323

I’m ill. The baby is sat up pulling out all of my record collection. Luckily that shelf is mostly records from my childhood such as 5star, she is currently dribbling all over a Richard Pryor album that I didn’t even know I owned. It wouldn’t matter if it was a prized rare JAZZMAN 7 inch, I can’t move, my head feels like it has been under the wheels of a bus. I can’t move. My head is stuffed up, my throat is sore, and I have a sty I look like one of Liam Gallagher’s ex wives, blond and rough. The baby is chewing on my record bag, I should really stop her, but hey maybe its helping her teeth pierce through the gum… No one tells you the teeth take ages to grow out once they first appear. I thought the appearing through the gum was the tedious bit, but it’s been 3 weeks and still one tooth is only half way out of the gum. It looks like she has abit of cottage cheese permantly stuck in her mouth. She just put her fingers in the vhs player, I said “no” in a firm voice but no instead she laughs and giggles so cutely and says something like “gugggugg” obviously delighted to have got any response from me this morning at all. Okay now she has my stone roses EP out, I’ve gotta get up and put the records back. Oh by the way -the baby is standing and crawling! It all happened in about 2 days, she went from a sitting baby at 8 months, to this moving independent child! I was trying to write an article in a mad rush, ignoring her giggling, I looked up to see what was delighting her so much and there she was holding onto the side of my record box smiling and looking so proud of herself! See! Working does not go with mothering! I almost missed out on her first standing! Well that’s it now, the game is up as my dad said. I now have to have eyes in the back of my head. No more just leaving stuff on the coffee table such as cups of tea or important bills, they are now quite grabbable by the baby and highly desired objects. Anything she has not seen before is a highly desired object. If I put her early learning centre £20 toy on the table next to a wooden spoon she’d go all guns out to get the spoon if she hadn’t seen or chewed on that before. The crawling is funny. It’s not quite how I imagined. Its very slow and she stops every foot to sit up, look around the room, probably looking for snipers and checking her ammo. Satisfied she continues until her object of desire is within reach, no futon sofa bed or any amount of cushions will get in her way; she will have that wooden spoon! Wish she’d do something useful and put the kettle and make me a lemsip…