Xmas Prep

This is the first Christmas that Lily really 'gets' what is going on so that makes it particularly special and exciting for us. This year I had to let go of my desire to have the perfectly balanced and co-ordinated Christmas tree and realise that from now on it ceases to be Mama's job. Hard for a creative control freak like me but well worth it. (Although I have to admit to rearranging the decorations once Lily was safely tucked up in bed).

Baby

Enchanted Walk

We went here for some pre-Xmas build up. Most enchanting. Lily was hunting for Gruffalo in the forest but all she found was the big bad wolf.

Lilyisms

"It's a boat of crumbs sailing on a sea of tea." (describing my biscuit dunking activities)

"Wind! Go home to your Mama! Now!" ( shouted on a particularly blowy day walking by the racecourse)

Me: "What time is it Lily?" (after repeatedly telling her it was teatime and being ignored)
Lily: "It's cake o'clock time."

"Carry me in your pouch, I am a very tiny baby kangaroo and you are my BIG FAT MUMMY KANGAROO".

"Your nose tastes like cheese, your cheeks taste like garlic bread and your ears taste like pickled onions and I'm going to eat them all up."

E Numbers

We had the mother of all tantrums tonight.
Left Lily and I both a little shaken and in need of a G&T (me not L).
I am blaming a pot of Morrisons jelly which seems to have sent her spiralling into melt down; for we are blessed to have a generally calm, fairly reasonable little creature who is easily distracted unless too tired or, as today illustrated, full of nasty, evil, synapse exploding additives.

Potty 2

Lily is potty trained! Only took me one week and a whole heap of bribery! She has been wonderously dry with zero accidents for 2 weeks now and I am very pleased to have ditched the nappies.

Favourites

I haven't done one of these things for a while.

Lily loves....
Betsy
Baby Ruby doll
Hide and seek
Singing along to nursery rhymes
Riding her bike
Sticking and glueing
Making dens
Pickled onions
Chutney
Babychinos
Stories
Bubbles in the bath
Dressing up
Goldilocks and the three bears
Beki
Legging it.

Betsy

The new love of Lily's life....

To Bee...

This month Lily is mostly in to disagreeing.
She can say a lot of cool stuff but generally her favourite thing to do is argue the toss. First, rather annoyingly, she will persistently ask you what something is and then, even more annoyingly, after you explain what it is she will tell you you are wrong.
For example my conversation this morning went a bit like this:
Lily: "What's that Mummy?"
Me: "That's a wasp"
Lily: "No! That's not a wasp Mummy. That's a bee."
And so on...
Apparently I am always wrong. Especially when it comes to health and safety issues... "Don't do that Lily, it's dangerous", will almost certainly be followed by "That's not dangerous Mummy, that's fine."

Multiply this by a gazillion and you will have a fair idea of a typical day in the life of Mama Brook.

Eye Patches

Lily is blossoming. Not only talking 19 to the dozen but developing a fine sense of humour, an expansive vocabulary and the beginnings of a pretty wild imagination.
Someone very kindly presented her with a box of Lego as a belated birthday present and she built her first Lego creation, the robot/scarecrow.
Yesterday I caught her practically in the sink, shouting down the plughole with the plug clamped firmly to her ear. She was on the 'plugphone' chatting to Jack (our next door neighbour).
Today she handed me a hip flask full of dolphins and eye patches.
She has a big thing about eye patches.
Later, at teatime, I was told I must spit out the 'aeroplanes' in to her hand after I had unwisely finished off the remains of her baby sweetcorn. The baby sweetcorn had spent most of the meal loop the looping and picking up carrot passengers along the way and she was fairly inconsolable once she realised one of her aircraft had disappeared in to my stomach.
I don't know what age kids are supposed to do what but I find it amazing that she can invent all these things from nowhere. I know she can count and name colours and shapes and recite pretty much every nursery rhyme we throw at her which is also extremely cool and smart and amazing but it is her imagination that really makes me smile.

Tree Shrine

Row, Row, Row...

First Night

I went it to retrieve my daughter this morning only to find her sprawled next to her new bed on the floor with all the blankets in a heap beside her.

"Lily sleep floor all night" or so I was informed.

Whatever happened in that room, there was no pitter-patter of tiny feet in the wee small hours so I am most thankful for that.

Fingers Crossed

Time has come for Lily to move to a big, proper grown up bed with all the trimmings and with all the obvious potential possibilities of escape. Seems fairly irrational to throw a new bed in to the mix when we have the perfect late sleeping/non-waking/imprisoned child in our grasp but obviously this behaviour has clearly gone on too long and it's time to get her in line with all the other midnight rambling tots.

The rationale behind the bed purchase was that Lily, being the child of giants, is just getting much too large for the baby cot and wakes up most mornings with her head rammed up against the bars and her very long toes poking out at the opposite end.

We tottered off to Ikea land to let her choose her night chariot, although a bit of gentle persuasion helped her pinpoint mummy's favourite and here she is, about to go to bed, hopefully.

Potty Training

It has commenced, the big P.T., so far with very positive results. Not sure I can ever leave the house again though.

Lily Song

I overheard Liy singing a little ditty in the back of the car this morning and it made me smile.
Went something like this....

"Tinker* Run Sky
2, 3, 4, 8, 9
I Dancing Sunshine."

Almost a Haiku :)

(*Tinker is our cat.)

Gee-Gaws

I meant to put these up a while ago as I really love this set of photos.

Lily and I went to the races and had a fine old time, despite the cold. The sight of those beautiful creatures thundering past made us both shriek with joy.

Question Time

I am starting to realise that my 'A' level in general knowledge is in no way going to equip me to answer such questions as "Do cats have ankles?" and "Why don't Daddies wear skirts?", some major swotting up has got to happen or some very fast thinking on my feet.

Paint

There is something rather wonderful about splashing out on art materials,; I used to love doing this for myself and now find even more pleasure doing it for Lily. We cycled into town and spent a small fortune on some beautiful paint colours, paint pots, brushes and clay which, after an afternoon being creative, prompted a big change in display on the little one's gallery wall.

May Bank Holiday

Have found the ideal pastime for keeping a toddler occupied, all that is needed is one pretty moorland beck and some smallish pebbles, perfect for throwing.

Bagpuss

We never watch television, certainly Lily has watched it only a handful of times but with a fever of 39.5 and a restless, stir-crazy, sweaty little bundle to distract I admitted major defeat and stuck a bagpuss DVD on a loop.
Oh, how she loves Bagpuss, strangely it is Gabriel the toad who wins most of her affections, (possibly because of the banjo playing) and the musical mice of course.
I had quite forgotten how innocent and enchanting it is.

Lily Speak

Lily is in full on chatterbox sentence mode, albeit fairly short sentences...what they lack in structure however, they make up in frequency. I wouldn't be able to attempt to hazard a guess at how large her vocabulary is now, but often she will comes out with words I didn't even know she knew. Some still remain her own special invention and no matter how often you tell her it's a horse she will still insist on referring to them as Gee-Gaws (or flop-flops for flip flops but because this makes me laugh so, I am not hot on correcting her.)
She is also pretty spectacular on question posing, sometimes utilising the phrase "What that be?", which makes her sound like she originates from the West Country. On reflection it is quite impressive how few "what that be?"s can wear a person down.

The Girls

Wren comes for tea, bath and bedtime story; Lily restrains her in a headlock in attempt to prevent from going home.

Flower Fairies

New addition to Lily's Nature Table.

Lily is 2

Happy Birthday Beautiful

Mine

I am wondering if Lily is a little previous with her use of possessive pronouns.

Von Brook

I found myself humming tunes from the Sound of Music while making this, Lil's first dress created by my own fair, needle-pricked hands...the material is stuff I had left over from sewing the kitchen blind. I realise I would not be able to get away with this if she were older and wiser but as she is only nearly two she must still wear what I say and learn to love it, even if she looks like some throw back from The Von Trapp Family .
It does however, perfectly camouflage her if she chooses to play hide and seek anywhere near the kitchen window.

Sand Baby

Early birthday present of a paddling pool/sandpit has been a great success, except my idea of it being a perfect place to leave a toddler unsupervised has totally crashed and burned; most of my time is spent patrolling the perimeter...as with the snow, sand is much more fun when eaten, thrown at the cat or rubbed in the eyes.

Easter

A long time was taken in the making of our Easter Tree and I have to say nobody seemed the least bit impressed apart from me; I sometimes wonder why I bother but the pleasure Lily takes in systematically destroying my attempts at creativity is all worth it, I guess.

The Whole Tooth...

Week 2, I think, of teething hell and nothing we seem to do can halt the molar reign of terror; I have succumbed and waged war with some ibuprofen this evening but boy did that motherhood guilt kick me right where it hurts. Now I have medicated my baby in order to get some desperately needed sleep, I sincerely hope she is pain free and dreaming of ice cream, which seems to be her main focus of happiness at present and a very wise choice indeed.

Rowntree

With Spring well and truly sprung we have been visiting Rowntree Park most days and enjoying the clement weather. Lily can now voice quite clearly what she'd like to do with her time and the Park is numero uno....fine with me... I love this place and view it as my extended garden without the maintenance issues.
Finally it seems to be recovering from last years continual flooding.

TT

Hoping that Lily's meltdown over the weekend was to due to feeling under the weather rather than the start of the Terrible Twos; she is generally SO good that seeing her going rigid and then flailing around the floor screaming like a banshee-child just made me laugh rather than employing any suitable diversion tactic or whatever one is supposed to do in such situations.
In fact I have no idea how I am supposed to deal with the onslaught of her determined little will, I certainly don't want to crush it but I do want to be able to have people round without her going ballistic because she's not allowed to star-jump off the computer desk on to my pregnant friend's belly.

Mother's Day II

My Daughter baked me fairy buns with much help from Grandma...

made me a Mother's Day Display...

gave me two cards and lots of lovely flowers...

And instructed Daddy to cook me Belgium mussels and chips.

Shame I missed most of the day stuck in traffic on the M1.

Namaste

Stop The Press!
Lily can climb the rope ladder, count to four, run like the wind and speak fluent Hindi.

Superglue

Finished! But mama hen got broke by being hurled across the dining room by Lily.
There is a definate flaw in my plan....

Spring

The soon-to-be-painted clay animals for our new nature table.

Some of my many attempts to capture a photo of Lily and I; foiled by my paparazzi-thumping daughter (last shot caught me smack in the lips.)..the Liam Gallager of the toddler world.

Knickers

I was unaware that the purchasing of Lily's first knickers would lead to such a pant frenzy, leaping about the bed and pulling on each pair one after another and screaming "More! MORE! MOOOORE!"

The Nature Table

Washyourhandsandtimefordinner

Lily is obsessing over this book. "Alby!" she cries and pours over it repeatedly.
I have no idea why she likes it so much, except that is full of stars or maybe she is already fascinated by the concept of flux.

Kenwick Park

A long weekend swimming, walking, cooking but mostly eating and sitting round the wood burner getting slowly sozzled. All the kids slept so well, must be the Lincolnshire air and the forest was full of little creatures, like something out of a Disney set, imported in just to delight and amaze The Lilster.

Squirrel Hair

Not to be beaten by a million Crafty Mama sites extolling the virtues of assembling your little darling's clothes out of recycled bin bags and squirrel hair, I have manged to overcome my fear of sewing by embellishing Lily's new jeans with some home made patches.

Obviously no mere photo can do it justice.

The Big Bed

Lily has almost given up her golden afternoon naps, clearly this is just not right as all the stuff I read convinces me she should still be dozing away until she is at least three and the little chicken is not even two yet, not nearly, no way.
Yesterday, by some miracle we managed to nap together in the big bed. Waking up to her snuffling snot all down the back of my neck suddenly became enormously endearing.

Patience

I must remember that balancing on low walls and trying to walk on every single crack in the pavement are of the utmost importance to a 22 month old and therefore should be indulged wherever possible; even if it turns a 30 minute amble to town into a 3 hour marathon.

Tantrums and Bicycles

A 'new' (new to us) bike, as pink as a very pink thing indeed, has appeared in Lily's life. Think it may be love at first sight, she had to be forcibly extricated from the fluffy cerise saddle.

Telegraphic Speech

I think we might possibly have had our first proper, if slightly brief, sentence from Lily. Today she said something which went a bit like this...
"No! Stop tickle Mama, !!%^$&***???!!!...(stream of baby expletives), no tickle!"

Boris

For some reason there is still a huge amount of snow at my parent's place, this is Lily and Dada's first snowman together.

Katrina Kenison

"This is perhaps the greatest legacy we can bestow upon our children: the capacity to be enchanted by the quiet gifts of everyday life."

Homeward

It was snowing on the way home from Steiner, Lily kept repeatedly getting down on her knees to lick the snow off the pavement and then when I gave up and forcibly shoved her in the pram, stuck her tongue out like some very thirsty Alsatian, lapping up all the snowflakes as they tumbled down from blizzardy skies.

Steiner

Steiner playgroup is like a sweet drop of rain in the desolate desert of your average, run of the mill toddler playgroup. I have come to relish these mornings of sitting on comfy sofas, drinking fresh coffee and conducting civilised (and usually uninterrupted) conversations while the children just seem to play contentedly at our feet. There is something very calming, for all involved, about the group and so much different from the usual 30 manic kids in a church hall dribbling over a few grubby plastic blocks. I am biased of course, Steiner became my saviour at a time when I seriously thought Lily would grow up to be socially inept due to my refusal to attend other sessions.
Plus they make great coffee, so on mornings when you don't even have time to remember your own name, this is just heavenly.

Bub-bub

Keep trying to get a recording of Lily speak, new words are appearing at a rate of knots; however, shove the movie camera in her face and she suddenly recalls the meaning of shy. Some of my favourites are 'Par-Par' (Grandpa) and 'bub-bub' (blueberry).
Some of her favourites are 'cake' and 'more'.

I am a sad besotted Mama.

No longer quite so compliant...

Only a matter of time....

Green Eyed Girl

Pigtails

Looking serious with new hair style.

Wren and Lily

Snow

There's something magical about your child's first steps in the snow.
Lily spent most of the time eating it.