Daddy did bop!

It would appear that my little family has been perched on a precipice for some time now.

And it would seem that we have quietly tipped over the edge of that precipice, without an obvious movement. Without any panic, or distress, or fear. Which is better, I suppose, than trying to flee in the opposite direction, or resisting the inevitable pull of gravity. Without fuss or ado, my little family seems to have arrived in the Land of Big Kids.

I took a long, hard look at my beanstalk of a toddler this morning, and realised that Maisie is no longer a baby. Now, I know that might seem like an absurd comment to all of your lovely people out there in BloggyLand. Of course she's not a baby, I hear you mutter, shaking your wise heads at my ridiculousness. She's nearly two!

The thing is, you see, for the last five years we've been either a household with a baby in it, or a household who could have another baby in it. The baby years was a chapter that continued on, rather than a book that had been decidedly closed. And now that the Mouse is approaching her second birthday, and I most certainly am unable to have another baby, this is a fact that has slapped me rather rudely in the face.

Obviously, there are facets of life that are infinitely easier without a newborn in tow. And I do not need to be told how lucky I am to have mothered three newborns (and to have managed to get them the first years of life without significant injury...) I suppose I just hadn't really thought about the next phase in our parenting life before it was thrust upon us.

So I'd like to take this opportunity to celebrate the Mouse, aged 22 months, and the beginning of our household of "big kids". Yes, I baby her more than I should. And yes, I mourn the loss of her babyhood in a way I never did with Jack and Phoebe, because she is my last. Hey, does it make me a bad mother if I admit that I cheered for every milestone that the big kids reached? Not because I wanted them to grow up quickly, or stop being babies - but rather I was loving watching them grow, and I didn't get sad at the thought of them getting bigger and older. I thought I could have one more baby to relish the newbie-ness. Luckily for me, I did. It just meant that at some point, I would have to relinquish the last babyhood. This is that point.

In her own charming way, Maisie has gently forced me to acknowledge that she is growing into a big little girl. Firstly, there is her language, which is constant, expressive and often hilarious. She will often begin a sentence with, "Mummy? um...." as though she is thinking hard about her very important question. If something is good, she will ask, "aden?" for it again, 'cheeeeeeeeeeeeze!' is her favourite food, (as are 'titties', her unfortunate pronounciation for bikkies), 'Nernie', 'Charchie', 'Dizey' and 'Ella' are her pets, all dogs are woo-woos, all cats are 'mows', and most other animals are woo-woos. Except for pigs, which are some gutteral sound that I cannot spell. Cows and horses are both 'moos'.

When she goes missing during the day, Maisie can typically be found either playing Barbies on my bed, shouting into her 'phone' (which is actually the end of the cords to the blinds in the kids' room) on Beebee's "beb", or trying to 'love' Ernie (and the poor old cat isn't fond of toddler kisses on his back at the best of times). Currently she is charging around the house wearing Bonds undies with apples on them (or 'bopples'), a fluffy red jumper and Beebee's stripey sun hat. She is alternately pushing the dolls' highchair around like a pram, with the dress-up stethoscope placed lovingly inside, or wandering around moaning like a zombie with her hat placed over her eyes. Every now and then the hat comes off, which means it is thrust in my face with a wheedling, "Aden!". As we speak, Jack's Ben 10 shoes are being added to the ensemble....

In the last week, as I have spent much time sitting or lying quietly in the loungeroom, Maisie has discovered the delights of Beebee's brand-new Dorothy the Dinosaur tea set. Many times a day, I have a tiny pink cup shoved in my face so that we can smash cups together and say "Cheers!". She feeds her 'babies' with a fork and any container she can get her hands on. Sometimes, her top is pulled up to offer a 'boobie', but more often than not, the doll will receive a drink via a bottle to the eye region.

Maisie sings all the songs she knows pretty much non-stop, and the only way you can tell what she's babbling is the tune. We hear all the swimming lesson songs over and over, including her teacher's own little mantra of "paddle, paddle, kick, kick!", which comes out more like, "addle, addle, i! i!" Her beloved Teletubbies are known as the Uh-Ohs, and they are all called Titty-titty, and La La. Aren't they?

Her other passion, the Diddles, is growing strong. But forget actually naming Anthony, Jeff, Murray or Sam properly. According to the Mouse, they are all called 'Diddle', as is Henry the Octopus and Captain Feathersword. Dorothy in all her pink fairy tutu wonder is bestowed with "Awty". As she should be.

As if all this wasn't enough to show Mummy that the Mouse is actually a bona fide big girl, Maisie learned how to climb the ladder to the top bunk last week. And now does it as often as she can, whenever Mummy forgets to put the ladder up on top of the bed. She demands that we read books to her at bedtime, just like Jack and Phoebe (as long as they are about the Diddles, or animals. Or both.)

She has spindly, long legs that run and run, and a curly blonde mullet. She is only now growing into her Size 1 clothes, which is bizarre given that her big brother and sister started wearing that size aged 9 months. When she dances, she shrugs her shoulders and bobs her head. She can take the mickey out of the tap-dancing girl on the Teletubbies DVD. She adores drawing, especially if she is doing it with Beebee. Her bottom is her 'bum-bum' (which we deduced only after watching her imitate the kids on the DVD doing the boom-boom dance....sad, but true!)

Best of all, she has a great sense of humour. To see her laughing along with the big kids is an amazing feeling, especially when she has no idea what the joke is. Around the dinner table the other night, Daddy *ahem* passed wind rather loudly. Of course we all had a chuckle and Daddy excused himself. When all the laughter had died down, Mais took a look around the table and said clearly, "Daddy did bop!" Well. We were in stitches, not only because this was Maisie's first real proper sentence. The reaction she got was genuine hilarity, which only served to encourage her to repeat her first sentence again, and again. In the aftermath of her comedic success, she learned not only to blame others for her own indiscretions, but also to blame the dog. I am not encouraging this behaviour at all.

She might be my last baby, the littlest team member, and a stubborn little cow at times, but the Mouse has very gently ushered her Mummy into the world of big kids. We are still eight weeks away from her second birthday, but somehow Maisie has convinced me that the end of the baby-days chapter is a good place to be. Quite possibly, it might have something to do with the way she places her sweet little hands on Aunty Miffy's baby belly. After all, her cousin George is in there, growing lovely and chubby for Aunty Sal to have lots of baby-snuggles with when he or she deigns to come out....hmmm. Come to think of it, perhaps I don't have to give up the baby days yet. When I finally become an aunty (hopefully sometime this week?!?), I'll get to inhale that delicious newborn-head smell, wrap my arms around the tiny bundle of niece or nephew, savour the moment...and then hand them back when the crying begins.

So as you can see, my baby has grown up despite my insistence on keeping her in Bonds wondersuits. She now makes up little games and plays happily at them for ages. She brings me bits of fluff and things off the carpet to put in the 'bim'. The Mouse has very definitely become a happy, busy, curious little girl who has every intention of joining the big kids in everything they do. And it would seem that without anybody noticing, Maisie delivered her family safely over the precipice of babyhood. And she did such a good job of closing the chapter on babyhood, it didn't hurt at all.