Not a daddy's girl

This evening my daughter has been her usual angel self.

We had a small tussle over getting in her pushchair at nursery, but that was forgotten before we got out the gate.

Isobel sung and kicked her boots all the way home. We got in and snuggled up on the sofa to watch tele. We paused to dance to the Nick Jr children in need song, and then resumed snuggling.

At bathtime, the telly was switched off and off up the stairs we went. Isobel pretended to do a wee on the loo, brushed her teeth and climbed into her bath to play.

Out of the bath, a snuggle, some milk, a book or two and Elmo and Andrea Bocelli and then bed.

Not a murmer, just a 'bye mummy' and she's asleep.

Contrast this to last evening when PD was here. I don't really know what happens when he is around, we love him dearly but...

Maybe I'm so intent on being a good mum I tense up, maybe Isobel get's confused by having both parents around, perhaps PD is just stricter than I am, I just choose my battles.

But, when I most like her to be the angel child she more often than not is, when I want her daddy to see what a great little team we make, Isobel can be a bit of a madam.

It's a shame because one of my favourite things is when Isobel takes both our hands.

From one Daddy to another

If you were in the park this afternoon and you saw a crazy lady crying and then walking away from her beautiful child, it was me.

I wasn't supposed to have to walk away. I was supposed to drop her nursery, go to work then go out with my friend and I would have a lie-in in the morning, go to yoga and simply come back at lunchtime and there she would be.

Less painful that way. Why it's so painful I don't know, but it is.

Instead Isobel was poorly this morning, too poorly for nursery, I had to take the day off work and wonder if this evening was such a good idea.

But she slept well at lunchtime, the Park is near PD's house, so it seemed the ideal handover spot.

Her case was packed, we took it with us and went to have fun.

Isobel was so pleased to see her Daddy, we all had so much fun.

It hurt to walk away. More than I thought it would.

Now I have to put my glad rags on and go for a drink. Believe me it's just as well that I have plan. I think sitting here would kill me. Not literally of course.

Hey, ho, she will always be mummy's girl won't she?

Night and seek

I'm actually quite proud of our bedtime routine, I can probably count the number of times it has been unsuccessful.

While most of it is probably fairly text book: bath, snuggles on her spare bed accompanied by bottle, a story and a cuddle.

Occasionally going to bed with her bottle when she subtly posts it through the bars of her cot and says 'night-night'; always then relieved of it before she falls asleep.

Isobel waves bye-bye and blows kisses from her cot, and we are away.

But, somewhere in the midst of this calm tranquility is a little game to be played with Daddy:



This evening wasn't a daddy day but she looked in all his hiding places just to be sure (he added two new spots last night so she checked those too), we wouldn't want him lurking anywhere uninvited would we now?

Tomorrow she will probably just call his name a couple of times.

The next day she may not.

Morbid-go-round? Walkies?

Another weekend has passed and there are sooo many things I could blog about...

Isobel choosing to play among the headstones rather than the swings.



The new words: door, ball and cheese.

The counting: one, twoooo, freeeeeeeeee!

The mother of all tantrums because I wouldn't let her play with the snip-snips (nail clippers), and how helpless I felt.

Isobel eating my linguine rather than her pizza pie (yes, these are PDs gorgeous pics, I'm sitting next to her within linguine grabbing range)




Or Isobel taking her daddy (who still isn't sure of how to handle off-piste napping) for a walk.



Maybe, just maybe, I should find some words to describe how it felt when all my little girl wanted was to hold my and PD's hands at the same time...

Daddy dear

There are somethings only my daddy will do:

Only my daddy will make funny noises on the phone,
Even when he really isn't alone.

Just my daddy takes pictures of me and only me,
and posts them here for all to see.

You know my daddy comes from far away,
but I have no fear, he's here to stay.

Happy birthday daddy.

PD's Birthday

It's that time of year again. The time PD becomes more reflective than usual (for reflective read moody), he hates birthdays.

But I love birthdays, mine and those of those who are important to me.

And PD is important to me.

Dear PD,

I have a lot to be grateful to you for, and I'm not just talking about the fact that you are, at present, funding this lovely life of ours.

No, it's more than that.

While I like to think I have invested my heart, body and soul in the creation of the beautiful little girl who I am proud to call my daughter, I have to concede that you too have something to do with what makes her so special.

I thank you for our daughter, the greatest expression of your creativity there will ever be.

And I thank you for being you.

Happy birthday,

With love,

Isobel and Me xxx

Belated Father's Day Post

Sunday was not only midsummer's day but was father's day. To be honest it was a day I rather churlishly didn't feel like celebrating. What father is there to celebrate and does PD really deserve a celebration?


I did bake a cake, Isobel made a card but otherwise we made no fuss, but actually I do want to write a post about the 'father's' in my world.


Firstly, there is my Grandad. I had a Grandad and a Grandpa, not that either of them were particularly 'father figures'. But Grandpa afforded us a home we could never have had otherwise, and Grandad had just always been Grandad. I have lovely memories of Grandad: going up to the library roof to collect the weather stats for the paper; printing the racing results on the bottom of the paper; helping a tipsy Grandad welcome in the guard ship in the days when Sandown Bay Regatta seemed so glamorous; in fact tipsy and inappropriate but always there probably sum up my Grandad. He may, in so many ways, be half the man he was, but he's still my Grandad.


Then of course there is my Daddy. Mummy and Daddy divorced when I was very young and I actually don't think I have any family memories of us all together, and that makes me sad. My father remarried into a new family and even got himself a new daughter called Zoe, there wasn't much difference in our ages either. Add to that the fact that Daddy then worked abroad forever and you have a very estranged relationship, not in a malicious way, but I can't pretend we don't both have 'issues' because of it: me the typical abandonment unloveable ones and he, well I don't think it's been an easy path for him either. We haven't even managed to introduce him to his latest grandaughter yet.



I have a step-father too. But by the time my mummy had remarried I had left home, so he didn't get all that much opportunity to be a father to me, but he has to my younger brother and sister. He makes my mother happy and kind of completes our little family.


So, that leaves PD.


Someone to whom I will always be grateful to for Isobel.

He will, I'm sure, continue to support us financially for as long as he can or until I can be the independent girl I'm used to being. He will always want to be Isobel's daddy, she means the world to him.

Yes, he lives nearby and yes we were close, but as with all these things I feel we are drifting apart, I guess that's healthy in someways, for him and for me. But I don't want my daughter to have the same feelings I do, I want her to have a stable family and not to be the same muppet around men I can be.

And then that leaves me thinking about how would another father figure fit into our lives? I guess we'll have to wait and see what the future holds.

Foreign films

I travelled into work with my NCT buddy today, nothing really unusual in that. We travel together most days, meeting at Nursery or en-route, dropping off our little girls and heading for the 8:09 to Waterloo.

There was also nothing unusual about the fact that in those 30 minutes on the train we cover all topics (yes we are the girls having a giggle and the occasional cry on a packed commuter train).

Today we covered dating, drinking, tantrums, work - she hates PowerPoint, I hate spreadsheets and we both have a day of our hates ahead of us, we did say 'swap'.

But we also talked about how sometimes no matter how dear a person is to you, how much of an in depth shared interest you have like say a daughter, that there are times when although you hearts are on the same page it's almost as if you are a badly dubbed movie - you are the voice and he is the picture but you just really are not in sync.

At times like this it is really tricky to work out how to co-parent.

Hey, ho girls coming over tonight, yoga tomorrow, party on Saturday; nothing really wrong with this picture as long as I don't allow myself to be dubbed.

Very not fearless, but very Friday

There is somewhere I would normally be tonight, something I have done for years. Something that I'm not doing but perhaps I should be.

I'm not at the Isle of Wight Festival. I always go. Last year I took Isobel; the year before I made her; years before that I had some very good times.

But you see even last year was a little odd.

One of my romantic notions was that we would always go as a family during the day, with grandma baby sitting in the evening. In a way we failed on both counts last year. Grandma was away, and we were only pretending to be a family.

In actual fact PD had already announced he was leaving (it took him a while to actually go). Me, I was reeling a little, but determined to hold my family together in whatever way I could. I was sure we could be a family, a proper, whole loving family and that PD would see that in time.

But here we are one year on and I'm still struggling not to plan things for us to do as a family, and I really shouldn't.

I'm just not sure how to play it.

But I am sure it is time to move on, build a new improved future for me and my little girl, while also regaining the bits of me I fear I have lost.

I guess that was what the life modelling was about, I wanted to do something bold, something different, something to talk about.

I'm rebuilding me, my confidence, my heart.

(Watch this space)

What a silly sausage

I've just emailed PD to tell him that little girl likes to play in the garden after school, because for the second time in her short life I will not be picking her up and putting her to bed.

I'm teary already.

It's silly because sometimes I long for more freedom, sometimes I delay going home by 15 minutes just so I can 'be' a little bit longer, sometimes I look forward to 7pm bedtime, sometimes I wish I had someone to share the responsibility...

Maybe I just need to miss her sometimes too.

Be careful what you wish for

A long time ago, well it feels lke a like a life time ago, PD (who was then still really RD), bump and I sat in a NCT and answered the question:

What do you hope your child inherits from your partner?

Lots of lovely things were said, and PD wished for my generosity. Me, well out loud I wished for his eyelashes. And she got them.

But really, there are many things I hope she gets from her Daddy.

I hope she has his creativity, his aesthetic eye, his style, his dance moves and most of all his loyalty.

Right now, she's starting with his talent for photography.

Today

My day began at 5:50 with my beautiful little girl calling 'Daddy, Daddy, Daddy' at the top of her voice - he has never ever got her up in the morning.

(Ok that's a little harsh, when he was here, way back when, we did race each other to get to our smiling little baby, but that was forever ago.)

A little indignant I delivered madam her breakfast in bed and returned to mine praying she would return to sleep.

She didn't.

We read, we played and we even danced.

I've been over compensating again this morning because in a wee few hours I am gong to have needles stuck in my daughter, potentially give her autism but save the world from a measles epidemic - yep it's MMR time.

Heigh ho, must be done.

(Spelling of 'heigh' is a copy from a Stephen Fry tweet and if anyone knows how to spell it must be him.)

Todays picture of La Petite Fille

PD has posted a lovely picture today, all his pictures are lovely - I would say that, they are of my beautiful little girl - but this one actually says a lot.

This was the first time I gave Isobel pots and pans to play with, she is now steady enough to wave her arms in the air excitedly and not topple over, and, if you look out the back door, you can see it's sunny.

While Isobel is playing and PD is tormenting her with the big black thing that takes these pictures, I am making barbecue sauce for the spare ribs we then cooked and ate alfresco.

Yes, the 'we' includes Isobel.

Isobel's first and, probably, our last barbecue of the year.

(She'd already helped me eat a croissant in the cafe earlier in the day - so I'd say weaning is going well.)

Happy Birthday Daddy

A plethora of Daddy posts today as it's PD's Birthday.



Isobel has done her first ever painting, a birthday card nonetheless.




Personally I was proud she held the brush without trying to eat it, let alone managed to conect it with the paper!

Like Father Like Daughter

PD,

Happy Birthday, your first as a fully-fledged, drool-wearing, nappy-changing, baby-jiggling Daddy. A role that I'm sure you will live up to and be proud of, just as we are proud of you.


Just to show that there is something of you in our little girl:

Yes, the eyes may not be green (yet) but they are definitely yours, complete with your luscious lashes and unruly brows!

This may not have been planned but I'm pleased to have you as the father of my baby girl; I'm sure we'll have fun being her parents. Whatever else we achieve, together or alone, nothing will be as great as our little one, our baby Isobel.

Thank you

xxx

Things Change So Quickly

I've just been flicking through PD's photoblog and as much as the pictures make me smile, they make me a little sad too.

I cannot believe how quickly our little baby is growing up.

If she has changed so much in six weeks, how will I ever keep up?

(Especially as we are heading for a growth spurt. I wonder if I'm having one too because I seem to be super hungry as well - step away from the biscuits!)

Who's your Daddy

Isobel must think she has three Daddies:

One wears glasses...

One Doesn't...

And one has a stonking great black thing on his face:

But she still loves him.

We'll miss you PD x

Hair Today ...

... gone tomorrow.

Yes, I'm referring to Isobel's receding hairline. Poor thing has inherited that from PD and although she still has more hair than he does, she is definitely thinning on top.

All that lovely (surprisingly) dark hair she was born with...

... is going and waiting to be replaced with the fair (and heaven help us, ginger hair) we are expecting.

I can't bring myself to trim her hair, even if in some lights she does resemble Barry from Eastenders.


(Pictures courtesy of PD's Photoblog)