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Monday 30 March 2009

Boo!

I know! It's a blog post! An actual blog post! With writing! Not just pictures! In theory ... if I get to finish it ...

Seriously, I started this post 3 days ago and so far all I've managed to do is upload 2 photos and start to complain that stalking Plunket is getting very old (they were supposed to make their first visit to us at 5 weeks. Cuinn was 9 weeks last Friday), and we still haven't managed a home visit yet ... or even managed to make contact with a nurse come to that (although one did park at the end of the driveway for about 5 minutes the other day, before driving off never to be seen again), just a babboon at the end of the phone who doesn't seem to be able to tell her arse from her elbow. Taking into consideration that they appear to be absolute morons, I'm really given to wonder what is to be achieved in making contact anyway? Yes they weigh and measure the kid, but a set of bathroom scales can't be that expensive, and I have a tape measure. How hard can it be? As for seeing if I've gone mental (I have no idea if they care that I may or may not be going mental - in fact, I actually have absolutely no idea what they're supposed to do at all), that's pretty much a given, so I can save them a job there too.

What else? ... What else ...?

Ah yes. The kid still won't sleep during the day. We managed an excellent zizz at coffee group last Wednesday morning for about an hour and that was the last time that happened (although, having said that, I've just gotten an hour out of him this morning. There will only be an hour though as hollering has just set in), and night time is a complete shambles - night feeds slide by any margin up to about 5 hours, and sometimes happen once, sometimes happen twice. Excellent. So, this week we're staying home, no adventuring, and we're working on day sleeps. Although I've decided to throw freaking out about routines to the wind and free-form it according to what the kid tells me he needs, following the basic indications he gives me, unfortunately for him, said basic indications involve a morning sleep, and he fights that like the dickens, regardless of the fact that meltdowns (Him. And me sometimes) ensue if he doesn't give in. I'm still pretty happy about the nights, even though they're viciously unpredictable, but the days do need sorting. Did I tell you I get evenings now too? The munchkin goes to bed at about 7pm, so not only do Al and I manage to get a hot dinner each, we also manage a hot dinner without ringing ears.

Awesome.

Oh. And Daddy was perfectly able to change nappies after the dire hand injuury incident (incidentally, it was only dire because of the no nappy changing potential, so he lived another day.

And with that, I'm going to throw this wee update, in so far as it is an update, up before I get stymied again, and work on a proper entry in the next day or two.

Stories with Daddy.


Doing what he does best - chewing on Daddy's hands and drooling. It's very important to note that not any old hands will do, they must be Daddy's. Somthing to do with that residual jet fuel taste.


Thursday 26 March 2009

The loving wife

I sent the husband a text message at 4.20am this morning, to say that it was funny how in just 9 short weeks, I've gone from a girl who thinks 10 hours of sleep is nowhere near enough, to feeling like I've been on a 14 day cruise through the Mediterranean after 5.

He text me back at 4.22am from A & E to say he'd cut his hand at work, had had to get it seen to and would be home soon.

I, of course, had the perfectly reasonable immediate thought of ...

Shite. I hope he can still change nappies.

Hehe.

In my defence, the man No. 8 wires absolutely everything including himself, so it really wasn't worth wondering whether it was very bad. If he'd actually had someone see to it, it was messy. I'm yet to have a look at it to see whether he can actually still change nappies - I was a bit busy pretending to be asleep when he got home so I wouldn't have to view the gory paw.

Friday 20 March 2009

Play mat time is awesome

For GrannIE and Pop, and all fans of the Little Ginger. And for those of you that have hung with the Little Ginger - proof that he actually does do cheerful! It isn't doctored. I swear!

Wednesday 18 March 2009

Ooooooo ... DING! Light bulb goes on.

I've just had an epiphany.

I think.

An epiphany is a moment of insight isn't it?

If not, I've just had a whatever. (A moment of insight perhaps?)

Anyway - I was just having a conversation with my poor demented mother (Her words. I just agree) about the baby kidlet and the non-sleeping, grizzling (just as an aside - what is with their preference for crapping in a clean nappy? Or, even worse, all over the change table/floor/wall/you as soon as you take a dirty nappy off?) and the proverbial penny dropped. Well, possibly. It may have rolled into a gutter and dropped into a storm drain, but it's possible I've got a sanity-preserving plan.

Watch this space.

In which you get to share (please, please, pleeeease!)

I'm on about routines again. Or still. Or, not really even routines at all, I just wonder how your daily lives with baby kidlets played out.

The night waking thing for feeds was disastrous. We tried, but he hated it and I hated it. We don't do multiple night wakings, either of us (also, my Dr said that for goodness sake, if you have crap days, why on earth are you deliberately giving yourself crap nights? Energy has to be gotten from somewhere. Huh. Interesting point). He seems to like going to bed earlier, and 8pm seems to be the happy slot. Bath, feed, in bed around 8pm. 2am or so after that seems to be a good time to wake for a night feed, meaning he's up and about again around 6-7am. It's very weird that are nights are awesome but our days are a major challenge.

So, I'm lost. We just can't quite get the hang of. We have a vague outline, but nothing at all reliable. Cuinn tends to be up after his first morning feed for around 45 minutes to an hour, and then has a sleep. In theory. Said sleep can be anything from 10 minutes to about 3 hours. The shorter the sleep, the more grizzles-slash-hollering. Anything after that sleep, regardless of the length of time, is complete free form and usually the afternoons and early evening are hard work. We take him for a walk with the dogs which is usually around an hour to an hour and a half and he snoozes then, so we try to do it late afternoon when he really needs a zzzzz.

It may just be that he's a kid that can't be put into a sleep pattern and he'll sleep as and when he feels like it. It may also be that he just wants to hang out. But, based on very predictable and consistent meltdowns, my gut tells me I'm missing something. Bollocksing something up.

Feeds tend to start around 2 hourly, unless he's had/having a sleep, in which case they push out, but of course that 2 hourly thing can also affect the length of sleep. My Dr suggested to me yesterday that he's not actually feeding so much as drinking, which could be the case - he's a hot, sweaty kid, and he sleeps better, feeds less etc in cooler temperatures eg. at night. Dunno. Everything is guess work and then some.

So, share. What did you do? How did you do it?

And, I really want to know, what did you do with your baby kidlets while they were awake? I wonder if I'm too in his face, and trying too hard to interact with him and keep him interested ... maybe he just needs to hang out, or learn to hang out? I need to be able to go to the loo, make a cup of tea, eat breakfast, get some lunch, whatever else activity involves being able to put the baby down and won't result in the house being yelled down every time a coconut. It wears on my nerves some. But, maybe he's bored. Or maybe he's completely the opposite and over stimulated ...

Or, of course, Mummy just needs to chill and go with the flow. That's always a possibility.

In the meantime, Mummy is going to toddle off, make the cup of tea she's been waiting aaaall morning for. Yay for cups of tea! Stay asleep baby boy ... stay asleeeeeeep!

(Oh, good. He heard me willing him to stay asleep and just woke up. Bah! Still, at least he let me get the blog post out first. Good little man!)

Monday 16 March 2009

I knew there were more photos around here somewhere

There's also a lovely shallow blog post brewing after I managed to sit down and pour through Fashion Quarterly, Vogue and Simply You magazines, but it's still in the brewing stage. These things take time now that my brain is a non-functioning organ ...

I feel like a spectacularly clever mum today (yesterday I was very ready to hand in my licence to operate) - I managed to get Cuinn's morning feed right (as in, not over feed him/bugger up his winding so he ended up either colicky or power-barfing excess milk in all directions) and I managed to read his tired signs and get him into bed at just the right time! Weeee! I don't think I have ever been on such a steep learning curve in my life. Tired signs are tricky little suckers - if you miss the window in either direction it's absolute chaos, and I'm always screwing it up. Try and put him down too early and it's game over, but miss that window before it's too late and that's it for the rest of the day usually. And if you try to put him down too early, it's usually only just too early so he's too busy yelling about being put down too early to be successfully put down when it's not. Yeesh. Yesterday I got it spectacularly wrong, as well as over-filling him and I swear that the walls of the house were vibrating with the yelling.

Still, clever mummy today or not, I did burn the hot cross bun I was just toasting which is utterly tragic ... but that's neither here nor there as far as minute parenting success goes. It only makes me a crap parent when I burn the kid's hot cross bun, and it was the last one.

Right. Photos.

What happens when Daddy dresses the baby


Post-feed happy face (not even remotely helpful for burping)


Jack doing nappy check (awesome things happen in nappies after a feed when you're a dog)


And the best shoulders in the world apparently


(Also - I forgot that I set the photos to large for the mirror shots last time, but I can't be bothered re-uploading them to a smaller size and someone is due to wake for lunch, so I doubt I've got time either. I'm vaguely apologetic, but only vaguely. I'm trying out a new bed-time/night time routine which is leading to increased sleep deprivation temporarily (I hope temporarily) so I'm too snoozy to be very enthused about being apologetic)

Wednesday 11 March 2009

The dark side of baking

Oh yes, there most definitely is one!

Everyone whispers about how it's cheaper, it tastes better than store-bought, it's more environmentally friendly (no packaging as such and all that goes with that), it's transparent in that you know exactly what's gone into it ... so many good things about baking that make you want to embrace your inner cookie/cake/slice producer.

But. That dark side. Oh, my friends. The cunning evil that lurks just around the corner when you look for that recipe that you just feeling like making today.

People don't talk about when you come across a classic recipe that turns something out the way that something always should have been but you've never experienced it, and that said something will delight your senses so much you will eat the entire batch of whatever it is, even though you know how much butter and sugar was involved. Conscience means nothing.

Who knew ginger crunch could actually be crunchy? Skinny crunchy ginger crunch with just a hint of ginger icing on top ... it's no wonder I don't fit my clothes.

(On an unrelated topic - my kid woke me up at 3.30am this morning for a feed. Which was fine. Except, by the time I stumbled up the hall to mix up his colic powder and then stumbled back down to his room, tripping over both guard dogs along the way, he decided he wasn't hungry after all and he'd see me in another 2 hours, thanks all the same. Very uncool behaviour that. He only gets to live another day because he giggled at me when I changed his nappy when he eventually did get up.)

(On another unrelated topic. Or, unrelated to the main topic, related to unrelated bracketed above ... They tell you not to shake a baby, which, for all intents and purposes seems sensible advice, but how does one tell a baby not to shake itself? We took Cuinn to the park last night, and after a bit of a cool breeze got up, we put a hat on him for the first time (he looked like a smurf. Very cute, but of course we failed to get a photo. We're useless), while he was asleep in his front pack. He woke as we were getting in the car, decided he had a strong aversion to the hats and since he has no co-ordination whatsoever to deal with it, he just started shaking his head furiously from side to side in the hope that that would dislodge it. The hat that is, not the head, although potentially it could have also dislodged the head, he was shaking it that hard. Very funny)

(And what the hell - spectacularly dreadful photos (even worse, I had to make them huge so you can see. Sort of), unflattering to hell and back, I have no idea how to deal with red-eye and the background is a tip, but check out Cuinn poking at and laughing at himself n(well, potentially both are at me, but there is laughing and poking and that's the point - kiddly development!) in the mirror.
)

Monday 9 March 2009

When all else fails, just hope that CYFS aren't peeking in the window

I've just about nailed it I think. It's been a process of trying all sorts of different things to manage feeds and the resultant colicky bouts and terrible crying, but so far today he's had his morning feed and he's two hours into the day, comfortable and asleep. We tried his cot twice (disastrous) but he seems to need something softer and more comforting in the mornings when he's feeling his worst. This has worked before when he was reeally little and fell asleep during a feed when he also wasn't feeling too good sooo ... At least he is lying on his back! Sort of.

Let's just hope that the sleeping through the night thing keeps up even with a day snooze and isn't the result of simple exhaustion come the end of the day - he's been so easy to put to bed at night, I almost don't want to acknowledge it in case it stops! The only drawback is that although he sleeps through the night, I'm completely screwed. It's all very well and good for him to do a 7-8 hour stretch in the night, but my boobs are used to feeding ever 2-3 hours during the day, so I end up in the most vicious pain imaginable (you know, having gone through 98% of labour, that just sounds completely naff now and I know I'm exaggerating horribly) and having to get rid of milk 2-3 times a night and still waking up in a puddle by the time he eventually wakes for his feed. No damn way I'm waking him up before he's ready though. Bollocks to that!



Looking a bit bigger on his play mat than he used to. A few more weeks and he should be able to give those toys the bash.


Spot the problem. She'll only sleep there, or behind the pillow (so the pillow is between her and Cuinn) BUT what I'm not sure about is if he stopped breathing, the sensor in his monitor would pick up hers and therefore the alarm wouldn't go off.


Both of these pics were yesterday afternoon during some bare butt time on the lounge floor (which was covered with several towels, I can assure you!). I was trying to get a pic of the mass of smiles he was throwing out, but I only seemed to get the tail end, where it looked more like he was trying to do a poo. As it happens, he was building up to an almighty wee ... You've got to be quick when he fire-hoses one of those out I can tell you. He very, very nearly got himself in the face (actually, it's probably a pity he didn't get himself up his nose ... it probably would have cleared some snot ...). He really was having the most marvellous time though. And both dogs were waiting in the wings just in case he made ... erm ... uh ... treats for puppies?

Saturday 7 March 2009

Bless you hot chocolate that arrived in the post

Bless you a thousand times. You have been savoured and adored, I assure you.

You know how burglar alarms have screamers or whatever else installed which are designed to be so loud that they scatter thought and therefore make thinking through a burglary near impossible? Aside from alerting anyone within a 10 miles radius. Ever tried to turn off a screaming burglar alarm and find that you can hardly string your access code together?

Turns out babies aren't much different. Apparently their full-on cry can reach something like 120 decibels and on a hearing chart, that sits near the top for a deafness-inducing noise level when sustained. Never mind the inability to think thing.

So, when I tell you that said noise was to be heard in our house on Monday for 16 hours straight, on Thursday for 5 hours straight, and yesterday for 7 hours straight, you'll hopefully forgive me for the several times this week that I've sat down to do a blog post and found myself staring at the screen instead wondering what on earth a blog is, let alone what to write on one.

It's been fun.

Tuesday, bless, he slept all day. Exhausted from Monday's effort no doubt. Today appears to be starting well, cross fingers, touch wood, throw an entire container of salt over my shoulder, step away from the mirrors, find a four leaf clover (even if that involves finding a two leaf clover and taking a good slug of whisky to turn it into a four leaf one) ... and anything else that may help. He went to sleep easily just before 10pm, slept until just before 5am (!!!!!!!!!!!), had his night feed and is just in his wake up cycle now.

An update will follow soon, I promise. I even had an adventure out of the house the other day! An OB visit in which plans were made for doing this again (said plans have been reviewed several times in the days since of course - along the lines of NUH UH!! Not on your LIFE!!), lunch was had out, in a civilised and Divine fashion, and the Cuinn kid was a dream. It was a sharp contrast to our previous adventure, which I don't think I told you about, where he hollered the house down for 10 hours solid once we got home and I ended up sobbing that I was never, ever going to leave the house again. Ever. Ever ever. Ever.

Jack is healing well - he ended up with about a dozen stitches from what I can count and is currently extremely depressed from not being walked for a week. One week down, one week to go. Poor puppy.

Jazz had to go to the vet during the week as well (yes, we have dropped about $800.00 at our vets in a week. Awesome) - she had cancer on her nose, so had to have that burned off. Hopefully, she'll be fine from here on in, but she'll be getting regular checks to make sure. Poor kitty.

Jess is perfectly fine and is currently sleeping in the rain.

Ahhhh ... the timing! Guess who's awake? Loudly ...

See you!