Referred up

We visited the GP this week and she told us it did sound like old Roz has a possible milk allergy. So we're being referred to the paediatricians at the local hospital and I guess we'll take it from there. Am still hoping that she'll outgrow it, given her reactions are not too severe.

Talk about going native in middle-class Caversham. I did feel slightly sheepish about announcing it, even to the nice GP, but better safe than sorry. Was slightly alarmed to be told that should her lips etc ever start swelling and she looks like she's having difficulty breathing, call 999, do not bring her to the GP.

Meanwhile I've dusted off the old breast pump and am upping my liquid intake (sigh) so as to start stocking up feeds for when I go back to work in a month's time (boo hoo hoo) and Roz goes to nursery. I may even go so far as to buy some green papaya from our local Chinese goods warehouse, it being one of those magic ingredients said to boost milk production. It seemed to work when I was feeding Izzy anyway.

Another tooth

Yes her second tooth appeared on Wednesday. Two teeth with which to nip. Yay.

Tomorrow we reclaim Waitrose

The last night of the Reading Festival was tonight. What this means is that for three or four days, the town is crawling with people. It's quite an odd feeling because it means that nearly every place you go there is always someone with really hideous hair (usually long and dyed red); someone in a ridiculous costume (Biggles the pilot is always popular); and someone in a trendy hat.

And each night you can hear the pounding of the drums and bass, even though the festival stage is a good 45-minute walk away from our house. When I heard it the first night I was mildly annoyed in case it would wake Roz.

Then I thought slightly wistfully on the fact that my youth was, by and large, not very misspent. And I thought maybe next year Alex and I could get some babysitters and go ourselves. After all why not go to a festival when it's right on your doorstep and you can walk home instead of worrying about portaloos?

And then a conversation with some friends this afternoon knocked me back to reality. A bunch of them, after drinks at a pub, went to a nearby playground last night to see if they could hear the music. But they couldn't really. And they laughed over what they must have looked like to the local curtain-twitchers: three grown men sitting in a playground late at night. The clincher was when they realised that even if they were correctly remembering which group was playing, they knew none of their songs.

It's true. I have a Kings of Leon CD sitting around somewhere. I remember playing it in the car when I was still commuting from London. And then taking it out when I deemed it too loud for Izzy's tender ears. I have never listened to it again.

Tsk.

Izzy will be four in a week's time

I'm still a bit shocked at this fact. I recall being impatient for when she would be old enough to start sending her to classes - piano and swimming, mainly. And suddenly she is.

So far we've signed her up for half-hour ballet classes on Saturday mornings and an hour of gym on Friday evenings. This is a bit dopey as they are slightly similar and I would have preferred her to take swimming or music instead, but all these lousy classes seemed to operate waiting lists so when I was asking around in early summer I just put her name down for the gym one in case we didn't find anything else. I suppose I could still withdraw her as the first class is a taster, so we'll see.

In the meantime I guess we should get round to getting a piano or at least a keyboard if I'm serious about music lessons.

A number of other things to do: send out the invitations for her party at Bucklebury Farm, which we've finally booked this year, for the 19th of September. And start worrying about the cake. She's said she wants a strawberry cake and she's been quite consistent about this for the past few months so I suppose I should really make one. Am thinking sponge cake with sliced bananas, strawberries and fresh cream in the middle. So now I need a proper cake transporting container like mom used to have.

Roz loves rice cakes

But really you're thinking oh my god that hair, aren't you? As soon as I take a satisfactory portrait of that hair she can have her first haircut.

My potato harvest

Not bad considering I just stuck three supermarket potatoes in a patio container and pretty much left them bar the occasional watering.

Baby-led weaning: rethinking

One of our coffee mornings ago, Amy, who works at baby's nursery, brought up the subject of baby-led weaning (BLW) and asked if any of us had tried it. And I said that I'd read about it - it's just giving baby a portion of what you normally eat sans salt but without pureeing and extra vigilence, and letting them choose what to stuff in their mouths - but thought it sounded a bit nuts to be giving a six-month old chunks of food.

And I said I'd definitely let Izzy, for example, take bites out of banana that were small enough for her not to choke on, and I let her hold anything she felt like holding but BLW in terms of chunks of meat, which babies will apparently suck on and gum to death, sounded a bit bizarre. And vegetables: do you give it to them soft enough for them to masticate but worry they could bite off chunks big enough to choke on? Or give them stiff bits which are less likely to break but if they do are bigger choking hazards?

So anyway, a few weeks later, I am thinking hmmm maybe it's not as scary as it sounds. Part of this is due to Roz herself who has been snatching pieces of bread out of my hands ever since she had her first taste of it.

And when I say snatching I'm not exaggerating. She'll be in my arms, I'll be eating a burger with one hand and, on sighting the bread, she'll throw herself toward the bread and grab it, pulling off whatever her little fist closes on. And because I'm concentrating on balancing her so she doesn't fall out of my arms, I can't defend the bread. Once she'd done this twice I just gave in and every time we eat bread now I give her a little piece of crust to chew on.

So here's the odd thing - I puree avocado for her, she gags on it. I mash up a banana, she gags on swallowing. Ditto a mush of lentils cooked in chicken stock. But she has never gagged on any of the pieces of bread she's eaten so far. Even when she's had relatively stiff pieces of crust from eg a posh loaf of sourdough. Maybe because the crust is so hard there's no way she tries to swallow it without gumming it? And she seems much happier being allowed to bite off small pieces of banana, and being given little bits of avocado than the mashed-up versions.

Anyway am slightly more open to the idea now though there are already two little bags of rice and apple and lentil puree in the freezer. I suppose I can try to add little chunks of things to them for texture. It's not as if I didn't do this for Izzy, I guess, I just seem to be moving forward a lot quicker than a did with her.

Milk allergy?

One of the other things I've discovered is that Roz may be allergic to cow's milk. So far, each time I've tried her out with yoghurt and fromage frais, she's developed hives on her face. Then the other day I bought a packet of baby cereal from the supermarket, which had follow-on milk (43%) in it. I mixed it up and fed her and the hives were even worse this time although she'd consumed only a few mouthfuls.

Usually they appear around her mouth and on her neck and they come and go within two hours. And usually she doesn't notice them at all. But with the cereal they stayed a bit longer and were more severe and she obviously felt the itching because she kept rubbing at her face.

Arrgh, this is terrible because it means I may have to get on the expressing treadmill after all, instead of putting her onto formula, which Alex and I had been looking forward to! Even worse this means I have a month to start stocking up for when she starts nursery - argh, argh, aaargh!

Result of jam making

Four pots of plum and last-minute-panic-add strawberry cinnamon jam. By 1.30 I was rather worried it would never set so threw in half a punnet of whole strawberries - the only thing around with any pectin. The jam is pretty damn lovely but I wonder what would happen if I threw in a soupcon of balsamic vinegar. This stupid phone's dictionary doesn't recognise the words punnet, pectin, or balsamic. Utterly useless as jam-making goes.

Attempt at jam-making

It was this or eat a kilo of honeyed plums in two days. And even I am not that sybaritic.

First tooth

Roz's first tooth is out. It's the bottom right one. Feeding has suddenly turned more hazardous.

Izzy in manja mode

We frequently have a conversation in bed about how much Izzy misses Alex if he hasn't gotten home before bedtime. Tonight's was interesting because it was the first time she's mentioned multiplication in a way that showed she might understand the concept.

'Mummy, I miss daddy.'

'I know, daddy's on his way home.'

'I miss daddy, mummy. I miss him this much (one arm stretched out), no this much (both arms stretched out. No this much (arms held out vertically instead of horizontally... I think I miss him two times this much... No, three times tens this much. A hundred times this much. A hundred three times.'

'A hundred hundreds even?'

'Yes, a hundred hundreds and two more hundreds much.'

'Why don't you think of a song to sing to daddy to tell him you miss him?'

She thought for a bit.

'I love daddy... I love daddy...' then her eyes gleamed and she held out a finger, and began jabbing me with it. 'Poke, poke, poke... poke, poke, poke - hahahahhahaa.' Doesn't take much to divert her.

Take two wee ladies

Well three really

Add some face paint

Some ice-cream

And lots of play

Result!

Babushka and her bread

Blackmail

Izz had a lovely day playing with an old nursery friend who's now in school. By the time I picked her up, she looked exhausted to the point of ill temper. But as we pulled away in the car, I was surprised to hear her suddenly pipe up excitedly:

'Mummy, when we get home, you have to give me a sweet.'

'Hmm? What?'

(More slowly for the benefit of slow mummy but in the same ringingly triumphant tone) 'When we get home, you have to give me a sweet, or else I won't sit in the car seat any more.'

I recovered my breath reasonably quickly. We don't deal with terrorists in this household.

'Izzy, if you don't sit in the car seat then you can just stay at home all day and not go anywhere at all.'

She recovered quickly too.

'But mummy... just one.'

'No.'

'Please mummy, just one sweet.'

'Nope.' (Quite enjoying myself now.)

'But just one, mummy, pleeease.'

'NOPE.'

Yeah that was kind of fun.

Still waiting to see

This week we also saw a consultant about Roz's hearing loss. We had an appointment at the main hospital and when we got there they tested Roz's ear drums again - because I think at the last tests they thought there might be some mucus behind her right one. And they thought it was still there this time, only the consultant also cleared some wax out of that ear.

We ascertained the same facts with him as I'd done with all the other health people I've been in contact with so far: Normal pregnancy, normal birth, no family history, tests done twice indicate it's the nerves in the cochlea that are at fault here, rather than any mucus behind the right ear drum, but you never know.

Did I have any questions? As usual I thought of only one after we'd left, which is: how likely is it for her hearing to deteriorate? But maybe I don't want to know the answer either. Anyway we reaffirmed it was too early to determine anything and that Roz appears to be developing as normal at the moment: her babbling goes up and down in pitch, which he said is a good sign, because deaf children usually only kind of go mmm mm mmm - although that example was a bit disconcerting because she's far from deaf; and she startles at all sorts of noises. In fact she's a very light sleeper. My clanging a pot in the kitchen can wake her if she's sleeping in the bedroom above.

So on to our next appointments at 10 months (a behavioural hearing test) and another consultation with Dr Herdman or Hardman, I wasn't paying a lot of attention, when she's a year old.

And for what it's worth regarding the apparent outcry in the US over healthcare reform - there was a gem of a voxpop on the news one day, with some woman going 'I don't want this country to become the Soviet Union!' - the NHS is far from perfect I guess, but so far it's been pretty damn good to us.

Roll over, roll over

Today she rolled herself off the sofa, to no apparent harm thank god. Izzy was the only witness as Alex and I had both stepped out of the room absent-mindedly thinking the other person was watching her (note how I'm distributing blame equally).

Alex then told Izzy she would have to help look after her little sister and stop her rolling off if she tried to do it again. And part of me thinks... well four-year-olds in tribal societies are fully responsible for younger tots. So she could learn a bit of responsibility. And part of me wants to smack him round the back of the head for such a ridiculous idea. So I said nothing but will in future not leave Roz on the sofa.

This evening we spent an enjoyable hour in bed getting Roz to roll to each of us. When Izzy first called her over, you could see she wanted to come. But she still favours rolling to the left so at first she rolled away from Izzy. You could see the consternation on her face when she came up from the roll and realised it hadn't worked. So then she kind of scrabbled towards Izzy for a bit, before finally working out the roll to the right.

After that she got to practise rolling to the right quite a few times with Alex. It's sweet to see the pride of accomplishment on her face when she gets to where she wants to go. And clamps her mouth down on the foot, or t-shirt that was in her sights. I thought she was responding to our calls. But really it's frequently because she can see something she wants to chew on.

Weaning

All going well. So far she's had rice and apple, bread, banana, bread, rice cakes, Organix carrot and sweet corn snack thing, more bread, sweet potato, peach, and really posh bread (La Brea sourdough loaf with sesame seeds, yum).

She loves gumming crusts to death. And for some reason she never gags on the bread, but quite frequently does on the purees. Maybe it just all falls out of her mouth and I never see because she gets to hold the bread instead of have me feeding her. But she can eat a good handful (her handful, not mine) of bread at one go, but tends to only like about a teaspoon of fruit at any one time.

I'm thinking maybe she's fond of the bread because it's the only really savoury food I've given her so far. Everything else has been sweet. So this weekend will try to get round to making up some of Izzy's past favourites: mashed potato with milk, and lentils in chicken stock. Will see how she takes to those.

I think the teeth are arriving

She's been wanting to chew things for ages - since the end of May really. But yesterday I think I felt the emerging bumps of the bottom two for the first time. Here's to hoping they come out soon. Roz has been waking once or twice in the night for about two weeks now. I'm not sure whether it's because of the teething or because she's hungry. But she's been better these last couple of nights so I'm hoping she's settling down again.

We need to talk about table manners

New toy

Food grater costing £2.99 from Tesco. Although my not-that-ripe peach has turned out closer to juice than puree.

One minute

Roz rolled from that cushion to here in the time it took to fetch a sleeping Izzy from the car.

Adventures in eating continue

Roz feeds herself avocado. Prefers lumps to mash. I just like not having to cook it first.

But quite likes banana

Though only if she gets to bite bits off. Not as keen if she is given mush.

Don't she look lovely?

Oh yes especially for someone who spent all afternoon screaming like a banshee.

Good times at the 'beach'

Nothing says August like the giant sand pits that spring up around towns.

Got impatient

So here is Roz having her first official food of pureed rice and apple. She wasn't so keen - think I need to loosen the mix a bit. But she was snatching at the bread I was eating later the same day, happily gumming it to mush. Think the thing is that she wants to hold it herself.

Make your own Olympic medal

Izzy chose to make a silver one. Type B like mummy then.

Bit of nationalist indoctrination

Henley Rowing Museum

Another sweet little museum with loads of things for children.

Yummy sandwich

Who they look like

I think we can answer this question now. This is Izzy:

And this is Alex:
And that's me on the left.

Ya?

That net bag thingummy

She seems quite happy chewing on a piece of carrot.

24 wks, 1 day (Roz)

I'm trying to keep track of Roz's age at the moment because god almighty I've been waiting a long time to feed her something other than mother's milk. I know I could have started earlier but for some strange reason I seem to be wanting to do everything the way I did it with Izz, on the grounds that she turned out to be a good eater. And Izzy ate her first solids at 25 weeks.

My resolve is slowly weakening though, particularly because at the moment it's quite easy to distract Roz with food. I've handed her a stick of carrot and pieces of bread before and she's not been able to do anything more than suck them so far but it keeps her quiet for a good few minutes when I'm eating myself.

Er I must confess I've also let her lick some milk froth (only milk) from my coffee and drips of ice-cream but they both brought out instant red patches around her mouth. Thankfully they went away after about an hour each time but I no longer go anywhere near dairy now. She's also had the opportunity to lick some fruit: cherries she liked a lot, peaches seeemed to surprise her.

Anyway having jibbed the idea of more housework in favour of a walk around town and then up to work to pick up Izzy from the nursery, I bought a pair of silicone spoons from Mothercare. This is because earlier this week I looked for the Tommy Tippee spoons we bought Izzy and both spoons I found, in our store cupboard, seemed to be uniformly covered with some sticky substance. Am reasonably certain our housekeeping is not that shoddy so chucked them both out. I thought they might make quite good teething things, as Roz is currently drooling enormous amounts and trying to chew on just about anything she can get her hands on, particularly with her back teeth. And there's no way she can get any of our current teethers far back enough into her mouth for that. So spoons.

Also, in John Lewis last week, I picked up this net bag thingummy. I shoved a slice of apple in it earlier today and Roz seemed quite happy chewing on it for a while, until she remembered I hadn't fed her since before our long walk about four hours ago, and then she started howling. When I picked her up I realised the front of her shirt was all wet. Time to dig out the bibs then. Roll on 25 weeks!

Seriously crazy hair

The picture to blackmail her with

So proud of herself

For finding the only dangling wires in the living room of course.

Yaiyaiyaiya

Roz is starting to babble in a quite focused manner. Not just to complain either. One day this week she let out a sudden squawk in the car on the way to nursery, which made Izzy howl. Next thing you know both of them are laughing at each other, which was nice. Then Roz started going yaiyaiyewyaiyewyewg etc. And Izzy started going 'Burger! Burger, Roz! Say burger!'

I asked but am still no wiser as to why Izzy would want her to say burger. I diverted that effort by trying to get Roz to say mama, which got Izzy going 'No, say cheche, say cheche first!' I don't mind if she says cheche first - especially since, realistically there's no chance, is there - but I'll be darned if burger comes before mama.

Sunshine!

Today must be the third day or so since the dismal month of rain that was July, which actually feels like summer. The first was this Tuesday when a grey and cool morning suddenly turned so bright and blazing I spent the entire afternoon feeling quite dazed. Yesterday I won the is it safe to hang out the laundry lottery and today I'm even thinking second load.

That or sod all the tidying, wasing up and laundry, and let's go for a walk and picnic, Roz!

Journeys around my mother

Or How Roz Gets Her Daily Paper

First we get off the cushion

Now we are ready to roll

Newspapers hurrah!

Today's craft activity is...

Fire survivor mouse.

Good times at the playground

Almost sitting

Izzy is making her own jewellery

We heart the toy library

Finally joined the toy library like I'd been meaning to for ages. It's am Aladdin's cave. Especially the musical instruments cupboard. Only the lack of space in the car prevented me from borrowing a proper child-sized xylophone for Izzy.

Trying times

Ever since we came back, Izzy has taken to muttering her disgruntlement to me in Malaysian tones. She keeps trying to introduce the '-ah' to her expressions and sounds extremely amusingly like a mat salleh trying to do the '-lah'. For example, today, on pleading for more TV:

'Just ONE show, AH.'

'No.'

'(tsk) YOU. AH.'

At other times she mutters something incomprehensible but with a Malaysian rhythm to it. I try not to laugh so that she will at least keep listening to her cousins and trying to speak like them. Am hoping that even if she doesn't pick up any of their languages in a comprehensible way, she will eventually be able to pass for a Malaysian and speak our lousy patois.

One other thing she was doing was hitting or pinching me when I said something not to her liking. (See conversation above.) Was speaking to Felix's mom the other day and was immensely relieved to hear she's not the only one going through this phase.

I've always told her off for doing anything like this - and she doesn't dare hit hard nor is she very openly defiant - but she didn't really start paying any attention until I started making her sit on the carpet for a few minutes whenever she did. After the last three times she seems to have stopped. For now anyway.

Roz is also going through a slightly bananas phase in that she can't seem to bear it if I move out of her sight. Each time I go to the bathroom to wash my hands after changing the nappy I hear her wail of despair. And each time I reappear in her line of sight, it magically stops, even though there are tears already pooling in her eyes.

When I picked up Izzy today, one of my colleagues, Suniti, carried her in, and she was perfectly happy until Suniti turned one way to speak to the nursery girls. After about half a minute, Roz let out a heart-rending howl and burst into sobs that didn't subside for another minute, even though I then took her and patted her back reassuringly.

God grant me the patience to live with three drama queens in the house.

The end of summer beckons

Am counting down to the end of August with dread. Felix will stop going to the nursery then, and his little brother will only stay until the end of October. They're both going to be going to the local nursery which feeds their primary school as well. So it makes sense for them to move. Izzy kind of knows that Felix is going to 'big school' and as all her older friends have done this too, thank god she hasn't kicked up a fuss about it.

But I'm absolutely heart-broken they won't be seeing each other so much any more. The two of them have grown apart a bit but once upon a not so long ago, they were inseparable at nursery. I have been recounting Izzy's sighing for 'Lik-Lik' in the car on the way to work to anyone who'll listen. She won't even admit that she used to call him Lik-Lik now, 'It's Felix!'

Then this weekend I suddenly realised that the 'year and a half' it was going to take for one of our remaining London gang to complete some exams and take off for Singapore would suddenly be the end of this year. Which means bye-bye baby - not really a baby anymore either - Arif too (see the cool dude below).

Gods. I thought Arif's mom and I had only just arranged to meet up more now that she works part-time (though is now busy cramming for the exam on her days off) and I was on maternity leave. And this visit was the first time Izzy and Arif kind of played together rather than alongside each other. Well at least he let her lead him by hand around Carluccio's where we had lunch and they both looked happy about it.

Then today arrgh I found out that little Tara will be taking a year off to Delhi with her folks. Beginning in October! Argh! I've seen it before - the kids kind of miss their friends a bit but their places get taken by other children they're in contact with. But what about us, eh? I know it's pathetically sad but I miss the kids too!

Roz's demure new look

Well maybe not demure. Maybe just less crazy hair.

Izzy the gymnast

Izzy and her visiting cool dude

Roz has serious bed hair

Visiting Windsor today