Lara the Snot Monster

After going quite some months without a cold, Lara was due one, and it arrived on Saturday. It's meant she's woken in the night, once usually around midnight for a drink of water, then again around 2am, which required a spoonful of Calpol, but then she'd settle down again for the night. Having said that, this was the pattern on Sunday and Monday nights, but last night we gave her Calpol quite early, around 10.30pm, and she slept through the night. Monday morning was funny - after getting Olga up at 2am, Lara then slept until 9.05, a personal best. She must hate Monday mornings like the rest of us!
I think we're getting off quite lightly, given the combination of Lara's teeth coming through, her cold, and the warm nights. If the worst part is getting up at 2am from time to time, for half an hour or so, I'll live with that!
Lara's character traits are showing through more and more now. She can be a madam at times, throwing toys and food around (she can throw food a surprisingly long way - a piece of pineapple went right across the lounge the other evening), but she can show incredible determination too, when she wants to climb onto the sofa, for example. On the flip-side though, she's as affectionate as ever, there are always kisses for Mama, Papa and even Mishka (sometimes, especially Mishka). She loves the "round and round the garden, like a teddy bear" rhyme, insisting we repeat it on both hands, and both feet, holding them out for us one at a time and definitely saying "Mo.." for "more". She understands more than I give her credit for too - she knows who Colin is (her Colubus monkey toy Olga brought back from South Africa), and will look for him if we ask her to "find Colin", she'll get her nursery bag from by the front door when we ask her find it in the mornings, and when we're ready to leave, if we've not put our shoes on yet, we can ask Lara and she'll bring them to us! Cheeky, I know, but it's something Mishka never learned to do! Sometimes, she's even noticed we're getting ready to leave, and will bring one of us a pair of shoes without being asked! We'll see how long that lasts....

A change is as good as a rest

Recently Olga had the idea to move the furniture around at home, to give Lara more space to play. My imagination isn't the best and I struggled to picture how it would look if we transposed the lounge and dining rooms. Olga even marked out the footprint of the sofa on the dining room floor for me with masking tape, which helped, but it wasn't until I got home from cricket on Saturday evening that the penny finally dropped: Olga had moved all the furniture herself - no mean feat given this included a 5-seater corner sofa, a dining table and 2 large cabinets! She's strong, you know.

It's worked out really well, as Lara had started to really enjoy climbing on the sofa, and in it's old position it was difficult to keep an eye on her while we were in the kitchen, but now the sofa is directly under the hole in the wall between the kitchen and the now-lounge. If anything, it's cosier now to watch the TV, the sofa does almost fill the room, but there's enough room to get round the back of it to retrieve dropped toys, and we've revealed acres of wallspace just waiting for photos of our travels to be hung there.
This also means extra fun for Mishka, who can climb on the sofa and stick his head almost into the kitchen to beg for treats (he doesn't get any!), although the downside for him is he's lost his primary position for guarding the house and watching the world go by - when he used to lean on the back of the sofa and look out of the front window. The postman will probably be pleased, as he'll not get the full-on barking attack he would normally get from Mishka when he delivers the mail.

Other home news - Olga took her first pickings from the veg patch yesterday, we have monster radishes, it seems, although some local creatures have taken a shine to our broccoli.

Here are some new pics:

More strange weather thingys

As I'd said, the weather recently has been very nice, but yesterday evening we had thundery showers, which led to a double-rainbow over Wycombe:


Today has been lovely again, and after slaving away on Sunday afternoon for, oooh, an hour and a half, I'd finished mowing the back garden. Compare this with the 2-3 hours it would take to do it with the old electric mower. It's such a relief when it's done! Mishka enjoys it too... and look at the size of his ears!


We're purposefully leaving the front 1/4 of the lawn unmown - firstly it's too steep to mow easily, and strimming it is too much hard work, and we don't use that part of the garden for anything, and secondly it's a nice place for the butterflies and frogs and beetles and other beasties to live!

A busy weekend

The weather was lovely this weekend, and while Papa was away playing cricket on Saturday, Lara helped Mama tidy up the vegetable patch. On Sunday we all went to a BBQ at our friends, the Fullers, house in Littlewick Green. Simon and Michelle know how to entertain kids, and at one point there were 11 little darlings running around. Well done Si & Miche!

Here are the photos:

More teeth on the way

After months of having just her 6 incisors, Lara finally has some more teeth coming through, her upper canines (I think that's what they'll become!). We first suspected in the middle of last week, when Lara was spending much more time with her hand in her mouth. I quick root around with a finger loaded with teething gel confirmed it, although this is a dangerous operation, as Lara loves to invite you to put your finger in her mouth then she bites down on it.
Combining this with the warm weather we've been having has meant Lara has been more restless at night, but so far we've only had to get up once in the night, although this was on Sunday night / Monday morning, when Olga & I had taken advantage of Lucy being around to babysit, and we'd gone to the pub. Lara needed a drink of water at 4am, then at just after 6am she decided to scream the place down until I got up and very wearily went through the motions of the morning routine, but after getting her out of the cot and giving her a yoghurt, she calmed right back down, and by 7am or so the two of us were asleep on the nursery floor until Olga came to wake us at 8.30! Olga had to give Lara some calpol last night, but this was before only around 10.30, and then Lara slept perfectly through the night as usual, waking right on time as Olga was just finishing in the bathroom this morning.