Slight Piatus

We haven't done much on the home-ed front this week, having spent most of it entertaining my Mother who has been up visiting us.
In addition to this, Eleanor and Richard were away camping all weekend, leaving me at home with Phoebe.

But while it's been a quiet week for Eleanor,* Phoebe has been doing all sorts of things.

To begin with, she's been a holy terror at night, constantly waking up, wanting attention, refusing to settle, and generally disrupting the sleep patterns of all who love her.
 I know this might not sound like a good thing, well, let me be honest: it's not a good thing.
It is the start of sleeping through the night though.

You see it works like this: Phoebe wakes up wanting Mummy, Phoebe gets Mummy, Phoebe goes back to sleep.
Which probably sounds like a recipe for disaster but is, in fact quite the opposite.
Every time Phoebe wakes up, cries, and gets attention, she learns that I will come when she needs me.
She also learns to be less insecure, to be less afraid of sleeping alone, to need me less.
 So eventually, when she wakes up, even if I'm not there, she'll just put herself back to sleep.
After all, she'll know that if she ever really needs me she only has to call.

As well as this she's just cut another tooth, she's learning to pull herself up and support her own weight**, she can now say Daddy (or Dadda), Ummy, and Yeh! (the exclamation mark is definitely pronounced), and she has started to use the potty.
Which is terribly exciting when you're only eight months old.
All in all it's hardly surprising she finds it a little hard to sleep sometimes.***

*Where quiet means "Grandma's here! Grandma! Pay attention to Me!!"
** She had the good manners to postpone this event until her Grandmother was here to see it.
*** There's also something called Reverse Cycling to contend with, which can be defined thus: "The world is so exciting and I am far too busy to feed right now so I shall wait until bedtime when I have nothing better to do".