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Running amok

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Saturday, 5 July 2014; One Year and Niney Six Days Old.

From the moment Ayla wakes up until the moment she passes out for a nap, it’s chaos in our house as she goes crazy running amok.

Ayla opens draws and pulls everything out, toddles over to a cupboard and does the same. Then she’ll shoot down to the bathroom and pull all the toilet paper off the roll and stuff it in the loo.

Oops, had enough off that, so off to chase the cat who eventually retaliates and then there’s tears.

Mummy kisses the tears away and then Ayla’s hungry, but she doesn’t want what’s on offer so the tears come back because she knows what she wants but she can’t tell me.

We head outside for some relief but Ayla stands on a pebble and hurts her foot. More tears.

Then Ayla finds The Dog’s bowl of water and pours it all over herself, before going off to play in a pile of dead leaves that stick to her like flies on honey.

After a while of not minding, Ayla suddenly hates the leaves on her skin and comes running to me tripping over on the way and lying helplessly crying, waiting for me to pick her up.

Off to the shower, for both of us, because Ayla simply can’t have fun if her mummy isn’t nearby.

FInally it’s nap time and I can breathe, well, in between cleaning up the mess and chaos that’s been left behind.

I decided that for the afternoon stint I would take Ayla to the park where hopefully she could run amok with minimal impact to the house and my sanity, and thank goodness it was a great idea!

Ayla and I were down at the park for a full two hours, and she spent 80% of that time playing with the sand instead of the equipment.

I took Ayla on a swing for the first time and she loved it, and as for the slide well, Ayla reckons she’s about ready to go down herself… but she’s not.

After a crazy hectic day, but the time Daddy got home for work Ayla had started to calm down.

She had her third nap for the day and then we all went out as a family to the Speedway to watch a friend’s brother race.

By the time we got there Ayla was back to her normal chilled-out self and she made friends with a little boy, about 8 years old, sitting next to us.

Ayla kept giving him hugs and kisses and Hubby started looking for a bat! Hahah, nah just joking, it was gorgeous to see Ayla making friends so easily and it turned out the little boy had two younger sisters so that explained his happiness to entertain our little crazy cherub.

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The long drive home

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Thursday, 2 January 2014: Two Hundred and Seventy Six Days Old.

We made the long drive home today, despite none of us really wanting to leave.

Ayla was much less settled on the return journey today than what she had been last week, and her tears weren’t as easily wiped dry with a new toy or snack.

After all the excitement and stimulation over the past week I think Ayla found being confined to her car seat boring and lonesome so we pulled out all the stops when it came to entertaining her.

After we’d run out of reasons to stop and stretch our legs, after Ayla had tired of playing baby games on my iPhone and after we’d run out of nibblies to graze on, Hubby and I finally resorted to singing Ayla clips of our favourite hits from the nineties (Corny Parent Status: Complete).

When we finally got home Ayla seemed to know exactly where she was and she started kicking and squealing with delight as soon as she saw The Dog.

Ayla also seemed to recognise her toys, and she got stuck into playing them like they were long lost friends while Hubby and I set about unpacking.