Saoirse cut her first 2 teeth (the bottom ones) while we were staying with Jeremy and Rachel in San Francsico back in June - she was 8 months old. We woke up one morning and there they were. We had no idea she was teething, no dribbling, no crying, none of the nightmare symptoms we had heard about from other less fortunate parents. Lucky us, we thought smugly.

Ever since then we have seen the whites of her new teeth in her gums, so have assumed she was teething again, except we never saw any teeth. We would peer into her mouth expectantly every few mornings and have to tell my mother who would ask every time she called, that no, there is still no tooth there, but any day now.

5 months later she has just cut through her top gum and I have to say it looks really painful. Her poor gum is all red and swollen and I understand why they use the verb “cut” for teeth. This time we all knew she was teething - she has a raging fever for the last 2 days and is weepy and clingy. She can not sleep long periods as the pain is waking her, but she is so tired all the time. Her fingers are constantly in her mouth and she has no appetite. Her eyes are listless and her cheeks are bright red.

Ugh, it is so sad.

One tooth pierced through this morning and the other one is nearly there too. The tragic thing is that the upper teeth are not supposed to be the worst ones, so bad time ahead for little puppy and by default us - so much for Mr and Mrs Smug… Teething rings do not seem to work - any ideas parents?

Apart from the recent teething, she is flourishing. She can walk quite well now, but still chooses to crawl over walking. We put her into a kindergarten for 2 mornings a week and she loves to play with the other children. She can say Mama, Dada and do (dog), and understands what the words “birds, cats, nose” mean.

I speak to her in English but throw the odd word of Dutch and sometimes German and Spanish in too. I like to sing to her in Dutch too. Her talking piano has a French option which she has figured out how to use and we often hear all the songs in French!

She is an alert girl and wonders at animals and trees/flowers around her. She has gone from trying to rip the pages out of her books to actually looking at the pages and listening to the words! Grandma Kay gave her a spongy baby photo album with pictures of all the American family and she often looks at that, pointing at herself as a much smaller baby and smiling. Cute.

I walk to the shops every day with her and she continues to charm everyone with her silly giggles and sounds and I regularly have random people approach her/me to compliment her. The black Africans, both men and women are exceptionally fond of babies and we get smiled at on the street all the time. She is still hailed as Nonkululeko by many of the Xhosa people here, who get a kick out of that name on a white baby!

Beauty, the lady who minds her at the gym and the person who originally named her, was amazed at how much she has grown. She is just entering a bit of a clingy stage (although that may also be her teething?), so when I drop her into Beauty she roars crying when I leave. Same at the kindergarten, but as soon as I am out of sight, she stops!

She has generally been eating well, but will now only eat what JC and I are eating - no more baby food for her! She goes through weird phases though where only JC can feed her and refuses food from me. JC thinks it’s because she senses my frustrations with her. I am not the most patient when it comes to her feeding, so I am sure he is right.

Our rented accommodation is lovely and I am nervous she will stain the suede dining chairs with her flinging of food, so I have not overly encouraged finger food or self feeding. I suppose we will have to start letting her feed herself soon though.

We will prepare and freeze a lot of meals prior to our departure so we should be OK food wise on the boat with her. I have been calculating how much milk she drinks and how many nappies she goes through a day to get an idea of what we need to bring on board. Not as bad as we both thought. Storage space is a premium on the boat and JC has allocated a lot of storage to her things, which is just as well as my parents are bringing down loads more clothes for her when they come down in December - just no one please tell JC!!!