Tag / ramona

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Breakthroughs, milestones and planning a road trip with an infant

So, today has been a slightly less screamy day so far, although I’d rather not speak too soon since her most screechy time is inevitably the tired afternoon, post-nap playtime. I will almost certainly help this along with a nice walk in the park and maybe a go on the swings as this improved yesterday no end. And I didn’t grit my teeth at all when she stopped screaming whilst playing with her Dad, oh no…

Anyway, today Ramona has decided to do the following:

  • Pull herself upright independently, clinging on to a table or bits of me, a handful of times.
  • Walk along, holding my hands, with increasing confidence.
  • Mimic back noises I make including ‘moo’.
  • Return kisses blown to her with very cute lip-smacking noises.

All of which are, obviously, good. She also taught me that she was happy to eat lunch as long as absolutely everything I gave her was finger food. I say ‘eat’, I mean ‘chew and drop’, but in the chaos of flying bits of lamb, cucumber, bread and banana, I think a few mouthfuls did actually get swallowed. And when I made ‘yum yum’ noises at her she rather sweetly shoved her piece of dribbled-on bread in my mouth. Moist, pre-chewed food is the way to go, folks…

Speaking of food, from six months I’ve been feeding her a mix of finger foods and stuff I can spoon into her mouth but she’s now rejecting the spoon unless she can feed herself with it (again, read: smear it around her mouth, with pure luck deciding how much actually goes in). So she was wearing quite a fetching pattern of lumps and Greek yogurt. She usually loves fruit so I added some canned peach bits to the yogurt but she decided to eat the yogurt and spit those out.

Is this the age where you realise every baby is just a toddler in training?

Anyway, I’m trying to focus on the positive today, and get on with getting ahead on the holiday prep. We don’t go for a month or so, but there’s a bit of an epic list of things to get through. I have a packing list and a ‘to buy’ list. The latter includes:

  • Enough ready made formula for the days in the car, there and back.
  • A few packs of disposable bottles.
  • Enough nappies for the days in the car, and swimming nappies for the days at the destination.
  • Jars of food and snacks for the journey in case there isn’t something appropriate on the road.
  • Contact lenses (okay, those are for me. I hate prescription sunglasses and I’m running short of dailies).
  • All the wipes in the world.

You don’t want to see the length of the packing list. As I’ll be in the car with both Whiffle and her grandparents and it’s not a barge or a tank, we’re probably going to look like we’re crossing Europe in Steptoe’s cart.

Honestly. I’m trying to be brutal and take what’s actually needed, not just what I think I need, but I fear leaving something out only to discover it’s absolutely crucial. I’m like Magrat in Carpe Jugulum, frantically packing to get herself and her infant daughter out of a castle full of vampires but nonetheless terrified to leave anything behind: “…and don’t forget the sponge shaped like a teddy bear. And the teddy bear shaped like a sponge.”

But at least it’s something positive to focus on. And it stops me stressing about the actual car trip bit because I’m going to be on my own (well, with my parents, but not with Ashley, is what I mean) for nearly four days. I’m so accustomed to relying on his never-wavering support, whether that’s emotional or practical, that I’m wetting myself at the thought of getting through the days there and back without him; he’s catching up by plane for the bit in the middle so he doesn’t need to miss work – and therefore getting paid – unnecessarily.

So, yes. Better shopping, packing and planning than stressing about screaming and dealing with her on my own. And honestly, what kind of mother is slightly scared of spending that much time being solely responsible for her child? Well, this one. But I do know who the parent is here, and I’m pretty sure babies smell fear and indecision, so I’m going to do my level best not to exhibit any.

Right. Time to go help ma with some spring cleaning while Whiffle sleeps off the five lumps of banana, two mouthfuls of lamb, single cucumber stick, lone piece of bread and four spoonfuls of yogurt she actually ingested.

Thank God she still likes her milk.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Screaming (hers) and crying (mine)

Yes, I’m blogging again today. Mostly because Ramona decided she wanted to sleep around the time I was going to take her out for a walk and try and sort us out for a bit with some fresh air and exercise. The walk has been postponed until she wakes up from her nap and I can take her to the park and pop her on the swings for a bit.

I’ve been doing some Googlechondric type research on the screaming thing. I would ask the health visitor but when Ramona was a colicky four week old she took three days to get back to us to say “oh, yeah… um… maybe baby massage?” and I have faith in my own ability to Find Stuff Out about my baby.

Part of the problem is that you search for ‘screaming’ and get ‘crying’. She’s not crying. She’s not even upset half the time. She’ll be sitting playing and will suddenly just shriek. She’ll be smiling, cooing and babbling happily then stand still and scream, over and over. No tears, no warning, no indication (reaching, signing, body language) that she actually wants anything. It comes and goes without warning or apparent reason. But there’s always a reason… right?

I do have a theory that it’s partly teething related, and it must be frustrating for her to have been teething since she was about three months old and still not to have a single tooth to show for it. A little Anbesol liquid can help, but not always. And I don’t know whether it’s a case of screaming = teething or if that’s just an extra factor that doesn’t help.

One of the reasons I think it might be tooth-related is that she’s just started refusing to eat properly. She weaned quite early and has always been a decent eater, following a pattern of small breakfast, medium lunch, hearty dinner and enjoying fruit and yogurt snacks. But now it’s no breakfast, infinitesimal lunch and snacks but, bizarrely, decent dinner. I think her tummy has also been bugging her as she’s alternately strained then filled nappies copiously, and I know tummy upsets can go hand in hand with teething.

Some people have suggested when babies do this they’re just ‘finding their voice’ but if so I rather hope she’ll misplace it again and get back to the lovely ‘ma-ba-da-ta’ noises she was making before. My ears are actually hurting from the onslaught.

It might also be ‘look what I can do’. She’s been making funny faces and hissing noises for the last week, a bit of a cat-like ‘ssssss’ that makes us all laugh, her included. So there’s no reason why the screaming can’t be part of that kind of experimentation too.

I’d say it was for attention, but she’ll do it right in the middle of my singing or playing or something else that’s totally focussed on her and that she’s otherwise hugely enjoying. I can’t be consistent about ignoring it, because I can’t ignore it in public, but a couple of times I’ve just stopped what we’re doing and sat her down with some toys. After a bit she’ll just play quietly for a few minutes, and then grizzle for attention for real. So I might continue trying that for a while.

I’m guessing it also doesn’t help that she hasn’t yet figured out how to pull herself upright using just the furniture (if you hold out a hand, she can). She also struggles with pulling herself into a sitting position and hates being on all fours – that’s why she won’t crawl, though we do try to get her to play on her tummy when she’s cheerful so that she can develop the necessary arm / neck strength to move herself around more.

In the meantime, I admit I’m struggling. I’m relying on Mum’s help more than before, and passing Ramona to Ashley when he gets home so that I can have half an hour to myself. I haven’t had time to run properly for a week or so (or rather  I haven’t had the energy), which is why I want to get a good, brisk walk in today. I might have to start going first thing, before Ash leaves for work, as I think the exercise will keep me sane and God knows I could do with being fitter to keep up with her.

I’ve had a couple of moments in the last few days where I have just broken down and cried. Poor Ramona got quite upset seeing me lose my smile, which happens so rarely in front of her. But despite being surrounded by mums I simply don’t know any others at the moment who have had a child that did this. It’s only thanks to the wonders of the Internet that I know I’m not alone. I can’t meet up with other mums and get Ramona distracted playing with another child because if she screams (and she will) they’re bound to worry about their children getting distressed – I guess I would. I also can’t help thinking they’ll judge me and assume it’s something about my parenting that’s caused it.

After all, I wonder myself, at my lowest moments.

So altogether my confidence as a parent isn’t exactly soaring at the minute. As if to balance it out, I’m doing other things like finally going back to my long-neglected Monster Book, and flicking through Twitter to keep up with work news and friendly gossip.

Right now, though, I think I’m going to put this aside and take my cue from Ramona; it’s nap time.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

The Shrieking Shack: Baby phases again…

Poor Ramona. Life at nine months old just isn’t as easy as we think it is. We look at her being carried everywhere, having a lovely buggy, having people fall over themselves to talk to her, cuddle her, play with her and forget how it seems from her perspective.

Being carried everywhere? Only because I can’t move myself and I want to. (She doesn’t crawl, and refuses to try but can stand unaided for up to a minute and do some holding-on shuffling)

Making new friends? Having strange people talking at me and invading my personal space.

Being cuddled and played with? Mostly good, until I need to communicate what I want and NO ONE SPEAKS MY LANGUAGE.

She has learned one sign – ‘milk’ – and occasionally uses it, and the babbling is picking up pace, which is great because it means that some time in the not-too-distant future we might hear the beginnings of speech. She even tried to moo back at me over the book about the cow. We take the ability to speak and communicate so much for granted, and here she is talking away and not being understood. It’s frustrating for me, so it must be doubly so for her because she knows what she means and I don’t!

So, with every milestone – the standing and shuffling have been coming along really well this week – comes a bout of frustration and that means her shrieking phase is back. I know not every baby does this, but she can’t be the only one. It’s alarming; she’ll be sitting playing quietly and suddenly take a deep breath and ululate painfully and repeatedly. And I will wince. And wince again.

I had to step out and count to ten yesterday, and let Daddy deal with it for a while, which he did with patience and calm. I wouldn’t have shouted or lost my rag at her of course, because she’s a baby and she can’t help it, but I could feel my sanity slipping away and took the opportunity to regroup. After all, you simply can’t find the energy to sing songs, create distractions, read, play, sign and soothe if you can’t think straight.

It didn’t help that we made a Major Parenting Mistake yesterday (note to new parents and parents-to-be: you will make one of these most days. Learn from it). We went to a lovely family lunch day out charity thingummyjig. And it was one error after another. Her morning nap was cut short. Her lunch was late. There was too much noise. There were strange people pookey-pookey-pooing right in her face. I will never forget Ramona’s look of horror as my dad was holding her and this very kindly lady stroked her cheek and ba-ba-baaed at her. Separation Anxiety Stranger Fear Fail Alert!

We both felt like terrible parents for putting her through it, although she did sleep through some of it. I hope she doesn’t hold it against us for too long; at least we have learned our lesson about what she can and can’t tolerate right now.

Meanwhile plans are full speed ahead for a summer holiday road trip. Some of the family think I’m nuts for wanting to put her in a car for a few days (no more than about five hours driving per day, broken up) but she’s fine in a car and a wriggly little excitement monster on my lap, so I am not putting this kid on a ‘plane. I find flying stressful enough, thanks! I’ll take each issue as it comes, allow for lots of breaks, and learn from each day’s inevitable mistakes. Like every other parent, I’m flailing in the dark and making things up as I go along anyway.

Sometimes I take heart from the fact that all the descriptions of really successful, intelligent people include a bunch of kids who drove everyone crazy with their incessant energy and curiosity. Maybe Ramona’s ants in her pants and screaming are just signs that she’s too bright for this recalcitrant baby body; maybe she just wants to grow up already, thank you very much. Maybe I’m one of Amy Chua’s Western parents making excuses.

Or maybe I just love my daughter so damn much that even when she’s driving me stark raving bonkers I will find the good in every situation and go after it hell for leather.

Yeah, maybe.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

The Nap Dance, or How to Make a Rod For Your Own Back

Here’s what not to do, as a parent.

1. Don’t get your child used to dropping off for a nap on your bed because they drop off easier that way, they can’t turn over yet and you’re going to be in the room with them anyway.

2. Don’t then, on trying to train them to sleep in their cot during the day once they can wriggle about, let them cry for a bit and then give up and pick them up anyway, thus sending mixed signals. Or, rather, one big signal: you’re a pushover.

Sigh.

It doesn’t happen every day, or even most days, as she’s taken to the cot quite well and has never, ever objected to sleeping in it at night. But if I were watching myself on television right now, in one of those you’re-a-rubbish-parent freak shows, I’d be yelling at the screen.

Though she is now asleep in her cot, so that’s something.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Reflections on Ramona: 8 months in

April 3rd 2011

I’ve found myself rather missing this blog. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve crafted blog posts in my head lying in bed at night but not actually released them into the world. Mostly it’s just plain tiredness; sometimes it’s because I save it for BitchBuzz. I’ve been so terrible I haven’t even linked over to my posts there, but I am still writing about babies and parenthood and stuff bi-weekly on a Wednesday so if that interests you a post will be up tomorrow. I have two ready for publishing, so it’ll either be on things to keep in your nappy bag or dealing with phases.

The latter is what my reflection is all about today. Phases. Specifically, shrieking. I’ll leave the details to that post, but basically she’s in full-on screamy phase where everything seems to need to be accompanied with high-pitched, ear-damaging yowls. There are all sorts of reasons but primarily I think it’s teething. We’ve given her frozen rubbery teething rings and have been recommended chamomilla (haven’t tried it yet) and Anbesol liquid (reasonably effective). To top it all she has a manky cold, and teething makes her nose run anyway, so she’s definitely not her jolly self at the moment.

That said she still does manage to bounce vigorously up and down in her ‘doughnut‘. And we had a lovely first Mother’s Day together, which I will treasure always (that photo was taken that day). She got me a beautiful copy of The Hunting of the Snark, illustrated by Tove Janssen. Amazing taste in one so young.

The frustrations I’ve spoken of before aren’t quite gone. She can feed herself some things, use her cup independently to drink water and eat more complex food, which is great. She can stand, wobbling, holding on to the sofa. She can right herself if she’s slightly reclined. But she can’t crawl, doesn’t enjoy being on her tummy for long and is not quite able to sit up from lying down flat. This leads to a lot of grumping, and I have to balance helping her out with encouraging her to try and do it herself. She’s a bright spark – alert and observant – and that can be the problem sometimes. There’s so much she wants to get into and she can’t yet, and it makes her grizzle.

On the other hand, she’s yammering away now – da-da-da, ba-ba-ba, ma-ma-ma – and imitating sounds she hears. “Casper!” I called to the cat. “Ath-puh,” came a little sound from beside me as she played peacefully. I’ve started to get more consistent with certain signs, such as ‘milk’, ‘drink / water’, ‘cat’, ‘hello’ and ‘finished’ and although again she mimicks them from time to time I don’t think she’s really got it yet. Still, it should help with the communication. And said cat is very tolerant of her and hangs out with her, even going so far as to curl up on her feet during one nap time.

Speaking of cats…

Snaffle May 2008 - March 7th 2011

When I wrote my last post, I was still too distressed from the events of the day before to focus on what had happened on here. Our first cat, Snaffle, a little less than three years old, collapsed suddenly. Despite my rushing him to the vet within 20 minutes, less than two hours later he’d been euthanised. The cause of the collapse had been a very unexpected heart attack, complete with blood clot cutting off the circulation to his legs. There were no prior symptoms and he had always seemed the epitome of a healthy cat.

We miss him a lot.

It makes me sad that Ramona will never know him. But she’s already developing a sound friendship with Casper, which I’m enjoying watching.

Right. Nap time has already been disturbed once for a milk top-up and soothing, so I’d better stop with the clattering typing…

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

International Women’s Day: Things I’ll Teach My Daughter

I wrote a post a bit like this before Ramona was born; I can’t link to it because it’s lost in the mists of Vox time, and though I have a backup somewhere, I think I’d like to start this fresh. On a day when campaigns ranging from basic human rights for women to equal pay and opportunities are celebrated around the globe, I would say that I’m reminded of my responsibility as the mother of a girl, but I never forget it.

I don’t believe boys and girls are fundamentally all that different to raise in a bubble; the differences, such as they are, are biologically pretty minor (see Pink Brain, Blue Brain). But I won’t be raising Ramona in a bubble. I’ll be raising her in a world that routinely insists that women can and should be discriminated against repeatedly just because they’re women. So there are certain things I really need to teach her, and I don’t necessarily know how yet.

Here are three things among many that I will consider it my duty to try and get across to her:

1. Equality does not mean being treated in exactly the same way as everyone else. It’s about having your needs and rights respected equally, so a woman is given the same status and respect as a man. There are going to be some instances where there is no equivalent – child bearing, for example – but do not let people use that as a vague excuse for misogyny. Mumblings about holding open doors are red herrings (you should hold open doors too, you know, for anyone. That’s just manners). It is not about being treated as if you were a man but about everyone being treated as a human being; people who make snide remarks about how if you want equality then no-one should treat you with courtesy are just perpetuating a patriarchal viewpoint – why should being treated as a man by the benchmark, if indeed men are treated discourteously? Because of the privilege they often deny men have! – as well as nonsense.

2. Ignore anything that’s written about ‘biological imperative’. If anyone tells you that men or women are behaviourally ‘hard wired’ to do anything, that’s probably bollocks. For one, studies of children (see PB,BB again) show that boys and girls are not actually very different from each other, so the differences in adults might well be from social, rather than physical, conditioning. For another, we are constantly evolving, so there’s no reason to believe we are still so heavily influenced by early human behaviour. There have been many excuses for treating women poorly based on biology, and all of them have been, in time, shown to be outstandingly stupid, so do be analytical and, in the proper sense of the word, critical about anything you read in this area.

3. Don’t be afraid of the word ‘feminist’. It just means that you care about people being treated with equal respect and status (including men, though they rarely need the lobbying – perhaps the only exception is in custody battles). It does not mean you have to look or behave a certain way. Feminists come in all shapes, sizes, dispositions and genders. If you want to hose yourself in Pepto Bismol pink because you like it, then fine. And if you want to wear baggy trousers and steel-capped boots, fine. And if you want to walk the line somewhere in the middle, ignoring either extreme of the stereotype spectrum well, then, I admit I’d like that best of all. Do not believe that to passionately hold values means you have to wear a certain uniform in order to be accepted by the group or palatable to a wider audience. In other, more succinct, words, this is what a feminist looks like.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Reflections on Ramona: 5 months in

Or 24 weeks, if you prefer. I find there’s some sort of unspoken agreement that just as months turn to years after age 2, weeks turn to months after the first post-birth trimester. I wonder if that’s because my sister was right: the first three months is pretty much an extension of pregnancy with the baby on the outside.

Perhaps it’s also because of this magical thing that seems to happen around the 12-week mark: babies develop a personality. And you fall in love with them all over again. The way I’ve got it worked out is like this (and this is from observation of others as well, although of course every family is different):

Week 1-6: WOAH. Zzzzzzzzzzz. Awake. Not awake. Not quite sure. WHAT THE… Why are they making that noise? (And the version for colic: HOW DO YOU MAKE IT STOP?)

Week 6-12: Okay, we’re cookin’ with gas now! Now achieving expert level at feeding, changing, dressing, bathing… The cogs in this machine are turning beautifully.

Week 12: BANG. Oh. My. God. I love you so much my heart might explode out of my chest and shower everyone with melted chocolate and marshmallows.

They can smile. They can laugh. They can play. They notice things: you moving around the room, the cat pootling by, the cartoon on the television. You hold a book in front of them and they swat at the more vibrant pictures. The playmat turns out to have been an amazing investment. And so on… If the three month mark is a reward for sticking out the adjustment and hard work of the first few weeks, it’s also a much-needed precursor to the next stage.

If there’s one word that dominates the fifth month – at least with Ramona – it’s frustration. She’s bored with milk and wants to eat real food (I’ve started weaning her, actually, but that’s a post for another day). She wants to sit up, but only in the last two days has she shown any signs of being able to do so a little – and of course it’ll take weeks before she can do so reliably. She wants to stand, and can be held in standing position for hours giggling hysterically, but gets terribly upset when her parents’ arms prove fallible. She doesn’t want to lie down, ever, arching and spluttering, until oh, actually she does. She doesn’t want the damned milk already, until you put it in her mouth.

So from the golden moments of the burgeoning personality, there’s now a phase where you have to accept that personality is hers to command. Of course you get to shape it, but frankly she’s going to test you at every moment…

And I love it. Oh, God, do I love it. Every day I am wiped out. Freakin’ exhausted. I spend my day crawling around at floor level, removing my phone from her mouth, feeding, changing, singing, clapping, playing, rocking, trying to keep an eye on naptime and trying to ignore the indignant wailing when I dare to take two minutes out to go to the loo. But every single little milestone – when she twists the ball on the activity centre and looks up expectantly for my clapping and praise, when she managed a full minute sitting only semi-supported – makes me fall in love with her that little bit more. Her eyes. Her smile. The sparkle, that twinkle, that gives her expression such intelligence and baby sweetness.

And now I’d better go; she’s woken up from her nap and does not appreciate the laptop getting more attention than she is.

Quite right too.

This photo, which I think of as the Emo Whiffler, isn’t very flattering and is an overexposed phone shot with zombie red-eye. But it was taken today and I love it.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Reflections on Ramona, ten weeks in

Right now, Ramona is screaming, and we have no idea why. At the moment her father is changing her; we’ve tried all the other soothing options. Sometimes even if she doesn’t really need a change the ritual seems to calm her. We’re even wondering (thanks to some dribbling, a little reddening of the cheeks and some hand chewing) if despite her very young age she’s teething.

I’m writing this so I don’t go nuts, but in a second I’ll drop the computer and take over. We swap back and forth so we both get a break from the wailing. But to you, it’ll seem like I’ve never gone. Isn’t that magic?

<pause>

Twenty minutes later, she’s sleeping peacefully in her bouncer chair. How did we get here? Well, in this instance, the old swap ‘n’ calm worked – sometimes just moving her from one parent to the other seems to do it (although you can only get away with it once – any more pass the parcel and she rightly objects to constantly being unsettled). I think the change also helped though she didn’t respond immediately because sometimes she’s too far gone with irritation to realise straight away that something good has happened. She’s at an age where she’s awake more but still needs 15-16 hours sleep a day. She’s sleeping 7 hours at night now, to our delight, but at some point between 9am and 12pm she really, really needs a nap.

Sometimes we don’t deal with the crying well. Those sobs are designed to pull on your heartstrings and you find yourself on the verge of tears, feeling like a failure. But then, like magic, she quiets down again – sometimes even cracks one of her heartbreaking smiles – and it’s all forgotten.

Frustration, exhaustion, confusion… you feel them all. But never anger, because there is a part of your mind, no matter how tired, worried or disturbed that knows that she is even more upset and unhappy. Because she can’t speak and crying is her hard-wired defence survival mechanism. And all those negative emotions come from deep inside one overarching, deeply powerful positive emotion.

Love really gives you a serious kicking sometimes.

But oh, every day you find out you can love them even more than yesterday, though yesterday you would have sworn it wasn’t possible. Their personality develops, their smiles are brighter, gummier and ever more focussed. Their eyes follow you around the room, their little tummy time press-ups and their wobbling head as you prop them upright…  you find out very quickly why, for a while, parents can’t talk about anything except their little one’s latest achievement. Ramona’s achievements thus far? Smiling, batting at her toys, once or twice grabbing a toy briefly, pushing her head up to between 45 and 90 degrees on her tummy, babbling. Who knew those simple things could ever turn you upside down with awe?

And then, once in a while, comes the crying, to bring you crashing back down to reality. The bubble isn’t burst, though, just a little deflated. And the good news is, that it quickly fills back up again.

I’ll be writing bi-weekly in BitchBuzz about parenting, pregnancy and babies soon (I believe on a Wednesday). I think surviving a crying fit might be one thing I need to cover.

by Alexandra Roumbas Goldstein

Reflections on Ramona, six weeks in

Six weeks. Feels like no time at all and absolutely forever. I suspect anyone with a child will tell you the same, that they so fill up your life from the first second that they appear that it seems as though they’ve always been there. You can’t remember what life was like before them, but at the same time every little milestone seems a long time coming.

It’s been an unexpectedly trying time; we knew the parenthood was going to be hard work, but we weren’t expecting all the other strains laid on us. As Ashley became a victim of the education budget cuts and lost his job a day before I gave birth, the last six weeks has been for us a blur of jobhunting, career considerations (more on this soon – his, not mine), moving in with family to save money for a while and, of course, dealing with sleepless nights, the beginnings of colic (truly indescribably horrendous, and Ramona’s is, by all account, fairly mild) and visits to Miranda Clayton, a lovely cranial osteopath, who has been helping with the latter. And in all of this, we have somehow kept a relatively even keel, something I put down to being treated to daily gurgles and smiles, inquisitive eyes and the cheekiest face I’ve ever seen.

Ramona’s smile is beyond description, a cheek-cracking, gum-showing, eye-squinting wonder. It soothes all the frayed nerves from long minutes of screeching and crying and softens the tension of having had to watch her react with betrayed disbelief at her first injection. The way she pouts, chews her lips, rolls her eyes and bats her eyelids as she’s dropping off into what appears to be a wonderfully vivid dream helps calm my constant worry that there’s something wrong – is she sleeping too long with her head tilted that way? Has she had enough tummy time? When was the last time she fed? How long since her last change?

We know that for her to be quietened, we need to be serene. It’s not always easy, but we’re working on it. If you get the child you deserve, then I’d love to know what wonderful thing I did to deserve this amazing child. I’m in love, and it is changing me. Always for the better.