My tongues out, I'm concenrating!

You may have noticed on several of the photos of Imogen that her tongue is out - it's a frequent occurrence! Not quite sure why, but it seems to be a kind of concentration aid. She obvious concentrates a lot! She finds it very funny when you try pushing it back into her mouth, and everyone remarks about it - the doctor even told her it would get cold if she didn't put it away!

Anyway, this video shows her current mobility level - of course, aided by the tongue!

Kitchen drumming

OK, we've now managed to get a short clip of Imogen's kitchen drumming antics. She loves it!

I am the music man!

Imogen has always seemed to like music - from very early on she settled when the organ played at church, and she seems to smile and laugh when I sing to her (or maybe that's just laughing in despair at the silly songs I make up!).

I couldn't resist buying the saxaphone for her - well, Mummy and Daddy have got one, so why shouldn't she. Dave was very impressed when he gave it to her for the first time and she held it properly and put the mouthpiece in her mouth. Fluke really, but we can dream!

And then last week we called in to see Aunty Margaret & Uncle Peter and Imogen took to the piano. She was facinated when Uncle Peter was playing and then loved having a go herself. Not exactly concert pianist standard yet, but give it a few years!

She's also learning that hitting things makes a noise, and thinks that's great! I did try and take a video of her playing the kitchen "drums", but it didn't work, so you'll just have to imagine that one. Uncle Hugh should be proud!

Marmite - yuck!

I can't believe my daughter is a marmite lover! Grr!

Stupidly I bought her some marmite cheese bites, not thinking that it might lead to the real thing. I only bought them to give her a bit of a flavour (thinking she wouldn't like it 'cos neither Dave or I do - or so I thought). As it turns out she loved the cheese, and Dave decided to inform me that he likes marmite (proves you never know everything!) and that he hadn't had it for ages, so he'd buy a jar. We're now on the second jar, and Imogen loves it - the cheese bites and the real thing on toast.

Yuck, yuck, yuck!!!

Sleep

Things seem to have improved a lot on the sleep front over the last couple of weeks, which has made for a happier life for all!

We were getting to the stage of not really knowing what to do - Imogen was waking during the night and sometimes it would be 1 1/2 - 2 hours before she would settle in her cot again, and when this happens two or three times a night for several nights in a row, it's just not funny. We didn't know what the problem was - she would settle fine if she was cuddled, but as soon as we made any attempt to put her down in her cot she would wake and scream. I could cope for an hour at a time, but then would get frustrated and angry which wasn't doing either of us any good - waking Dave up to take over meant at least Imogen was kept calmish, even if I still didn't get sleep.

We couldn't go on like that, so we made a decision that Dave was going to get up to her in the night, to try to get her out of the habit of wanting milk from me every time she woke - I was finding it very difficult to settle her in any other way - and I would only get up if it was really necessary. This didn't mean a whole night's sleep for me, 'cos I still woke when she did and had to prod Dave to wake him! So that went on for a couple of nights and things were a bit calmer. We still weren't sure why she was walking in the first place, but she did seem to settle back a bit better.

The real break-through came when we were going to the boat for the weekend. We'd been using blankets at home, but decided that she'd need a gro-bag on the boat as it would be colder there. As she hadn't been in a gro-bag since camping in the summer, we put her in it for a couple of nights at home before going away - and bingo, she slept through!

Since then we've had more sleep-through nights that waking ones. They're not every night, but at least we get some decent sleep. On the theory that when you change something you have to do things for three days for it to become the norm, we reckoned that we'd have to have three sleep-throughs in a row before we could in any way hope for more. We've had several two-nights-in-a-row, but it's never got to three - until last night! Hurray!

Sleep in the day is a lot better now as well. In the morning she seems to be ready for a sleep about 1 1/2 hours after getting up - for anywhere between 1/2 and 2 hours - and then another sleep in the afternoon. It's all fairly flexible though and as long as she gets a couple of sleeps during the day, with one of them of a decent length, then she's fine - they can be in the car, in the pushchair walking Buster or in her cot as long as it's somewhere where there's not too much going on for a nosey little girl to watch!

And Imogen is so much happier when she's slept properly - when she wakes up she doesn't cry straight away, but will lie and talk to Mr Cow for a while, before giing you a lovely big grin when you come to get her. Great!