-town godparents arrived. She has two sets of godparents, Mark and Sue here in Inverness who I think of as "Chris' side of the family" and "on my side", Shaun and Uli** drove over from Ireland (yes, there's a ferry involved). It was wonderful seeing them, if a bit unusual having our house full of very loud children. Little Djinn liked watching her GodCousins play but was less sure about them trying to play with her.  And Uli brought three garbage bags and a box of clothes for our Booboo to grow into. And for some strange reason a whole bunch of shoes without mates. Talk about having the One Shoe Blues***.

The Christening was very nice, we had the Godparents and their respective children and some neighbours round and made cheese and tomato swirls, sausage rolls, scones, and chocolate chip cookies. My, by which I mean Alton Brown's, chocolate chip cookies bring all the guests to the yard. I am winning the Brits (and the Irish and the Swedes) over to the "cookie" side, one batch of chocolate morels at a time. We had a bit of trouble getting to the church, but the ceremony itself was smooth enough and Little Djinn only cried when the priest grabbed her and poured water over her head. And then every time he looked at her thereafter. 

After everyone left and it was just the four of us again I collapsed on the sofa and felt very very poorly for a day (missing swim class) and then Little Djinn got a runny nose so we skipped dance class that week, too. And then Grandma left which was very sad for everyone. The house felt big and quiet and empty for some time after she left. We've had two sessions each of her classes and she's blossomed in both of them so I'm thinking about adding story time at the library on Thursdays if I can get my act together. After next week it's "half term": the swim class ends and dance class (and presumably story time as well) take a two-week hiatus. We can't sign up for two swim classes in a row so we're signed up for one starting in December and on the 21st of October we can see if there are spaces left for the class starting on the 28th.

I think that's largely The State of the Booboo. She's sleeping the same, though we have plans for me to move back to the big bed (then finish the night in the nursery after her wee hours nurse). We still don't have teeth or consonants though she says "uh-muh" when she's really upset and I thought I heard a feisty "guh!" or two. She's 7kg, so she's drifting back to the 9th percentile line. She plays peekaboo, pulling a blanket over her head and then off again over and over. Chris made a peek-a-boo oveture to her and she looked around, found a blanket, squirmed over to grab it, and pulled it over her head so she could play. She pushes her blocks through the holes in her workbench if someone lines them up for her. We need to get her a proper high chair this weekend as she's big enough to push her stool off of the table. She can feed herself Cheerios**** and other finger foods: she's mastered, or at least figured out, the pincher grip of thumb and finger. 

We continue to be overwhelmed with love for her and delight in each new discovery she makes and skill she acquires. 

* this just in: you're never too old to blame things on your mother. Alternate theory: my Gilmore Girls rematch has reached critical mass.

** I met them online a good 15 years ago; we went to visit them the first winter I was here. They lived in Inverness briefly many moons ago and my mother didn't realise that that's not how I knew them until after they left. 

*** a Sandra Boynton song performed by B.B. King. Speaking of Ms Boynton, I won a copy of her new album and a frog plushy off of twitter and they even shipped to the UK. How awesome is that?

"One shoes. Does she expect me to hop?"

**** the, ahem, sticking point was leaving them in her mouth. She could pick them up and stick them in her mouth but they came right out again with her fist.

Weaning

We've started weaning, a process which should take the rest of the year to go from mostly getting her calories from nursing with food as more of an experience than a form of sustenance to the opposite being true. The NHS recommends waiting until six months* so we did, although I had been slipping her the odd taste of food here and there, a tiny smidge of strawberry, the leaf of a fragrant herb, as her interest in what we're eating increased. I started giving her rice cereal for babies a few days before she was properly six months old and bits of bread from our sandwiches to keep her from snatching food from our hands. We quickly added in mashed veggies based on the recipes in the weaning pamphlet that the health visitor gave us at around three months. 

Then we were invited to a "weaning class" presented by the same woman who taught the baby massage class, and the "wait until six months" message became "look for these signs between four and six months, often around five months", namely baby waking up during the night more than she used to, not being satisfied with her feeds, and showing a marked interest in food. Um, yeah, that was the rough patch across almost four weeks between June and July. That information could have saved quite a few sanity points. But we made it and, possibly as a consequence of waiting so long, Little Djinn is a champion eater. We've already moved on to Stage Two foods (not as bland and simple) and she is unphased by lumps, textures, (mild) differences in temperatures, or new flavours. 

Currently we nurse when she wakes up (sometimes twice as she's usually not very interested in food first thing, prefering to play), around 7:30. I have a snack and a cup of tea in bed with Chris, shower and get dressed (LD has her own tooth brush which she gets to chew on while I brush my teeth, then I rub it over her gums much the same way I practice brushing LD's head), and make up cereal for each of us by 10am. This last week Little Djinn was having trouble moving her bowels so we've settled on giving her one "cube"** of prune purée mixed in with her morning cereal. She's not strained greatly (or cried, poor darling) since we started with the prunes and even giggled following her first big bowel movement after I dosed her. Yes, baby girl, sometimes it feels good.  After breakfast we nurse and nap (she naps, I watch telly. Related, why did no one tell me about In Plain Sight? I love that show!). Around 2pm I make lunch, two cubes of mashed fruit or veggies for her, and then another offered nurse and nap though some days she wants that around 4 or even 5. Around 5:30 (or after her nap) she gets two cubes for dinner, something with protein - so far she's had fish and she's had chicken - and then "massage"***, a book, and an option on quiet playtime until she's ready to nurse and fall asleep, usually around 7 with the goal of me being out of the by 7:30 though it's been closer to 8 most nights this week. She usually wakes up around 4:30 for another nurse. If there's something she doesn't finish at one meal I'll often try her again with it at the next meal as here appetite fluctuates day to day. 

Chris is rhapsodic about cooking for Little Djinn. I've made a few fruit purses for her (blueberry and banana, the prune purée) and Chris has made everything else - veggie blends, pasta sauces, protein mixes, you name it. Most of them get made in one pan with a small quantity or ingredients and then mashed or blended and he'll make three or four different things and pop them in ice cube trays in the freezer. Later we move the cubes to ziplock baggies and each day try to offer her a different combination of meals. The chicken he made today (after a fruit "fool" and a veggie blend) filled two trays, a little container for the fridge for today and tomorrow, and a large container for us to eat at some point. The problem is reigning him in :o) but I think she's ready for another cube or two each day so week on week we will go through the food more quickly and he'll be able to indulge.

the weaning class was great, too. It wound up just being us and one of the moms/little boys from the massage class and the instructor. Little Djinn was already weaning so while the food is normally just for the parents to taste and practice making, she got to try things and we brought some leftovers home. The first week she was pulling faces at each new flavour (and then opening for more) but now she just tries things with every evidence of enjoyment. We played on the floor with all the different toys while Chris tried new recipes. We got several sheets of easy recipes, a recommendation for a book which Chris bought, and a goody bag with a potatoe masher, ice cube tray, bowl, spoon, tiny container, and a toothbrush/toothpaste pack. When people ask if we're planning to move to the US at some point, well, not really. Scotland genuinely cares about its citizens and Little Djinn's prospects as a baby, child, and young woman are simply better here. The math may change down the line, but for now this is the best place we can think of to raise a child.

* in years past they said 4 months but research has since shown that infant guts benefit from waiting until 6 months, at which point the iron supply a baby is born with wears out and solid food is necessary 

** we freeze her food in large, specialty "ice cube trays"

** in quotes because she's gotten very difficult to massage since she discovered she can suck on her toes. The available surface area is, um, limited. Mostly I grab limbs as I can pull them away from her mouth and grease them up. 

Semianniversary

Little Djinn is six months old! It doesn't seem like we've had her nearly that long. We started her on solids this last week, though I've been slipping her food items to taste (and spit out, pulling faces) for about a month now. She started watching us eat with interest at around three months (craning her head to follow the trajectory of a cup) and everything she gets her hands on goes straight in her mouth so handing her bits of strawberry or apple or lettuce or whatever I was eating seemed like a good way t expose her to "taste" and "texture" of food with zero expectation that she would eat anything. The only thing she actually seemed to like the taste of was banana chips. But she was clearly ready so I bought a box of baby rice cereal (think cream of wheat but rice and made with breast milk) and she really seemed to enjoy it. She likes to hold her own spoon. I've been giving her 1tspn rice to 2tspns milk (today with a touch of ground cinnamon) and then giving her whatever is left in the bottle, followed by nursing and a nap (that's where we are now. I'm "typing" with my left pinky). She thinks letting me sleep in until 7 is a lie-in so it's not surprising that she's asleep again by 11. 

She loves bread and gets fed small pieces from my sandwich at lunchtime (she insists which is how we knew she's ready for solids) and Chris has started making food up for her - yesterday was potatoes and zucchini/courgettes with a touch of nutmeg which will be today as well. He bough sweet potatoes and carrots for more colourful lunches down the line. The rest of the day is nursing, nappy changes, playing, and baby-wearing while I do chores. This week I concentrated on the back patio, dead-heading the roses (followed by hacking them back when I decided I wanted actual space on the patio), hacking back the geraniums, pulling weeds, and owing to a fortuitous thunderstorm and deluge, not having to scrub the paving stones and furniture. Hopefully it will be dry this weekend and we can actually sit outside. 

On Fridays we go swimming, though this past week was the first time since Ted died, first with the funeral planning, then it was too hot* so we set up her bath tub in the back garden instead, and then I stepped on a sliver of something (Chris pulled it out and then threw it away before I could look at it) which went over half an inch into my foot, and one week we went to visit a friend in hospital instead. But Fridays we go swimming and we'll go later today. Sunday mornings we take a bath together. 

We start bedtime around 6:15 with baby massage, pjs (lately a onesie and maybe a light cotton blanket), shuttering the room, and then I read** while she crawls all over me and the bed until she's ready to nurse to sleep and I shift her to her cot, usually between 7 and 7:30, 8 at the latest. Meanwhile Chris makes dinner, we eat, watch an hour or two of telly, we get ready for bed, I express milk for Little Djinn's breakfast, we have a cuddle and I spend the night in the nursery. Little Djinn used to make it through the night with just one nursing but this past month has been evenly split between weeks when she does and weeks when she wakes up twice or more. Between that and her new habit of waking up between 6 and 7 (I entertain her until 8 and then we go join Daddy and it's his turn for a while) and I am a tired mama. The upside is that I've started taking my shower earlier, while Chris is playing with the Little Djinn and she doesn't scream the whole time like she does when I take my shower after Chris starts work and leave her in the nursery.

She can sit on her own, turn around, roll from her back to her front, suck on her toes, and rock on her hands and knees but she just can't quite crawl yet. In less fun news, Little Djinn has ringworm which is not a worm, it's a fungus. I'm trying to remember when I saw the first rash, but it was at the edge of her nappy and I though it was just a bit of chaffing. Two weeks ago she had another, similar rash, further down her thigh so I googled it and surprisingly the answer wasn't bubonic plague but a little painless rash for which there is over-the-counter cream. Chris was dubious, having not got a good look at her rashes, until he saw the same thing on his own thigh. They're sharing a tube of ointment.

In "way to bury the lede" news, back in March, at Little Djinn's 6 week checkup, the doctor thought she might have heard a murmmer and asked us to come back in a month when LD was a bit bigger to have another listen. That time she was certain she heard it, so we were referred to the paediatrician. Our appointment finally came up the week after Aged Parent passed away in June. The paediatrician listened to her heart and said "there's a murmmer" which I thought we already knew, but she referred us to have an ultrasound which we did a fortnight ago. The letter came yesterday saying she has an Atrial Septic Defect, which is to say a small hole between the upper two chambers of her heart. My understanding is that these "usually" close on their own, but at the very least she's in for a lifetime of sonograms.

* I know, hard to believe but it's an indoor pool and it's always hot and stuffy in there, even in winter, so I didn't want to face it on a hot (warm) day.

** River of Stars by Guy Gavriel Kay which was beautiful but ended abruptly. I get why, but I still feel like I read half a book. Currently, Cuckoo's Calling by Robert Galbraith, better known as JK Rowling. No real feel for it yet, but I think I know Whodunit. I only get to read about 20 minutes a day :-/

21 Weeks (State of the Union)

I have three posts in my drafts folder, waiting to be finished and posted. One of them is an obituary for Aged Parent, my f-i-l, Ted, who passed away last weekend. It has only been a week and, as you can probably imagine, everything since has been coloured by his passing. Little Djinn has really been our saving grace: she's so bright and happy that it's impossible to wallow around her. Feeling sad and overwhelmed? Go play cuddle or play with the baby. She's really enjoyed getting to see so much of h Daddy this week as Chris took the week off to Deal with Things and every day this week has involved a trip to Aged Parent's house or a walk into town as we've sorted through his things and made arrangements, as well as previously scheduled appointments. 

  

Back at the start of the month, I had ordered a bouquet of our wedding flowers for our anniversary.* I stopped by the shop yesterday and had it converted to an arrangement for the casket: same day, same flowers, same price, different place to take them. After the..hassle isn't really the right word but I can't think of anything better, of everything else it was almost astonishingly easy. We'd agreed not to do presents but now it looks like there won't even be cards exchanged. 

In Little Djinn news, she's 5.65kg (12lbs7oz) and 61cm (24") which keeps her on her 9th percentile weight and 25th percentile length lines. She's a tiny, slender baby. She can sit up on her own for a few seconds before she gets distracted, leans to one side and topples over. She wiggles off our laps to get on her tummy then screams because she can't crawl yet. She also likes to stand holding hands for balance and bounces from squatting to standing. We did a three week baby massage class, to promote bonding and improve circulation. She didn't much care for the class, she wanted me to hold her so she could see what everyone was doing and didn't want to lay on her back, but she loves being massaged. It's now an integral part of her bedtime routine and often the morning one, too. Speaking of bedtime, she's still a really good sleeper though she's pushed her bedtime back from 7-8 to 8-8:30. She usually sleeps through to 5 or 6, nurses, and sleeps again till 8:30 or 9:30. There have even been days I've woken up, had breakfast with my husband, showered and gotten dressed before Little Djin woke up. We usually go swimming on Fridays but this week we needed to meet with the funeral director. Chris signed her up for swim lessons when he went to register Aged Parents death as the archive centre is next to the leisure centre: that will start in September. She's also started being scared of strangers and, when not hungry, didn't seem to notice who held her. Now she grins and bounces when she sees one of her parents and cries if anyone else gets too close or tries to hold her.

Chris and I have made three things from Paul Hollywood's How to Bake: absolutely amazing bacon and cheddar loaves, wholemeal and cheese scones (good, but eclipsed by Aged Parent's death), and really good shortbread biscuits. Though that last recipe almost ended badly when my American brain translated "corn flour" as "corn meal" rather than "corn starch". Fortunately Chris saw my mis en place bowls and questioned my plan. I thought it seemed an odd variation. 

I also, finally, got to try out my sewing machine. Chris settled down to watch cricket with Little Dinn and I got to set up my sewing machine, wind a bobbin, and sew two triangles before she had a melt down and wanted lunch. And, as the cricket match was rain delayed (shocking in England, I know) I had a bit of an audience. Currently the table is covered in legal and financial documents as Chris sorts through his father's life. Bunting doesn't seem quite the thing anyway. Knitting hasn't progressed much though the end is in sight for my cross-stitch.

* an idea I borrowed from my friend Andy though he got married locally and was able to ask the same florist for the same flowers. Chris and i got married a fair bit south of where we live and our florist was even further down the country so I picked the one where a friend's mother used to(?) work. 

I should change my blog to "Jennifer Lives"

I should change my blog from "Jennifer Knits" to "Jennifer Lives" but I can't edit that from the blogger app. I started off blogging about my knitting and now we're lucky if I mention a project, let alone show pictures and talk about it and I am doubtful that I'll make a better sewing-blogger. 

I received a blogging gift! Long time reader, first time gifter, er, fellow knitter / American abroad and occasional (once so far, but we live in hope especially as Ging Kitty actually let her pet him) house-guest Amy sent me a copy of Paul Hollywood's How to Bake. It was only reading the article in Delicious Magazine that I learnt he's famous for judging Great British Bake-Off (and that he'll be judging the US spin-off); I only heard of him when I saw adverts for the BBC's "Paul Hollywood's Bread" which I recorded for Chris, our resident bread baker. Sure enough, he's fairly rapturous about this cookbook and has already picked several recipes we must make forthwith (the first being Chedder and Bacon Loafs). In non-baking news, I made Rhubbarb Fool (stewed Rhubbarb, mashed strawberries, and whipped cream all mixed together). The picture in the magazine looks smooth and pink. Mine is lumpy and pinkish with bits of fruit swirled around. It's tasty, but not something I'd serve at a formal dinner party.

My mother heard my "I want a sewing machine but don't know what to do with one" and, a life-long sewer, decided that if I have one the rest will take care of itself. I bought a pack of gingham squares and a length of bias tape for bunting to hang on the wall leading up the stairs. I hung the advent calendar bunting there over the winter and the wall has looked a bit bare since. It would be a perfect place to hang pictures of Little Djinn as she grows but I usually lean against the wall when going down the stairs to keep from falling. These are the concerns of the clumsy. I've washed and ironed my fabric and, while I could start now, I'm waiting for the rotary cutter, mat, and ruler I bought with a gift card I was sent. 

I finished another mini knitting project, tiny baby booties from the book I got for my birthday. Unfortunately I was using a bit of scrap yarn and ran out so instead of little ducky booties I made little ballet flats. But the pattern was well-written and they're only a smidge large for her tiny feet. I'll try again with more yarn because, even though I know I'll never be able to keep them on her short of sewing them to her outfit, they are awfully cute.

Little Djinn and I finally started our baby massage classes. Chris had a big project due this week and had to miss the first one, but I can catch him up. We covered legs and feet, which she grudgingly liked (mostly she wasn't happy that I wasn't holding here) and lost it a bit when we went on to chests. Another baby had started crying, then a second, and soon all the babies were screaming except the little butterball to our right who was just looking around like "it's cool man. It's all cool." One totally chill dudelet. I did the massages again before bed tonight and she was more enthusiastic. 

It was a gorgeous day so we did a bit of shopping, took a bus into the city centre, and walked home. After lunch we went back out and lay on the lawn for a little while. I had just about convinced myself that my grass allergy is all in my head, but having my bare legs on the grass for a few seconds was enough to turn my legs pink and splotchy and I had to go back for a second blanket for myself. I am clearly meant for pool decks, not back gardens. 

I leave you with this picture of Ginger Kitty helping.