Before I had Lady F, I would never have believed that her basic little needs could be so, well, complicated. She'll just lie there waiting to be changed and fed until she blissfully drifts off into a peaceful slumber for the night. Right? Wrong. Meeting Lady F's basic needs is not as easy as it seems. So, i have a system to simplify the daily challenges. It is as follows:
Firstly, there are the needs that i've figured out how to happily meet. The stuff only I could write the manual on because i've taken the phrase, trial and error, to a new level. The stuff i've spent hours talking to virtual and real mummy friends about. The stuff I've spent every day (and night) watching and learning, desperate to make my life a little less chaotic.
For example, during nappy changing time Lady F likes to perfect her Great Escape manouvere. However, I pride myself on knowing how to stop her wriggly limbs from flipping over into a get away crawl. My technique? Lie her under her favourite lampshade. That's right, my daughter has a favourite lampshade. To be fair to her the bulb containers are fish. Thank you, Ikea.
If that fails, my next move is to make a crazy sound. Her arms and legs will stop mid flip and she'll turn back to practice her "mum, I think you're crazy, please don't embarass me in front of my future boyfriends" face. (I'll try with the embarassment but you wish on the having a boyfriend front!)
The second category consists of needs I've never figured out how to fully meet. This is irrespective of how hard I've tried. I haven't given up on this stuff yet though.
Lady F has never been a great sleeper. She's nearly 10 months old and has still not slept through the night. "I don't mind though" is a lie I often tell friends that boast of their nightly triumphs, through zombie eyes coated with multiple layers of concealer.
Take the car as another example as one sleepy area I've never figured out. When Lady F is tired she sometimes falls asleep in the car and other times cries and cries and cries. Why can she do it sometimes and not others?
That's when the experiments begin. Maybe it's because she was listening to music the last time she slept in the car? Cue music. Nope. Maybe it's because she's not relaxed enough before she's in the car. Cue relaxing time before we hit the road. Nope. Last time she fell asleep she had her sippy cup. Cue sippy cup. Nope, and now she has wet trousers.
I just can't figure it out. That is the point, for sanity's sake, that I convince myself it's not important and she'll learn one day...
Finally, there's the grey area. Needs I've previously figured out how to meet but there's a temporary blip.
Lately, Lady F has been teething terribly. Her poor little gums are so sore that she's refusing to eat. All my old tricks of aeroplane noises, finger foods, pretending to eat it first are just that, old tricks. Even my over the top yummy noises have failed so I've tried everything else. I've tried to tempt her with all of her favourite foods. I've offered her new foods that looked exciting. At one point I got so desperate for her to eat something I tried to tempt her with a sugar filled iced lolly that she had always tried previously to chow down on. Nothing worked.
Until today.
As I was cooking, I passed Lady F a tomato. I explained to her that it was red, round and what it tasted like. Without worrying that she'd eat it, because of her food aversion at the moment, I turned my attention back to the dinner. A few moments later, I turned back to Lady F to find a suspiciously gooey red mouthed grin and bits of tomato hanging from the gaps between her teeth.
Just when you think you have it all figured out life throws you a lemon, or in this case a tomato.
Needless to say she didn't eat her dinner. Tomatoes for breakfast, anyone?
Photo credit: http://mywonderfulworldofcooking.blogspot.co.uk/
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