Smiles and jumpers

Wowser, I know I'm biased but what a little smile! Tilly has been practicing her smiling muscles for a few weeks now but has only just certainly demonstrated that she smiles when she is happy and not just when her bowels are squirming! We haven't quite had laughs yet, but it's great to have her little beam at the end of a long day of damp muslins and warming bottles.

I was told by another similarly-addled parent that the smile is the gift that Mother Nature gives you at 6 weeks to get you through the next few months. By a month and a half in, you are desperate for any interraction and recognition. This is the means by which children don't get left out with the dustbin but worm themselves into their parents' hearts.

I can testify that that certainly was required in this house!!

Good to see the sweater in action too. Thought I'd better get it on her while it was still nippy outside as Spring seemed just around the corner...And then it went from 8degrees and sunny to sleet and snow and 1degree again.

Come back, bluebells! I'm ready to run through fields and skip in the blossom.

Things they don’t tell you in Home Economics

Well this has been an extraordinary time. I have achieved more and achieved less in so many different ways than I had ever thought possible. I have kept my sanity (barely) after 8 weeks of anxiety, hormones, drug-addled hysteria and aching EVERYTHING threatened to rip it from me without a ‘by your leave’. I have managed to shower most days and be dressed before 1pm most of the time.

I wrestled with breastfeeding, I wrestled a wide variety of absorbent things, I wrestled with babygroes, I wrestled with the guilt of failing to breastfeed, I wrestled with laundry, baby, muslin and bottle at 4am. I have begun to come to terms with the road traffic accident that is giving birth and remain in awe of the achievement that my body went through, with me the unwilling passenger along for the ride.

I have started to look at the little snarfling creature lying in the moses basket, from which I once addled my own mother, as a little person who I created. She borrowed me for a little while to grow and develop, and I’m going to help her out doing some more growing and developing for a little while longer. She’s not mine so much as my responsibility, which is a distinction I’m getting my head around.

I haven’t picked up needles in ANY form (knitting, crochet, hand or machine) for over 8 weeks and boy am I starting to really miss it. However, I did grab a mini-moment to allow my creative juices to flow (well trickle) into action to welcome the arrivals of the other babies from the local antenatal classes.

I am learning to allow someone else to dictate the pace at which I stumble through my days and I fear this will be good for me. I’m choosing what to do in the rare moments that she sleeps and that choice is fascinating to me each time: I am writing this post, I am drinking hot chocolate, I am going to read this magazine and I am making these flapjacks.

I am a mummy. And she and I will understand what that means a little bit more clearly every day.

Lovely Etsy

Paper & Sparkles are a lovely online shop that I can't recommend highly enough.

Tilly can be seen modelling this season's bespoke line in baby hairbands... My doesn't the little lady look pretty today??

Thanks so much to Dawn for making the custom ordering process so easy!

Venturing out in the snow

One vintage coat... one hand-crocheted scarf... one Etsy Christmas handbag...one Irish aran beret...

Oh, and one baby.

In which I am unable to single out a 'Favourite'

From the oodles of talent that my dear dear old friend has displayed in his visit to the home of diapers and babies...

What the man isn't able to do with a camera isn't worth knowing... Was going to select one and be all minimal in the upload and utterly failed to single out any one picture. So here are a few... Enjoy my little family. I do !!

Holidays in Babyland

Following the previous stirring, in amongst the nappies and nursing bras I somehow found the time to marzipan and ice the Crimbo cake…

Other holiday activities included the bringing the afore-crocheted snowflakes and stitched hearts out…

 

decorating the house…

and enjoying the unseasonably cold weather on the rare occasions that I was able to venture outside…

but mostly I’ve just been enjoying my baby…

Introductions

On the night of Tuesday 8 December, we had a friend over for dinner and chatter…

On the night of Wednesday 9 December, my waters broke.

 

On the night of Thursday 10 December, after 23 hours of contractions, paracetamol (!) and an unexpected water birth, a little girl by the name of Matilda Molly Anne was born, weighing in at 7lbs 3 oz.

On Friday 11 December (my official due date) we brought a little baby home and waited for the grownups to arrive and explain the mistake that resulted in our being responsible for this little person.

On Saturday 12 December, we were forced to accept that there was no administrative error and that we had a baby girl and that we were going to look after it and love it and feed it and then it would grow.

 

Feeding is proving challenging (more on this later) but so far we’re managing to do everything else… just.

Welcome to the world, Tilly.

Knit Wits...

A weekend in the countryside with the in-laws...

A discovery of retro patterns in a folder not touched for twenty years...

A range of baby crochet patterns the like of which has not seen the light of day for some time...

And a stylish way to show your dedication to the monarchy... your boyfriend... and naff knitting...!!

Oh... and on my return from Kent... I was overcome by a sudden urge to push...

Story to follow... but in the meantime, please may I introduce you to my daughter...