The last two nights have been particularly peaceful here in the Earthenhouse. The witchling, despite having two days of nasty toothness, has slept very well, waking only once or twice to feed, and slipping back into the land of nod quietly and quickly once that feed was over. Since we stopped co-sleeping, I confess that I have been finding it difficult to put her down in that situation; she feeds, her breathing slows to a gentle whisper, and I look down at her face, pressed against me, as sleep overtakes her, and wonder how I can ever manage to stand up – to stand up! – and put her in her little nest when she looks so peaceful right there, sleeping on me.

Of course, I have already forgotten, or at least put to one side in a most hypocritical manner, the challenges that sleep deprivation threw my way last year; I am still very grateful that I am getting more sleep, but I do miss having her snuggled up with me in a vast expanse of feather duvet and patchwork quilt. When it worked for us, co-sleeping was the most blissful sensation, and it was one of the first things that made me realise that this parenting malarky isn’t always as straightforward as one might, in one’s pre-parent status, have imagined it to be – casting my mind back to my first visit, pre-labour, from a health visitor (to non-UK readers, health visitors are sort of, kind of, a bit like midwives, but without the birth bit: they poke and prod and check you all out, and then one day they stop coming round, and normal life resumes), who said, earnestly, ‘of course, you wouldn’t ever have the baby in bed with you, would you?’ Quercus and I replied, without a moment’s hesitation, that that would be lunacy, and that we’d want our own space, and that it’s best to get things started as you mean to go on. Ha! Jump forward a few months, and there we were, all tucked up together, and finally getting some sleep.

The sad thing, for me, is that it didn’t last, and once the witchling was past that point of intense need, where everything was new and, potentially, terrifying, it became trickier and trickier to get her to sleep at all; I think co-sleeping answered the question initially, but as she became more sure of us, and of our continued responses to her, she just wanted to go to sleep, dammit, without some giant woman mountain breathing on her, and rolling near her, and generally waking her up, by god! So now she is in a little cot in her own room, which, given the Earthenhouse’s dimensions, still makes her within twenty feet of us at any one time. I suppose that’s the bit of parenting that you can only learn once you’re in the situation – adapting to your child’s needs can also mean backing off a tad. Which isn’t always easy.

We’re still thanking our lucky stars for the sling I bought when I found out I was pregnant. It’s proved an absolute must, and the witchling loves riding around in it. She also likes eating carrot in it. Exhibit A:

(And yes, this is a first: I never posted a picture of myself on my old blog. Somehow, now, I felt the time was right. Or something. No comments about my slightly mad hair-do, OK? Bunchlets, i.e. bunches which are then stuffed unceremoniously into a hairband to make them less grabbable, are practical, and Not That Bad When You Get Used To Them. Oh, and note the hat the witchling is wearing; that is courtesy of Ambermoggie, and is utterly fab.)

The brown swathing you can see around her is the edge of the . Ye gods, how I love it. Let me count the ways: 1. in and out of doorways and shops without pratting about with pram wheels and dubious steering (that has more to do with user error, in my case, than with the pram itself; we’ve hardly used the bloody thing, and thus I remain cack-handed at best); 2. no need for army-movement-like preparations in order to go out – just grab the sling, stick her in, and sod off; 3. hands free! look! no hands! 4. without that sling, at least the first four months of the witchling’s life would have been spent contemplating the disastrous state of our house in terms of constantly accumulating STUFF which I couldn’t put away because I was always carrying her. With it, the stuff somehow managed to get put away. Bargain. Now that she’s getting bigger, I still find the Moby very comfortable, but I am beginning to think about carrying her on my back, and, while there are pictures in the instructions of people doing just that with this sling, the stretchiness of it makes me think not, frankly. So, I am contemplating a mei tai, an Asian-style carrier, which is supposedly pretty good for this sort of thing. I also have a beautiful woven wrap which I should get to grips with properly; I’ve had it for about five months but have only used it a handful of times because the Moby one is just easier on and off, and I’m lazy (sue me). Apparently that works well for carrying babies on backs too, so I must pull my finger out and try it, really.

What else can I think of? Well, the witchling has been saying ‘Mama’, ‘Dada’ and ‘num-num-num’ (particularly when going to sleep and when hungry) for about six weeks, which is utterly delightful. We also had one memorable bathtime when I said ‘can I just take this arm out of that sleeve please?’, and she promptly replied ‘yeth!’ before bursting into fits of laughter. Coincidence we think, but no less amusing for that. She is much more mobile-seeming in the last few weeks too, and able to roll herself about most acrobatically, as well as sitting up and waving her fists about. We have also discovered that she likes to be snortled, which is to say one or the other parent, while holding her, leans into her neck and basically snorts at her while she screams with laughter and grabs fistfuls of hair, face, or whatever she can find of a parental nature. It is hard to say which of us enjoys this more. Food-wise, she is still largely a breastfed baby (no bottles, but now bits and bobs of food as well as milk); we are trying the baby-led weaning route, which involved finger foods rather than purées, and current favourites are pear, wholemeal toast, broccoli, parsnip and plum. It is going pretty well, I think, and she seems to be really enjoying trying new things, including, to my surprise, a tomato soup made with chickpeas, saffron and coconut milk.

I write this as she sleeps, and really I should be finishing the bathroom grouting. Oh, for a life of sensation, eh? But that’s the odd thing: somehow, despite the relative ordinariness of the things life is throwing my way at the moment, it is still a life of sensation AND thought. I am happy. I suppose that’s what it is. Grouting, nappies, clearing up sticky substances from the table, removing dead shrews from under the bath (let us move past that one) – it’s all good.

(Though I’m still caught between a rock and a hard place re going back to work; more of this anon, doubtless, but for now, let’s just enjoy the moment, eh?)