Bye Bye Bottle

During February, Mr BB was lucky enough to have a few days away skiing with work - a perk of the job which hasn't been available for a few years, obviously. Still, for days and weeks leading up to his "work trip" he went to great lengths to establish that it was a "work trip", and practically no fun would be had. None whatsoever, really, it's work, with work people and clients. Hmm, I nodded in agreement knowing full well that skiing is one of his favourite holidays and could see that despite himself, he was leaping for joy inside, which was really nice to see.

At first I thought it would be quite strange without him and I wondered how BB would cope without him. He tends to put her to bed and they have a little bedtime routine, and they had only had one night apart and that was a year ago when she was 6 months old. So this could be different. And tricky. So I braced myself. We spent the first night just the two of us, and luckily BB was fine. I had managed to tire her out enough in the day that she just wanted to go straight to sleep when bedtime came round. But in the morning, she kept looking for her daddy. Pitter-pattering from room to room, but no luck. This routine took place every morning until he was back and he got her up, to a lively cuddle and a "welcome home" jump on his belly back in our bed. Order was restored.

Whilst Mr BB was away, I took the opportunity to try and get BB off of the bottle. I've read that it is ideal to try and wean them off the bottle by 18 months but I know that many have struggled to do this. And despite my wanting this, flashbacks of the times we tried to get BB to actually take a bottle in the first place kept coming back to me! So, without any fuss I put BB's milk in a beaker (with a top on) and placed it in front of her on her high chair and walked back to get her cereal ready. As I turned back, to my amazement BB was guzzling away at the beaker, with no complaints. She had been used to drinking her water out of a smaller similar cup so I think this helped, but still, I was so relieved. And we haven't looked back since. Bye bye bottle, bye bye calling BB a baby.

Parents' Evening v Parents' Evening

Apologies for lack of posts of late, have been meaning to post but just haven't got round to it...naughty Mummy BB!!

Anyway, since my last post we have had BB's second parents' evening and as she is graduating to the "Toddler Room" we were given her handover book to keep. We were also lent her "record" book for a few days, before having to return it to the nursery, in which they have stuck photos of BB that they have taken during various activities. It was really lovely to go through, but most of all, it was simply astonishing just how much BB had changed over the last 6 months or so. Of course she has grown, but she seems to have changed so much from the slightly grumpy-refusing-to-smile-for-photos stage to the happy, dancing, giggling little girl she has already become. So much so that I am sometimes ashamed at how difficult I found the first few months of BB's life and at how much I struggled to bond with her properly. Now, it is a totally different matter. We have a great bond and she just makes me so proud to be her mummy.

BB has made friends with a lovely little girl at nursery who, whenever I drop BB off, comes running over to her and waves in her face - a really lovely sight as I leave BB for the day.

I also celebrated my 33rd birthday recently. Well, when I say celebrated, what I mean, of course, was that it was just another normal Tuesday. I couldn't bring myself to go to the toddler group over the road though, so we went to the playground just BB and me, which was lovely. Mr BB and I were going to go out for a meal but as it was a weeknight and he tends to be the most shattered man on earth after work we decided to put it off till the weekend. This also happened to be one of the snowy weeks so we were limited as to where to go depending on which roads were passable. We ended up opting for the pub in the village. Much easier. As we left the house it started to thunder and lightning lit up the non-street-lamped streets, so that was sort of a bonus. As we were waiting for our table at the pub, the fire alarm started to go off. Yet we persevered with the evening, with a group at another table who were also celebrating a birthday and who finished off with a cake and candles. We kept the low key element alive by sharing an array of starters and good old fashioned pub grub mains. Still, I was wearing my lovely new birthday jumper and I was out for the evening with my lovely hubby. And that's all I really wanted.