It seems like we have been tidying our flat forever and done very little else this past week. We have had to get rid of another load of books and put lots of stuff in our new cupboards. We had just got everything straight on Friday when our dialysis delivery turned up – a whole month of supplies (25 boxes of dialysis fluid). It is great not to think about stock takes and deliveries for a month but the supplies take up a whole bedroom wall and sleeping between them and the new cupboards makes us feel like we are sleeping in an insulated fallout shelter.
After our delivery we went out for lunch at John Lewis and tried Jasmine out in some high chairs. So much choice! In the end we came away with a booster one that you put on our dining chairs and tie her in. Jasmine loved trying out new things and being carried about looking at TVs and baby toys.
As we were browsing round the store, a woman pushed her five-months old baby in a pram passed us and stopped to tell us how cute she found Jasmine. I was carrying her in my arms and this woman had a big stress that her own baby wasn’t being stimulated enough and she wasn’t a good mother since her baby was awake but lying flat on his back. When I saw her later on (Neil and Jasmine were investigating flat screens) she was holding the baby, but five minutes after that when I passed her again (I had been to powder my nose) she had the baby back in the pram and saw me and said, “Oh I picked him up, but he is so heavy I had to put him down. I did carry him though, I did, I did.” She seemed a bit stressed about it all, poor thing. We were just carrying Jasmine ‘cos she likes to see what is going on and it never occurred to us that we should have an opinion about what this woman was doing with her baby. Lately though it feels like everywhere we go we are in some baby olympics with mothers all competing for the most stimulated, active baby gold medal.
On Saturday we tidied up the flat (My Godfathers, it was neverending) so there was lots of activity for Jasmine to watch from the safety of her doughnut (which she got from her Auntie Claire and Uncle Iain and loves, thank you) and she watched the footy as finally the new season has started. We are today breathing a collective sigh of relief as we don’t have to tidy up anymore and we have footy to think about on Saturdays and Sunday now for the next 36 weeks. Fantastic.