I can't think of a thing to say

Consequently, I'll blog another day.

Tee hee.

The only news I have to share isn't really news at all - the little dude is most definitely a bottle hater. Even GrannIE had to admit defeat. Bollocks. He'll drink merrily off a spoon and thinks that's a fabulously clever thing to do, but give him a bottle and no way, no how. Ah well, at least I know that if it's necessary at any point between now and when the little dude weans, there is an option. A messy option, but an option nonetheless.

Cos he's BROOOOOOOKEN

Heh.

I have in my possession 1 x exceptionally broken husband. As in, can't even hardly walk. Back gone ping. Very blimming unhelpful of him (nevermind his pain and suffering). I thought was ok ... ish ... until I went out on Sunday morning, and rang him at about lunch time to say I was on my way home and he was stranded as a stranded thing in bed unable to move. Woops. Probably best not to mention to him that after that phone call I still went on a wee shopping detour (for snuggly trackies for the ever-elongating not so little dude). Ahem.

Anyway, thankfully a Grannie was able to be flown to Auckland at very short notice for an extra set of hands to help with the little dude, who, incidentally, thought that 3am was a marvellous time to wake up on Saturday morning after my post celebrating the sleeping through. I was vowing never to post anything celebratory in relation to him ever again in future because it always seems to come completely undone when I do happy dances about something, but lucky for you lot, he went through last night happy as a clam, so you will continue to hear about his awesomeness when he does something awesome. Like taking a bottle ... I've started Grannie working on it. Watch this space.

We have our next osteo appointment tomorrow and I can't wait - Cuinn is a different kid since last week. As different as a kid gets. I think. Unless he gets even more different after tomorrow and the next one. Either way, life is changing and it's awesome. I just need to find my new feet and routine I think, because today was completely bizarre. Where he'd normally only be able to do an hour awake and then be smashed and grizzly and nightmarish but not wanting to sleep, today he spent 3 hours doing all sorts, including, among other things, sitting in his high chair smashing all manner of things up and down on the kitchen table. Love it! Actually did I get pictures ...?

I may have pictures ...

Hang on ...

Theeeeere we go!


Ooooh and PAFT came today, but I might take a rain-check on telling you about it, other than the vaguely embarrassing moment when our educator told us there's a fire station visit this week, and I got all excited, and she had to gently break it to me that Cuinn was a little bit little yet and maybe next time? Apparently 2 is a more appropriate age for fire station visits. Yeesh. Bollocks to that.

And on that note, I'm smashed into a million tired little pieces and that's about all I can manage tonight (can't even be arsed proofing - apologies for any lack of sense), so I'll leave you with spectacularly fab shot. He spent about 5 minutes playing with his toys with the carrot hanging out his gob. Love it. Love him.

Three

The number of nights in a row that the little dude has slept through.

Good heavens above, 'tis a miracle.

PAFT, bottles, sleeping through the night, and another visit from disease

Bah! The problem with taking an obscenely long time to complete a post is that a week after you start, certain things are no longer relevant.

For example, my bent on decorating the little dude's room with the most awesome wall art available on the market was circumvented by weeks of the little dude getting steadily more unsettled, sleeping less and less and finally bellowing solidly for several days and me therefore making a desperate dash to a cranial osteopath recommended by the little dude and my respective pals Niki and Luca, in the hope that we could do something to make him more comfortable or settle him down again, and in the meantime spent the decorating budget. Doh. Still, I'd rather have a happy baby, even if the monster decal I'd hunted down was the. coolest. ever.

I'd done an entire paragraph celebrating his sleeping through the night, but lamenting that it'd only happened the grand total of once, and was therefore most likely the result of nothing but sheer exhaustion from being decidedly ill (I swear, he's got a little stash of bottled germs under his cot mattress that he snorts whenever he's due for his vaccination jabs so that he can't have them for a couple of weeks. Tricky little ginger) with a spectacularly nasty disease of the ridiculously bad cold variety. Ridiculously bad. Said cold resulted in numerous incidences of projectile power chucking that soaked me to the skin, quite literally. Even changing my undies was required (I know. Too much information. And yet you keep coming back). His room looked like an abandoned haunted house for a few days - every surface was covered in towels, no furniture visible, just a furniture-ghosty look - set out in preparation for masses of flying puke, in whatever direction it should be fired. Poor little dude.

But then he slept through again last night. BOOya! I woke up with a cracker of a headache and my boobs aren't a fan (a fan? fans?), but man was it worth it. Sleep is awesome. I love sleep. Of course right now, I'm less concerned about whether the little dude sleeps through and more whether he'll go to sleep at all. I can hear him having a marvellous time rolling around in his cot with his Ugly Dog ... and I'm wondering to if perhaps it wasn't such a good idea to teach him how to squeal and playing screaming games with him all afternoon. Tis rather piercing through the monitor.

Aaaaand that leaves me with the disaster that has been trying to get him to take a bottle. That paragraph hasn't changed any.

It may never have been a successful thing anyway, but I blame antenatal classes for telling us not to introduce the bottle before 6 week because the kid would get nipple confusion. I guess in a way, they're quite right - he's not at all confused ... Doh. We've tried all sorts and nothing has worked. No-thing. Not a even a hint of working. There was one day where I thought he'd taken 20ml, but what I actually think happened is that I mis-read the bottle. Ergo, thought I'd put 50ml in and I'd put 30 sorta thing. Whatever though, he aint doing it. Aint doing it if we starve him, aint doing it if we give it to him to hold, aint doing it if we slowly introduce the bottle to him empty so he learns to put it in his mouth and be comfortable with it, aint doing it if we clap ourselves stupid and dance around in happy circles if we have even the minutest of success, aint doing it no way no how thank you very much.

I never got around to the PAFT paragraph, so that at least is nice'n'straight forward ... so long as I don't admit that we're having our second monthly PAFT visit on Monday. Woops. Maybe I'll tell ya about it on Monday. After a quick woohoo that there are 7000 babies in Manukau at the moment thereabouts and 400 places in PAFT. Go us for getting in!! PAFT is an acronym for Parents as First Teachers and the basic concept is that from 4 months to 3 years Cuinn will have monthly home visits from an educator who will teach us all sorts in relation to his developmental level, what to expect coming up, what we can do to encourage him, what to look for happening, observe in his development, and how to promote his development and learning. They do various other things such as encourage involvement in Mainly Music (which we'll do once the little dude has settled a bit, is generally more comfy is himself and is in a bit of a routine - otherwise he goes somewhere and basically goes AAAHHHHRRRGGHHHH!! there and then and for the rest of the day which completely negates almost all benefit from whatever it is he's done), and apparently among other things there is an annual visit to an animal farm in the area. Cool stuff. I'll blather more next week.

Right now, I'm going to go and put my feet up, look at my housework, and try to gather myself a bit before Cuinn gets his last lot of vaccinations (for the moment) tomorrow. Vaccination day is not too pretty. The day after vaccination day is just ugly. Ergo, I must celebrate an awesome day today.

Next osteo visit is Tuesday too so watch this space for progress reports.

Until I actually manage to finish the post I've been working on for days

In case you need an indication of scale. Eep!

And a suspiciously cousin-Amelia-erish look if I'm not mistaken (although potentially I may just need to clean my glasses)

What happens when you leave the little dude to sleep.

Investigating the toy bucket. And chewing it. As you do.

Turns out, I wasn't actually needed (!!!) (... although it also turns out I need to vacuum the lounge)

Absentee me

Life has been quite the challenge lately, and I think I have been the world's laziest blogger for far too long.

Where shall I start?

Perhaps with our latest Plunket visit - the little dude is measuring a whopping 69.5 cm long, having grown 4.5cm in the month between Plunket visits, has rocketed into the 97th percentile for height, and is packing a nice'n'healthy 85th percentile weight of 8.25kg. His feet are just shy of half the length of mine (not kidding - his 11cm paddles to my 24cm tootsies) and his newest socks are size 1-2 years. Eep!

As for generalities - He's scarfing 3 meals a day, has developed a mannerism from my beloved Grandfather which I'd feel all warm and fuzzy about if it wasn't a temper induced ear flick that meant that every time I see it (and I see it frequently - bless his enormous little classic ginger temperament) I will shortly thereafter likely be restraining myself from committing murder, is taunting us on a daily basis by drawing his knees right up under his tummy during tummy time and demonstrating that no, it won't take that much for him to work out how to move forward good and proper. I'd much prefer he working on sitting as opposed to toppling sideways onto his face just quietly. Anyway, we think we still have a decent wodge of time, but just in case, we took delivery of a custom made fireguard to end all fireguards that, we think, will keep the little dude from getting all dangerously investigatey with the fire. I don't like how he lies there with a very curious pyro-in-progress look on his face currently. It makes me twitchy.

What else?

He's been an absolute demon for about the last 2 weeks (he stepped it up after being just pain old unpleasant for about a month). Seriously. De-mon. Horrible child. He's refusing to sleep during the day, but melts down after about the first hour and a bit, desperately tired, then desperately over tired, and just generally convinced that the world is ending, and pretty much stays that way (bar the occasional 20 minute nap that makes barely a dent in the bag and black circles under his wee eyes - and nevermind that said 20 minute nap is usually after an extended controlled-crying battle with moi) until bare bum time in front of the fire just before bath and bed, at which time he turns into a smiley, giggly, cheeky, happy little ginger again, perfectly cheerful about the world in which he resides. No idea about that one. Not even half an idea. I'd tear my hair out, except he does that for me as he throws furious little temper tantrums throughout the day. There's nothing quite so ... well, inclined to send you a bit cross-eyed from trying not to throttle the little monster, as him waving his hand about with a fistful of your hair which is no longer attached to your head. So, obviously, blogging is about last on the list, and several entries under "collapse in an exhausted heap and stay that way for as long as possible".

But, he's also bucketing drool, has suspiciously red cheeks on and off and is chomping quite viciously on anything and everything he can. There was a sharp protrusion through is lower gum about 2 weeks ago which stayed there for about a day then disappeared, so make of that what you will. Personally, I'm inclined to blame teeth and hope that a cheerful little dude is still kicking around in there somewhere, and will pop back out again any day now. Also, imagine the growing pains if you got 4.5cm taller in a month. Un. Pleasant.

It's all fun and games till someone starts growing like a weed and potentially cutting teeth, that's for damn sure.

Still, cake is marvellous for what ails ya, when what ails ya is a grumpy little toad. Heh.

Did I mention that we're probably doing this again this time next year? Awesome...

But, do you know, for all that, he's the most awesome little dude, and it's the coolest thing to take his socks off while he's got his feet on the cat so that he can feel her fur and to watch him wiggle his foot because it feels nice, to wrestle his spoon off him when he makes a grab for it while you're not watching him like a hawk, but not quick enough to avoid pumpkin/apple/veges/whatever going in all directions, to have a semi-valid excuse for keeping caramel calci-yum in the fridge (cos you need the calories or calcium or energy or something cos you're feeding), to go and get him up out of his cot and wonder how on earth he managed to get an arm out of his jersey and his onesie, to have a reason to wonder what a particular vegetable will look like when it's spat out and to have to weigh up the stain-value of just about everything in relation to what you're wearing come breakfast/lunch/dinner, to not have to time or space to list everyone else ... and to know he's there, and he rocks and he's yours. And you might not post him off to Grannie and Pop just yet.

Plus he helps with the washing, so who am I to complain?

I guess if nothing else, he's at least still in the cot

Or the majority of him is anyway.