a seated dictator

Two significant things have happened in our house over the last few days. The first is that Bubs can now sit up all by himself which is something I’ve been looking forward to for ages, because he’s always been a rather independent little chap and isn’t particularly content lounging on laps or strapped into chairs, but lying on the floor just doesn’t cut the mustard when you want to grab things and shove them in your mouth!
He is extremely chuffed to be vertical and any time that he does flop over (onto the cushions I surround him with, before anybody goes calling Childline) he gets really stroppy because he can’t get up and lies there grunting, huffing and puffing like a chubby little pensioner until I come and put him upright again. Which brings me to my next point. Not content with figuring out how to perform this gravity-defying stunt, Bubs has also discovered new powers of manipulation which he exercises to great effect on me, his helpless minion.
A noise I hear many times a day is ‘nyeh, nyeh, nyeh’ which roughly translates in a variety of ways such as ‘I’ve fallen and can’t get up’ or ‘I’ve dropped my toy and need you to get it’ or ‘I want you to pick me up/put me down/get me something to eat/play a different game’ etc. etc. A lot of the time it also means ‘no Mummy, I don’t want that healthy home made dinner you’re trying to give me, I want yoghurt!’ Which I must admit is doing my head in considering that Annabel flipping Karmel is practically my new religion and my freezer is bulging with bags filled with cubes of gourmet baby food, prepared at considerable cost to my free time and sanity. But no, in this dictatorship if it’s Muller baby wants, it seems it’s Muller baby gets. I don’t know why I’m surprised really – both me and the Hubber are stubborn as mules so it’s a bit of a given that our offspring would be the same. Roll on the teenage years eh?!