The big achievement of this month is crawling. Anna’s first attempt to move was in Wales. I used her favourite blueberries to encourage her when she was sitting playing on the floor. She then moved into the crawling position and tried to drag her legs along to reach the blueberries. It seemed to be very tiring for her because she used the whole of her upper body to drag her legs rather than move her legs. When we were back to London, she gradually got better and better. Finally one morning she could crawl for almost the whole length of the living room. She always crawls with a big confident smile on her face. We have to keep the house cleaner because she starts to pick up things off the floor and put into her mouth.
Since then she has been so interested in exploring the house. She went to different corners of the house where she has never been to before. She loves banging the radiator under the window. She likes to pull out the DVDs and books from the shelves. She rarely went to the dining room as we didn’t use the room very often. But when we were there, she would follow us to the room and make a tour around the dinning table. One day when Simon was doing the gardening, she crawled to the back door of the dining room where the wire went through trying to get out. I had to watch and stop her from climbing into the patio. We don’t want her to get into the kitchen either because it is dirty and the tiled floor is very hard. At first she seemed to know that we didn’t want her to go in there so she stopped at the door playing with the door. But recently she has become more curious so we had to close the doors.
Soon after knowing how to crawl, she started to pull herself up on the sofa. She reached and grabbed the sofa from her crawling position, pulled herself up on her knees and then stood up. She made her first proper attempt to walk along the sofa. Unfortunately I had to use my phone as a bait. She was still very wobbly on her feet but managed to walk for a meter.
Even though she has become so mobile, she would still get stuck if I left her lying on her back because she hadn’t rolled yet. But at exactly 11 months old, she rolled over from her back to her tummy for the first time in a desperate effort to run away from her nap with me. She has been napping with me in the afternoon. But on that day she was full of beans and didn’t want to lie still. She also said ‘mama’ once for the first time in an attempt to flee away.
Anna had her first long trip in the car to Wales. We stopped at Sunningdale, Cheltenham and Gloucester on the way there and Bath, Salisbury and Winchester on the way back. She had a very good time with her granny, grandad and great granny in Wales. But she wasn’t very happy on the way back, so we had to stop every 10 minutes to soothe her.
Anna had a very bad viral infection for a week. She had a very high temperature for 3 and half days, which at one point went up to 40.8C. Calpol and Nurofen helped to keep it down temporarily. Her appetite was very poor. I think she must have had a very bad sore throat from the way she swallowed her saliva. She seemed to lose a lot of weight and looked so pale. Her nose was completely blocked, which made sucking milk much more difficult. She was frustrated and made little moaning sounds. It was really sad to see her suffer.
Despite being sick, she was very happy and smiley most of the time when we were away in Cambridge. She liked to be in her stroller and stick her legs out of the foot muff and move them around. She seemed to have lots of fun. We brought her back to St Catherine’s college for a photo and also got her an egg and spinach crepe from my favourite stall in the middle of the town centre. She liked the pancake and ate quite a bit of it.
She did get a bit more clingy to me. She wanted Mummy more than Daddy when she was unwell. Simon jokingly told me that was why he managed to change her nappies without much tears. When it was Mummy, she was like “I don’t want to leave Mummy” and cried immediately when she saw the changing mat and wipes. But when it was Daddy, she was like “Oh it’s Daddy, who cares” and then happy to lie down.
It was very sweet on the train when she played with her Daddy. Simon kissed and blowed on her cheek. She laughed and then moved her nose to touch his nose. We weren’t sure whether she wanted the nose touch on purpose or wanted to do the same kiss and blow back. But she was really sweet. It was so fun seeing Anna play with her auntie. Ellen kneeled down so that her face was on the same level with Anna. Anna then moved her face closer to Ellen to push her forehead against Ellen’s forehead. She tried to do it many times. Later on she started to feed Ellen with some carrots that she was eating.
Another game that she likes is to pull my glasses off my face and then give them back to me, and then pull them off again. She can pull her socks off her hands too when I use socks as gloves to stop her from scratching. She knows how to find her milk now. It is sweet to see her crawl towards me when I lie down and then pull my clothes to find her milk.
After Anna got better from the infection, she had a very good appetite. One day she ate all of her porridge for breakfast, one egg yolk and bread for lunch, and two dinners. For her first dinner she ate one egg yolk, some parsnips, potatoes and carrots. For her second dinner, she ate some lamb. Of course she ate tons of fruit throughout the day. Anna has been feeding herself porridge in the morning. I helped her get porridge on the spoon and she then put it into her mouth. She really enjoyed it. She cried when I tried to take the spoon away. Porridge is good for feeding herself because it sticks on the spoon.