The Adventures of Baby Columbo, or 'Just One More Question'

Arya vs. Dinosaurs. Arya 1: Dinosaurs 0

Arya currently has three questions:

1. "What's that?" She asks this one over and over and over again about pretty much anything.

"What's that?"

"My glasses."

"What's that?"

"A button."

"What's that?"
"My nose."
"What's that?"
"A button."
"What's that?"
"It's still a button."

2. "Why?" Asked frequently and often out of context.

3. "Where are you?" A very sophisticated positional and contextual interrogative applied not only to people but to objects.

"Ball! Where are you?"

Speaking of 'what's that?' one of her most frequent subjects is the birthday card Hanna bought me on her behalf. It looks like this:

She loves to handle the card and stroke the monsters' fur, and point to each in turn and ask: "What's that?"
"That's Daddy."
"What's that?"
"That's Arya."
"What's that?"
"That's Daddy."
"What's that?"
"That's Arya."
"What's that?"
"That's Daddy."
"What's that?"
"That's Arya."
"What's that?"
"That's Daddy."
"What's that?"
"That's Arya."

And so on and so forth.

On Saturday, Arya was drawing a picture. I attach the picture on the right. It ended up a big squiggle, but there was a process especially to the top part of the offering on the left.

She drew a big circular squiggle, and next to it a smaller squiggle which she explained were 'Daddy' and 'Larlya', which is how she says her name at the moment. As if this weren't adorable enough, she drew a biger circular squiggle around and over them both and said: 'Oddle.' So there it is, a picture of Daddy and Arya having a cuddle. I could not be more delighted if she'd written a symphony (unless, you know, she'd written a symphony and explained how it used the full range of the orchestra to express Daddy and Arya having a cuddle.)

Arya has a habit of smiling when she's upset us, which used to be quite distressing, but I had a revelation this weekend. When she's upset, we smile to let her know things are going to be okay, and I think she's just doing the same when we're upset. That's why if she slaps or kicks us and we get upset she pats our shoulder and grins.

On Sunday we did something very different. It was half-term for swimming and so we finally took up a dear friend's offer of lunch (well, of dinner, but in the end we had to do a Sunday so it ended up being lunch for logistical reasons,) and so after a morning of jolly baby and weary parents (it's been one of those weekends) we packed into the car and shot off to Hatfield for lunch with MattMatt (so good they named him twice.)

It was a good lunch, but better yet from our perspective, MattMatt adores Arya, and after a bit of shyness while she reestablished recognition (we haven't seen him in a while, due to our increasing distance from that gaming circle) was happily leading him a chase around the flat, or pushing him over to retrieve her dinosaur from the top of his head. Sadly she has developed a keen camera shyness, and I didn't manage to get a decent shot of any of this. Neither was I able to photograph her picking up his flat phone, saying 'hello', and then 'bye' and putting it down again (accurately in the cradle.)

I'm sure for a while she was referring to him as 'Daddy', which I believe to be a definite seal of approval. I suspect that she was rather disappointed that we didn't kidnap him when we left, but she was tired out enough to fall asleep in short order, and while munching on a rice cake, so she must have been pretty content.

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Arya's first mince pie

Advertising aside, you have to start planning for these things early with a family. Next year I intend to start putting present money aside... well, about now, actually. Christmas has sort of leaped up and smacked me in the face with stress and its only early November.

Still, if we get the stress out of the way early, hopefully we can enjoy Christmas itself. It's likely to be a whole new experience for Arya, as she as just a wee thing last year. Hannah wants to get a tree, so we're eyeing up a fine line between too expensive and tacky as hell. I thought I saw one at the absolute top line of my price in John Lewis, but that turned out to be the mat for catching needles.

It's been an odd weekend. The whole family descended late on Friday and went to bed. On Saturday they were up and out to a wedding, came back late and went to bed (I can't complain, I was invited, but largely as a courtesy and it would have felt odd.) Sunday was swimming followed by game.

On the plus side, apart from a few tears getting home on Sunday, Arya has been very cheerful all weekend. She woke up bright and breezy, and had loads of fun trotting up and down in mummy's shoes, enjoying the clop-clop-clop of the kitten heels flapping behind her. Swimming was a bit stressful for her, but we're back to the earlier class next week, which means that she won't be swimming when her body tells her that she ought to be napping.

She also ate pretty well, although she is developing a tendency to play with her food once she's finished eating.

We had a very good bath on Sunday, with only a little fussing as I rinsed her hair after washing it. Getting to sleep on Sunday was tougher than it ought to have been, but that was unfortunate chance. She needed a change and I found having put the light on that all the bits were elsewhere, which meant she was in the light for far too long and woke up merrily. Still, at least she was merry.

Day of the Dad (the remake)

 Another crazy weekend, as we headed up to Nottingham for a game, with Arya along for the ride. As you can see in the picture on the left, she basically had a good time, although waking up at 2230 after forty minutes sleep, to find that I'd carried her downstairs and out onto the patio full of people because the hotel had a fire alarm, was a bit of a shocker.

Monday was a sort of recovery day, but as Hannah needed to go into London, I was on solo care duty for the first time in a while (since Andrew is working now, he can't bring Arya over on Friday afternoons). I made a rookie error early, putting my back to Arya in order to type to someone that I didn't have time to talk, but things went pretty well otherwise.

"What hamster?"

First up, we went into Ely to do some food shopping, then came back and had a salad lunch, as it was a particularly hot day. The salad had beetroot in, so I then changed her outfit completely, forgetting that I would be feeding her pasta with tomato sauce in the evening.

Sadly, I failed to get a shot of her looking ultra-serious with a tomato pip stuck to her nose, which was adorable.

She napped for about an hour in the morning, but would not go off in the afternoon, even when we took a walk out around some of the nicer parts of the village.

"Greenery on the arch? Isn't that a little
pagan?"
"Why, yes she is."

I think she was slipping down a little in the pram, although I'm not sure how to fix that.

The upshot of this was that by dinner time she was wicked tired, and it was a struggle to put her down for long enough to cook. Despite this, she was willing to go and stand on the other side of the kitchen while I opened the oven (my wonderful, smart girl; she actually walked across because I asked her to go) and then made a fine stab at eating her pasta, even if she was a little confused about whether she liked it or not.

"Do you like that?"
"No."
"Are you sure? You've cleared your plate and there's nothing on the floor or in your lap."
"No."

Bless her.

Also, check out that top in the picture. There was a total of one sauce mark on that thing when she was done, and that a little one.

 What struck me most was the energy she has. Even exhausted she was still lively when I was almost falling asleep with her on my lap, watching some programme with Justin Fletcher dressed as a pirate.

The Magician of Mess

Last week, we had a bit of a scare when Hannah was taken away to hospital. Thankfully, it turned out to be nothing serious, but it did mean I had to organise Arya's dinner on my own and at short notice. I am not very good at this, being short on practice and tending to panic a little.

Hannah had said there was a baby ready meal for her. I got the wrong one, a lemon chicken puree, squeeged it into a pan, then checked the pack and saw that I was supposed to warm it by putting the pouch into boiling water. So far, so good.

I served it up and let it cool a little, then gave Arya a spoonful. She looked at it, tapped it out onto the table and began to pick it up in her fingers. Deciding that she liked it, she picked up the bowl, looked at me with an angelic smile, tipped up the bowl and poured the puree onto the tablecloth, the better to eat it with her fingers.

Deciding that she needed a change after this, I went into the bedroom for about forty-five seconds to get another sleep suit. I came back to find the puree spread all across the table, up her sleeves, across her face, and all over the inside and outside of the bowl, and Arya beaming at me with a sense of a job well done.