Every now and again, little ones seem to take giant leaps forward in the space of a week. This has been one of those weeks. And she suddenly seems so grown up.
She’s starting stringing more words together, ‘coming mum!’, ‘one more minute’. Yesterday, she started having a preference for what she wears. And she hasn’t had a nap in three days. I know. I’m mourning the loss in my own way. It’s a shame these leaps forward don’t involve potty training, because I’d be all into that. But I’m still …

Every now and then you hear yourself, as if you are watching from the corner.
Sometimes it’s just the nature of having a toddler around. Things like, “get your hands out of the rubbish bin”, just roll off the tongue. As does “don’t strangle the cat”.
And then there are other things, that you really just hate coming out of your own mouth.
“I’m too busy, baby.”
“I’ve got to do some work, but you can play outside if you want.”
“I just have to finish this.”
“I’ve got to get this done.”
All things that are …

“Too Loud, Lily!”
That’s what Riley says every time she hears a loud noise, while covering her ears with her hands. It’s from a book she has where a rhinoceros (Lily) is too loud for everyone and they keep saying ‘Too Loud, Lily!’ Anyway, it’s stuck. It doesn’t seem to apply to her being loud. But she is extremely sensitive to the sounds of the front door opening ‘Scary!’, the sound of the blender/coffee machine ‘noisy!’, the vacuum cleaner ‘too loud!’ and even to light and dark.
Josh took her to …

You’ll notice that the vast majority of my favourite words at the moment are ‘s’ words. There’s something about the lispy nature of them. And how softly spoken she tends to be with those sorts of words.
“Hi Sweets”
I don’t know when we started calling her sweets, it was just one of those nicknames that happened. And although at times it reminded me of having a teeny geeky psychologist wandering around the place (you can’t be surprised that I watch Bones), the name persisted. Now she says it back to us.

“Sushi”
An …

Sometimes we might as well be speaking different languages. Although to be fair, some of the time we are. I’m speaking the language of being relatively reasonable. And she’s speaking the language of give-me-what-i-want-right-now-and-stop-talking-stupid-minion.
Well today the stupid minion has a bucket-load of work to do, a house to clean, washing to do – not to mention the dreaded floors. So I’m hoping that my teeny overlord is amenable otherwise I’m in serious trouble. I wonder if I could sneak a nap in there too? Stupid question, even for a stupid …

I couldn’t resist. While I was buying newborn clothes in the city on the weekend, I bought a few things for Riley as well. These PJs have little lady bugs all over them and say ‘Little Lady’ on the front. Yes, I’m completely taken in by such cuteness. It’s a sickness.
Given that Josh has a strong preference to not know whether the jellybean is a boy or a girl, I’m stuck with shopping for neutrals. Neutrals. I’ve never been one for neutrals. But if you’ve ever tried to shop …

I’m guest posting today at Sleepless Nights. You can check it out here: Exhaustion and the Art of Lazy Parenting.

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I’ve been holding on to the afternoon nap for dear life. Those few hours during the day where I could get things done, or do nothing, or just listen to the beautiful sound of silence. I persisted despite knowing, deep down that it was over.
And then I realised between it taking half an hour to an hour to get her to take the nap and the extra hour it was taking me to get her to bed at night, it wasn’t exactly giving me any extra time. And that …

Sometimes things happen when you’re not really looking. One day I had a toddler who still reminded me very much of the baby that she once was. And then yesterday, I turned around, and there she was, my little lady. With only the tiniest trace of the baby in her eyes and cheeks.
No longer requiring her usual warm-up time to be comfortable at a friend’s house – she just happily started playing. No longer the fussy eater who I have often cajoled into eating the tiniest morsel, but a …

So far, it’s only happened once. Once was enough. But it could well be an ongoing thing. At the time I had no idea what was going on. It was 3am. Ordinarily when Riley wakes up in the night she just trundles her way into our room, has a little help to get into our bed, snuggles up next to me, insists that I tuck her in nicely under the ‘noo-noo’ (doona) and nestles her way back to sleep. But on this night I could hear her crying and she …