One Orbit of the Sun Completed!

MIRANDA IS ONE YEAR OLD!!!

Really find that hard to believe! This time last year, I was just allowed out of hospital, and we wrapped her up in her minute car seat for the first ever trip home. She was very slightly orange (jaundiced) and had loads of spikey dark hair.
One year on, and she is currently rocking about on a large wooden snail, (thanks to Aunty Tattoo-Jo), swigging orange juice from her bottle, and singing "doobu-doobu-doobu ayaayuu" to herself in the play corner in my cafe (which also didn't exist a year ago!). She is very much a little person now, but even so, this year has just flown by.

Miri is more or less blond now, her hair seems to lighten in the sun just like her Dad's does. She is 74cm tall (at least, she was last time she kept still long enough to measure!), weighs just under 12kg, has size 5 feet (!!!) and four teeth.

Development-wise, she is walking!!!!! Well almost. We know she can do it, and we even have video evidence of this, but she still prefers not to because she is still quite wobbly, and crawling is still the faster, most efficient option. Nevertheless, the cafe is no longer my own and we have had to construct the Miranda Containment Facility to stop her getting in the kitchen in there! She is also saying "Mum" "Dada" and named her new doll "Diedre" (by holding it going "Deedree!). Unfortunately these words are applied indescriminately, so anyone she wants something from becomes "Mum" and anyone who picks her up for any reason other than food, becomes Dada. Otherwise, she is very chatty, and sings or talks to her toys quite happily in Miriese.

She's still having the occasional boob feed too. I am trying to stop this just because she has been known to BITE with her sharp new teeth, which is excrutiating. We have yet to find any sort of food that she won't eat too, so she doesn't really need breatmilk any more anyway. She regularly has a bottle of milky tea in the cafe with me. However, the other week I had a run in with an idiot doctor. I went to the doctors because I've been having migraines, he prescribed me something, but I asked if I could take it and still breastfeed. He was genuinely incredulous that I was "still" breastfeeding!! He already knew exactly how old Miranda was, but I was quite offended by his reaction. It may not be that common to be breastfeeding at a year old, but it is not unheard of, not abnormal or freakish and certainly not doing her any harm! Surely doctors should be encouraging me and supporting me, not practically ridiculing it? NOT IMPRESSED.

AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaanyway, on her actual birthday yesterday, we had a party in the cafe, and I invited all my friends with children, and also some of the customers that come in with kids. We had SO MANY show up!! Miri was spoilt rotten, as even people I didn't know very well brought presents for her. At one point we had 10 kids in the cafe, all under 6. I fed them all jelly and icecream and they raced around and played with all the toys in the cafe and blew party poppers at each other and made a glorious mess. Needless to say I am completely shattered today!!! Miranda managed a 20 minute sleep all day, the rest of the time she was too excited to even contemplate the idea of a nap. I don't get why she is so awake and boisterous today now! Granny and Grandad came up over the weekend too, and we went to a big play park which she loved, and they took her out while I was working in the cafe on Saturday, and I pedalled her about in the new seat (from the grandparents) on my new trike... all in all, a very exciting few days for a small girl!

Now, she has a rocking snail, a 'scramble bug' (ride on cute thing), lots of new clothes and books, a cuddly springbok from Auntie Karen in South Africa, various plastic noisy things, and Auntie Jopo had the sense to buy her two large toy boxes to put it all in! Carl decided she needed something Big to play in outside, so we got her a swing and slide set for the garden - she loves it!

The party was brilliant, and it was lovely that so many of our friends showed up to celebrate with Miranda. I don't think she actually understands the concept of "birthday" yet but she really enjoyed herself!! I am so proud of my "toddler"!! 

Long time no blog, and many changes!

Miranda is now ten months old...!
I have been rushed off my feet with the cafe and the Phd and every other mad scheme, and despite the exhaustion, I feel so lucky that Miri takes it all in her minute stride. She is very, very social, and really does appear to love the cafe. Most of my customers think she's wonderful, with total strangers commenting on how bright, alert and CUTE she is! Of course, she laps up the attention.

The third tooth is just about visible now, top right we think - it looks as though it will break through any day now.

Miranda is also talking - she babbles away happily to Carl and I, shrieking at things that annoy her or amuse her, gurbles intently at her toys, and makes emotive political speeches, accompanied by wild gestures and appropriately forceful table banging, from her high chair in the cafe. All of this is in Mirandese. She has got the hang of Ds and Bs and Gs - dadababagaga and her favourite: BooGURgoo. Annoyingly, she says Dada all the time but hasn't managed Mama yet. I changed her nappy the other day and I could swear she suddenly yelled "CABBAGES"! More worringly though, she came at me far too close the other morning, grabbed my hair with both hands and said "Braaaaains". Baby Zombie!! Aaaargh!!

At the end of February, we went to stay with Granny and Grandad for a week (leaving poor Carl behind.) They fussed over her no end, insisted on giving her a bath pretty much every night, and we got a Titch-hiker thing that lets her ride around on my shoulders which she adores! Meanwhile, I managed to finish the last chapter of my thesis. I love Miranda with all my heart, but sometimes she doesn't exactly help...:

We went to Miri's second Whitby Goth Weekend too, just for a day trip. Miranda wore a fabulous little Spider suit given to her by Ione Chapman complete with Velcro'd on extra legs. Whitby was a bit quieter than usual, but she had great fun meeting up with our extended goth family - and of course had her photograph taken ALL DAY. I bought her her first doll, a little 'Batling' like a Cabbage Patch kid but wearing black and with bat wings!

A few weeks ago, I also experienced my first Mothers' Day! Bizarre feeling really, I almost forgot it now applies to me. I send off a card to Granny, but then Carl  - I mean, Miri - bought me a Book of Cakes and a bib for Miri saying "Don't Laugh, She's My Mum".

The biggest news though is that MIRANDA IS MOBILE! She has been veryvery close to crawling for so long, but she hated doing it, much preferring me to bend double and walk her around holding on to my fingers. When I didn't want to give myself a bad back any more, she used to wail at me and complain instead of actually crawling. That was until four days ago. Suddenly she twigged and worked out what her knees can do. It really was a case of overnight mobility, on Thursday she was still getting cross when I didn't walk with her, then on Friday she was scooting about on all fours, making bids for freedom out of the front door, getting into the cupboards at work and cruising round the edge of the furniture. She can pull herself up on most things now and there has been plenty of bumped hea-ds and wailing - usually more out of surprise than pain. The floor comes up and bites her when she isn't looking! So Unfair!!

So, the cafe is no longer my own. Jo and I are constantly dreaming up Miri Containment Schemes (possibly involving picket fences - "it's ok as long as you call it a playpen and not a cage!"), and I am hunting for socket covers and feel as though I am constantly vacuuming after she distributes raisins and crumbs and bricks and various detritus around the place. 

 

My little Moomin Cheese is growing up!!

New Experiences

Yesterday we saw hippos! Shaun took us down to the river ('Crocodile River') that runs through the farm, and there were 17 hippos in a big family group, splopping about in the water and occasionally surfacing to bask in the sun. Magnificently ugly beasts. They definitely knew we were there, and kept eyeballing us from a respectful distance, but were otherwise unbothered. Miranda glowered at them for a while and then decided she wanted feeding. Milk is still far more interesting! This is why I am taking thousands of photos and writing these blog posts - sadly Miri won't remember any of these experiences. It may well be a good thing; the other morning we nearly ran over a huge black mumba snake lying in the road and it reared up at the car!! Freaked me out totally but fortunately Miri remained completely oblivious.

One new experience she is getting to try though is solid food, specifically, South African solid(ish) food. Karen seems to think, at four months, I shouldn't be breastfeeding as much as I do and we should be weaning her. I have noticed that Miranda takes an interest in what we are eating and everything she grabs goes straight in her mouth anyway. And she needs to cut this first tooth that is growing on something, I guess. I think my milk maybe tasting slightly different too: the South African diet is basically meat, meat, more meat, a bit more meat for extras and a portion of meat on the side. All red meat, too though Shaun graciously allowed some chicken (well marinated, of course) on the most recent braai. We are not giving Miranda any meat besides braai-flavoured milk, but we are giving her little bits of our food to try. She liked bits of potato and mayonnaise from potato salad, tiny pieces of tomato, baked beans, banana and yellow rice from when I tried babotie (a Cape Malay dish of a sort of spiced meatloaf with raisins in, topped with an egg custard and served with yellow rice and plaintain - odd but delish!). Of course I know these things aren't good for her, but we gave her such tiny amounts it couldn't do any harm. She seemed VERY keen though!

In the cause of being sensible and healthy, we bought her some 'Purity' first baby foods, as recommended by Lindsay, a vegetable one and a fruit one, and bravely tried to feed her with her favourite green rubber spoon. At first, she was more interested in the spoon and tried to chew it, meaning the orange goo just went straight down her front. But little by little, the vegetable one disappeared over three feeds. The fruit one was not a success, but she still ate a bit of fresh banana too.
Karen took us to the nut factory, where they process all the locally grown nuts and some fruits. The factory shop sells huge bags of the things very cheaply, so we stocked up. I got a big bag of dried fruit - apricots, apple slices, peach halves etc to try Miranda with. A few pieces of apple disappeared and then she got very very attached to a slice of peach, just sucking on it and producing copious amounts of orange drool. We wandered round this little place with lots of craft shops and a winery, and I bought her a handmade cuddly warthog. We sat down to have some lunch and the floodgates suddenly opened. Too much dried fruit and vegetable goo on a little stomach adapted to a milk-only diet does not produce pretty results!! Two explosive, brown lumpy nappies in quick succession... Ew ew ewww. Worse, the apple appeared to have gone straight through her, whole and undigested. Sign enough, we think, that maybe poor baby isn't quite ready for solid foods. However, the look of pride and satisfaction on her face after filling those nappies was priceless!

Billingualism

Miranda was born in Darlington, Co. Durham, to parents born in Sheffield and Wakefield. This makes her a genuine northerner. I am very proud of this. However, I really hope she doesn't end up with a Darlo accent!
I can't decide if i'd prefer that to her having a South African accent though, not that that is really likely. I just cannot get used to it. Carl's dad has this strange combination of Yorkshire with a strong Afrikaans twang. Alana, originally from Blythe in Newcastle sounds completely South African now, to the point of constantly referring to Carl's dad as 'Liz' not Les!! Karen is British born as Carl was, and her husband Shaun is from a German family, but you would never know it now. We were greeted with cries of "howzit boet?!" before being offered braai with 'brud' rolls and "lettuss", and before long even Carl had flattened his vowels and was talking about the British favourite of "fsh un chups".
Lindsay's eldest daughter, Olivia started jabbering away to us in Afrikaans until Lindsay firmly told her to speak English. Gerhard is Afrikaans born and bred, and he speaks it to the children at home, so it is easy for them to pick up. Over here too, kids have to learn both English and Afrikaans at school, so most stand a fairly good chance of growing up billingual. Olivia is being home schooled in both languages as she is not yet school aged (They very sensibly don't start school til they are 6 here). I can't teach Miri Afrikaans, although Carl can try, but I can speak to her in Spanish as best I can, and I hope she picks it up. Supposedly if she learns more than one language now, her brain is 'set' to be able to learn more in the future, and she won't find it as hard in later life to pick up other languages.

The 17th October was Olivia's 5th birthday, and we got her a kid's mini laptop with some little games with it. She absolutely loved it! Gerhard was a bit worried that she would turn into a computer addict and urged her to play outside instead, - a view I can agree with if he hadn't then started playing games on his mobile! But the laptop games are at least vaguely educational. One is a translator with silly games that should teach her a bit of Spanish. I hope to hear her speak a few words when we next see her! (which will probably be when she's 8 or 9, sadly!)
Miranda seemed to love seeing her cousins though; (technically they are her first-cousins-one-removed, I think.) Olivia is such a sweet little girl and really tried to play wth Miri, dancing her cuddly Pirate in front of her and so on. Abi wasn't quite sure what to make of her, I think, and they both stared in wonder at each other for quite a while. I got a few cuddles with Gabriel too but he is too small to take much notice of Miranda. The vast majority of the time he was asleep, feeding or being burped anyway. When I did hold him though, it felt so strange - I know Miranda must have felt like that a few short months ago, but he felt so tiny! It is amazing how quickly they grow and change.
I have really enjoyed being around so many small people and it is lovely to see Carl playing with them all so well. Maybe there will be more tiny cheeses in the future... The distant future, that is.

WOOHOO!

20th July 2010 (5 weeks and 2 days) = Miranda's first smile! Definitely a little grin, and we know it wasn't wind because she was in the bath and there were no bubbles. Ahem. She also seems to have taken a liking to the bath now, the last two have involved far less yelling!

Also, and best of all from our point of view, after a lot of whinging in the evening, she actually slept through the whole night!!!!!! YAY!!!!

Very very proud of our Cheeseling now :-)