Confessions of a serial mower - in Grandma mode

What a fun filled few days we have had with The Heiress. We have experienced many new treasured memories in just this short time. She walked unaided for the first time, teeny tiny little steps, quite by accident as she momentarily forgot herself and walked to steal her Granddad’s tea. She promptly sat down with the shock and excitement of it all, but we were there to witness it. She shrieked with laugher till we all cried, and has been gaining confidence ever since.
She has learnt to open and close cupboard doors and drawers whilst saying “open” and “close” every time, a hundred times, for at least half an hour at a time. Fisher Price has nothing on my poor bedside cabinet.
We have had our first picnic in the garden, under the sunscreen tent thingy we bought last year, only it wasn’t sunny it was windy but it served its purpose and indeed I may keep it erected for myself.
We have used the super duper coach built pram for the first time, a photo of which is accompanying this blog. She wasn’t too impressed at first but then she realized the pram was sprung and rather thought she was on some fairground ride I think.
She ate her first jelly – it seems she had never had a jelly – something I think I was raised on. If all else failed with me as a child, I was a particularly picky eater, mum would make a jelly or even a milk jelly, just to get something into me. Anyway, The Heiress is teething and her little gums are really sore. So, I followed my mum’s example and whipped up a jelly and it worked. She loved it and every meal this weekend seems to have involved a jelly in all sorts of guise. Plain, milk, with fruit, without. A spoonful of jelly, a spoonful of poached fish. I know, quite disgusting, but she loved every wibbly wobbly spoonful. Note my new improved language.
We are actually in training, as in a few weeks time, we get to look after her, on her her own for an entire weekend whilst her parents attend a non-child friendly wedding in Scotland. Its many many years since we have been entrusted with sole care of a toddler and we get the feeling we are being “hot housed” this weeked.
To this end we have all been obviously talking about the child abduction case in Portugal.
The rights and wrongs of leaving children unattended, even in seemingly the safest of settings. I am a born worrier and can and do worry for England. I would fear too much about whether a child choked, or drowned in the toilet, or fell, or turned the hot water tap on etc., let alone contemplate leaving them alone in a building however near I was. Is this just Grandma over protection, I think not. As I go upstairs to check she is still breathing for what seems like the hundredth time, and then hear her snuffly little angel breaths, I just know most of you think like me. She is the most precious gift we have ever been given. I feel my late beloved mum is guarding her with me.