Appetite 4 Life - Camilla's Blog

Go-go's - because without them, no go.

As is the culture in my country and the neighboring Scandinavian countries, babies usually have their own "book", usually called Boken om Mej (The Book about Me) or something similar. This book is effectively a journal where you record things and photos around baby's birth, first Christmas, first birthday, when the first teeth arrived, their first words, their first friends, and... well, you get the picture. 

Yesterday I picked it up to record a MAGNIFICENT milestone, which I was sure to find in there: when I first went on the potty. YES, Sofia went on the potty on January 1, 2012. Quite unplanned and quite exciting really. But that momentous occasion aside, our 1-year 10-month-old isn't quite ready yet to drop her diapers, as it were, but we'll get there. 

To my surprise, I couldn't find a designated place for first time on the potty, so I just created my own entry. I have to say, sometimes I think I need to write another one of these books/journals as I find strange things in there, and important things are missing. I actually found myself having to create a separate 1st year journal, with all the extras, and sometimes duplications. Could they be combined? Who could do the illustrations? Would there be a market?

But I digress, my point was that I stumbled upon a good question in there that I hadn't really reflected on before: 'words that baby made up'. Sofia is actually pretty good at learning real words, but it finally came to me: "go-go's". For some strange reason, and completely unprompted, Sofia started to call her little bottles of vitamin drops go-go's. So now we have go-go's in her hot cereal every morning. Where on earth did she get that from? But, as my dear friend Shani said, when I told her. "Well that's quite good really, because without them 'no go'."

Did I miss her?

It was one of those evenings when Jeff wasn’t likely to get home until after Sofia had gone down for the night. We went through our usual routines of having dinner (at this point we’re practicing spoonfeeding with varying results); baking the usual chocolate chip cookies (you know what I mean, right?), getting the stage 4 diaper on for our good little girl so she can pull an all-nighter without major leaks, putting on the pj’s, drinking (or should I say sipping these days?) some mamma’s milk, and then brushing our teeth.

All was well up to this point, and Sofia saw that mamma signed “book” and giggled back which is her usual signal that she is happy with a suggestion. So I pulled out some books onto our big bed and we started reading. After a while of intense concentration, as reading is very much a favorite activity for her, she started looking towards the bedroom door, and every once in a while she pointed to it with a sound. The kind of sound that goes up towards the end, perhaps signaling a question. I caught on and told her that pappa was away, but when she would wake up in the morning he would be right there.

After about six books or so storytime was over and done with, and Sofia went into her crib. At this point I wished her goodnight and closed the bedroom door. I could hear her chatting away in bed with the occasional louder yell, just in case mamma would show mercy and come back in. But mamma knows this game, and she wasn’t planning to give in or go in, unless there was a change in the pitch. This was perfect dinner-prep time, so I grabbed the vegetables and start chopping.  At that precise moment our front door opened and Jeff came in. He looked like he ran up the stairs and quickly scanned the room. “Did I miss her?”, he half-pants, as I’ve not got any further than to thinking about saying “Hi”.

Sofia has heard the keys in the door and pappa’s voice so at this point she tried yelling a little again, making any answer from me oblivious. Jeff looked hopeful. Instinctively I felt like telling him that she was winding down and doing well, but who am I to stand between an obvious desire by both father and daughter to spend time together? So I handed him the water bottle, and happily he disappeared into our bedroom. 

With dinner on the stove I realized that Jeff hadn’t re-emerged yet, so I snuck up to the closed door and saw the lights were back on. I heard muffled voices and couldn’t resist opening the door. The sight was one to commit to memory for a gloomy day: father and daughter were snuggling up in bed reading one of her books together, totally engrossed. When they saw me they both looked up – and if they already didn’t have similar appearances – the identical sheepish grin both wore at that moment would have cemented the deal!