Nearly a whole month on

I can't believe it's been nearly a month since the last blog! Time flies when you're not having fun.

So much has happened - where to start? Well, Janel's bottom 2 teeth are properly through now, so she's discovered that she can bite things. Fortunately, so far she's only used them to bite food. Long may that last. On the food front, she's discovered that if we're eating something she can usually eat it too. No longer can we eat in peace. No, madam now wants whatever we're eating. Some of it, admittedly, she doesn't like, but the fact that she's taking a real interest in food is a bonus. As yet though, even with something she doesn't like, she will keep trying it - just to check that its taste and texture are the same as the previous taste.

The other day I was eating fruit salad I'd made for myself, and Madam wanted some. I was rather nervous of giving it to her because the pieces were chunk size, which presented a choke hazard. However, I got my nails into a larger piece of pineapple and gave it to her to suck. No, no, madam decided to bite it, and promptly bit off a rather large chunk. I was all prepared to dig it out of her mouth if things looked like they were heading south. She sucked happily for a while and was clearly enjoying it, when she made a bit of a face and then turned away from me. I immediately investigated, only to discover that she'd swallowed the thing whole! Thank God she didn't choke!

On the movement front, she's also progressing well. She has decided that she does, after all, want to learn to crawl. She can now do two manoeuvres or so, before her legs slip out from under her. She can get herself into a sitting position from a crawling position, and vice versa, with ease. This is fine, as it means she still doesn't move anywhere with great speed.

The only problem it presents is that she can now get herself into a standing position in her cot. If she's decided that she doesn't really want to sleep, or that she wants company while she goes to sleep, or even just that she wants to see what's going on around her while she falls asleep, she will get herself into a crawl position, then into a sitting position, and then pull herself up on the cot bars - and look oh-so-pleased with herself when you come back into the room! Hmm... Mom and Dad are not impressed!

She's also realised that if we leave the room she can follow us now. This has, so far, been a great game for all concerned.

On the walking front she's also made good progress. She can pull herself up on anything that provides good resistance with amazing speed and dexterity. She is also walking relatively well if you hold her hands. Occasionally she still gets her legs crossed over and feet twisted up, but on the whole she's got the hang of this walking thing. She still goose-steps to some extent, but much less than she did a month or so ago.

Her speech is coming on, although slowly. She has just discovered how to suck her top lip, and how to make kissing sounds by sucking her lips! On her good days, she loves to copy you - either making coughing sounds or kissing sounds. She talks non-stop, but seems to forget words she knew a week or more ago. Her favourite this week is "Ph-woar"! Hmm.... definitely a Brit then!

She's also just learnt how to pick small things up with her thumb and forefinger, which I'm led to believe is a fairly significant development. On Thursday I took her to the park with her Gogo (Graeme's mother), and on the way back we were saying goodbye to the trees and waving, and for the first time ever she started to sort-of wave! We've been doing a lot of signing with her, in the hopes that this will alleviate the usual terrible two's thing of being unable to communicate despite knowing what you want to say. Thus far, she's shown no interest in signing, although she recognises the signs for milk and 'all done/ finished'. I'm hopeful that if she learns to wave, and realises what it means, learning to sign won't be far behind. She's already showing frustration at knowing what she wants/ doesn't want and being unable to communicate it to us, so the sooner she learns to sign, the better for all concerned.

The video story has, thus far, been a complete failure. It seems that we can't get the video converted onto CD (we don't have a DVD drive on our computer) so that we can edit it. Getting it onto DVD is no problem, but then getting that onto our computer in an editable form is proving more than difficult. We're still hopeful that we can find a company that will be able to do it for us. What that means though, is that we've been taking a lot of video footage (thinking it would be easy to put it up on the web), so haven't been taking photos.... and now have neither video nor photos to put up! VERY frustrating!

Janel has also had her first proper 'flu. We went away to Wales (Snowdonia area) for the last week of the summer holidays, thinking that we'd go for lots of walks. That was completely scuppered though by the fact that first Janel, and then both of us, got the flu. We think we got it from Graeme's mum, who had just arrived from South Africa and had been ill with flu a short while before leaving. Bummer! I think the biggest problem was that it completely ruined any sleep pattern she was developing again after the saga of teething. The poor thing could hardly breathe and because she's under a year, there was nothing she was allowed to take apart from a bit of paracetamol and ibuprofen (although even that was not recommended). We eventually resorted to good old Zambuk - a South African herbal product which is basically a preparation of essential oils in a green salve.

One of the reasons that I haven't blogged for so long is that I've been feeling really ill. Reason being, I'm pregnant again! Yup - number 2 is on the way! I know why we decided to do this, but there are some days where I really do question my sanity - 2 children under 2! This time round the nausea has been incredible - I can't even feed Janel at the moment because just the sight or smell of her puréed food is enough to make me hurl! (The exception being yoghurt and some fruit purées, which I can handle.)

All the things that worked for me last time, don't this time. Things that sent me running for the bathroom last time, I find myself craving this time - like coffee, oddly! (Of course, I know I can't drink it, so I'm making do with decaf when the urge gets too strong, but I am drinking quite a bit of coke, which I know is just as bad.... but when it's that or spend a lot more time over the toilet bowl, I think coke is preferable!)

Anyway, it looks like the blog will be growing... We're both thrilled, I just hope Janel takes to the invasion of her life well! If this one arrives on time (here's hoping!), they will be 17 months apart. Fortunately, there's no OFSTED planned for this academic year, so hopefully no excuse for this one to come early (although, if it has my impatience genes, like Janel seems to have inherited, it won't need an excuse to come early!).

So, I'm really sorry there are no photos, and I'm really sorry that it's been so long since the last blog - but there are good reasons for that, and I'm sure you can all forgive me for this little lull in writing! Hopefully not long till we rectify the photos issue - no comment on the video thing! That'll happen when it happens.