strawberrri.diaryland.com
September
2019-09-07 | 3:22 a.m.

September. The final month of the year for the bear to experience, and now less than a month to go until his birthday! I made him a practice, baby-friendly birthday cake yesterday but it was a bit of a weird recipe: sweetened with banana and apple puree (fair enough), but had no fat at all in it (hellooo, flavour, are you in there!?!), just egg whites and flour. It didn't rise well and stuck to the baking parchment. Managed to peel most of that off somehow, and then the icing was cream cheese with a bit of vanilla essence and mashed pear (it was meant to be more apple puree but I'd already used up a whole precious pot of the stuff, of which Ollie made six apples worth the other day).

He loved it! Ate most of his slice and only threw a tiny amount on the floor (unlike the lentil nuggets I made him on Tuesday, grr). Though I might go back to the drawing board and find a recipe still sweetened with fruit but maybe that has butter in this time. I really want to make a chocolate and Smarties cake for his first birthday, but that would involve having to consume it in secret/when he's asleep. If he had to watch us eat that without being allowed any I don't think he'd ever forgive us.

I worked a few days in August but it was quiet and it's still pretty quiet at work this month too, meaning I've naturally been doing the bulk of the childcare (currently Ollie's sister mainly has him when I work; Ollie does some days). Had a tough week with the bear - nothing serious and probably just a developmental leap or something, but there was an awful lot of high-decibel crying and whingeing and eventually I lost the plot and had a nice meltdown one night at Ollie: I can't do this anymore, you do it, I'm not suited to caring for a baby, I can't cope with this. And of course I feel like a terrible parent for feeling like that, but I don't see the point of coming here saying/pretending to the world I'm loving every minute if that's not the case. But the past couple of days have been a lot better.

He can now wave on command, which is the most amazing thing ever. We don't even have to give him a praise biscuit or anything; he seems to revel in the sheer delight it gives us.

Time to try and go back to sleep. I only woke up as I could hear shuffling/murmuring on the monitor, but he's now fast asleep, my little love.



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