Our one year old weekend trick is ...

One year old

How he's changed!

The coolest little dude on the planet ... and this time a year ago he was about 3 and a half hours away and getting mightily stuck.

I can haz sauce?

We tried him out on Watties cheesy ravioli for dinner. Not entirely successful (bucketloads of fun, but didn't result in a full kid). Unless you ask Jess who would probably beg to differ, she having a tummy full of cheesy ravioli.

Transferring the contents of the plastics drawer to the washing basket. It seems to be the big thing at the moment - transferring stuff from one thing to another.

I didn't get a shot of it, but the next thing he tried to do was climb up the vege bin. Had he been able to work out how to get the middle and top drawers back in, he would've managed it.

Instead, he settled to stashing the remote for the stereo in the bottom drawer.

Out of focus mischief.

I seriously left the room for about half a minute. I imagine this is why someone invented those catches so that kids can't get into drawers and cupboards ...

And this one needs no explanation whatsoever.

I have a dirty rotten cold

There's something a bit cosy about having a cold in winter, but it's 10 shades of revolting to catch one in summer.

The kid on the other hand thinks he's having a day of exceptional good fortune because my mischief radar seems to have stopped operating completely, and my reflexes aren't at all what they need to be.

And on that note, there's a clear space on the floor begging me to lay down on it, so later folks.

Food carnage

I don't know that these pictures need much in the way of explanation, other than to say that breakfast, lunch, afternoon tea and dinner result in much the same degree of mess. And yes, while it looks as though we are asking for it letting him have a spoon and bowl, they're empty.

A year

Well, next weekend it is. And, actually, it feels like about 10, but I think that the done thing is to act surprised that it's gone so very, very fast so ... *gasp* ! I think I'm more surprised that suddenly my baby is only weeks away from being a toddler, and the mischief that a one year old is capable of cooking up *faint*

Either way - a year, five minutes, or ten years - I swear I can still feel the contractions. Very unpleasant things, contractions. Lucky the kid is uber cute (I think. It does worry me some occasionally that he may actually look like a monkey and I just can't tell because he's mine) and I never have to do contractions again. Weee! Well, sort of weee! C-sections are a bit vile too (that sensation of someone doing the dishes in your innards ... *shudder*) and I remember what it was like anticipating going into one cold (bit stressy) - the ... benefit? ... of contractions is that after 20 hours of them you actually couldn't give a toss what happens (the dishes) just so long as someone offers to shoot you in the head along the way, so you feel less stressy about the c-section. Ah well.

Anyway. I had a point.

Hmmm ...

I did. I think ...

Nope.

Turns out, I didn't.

And speaking of no point - No point in doing a long, potentially whingy, anxiety laden post about kidlet No. 2 either, because after becoming more aware as the year progressed and weeks of becoming a bit obsessed and stressed, I'm feeling quite relaxed about it because the husband and I have a plan. That plan, is to make a plan later. Excellent. We decided not to decide.

I think it was the start of the new year and Cuinn's first birthday that were making me start to hop on the spot a bit. The recommendation from our OB was 18 months, which of course is only 6 months away. 6 months is just way, way too soon for me to contemplate without going into a tail-spin, so we decided to wait until the 18 month mark and then make a decision. Cuinn's a lot different now than he was at 6 months and at 18 months it may be all puppies and kittens, but at that stage, we'll decide how brave we feel and make our plans and a booking then. No hashing it out, or losing sleep over it until then.

It seems simple enough, I know, but the pressure comes from the wondering, and from weighing up the what ifs - what if all 5 embryos fail and we have to start over if we want a sibling for Cuinn that much. Then we have to come up with the 12 odd thousand to do another cycle (nevermind preparing for the cycle itself) and you'd really rather start shovelling (or, teaspooning realistically) money away sooner rather than later with this sort of business because it takes time, and of course while said time is ticking along I'll be getting older, and bla and bla and bla. But, if we go ahead now solely because of that, I think I might very well have to do rescue remedy shooters for the following 9 months or so (I've done a few just contemplating it), so it's a bit of a conundrum if you spend too much time thinking about it. And, on the flip side, we'd really have to bank on it happening immediately. Tricky. Nevermind an elevated chance of multiple birth *faint*

This first year has been such a challenge, and although we expected it to be hard, we have no idea what was before us this time last year.

We expected a baby to cry, a lot, but didn't expect it for 6, 12, 16 hours straight many days, for months. We expected our activities to be restricted, but didn't expect that life would come to a complete stop again and again as we spent days and weeks studying him and adapating to what he was communicating he wanted or needed, or coping with the fall-out if we failed to work that out (or, of course, if there was no working it out at all). We didn't imagine that if we did take him out for a while, to visit, or shop, or whatever, he would would scream for hours because he overstimulates quickly and wouldn't or couldn't settle during or afterwards, or that he just wouldn't sleep (not because he didn't need to, he just seemed completely unable to shut down for sleep). I expected to be feeding every 3 to 4 hours or whatever is normal, but it didn't cross my mind that I'd be feeding every hour to 2 hours for months and we wouldn't be able to get him onto a bottle, or that he'd basically bellow until he started to crawl. I think it's been unusual - it's definitely been incredible, and exhausting.

Crawling has been such an awesome milestone here, for so many reasons, but especially because it was the start of things for us really - we went from coping and managing to managing and enjoying and loving. The kid has such a sunny personality it's almost bizzare what a pain in the ass he was (very, very adored pain in the ass of course). I blame the gingerness. Gingerness is evil. I might ask if I can have a non-ginger kid the next time, and maybe a girl (she won't eat as much). That could work. I feel comfortable with that.

We really think he came into the world wanting to be on the move and doing, and the first 8 months was us living through his frustration at not being able to do it. He literally changed over night when he started to crawl. I remember saying to the husband that I was having an awesome day with the kidlet and wouldn't it be incredible if that day was every day? And then the next day was good, and I said to the husband that it was going to be absolutely horrible when he crashed post-awesome stint. But he didn't. He just kept going, so much easier than he was only days before. All because of crawling, because that was the only thing that changed in our world.

It's a surprise how restricting he still is mind you, because he's such a routine kid (note to self - be careful how loudly you declare that you're not going to have a kid bound to a routine bla bla because said kid may have veeery different ideas about that) and our days are very determined by that, but such an awesome kid is coming out of it, it's fantastic and our life has adapated to what his needs to be. Plus, being restricted is very different and much easier to deal with than the challenges of that first 8 months, the memory of which is still very fresh.

I found myself falling into the trap too of judging myself in terms of what I think other people think which is a dangerous thing because kids are so individual the only other parent who can appreciate what you're up against is your partner in crime, and the lender of the other 50% of the kid's genetic make up (incidentally, since I'm a delight, that means the husband lent all the blastardly difficult genes in the case of Cuinn. Obviously).

Anyway for all that, we're coming out the other side - I just need more time out the other side, to brace myself for doing that first year again. Just in case.

Weirdly, now that making that decision isn't worrying me at all, I even have days where I feel a sense of anticipation (to say excitement is to be incredibly silly) and I can imagine the kid, who has enough mischief for 10 kids, creating mischief with another kid, and it's kind of ... interesting. The vacuum cleaner and spray and wipe are shuddering, but they'll live.

And, of course, as we've discovered, even if it's really horrible it is over soon enough. I've just negotiated a discount on furniture to set up Cuinn's big boy room. The plan is to hold out as long as possible before shifting him into a bed, but have it all set up so he can get used to it being there (he's very much an everything-in-it's-place, don't mess with my routine kid) and then we'll ease him into having day sleeps (a theory dependant on actually having day sleeps of course) and then shifting completely. I'll post pics once we have the stuff. Next week!!

The last thing I never believed could be, was how amazingly much I would love this kid. Who knew there was that much love in the world, let alone in a person? Horrible, tricky, mischevious, sleep-deprived little monster.


This is where I found the little toad the day before yesterday when he disappeared about 10 seconds after I'd sighted him playing with puzzles in his room - I'd left the child gate open, got distracted briefly in the kitchen, and in the meantime he'd taken himself down the back steps (4 of them. Onto concrete) and made his way out onto the back lawn to play with the dogs. It gives me heart failure to see him on those steps, but he has a system that seems to work, so I leave him to it and just stay close and bite my nails.

ARRRRRR me 'earties!

Al and I found these (wall art stickers - peel off vinyl) yesterday and put them up in the bathroom last night for Cuinn - a little extra something for bath time. We thought they were pretty cool, and it seems he's of much the same mind as he's 3 times taken himself off to the bathroom this morning after the initial discovery to just look at them and 'talk' to them. Quite pleased, all in all, and they were only 9 bucks. Yay!

Little boy, so much depends on ...

... your big cardboard box.

And the rest of the packaging too, of course.

(Little Boy by Alison McGhee - one of Cuinn's favourite books. Read almost every day)

In which the kitty decides she's too old for this crap

Reading between the ... err ... lines ... I think what the cat was trying to say was, no Cuinn, my paws won't come off, no matter how hard you pull them.

On being a kid, on being a boy and on growing up

A few days ago, I was doing something in the kitchen while the kid puddled around in the doorway to the hallway fiddling with his Dad's work bag and just hanging out. The next thing I could hear giggling down the hallway, so I stuck my head around the doorway to see what mischief was afoot and found that the kidlet had located his Dad's lunchbox, liberated a scone, and was happily feeding it to the dog who was very happily eating every last crumb.


I really don't know what people with kids who don't have dogs do. Last night, as I observed the dogs clean up the rice pudding that was dripping down the walls courtesy of the child (I'm so glad they're open to new and interesting ways of having their leftovers served), I realised how much more cleaning up would have to be done without them. Then again, I guess that'd be the trade off of not having to worry about extra exercise to wear off everything from marmite toast to smashed banana, corn crackers to weetbix.

The kid absolutely hates having his face and hands wiped after eating, and quickly discovered that it was much less tragic to let the dogs have a go first to get the worst of it off.

And we discovered that it was much less tragic cleaning up the high chair tray if WE let the dogs have a go first to get the worst of it off. The white bits all over Jess are either rice pudding or chicken. I can't remember. Either way, there are ways of dealing with that as well without much input from us.

Heh. An excellent reason to have TWO dogs.

The way a kid's feet should be. Of course, you can also imagine what his clothes look like, but that's why washing machines were invented.

He was all about pulling out his Dad's herbs (at least I think there were herbs in there. They might have been weeds. They weren't growing so well anyway, whatever they were), transferring dirt onto the back step, and then further transferring it into the dogs' water bucket.

I took this to try and capture the whopping egg on his head (above his right eye) from head butting the bookcase the night before last. He'd done 3 days without really sleeping and was so completely bollocksed all his co-ordination and strength to move about was pretty much gone. Hence the deep and meaningful with the bookshelf not long before bed time. Plus, he looks so cute with I have no idea what all over his face and his curly mop standing up everywhere.

Practising walking.

Chaos, thy name is Cuinn

I'm not even going to look for the last time I posted. And I mean posted, not just threw some photos up as I ran past the computer doing any number of other things. And by run, I mean literally. It's getting a bit ridiculous I think when one's hands are so full one is actually running from one end of the house to the other to get things done, but I do. Often. Not any more.

Unless, of course, it's a situation a bit like this morning wherein the kidlet who had been happily towing the husband's Sennheiser headphones around the lounge suddenly gets a thoughtful look on his face and then takes off, headphones firmly grasped in hand, up the hallway like he's got a devil on his tail, in the direction of the dogs' water bowl in the bathroom. One can only assume that the fate of the headphones had I not managed to grab them in time would have been something along the lines of what the bath mat had already suffered - a bath.

Anyway, posting. I was turning over all things bloggy (well, all things my bloggy) the other day as I was fidgeting over the hiatus a favourite blog had taken (ok, in all honesty, at the moment it's the only blog in my world and it's only managing to be followed because it's mainly pictures. Thank heavens for pictures) over the holiday period and feeling just a wee tad abandoned and unloved and my thoughts curled back to here. My poor, neglected blog. Woops.

I was thinking that I really only have 2 choices - shut the blog down to pics and commentary only, or start writing again. I don't want to shut it down, so that left one option. Start writing. Try and think in a straight line. Try to then write in a straight line. Give it a whirl. Be determined. Beee ... bloggy. Worth a go at the very least - it can't get much more useless anyway, can it?

Still, never mind, to get back into the groove there should be a lovely anxiety laden post or two coming right up while I swallow rescue remedy by the bottle-full as I contemplate family matters. Specifically, that we were advised to get another kidlet underway when Cuinn is 18 months. Cuinn is a year in a couple of weeks. Which leaves me another 6 months. Less till booking it in. To that of course, in case you're wondering, it's a resounding HELL no, but you know, thought has to be given for to the when in that case, and that scares the crap out of me, so there you go. I shall talk around and around in circles in front of you, my apparently very loyal (and bored too I imagine) audience.

We want Cuinn to have a sibling, and the intention is to give Cuinn a sibling, if for no other purpose than to try and absorb some of the energy the manic little ginger gives off from morning till night, but I can say that without a doubt this has been the hardest, most challenging year of my life, and doing that to myself again, quite deliberately, gives me the shudders by the bucket load. Nice'n'selfish.

Maybe the next kid won't be ginger ...? I'm sure half the problem is the gingerness ... Blinking gingers.

Oh! Oh! Before I go any further, there is a blog and a website that you absolutely must go and looksee at:

The Sartorialist and The Book Depository

The Sartorialist needs no introduction, nor blathering. He is what he is, and that is awesome. He makes me want to get on a plane, and be sitting somewhere in Italy with coffee, watching people go by. If you know me, you'll appreciate the impressiveness of me wanting to get on a plane anywhere. Such is the magic he weaves though, and of course, I'd want to go there with an empty Mastercard for after I've finished my coffee. Heh. I've collected his book too, and I've been pouring. Yay for pictures!

The Book Depository is similarly awesome, but in a buy-your-books-sooooo-much-cheaper kind of way. There's a book I've been salivating over for some time after spotting it sitting beautifully on a shelf at Sabato promising me all manner of deliciousness, if I only purchased it and starting churning out yummies. Except it was 85 bucks give or take, so delicious yes, but hiiiideously expensive (I know. I'm amused at my horror too. It's only a ladle and a bit, but I am a changed woman (ish). One that's just had to put 2 new tyres on the car. Ouch), so off I trundled to the interweb and looked up The Book Depository after Pal Mel recommended it to me, and booya! The book is on its way for I think it was about $43.00. Wicked! It was 95 bucks at Whitcoulls. Mwah ha Whitcoulls! Very thieving of you to wallop the price up by bucket loads like that. The free shipping helped with the purchase cost, but the current exchange rate needs a jolly good nod too. I think The Sartorialist set me back about 30 bucks to the NZ 55. Presents for me!

So, where was I going with any of this? Beats me. My wiggling line of thought just hit a wall.

I think I might go and cheer the husband on - he's currently Fort Knoxing a few cupboards around the house. I think the close call with his expensive earphones lit a wee fire under his ass.

Mwah!