Mozart y las Cacofonias.

Hola que taaal?, como les vaaa? (English speakers do not panic!, Alex is going to post pretty soon!)

Me recordaran por otros post como el del "Gnomo" o por el tan aclamado "El Dedo Magico".
Hoy he sido "invitado" a contarles el secreto tras las grandes sonrisas, pero no se preocupen, me explicare visualmente y me dejare la palabreria.

1. La primera de las sonrisas de las que voy a hablarles es la denominada "de gratis" o "la Humphrey" (en homenaje a Mr.Bogart).


Esta es facil de conseguir porque basicamente es una sonrisa que responde a una gracieta simple y poco elaborada. A veces sucede y ni si quiera sabes por que. Suele ser bien venida pero mosqueante.

2. La segunda sonrisa es la llamada "compasiva" o "de santoral".


Esta es una sonrisa un pelin casquivana pero a la vez piadosa. Suele responder a una gracieta que no fue bien o poco trabajada, y equivale a un premio de consolacion. La mirada suele ser como "Firgen Santa!, y quien es el capulloski este??"



3. La tercera es "la cachonda".


Esta es abierta y pimpinera, y puede ser la respuesta a movimientos de objetos coloridos, a un cambio de nappy en el momento apropiado, o a un sonido cachondo.

4. La cuarta es "la elaborada". Esta es una sonrisa que lleva trabajo y dedicacion y que, a veces, es dificil de conseguir. Suele darse con la primeras luces del dia (no me pregunten por que) y no dura mas de un minuto. Pasa rapido del divertimento a la incredulidad, asi que hay que estar atento para no hacerse pesao. Lo bueno es que se hace acompañar de sonidos que la hacen ser muy especial, y si no pulsen y vean....



Bueno, les voy dejando, las niñas me reclaman!!. Hasta la proxima.

In Your Face

In her face, that's where Tara is now finding surfaces that, until now, have only been acquainted with her back side. I told Jose that as per the developmental information we've been given, she should start lifting her little big head when she's lying on her front. Obviously she only stands a chance of achieving that feat when she actually gets to lie on her front occasionally. So here we go, and plock, Jose now turns her over daily.



For supervised training or, alternatively, for punishment (because she doesn't actually likes it very much and starts complaining after only a few minutes) when she has again pish-pished all over him while he's changing her nappy (something she does seem to enjoy doing). That sounds something like this: "Oooohh noooo, Aleeex, she's done it again!!! Taaaraaa... it's all over your new naaaappy/your cloooothes/the changing staaation/our beeeed/the floooor/my trouuuusers!!" Trousers are the worst offense and therefore the complaint is now always accompanied by a resolute "Right! That's it! On your front for punishment!"
I'm also sitting her up in little corners occasionally. Take her picture whenever you like, her little face always seems to be saying, 'But mummy, I think I can't actually sit yet, shouldn't this wait a little longer?!'


Tarita, darling, I tell her then, if you want to come back to the office with me before February and start your career, you'd better get that sitting business right soon! We'll start you on basic computer skills next. And don't even think about vomiting into the keys!

While Tara is getting better at lifting her head, I've made it back to the gmy for a first class this week. Jose's orders: "Fill her up before you go, don't linger, do shower, and come STRAIGHT BACK!" So I did. Unplucked child, ran down to do my old favourite class (baby as full as I could get her in her sleep), contemplated a total collapse after only 25 minutes, hung on for the remaining 35 nonetheless (feeling rather weak, having to take quite a high number of breaks and getting an 'I know, it's been a while' from an irritatingly bouncy instructor), grabbed a very quick shower, ran home (well, dressed before), worked up sweat number two in the process, and received a rather urgent text message saying Ven ya!!!! halfway home. Sped up a little more, half stripped on the way up the stairs to the bedroom safely guided by some very loud and very urgent umm-ummm-ummm's, unplucked Joses fingers and plucked the hungry child back on. Dear me. Spent the next 15 minutes apologising to Tara and promising her I'll only go to the gym again once we've got a pump and she's taken to the occasional bottle. (There, a shopping mission for the weekend!) But she'd actually only been umm-umming for 15 minutes, so hopefully it was not definately traumatising, just possibly maybe.


Talking of things in people's faces and general achievements, we've also made some progress on the dummy issue. After a second attempt that failed as miserably as the first one a month back, we'd just forgotten about dummies. But remembered when Tara wouldn't let us have our dinner even though we'd already placed her ever so sociably right on the table with us. And, voila!, it worked! The joy of being able to finish dinner with both arms and hands! Granted, she looked a little unsure of it all. She'd probably only been tricked into holding on to her dummy by her own impeccable sucking instincts, but at that point that only had her triumphant parents giggling into their salads even harder.



PS: Of course you weren't irritatingly bouncy, Andy. You were admirably and mysteriously bouncy. Not one muscle in my body today can understand how anyone can be that bouncy!
PPS: Ah well, on third though I'll make an exception. I can see how you can be this bouncy, but that's about IT.
PPPS: Janet and Janet, sorry, I'm only joking with Tara about coming back to work sooner. Her father and I haven't actually discussed the position you had offered her yet.
PPPPS: Yes, table cloth and chair cushions do not match. Comes with fully furnished rented accomodation.

But Actually She's Quite Small Still

No, no! You are all getting it wrong! She may look quite big already (as many of her friends have pointed out by now (including the disgraceful show-off that is her mother)) but she isn't really. Here's a picture to put the little saussage back into proportion! She can't lift her head yet and finally fits snugly into size 50, the newborn size instead of the premature one she's worn so far...



There! Proportions restored. Off to new mundane adventures like changing her nappy (considering smell, colour and texture of nappy content that really IS as adventure!... Jose?! Where are you!) not that there is a pic... oh actually there IS a picture and, ouch! if you keep yanking at that nipple, Tara, I will embarrass you and put in on!

"She will be tall," ...

... says Dr. Cross, "like her mummy; look how long and lean she is!"
"She is perfect," says Dr. Cross, "what a happy contented little baby."
"Her hips are perfect, her reflexes are great, never mind the green poo, and what a lovely smile," says Dr. Cross, "a perfectly perfect little girl."
"How was birth?" asks Dr. Cross.
Now this is the fun bit of Tara's and my 6-week check up. It's that one thrilling moment when patient-doctor relationships are reversed and I get to shock the doctor, for a change: "Birth?" I say, "Oh that was great fun!"
We are officially through with pregnancy and the post partum period now, signed off as well and recovered by the GP (Dr. Cross is not scan-man, whom we see on 27/09 for 'a chat about your recent pregnancy').

This does not take the cold into account that I have so efficiently caught for both of us in my best bogof (buy one get one free) manner (and of course Tara hid any sort of symptom when we were at the clinic). I was not exactly best pleased when I went to bed the other night only to find that this most lovely of sights:


started snoring with two voices the second I turned my back. So Tara has her first cold, is a little cranky, so snuffly she grunts when asleep, and her little coughs are so tiny they are actually quite cute. Not that we would want her to keep them up for that reason, the happier baby sounds she makes at her mobile or parents are a lot cuter still.
Our having a cold or two does not mean, however, that we're only sitting at home on the sofa when we're not vising the doctor.
We have ventured out for an after work picknic with Jose in castle park that took over an hour because Tara did not drink her milk at the same pace as we our coffee. We have hung out in the park and on play grounds. And we even made it down to the supermarket with a sleeping Tara in her pram, made it through the supermarket with Tara at my breast, feeding under my shirt, and surprisingly even made it back home with a pram fuller of groceries than it was of baby. It had been my first shopping trip in months, so I just marched through the shop, regally pointing at 'that, that, some of these, and two of those' for Jose to pick up and buy for me, and fully relied on the storage miracles that can be worked on restricted space when there is a will. Jose obligingly made the miracle happen, but has since been referring to the experience as 'The Mistake'. I'm not fully sure whether he refers to using the pram as a grocery carrier, or to the presence of greedy mummy milky brains as such, and I won't ask either.

September 4th, 2003 - 2006

Last Monday it was three years to the day that Jose and I arrived in Leicester, "for three years". Three years - three different adresses - did something go wrong on the three babies, or should we settle for three members of the little family that we weren't in 2003, but are now?



Tara has been smiling those big gorgeous smiles at us for a few days now, but to honour the occasion, she graced us with such an avalanche of laughter that we even managed to catch one. A lovely present, isn't it?

A Moment in the Life Of...

...Daddy!

Jose has spent the last two days at a conference, delivering a talk about poly-something somethings that look like beehives on the slides of his presentation, some chemical something or other, in other words. Not to belittle daddy's degree, it's just that his family are desperately ignorant of such matters (I relate to Biene Maja but not to compounds or outlandish names!). Before he left us to our own devices, Jose treated us to the parting gift of the pleasure of listening to his talk. Twice. The first time round, the audience behaved. The second time round (having found daddy good enough to send to Manchester just a few minutes earlier) the audience took liberties and enganged in snacking, kissing and giggling, and finally mummy decided to opt out and shove her daughter into the frontline of polymeres and their buzzy bee friends. Tara slobbered a little, kept nodding engangingly and refrained from vomiting.
Daddy loves her! He's greatly looking forward to taking her to all sorts of museums and playing Chemical Experiments with her (Mummy is looking forward to some spare time then ;-)!
For now, though, Tara has discovered a first great passion of her own, her own baby kind of buzzy bees. She is happy to stare at them for a number of minutes at a time, and I think their names might be uhm, ergh and hrr.



PS: Jose is back tonight and a good job it is! I nearly starved! ;-)