Walking and running

It's been two weeks since Chloe started walking properly and now she walks everywhere and has started to try to run (albeit rather unsuccessfully). I can't believe how much she has grown in the past two weeks. It is like someone replaced my little baby girl with a big toddler.

She is saying more words now and walking about babbling to herself. She picks up things and puts them to her ear to pretend to be on the phone - she's been doing that a while. And today, for the first time, she picked up a cuddly toy and hugged it while rocking back and forth and saying 'awww aww'. Presumably copying me as I do that to her when she gets hurt.

It is just like this little person has emerged. I love love LOVE her. I so enjoy her company. She is the absolute light of my life. I can't believe she's going to be a big one year old in 2 weeks time. It seems like only yesterday that I found out I was having her.

So I will share some photographs of my beautiful TODDLER.

Chloe walking

Chloe has been toddling for the past few weeks now but yesterday and today she has been trying to walk everywhere. She is still unsteady and so falls down a bit but she stands straight back up and continues on her way. It's like she has finally discovered that she can walk on her own. I got a couple of videos of her doing it but none of them are that great. Every time I videos her she stumbled, and then when I put it down she was walking without falling at all. Typical. So here's

wee video of her walking.

11 months today

Happy 11 month birthday my lovely little girl. I can't believe you've been with me for almost a whole year now. This time last year I was counting down those last few days until you were born. I was so excited - buying all the bits and pieces we would need for your arrival. I remember when we collected the pushchair and the crib (which ended up being used only once). We set both of them up in the lounge and I put a teddy in the crib all tucked up - imagining how that was soon going to be you. Then your Daddy put the hat we bought you onto the teddy, lol. Oh I was so excited. Wondering if you were going to be a Christmas baby as your due date was December 22nd. I remember wandering around Mothercare just gazing at the clothes, picking what I was going to dress you in when you arrived. Chloe you will never know or understand just how wanted you were. It's such a cliche but you really were a dream come true for me and you have made my life so wonderful. I couldn't live it without you. I know I am just a guardian for your wee soul that God has given me, but I am forever thankful that He did.

Love you more than life itself.

Mommy xx

Life

I read this at the blog 2-moms and I found it quite inspiring and I could relate to it.

What I Have Lived For
(The Prologue to Bertrand Russell's Autobiography)

Three passions, simple but overwhelmingly strong, have governed my life: the longing for love, the search for knowledge, and unbearable pity for the suffering of mankind. These passions, like great winds, have blown me hither and thither, in a wayward course, over a great ocean of anguish, reaching to the very verge of despair.

I have sought love, first, because it brings ecstasy - ecstasy so great that I would often have sacrificed all the rest of life for a few hours of this joy. I have sought it, next, because it relieves loneliness--that terrible loneliness in which one shivering consciousness looks over the rim of the world into the cold unfathomable lifeless abyss. I have sought it finally, because in the union of love I have seen, in a mystic miniature, the prefiguring vision of the heaven that saints and poets have imagined. This is what I sought, and though it might seem too good for human life, this is what--at last--I have found.

With equal passion I have sought knowledge. I have wished to understand the hearts of men. I have wished to know why the stars shine. And I have tried to apprehend the Pythagorean power by which number holds sway above the flux. A little of this, but not much, I have achieved.

Love and knowledge, so far as they were possible, led upward toward the heavens. But always pity brought me back to earth. Echoes of cries of pain reverberate in my heart. Children in famine, victims tortured by oppressors, helpless old people a burden to their sons, and the whole world of loneliness, poverty, and pain make a mockery of what human life should be. I long to alleviate this evil, but I cannot, and I too suffer.

This has been my life. I have found it worth living, and would gladly live it again if the chance were offered me.

---

Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) won the Nobel prize for literature for his History of Western Philosophy and was the co-author of Principia Mathematica.

Memories

Being a lone mommy can be hard sometimes. Chloe had a hospital appointment today to get her hips x-rayed. I have dislocated hips and when Chloe was 6 weeks old an ultrasound showed a slight 'immaturity' in her left hip. Luckily it seems to be very slight now and I'm hoping she won't need any treatment, but we have to see what the consultant says.

The appointment was at Antrim Area Hospital, where I gave birth. And the last time I was there was giving birth to Chloe. Neil didn't come to Chloe's appointment as he said he was too busy, and going there on my own brought back a lot of memories.

I was told I would never be able to have kids and so finding out I was pregnant was the most amazing surprise in the whole world. My many, many prayers had been answered.

I remember going there with Neil for our first scan at 6 weeks and being so full of excitement and wonder that I was pregnant. I had so many dreams, but I was so scared something would go wrong, and seeing that tiny little bean's heart beating on the scanner was the most amazing feeling in the world.

I remember our 12 week scan, with Neil by my side. Chloe waved her arms about as if she was saying, 'hiya mommy and daddy'. Most people start to relax at their 12 week scan but I was still so scared something would go wrong. I just couldn't believe my dream of motherhood was going to come true.

I remember going there on my own for regular ante-natal check ups and sitting in the waiting room watching all the other women going through this journey with me. Some like me, were at the start of their journey, and some were nearly ready to have their baby. I remember at the start thinking that it seemed like a lifetime before I would hold my baby in my arms. I felt so jealous of those ladies ready to pop. I used to sit in the waiting room and allow myself to daydream about what it would be like to have my baby. To finally hold him/her(I didn't know the sex yet) in my arms. Oh the dreams I had about parenthood, us being a family.

I remember our 3D private scan where they told us we were having a little girl. I burst into tears. My dream came true. I couldn't believe God was so generous to give me, not only a baby, but a baby daughter. And I was so very scared that it would all be taken away from me. Surely in real life dreams don't come true.

I remember sitting in the waiting room near the end of my journey watching all the newly pregnant women coming in and knowing that they would be looking at me and thinking they wished they were at my stage, about to have their baby, and feeling like it would be forever before they finally got to that stage. And I remember wanting to say to them that I remembered the start of the journey too and that the time absolutely flew by.

I remember being at the hospital when I was 38 weeks pregnant and the doctor telling me that I was going to have my baby on the 15/12. I was so excited. So very ready to go on to this next stage of the journey of motherhood. I rushed out and phoned Neil (he was at work) and told him that Chloe was going to be here in a weeks time.

I remember coming to the hospital on the 14th December with all our baby stuff and as I walked in the doors being so very aware that when I walked out of them I would be holding my baby in my arms instead of in my belly. And I was so excited.

I remember pacing the corridors waiting to be giving the induction pessary.

I remember Neil giving me a kiss and promising to be back as soon as I was in labour.

I remember when labour started in earnest and I remember phoning Neil to tell him to get back asap.

I remember holding Chloe in my arms just moments after her birth - I had my girl.

I remember breastfeeding Chloe for the first time and it just being so normal.

I remember walking back through those doors thinking, 'Now my life is complete'.

And today I walked out those same doors and burst into tears. The crushing awareness that the last time I walked through them we were a family, now I was on my own with Chloe. I wouldn't change my journey for a second. I am so glad I have Chloe, she is the light of my life. But I am now so acutely aware that I have only myself to rely on.

It's funny how so much of my life and emotions are wrapped up in that hospital. One building. It feels like half my life is in those walls.

My IQ Test Result

I took an online IQ test and this was the result. The result was the same as one I had done officially a few years ago so I'm pleased I haven't lost any points since having Chloe. 'Nappy Brain' appears to be a myth after all! LOL

10 month update

Dear Chloe,

Well Chloe you are now ten months old. I can't believe you are growing up so fast. It seems like only yesterday I was trailing round Mothercare daydreaming about what I would buy when you arrived. I remember the midwife handing you to me after you came out of the incubator and you snuggling down beside me and breastfeeding for the first time. I remember having trouble bonding with you for those first few weeks because your birth was so traumatic. And I remember the moment, at about 1am, when you looked up at me and smiled for the first time and I realised I loved you more than I could ever have imagined and more than words could ever describe. I love you so much darling Chloe and I'm so thankful that you are my daughter. Check out the most gorgeous cheesy grin in the picture below:

Here are a few things about you at ten months. You still breastfeed on demand but you rarely do it during the day now, just in the mornings and evenings. You're a very good eater generally and you love baby pesto and pasta. You also love yoghurt and breadsticks. You still only have 8 teeth though. You haven't had any new teeth for a couple of months now but you are starting to chew again and I think some more are coming through at the back.

You can crawl as fast as I can jog, lol. You love to climb the stairs and you have learnt to climb off the sofa, bed and stairs feet first instead of lunging head first. You wave hello and bye bye. You love to clap your hands for everyone. You are learning to point to your head when we ask, 'Where's Chloe's head?', and fingers and so on. You can cruise easily while holding on to furniture, and you can walk with your first steps pram. You point at all the things that excite you and I tell you about them. You give slobbery kisses when we ask for them. They are the most wonderful kisses in the world.

You absolutely love our miniature Jack Russell, Missi, and the cat, Toby. You get so excited when they come near you. Missi loves you as well and she's so good with you and so tolerant. She licks your feet to make you laugh and she guards you whenever strangers are in the house.

You like to look at books on your own now. You especially love the 'F is for Farm' book that your Great-Granny Wickens brought home from America for you. It's a brilliant book with different textures to feel, flaps to open and moving parts. You also love playing with you Little People playhouse. You've learnt to press the different noise buttons. However, no matter how many toys you have you seem to always want to play with either the TV remote control or my phone :-).

You wear pull-up nappies now because you wouldn't stay still long enough for me to put on regular one's. You're all go all the time. Your hair is starting to grow - you can see it thickening up. Lovely, tiny tiny curls are starting at the back. You're a very adventurous baby and you tend to try something and if you don't succeed, or you fall, you get straight back up and do it again. That is a wonderful character trait - to have a bold, try anything spirit. I'm so pleased you've got that.

You like to see how you can experiment with different body positions. For instance you will be breastfeeding and you'll try to stand on your head and feet without using your arms. All this whilst remaining attached to me having a feed. I probably shouldn't let you do that but I love seeing you learn what you are capable of doing with your body. You have all these new abilities that you are refining at the minute and I don't want to hamper your efforts in any way. Those first few steps you took with your baby walker; your face was so proud. You marched about utterly delighted at yourself, you were so chuffed at your abilities. And I could have burst with pride. Seeing you walk about with your tongue sticking out, the way you do when you are concentrating. Priceless moments, no money could ever buy.

I love you so, so much baby Chloe. (It won't be long now until I have to drop the baby bit).

Mommy

xx