Shhhhhhhh!

I've just had an email from someone very important. Can you guess who?

Santa has just emailed me to say that he's written a special letter to Squeaky.  Unfortunately he's sent it by normal post, rather than Super Special Penguin Post, so I'm relying on Peter Postie (honestly that's our postie's name, and that's what he puts on those little notes to say he's taken something back to the sorting office) to turn up in the next couple of days. I haven't seen him for a week, so I really hope he gets it here in time for Squeaky to open before Christmas.

We're still fairly comprehensively snowed in. My car is completely immoveable, SqueakyDaddy's is OK, and the main roads are passable, if you can get to them.  We're meant to be driving up to the Midlands on Friday, so we're just hoping it will be halfway reasonable.  I think Squeaky & I are going to spend the day drinking overpriced coffee in Cardiff while daddy's at work, and then we can go from there, rather than messing about coming back here.

*Fingers Crossed*  We've got enough adult food to last a few days, enough baby food and nappies for about 10.  By then it'd better have cleared, or else!

A Valuable Lesson

... in every sense of the word.

Aside from "helping" taking the washing out of the machine & throwing it all over the kitchen floor, one of Squeaky's current favourite games is robbing my handbag.  If I put it anywhere that she can possibly get to, she'll find it, and remove everything in search of who-knows-what.

I discovered yesterday how problematic that can be.  We trundled off for some mid-week top-up shopping to Aldi, to stop me getting tempted by clothes & shoes in the "proper" supermarkets.  And round we walked, picked up our things, and got to the checkout.  Only to find that Squeaky had removed my credit cards from my bag.  We nearly had enough cash to pay for everything - if they'd accepted M&S vouchers, I could've covered it, or indeed if I were rich enough to do my food shopping in M&S.  But as it was, I had to give things back, and wish for the floor to swallow me up.

So now I know - check everything is in my bag before leaving the house, because otherwise, Squeaky will have hidden something vital underneath the computer table.

Update of Random Points

Oh, the excitement!  Today, we ate our dinner sitting in the high chair for the first time.  And with our new high chair toy to distract us from the fact that we were eating something new.  Actually, that's a point.  Do you know how FEW high chair toys there are available on the high street?  Yep, there's plenty on Amazon, but that would involve waiting for deliveries, etc, and Squeaky wanted one NOW.  Argos have a choice of one, overpriced and not very nice.  Tescos have none.  Ditto Wilkos, Boots, Matalan and everywhere else I could think of the other day.  Last chance saloon today, Asda.  Hooray!  They had a cute, Fisher Price, reasonably priced one, in fact, the one I found on Amazon only as a Japanese import.  And Squeaky likes it enough to bash it about while having spoonfuls of bolognaise shovelled into her.  No spag, just bol, with added sweet potato & parsnip (yuck, but she seems to like it) mixed in to stop it being All About The Mince.

Yeah, that as well.  Our diet has expanded to include Weetabix, Petits Filous, tuna, chicken, pork, beef, and most things I offer her, unless they involve potatoes.  For some reason potatoes are not for eating.  Le sigh.  She'd better move on from that, or life is going to be complicated.  She was happy to suck on a chip the other week, so what's wrong with my mash, I don't quite know.

And random strangers are annoying me again.  Yes, she's a small child.  She was small when she was born, she continues to be at the smaller end of the scale, but she's fine, I have a letter from the hospital that says just that.  I'm sure your 8 month old, bottle fed nephew IS twice her size, but that might be something to do with being a) older, b) male, and c) bottle fed.  Squeaky is her very own size & shape, she eats plenty, poos plenty, and is none of your business.  Grrr.

Swimming revisited

So today, as previously mentioned, we gave our usual swimming session in Aberfan a miss, to go over to Aberdare, where I'd been told the pool was warmer.

Drove half an hour to get there, and found. The pool was closed. For a school swimming gala (i.e. booked months in advance). Nothing on the website, nothing outside the leisure centre, nothing told to the other mums in previous weeks. Nothing. And as you can imagine, that lead to quite a number of upset children, and parents, who'd planned their day around a swimming trip.

That was their one & only chance. I'm going back to Aberfan next week, and staying there.

Swimming

When we went on our little jaunt to North Wales last month, we took the opportunity to introduce Squeaky to the joys of swimming. While both of us are swimmers, me moreso than SqueakyDaddy, we both learned late in childhood, and wanted to avoid the same happening to Squeaky. As per usual, she charmed everyone around her and took to it like, well, a duck to water.

On returning home, I popped into the council pool in town, looking for a parent & baby type session, or at least a good time to visit with a small squeaky creature in tow. The answer I got from the receptionists? "Just put her in the bath, she won't know the difference"! Honest! I only wish I was making it up. Most unlike me, I was too shocked to reply, and too shocked to make a scene, demand an apology, speak to the manager. So instead, I'm just telling everyone, in person & on the wilds of the internet. Don't go to Rhydycar leisure centre in Merthyr Tydfil, ok? (The fact the pool was closed for AGES due to a cryptosporidium outbreak they couldn't kill doesn't add much confidence either).

Fortunately, due to my good friends at the breastfeeding group, I've now found not one, but two, baby swimming sessions. One in the slightly closer to my house, Aberfan community centre pool, and one in Aberdare. We're going to try Aberdare tomorrow, as all the reports suggest the water's far warmer. Splish splash.