It was exactly a year ago that I went on maternity leave. I was 38 weeks pregnant and wanted to work up until 40 weeks, but everyone encouraged me to finish a couple of weeks early to have time to ‘relax’. The baby then appeared two weeks after the due date which gave me a whole month with nothing but shopping to do.
Back then, I used to get really annoyed when people told me to relax. I don’t relax by putting my feet up and watching TV – what a waste of my life. I always need to be doing something so ‘relaxing’ for me meant keeping up to date with my pre-baby blogging, tidying the house, baking brownies, folding and re-folding the baby clothes, stocking up on essentials for the house, and generally keeping myself busy. To be honest, it’s lucky I don’t find doing nothing relaxing, because in one month’s time, I was about the find out that I would never ‘do nothing’ again.
Fast forward a year and here I am with the most energetic, lively, hyperactive baby on the planet. Luna is so happy and bouncy all the time, even looking at her makes me tired. She barely naps and wants to run everywhere, even though she can’t walk. If I hold her hands she can take a few steps, but she moves quicker than her own body can keep up with and trips over herself. She is now super fast at getting up the stairs, but we still haven’t got round to putting the stair gates up.
It’s been no secret that Luna isn’t interested in food. I don’t really know how that happened because both Dave and I are massive eaters. There’s basically only two rules in this house: you have to like Harry Potter, and you have to like food. We did everything ‘the book’ said. (Not that I have ever read a parenting book). I exclusively breastfed for six months, then introduced foods using baby led weaning so that Luna would explore herself and wouldn’t be fussy. But she would take one look at the strange objects and throw them over her shoulder before carrying on with her playtime. It was as if I was being rude, interrupting her busy schedule. Eventually, and I mean after MONTHS, I found a brand of yogurt that Luna would suck from the pouch herself, and it was also healthy with no sugar in it at all. Obviously they were 75p each! I also discovered Luna quite liked puffed wheat and because she ate them one by one, I could sprinkle a load in front of her and it would keep her busy for a while. She also instantly recognises the packaging for Cadbury chocolate and drags herself towards me with her mouth open every time I try to enjoy some chocolate buttons. I’ve definitely gone from being the supermum to a newborn baby who would never let anything non-organic or processed touch their child’s lips, to the always tired zombie who uses chocolate buttons to avoid a tantrum because they don’t have the energy to deal with it and just wants to watch Hollyoaks in peace!
In general, Luna is SO well behaved. She just knows how she is meant to behave and we take her literally everywhere with us. I remember everyone saying we wouldn’t be able to go out for food anymore, but from 3 days old we have carted her around with us and she has been brilliant. She is so sociable and loves to meet new people. She smiles, laughs and waves at everyone in the street and laps up all the attention she receives. I still can’t leave the house without people commenting on her cheeky smile, big blue eyes, golden curls, or beautiful cherub face. She really plays up to people and gives them an even cheekier grin when they speak to her. She has learnt how to say ‘bye’ and can sense when someone is leaving the house. As soon as someone puts their shoes on and picks up their bag she starts waving and shouts something which kind of sounds like ‘bye’.
I can tell she is going to be intelligent and inquisitive. She loves reading books and crawls into her room to choose a book from her bookshelf. She will then sit and listen to every word whilst pointing at the pictures and looking at me. We only usually get a few pages in before she slams it shut and chooses a different one so I think she has inherited my super short attention span.
However, she has definitely got a temper and she does not like to be told ‘no’. You don’t even have to say it in a firm voice. Just the mention on the word ‘no’ will send Luna into a fit. She throws her head backwards lies kicking and screaming on the floor, but it’s so fake because she checks we are still watching every few seconds, and if we aren’t paying attention then she stops. Usually I just ignore it but sometimes she smacks her head on what is around her so I have to attend to her. But her latest trick to avoid smacking her head it to carefully lower herself to the floor and position herself on her back, and then begin the tantrum. It’s one of those situations where you’re not meant to laugh, but it’s just so funny how clever she thinks she is being, I just end up laughing. And then she laughs. And then we laugh together and we’ve both forgotten whatever it was I said ‘no’ to in the first place.
I’m so lucky to have Luna!
