Georgi - I'm thinking of starting with signs for drink and milk. I'm trying to think of what words she'll need first. I think after I've done then for a while I might teach mummy and daddy.

katones - I'm with you.. I can't believe Maya is 12 weeks today!

I had such a bad day yesterday. Sorry long rant to follow:

Yesterday I decided that I wanted to get out of the house for a bit. DH has been wanting to visit his father and show Maya to his father's partner (who just keeps not turning up to anything we organise) so I suggested going to their place. They live in Geelong - an hour or so drive away. Maya slept most of the way there, so at this stage all was good. We arrived at my FILs and she was still sleeping but woke when we got her out of the car. We went into the house and greeted my FIL and when my FIL said hello to Maya she started screaming. And she screamed and screamed and screamed. DH was trying to settle her. And she always settles normally! But she just would not stop screaming. And the scream was awful! I have not heard her like that before! So my brain goes into over drive trying to work out what's wrong. Was it my FIL that set her off? She does cry when she is held by strangers but not when they look at her and she definitely doesn't scream like that. Was she tired? We had gotten her up from her sleep. But again she would never scream like that. Seriously the screaming was horrible and was breaking my heart!

So we decided to go back in the car and drive around and see if that would settle her. Nope. She screamed the whole time!! So we went back to my FILs house and I got her out of the car and took her over to a tree. And she quietened down finally. She was now sobbing but at least she wasn't screaming. So we went back inside my FIL's house and BAM the screaming started up again. And at this point I finally worked out that it was the smell in the house! Before we arrived my FIL had cleaned his entire house with undiluted disinfectant and both DH and I found the smell so overwhelming so I can only imagine it must have been too much for poor Maya. You could smell it from the street even! I took her back outside and again she settled - back to sobbing not screaming.

But what really ****ed me off is that my FIL and his partner kept saying things like "she must have wind" and "oh she must be so difficult!" Both DH and I kept saying over and over and over again that she's never been like that before and it must be the disinfectant smell! But they didn't believe us. And I am so sick of people not believing me! As soon as Maya behaves out of the norm people think it must be wind or they think she's always like that. And when I tell them it's not normal for her they don't listen to me!

What really really ****ed me off is that when I was outside with Maya calming down finally my FIL's partner suddenly grabbed Maya off me!! I am not kidding. She just took Maya out of my arms! And then she wouldn't give Maya back and Maya started crying again because she doesn't like strangers. And what's even worse she took Maya back inside the house because they didn't believe me that the house was where the problem was!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So Maya started screaming again!!!!!! I basically chased my FIL's partner into the house and yelled at her to give me back Maya. I took Maya back outside and went into the car and I told DH we were going. We took off and Maya vomited - I mean there was a serious amount of food coming out and she was making awful noises bringing it up. By this stage I thought OMG she's so sick. We pulled over and I fed her. She calmed right down and fell asleep straight away. Then woke up near home and was back to her normal self. And she's been fine ever since. In some ways I think how on earth could the smell/fumes of disinfectant cause that much pain for her but I am always second guessing myself and what else could it be! After this experience I've realised I need to start trusting my instincts more.

Though I feel like such a bad mum at the moment. How could I have let Maya go into that house three times when it was obvious something was setting her off in that house. And how could I have let someone grab her from my arms?!