Tha Nanny Factor

Why does Nanny have some magical influence over my daughter? Imogen's on antibiotics at the moment for a chest infection, which started on Wednesday. Last week she was refusing to take it from me, so I was having to let her cry, squirt about 0.5ml into her mouth then let her suck her thumb to get her to swallow it, before repeating again and again until the full dose had gone. However, over the weekend, when Nanny was around, Imogen decided that the antibiotics were yummy and she would just suck it straight out of the syringe with a grin on her face. It didn't even have to be Nanny giving her it, she just needed to be around. And now we're home? Yes, you've guessed it - we're back to the screaming, squirting, thumb-sucking routine!

Come back Nanny!

Canal-boating

I'm writing this whilst sitting on the boat, so it's a bang-up-to-date story.

We're on the boat for the weekend, having come to see Nanny & Gramps and introduce Imogen and Buster to the joys of boating. As you can see, it's been a very wet introduction, but at least we can't be accused of mollicoddling (not sure about the spelling of that!) our child! As I once heard someone say "There's no such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing"!

Bless her, she kept smiling while the rain dripped down her face and her eyes watered from the wind. Don't worry - she had plenty of layers on under the waterproof.

On slightly different news, her crawling is developing "well" - she can now move about fairly efficiently on hands and knees, rather than hauling herself along on her belly - this latest skill has been practised a lot on the boat where she's decided the sparkly surround to the fire is a good thing to aim for. I say well, but I can see that as the hands and legs get more co-ordinated the crawling is going to become more efficient and I'm really not going to be able to keep up with her - good for her, but not so good for me! She's now also able to go from sitting to crawling, so I can't even rely on leaving her sat with a few toys - anything that's not immediately in front of her is always more attractive.

Buster seems to be quite happy with the boat as well. After being a bit cautious about getting on it when we arrived he's now a dab hand at the jumping on and off bit. The towpath is generally a good place where he can run off some energy (unless there's a road nearby of course) although a manic episode nearly ended in a splash earlier when he was running towards me and skidded on the wet ground - luckily he stopped in time!

There's no stopping her now!

OK. So she was crawling, and she was sitting, but hadn't quite linked the two together - until now! So, now we can't leave her sat in the middle of a room and expect her to be there when we return. At the moment it takes a bit of effort, but it doesn't stop her and that object at the far side of the room is always more attractive than whatever is right by her side! That object could be the vegetable rack in the corner of the kitchen, the cable that we thought we'd pushed far enough under the sideboard (ha!) or the magazine that we left by the side of the sofa. In fact, anything that's not a toy!

So now our house looks like gate city! Having three stories in the house, with the kitchen, lounge and playroom on the middle floor, we've got to have 2 gates just for the stairs on that floor. And then we decided to put another one across the landing to keep Imogen separate from Buster without constantly banishing the dog downstairs. This gate means that Buster can have the lounge, while I'm in the kitchen and Imogen's in the playroom and everyone's happy - it also stops Buster getting to Imogen's toys!

Oh the joys of a moving child!

A night out - just the two of us!

Yesterday was Dave's birthday, so having had offers of babysitters from various angles, and with Imogen being more reliable (but not totally!) in her sleep, we decided we deserved a night out. We booked a table at the restaurant in the village for 8.30, so we could be faily sure she'd be asleep, and she was - so we escaped!

Dave tried to ban me from saying "I hope she's OK" which didn't totally work - and we were home by 10.30, 'cos we were both too tired to stay out longer! But we had a lovely time and will certainly be repeating the experience again!

It's a good job we didn't go out tonight though - she's got another cold (and has had for a couple of days) and Dave's up with her at the moment trying to resettle her after a coughing fit!

Photographs

Now Imogen is 6 months old, and the number of photographs is increasing all the time, I've decided to archive the photo album here. A new one, to cover the next 6 months or so, can be seen at the left.

Indescribable antics

Some things you just can't describe, so here's a couple of short clips of Imogen's latest antics - blowing raspberries (as taught by her little friend, Ollie P) and shaking her head.

Off-road buggies

We went to Meadowhall today and whilst walking round, and waiting for me to try clothes on, Dave obviously got bored and made an observation. Of all the three-wheeler, "off-roader" buggies, ours was the only one with mud on the wheels! Is this a kiddie version of the Chelsea Tractors?

First tooth

Imogen has her first tooth! I don't believe all this "She's teething" malarkey - kids get colds and feel rotten and it doesn't have to be the teeth. But anyway, her first one is here. We've been expecting it as Dave noticed the gums were a bit white a few days ago, and then I noticed that the gum looked like it was starting to split. And this morning, there was the appearance of a sharp top of a bottom tooth. It's only just coming through, so not yet very visible, but if you put your finger in her mouth you can feel it!