Monday, October 26, 2009

Mother & Child, and Father...

1. Was up with Layla all night long. (Saturday saw the beginning of a very sticky, snotty nose - and by Sunday, she was in full swing with the whole works, making for an utterly miserable little girl.)
2. She woke up at 5.30am - and guessed she'd need her usual sleep by 8.30am at the latest -- but not being able to breastfeed with such a blocked nose made her inconsably frantic, that I've only managed to get her to sleep a few minutes ago: i.e. she was awake for a total of FIVE hours... And that's a LOT for such a wee little soul.
3. Craig has gotten the cold as well - and, being of the male persuasion, has it 'a billion times worse' (to quote directly!) And to top it all off, Mama Lisa here has to help him type his school reports because otherwise he gets a sore back. Ag shampies...
So, sleep-deprived, irritable and more-than-your-average-knackered, here I am at the PC and not in bed where I should be, catching up on as many winks I could get.
4. My small 'Mother & Child' was selected for the 96th Annual Northampton Town & County Art Society Exhibition (what a mouthful!)over the large one because of the gallery's lack of space this year where they're apparently hanging works from floor to ceiling!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Teething pains...


With the weather turning a glum, cold grey, my usually bare feet about the house are decidedly icy: time to either turn on the heating or haul out last winter's slippers! Whenever I speak to my dad (he's in Cape Town), he is guaranteed to ask me about the weather. Even slap-bang in the middle of the Cape Winter, the weather is usually irritatingly better than here in Northampton. Perhaps this is why my dad always asks me? A little thorn to remind me that east, west, HOME is best!
Layla's top front two teeth are pushing their way down through her sore, tender little gums - and the Calpol I gave her earlier doesn't seem to have made so much as a dent in her loud, sporadic agony. Poor baby :( All I've managed to do today is look after her, run a load of washing (which is still in the machine) and do the dishes (but they're still not packed away.) Since the last time I wrote, I've had a dramatic shift in perspective after an older and wiser friend's kind warning to 'treasure these moments' with Layla. She made mention that she herself has to remind herself of this sentiment when contemplating, not her navel, but finding a gun to forever silence her husband's decibel-crunching snores! (I've had to promise keeping her safely anonymous in case her contemplation turns to action one sleep-deprived midnight!) But it is so, so true. These precious children of ours grow up in leaps and bounds we can never hope to keep up with! I can hardly even remember how tiny and fragile Layla was as a newborn - when teething and crawling and starting solids all seemed impossibly far away into the future. When we were in South Africa, I found the very first photograph ever taken of Layla on her late granny Sally's cell phone. Craig's hand is on the photo, giving Layla the look and size of a tiny doll - and not the chubby, robust newborn I expected! She was so thin and almost scraggly, that her skin hung off her like an old, too big jersey. And that shock of raven hair! So much like her daddy that I kept on dreaming in my post-labour snatches of sleep that they'd made a mistake: that she was a boy! For weeks after she was born, I wanted to snip off a lock of her soft black hair to keep forever, but suddenly the weeks were months, and all that hair disappeared... Thank goodness for photographs!
And here she is, all 14lb and 7.5months of her: delicious, incredible, amazing! Holding her in my arms in the middle of the night, exhaustion suspended by the miracle of her. Could I love her too much? Her soft apple cheeks, long and strangely straight eyelashes, and a mouth that can be all soft and pouty - and then stretch into the widest, biggest smile I've ever seen... It's hard to believe she is my daughter. My flesh and blood. Made only from love and desire and chromosomes...

(As an aside, a friend told me on the weekend that my blog entries are too short and leave the reader wishing I had given them more... Two reasons I probably cut myself short: I don't want to bore you, and Layla usually needs me JUST as the writing starts to get juicy... Any ideas or tips?)