Dolly looked so proud today, charging around the garden with her little wooden trolley in her new shoes - the shoes that she gets so excited about every time she looks at them. All of a sudden, despite still having very little hair, she looked so incredibly grown-up. It made me feel very strange, happy strange, and sad strange.
The trolley was Betty's and is now falling apart. It has been left out in all weather conditions, has been dragged up and down steps, filled with mud, used as a scooter, and it looks a state, but Dolly loves it and is now inseparable from it. It is a far cry from the brand spanking new trolley excitedly presented to Betty three years ago.
Betty's crawling and walking developments were well documented on this blog. I went into great detail about her first steps, buying her first shoes and her first walk in them etc. All Dolly got was a throw away line at the end of my last post.
I hadn't even realised that Dolly was ready to start walking. My mum suggested giving her the trolley to see what she made of it, and when first presented with the mouldy, rickety thing, I expected her to stumble and fall and not have a clue. But she grabbed it and off she went, confidently and competently. I felt pangs of guilt that I had been neglecting my darling precious baby, and wondered how long she had been wanting to walk for.
Dolly is so happy and easy and good-natured I worry that we are taking advantage of this. She gets no-where near the same attention that Betty got at the same age, and where we would always be standing over Betty, staring and cooing, and eagerly encouraging her to reach the next developmental milestone, Dolly is often left to her own devices, and milestones seem to be forgotten.
13 comments:
Oh but there is something lovely about keeping them as little as possible too....we all know they're going to walk....what's the rush. Enjoy it, don't feel guilty, they won't be harmed in any way. xx
well, you want a bad mum story? I didn't even notice when my baby girl went from crawling backwards to forwards! Ha! I was so used to her rolling over and over to get where she wanted, or going in reverse that it took my mum to point out to me that she was going forward!!! We are far too busy with doing everything else in the world to notice teeny details!!! ;o)
Don't worry about it Elsie. I'm sure you're doing fine and the advantages that Dolly will gain from having an older sibling to emulate, along with those that come from the automatically more relaxed attitude to parenthood that most of us have second time around, can only do her good - and will more than make up for any perceived shortfalls on your part. I promise.
Aha! The neglected second child ;)
Dolly is fine without you fussing over her, she'll crack on with life and so long as you keep loving her, she'll be wonderfully happy.
I am sure she is doing great and that she reaches her milestones in her own time, no matter if you had encouraged her earlier.
Little L and Dolly seem to be quite similar with regards to being easy and good-natured. In our case she is a little stoic, too, i.e. all the encouragement goes nowhere if she doesn't feel she is ready.
I am the last child of three. By the time I came along my parents couldn't even be bothered to give me dinner, or put me to bed, I kid you not. I had to ask!
However I have always known I am enormously loved by them and that's the only bit that counts.
x
I'm the last of 3 too... no baby photos for me... however, the plus point of this is that by the time I came along rules were a lot looser and I got to have all the fun my sisters had to fight to for! You may feel bad now, but the only thing you should worry about is not giving your fans as many blog posts as they would like! Dolly will be just fine, I'm sure of it.
Hey. You had 3 posts up, so I whizzed over, and they weren't here. What happened?
Where have the nostalgic posts gone?
I was just getting down to Starship in my Google Reader.
I had the same worries when I kept on having babies. Husband says that having more kids stops the first one from becoming a spoilt brat. Good point I feel! But you only just gave birth, so how can Dolly be walking already?? I'm so behind... ;-)
Pigx
look Elsie B! A new profile pic, do you like it?! Pigx
actually, it's a bit crap isn't it...
and - for true life (as my kids would say) my word verif is 'clisted' I think i'll be c-listed for my new profile pic...
Great post, I think this is normal, first born children teach parents and new experiences, by the second things are differebt- usually in a good way :)
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