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By trade I am a journalist with a background in current affairs, culture, health and fitness, travel and high profile interviews. I also own and run an outdoor fitness business aimed at people that hate gyms and bootcamps (www.spartanfitnesslondon.co.uk). Most importantly though, I am on Shared Parental Leave from May 31 to October 3. Everyday from 0730 to 1800 I will be in sole charge of a real and completely awesome baby girl.

Saturday 2 July 2016

DAY 31 – COMMANDO KID



AFTER a few weeks off we returned to Baby Sensory to hear the teachings of The Leader.

Firstly a giant thunderstorm was piped through speakers at an intense volume, which succeeded in scaring the life out of all babies and parents. All part of the "awakening the senses" experience. Then we continued with the brainwashing by chanting "say hello to the sun... etc" before hundreds of bubbles were blown in our darlings' faces at the same time as bells were shaken aggressively in front of their tiny eyes. The grand finale saw the pre-toddlers smothered with chiffon rags while being bounced up and down on a waterbed. A-bomb smiled and laughed throughout but I cannot confirm whether or not that was through happiness or fear.

Post-Sensory the usual gang of mums and I (plus babies) treated ourselves to lunch at Cafe Nero... I know, high-rollers. While we inhaled our sandwiches and wraps the baby army got stuck into their respective bottles of milk and pots of solids. The highlight was when M'Lady joined her friend, codename "Z",  in a high-pitched duet. She "sung" her noises (I cannot call them words) and then "Z" warbled back high notes that are unattainable by normal folk. It was certainly lovely to watch because the pair of seven-month-olds were clearly enjoying communicating with each other, however I must say it was an awful racket and I'm not holding out much hope for a lucrative singing career for my daughter.

Back at the ranch we got through the naps, milk feed and solids session in excellent fashion (sweet potato and a first foray into cheddar cheese), which left us with lots of play time on the mat, with Wimbledon tennis on in the background. Calm down baby vigilantes... A-bomb wasn't watching TV she was busy hitting herself in the face with her wooden squeaky toy. Anyway, I set the munchbunch a task of chasing down her toys using only her body, i.e without me handing her what she wants or me lifting her over to the coveted items. Another rule that was impossible to enforce was: no rolling. The Lady has become an expert making her way to any desired location by flipping herself front to back then back to front, as many times as required, which is plainly unacceptable on the streets and not a practical method of travel. So with only her best interests at heart I had set the scene. Clearly the girl has got a steely determination, especially when it come to her beloved toys and as soon as the rattly squeaker thing was put on the other side of the room she launched herself forwards. M'Lady succeeded and I am putting it down as a full-blown crawl but I must say that her technique was less textbook baby crawl and more Royal Marine evading capture in a sweaty jungle. Lumpy legs propelled her forward as her left arm simultaneously reached out front, wedging her shoulder almost under her chest. From there she somehow sprung herself onward, reaching forward with her right arm but keeping her left arm under her body. All the while she was making the sound of a warthog with tonsillitis. Weird but effective. Top commando crawling Private A-bomb.


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