Vomit

We were up all last night with a vomiting and diarrhea baby. She repeatedly projectile vomited from 1.30 am until 5.00 am; spraying first her bed and then our bed, then Daddy and then Mummy, with an assortment of carrot chunks (why is it always carrot?) and formula ...when all liquid was spent she continued to dry heave every half an hour until eventually she fell into an exhausted sleep across my windpipe. Poor little possum.
Another parenting first but not quite as charming as all the others.

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.
Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of rain
are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,
are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting-
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

Carrot, Lentil and Butternut Squash Korma

Sometimes you spend a long time desperate for something to happen and then when it eventually does after much coaxing, cheering and 'high-fiveing' you realise that it may not be such a good idea after all. I am guessing that Lily learning to walk might be a bit like this, for today as I watched her stand unaided for a good wee while I had horrific visions of what it will be like once she is properly mobile with the art of running firmly tucked under her belt.

Slightly less of a milestone but equally thrilling for me was that yesterday Lily ate her first curry and loved it.
How could she not?

Blue Donkey

Lily walked today. Admittedly she walked with the help of Donkey (Donkey was my push-a-long walker when I was a bairn) but it was definite steps in the right direction and very many of them too...back and forth across the dining room floor. Andy and I were whooping and hollering and pleased as punch.
She has also been very chatty recently and has been saying 'Dad' for a couple of weeks now; I swear she has also said yes, no, Tinker and banana.
Andy is not quite so convinced about the banana one.

She can also high-five :)

Snot

Oh Lordy, Lilykins has a cold. Snot everywhere. A rattly Darth Vader-like cough and really very grumpy. Low-level whiny and clingy. A difficult patient, just like her Mother I am afraid.
We had to come back from our Easter break early which is a great shame as it was so much fun. Lily touched her first snow and ate her first chocolate. We cooked good food and painted and chatted and made pots and drank beer and built snow bunnies and hunted Easter eggs and decorated our Easter tree. I almost felt human again by 'getting krafty'...even though I just pottered, modelling whimsical decorations from clay.
Done me and my soul some good I reckon.

Lily Loves (II)...

Lily's new book of the month, well actually it has been book of several months. At 'night-nights' story time we sometimes have to read it twice and stare endlessly at our own reflections in the extremely unflattering plastic mirror on the very last page.

Lily Loves...

There are some toys you would be in a right old pickle if you forgot to cart them about with you. I hyperventilate if I think we have mislaid knitted carrot. Knitted carrot has saved the day on too many occasions to mention.