Strawberries

Wow, time sure does fly when you're having fun.  And it has been fun, actually, having the house of luuurve encamped in our house for several weeks, despite the excess of stuff which comes with three extra people, one of whom is a baby.  Babies come with an unbelievable amount of stuff, much of which is adorned with faces - why is that?  Layla seems to be OK at recognising actual human faces, so why the need for extra tuition on this particular topic?  Does a paddling pool HAVE to be covered with grinning gorillas and been gesticulating giraffes to be fun?  Do soft toys have to be cartooney representions of animals?  What's the hidden message here?  It seems to me that the world is actually mostly full of interesting but inanimate things, and that faces indicate something a little bit special - generally things that one probably shouldn't pick up and stick in your mouth in later life.  But that's not the message we convey with all that baby stuff.  Oh well.

Layla now does "baby-led weaning" which means that she gets given fairly big chunks of stuff to eat, and there are basically no rules.  There is a lot of tactile experimentation (technically known as squidging) and quite a bit of spillage (on the face and body, into the capacious bib, back onto the tray-table, down the side of the high chair, directly onto the floor and many other places which are only discovered later in the clean-up phase).  Some food actually gets consumed, although it's amusing to see the odd mouthful which you thought had gone forever somehow return for recycling into one of the above options.  Highly coloured foods are best - strawberries and beetroot are especially favoured for their ability to produce a vivid image of chainsaw massacre or cannibalism.  This all takes place just before bath time, which is just as well.

For us grown-ups, Leo's habit of proper cooking (you know, from real ingredients) has raised the bar on food preparation somewhat, so we have been having little dinner parties, eating  round a table, every night.  With wine.  Marvellous! 

For the last fortnight Leo and I have been working on the newly-enlarged house of luuurve - painting the extension, laying the (engineered wood) floor, finishing the bathroom, and most recently installing the kitchen.  This is not quite what I thought retirement would consist of!  It's been a lot harder work than my previous employment, that's for sure.  But the house of luuurve is looking really good, and it's nearly done.  More tomorrow when I plumb in the newly-fitted kitchen sink - if I can manage to buy the right size connectors this time, grrrr! 

Exeter Strawberry Massacre