Reasons to be Cheerful: crawling, ivy and doors

I've been sitting at my laptop for going on an hour this evening, trying to think of what to write. Truth be known, I've been feeling a bit bit depressed about the state of the world recently. I've been trying to avoid writing about it, finding something fun and light-hearted, but I simply need to say this.

First of all we have the natural disaster, the supposed Act of God that is the drought and famine in East Africa (and therein lies one of the many reasons that I don't believe any more). I saw a tweet that suggested that mothers were having to choose to let their weakest child die in order for the strongest to live. Before I was a mother that would have sounded awful; an impossible choice to make. Now that I have a daughter my innermost being screams out for them. How can the developed world strain under the weight of so much wastage while the forgotten millions perish. If I think about it I want to cry, so I don't think about it; I've donated to the DEC and that will have to do for now, but perhaps that's the root cause of the problem: it's too horrific for most people to think of and we choose to carry on in our happy existences.

Next we have the man-made disasters: the senseless bombing and shootings in Norway; and now I see that the Syrian authorities have killed 130 of their own people. Lastly we have the ignorantly damaging... one example is where The Analytical Armadillo recently highlighted the potentially fatal advice on sleeping arrangements for baby. Ridiculously high numbers of blankets to make them sleep through the night, as if that's the most important thing?! It makes me so sad to think that babies could be suffering or even dying due to bad advice.

Now... I do realise this post should be about reasons to be cheerful. I'm coming on to that! All of the badness in the world highlights to me that I really should be grateful for what I have, and I am truly grateful: I have a lovely husband, a comfortable life and a daughter I really would give everything for. And that's when I remembered Mich's reasons to be cheerful and realised that's exactly what I need today!

1. Baby Badger is crawling! She worked it out last month at a little over a year old, presumably because when she started at nursery she saw lots of other crawlers. There's just no stopping her now - it's given her the ability to get to the furniture she has been surfing along for months. We're going to have to be on our toes, but it's wonderful to watch!

2. Ivy. Father Badger attacked trimmed the ivy on the back wall today. I hate the ivy: it cuts out the light, it's probably doing bad things to the wall and (probably the main reason) it's full of spiders. This makes me cheerful for two reasons: I can hope that he trimmed so hard that it dies (!); and Baby Badger spent the afternoon outside in the play pen, under a tree, happily playing and chatting away.

3. I've finished the wardrobe doors. More accurately, I've finished the base colour. I've been planning these doors since I was pregnant and, almost 18 months later, I'm close to finishing them! I'll leave the details for another time, but suffice to say I'm proud of them.