My baby girl is nearly a year old!!! Just 10 days from now is the anniversary of my due date, and she was born the very next day. I can't believe how the time has flown, especially in recent months. Lydia seems to be accelerating the feeling, because she's speeding up on those milestones right now. She walks almost everywhere now, hardly any crawling. *sniffle* I love watching her toddle down the hall, or across the garden, with her little hands up, the way new toddlers do! So sweet! :) She is very steady and can walk in a tight circle, or pivot and turn to walk the other way, though she does fall on her bottom plenty still! ;) She has finally mastered riding the ride-on toys after weeks of trying hard every day. She managed going backwards first, pushing her feet on the floor, but this past week she discovered a different way to push with her feet, and can whizz quite speedily now, on the little tricycle - we have a Scuttlebug trike which was Elijah's favourite present on his 2nd birthday (he calls it "Bikey" in such a loving tone of voice, bless him!) and which Lydia loves ever so much, so she will be getting one of her own for her birthday. That will be her main present. My mum said I should buy her the hot pink one, but even with my longing for All Things Pink with my first girl after 6 boys, every time I looked at the pink one it made me feel uncomfortable! Toys that are basically for children (never mind the gender, that is), but which have been marketed in pink, make me cringe. I HATE pink Lego and Mega Blocks. Yuck. But I'm partial to girly toys all the same. Just hate the excessive over-sugared pinkness of toys in general for girls.
Anyway! She will be getting the ladybird one, in red and black. :) Elijah has the blue and green dragonfly one. I love those little bikes! Lydia can also climb on and ride the plastic tractor ride-on, and that red and yellow car thingy with the roof (forget what they're called). She likes to steer frantically, but sometimes falls through the hole in front of the seat as she's so little! Big brothers to the rescue often at our house! ;) She always goes straight back, and is never put off! She loves the Little Tykes plastic see-saw that we were given when we moved house, and can (and does!) rock herself if she sits in the middle part. She climbs on to the end and bobs her head, making "OH!" noises for a brother to sit on the other end, or to help her rock. :) In this first photo, Benjamin was helping her rock, and Elijah photo-bombed (he is EXTREMELY cute and mischievous, in general! ;) ). He leapt on literally a second or two before I took the photo, and struck an instant cute pose, lol! Sweet boy! Lydia has some unique-to-her expressions (not like my other babies) that I really wanted to capture on camera before she outgrows them and I can't remember them any more. I love what she does with her mouth when she's communicating with me in urgent tones - it makes me NEED to kiss her cheeks though, hehe!
She is vocally very... I don't know how better to put it than "urgent"! She has a lot of very important or even URGENT things to say, but no words yet. She uses a lot of different vocal sounds to get her point across, and a wide variety of facial expressions to add to her point! ;) I LOVE watching her communicate, it's so sweet! She is very loud with the "OH" sound, and the funny thing is that she makes her mouth smaller and rounder the more important or urgent her news is. She does "OHHHH" a lot with this, with wide eyes that you absolutely are not allowed to ignore! I wonder if she might be a BIG talker once she's busy with real words... :) Here's an example of her Urgent News mouth - she sneaks down the side of the house to where the stones and pebbles are, and she knows she isn't to do that. See her mouth as she shows me a stone she's picked up. And then it's smaller still with the more urgent news that she's got MILLIONS of stones right there at her feet, lol! ;) So sweet!
In other news, she is climbing. Oh my goodness, is she climbing! She's only 11 months old, and here are a few photos from the past week or so:
Yup, the big bunk bed ladder! She is very steady, and quick, but I don't like to let her try all the same. I was in there with the little two while I tried to organise Matthew and Benjamin's room one afternoon, and they both zipped up the ladder in seconds! Needless to say, we moved back downstairs after that! Next day, there she was on the top of the CD storage thingy! She had previously emptied the bookshelf of books, the little monkey - look at her cheeky expression! Her personality is really shining through now, and I'm loving getting to know her. Also LOOK AT HER HAIR!!! Loving that too! I just wish she was happier with me touching it! She does NOT enjoy having her hair combed or put in hairbands. Clips are easier because they're done more quickly, but she isn't a fan, let's put it that way! I keep telling her, "Baby girls must get used to their mummies doing their hair!" ;)
Lydia has *unfortunately* run out of clothes, as almost all the hand-me-downs we got from friends and family were for sizes up to one year. She is just growing into size 9-12 months now, although she fits some brands well in that size already. The more generous-sized brands are a bit roomy on her still. She fits a size 2 shoe, but only just. I have joyfully purchased my first pair of pink proper baby shoes with hearts and flowers on! :D These are size 2F, but I think she would be better in a G width.
Anyway, what a SHAME it is that I am going to have to shop for baby girl clothes in size 9-12 months and beyond!!! ;) I have begun already, and am thoroughly enjoying myself. I almost never buy clothes from shops for my children - almost all their stuff is second-hand from eBay (like the all outfits in the photos above that arrived this month), with the exception of underwear and jeans for the older 4 boys, as they wear through previously used jeans faster than new ones. I can't fathom the amount of money I've saved over the years buying all my children's clothes at a fraction of the new price! :)
I am particularly excited about my first daughter's first birthday - my first girly birthday! :) I haven't finished deciding on the birthday cake yet, but I am making sure she wears a nice dress and tights set on her birthday, and coordinating hair accessories! :) I may or may not have bought several nice dresses to choose from... :P She will wear all of them anyway! For a while, I have had to stop putting her in dresses because they got in the way of her crawling. Now she is mostly walking, so I have put her in a couple this week which are about knee-length, and to my delight she can crawl fine when she does crawl, and of course they are fine for walking in. If they get under her knee she doesn't fuss like she did a month ago, she just keeps crawling and sort of lifts that knee up as she goes, using her foot instead for that "crawl-step" so that the dress comes out from underneath. I'm excited, because I love little girls in dresses! :) She also owns a lot of long-length pretty tops and leggings sets, because those have been my favourite alternatives while she's been crawling. She also has dungarees, jeans, and trousers, so I'm not being OVERLY picky about the type of clothing! ;)
I am STILL finding it exciting and surreal to say phrases like, "my daughter" or "my little girl". It makes me feel squeally inside just about as much as it did when I was pregnant with her and could hardly believe it was true! :) I think I am getting used to saying "she" and "girl" though, at last. We use "she" in conversation a million times a day, so that's probably why it's finally starting to seem normal! And we all - the boys as much as me - call her "girly-whirly" and "little girl" or "baby girly", and "Girl Pie!" (when she's being a monkey!) a LOT every day, so the word "girl" is definitely feeling more normal now too. It's just references to "MY daughter" that throw me still. I really really REALLY have a daughter! Wheee! :D I didn't expect to still be getting used to it, one year in!
We all love her so much! The boys are SO protective and besotted. They constantly comment to me about how much they love having her, and how glad they are that she's a girl. Matthew said to me today (cheerfully) that he thought he would DIE if we didn't have Lydie, he loves her so much! :) We call her Lydia, but "Lydie" is used by all of us easily as often as Lydia. This is added to at random - the most commonly used being "Lydipede" (or "Miss Lydipede!" (like centipede) if she's being a monkey!). I also sometimes call her "Lyds" or "Lydsie" or even "Lydi-pa-teepee" - I've always been the queen of ridiculous and ever-expanding nicknames for my poor children, lol! ;) There are more, of course, but those are the most common.
Oh I have had to come back and edit this entry to add other nicknames which I can't BELIEVE I forgot! Months and months ago, when talking to Lydia in a cutesy voice most of the time, the word "girl" became "gal", and so lots of her nicknames revolve around that - "Gally" being the most commonly used. All the boys except Elijah use "Gally" to talk to her sometimes, especially when talking in cutesy voices or picking her up for a cuddle. :) She's also "Gallykins" quite a lot, or "Miss Gallykins" (I use that a lot, for some reason!), "Gally-ness", or a mix of two nicknames, "Gal-pede" (aren't these just so feminine and flattering for her?! lol!) which is even shortened to "Galpy" haha! Poor little love! ;) 'Lydia' has also become "Liggety" (NO idea), which means she's all the above "Lydia" nicknames, but with a 'g' in the middle instead - "Lygs", "Lygsie", etc. And "Liggety-Loo", and even, "Ligget" ("Liggert"), which gave rise to "Gertie" for a while! :) Oh yes, I can take a nice name and TOTALLY mess with it! :P She is also regularly, "Muffin Pie" and "Miss Muffin Pie" - I have no idea why. If you've known me for many babies, the revelation of these names shouldn't be overly traumatising, as I've done it with all of them - and it's never intentional! It just.... comes out! And makes me feel extra affectionate towards them. The names fade out as they grow up a bit (in case you were worried for them!). Elijah is still 'Lijah-Loo, "Little Pip", and "Pickly-Bead" on a fairly regular basis! ;) Samuel is occasionally Samuel-Peeps, Samley, Samlin, or Samley-many, and Benjamin is, quite rarely now, Benja-moon. :) He prefers to be called Benji, and that's what we usually call him, though we all call him Benjamin as well. He hears both about the same, but I didn't realise he had a preference until I heard him tell a Sunday School teacher that his name was Benji. :) I still call Nathan, who is 6, Nathey, most of the time. It's just part of his name. He's Nathan, Nathe, or Nathey. His brothers call him the first two, and the little boys call him Nasey, as they can't pronounce Nathey. :) He doesn't mind being called Nathey at all, and I LOVE it. :) Matthew and Arthur are, well, Matthew and Arthur. They often call each other Math and Arth, and the others do too (so do we). I occasionally call Matthew, "Matthie" which he doesn't mind, but that's it. They are growing up way too fast! Arthur will be 10 in a few weeks. *gulp*
It's late now - Lydia woke up and then the boys came home, and here I am finishing my update off instead of being in bed where I need to be! My energy has been way better, and I've felt better in myself in general since I last posted. I've discovered that if I can keep off the anxiety then I feel pretty normal. *sigh* Easier said than done. I have had a relapse of sorts, panicking about Ebola, but if I don't read ANYTHING about it, avoid the news, etc. then I soon distance myself enough to calm the anxiety down and feel well again. So I feel better. :) I'm tired, but okay!
No sign of my periods yet, but I have had some EWCM this week so that's new! :) I don't know that it will come to anything, because I have had a little over the months, once or twice, so we'll see. I will be so pleased and relieved to get a period again! :) I have loved my periods for years and years now. They are a precious gift which has enabled me to have all these lovely children, and I haven't got many more years to appreciate them now, so I'm hoping for a few more! Maybe even ones that will bring me another baby? I am noticing that lately the broody feelings are increasing a bit. I am starting to pray for a sister for Lydia. :)