We had always been proud of our sociable, well-behaved little girl. People often commented on how good Sophie was when we were out and about, and I guess we had always taken it for granted… Not any more!

We were recently up North visiting some friends and took a trip to the local park to feed the ducks. When all the bread had gone we decided to head for home, but Sophie had other ideas. She straightened her back and refused to be put in to the pushchair, sliding down on to the floor every time we tried to put the straps over her arms. We eventually resorted to carrying her under one arm – like a rugby ball – all the way home. She was kicking and screaming as if her life depended on it. I’m sure we got some funny looks from people but I didn’t really care – I was feeling pretty frazzled by the whole experience and I think it put our friends off having children for life.

She has repeated this behaviour a few times when I’m trying to get her into the buggy and the car seat, and it’s always a battle of wills as to who will be victorious (she’s like me – very stubborn and won’t give up until she gets her own way) I have to persevere though or we would never get out of the house, and staying in watching CBeebies all day would drive me up the wall. I’m hoping it’s just a phase, but as she is still six months off turning two, I have a feeling there could be worse in store for us. I am bracing myself for stormy times ahead!

We are very fortunate to have loads of baby and toddler groups within walking distance of where we live, and it means we have something to go to nearly every day. Consequently boredom doesn’t get a look-in in our household and some days I barely seem to stop for a minute…

Monday is our day off, the ironing takes priority and trying to get the house in order after the weekend…. well, it can’t all be fun and coffee mornings – can it?!

On Tuesday we go to ‘Sing and Sign’ (http://www.singandsign.com/), which has been great for helping Sophie to communicate using sign language, and I believe it has helped her with her speech as well. Now she is beginning to speak, she signs and says the word at the same time; I think it helps her to understand what she is saying.

Wednesday we go to a toddler group, which I love as the mums get a chance to have a natter and catch up.  Sophie loves doing the painting or gluing in the art corner and I’d rather she splattered paint all over their walls than mine, then there’s an hour of playing with all the toys whilst the mums enjoy a cup of tea and we finish with some singing. The little ones get to use up even more energy banging drums and playing maracas, Sophie is always exhausted by the end of it.

Thursday we have more singing at ‘Music with Mummy’ (http://www.musicwithmummy.co.uk/home.asp) and yet more drum banging. Thank goodness there are lots of other mums there to drown out my terrible singing. Sophie’s favourite part is when the bubble machine makes an appearance; all the little ones love running through the bubbles and there are lots of ‘oooos’ and ‘ahhhhs’. They all try to catch a bubble, which of course they never quite manage.

Finally Friday is our NCT coffee morning (http://www.nct.org.uk/home) and yet another chance for more nattering and exchanging stories whilst the kids amuse themselves in whoever’s house it is that week. We all take turns so you only have your house taken over by toddlers and babies every month or so, and it’s definitely a great way to make friends, especially if you have just had a baby and are not quite sure how to go about getting to know other mums. By Friday we are exhausted and with all the activities, not to mention walking to and from the various venues, I think I definitely deserve a bottle of wine!

The artist at work:

Looking after baby:

Preparing lunch:

Trying to push the buggy up the slide:  

Well, Christmas was fab… Sophie particularly enjoyed it as she seemed to spend two weeks living on toast and chocolate and staying up late (although as that meant we got to lie in until 9 some mornings, I can’t really complain).

She calls everything that is sweet ‘cake’, and started chanting it almost as soon as she got up in the morning. I’m sure she would have eaten chocolate until she was sick if we hadn’t stopped her. I suppose it’s because she very rarely gets chocolate at home – it’s not something I eat a lot of (more for the sake of my waistline than by preference) and so we don’t keep it in the house. Andy is banned from keeping any at home where I might be tempted and has a stash as work out of harms way. Unfortunately, it’s pretty hard to deny a one year old when the whole house is full of chocolate and we were all happily stuffing our faces with Roses and Quality Street (it was Christmas after all). Now that she can say ‘please’ she uses it to her advantage, she knows it can be a useful tool in getting what she wants… especially with aunties and grandparents.

To ease our guilt we came to an agreement that she could have some chocolate as long as she brushed her teeth each night. Easier said than done. Every time I approached with a toothbrush, I was met with a mouth that was firmly clamped shut. Needless to say her teeth weren’t cleaned every night (no doubt our dentist would have put me on the naughty step for that, but I wonder if he has ever tried cleaning a one year old’s teeth when they don’t want you to… He might not be so quick to criticise if he had).

Thank goodness we are now home again and I am managing to get her back in to her normal routine and some sensible eating.

We’re so excited about Christmas this year because Sophie is much more aware of everything that’s going on, and we’re hoping she’ll really enjoy the festivities. With this in mind we decided to get the Christmas tree early so that we could appreciate it for longer. On 1^st December we headed out and managed to get a really lovely one for a tenner – I love a bargain! We then made a detour via the supermarket and spent much more than this on new shatterproof decorations; I was worried that if we used the old glass ones and they broke, Sophie might cut herself. Finally we headed home for the great tree unveiling and decorating.

Although it didn’t take long to decide where to put the tree, we then had to spend the next half an hour putting string on to the new baubles. By this time Sophie had lost what little patience she had, and was throwing baubles all over the room – proof if we needed it that we made the right decision buying the shatterproof ones. Eventually the tree decorating commenced and, once she had got the idea, Sophie really joined in and went round the living room retrieving the baubles she had thrown, and handing them to us to put on to the tree. It looked great when we had finished, but Sophie was having so much fun that she wanted to do it all over again, and started to remove all of the baubles she could reach. It has been like this ever since; a constant cycle of Sophie taking off all of the baubles she can reach, then getting fed up of the tricky string, losing her patience and abandoning the idea of putting them back on the tree. I’m finding baubles in all manner of places, including shoved in to toys and in the rabbit cage. If it keeps her amused I guess I can’t complain.

Sophie by the tree: 

This weekend we went to stay at my parents’ house as it was mum’s 60^th birthday and she was having a big party. I spent more time deciding what Sophie would wear than I did choosing my own outfit. It was worth it though because everyone agreed that she was the belle of the ball, and she looked especially pretty in her pink dress. I think her second cousin Alex thought she was pretty too – they seemed to take a real shine to each other. Alex is two and very cute with curly blonde hair and big blue eyes, in fact, he and Sophie look very similar. They were soon as thick as thieves – if Alex was dancing so was Sophie, and if Sophie was playing with a teddy bear, so was Alex. It was very sweet watching them copy each other, and it was nice that Sophie had a special friend at the party.

She really enjoyed the whole weekend and everyone couldn’t believe how much she had grown. Needless to say, she slept very well on the train on the way back home, it’s exhausting being such a socialite…

Sophie trying on her party frock: