7 months old today

Nora.

You are a lovely, funny, smiling, chipmunk cheeked munchcake who now is the proud owner of two white, well I would say teeth but they're more like nobbly bits at the moment. Yesterday you went on a swing for the first time and you laughed and laughed. Daddy pushed you and you felt your face against the wind, wide eyed, open mouthed. I wasn't there of course, I was earning your mashed carrot and sweet potato but Daddy told me all about it when I came home, held your yelping, smiling squirmyness in my arms and breathed in your milky sweet aroma.

You wake up amazed because you have been asleep on your front half the night, and you love your stacking cups, but not as much as you love the crunchy lion or Miss Ladybird.

And I still have difficulty sometimes believing that you are real. How on earth did this consciousness get here? Out of me? Apparently so.

Meanwhile, my American counterpart, Dooce is in terrible mourning for having to wean her baby for the most important of reasons. Needless to say, I cried somewhat reading her honest and painfully sad post. But, as she knows, being a strong and decent human being, a well Mum is a very important person in a baby's life.

I stopped seeing my NCT crew for "they are posh, they live in Clapham and can't be botherec to accomodate a non car driving, non rich person" reasons. One of the women there announced, in baby massage, when the kids were about 2 months old "Well, I have to wean her by three months". Ok - you may have difficulty believing this, but it is, nevertheledss true. This woman had booked a skiing holiday before the birth timed at 3 months in, because she thought that by then she and her husband would need a break from their daughter. So she left her daughter behind with her Mum, and went off skiing, and rather than express off her milk, she thought it would be too much hassle and it might be painful to have full breasts whilst skiing. And that's why she stopped breastfeeding.

I measure that reasoning against Dooce's painfully emotional decision, and I am glad that I no longer see that woman.