Thank goodness for a no-smacking rule

The other day - I'm not sure which day, much of this week has blurred into a mass of frustration, irritation, exhaustion and suppressed swearing - I remarked to Rob that I am really, really glad we have a no smacking policy, because I spent a lot of the day looking malevolently at my kids and being pissed off that we have a no smacking policy.

Basically, on days I don't want to smack, there are far more effective and pleasanter ways to deal with whatever I'm dealing with, and on days I do want to smack, I make sure not to touch them unless I'm sure I'm calm, because that is not a day for physical punishment. Nooooo.

Back to the first one! (Also, baby updates)

I'm currently mainly using my first ever sling, a purple batik ring-sling bought for me by ai731 when I was pregnant with Linnea. I found it had a shallow learning curve - that is, it took a long time to learn, and I wish I could remember who it was ranted about learning curves at me - so I didn't use it much when Linnea was small and I was ill. I started using it a lot when I was pregnant with Emer, so that I could tote Linnea around when she was tired, in spite of not having a waistline any more for her to wrap her legs around.

Now I use it to rock Emer to sleep in, because she's too big for the pouch slings now, except for a hip carry.

It looks great with jeans and a plain or purple top.

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Also, I need to see about more shoes for Emer. She needs something to protect her toenails when she's crawling. She outgrows things so fast, though! And socks just come off. I don't want to take her to a shoe-shop as they'll try to sell me rigid things.

ALSO also, she's nine months old and two days and still not walking! I WIN AT PRAYING! I don't mind when she does it now, really, because it's not as early as it might have been so I'll survive.

She's very communicative and determined and friendly. She loves music, clapping games, and crowds of people. And sweet potato. She knows what "Bye bye, back in a minute," means, and "Do you need a nappy?" and she understands the words and signs for milk. We need to learn the signs for nappy etc again so that she can tell us - though as far as I know she doesn't use the milk sign yet. She definitely signs "up!" in the universal, timeless manner of babies, and is very clear with hand gestures for "No, I don't want that."

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Linnea is a master at potty-use, though I do need to get her larger knickers, as the ones she has are snug enough to be tricky to pull down in a hurry. She's still problem-solving; she earwigs on my conversations with Rob and pops in with "I know! My have a good idea! We need a go to a shop and buy a smaller one!" or similar. There's no such thing as an insurmountable problem, as far as she's concerned - you just need to come up with more and more good ideas until you find one that works.

I haven't seen her draw much lately but she's keen on printing. She has been refusing to count, this week, from which I deduce that someone was testing her again - probably one of the carers in the creche while I was at my BfN lesson. It rained before we went out today so she had wellies and splashed in a puddle until her pants got wet under her skirt; that was confusing and hilarious.

Oh - toes! Emer has only two big toes, Linnea has ten big toes, and I have none. I only have NORMOUS toes.