Posts Tagged ‘venla’

Daycare closed on World Book Day because of the Beast from the East. They re-scheduled it for a week later, which meant it fell on International Women’s Day. So, we sent Venla as Offred.

Unfortunately, Venla had no interest in supporting her fellow women by representing the irrepressible spirit of a character who fought against the ultimate patriarchy. She only wore her cloak for two minutes and refused to wear her bonnet at all. Or, perhaps she was signalling her intention to attack the State of Gilead before it is even formed. Only time will tell.

Last year we bought a Christmas ham the same size as Venla.

This year, that proved impossible. We went to Makro to buy the biggest ham we could, but they topped out at 6kg. Venla now weighs 11kg, so we’re not even close. That is probably for the best, though. It takes us a full week to eat through 6kg of gammon.

We outdid ourselves with toilet rolls, too.

There was a big difference in Venla between her birthday two months ago, and Christmas. She wasn’t that interested in unwrapping at her birthday but now she delights in it.

This has trouble written all over it.

We dropped by Jane’s house to pick up several bags of donations she had kindly sorted out for the Holiday Food Drive. Venla had a brilliant time. When she wasn’t petting Jane’s dogs she was climbing up and down the stairs.

Who loves snow? This baby does.

Venla is now a year old. How time flies, etc. Grandma and Grandad were kind enough to host her birthday party, which was attended by friends and family alike. Of course, it’s quite easy to get most of your friends there when you’re only 12 months old and have two friends.

She received so many presents that we had to bring them back to our flat in two journies. Ah to be a child again.

I tried to order three scoops of ice cream at Kaspas. Instead, they brought me three separate ice creams. It was very lucky that my ice cream helper was on hand to get the job finished.

It is safe to say that Venla is now more dangerous than ever. She can shuffle. And she is quickly perfecting the art of speed shuffling: every day it gets faster. Which means she can get to draws, and pans, and balconies.

Time for shopping.

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In May, we took Venla for her first trip to the beach.

She enjoyed herself. There were lots of new things to put in her mouth. Including pebbles. And sand. She ate lots of sand. In fact, the only thing that didn’t go in the mouth was the one thing you are supposed to eat: seaweed.

Flamborough often has it’s own weather system and it held out well for us: it was warm and sunny for most of the trip.

Missing out on the latest Venla pictures? You probably need to follow me on Instagram. For those of you who are not down with the kids, here are some photos…

Venla learnt to wave last month. SHe’s enjoying it.

In May, we went back to Leeds SOUP to report on the progress at Anxiety Leeds. Venla screamed her head off last time, so this time I took her up to the front to give the talk with me. She seemed much happier in the limelight.

We went for a walk along the canal and let Venla sit in the grass. She was not sure about it at first but got used to it after a while.

You know Oreo’s? The biscuit that nobody likes because once you take the cream away from them they are just this really dry, flavourless biscuit? Well, turns out they are incredibly chocolatey in the right hands. This was shortly before Venla sent my cocktail glass smashing to the ground.

Venla seems to enjoy music and has lots of fun kicking her piano. So, I decided to take the next logical step and get her a xylophone.

Technically, it’s a glockenspiel. But it seems to me that the skills ought to be transferable if she wants to expand to actually playing xylophone in later life.

She still has a lot to learn. For example, how to use the mallet to hit the keys, rather than putting it in her mouth.