It’s bee a while since I wrote your last update and my goodness, as I look back we’ve had quite a few months! You have come on leaps and bounds over the last twelve weeks and are becoming more toddler and less baby by the minute. You’ve also become a cousin for the first time and while you’re not quite sure why you’re having to share the limelight suddenly, I think you’re both going to grow to be the best of friends.

Not only are you crawling at speed, you are a pro stair-climber and spend hours each day waddling up and down the room with your walker. When you first mastered it, each time you’d reach one end you’d promptly sit down and applaud yourself with such pride. Now though, a few weeks in you have finally sussed how to reverse and turn yourself around. This last week you have even started to let go and just stand casually unsupported babbling away to anyone who will listen. 

I will be completely honest, I have been a bit worried about your speech and your lack of words, but suddenly you are singing out ‘Mum, Mum, Mum’, ‘Nan, Nan, Nan’ and of course, ‘Dad, Dad, Dad’ over and over again…. And breathe. You also take great pride in your ability to tell me what noise a cow and a fish make! You chat away constantly making all sorts of sounds, and eagerly wait for us to reply so we can have a proper chinwag. I have no doubt that you are going to be a bit of a chatter box!

Your sense of humor is really growing and you are becoming such a funny little thing. You have us in stitches every single day and certainly know how to play a crowd. You are at your best in a room full of people where you can really show off your cheekiness and blow kisses to everyone with such gusto that sometimes I wonder if you’r cheeks are going to implode! You’re finding us quite funny too, and I’ve caught you really chuckling at Peter Rabbit & Mr Tumble too which is just the cutest thing. 

Despite us all getting pretty much all of the glorious winter bugs over and over plus a delightful visit from the Chicken Pox, we seem to have fit in so many firsts and little milestones through over the last few months. You’ve seen and played in your first snow, we finally took you swimming, and we’ve celebrated your first Easter with an insane amount of chocolate! Now that we are all feeling better we made the decision to move your cot into your nursery, just after you hit 10 months old. It was such a huge thing for me that I just hadn’t been ready to do until right then. You’ve taken to it SO SO well and seem so completely unphased by it all. You just go with the flow! 

When it comes to play, you have learned a few little games that you love. You would play our own little version of catch all day long if you could – you squeal with glee each time you roll, throw or pass a ball to one of us and clap every single time. I have lost count of the amount of times I have sung If you’re Happy and you Know it, Horsey, Horsey! and Twinkle Twinkle after your constant requests. I love how much you love music and singing and dancing. But most of all, you adore books. Every morning, I pop you on the floor in the living room while I get your morning bottle ready and come back in to find you sitting among a sea of books that you’ve pulled off of the shelf, casually flicking through your favourites, lifting the flaps, fiddling with the feely bits and leaning forward to kiss the characters. Your love of reading and stories just makes me so proud. You are a girl after my own heart! 

Your relationships with your ‘people’ are just becoming stronger and stronger. You and your Daddy are becoming quite the mischievous pair. Whenever I turn my back I can hear you both getting up to all the things Mama doesn’t let you do – take Easter morning for example when I found you chomping your way through an entire Easter Egg before you’d even had your morning bottle! Hearing you both play and giggle together is simply just the best sound and your excitement when he walks through the door each day fills me with utter joy. 

We still see Aunty Libby almost every day and she seems to top the list when it comes to your favourite people, possibly only just missing out to the dog. She wears her badge as your aunty with such pride and absolutely wraps you in love every time she’s here, and trust me, you’re the only person on this earth who can get away with getting mucky handprints on her trousers and systematically messing up her make up brushes every time we go and visit her and Nanny. 

Alfie, oh poor Alfie. He’s doing his very best to accept your totally intense love for him. You seek him out at any opportunity and crawl at him with such conviction and yet he just lays there, gives you a quick lick on the hand when you reach him and promptly gets up and moves out of your reach. However, he is also your little shadow at times, checking on you every now and then just to see if you’re okay and getting a quick bunch of kisses on your cheek before I shoo him away! Which by the way, you find hilarious! 

I am sure there is just so much more that you’ve learned and accomplished over the last few months that I haven’t managed to fit in here. Little girl, my little Florrie Bum, you amaze and inspire me every single day and I am so happy to be able to call myself your Mama. 

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Like with most things when it comes to a baby, when you enter into the world of weaning there’s a whole lot of stuff out there that you’re constantly told you will need. However, when we started weaning Florence, I was completely unprepared and ended up running out to our local shop and picking up one of everything in the weaning aisle. I’ve used hardly any of it more than once and what I really wish I’d come accross at the time was a bundle of basic essentials. Just like this Start Weaning Set from Vital Baby. 

The bundle contains all of the bits you need to get started, especially if like us you are starting with purees and spoon feeding, including an on the go weaning set, 2 mini freezer pots, 2 prep and go pots and a tumbler.

The on the go weaning set is essentially a feeding bowl with a lid and a spoon attached to it. It can be used both at home and while out and about and is perfect for holding pre prepared food safely in your baby bag. I especially like that the spoon attaches to the lid rather than having to go inside the pot and getting all mucky, or if you’re anything like me, getting lost in the bottom of the bag! Now that Florence is more into finger foods, I tend to pack sandwiches or fut up fruit in it, or even sometimes we just use it as a snack box. At home Florence likes to feed herself so we have found ourselves using the Unbelievabowl a lot more than this one as it sticks to the high chair and can’t be thrown around, but for the early weaning days, this worked brilliantly.

Likewise, the prep and go pots are definitely are ideal for use at home and on the go. They have lovely secure lids so are perfect for holding purees or messy foods as well as being the perfect size for snacks.

As I mentioned above, we started weaning with purees, and quite often I made my own and froze them ready for when we needed them. The little freezer pots included in this set are genius and make the whole process so much easier when it comes to actually preparing the purees after they’ve been frozen. You can just take the lids off, press on the little green base and out pops the contents! No more trying to warm up one section of an ice cube tray! I imagine these are also great for Mama’s who are breast feeding and want to freeze some of their expressed milk.

The only thing in this set that we haven’t really had much use out of is the tumbler. For a first alternative to a bottle or breast, it seems quite difficult to get the hang of, and having tried it myself after Florence couldn’t get on with it, you have to suck really quite hard to get anything out of it at all. I think this will be great for Florence in a few months maybe, as it has some great features (no spill for the win, perfect size) but for now we are sticking with another trainer cup.

For £12.49 I think this set is great value for money and perfect for the early days of weaning. You can buy it here, or alternatively each of the items separately on the Vital Baby website.

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