Partner's been away, doing outdoory-youth-workery things like camping and kayaking and that's left me doing the solo parenting thing with little one. And actually, as someone who loves her Alone Time and has an (overly?) high solitude quota to meet, this is a good thing. The week's been lovely. Lots of this:
And this is her about to sign 'more' - which means that after nine months of work with no outcome, she's finally decided to do little British Sign Language. (Which, might add, is still a newish idea over here, and smells a bit like yoghurt-weaving hippiedom to the Brits, so I've received quite a lot of 'What the hell are you doing' looks as a result. Thank god she caved, or I'd look a real ass about now.)
The downside is that 'more' is the only sign she's decided to do. And it means all of the following things:
'I want' - as in, anything that she is reaching for.
'Do it' - as in, make the phone vibrate, read me this book, etc.
'Hungry' - as in, feed me these crips (old empty wrapper from the trash) instead of the banana you gave me for breakfast. Honestly, it took her 3 tries to get me to figure out what she was saying.
And we've had a lovely week of mum-daughter time, romping about and going to lots of places to play. She's got new wellies, so we can go do the vegetable garden up the road in the summer and go visit the new baby calves there.
All that said, even on a good week, everybody gets cranky. She woke up this morning whining like a professional, and hasn't really stopped since. It's at moments like this that I'm glad I've got a two-parent house, and that the second parent is due home tonight. Phew! Respect to those single parents who stay sane out there... they're superheroes.
