Ingrid is one year old. Old enough that it will soon seem enough to count her age in years and half-years instead of months. Old enough to be a toddler rather than a baby.

Unfortunately much of this past month was taken up with illnesses: chickenpox and a strep infection with extras. I guess we had been pretty lucky, health-wise, until now.

Her two favourite games right now are pushing and pulling. Pushing things in front of her while walking across the floor (on her feet with tall and stable “toys” like chairs, on her knees with things that are small or move too fast) – and pulling things out of any drawers she can find and open. She continues to focus on bottom drawers, even though she can easily reach the next one as well. In the living room she spreads my hankies and underwear on the floor. In the kitchen she picks out all the tea lights (and chews on them). In the bathroom she pulls out cleaning cloths and spray bottles with Ajax. These are sometimes dumped on the floor, but she also likes to throw them in the bath, especially if there is water in there. Cleaning cloths are also fun to play with in the water.

The time of chewing on everything seems to be past, and it is now a lot safer to have her explore everything. I don’t worry much about plants or computer cables or CDs any more. Even books survive her attention for a while, when she manages to pull one out from the shelf. But the power button on the computer now has a cover, firmly attached with sticky tape, to keep away curious fingers.

The toy box hasn’t seen much use recently, and I think we will reduce its contents drastically soon. Some things can be thrown away (half-chewed egg cartons), others put back to where they really belong (sieves and bowls), and some simply packed away. Many of the toys that are actual toys may become interesting again later, I suspect, when she can find new uses for them.

The only toys Ingrid has been playing with recently are balls and stacking cups. We have been rolling and throwing balls to each other, and she likes chasing them across the floor. Not for long, though – her attention span is still short and she gets bored with such things pretty quickly.

Instead she has been a lot more interested in her cardboard books: picking them up from the bottom shelf where I keep them, opening them and turning the pages. But only if she can do it on her own! If I come and try to direct her at all, to talk about what’s in the pictures or to turn the book right side up when she’s got it upside down, she pushes my hands away. I do wonder what she sees and what she thinks when looking at an upside-down picture of a lamb. She’s never seen a real lamb, after all.

In some activities I am welcome to join her. The best one is a very physical game that involves a mixture of chasing (me after her, on the floor), climbing (her over me) and tickling – and lots and lots of laughing. I am never quite sure what it is that I do that she likes so much, and it seems to change by the minute, but it gets her shrieking with laughter again and again.

She is very clearly developing a will of her own, and I can see the first inklings of what will certainly become tantrums a few months down the line. When she is not allowed to do what she wants, or when I do something that she doesn’t like, she will arch her back and scream and cry. Luckily this really only happens when she is tired. But then the smallest thing can set her off, such as taking off a t-shirt. She has also learned that it’s my hands that do things, so she tries to push them away when she expects them to do something she doesn’t like.

Speaking of things she doesn’t like… I think we now have a fix for her aversion for brushing teeth. Solution: two toothbrushes, one of which goes in my mouth, and another one that I put in her mouth. Seeing me brush my teeth is either sufficiently interesting and weird to amuse her, or simply makes it clear to her how those toothbrush things work.

There are things and situations where I like to have variety. Food, certainly, is one of them. Clothes is another: I couldn’t wear a similar outfit (say, light shirt and dark skirt) every day of the week. Books, vacations, likewise.

But then there are things where I prefer no variety at all. I buy the same toothpaste (same brand, same flavour) every time, and the same brand of underwear. Same body wash and face cream. I have tried alternatives occasionally but always realised after a short while that they just weren’t as good. The face creams feel either greasy or watery, while the body washes generally fail the smell test – they tend to have a chemical, synthetic smell (and one actually made my skin sting).

With these items it’s mostly a matter of creature comforts. The smell and feel of things is important. And I don’t really want excitement or novelty late at night when I am tired. I do not want to be surprised by an unfamiliar taste of toothpaste at 7 in the morning. I want homey, comfortable familiarity.

With others it’s simply a question of knowing what you get. This is mostly the case for everyday tools, things I use often enough to notice (and care about) the difference between good and bad quality. I always buy the same brand of ballpoint pen, and the same dishwashing sponges, and the same nappies for Ingrid. The difference between a good pen and a bad pen, or between a good sponge and a bad one, is very noticeable if you use one every day. (At least to me it is.) After I’ve finally found a good one, further experimentation is much more likely to yield bad results than good ones. The upside is very limited. So I stick to what I know is good.

I kept buying deodorant in Sweden all these years, and sometimes asked my mum to bring me some when she travelled back and forth, because my favourite brand wasn’t available in England. Most annoyingly it has now disappeared from the shelves in Sweden as well, and I will have to spend months finding a good replacement.

Spent 40 minutes cycling to the nursery and back again in the middle of the day to give Ingrid her midday penicillin, because the nursery staff said their policies didn’t allow them to take responsibility for children’s medicines – only to find out that they had changed their minds and were OK with giving it to her after all. Couldn’t they have called me?

The day went by fast even though I didn’t do anything much – and sometimes that’s exactly what I need. We spent most of the day at Kew Gardens at a SlingMeet, where Ingrid behaved like a model of a sling baby: happy to sit in the sling while awake, then playing on the floor, finally falling asleep almost the moment I put her in the wrap.

She seems to be well again now, only more drowsy than normal. I must admit I almost liked it this way.

I’ve put up some new photos in the gallery, including some pictures of Ingrid “opening” her birthday parcels. We gave them to her yesterday and she has made some progress with some of them but not got all the way inside. When she gets tired of them as parcels, we will open them and see what’s inside!

Sorry for the lack of updates. Ingrid’s illness got worse instead of better, until this afternoon, so we’ve been rather busy here. (And tired, because Ingrid has been waking about once every hour for three nights running.)

Eric took her to see a doctor on Thursday and was told that it probably wasn’t anything serious. I kept pouring Calpol into her which brought the fever down for a while but then it always went back up again. Yesterday her eyes went red and puffy, and today she developed a red rash over most of her body. The fever kept going up as well, getting to over 39° on several occasions, and she looked so ill that we went back to see a doctor again. This time the verdict was ’upper respiratory infection’ (= common cold), combined with a strep infection, plus conjunctivitis, but the rash was probably just a heat rash and nothing infectious.

In any case we came home with antibiotics, Nurofen, more Calpol, and eye drops. (The kitchen counter looks like a regular pharmacy now, with medicine bottles, thermometer, measuring syringes and spoons, and notes on which one was given when.) The Nurofen got her temperature down straight away and she perked up within a couple of hours.

I have decided to stop expressing milk. After 6 months of twice-daily milking sessions every day I’m in the office, I am, quite simply, tired of the whole thing. It takes a good 40 minutes out of my working day, and makes scheduling meetings hard. This week I stopped. It feels like the right thing to do. There are still a few bottles in the freezer so Ingrid will get her afternoon milk at the nursery for a few more days, but that’s it. This weekend we’ll see what she thinks of cow’s milk.

I have no immediate plans to stop breastfeeding, though. Unlike expressing, breastfeeding is comfortable, enjoyable and relaxing for both of us, as long as it happens during the day. In fact it is generally relaxing at night as well… When Ingrid wakes in the middle of the night and gets upset and wants the magic boob, I can sometimes feel really annoyed with her for waking me and then screaming in my ear. But once we both lie down and she gets the boob, the annoyed feelings go away and are replaced by tenderness again.

It’s interesting, I think, that the things that help calm Ingrid when she is unhappy or wound-up – breastfeeding, wearing her in a sling, rocking and swaying, singing and humming – all help relax me as well. There is the immediate effect, of course, of not having to hold a crying baby any more, and that makes a huge difference! But even once she has stopped crying, I feel more and more relaxed as I go on doing whatever I’m doing to calm her. Nature has created an interesting and pleasant dynamic there.

Today was the second day of no expressing. Yesterday I didn’t notice any difference, but today I felt like I had a lot of milk (probably because Ingrid fed earlier than usual this morning) – enough to feel distinctly uncomfortable. I think this was the first time I looked forward to getting home and breastfeeding, more than Ingrid did!

Ingrid is sick again, with lots of nighttime coughing for two nights now, and this evening/night also a fever. I’ve also caught something, but it seems to be a simple cold. Eric is, as far as I know, still well.

One of my pet peeves is food crumbs. I cannot stand them. I can deal with dust bunnies on the floor, dirty windows, cat hair, food stains on baby clothes, or a mess of toys all across the floor. But there is something that just makes food crumbs inherently disgusting to me. Food remains on the table, food crumbs on the floor or in the kitchen sink, and badly washed dishes – they just make me cringe and want to clean up, no matter whether it’s in my own home or someone else’s. I’ve visited one household where the kitchen table was so dirty that I had to make an effort to sit and eat there. (Luckily that happened a few years ago and I have no reason to believe I will ever be invited there again.)

(There’s no real point to this post. Just wanted to tell you.)