Fair Warning – this is going to be one of those super mooshy posts where I wax lyrical about how much I love my baby. If it’s not your kind of thing you may want to skip over it or get a bucket. But don’t say that I didn’t warn you.

I’ve had a rough week. And I suppose I haven’t been my usual Christmas-enthusiast (rabid fanatical) self. I’d hoped to be pleasantly pregnant during the festive season, but my miscarriage threw me a bit of a curve ball. Physically, I’m no longer in pain and that part of it at least is over. Emotionally, I’m slowly getting there, but every now and then I feel like I’d like to crawl into bed with my doona and cry.

Strangely, or perhaps not so strangely, it has pulled into very sharp focus, what I do have in the baby (now toddler) that we cooked earlier. The Googy. For the uninitiated goog or googy is a slang word for egg in Australia. It’s a nickname (endearment) that has stuck.

I love her more than I ever thought it would be possible to love anyone. I literally think she is the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, even though deep down I know that’s because I’m incredibly biased because she’s mine. I’ve really been able to enjoy time with her this week because I’m on holidays and don’t have the usual distractions of work and the day-to-day.

She drew on the kitchen cupboards with crayon this week, twice. And I didn’t stop her, not because I couldn’t be bothered but because her enthusiasm for it undid me and really it doesn’t take that long to clean the cupboards. My dad jokingly suggested that we repaint them with blackboard paint. Mr Goog loves the idea and is seriously considering it.

Despite the fact that she (mostly) sleeps through the night, and reached another sleep milestone for us this week, I love it when she wakes in the middle of the night and sleeps with us. Her little body, nestled between us. And occasionally while she’s sleeping, she’ll lean over and wrap her pudgy arms around my neck or stroke my face. Sometimes she’ll kick me in the eye too, but that’s easily outweighed by the awesomeness of snuggles.

She has full-blown tantrums too, like any toddler her age, but it’s also just a form of expression and I get a little more insight into what kind of personality she is developing and already has.

She’s started talking. So far her words are ‘moon’, ‘josh’, ‘star’, ‘ball’, ‘more’, ‘car’ and of course ‘no’, ‘no’, NO!’ and very occasionally ’yes’. And I love that I can hear what her little voice is going to sound like. Mr Goog refers to it as her dulcet tones.

She’s been a bit clingy lately. I hate that word, I need to think of a new one. I don’t like needy either. It’s not quite accurate, but I’ll go with, she’s been extra cuddly lately. Sometimes when I pick her up, if after a while I go to put her back down, she’ll kick her legs up so that I will continue to hold her. I love this. Sometimes when I’m holding her on my hip, she tucks her head under my chin, and everything in me melts.

I took her shopping today and at the main shopping centre she had to stay in the pram, because it’s so busy. But then we went to a home renovation shopping centre which was practically dead and there was all of this wide open space so she was able to have a run around. There were huge Christmas trees everywhere. She ran up to each of them, multiple times and the look of wonder and joy on her face as she touched, pointed and generally ogled the decorations is something that I will keep in my heart forever. She even found a red glitter top hat that was so big it kept slipping over her eyes. But she persisted with it. An old lady at the store asked me how I got anything done all day because she was so beautiful, how could I just not look at her all day.

She fell asleep in the car on the way home and when I took her out she woke up. It’s usually difficult to get her to go back to sleep after this, but I stayed with her in her room, tickling her back, while her eyes got heavy. And I was thinking about what the old lady in the store had said. It’s so easy to get into a routine and take things for granted, but when I do that, I miss out on so many wonderful things.

This afternoon we played lots of games. She bounced on my stomach like I was a trampoline, ran around the house with reckless abandon playing peek-a-boo and tackled me with a million cuddles, all the while laughing like only a child can.

I do want a big family, but if that never happened, I would still be completely happy because my beautiful baby girl is wonderful in every possible way. You’ll note that I didn’t say perfect. I’m a reformed perfectionist, perhaps you’ve heard?