Holiday

Lily is full of surprises, most noticeably her capacity for change. I was punished severely for thinking I had cracked it, a few almost slept through nights and some regular proper feeds and then the holiday in The Cotswolds blasted all semblance of smugness out of me. My little princess is now waking at 3 or sometimes 4 in the morning (that's if I'm lucky) and refusing to return to the Land of Nod. I am beginning to feel and look like an extra out of Dawn of the Dead.

Clinging on to the fact that everything is a phase and hopefully a short one.

However at 16ish weeks she is properly giggling, constantly smiling and rolling all over the place, how something quite so glorious could come out of my samantha is beyond me.

Oz

Nothing can prepare you for the first 6 weeks; in the first six weeks I felt rather like Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz as she was deposited unceremoniously in a completely alien land. Or possibly more like the Wicked Witch of the South crushed under a huge house. Whatever it was, it wasn't nice. In those days you are just surviving, I was lucky to make it out of my pajamas and most days were spent careering from one unexpected surprise, or rather calamity, to the next.

3 months on life as taken on at least some semblance of normality. At least I am beginning to find out who I am again and beginning to find out more about LLLT, little by little.

The best advice I have been given so far is by my sister:
"There is no such thing as normal in the world of babies, whatever Lily is doing now that is normal for Lily."

Salivating

3 months on and Lily has learnt all sorts of fancy tricks; grabbing and holding stuff (well, she has done this twice and it's possibly a fluke), laughing delightedly at just about everything but most noticeably fart noises ( she gets this from her Father), catapulting herself upwards with her legs and slobbering profusely like a very over-excited Doberman.

I have learnt that it is remarkably easy to loose a day playing peek-a-boo with your daughter, it is almost always best to let sleeping babies lie and most importantly of all, to never leave a bucket full of stinky nappies to fester in the bathroom.