Well it did and it sort of didn't.
Up until this moment, I could put her down somewhere and when I returned to the room she would always be where I left her. Well she would be providing one of the other 2 hadn't decided to join her into their game of hide 'n' seek anyway!
I could get ready in a morning and not have to move anything out of the way because the others are well trained never to touch mummies make up, and as a bonus, they are scared of the straighteners because I've threatened to do their hair a couple of times and they saw what happened to Barbie!
Barbie basically had a bit of a lumpy bobble mark at the back of her head and I said to the girl, don't worry, I can get her hair beautiful and straight again.
Only I couldn't, because I didn't figure that nylon hair and 200 degree heat would burn completely. So now Barbie has a very odd hair, the bit that's left and no one plays with her anymore. She just serves as a warning against the straighteners.
So now, with the dawning of 'the roll over', I think my hard life is about to step up a gear and get harder. Baby is going to start getting on the move. She's going to start reaching and grabbing and moving and touching stuff and basically not being a newborn anymore. Eeeeks.
I don't think I realised this day would come. Newborns are easier than what you think.
Ok, so with a newborn, you feel like a zombie who has been tortured with no sleep for weeks on end, your eyes are like piss holes in the snow, you're surviving on tinned food and biscuits because cooking is out of the question, you have boobs that inflate and deflate whenever they feel like it, a belly like a marshmallow, the inability to pee unless you combine it with a jug of warm water poured on your mufty at the same time, fear of ever needing to poo again, and only manage to brush your teeth and get dressed by 3pm and that's on a good day, but the fact is, a newborn sleeps, poops and drinks milk.
End of.
(Ok, when I said 'end of' I meant, except for the colic, the feed straight after the feed because baby is cluster feeding, the crying for no apparent reason (that's you and baby!), the nappies and then the nappy after the nappy because the poo went everywhere and then the change of clothes because the poo went everywhere, and the endless rocking because newborn then wouldn't settle......)
So, yeh.... End of, right.
But hey 5 months on, you can leave the house now! (Eventually!). But do you want to?
Baby wants to escape the pushchair and move around now. Just because they can. Baby may even be heading into weaning territory meaning your already jam packed changing bag has to find space for plastic spoons, a pot, bibs and tiny snacks.
So, you stay in?
Really?
Because baby wants to start moving around, putting fingers into plug sockets, switching your washer off mid cycle, finding all those tiny bits off the floor and trying to eat them or heading right towards the fireplace!
There is no safety. It's a mad bad dangerous world now, and that's just the lounge! It's up to you to make it safe. No pressure at all. (Longing for that newborn now with the long 'to do' list on repeat but it stays where you put it')
Oh help. Oh no. It's... A... Baby on the go.. Because there's no such thing as a Gruffalo.
It's time to get out the baby record book and start recording those firsts..
Tooth.. (Time to watch those nipples)
Word.. (Time to watch the sweary words)
Crawl.. (Time to buy socket covers)
Walk.. (Time to finally fit stair gates)
It is exciting and it is a sign your little baby is growing up. Not enough to send off to college, but enough to make you look at other peoples newborns and go 'awwwwwwww looooook, I can't remember her being that small and helpless.'
But my only advice to you is, remember these times, remember your child tearing up the house, remember the time you 'lose' your baby in the house and you panic because you know you left her on the playmat and now she's moved to another area by rolling and writhing, remember being bitten by that first tooth and thinking 'chuff me, have I raised a Jack Russell'?!
Because if you don't, you are forever in danger of uttering those words, those fateful words ...... 'I think I'm ready for another baby.'
