Today is cold

Today is cold, and I am a little worried about her toes. They are cold, even through her tights and moccasins and cositoes. I am cold. I walked around Mothercare for over an hour, searching for lcothes that would fit a baby with the proportions of a six-month-old and the weight of a 12-month-old. She is not a freak! She is not a freak! Almost two babies in every hundred are as large as she is, or larger. I left without crying, found another branch which sold some sleepsuits I liked; we will go back later, or look elsewhere, for warm winter trousers and larger tights and maybe socks.

We took her swimming, this cold day, and Rob and she got out halfway through to warm up in the showers. She shivered and loved it, swam stiff with cold, splashed, grinned. Another baby burst into wails as soon as his body hit the water; she didn't cry until I took off her swimsuit and she knew swimming was over for the day. Even a hot shower didn't quite make up for that. Mean, bad Mammy.

To console myself for how appalling my pity-me life is, I bought a fleece-lined woolly cardi, kitted in loose stripes and zipping up, with a hood. Snuggly warm! I have been wandering around cold a lot lately; I didn't realise how much. It also feels like I'm claiming back a bit of myself - wearing my personality on the outside, Rob says; it makes him happy to see me looking like myself again. I've been very sober and respectable these past few months.

She has lovely nappy liners now, snuggly warm fleece, yellow with multicoloured stars. I have some leftover fleece; I will make her another pushchair blanket. How to stop her overheating in the shops and underheating in the streets? The problems and dilemmas!

Not to mention the Vtech walker with buttons and - thankfully - volume control and off switch. She loves it. I think it's too busy, does too much. She walks with it as she does with the wooden train and the metal stoool, but it hurts less when she falls.

30 days to surgery. She's 6 months and 14 days old.