Development!

Eleanor's development is delayed. We were warned of this when we first arrived here, and accepted it with no uncertain terms. Well, save a few. I suppose I understood "development delays" to mean "gross motor" development delays, which she already had before coming into hospital. This I can deal with - no walking or crawling until she gets better. Sounds great. What I didn't understand is the delay on everything else. Somewhere in my brain I had decided that because she was delayed physically, all the fine motor and speech and intellectual aspects would be that much better. You know, like a blind person who has incredible hearing. Turns out, it doesn't work that way. Hospitals give babies developmental delays. Period.

Naturally this leaves me only one choice. I will now go totally bonkers a la "Toddlers and Tiaras" and force my kid to excel in something completely irrelevant. So in true overbearing mummy fashion, I give you Eleanor's Amazing Development Catch-Up Show!!

It all started with some high-chair time...

Mummy was eating an apple, so Baby Genius decided she could too.

Have you ever seen such a thing in your life? An 11 month old baby eating a Granny Smith apple? Amazing!

(Nope. She was licking it. Chemo babies love sweet things and they love sour things.)

Let's move on to a more "normal" baby activity. Playing with and eating Cheerios!

I have all the Cheerios because I am an advanced creature.

Look at that brain working inside her giant brain-box...

Pincer grasp! I succeeded! I have clearly raised a child genius.

Eleanor then proceeded to put the Cheerio in her mouth. I was standing by in case she gagged, but she didn't! She chomped away on it and worked it on each side of her mouth. Every time it came by her lips, I was poised to swipe it out, but she happily went on "eating". And then she threw up. Violently. And afterwards she looked like this: 

I know. Mummy is worse than Hitler.

Alright, what about a sippy cup? Big girls drink out of sippy cups, so clearly Baby Genius can, too.

Coming in for a landing!

Say "AHHHH!!!"

What can I say? My child is a genius.

She's the cutest!
(She is also teething. This "drinking" is actually just her chomping on the spout.
No water was harmed during the taking of these photos)

So I am hanging up my hat and saying, you eat when you feel like eating. You drink out of whatever cup you feel like and if you're not ready, you still have your "nose hose". You have reached the developmental milestone of kicking cancer's ass. You don't have to be a genius to be the toughest broad I know. I love you, baby girl and I think you are incredible.

I also love iCloud and its Photo Stream. It makes it so easy to post photos, which is why there has been an influx of photos lately. I might get a bit carried away. I hope you don't mind.