After all that fantastic late summer weather we’ve now had a few days of autumn: cold, blustery and lots of showers… I’ve persevered with our morning walks, just wrapped a blanket around Jessica, a rain cover around the push chair and zipped my own jacket up a bit higher. Jessica didn’t seem to mind: she dozed off for her morning nap as per usual. When awake, Jessica likes to move about in the push chair (I’m clipping the ‘seat belt’ around her every time as she once very quickly got halfway on her way out of the push chair, with her bottom where her feet should be…), waving her arms and legs and sticking her feet up in the air, and she’s brilliant at wriggling her socks off. We usually catch her out before she manages to kick them off, though one afternoon I temporarily lost one and had to leave it until the next morning to go looking for it as Jessica was due a feed. The following morning I retraced our steps and someone had helpfully put the sock up on a fence, easy to find. We haven’t lost any of her clothes or toys yet and – touch wood! – I hope it stays that way…
Last Saturday (11th August) was lovely and sunny and we went over to our friends Phil and Anna in Reigate for tea and cake in the afternoon. Their little baby boy Mark is 4 months older than Jessica but they’re about the same size – though saying that, Mark is a little bit tinier than his siblings were at the same age. Jessica and Mark had a little bit of a chat and touching of hands, which was nice to see. They’re too young to be playing with each other yet but hopefully they’ll get on really well when they’re a bit older.
Phil and Anna have two dogs plus currently also two rabbits on loan. Jessica didn’t react much to either the dogs (although Rusty, the big Golden Retriever, is very hard to miss) or the rabbits – it’s like she doesn’t notice them somehow. It will be interesting to see when she’ll take an interest in animals (I’m assuming all kids do at some point…?).
Jessica had been yawning during the car journey there but once we arrived she got very excited by the new scenery and company, as she usually does. Subsequently she found it very hard to settle for an afternoon nap. That’s usually the problem when we’re somewhere different with her: she doesn’t want to miss out on anything new and keeps going until she starts to cry from exhaustion. I took her in my arms, stepped back a bit from the others and rocked from side to side while singing a lullaby. It took a while and she was grizzly meanwhile but eventually she did drop off to sleep. Unfortunately this was as late as 4.40-4.45pm, which means that she takes longer to get ready for bed in the evenings – not a problem in itself, only I like to have some of the evening to do a few bits and pieces and then sit down and relax with Ian for a while before going to bed myself…
Saturday evening, Ian’s sister and Jessica’s aunt Wendy came over to babysit while Ian and I went down the pub to meet a couple of friends (also with small baby being babysat) for a few drinks. I’d put Jessica to bed but, I guess due to her late afternoon nap, she was full of beans chatting and creaking to herself and rolling back and forth in her cot. She did go to sleep before Ian and I left, on her right-hand side with her thumb in her mouth – the first time she hasn’t fallen asleep on her back. (She doesn’t usually put her thumb in her mouth to go to sleep in the evening either.)
I forgot to say earlier that, apart from being able to go quite high-pitched nowadays – with a slight increase of volume at times – Jessica also smacks her lips and makes a ‘k’ sound. I heard the latter for the first time last Friday (10th August), I think, when I was looking through a picture book with her which was full of dragons – I kept talking about the dragons on the pictures: ‘oh, look, what a lovely blue dragon’ (‘drake’ in Swedish) and suddenly she went: ‘k, k’. I’d like to think she copied my sound but I’m not sure she’s at that stage yet.
Gabriella