Molly visits Spalding

Molly is four weeks old now and this weekend she visited Spalding for the first time and I have to say that this was a bit of a nerve-racking experience. I worried first about them driving over here and then about whether she would be happy be away from her home and what she has become familiar with.

After she arrived the first thing I noticed was how much a baby can change in just a week because I suppose when you are with them all the time you just don’t spot all of the little things that can be missed and go unnoticed unless you see them altogether as step changes.

She is bigger now and seems much stronger, she has long legs that she likes to kick and she pushes with unexpected power when you place your hand under her little feet, she looks from side to side and for one moment I thought she was about to flip herself over but the reality is that she won’t be able to do that for a month or two yet. If she doesn’t become a professor of something important I think she might be an athlete instead so I am looking ahead to the 2028 Olympic games now!

She is much more aware of what is going on around her and of her environment and she responds to the stimulation of new voices and activity in the room and when it goes quiet she first murmurs and then grizzles for attention. And she is much louder too and what were mere whimpers a couple of weeks ago can now on occasions be full bloodied crying with proper tears. I can’t even begin to imagine what is going on inside her head and her brain must be like a sponge absorbing, interpreting and organising all of the information that it is receiving, it is quite fascinating to watch this little baby developing at such a quick pace.

Language always fascinates me. I am trying to lean some basic Spanish but it is so difficult to get all of the spellings and the grammar and even the thought processes right. I can’t believe it is so difficult, I learnt English easily enough! Even now Molly must be hearing the spoken word and everything she hears is being filed away somewhere so that in what is only a very short time she will be able to string sentences together. So far after four years or so I have barely progressed beyond ‘dos cerveza por favor’ or ‘vino tinto por favor’ but then, to be honest, I don’t really need any more than that!

We took her to the pub again and she slept all the way through our lunch so I think she is going to enjoy going out like this and then we took her shopping to the Springfields outlet centre and she didn’t settle to that at all but being a female I suppose she will get used to that in only a very short time.

On the first night she slept almost right through but the second was very different and she had a very disturbed night. I was aware of this all night and it is amazing how in this situation how grandparental responsibility picks up exactly where parental responsibility left of twenty years or so ago. Normally I can sleep through practically anything, the last thing that woke me up in the night was the earthquake last February but with Molly in the next room I was alert to every movement and sound as I drifted in and out of sleep. Finally at quarter past five it was my turn to take her downstairs and amuse her for a few hours while Sally slept and believe me I enjoyed every single minute of it.

It is amazing the impact such a small person can have on the home and in the short time that she was here the place was turned upside down but after she left the house seemed strangely quiet and I missed her straight away.