All about Neve...

It's all about the little one today, who has had a bit of a rough ride this weekend.
Firstly, she managed to climb out of her cot for the first time, falling 4ft to the floor with a terrible thump (Nini to me: "I just thought it was you crashing about in the shower" - what the hell does she think I could have been doing? I don't stand in the shower juggling anvils...but I digress...)
Nevey has showed no real inclination to climb things up until now, her focus thus far having been instead on eating anything she can get a chubby fist around (such as table legs, the hose of the vacuum cleaner, shoelaces, her sister, etc) but things have clearly moved to a whole new level, and she has obviously found a whole new exciting way to endanger herself: the classic climbing/falling combo.
We should maybe have seen this one coming, as for a few weeks she has been fascinated with the ladder to the loft and once had got as far as the fourth rung before I intercepted her - but it was still a surprise for Nini when she opened her bedroom door to find Neve sitting on the floor howling, rather than safely contained in the cot shaking the bars like an enraged monkey.
Sadly, it's not Neveys only upset this week: she has also got 'Hand, Foot and Mouth'.
When I tell people this they either recoil in horror or laugh out loud, thinking either that she has some sort of cattle-related malady or that I am joking. I'm not: 'Hand, Food & Mouth' is very real, is extremely common in babies and manifests as horrible painful blisters, similar to chicken pox, on their (you'll never guess where!) hands, feet and mouth...well, and sometime buttocks, but not in every case. I am certain that if it affected the buttocks more often then everyone would have heard of it, as nobody is likely to forget a diagnosis of 'Hand, Foot, Mouth and Arse'- but it doesn't, and I can happily report that Neves bottom remains lesion free and as smooth as the proverbial babies bum (which is good, what with it actually being a babies bum...). It is also, just to be clear, not a cattle related illness. She has a few spots, not Mad Cow disease...
Finally, on the upside, she has also started to wave at me when I say goodbye on the way out to work, which is hearbreakingly endearing...