Home alone

Tom and Betty went away on a jolly to visit friends last weekend - I really didn't feel like going (very stressful week) and so Dolly and I stayed behind.  And for the first time ever, I spent the night in our house, with no other adults present.

I spent all of Saturday mentally preparing, and trying to hypnotise myself into not being scared of the bleating sheep, the rustling trees, and the people hiding in hedges.  I had to wait until dusk when the pesky chickens had retired into their hut so that I could lock them up before I could retire to bed myself.  Because I was on high alert, mine and Betty's newly-installed homemade scarecrow, next to the chicken run, gave me the shock of my life and with heart pounding I ran back to the house, locked all the doors, hid all the keys, turned all the lights on, took a swig of rum, and went upstairs with my new box-set of Benidorm, an Easter egg, and Heat magazine.

From my bed, I nervously watched dusk turn into darkness and kept giving myself pep talks.  I reasoned that it would be pretty unlucky to get burgled on the one night I was alone in eight years.  Plus, I wasn't actually alone, I had Dolly sleeping soundly in her cot next door, but she isn't even two yet and wouldn't be that much use during a break-in crisis - though saying that, with her Phil Mitchell thuggish tendencies, she would probably be a hell of lot more use than me.

Still I was scared so I decided to sleep with the lights and the TV on in the bedroom - I found a channel showing snooker, so decided that would be calming enough to sleep through.  At 2am I woke to the sound of balls being potted, and Dolly crying.  Spotting an opportunity to join forces against the unknown terrors outside, I went straight to her and asked if she wanted to come into my bed. She said 'no'.  I took her anyway.  I turned the lights and the snooker off and cuddled up to an annoyed Dolly. 

Next thing I knew it was 6.30am, Dolly was fast asleep and as far away as possible from me in the bed, and it was light.  I felt so unbelievably relieved we had made it through the night, and although I had had the help of Dolly, the medicinal rum, the snooker, and all the lights, and had hardly slept, I felt this was a real breakthrough.

Dolly mixture

Dolly will be two next month.  Her first two years have gone in a flash, and suddenly, it feels like overnight, I find myself not with a Phil Mitchell look-alike baby, but a feisty, independent and very pretty toddler.  The term 'toddler' doesn't feel right when describing her, because although she is a little person who toddles, it feels too unsophisticated for her, or slightly patronising.

So, I have a little person who moves purposefully around, busying herself with making us all copious amounts of tea in her toy kitchen, and taking random items for walks in her toy pram; yesteray I noted she had strapped in a toy train, a felt tip lid, a toy sheep and a little metal tin.  And her dolls had been placed in her oven.

When she is not making us all laugh out loud with her sheer, and very deliberate funniness (and subsequently laughing at her own jokes), she is either holding forth in an argument with Betty, being naughty and not taking the blindest bit of notice if we tell her off, demanding that my yoga dvd be put on 'I want yoga on' so that she can stick her nappy bottom in the air, or demanding cuddles and showering us with kisses.  The kissing thing is always on her terms though - if I dare to give her a kiss without prior authorisation she gets stroppy and says 'No kiss Mummy'. 

At not quite two years old yet, the little lady's vocab is huge. Compared (and I know one shouldn't compare but it's often all you have to go on) to Betty who barely uttered a word until past two, she is talking in short sentences. Having said this, this advancement must almost definitely be attributed to Betty actively teaching her to talk - Dolly mainly talks about farts, poos, sweets and chocolate.

Although Dolly mostly refers to me as 'Mummy' she does sometimes decide to call me by my name, perhaps when I am misbehaving.  And where I am the one that can normally decipher everything she says, she often looks at me and says 'TART' and I genuinely cannot work out what she is trying to say.  She cannot be calling me a tart, can she?  Anyway, despite her thinking me a tart, she is a bit of a Mummy's girl and she looks just like I did when I was her age; it is a weird sensation looking at your child and constantly being reminded of hundreds of photos of yourself when you were little.  She also has this thing of wandering around with nothing on but her wellies; something I used to do.

I could go on all day long about this gorgeous little specimen of a child, but will finish here for now, by saying the little tyke melts me about 100 times a day, and both Tom and I (and Betty, though she probably wouldn't always admit it) are totally smitten.

Lookalike

With both girls asleep in bed, I slumped on the sofa this evening with two bars of chocolate, having had an EXHAUSTING day (so much so that I went into meltdown at about 4pm and threw both my little darlings at Tom and went and sat in the car, took some deep breaths and ate marshmallows for 10 minutes).

Anyway Eastenders came on and there I was happily watching it, when Phil Mitchell appeared on my screen - but staring back at me was my beautiful, precious and innocent baby Dolly - the resemblance was uncanny, in my sleep deprived head.

I am off to bed.