July already? Time for a quickie update

We're finally on fast internet. We had to go satellite (scowls at Telecom) - expensive, but worth it. We also went wireless, so now there's a computer in the lounge & that means not having to wait til Brae's at kindy or Wayne is home to look after him so I can get work/study done.

Wayne is ecstatic at being able to sit on Trade Me without his wife nagging him about tying up the phone line. He's also rapt at not having to make a coffee when waiting for listings to load.

Brae continues to catch up then some. He's at a new preschool now, a Montessori one that is double the driving time to the previous kindy, but "Monte school" suits his temperament & boredom levels better. He's making friends, & his spelling, reading & writing is coming along gangbusters.

I won't go into detail, but let's just say I wish the new centre had been open years ago.

Weight loss slowed a bit, but still coming off. Good thing it's slow, otherwise I'd resemble a Shar Pei by now (the Rolly dog on the toilet paper ad).

Hopefully I'll be back in the saddle within the month - work, study, weather & confidence permitting.

We've decided NOT to sell. Brae is happy & settled at the new establishment, we've finally "broken in" to the district & been accepted as locals, plus it's very well suited to horses here. Wayne offering to tear down the shade-house & build me a full sized dressage arena plus finish off the round arena didn't hurt my agreement to stay ;-)

Summer won't be as torturous now that we ditched the log fire & put in a heat pump. Just the thought of needing air conditioning seems bizarre in these days where we're very fortunate if it approaches double figures on the thermometer.

Wayne's nagging at me to check the renovation stuff on his watchlist, so I suppose I'd better get my butt off here & let the poor frozen bloke in for a surf. Seems only fair - he's spent the entire day freezing his butt off, butchering the last cow.

Btw, if you didn't get the email with my new email addy, let me know.

Cya!

The big op, and "That" question...

Brae had his operation two weeks ago today, and all went better than we expected. He got sick of waiting & threw an almighty tanty in the kids' waiting room, and I noticed most of the other parents were giving us the "Thank god it's not my child" grin.

Which of course had the domino effect, and most of the kids took a turn in being grumpy. You get a room full of hungry, bored, over-tired kids and you must expect a few complaints :-)

After the op (35 minutes of cold waiting torture for his parents) we were taken to see him in recovery. He had his own nurse (all the kids did) which was great, but had it's downside too. I saw the shunt in the back of Brae's hand and said "You'd better remove that fast before he wakes up, otherwise he's going to freak and rip it out".

"No", she replied, "it must stay there in case we have to take him back into surgery. He could start bleeding and we'd have to act quickly."

"Well," (I countered), "a sure-fire way to get him upset, screaming, and likely to start bleeding is if he wakes up & sees that in his hand."

She wouldn't budge. I'm not knocking the nurse - I realise it was more than her job was worth to buck the system, but sheesh... the system should recognise that parents really know their kids' triggers. (And given that this kid's mother woke up in hospital aged approx 13, and ripped out her drip before anyone could stop her was kinda relevant, don't you agree?)

Another 20 minutes passed, and they had to wake Braeden up. (tickle a tissue under the nose to imitate a fly.. awesome how well it worked, must remember that)

He stirred... looked around blearily, looked at his hand.... RIP!

It came half out, the nurse made a grab, Brae started yelling at the top of his lungs.

Blood everywhere. And yes, they eventually did take the ruddy thing out because it was past the point of no return. Brae still has a massive bruise on the back of his hand from the ruckus.

Somehow I managed not to say "I told you so" with anything more than my eyes. Probably because my mouth and the rest of me was working overtime to calm down and restrain our hysterical and now very sore son.

Blood staunched (from his hand, luckily none from his nose or throat or ears), cleaned up, we were moved to the post-op waiting room for observation. Three hours later we were allowed to leave. One of the children in the waiting room kept telling the other parents "Shut up, be quiet, you're too loud!". A bit of a clue that the grommets did in fact make quite a dramatic difference to the children's hearing.

That night when we got home, Brae heard a plane fly overhead and for the first time he could tell the direction the sound came in. Each day we hear:

"What's that noise!??" (that's the birds in the aviary)

"What's that noise!??" (the washing machine in spin cycle)

"What's that noise!??" (the fax machine picking up a call)

and so on.

Poor wee man... he's living in a whole different world. Kindy worry that he's more subdued than before his op until I pointed out that he's actually hearing all the other kids now, and is having to learn how to tune their voices out. Something the rest of us take for granted.

His speech is coming right along, helped by the improvement in hearing and also by having much more room to flex his tongue now that the adenoids are gone. He's gone from a mumbly little part-time chattermonkey to a full time question-and-soapbox marathon. Child holds forth on all manner of things, just about every waking moment.

Can't think who he might have taken after in that regard, can you?

And just last night, he demonstrated that not only his he catching up to his peers, he may be getting a bit ahead of them. I certainly wasn't expecting THIS conversation at 3 and a half!


(Setting the scene... we were watching TV and an article came up on some newborn twins)

"I love babies", Brae announced.
"Would you like a baby brother or sister one day?" I asked.

Brae pondered that for a few moments then nodded "(y). . ess."

We sat & watched for a little while then he turned to me and asked, "Mummy, where do babies come from?"

(Gasp! Okay.. remember vow to self that you would deal with this honestly but age-appropriately... OMG I thought I'd get some time to prepare for this question)

"Well darling, a mummy grows a baby in her tummy with a bit of help from the daddy. When the baby is ready, it is born. You grew in my tummy for a long time."

Brae looked at me sceptically, looked at my midriff, grinned and said "Nawwwwwwwwwww!"

So I showed him the ultrasound scan pic of his cousin and explained "This part is Aunty Chris's tummy, this is your cousin Lyndon who is growing in his mummy's tummy. See, there's his head, his nose, his hand, his tummy?"

Brae examined the picture critically for some time, then handed it back with a satisfied nod & ran off to play with the toy crane.

Oh man... they grow up too fast!

Driving me mad

The old Toyota is getting ready for a final burial, methinks.

Wayne's resurrected the old girl so many times she could give Lazarus a run for his money. This latest issue is a bit dire; the turbo unit blew up, and there was so much smoke when Wayne called in to pick up Brae from kindy that a teacher came running out with a fire extinguisher!

Time we upgraded to something younger than an 18yo, so we've been hunting up a new (ish!) car. Okay.. newER. We don't **do** new (can't bear throwing away one third of the car's value the moment you leave the lot, and I'm even more allergic to car dealers, ditto Wayne).

So it's looking on Trade Me, of course, and in a bit of a hurry too because Son & Heir has his next hospital appointment on Friday. Several car inspections later, Brae was ready to put his parents on Trade Me, even though there were lots of playground visits to keep our parental credit good.

Then we found **it**. Bit of a process, but Wayne negotiated a great price & the seller to fix things that were wrong before collection. Now we slowly wait for the seller's insurance to cough for the fixes (amazing how often people don't organise this before marketing a house, car or horse and wonder why they take a long time to sell). But hey, it's saving us money so no more grizzling from me. Except I will say that I'm hoping the seller takes the bally ad off TM soon because it's unnerving to see OUR car still being advertised.

No, I don't have 100% faith in human integrity. Que'll surprise! (Yes of course we've made a deposit & have a receipt)

Pity the fools who got up my Motherhood nose yesterday & today ;-)

Yesterday I rang *555 (that's the police/traffic hotline) to report seven people in a car (at least four were children), and no one with seatbelts. Two of the kids were hanging right out the windows, while the teenage driver merrily nattered away on her cellphone.

Today I went in to see the local police personally, after I was nearly eaten (no exaggeration!) by a local yokel's savage pair of Rottweilers.

What kind of pondslime puts two very aggressive male Rotties on the back of a ute with no barriers, harness, muzzles or supervision, then parks said ute on the main street of our small town right outside the butcher's!

I thought I could quietly walk past the dogs (giving them a wide berth) but their barking got very frenzied, and they started "lifting off" (front legs coming up on the ute's wellside, and hindquarters bunching). I'm no idiot - I know "back off or you're lunch" when transmitted in canine stereo.

Another passerby was halted in his tracks too, and we waited for the f*ckknuckle owner to take some notice of the commotion & attend to his dogs.

Thank all the powers that be that no child came up the street at that time!!!!

I had to ring the butcher's in the finish to say "Tell the owner of the snotty rotties to get his backside out here before I ring dog control".

When the facially blinged brainless wonder appeared I asked him why his dogs weren't restrained, and did he realise he was putting people in danger. (and his dogs, for that matter.. Bullets kill).

The mouthful of flippant arrogance he served me was not unexpected. I hardly thought he'd say "Oh my! I'm so sorry, I'll never do it again. Bad doggies!".

So off I trotted to our local bobby, and I gather I quite made his day. The young fool was duly identified by his picture, and the impression was gained that the police were not particularly fond of this dude, and were delighted to have a reason to tug his ear.

Wayne (for once) was not mortified by my confrontational habits, as he witnessed the whole thing & agreed those dogs were a dead or badly injured child waiting to happen. I had to snort at his helpful advice on how to save yourself if attacked by a Rottie. Apparently you shove your fist down their throat as fast & as far as it will go.

Riiiiiiight! ;-)

Quick pix

First up, here's Brae sleeping in a position that only a young child could manage without first booking a chiropractor.


Yes, there's still a dummy. We've been advised to keep this habit going until well after his op, so it's not a priority.


(notice the figurines lined up on the bed head.. These are quite conversationally grouped, but if it's cars, etc, they have to be ******exactly******* lined up facing forward, perfectly aligned.





More than a touch of autism somewhere in this kid, I still suspect ;-)


...oo0oo...




The next pic was taken in late February, at my niece/best mate's wedding. That's me on the left (10kg heavier than now, yee gods check out the mega-knockers!) clutching Brae who in turn is clutching a bag of Munchos. These were supposed to bribe him into silence during the wedding formalities, but of course he can be heard loudly proclaiming on the video "What dat, Dad? What happen? Why, Dad? Where Mum, Dad? Whatchudooooing?"

Being fairly deaf, he's quite (ahem) loud.

Almost as loud was my sister Launa (far right) shushing him, LOL. Of course it didn't make the slightest bit of difference. It never does ;-)



In the middle of the pic is Chris, the beautiful bride herself, and that nice little bump under her bouquet is Braeden's cousin who is due in August!

I'd post more wedding pix, but Chris hasn't seen this batch herself yet, so that wouldn't be fair.

(Cept she's probably reading this now and saying "That BITCH!". As long as she's laughing while she's loading the rifle, I'll probably escape with minor flesh wounds)

Shadow of our former selves

I wasn't going to let slip about this, but seeing Wayne's fat & fluffy picture below cracked me up.

We've been dieting, y'see. Figure it's bad enough the sprog has old farts for parents; it's not fair he should have fat old farts.

Wayne's lost 10kg, and is nicely svelte. No "puku" (Mamabeek that's Maori for tummy) in sight, and if I was to excavate under the beard I'd probably have trouble finding a double chin ;-) I've told him to stop losing weight otherwise he'll resemble an orangutan with his muscular arms.

I've dropped 15kg so far, and 2-3 jeans sizes (depending on the brand, some jeans lie about their stages). This is the skinniest I have been since the '80's. At this rate I should be reduced enough to get seriously back in the saddle by my birthday in July. I have ridden at 10kg fatter than I am now, but it felt horrible. All weak and wobbly, with lots of pain.

{Or at least, that's what my horse said, and I had to agree}

I won't tell you how much more I want to lose, but let's just say it's considerable and leave it at that.

A mate and I want to do the Goldfields Cavalcade http://cavalcade.co.nz/ next Feb, so it's fatties a-weigh!

No, we will be riding our HORSES, but thank you for your concern ;-)

Oooh can't wait to go riding again! After 10 years living out here in the boonies, I'll have to get some quiet country road riding in before we sell up & shift.

Or at least that's the plan. If I happen to get (and stay) pregnant before then, all bets are off.

'ear 'ear what's this then?

Oh the fun and games with kids who need grommets.

Finally got through the waiting list, and the operation for grommets + adenoid removal was booked for last Friday. Braeden caught chicken pox (prob from me.. that's another story) over Easter but that was a two-day wonder with maybe 40 spots.

Some people aren't really trying ;-) I was out for the count for two weeks and had hundreds of the buggers. At least three good facially scarring ones - gotta love the deep sod in the middle of my forehead. I could fit a sizeable ruby in that sucker!

But I digress.

We were still on track for the Big Op when suddenly Tuesday morning I was called to Kindy because Brae developed a fever at lightning speed, and the ambulance needed to be called. Much drama later, the doctor diagnosed rapid-onset tonsilitis, and said "Ring the hospital, the operation can't go through."

So I did, and they said "No worries, the op's still on. See you Friday."

Friday rolled around and we starved His Majesty as instructed (turned out much less horrific than we thought), and he passed all his pre-op tests. But the anaesthetist & surgeon decided that no, it was too close to his earlier malady to risk cross infection, so home we came again.

They said we can get re-sheduled for about two weeks time. I reckon they just told us that to get us to leave without having to call security ;-)

But hey, I've been wrong before!

Brae had a WONDERFUL time at the hospital - they have cool toys in the kids' waiting room, plus a TV with a stack of DVD's to request.

Thing is, the double dose of paracetemol they gave him before the "op that didn't happen" meant he fell asleep when we got home at 4pm, and stayed that way until 3am the next day. This set the pattern for a weekend from hell, sleep wise. Managed to get him back to something resembling normalcy last night, whew!

I don't "do" 3am-6.30am playdates!

Quickie update... I have three days to get a big assignment in & I haven't really started putting keyboard to Word yet, so I'll try to be brief.

Mamabeek - grommets are little drains that are surgically implanted in the eardrum to allow it to, well, drain :-) They make a tiny nick, suction out any gluey stuff, insert the grommets & hey presto. All fixed!

Well.. for 6-9 months, anyway ;-)

Then the grommets pop out & the eardrum heals over. Often this proceedure needs repeating around the age of 6, but if Brae can have ONE good winter I'm sure he'll more than make up the ground he's lost.

Presently investigating speech therapy for him. And want to get him into swimming lessons too. I'm so aggravated about this - there was a local private swim school but they wouldn't take under 3's so we waited.. waited. Then one month shy of Brae's 3rd birthday, they closed up & went elsewhere!

Now I find that only an extra 20minutes drive is another private swim school, and this one teaches them from BIRTH! Dammit! Might have to make the toss up as to which we can afford; speech or swim. Hard decision - one could save his life, but at the expense of his talking? Ah well, who needs to eat ;-)

Re renovations - Master Bedrom is complete! That's all three bedrooms in the house finished, and they look amazing. The canary yellow sponged over with cream that we painted the office in still freaks out 4 people out of 5 (you either loathe it or love it), so I guess that's going to have to be toned down before sale.

Btw the piccy at the top was taken approx 4 months ago (pre-haircut), on our bed when it was in the dining room. It's rather hard to read when you have a limpet ;-)

Be well :-)

Christmas 2008 photo

Okay so we like Santa this year! What a handsome wee dude :-)

Another year already? Must be time for an update

The main reason I haven't had time to update is because basically I have no life :-)

Brae takes up most of my hours, which is as it should be. Then there's study, work, wifeliness and somewhere there's even a bit of sleep. And then there's the oversensitivity that I developed last year re the Grumblemunchkin because I got so sick of people telling me how to raise my kid.

First it was Kindy - because I want Brae to stay at this kindy & his friends, I won't say too much except thank GODS he's now on the big kids side, and that we were proved right that his "attitude" was a direct result of being bored out of his gourd. That's what happens when the move on up is based on chronological age, not child-readiness. But last year saw us having to trot Brae to a behavioural specialist because kindy said "we can't control him" and hinted quite strongly that we had a budding serial killer on our hands.

Turns out he's a perfectly normal kid, as far as "normal" goes, and that the issues he does have are explainable, understandable, and fixable.

He doesn't speak much/well because he can't hear much/well. So with the help of our Doc & the surgeon, Brae is on the accelerated priority waiting list & hopefully will get grommets by the end of March.

He wouldn't do a thing the "littlies" teachers told him because he had worked out how to play them (play deaf, play dunce, pretend to be semi-vegetative).

Because he didn't talk, some of the other kids were exclusive towards him, and this wasn't helped by Brae talking with his hands (ie a quick shove instead of a verbal "leave me alone"). So he got a bit of a rep for "unkind hands" which soon escalated into him being blamed for every single bit of aggression & child-like behaviour going. I even had a mother bail me up at the toy library one day, and express her displeasure about my son beating up hers.

Thing is, it wasn't Brae but another child who tore into her son, and I can prove it because I just happened to have the video camera with me on the day in question. Not only do I know who the real culprit was, but so did the teacher who witnessed the incident. Brae was roughly 20 feet from the child in question when the fight went down. But I wasn't about to tell this woman her son was telling porkies.

Nor was this situation a one-off, but when you try to set the record straight you get that look.. the one that says "Yeah, of course you would say that...".

As the saying goes, never let the truth get in the way of a good story :-(

Kids are pretty sharp, and when they realise there's a scapegoat available, they will cheerfully dump all over them. That's kids. But I expect adults who are around kids a lot (parents, teachers) to be aware of the wee games kids play & to take a bigger view.

That's why I am very pleased Brae has settled down well on the "big kids" side, especially as it looked for a while like he was going to break my record* & get expelled before his third birthday.

We've had him assessed also by the Ministry of Education teachers who work with 'special needs kids' and they reckon he's okay too.

So last year was the year of people continually saying "there's something wrong with your kid", in many different ways. "Why isn't he talking/toileting/wanting to play with other kids/doing what we tell him/etc etc". And I got a lot sensitive about it. While the criticism of our parenting was a bit on the nose (real or implied), that was a mere niggle compared to any criticism of our kid.

So I'm setting the record straight.

Braeden is a fantastic kid with a rocking sense of humour that is actually more advanced than many adults. He's not stupid - he taught himself to count by 2, and some basic reading by 3. He may or may not hear you, and if he does hear you he might not respond if you talk to him like a baby. But treat him as you would your average 7 year old, and you are getting the idea. If he thinks you're silly enough to be manipulated, he can and will have you jumping through hoops (he even had them opening his yoghurt for him, for goodness sakes! This kid can make his own sandwiches).

And yes, he's got his mother's infamous temper. Unfortunately coupled with a lack of words, it can mean the odd swipe will be the vehicle for his frustration, but a quick trip to the naughty chair soon sorts most things out. If he's still shitty after that, take his temperature because chances are he's coming down with something.

Btw the green snot is a thing of the past - we found the core allergy... to Joey, our African Grey parrot. So Joey moved out to the aviary full time, but she's got the most amazing condo out there, and frankly she seems happier for it. As a result, Brae has only needed one puff of his inhaler in the last four weeks, whereas before he was on three different asthma meds 2-4 times a day, and STILL he was coughing & leaking green snot.

Sorry J-Grey. But we still get out & play with you every day, and miss your witty little comments & wind-ups.

Braeden's latest big lerve is "Imagination Movers". Yeah, pretty good show if you zone out Nina's nasal little-girl voice. It's four blokes in blue overalls, dancing & singing & acting goofy - well DAD wears green overalls, and Braeden loves singing, dancing & acting goofy so what's not to like! Also Mover Dave looks a lot like a younger version of Dad, so that's a bonus :-) (especially for Mum, LOL). Only other gripe is that it's bloody hard for a little guy who can't talk so well to ask for "Imagination Movers". It comes out like "Innahm oofus" but I know what he means (or at least, we worked it out in the end).

Okay ... my five minutes of freedom are just about up for another six months so quick "where are we up to" re the rest of our lives:

Nutters Grove: renovations proceeding at snails-pace, but definitely proceeding. Big new stone wall courtyard now borders the house on two sides, providing a safe place for Brae to play (water race, busy road, livestock etc). Wayne can't wait to get out of here & into the next place, but he can't go any faster than he already is. Pity there's so much to do!

Study going well, although I've slowed it down for the mean time & I'm only doing three papers a year now. Holding on to the A average, although sometimes it's by the skin of my teeth. Still loving it, although I enjoy the "actuals" like statistics, law, accountancy & technology MUCH more than "theoreticals" (read: airy fairy shit) like management, communication & ethics. At this rate I'll get the damn thing finished about a year after Brae gets to school.

Still not pregnant, but having our bed in the dining room for the last year might have a leeeeetle something to do with that. Hard to get in the mood when you could be interrupted at any moment. Also makes it damn hard to sleep between the hours of 5.30am & midnight.

And yesterday we heard some fantabulous news - but it's not mine to share so all I will say is we're very excited (and madly jealous, LOL).

See you in July - or maybe sooner if I can squeeze in five free minutes to myself.




* By the end of my 7th year, I'd been expelled twice from different schools. The usual reasons.. fighting, swearing & telling the Nuns to stuff themselves. As you do... ;-)

Going potty and other blandishments

Wino, when I was pregnant you made the comment that you were looking forward to my feedback about toilet training.

Well, here 'tis :-)

The generally accepted modern wisdom dictates that parents should not rush to toilet train their offspring. The days of holding a newborn over a potty and timing it went out with the ark (apparently.. sorry Mum!). One is now supposed to wait until the child is able to recognise bladder discomfort and/or release, is able to verbally communicate, is able to robe and disrobe (at least the lower garments), and shows an interest in things toiletty.

Oh. Right. Well Brae doesn't make a heck of a lot of sense yet because he's a lazy little sod when it comes to enunciation. And until recently he has resisted the urge to dress or undress himself (or indeed, allow anyone ELSE to change his nappy or clothing).

But all that is changing. Heh heh.. a measure of how fast things change can be illustrated by what Brae did at kindy today.

Wayne went to collect him at midday, only to be told that Braeden was taking a nap in the sunny reading area. Wayne approached, passing a little girl leaning over the railing and gazing intently at our son. Cute? Read on...

Braeden was indeed lying in the sun, but he was a long way from sleeping. He had removed his shoes, socks, trackies and nappy, and was having a marvelous time, a self-indulgent time, if you follow my meaning.

Wayne went incredibly pink, and so did the staff. (You should know that I heard about this over the cellphone when I rang from the supermarket to ask what the family wanted for dinner. Collapsing in uncontrolled mirth over the trolley, alternately gasping for breath and dimly screeching in hysterical laughter made more than one co-shopper decide against buying mushrooms after all).

I think the kindy staff were thanking their lucky stars that that was *all* Braeden was doing (one other kid proudly self-pottied one day - outside!- when the teacher's back was turned for a second. Imagine such an outage in the reading room!)

Wayne, however, being male & self-conscious was just plainly mortified. Amused yes, but it was a definite "would the ground please open & swallow me" moment.

Remind me to hog-tie Wayne to a chair & make him read some modern parenting books. Kids do this. Hell, kids do worse! At least he hasn't tried finger-painting with poo.

(yet)

I guess I'll be the one handling the facts of life chats. If I can keep a straight face, that is. I seem to have developed an over-active giggle gland. And opportunist that Braeden is, he plays to this maternal weakness every chance he gets. Make your mother laugh, and chances are you'll get off lightly. You might even get off scot-free. So either Mr Shy mumbles his way through the "How To's" or Mrs Lunatic snickers and chuckles her way through it.

Oh yes. I can see it now. I'd better start a trust fund for Braeden's future therapy.

So the upshot is, Brae is now two-and-three-quarters,
chatters like a magpie but in a language I haven't quite cracked yet,
is growing up tall and lean,
still detests sweet stuff but can sniff out cheese faster than any rat,
still rarely sleeps through the night,
can count to thirty-something or to 100 in groups of ten,
can sing the alphabet song with hardly any goofs,
wears size 4 clothes and bigger-still shoes,
has all his baby teeth,
has the best laugh I've ever heard,
has thankfully outgrown head-butting but unfortunately has learnt how to shove,
has yet to discover the delights of a finger and a nose entwined,
loves jigsaws (45 + piece ones), drawing, dancing and now singing
still plays his keyboard every day,
and is now big enough that Dad is his absolute hero.

What a ramble! But at least it's a check-in. Seeing as I've sacked my two most demanding clients, I might be able to get some breathing space (between child, study, work and -gasp- life) to update more often.

Got some neat pix.. Thing is, I am just not allowed any Me-time to work on the computer without Braeden or Wayne coming in to drag me off. Even exam-crams were continually subject to a grimy paw firmly attaching itself to my hand, and an earnest wee face saying "Cmhere, Mum", dragging me off to play with him or to read a story. (And that's if Dad's around supposedly "babysitting"... If Dad's at work, then it's Mum-and-Braeden time, and to heck with work, the world and whatever).

But I'm not grizzling :-) Sure, I had to do some very skilled multitasking during pre-exam week, but I got 89% in the course exam thus retaining my A+ average, and yes I did ruthlessly employ the answerphone and mail-filter :-)

I also lost most the contents of my swat-cards when a person of short stature decided to enrich them with lots of colouring in. But what I could read looked really pretty!

Photos to come ;-)

Where the hell have I been? Good question!

Whaddya want? A note from home or something? Okay, fair ‘nuff.

Brae is growing gangbusters, and is presently going through another growth spurt. This entails slightly weird sleeping and eating patterns, with a few visits from Mr Crankypants.

I am delighted to report that the tanties are starting to ease off. I believe this is due to two things. Firstly he’s more able to communicate what he wants because he is now talking a little bit more every day. Secondly, with his growth in maturity he is at that stage where I feel comfortable with politely escorting him to his room, kissing his furious head, and saying “come out when you’re in a better mood, darling”. The door is left open, and it is entirely up to him when he comes out. Sometimes it’s a minute or so, but usually it’s within 20 seconds, and then he gives me a big cuddle & sometimes a bit of a sob on the shoulder, but the worst of the tanty has been avoided.

Btw, when I say ‘talking’, I mean using words instead of his own special language (beeps, gabbles, gestures & head-butts) which is comprehensible only to Master Braeden.

The number strengths continues to grow, and not surprisingly his favourite show is Numberjacks although Little Einsteins continues to be in the revolving top three. Brae’s favourite toy by far is his electronic keyboard, and he turns to it whenever he hears a piece of music that interests him, or when L.E. plays the ‘music of the day’. First he runs up to the TV screen & chases the notes across the score as they play, then he turns to his keyboard and finds the key notes. He doesn’t try to play the melody (that’s far too obvious, LOL), but rather he will try to find the note that the piece started with, ie Middle G, then he finds the next most significant note in that piece, ie Middle C. When the episode airs next, he knows what note it kicks off with and will offer that as a tuning key before the melody is played.

Are kids fascinating, or what :-)

Wayne’s ripping along with the renovations, which appeals greatly to Daddy’s Little Helper. It’s very cute to watch, even when Brae ‘helped’ Daddy by applying a large wet paintbrush to a nicely painted wall.. ooops! Poor wee man didn’t understand his father’s roar of horror, and needed a lot of reassurance that all was forgiven. Of course Braeden wasn’t daunted for more than a moment, and was soon back to ‘helping’ his father all over again.

So one bedroom is restored, renovated and finished, and that of course became the office. Well ahead of Uni starting back later this month! Well done, Mr & Master Builders.

Wayne is presently working on #2 bedroom, which will become Braeden’s room. This means our bed is in the dining room – and gave us the opportunity to play a fun trick on our son yesterday morning. We’d moved the bed after Brae’s bedtime, so when he woke up yesterday morning, he had no idea that his usual routine of ‘run up the hallway, slam open the parents’ door, and laughingly clamber over your parents to announce the day’ was going to prove slightly more difficult.

We listened as the door went bang, grinning to each other in the pre-dawn shadows. Silence. Door closed, then banged open again. (He left then immediately returned..) Hm. Still see an empty room. Better make sure the TV hasn’t been abducted, too! He raced through into the lounge, and we heard his sigh of relief. (Nice to know our place). Then he must have spotted the edge of the bed, and he carefully, catfully, stalked around the bed only to see his fool parents grinning back at him, saying “Hello darling, did we fool you?” He didn’t seem upset, just a bit puzzled. Might have been a different story if the TV hadn’t stayed put, though!

He approves of the new bed position, because it’s great for taking one’s toast & peanut butter when one wants a comfy breakfast seat. It’s great for hiding in and pretending that we don’t need to go to our room to nap, and when we discovered Mum’s cache of little person jigsaw puzzles, we had the most marvelous time scattering them all over the bed, in a million bits. Dad got the job of putting them all back together, because Dad had forgotten to keep them out of reach of the baby person.

Quick note here: Brae has completely outgrown wooden puzzles and is on to 40+ piece cardboard ones. Some of those live in books (the Tonka construction book is awesome, btw. Four great puzzles in that one). Imagine the mess poor Dad had to work through!

I got my results back, btw. Accounting ended up with a B+ because my A-plusses were dragged back a lot by my exam. (scowls furiously at RSI) Apparently (according to a uni-wise friend) I should have walked out the moment I realized my hand had fused, and gone straight to my doctors & got a certificate. Then they would have aggregated my mark, and I’d have kept my A+ average. Hindsight is SUCH a treat (scowls furiously at friend.. LOL).I am mildly comforted by knowing that of the 68 marks worth of work I got to do, I scored 63.5. Gods, but I am such an intellectual snob!

Think that’s unbearably up-myself? How about my other result, Information Systems & Technology! Kept my A+ average, and came first equal in my class, earning a letter of congratulations from the Dean. Whoohoo! Now you know how I got RSI.. from patting myself on the back, LOL!

I should point out that I never judge other people on their marks, only myself. Of course that’s no consolation when you’ve sobbed on a mate’s shoulder about the unfairness of life, and they dryly comment that a B+ was their best ever mark.. ow sorry.. um how do I explain without being considered arrogant, rude, vain AND patronizing? Can’t, so shutting the hell up, now ;-)

Here’s an “Awww” moment to end the catch-up on.

By some marvelous fluke, I won the village raffle just before Christmas. (That’s not the moment, sit down & keep reading..). As hubby & child don’t like Christmas cake, I asked if I could swap with the 2nd prize winner, which suited everyone just fine. We got a bin of goodies, which also included a tennis racquet that is actually a fly-zapper. Wayne had the most marvelous fun the other day, playing the Great White (fly) Hunter, while Brae & I snuggled on the couch. Braeden’s favourite show was on, so he didn’t appear much interested in his father’s antics for once, until Wayne thwacked a fly that landed on the couch next to my foot. Another one landed on my thigh, and before Wayne could do more than shift his position, Braeden hurled himself across my lap, and stared his father down. Didn’t say a word, just blocked with his body and let his expression say volumes. (Don’t even think about hitting my mother with that thing, mate!)

Humbling, eh. And this kid is in a house where he never has to worry about one parent hitting the other (although I did threaten to do something piercingly painful to Wayne the other day when he insisted on annoying me during a PMT-wracked day). If ever a parent needed a reason to get out of a violent relationship, the natural protectiveness of a 2 ¼ year old boy should give them an insight to how much kids really see.

Even if their favourite TV programme is on.

Part 3, aka Braeden's Birthday Bash (photos to come)

The observant will notice that The Very Important Baby Person is now two years old. Two years, one month and six days, actually, but who’s counting.

Despite two assessments due and a mountain of revision, we managed to get Braeden two birthday parties. We didn’t plan on two separate events, but Brae’s Nana needed to go into hospital on his birthday, so some creative planning was in order.

For his actual birthday, Braeden had a little party at Kindy with his friends. I made him a banana cake, and iced it with lots of multicoloured sparklies, and popped a big “2” candle on top. The other children helped show him how to blow out the candle, and sang an enthusiastic “Happy Birthday” to him. He seemed to enjoy the event, despite looking somewhat puzzled throughout. He turned his nose up at eating any of the cake, which was disappointing but not entirely surprising, as he has yet to develop a sweet tooth.

Serves me right for my policy of “no lollies until you’ve learned to clean your own teeth”. He won’t even let me get near his mouth with a toothbrush, so the “no lollies” rule seems like it’s not going away any time soon. But the downside of course is that he’s a total fizzer at lolly scrambles at other children’s birthday parties. He stands there bemused at the reactions of the other kids, wondering what they are doing chasing after small bits of paper when there are so many more fun things to do instead.

Anyhoo, back to his birthday.

The rest of us ate his cake, and there was even enough for all the teachers to have seconds. Then the kids grabbed the balloons Braeden brought to share, and we tied string to them (the balloons, NOT the kids!) and they had great fun racing about in the spring sunshine.

Two days later (Sunday) we went to the Model Engineers railway at Halswell Domain, on the advice of one of the teachers who highly recommended it. I wasn’t expecting much.. I mean, we’re talking little trains & $2 a ride doesn’t get you much these days.

Boy, was I wrong.

They’ve laid tracks throughout a significant part of the reserve, winding through groves of trees, skimming over lawns & a marsh, and skirting a lovely pond with ducks and model boats. There’s even a bridge to go over and under.

We planned to have a picnic lunch & ride the trains occasionally, but it worked out quite differently. Once Braeden discovered what it felt like to ride the trains, there was no way on this green earth he wanted to stop. So it was up to Mum & Dad to take turns sitting behind him, enjoying the brisk breeze as we zoomed around time and time again. Those little engines can hurtle! It doesn’t look fast when you’re watching, but it took me nearly an entire circuit to relax & learn to enjoy the sensation of speeding along so close to the ground.

Braeden’s balance is amazing, and he was easily the youngest who didn’t need to be cocooned in a parent’s protective arms, but we held on to him anyway. I found that fat thighs are quite handy, because you can create the safety-seat effect without any embarrassing clutching hands.

But what an idiot I was for wearing a skirt. I had to firmly tuck it in & around to stop it blowing over my head, and the result wasn’t exactly flattering to the figure.

On the way home, The Bubbly decided he was ravenous (I wasn’t surprised! He’d refused lunch because it got in the way of the train rides), so I handed him a pot of mash & a spoon. He’s normally a very tidy eater, but he ignored the spoon & used his fingers, managing to get some of the food in his mouth but also covered himself and his car seat in a thick layer of goo.

The caption for this has to be “Go ahead, make my lunch!!

Part 2, aka Varsity Blues

I’ve been quite literally tied up with studies/assignments/exams until last week. I had booked a nervous breakdown to commence immediately after the last exam, but I had to delay it until I’d caught up on the clients who had been told “Don’t ring me for two weeks unless it’s the apocalypse!”

So I think I’ll have a wee whine now & get it off my chest.

Do you know what sucks? Getting A+ on both assessments, but despite that the final exam is worth 60% of the total grade. Fine, okay, that’s the breaks.. except you get yourself in SUCH a state going in, that you’re literally throwing up, shaking like a leaf & totally convincing yourself you won’t even remember the basic accounting equation. This is the first true exam you’ve sat since School Certificate back in ’79. Lots of reassurances from Wayne & family slid straight off my back – I knew I was going to stuff it up.

So I get there.. and as soon as I started reading the paper I realized “Oh! I KNOW all this stuff! Awesome! There’s only one tricky bit, but that’s okay. Right! Let’s go!”

You should see my exam paper.. it’s got little happy faces next to most the questions.

So away I went, grinning like that Cheshire cat. Hit the biggest section first because that’s worth 41 marks, allowed an hour for it but got it done in 50 minutes. Great.. oh.. not great. Damn thing doesn’t balance. Shit. That’s not how it went in my practice runs!

Ah well, crack on to the other exam stuff, and come back to it. Do Not Stress.

Hit the theory questions. Pretty sure I aced those. Standard stuff about taxes, auditing, cash flows etc. No wucking forries… oh ow.. what’s that..?

Oh no, don’t you DARE.. oh shit shit shit this is not good not good!

An hour and a half into the exam, my RSI came back with a vengeance.

And brought some friends.

I had no painkillers on me, because I believed the letter that said “You are not allowed to eat in the examination room”.

I had to rewrite the big section because I’d done it on rough paper, and hadn’t yet put in the niceties like “Blah Blah trading as Blankety Blanks Balance Sheet as at 31 March 2007”, nor were things “neatly” in columns, and there was lots of scribble. Nope, not markable quality, but I knew to attach the workings because our tutor had specifically asked us to.

So four big pages had to be neatly transcribed into the booklet with a bung arm, and a hand that kept insisting on cramping into a fist.

I did not get finished. By my calculation at least 28 marks can be removed straight off the top before they start marking my exam, which is going to drag my A+ average right down to a C.. IF I am lucky.

Serves me right for having the Chutzpah to feel smug about my run of A+. That will teach me.

On the other hand, the other paper I did this semester was Information Systems & Technology, and yes in both the assignments on that one I also got A+. But when I went into the exam, I knew it was worth 30% of the final grade (basically get your 40% of the exam & you’ve passed, so no sweat. 20 marks are multichoice alone!)

I was stacked to the gills with painkillers & anti-inflammatories, but felt much more confident despite being the only gal in the room doing this paper. The guys looked at me strangely, and even more strangely when I finished with an hour to spare. I was having a self-congratulatory smoke outside when one came up to me & asked me what I thought.

“How did you get on with Question 5?” he asked.
“You mean ‘what is homeplug’?
“Yeah!”
“Stuffed if I know, mate. I’ve never heard of it, so I just wrote a heap of blather, figuring I might as well, because you can’t fluke any marks at all if you leave it blank. What did you say it was?”
“Um.. nothing. I didn’t know either. I left it blank.”
“Damn..”
“Yeah.”

(Homeplug, btw, is a type of internet connection that comes in via your electrical wiring. It was one obscure sentence buried in the core text that it seems all of us overlooked. Ah well.. I didn’t bullshit too much with the rest J

I get my results next month. I reckon I maintained my grade for IS&T, but we’ll wait & see what happens with Accounting. I almost wish I hadn’t known the answers, because knowing & not being able to get it down on paper is a bloody cruel thing indeed.

Bah! Roll on Statistical Analysis next semester J Just one at a time from now on, though!

Part 1 of a major catchup! (aka Brae's note from his mother)

Mamabeek gave me a heads-up that I’ve been neglecting the blog, so here I am.

To say we’ve been busy is a bit of an understatement.

Brae is now in spanking good health with no recurrences of the bugs that kept attacking him over the winter, and this I reckon is down to the Doc suggesting that he might be slightly asthmatic. Bit like his mother, in that it’s not really even noticeable unless he’s battling a cold etc, and then it only pops up to complicate things and delay recovery. One puff every day for about a week, and he’s right as rain.

Braeden’s had another growth and development spurt.. did I say one? Seems like half a dozen! He’s quite capable of talking but prefers to chatter away in his baby language for the most part, then suddenly dazzles adults by popping out a complete (and somewhat grammatically correct) sentence when he feels like it.

Kids are funny creatures. You get into a habit of doing things with them & don’t think they’re paying attention, until they show you that indeed they were. Plus they were taking notes for later.

We were sitting around chatting one morning (a week after his second birthday) while Braeden rifled through the kitchen cupboards. He does this daily – sometimes it seems like hourly. Out he came, with as many dessert spoons as he could find. He stood between his parents, then started laying out the spoons on the couch, talking quietly as he did so.

It wasn’t til he got to about the fifth one that we realized.. he was counting them!

He’d only found seven spoons, so had to start over.

“Wuh, doo, dee, orr, ife, icks, ehen.”

Parental conversation halted, a shared glance of “Nah, no way.. he couldn’t possibly have done.. could he?”

“Wuh, doo, dee, orr, ife, icks, ehen.”

We found some more spoons and found that Master Braeden can count to ten. He gets a bit lost after that. Well actually nine is his favourite; once you get to nine apparently every second number is nine. You learn something every day.

We hadn’t set out to teach him how to count, but it was second nature to count things thanks to Joey and her grapes. I reckon parrots are a very good preparation for having kids – you learn to deal with smart mouths, tantrums, picky eaters, toy obsessions, and lots of other things that parents of kids know all about. Wayne counts Joey’s grapes as he gives them to her, so he just carried on with Braeden. (Not that Braeden eats grapes.. there’s the picky eater for you).

Having a kid that can count while still in tantrum territory has its drawbacks. Braeden’s Kindergarten teachers chuckle about “Braeden’s Must-Haves”. This refers to the day’s absolutely essential item that must be taken from home to Kindy. Usually said item came from the kitchen cupboards. Just today I mounted a Black Ops maneouver to retrieve and hide the cheese grater before we left for Kindy. But other items have enjoyed the trip, such as the garlic crusher, the tongs, the potato masher, Tupperware lids, the pot-scrub and even the cutlery holder from the dishwasher!

That holder was nearly the undoing of Wayne one day when he took his son to Kindy. Wayne decided it had to stay in the car, and was dumbstruck by the screams, kicks, hair-pulls and total meltdown thrown by his son even once they were inside the grounds & in the sand pit. Braeden was inconsolable, pointing to the car, with tears pouring down his chubby cheeks. There was nothing for it but Wayne had to sprint all the way out again, and return with the Must-Have. As soon as it was offered, Braeden’s sobs dried up, his sunny demeanor returned, and he ran off to play with his friends, gaily waving the cutlery holder as he went.

When Wayne told me, I rolled my eyes at him and said “You really should know better than to even try. Remember I went through the same thing last week with the pot-scrub?”

And now the grumblemunchkin can count. Great! This means you can’t whip out an item from the Must-Haves en-route, because if he thinks “Hmmm.. this feels a bit light/easy to manage” he stops, lays out the items and it’s “Wuh, doo, dee…? … ?”

WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”

And you haven’t even made it to the car yet.

I think I’m going to have to stagger this update over several entries. Quite a lot has happened in the last month (oh all right, two months!).

Better than chocolate

In my resting state, I am normally allergic to gurus and folk who claim to have the answers to anything & everything (for a fee or magazine subscription).

However that didn't stop me from reading the Parelli book & becoming real friendly with the horseman's halter.

And it didn't stop me from signing up for the Parents Inc course "Toolbox", and subsequently trotting along to the "Hot Tips for Growing Boys" seminar. The six week course finished a week ago, and while it was a bit twee (and also a bit churchified) in places, it was generally extremely interesting.

Of course if you bark like a performing seal they throw you chocolate bars. I went home each night with no less than TWO chocolate bars, except for the night they didn't give any out :-)

For "bark" of course I mean shoot your hand up in the air & be the teacher's favourite at "homework" time :-) Hey, I'm a slut for chocolate. Plus I'm super competitive so I was a goner before I even got there.

But in all seriousness, I went because I know squat about raising a son, apart from the hastily gathered on-the-job training. Figured it would be nice to have some advance skills instead of clever hindsight!

It turns out I'm doing a lot of things right (supposedly), but got some great ideas too.

The seminar was also interesting, but I didn't win a single chocolate bar. I did however win the big prize which was a beautiful dinner set, drawn out of the respondents to the feedback forms (naturally I griped about the abysmal parking, LOL).

Got a few books too, to pick over. Wayne nearly fainted when I struggled through the door at 11pm. Like we need more books... ;-)

Anyhoo, wandering back to the point that Mamabeek correctly made, something needed to be done with Master Braeden's affect control. Yeah so he's just a little fella so one can write off a lot to "terrible twos", but I'm also mindful that he's putting in place a lot now that will be entrenched personality later.

Time to fix some things before they become major issues. Especially as "whack first and blame later" seems to be genetically inbuilt. My big problem was I didn't want to enact the parenting skills I was most familiar with, ie what happened when I was a kid.

To touch lightly on it then skip away, I am not breaking this kid's jaw, okay?

Okay.

So that made me really reluctant to smack. I STILL defend the right of reasonable parents to lightly smack, but I won't because I just don't want to go there. Not sure I was ever shown how to stop, so why start?

So we're using the Stand and Think technique which is kinda like Time Out, but you don't need a room, plus it sets the foundation for the child to reason out their behaviour & communicate their feelings & seek a remedy for themselves.

So far, so good.

Btw Brae's apparently got mild asthma which is why he keeps getting the bot this winter. The stuff just won't evacuate his chest, so it's not always a new flu each time. The steroids are doing a great job (last day of them today), and apparently he's likely to grow out of it. Heh heh.. "grow" out of it. Apparently the only side effect with these steroids is that for the four days he's on them, he won't grow. Dr David & I found that hysterically funny, as Brae is already 94cm tall. Four days without growing, yeah.. such a hard decision!

And the Safe-T-Sleep is back on. We tried for three days and two nights, then cried uncle & put the damn thing back on in the middle of the night. It was just too much to go in several MORE times each night to reposition the grumpy-at-being-woken little man who was scaling Everest in his sleep.

And Mb, you'll find this a hoot. The folks who created & run the course/seminar I went to were vaguely familiar, so I googled them to see why they were skirting around the edges of my memory. Turns out they were Youth Evangelists. (giggles) No wonder religion popped up every so often, I guess I'm lucky it was "every so often".

And another for Mb, I keep remembering the story you told me about your friend & the kiddy who grew up tumbling around with the piglets. Well the other reason Brae went to the doc's this week was an eye infection. It came on quick & with all his other ouchies, I thought it needed looking at.

Turns out it's what happens when your dog licks your child upside the face.

I came home & said "AH-HAH!" to Wayne, "I knew we shouldn't let Auntie Poodle lick the baby!". (We've been arguing a little over this. Wayne thinks I'm being precious.)

Auntie Poodle says if that's my attitude I can wash my own sprog's face from now on, and huffed & sulked off down the hall.

The chip off the old block likes a bit of batter

I've been Bradford-ed. I wish someone would tell my sprog that child abuse is simply not okay.

And that this also applies to whacking, scratching, and nipple-pinching your mother to get your own way.

That pinching lark is a bit beyond the pale, I mean.. I ask you! Where the Sam Hill did he learn that from? Just goes to show that kids don't have to experience assault first hand to work up a pretty decent (?) arsenal of their own. Thought the first one was accidental, but no, today he repeated it and it was most definitely *meant*, and what's worse, it was the same damn boob.

Owie!

He's got yet another dreadful lurgy, and being the lovely child he is, thoroughly subscribes to the tenet that misery loves company. By my reckoning this is bot # 11 for the winter, slightly above par for the course according to our doc. My sister snickered helpfully yesterday "Just wait for the head lice!", to whit I replied "Number 1 haircut with the clippers and a good seeing to with the lice comb cos he's too young for the shampoo".

Being male, as yet unworded, and in the grip of the Terrible Twos, his temper and frustration at yet again being restricted to home base is terrible to behold. I was in BIG enough trouble on Saturday for turning the car the wrong way, and instead of taking him to kindy after the toy library visit, we came home. I kid you not.. we'd only just turned left instead of right and the wails of outrage started.

"No! No! No! Me GO! Me GO!"

"Sorry bub, but they don't open on the weekend..." the rest was drowned out in baleful screams which only slightly abated when I sang the theme song to Little Einsteins all the way home. (Well you try doing the hand movements to Incy Wincy while navigating deep shingle! At least LE's song is voice only)

Yesterday was Monday, and Brae expected to "me GO!" to kindy. Cept he couldn't because he had presented with another bug over the weekend. Humpph.. was I unpopular.

What cracks me up about this kid is the way he storms up to you, rakes his nails down your face (and I just clipped them three days ago), screaming "OW! OW!". What the hell is he saying "Ow" for, I wonder?

Just goes to show that blood will out (yeah.. mine, LOL). Thank goodness this kid is mine, because in less understanding hands he could be seriously dangerous, or worse, in serious danger. I know he's frustrated at being a baby-person, at not being allowed to play with other kids despite really wanting to (hey I feel great, who cares if I've got green gobs pouring out my nose?), and not having the language yet to express what he's thinking.

Tonight we're giving him a chance to move a step closer to being a big boy. Kinda happened accidentally.. he soaked through his Safe-T-Sleep this morning, and I didn't get it washed, dry & back on the bed before his bedtime. So we figured, let's see if he can go without it now.

Bizarre that he needs one at all, considering he's nearly two. But it's a hanger-on from his severe reflux days when the only way to keep him in his cot (which was on a very steep angle for said reflux-relief) was the STS. Then it kinda stayed with him because he's a wriggly little sod when sleeping. Once or twice I've bundled him into our bed when he's been unwell (yeah I know.. and don't worry, I paid for my mistake).

You simply cannot sleep with The Braeden. He kicks, he slaps, he shoves his bum in your face & farts, he ruthlessly steals the covers, and he loves to entwine his fingers in your hair... then YANK. Oh *he* sleeps... but you don't.

And if you do doze a little and start to snore, he wakes up and slaps you around the face to let you know you're inconveniencing him. Baby slaps, very gentle to be sure, but utterly unignorable!

Fingers up your nose will do that, strangely.

So wish us luck, and let's see if he can begin to learn to sleep unrestrained. We've had to retrieve him from several weird positions in his bed (a firetruck with ladders for sides and a "roof" over the cab.. too cute). We'll have to pad the ends and sides tomorrow in the hope of maybe keeping him from falling out.

Btw ... guess what my biggest crime was yesterday. Being "Not The Dadda". He was only happy when I rang Wayne up on the phone and let baby babble on to his dad for a long time. It was borderline intelligible at times.. good thing we can call each other's cell phones as often as we want for a mere $10 per month. However all hell breaks loose when the father's cell battery goes flat and the baby-person is disconnected.

Hence the massive tantrum that resulted in a young man being carefully placed on a soft bit of floor with no nearby protrusions or obstacles, and generally left to get on with it while I pretended to do the dishes nearby.

That wee bluey went for 27 minutes. (Yes of course I checked in frequently to see if he was ready for cuddles, how do you think I got this bloody nose?)

Pretty much a record, even for Braeden :-)

Oh MAN I hope he's all better tomorrow and can go to kindy. Otherwise I'd better find a suit of armour, and fast!

:-) "Ow".. don't cha love it :-) It's so hard not to crack a grin when your assailant is doing the voice-over for you.

Splish splash, look who's taken a bath!

Well I guess it had to happen.

I got home from client visits yesterday to find Wayne & Braeden outside in the brief sunshine, enjoying the seesaw Wayne picked up from Trade Me. Braeden was on the seesaw, and Wayne's arm was on the other end providing the necessary counter action.

Bubs saw me, and hurtled towards the car. I'd anticipated this, so had completely stopped & had the door open when he reached me. Without much more than a welcoming (or celebratory?) chuckle, he roughly clambered over the top of me and scuttled around the car pushing this knob & tweaking that dial. Wayne hauled him out as I wrestled the client boxes into submission and carted them inside.

I'd no sooner got in to the office when I heard "Braeden, NO! Braeden, STOP!", immediately followed by "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH!!!"

Brae had decided freedom was too much fun to relinquish so soon, and had headed off towards the island at a great rate of knots.

Thing is, there is this small matter of a wide & fairly deep water race between the lawn & the island. Wayne said Brae actually imitated Wyle E. Coyote for a moment when he ran out of bank, and was momentarily airborne over the water.

For a great brouff boy he can still wail exactly like a small infant when given a short sharp shock. That water is snow-fed, so you can imagine what a nasty surprise he got to be plunged into it, and it just got worse when he emerged covered in silt & pond weed, soaked to the core.

I ran to fill the bath, and returned to give Wayne a hand to strip off a thoroughly sopping and distraught baby person. Wayne quipped "I bet this is a wet nappy!" as we reached the inner layers of clothing. I was briefly distracted by the dreadful state of Braeden's new white sneakers, before scooping up a cold, terribly unhappy wee man and racing down to the bath, yelling over my shoulder to Wayne "You'd better strip too! There's no WAY he's going to submit to a solo bath after that mishap!"

I'm happy to report that Dad and Baby had a great old time in the bath, as evidenced by four sodden towels, an emptied shampoo bottle (mine!), and pinkly gleaming happy bodies afterwards. Dad did grump that HIS clean dry clothes weren't warming by fire, but hey, there just wasn't room.

(Well that's my story and I'm sticking to it)

We are hoping (but not counting on it) that Braeden will be a bit more wary of that water race in future. He's 22 months on Sunday, and is of an age where he's remembering lessons... when it suits him, naturally.

All ended well, with Brae not getting a relapse of his flu despite his dunking.

And the shoes went into the washing machine, and are still drying by the fire, packed with newspaper. Just can't seem to get the insides as pristine white as they were before, however. Ah well ;-)

He's a lumberjack & he's okay...

Well it had to happen.

Braeden's given me his chesty cough. I swear this kid has picked up every single bug going this year, and haven't there been LOTS of bugs to choose from.

Of course a dear longtime friend admonished me not to let my kid go to Playcentre etc "because that's where kids catch all sorts of bugs". (One presumes she doesn't mean hungry caterpillars, LOL). And our doctor is at the other end of the opinion spectrum: "Get 'em out there, get 'em exposed to everything, let the kid build up his own resistance & he'll be a healthier, more resilient adult for it".

Brae doesn't go to Playcentre anymore because (officially) it clashes with his morning sleep. Um, unofficially I didn't like the way the bigger boys bullied him, just because he wanted to hang around with them. Playcentre's a bit too PC for me.. I'm not comfortable where kids are allowed to do any old thing simply because it's not PC to say "No".

He does go to kindy.. something I fought hard with myself over. I had to visit & see if it was a creche or a real honest to goodness kindergarten, and even once I was satisfied it was, I still found it next to impossible to leave him.

And don't worry.. he made it next to impossible to be LEFT! Cling, roar, real tears, betrayed & abandoned.. and that was just me going to sit down to watch him play :-)

The teachers were very patient with us both, and I was able to hang out with him as much as I liked, at no extra cost :-P

Then one day I bent down to kiss him & said my usual "Can Mummy go off and get a few jobs done, sweetheart?" and instead of clutch/roar/abandonement I got the very literal "flip off". He airily waved me off, (saying "Wave!" which is so cute), turned and ran off with his wee friends.

I was in shock. Did I interpret that right? Nah.. surely not. So off I went to smooch & repeat. Again, he waved me goodbye, but this time he kindly reached up and plastered a big wet kiss right on my nose. THEN he ran off again to resume his game.

We built him up gradually to three afternoons a week, and if he had any say in it, he'd go seven! But I think 3 is plenty, especially as *I* want to see something of the lad!! Why should his teachers & buddies get all the fun :-)

When you tell him "it's kindy day, today!" he runs and gets his shoes & kindy backpack, and THRUSTS them at you impatiently. Woe betide you if you want to hold up the works by changing a nappy, putting his socks on or (gasp) getting the car keys.

So he goes.. and he catches the bot... and he shares it with me. Ah well.

Maybe we'll each have the constitution of an ox when we grow up ;-)

*********************************************************
Tomorrow Braeden gets his first trike. A big milestone in the life of a terribly important baby person.

Today he spent the day clambering over the couch to get to the no-go-zone on the other side, walking around on the kitchen table (despite being hauled off on a regular basis & told NO), and generally bashing the heck out of his very sick mother who wanted nothing more than to lie & perhaps die on the couch while Dad & Braeden played inside & out.

There's something to be said for having a fat nappied bottom land heavily on your head to wake you out of a fevered dream.

Then it was shortly followed up by the stereo remote attempting to be inserted in my ear by force. Never mind my ear canal is about an eighth of the size... or at least, it was.

Roll on warmer weather so I can give this potty training a go. (gulps nervously...)

LOL! The drinks are OFF!

http://www.stuff.co.nz/4145398a6530.html

Unfortunately there is no link to the Press article in which Marcia's hubby & three of her kids appear looking very presentable & forlorn, anxiously looking forward to being reunited with their (cough) mother.

There's also an earlier mugshot of Marcia.. taken back when she was barely out of her teens by the look of it.

Big bad scary Darryl looks very much like Captain Picard.. is that what happens to old skinheads? (Hang on.. I thought skinheads had to swear an oath to off themselves on their 21st birthdays? Or did that become unpopular, LOL?)

So the drinks are off, because it's an open secret she burned down the house. It's been loudly hinted both in print and other media, when they reported that the residents had had screaming matches for the week prior. And a very reliable source who knows people who know the family reckon the night before the fire, Marcia baby was heard to holler "Well if it's YOUR *#&#%&$@ house, I'll burn the ##$%%^$##@ thing to the ground!"

Next day, another fight, she's seen hotfooting it, and moments later, WOOOOFFF!

Wayne reckons she gave the proceeds of the sale of Amyes Rd to hubby so that the Courts couldn't take it off her to repay the people she stole from, but when push came to shove & the judge ordered her to pay, she went to hubby & said "bail me out or I'm going inside", and he said "Nah, my house now, ha ha ha".

When Wayne said that at the time, I poopoohed it, but given the information that has come to light since (arguments, contents thereof, and the fact that even the police have made it clear they think she dunnit), he might be right on the mark.

Hey I'm allowed to enjoy this bitch's misfortune. We'll never get our money, so she owes me at least this much :-)

And I never said I was a saint ;-)

Beware the jabberwock, my son

I heard this story tonight, and instantly knew it had to be shared :-)

Our crazy neighbour (Frank, but I call him Mooney the Loony after the short-lived wrong name on his letterbox) recently caused one of our sweeter neighbours to have a close encounter of the turd kind.

Picture this. You're an elderly farmer, quietly tootling down the isolated country road in your ute, when suddenly a wild-haired, wild-eyed man runs out from the underbush in his religious underpants (holey), and frantically flags you down. With his dyed black & purple hair, he looks like a homeless version of a nearly nude Ozzy Osborne but minus the bling.

You cruise to a stop .. not difficult in itself because you never drive more than 20kph. The dog wrinkles her nose in dismay as the distraught man runs towards you. Some awful catastrophe must have happened to cause anyone to be running around in their tighty-frighties accosting passers-by.

He clutches at you, and gasps...

"Quick! What do you know about fixing televisions?"

Perhaps you heard wrong. Surely if your eyes can play tricks your ears can too. You must have looked a bit blank because he repeats himself, with greater urgency.

"Do you know anything about TVs? Mine's blown up!"

Yep. You heard right. Shaking off your customary calm & measured responses you snap, "Are you MAD? Get out of here!" and you gun the engine up to an unheard of 21kph and drive off.

On the retelling, your neighbours fall apart laughing, and thank their lucky stars it didn't happen to them!

Well aint Karma a BITCH! :-)))))))))

Read this first: http://www.stuff.co.nz/4142077a6530.html

To answer your burning question (LOL), No, it wasn't me. (Which puts me in mind of a great old 10cc song .... hell, and some more recent ones too, eh Shaggy).

But you know what? I would very much like to buy the person who did do it, a drink.

It sounds very much like Marcia pissed off the wrong person, and maybe (unlike us) they weren't able to/willing to take her on the legal way.

Is the penny dropping yet? Marcia is the woman who ripped us off on that big landscaping job, along with many other Chch contractors and small business holders. She's shacked up with/spawn-producer of the head gang honcho mentioned in the story.

That's not the house, btw. The house we "made over" was nearby, but in an entirely different street. Marcia baby has sold & bought & sold three times over since then.

Nope, I have no burning ambition to clobber the tart :-) The Courts did that for us.

She finally pled guilty last month, and was sentenced this month to a great whack of community service, which we ALL know she won't do, so will get jail time very soon.

And the Judge (bless his cotton smocks) awarded full reparation to her victims, so on paper anyway, we will get all our money back. Marcia baby has to pay the Court, who in turn pays us (and deducts precisely nothing from us for this service). If she fails to pay, they go after her with more blazing guns.

I am truly sorry.. I just can't seem to help myself. All these fiery puns, snicker snicker

The downside though is that she might be allowed to pay it off at $5 per week. Given the amount of $$$ she has to repay, though, she might be harrassed by the Courts for a very very long time if she goes that route.

On a more sombre note.. I hope the parrot made it. She had a cockatoo on her front porch at the original house & I had big chats with her about proper care & diet for it (before I found out she was out to rip us off for everything she could).

Fingers crossed the cockie no longer lived there.

I see they took the surveillance cameras to the new place though.. maybe in their haste they forgot to take the bird?

Too damn smart

It was my 44th birthday on Monday (yes I know.. 363 days left for baby #2 to get started before the deadline runs out). It was a very nice birthday, with our new kitchen pretty much installed & operational. I have a dishwasher! Woohooo! And lots of lovely granite benchtops & plenty of cupboards.

But I digress. (You will understand the excitement when you hear my kitchen for the last 8.5 years has consisted of a stainless steel sink & small bench, and a single cupboard)

Very high benchtops are quite useful for sorting receipts without little baby people getting in to them. Nah, he was MUCH too busy opening all the drawers and pulling everything out for inspection and play.

Then at 11.17am he announced he was ready for bed, by presenting himself to me clutching both bedtime "puppies" and dummy firmly ensconced in his gob.

I opened the door, and off he trotted, with his pleased mother meekly following on behind. Okay so yeah I do have a wee chuckle at his little serious head when he's on a mission.

Tucked in, Safe-T-Sleep fastened, face kissed & monitor turned on. Nighty night darling, see you when you've had a nice nap.

Two hours later, I gave up listening to him chatter & rattle about, and decided he WASN'T going to nap today, might as well retrieve him before he got pissy. I found my son sitting up on his bed, along with every soft toy in his room, and the bedroom curtains pulled open. And the STS was completely undone.

How very cute, I thought. Perhaps he's ready to drop that last day sleep?

Yesterday, the pattern repeated itself, except THIS time as I was about to tuck him in I realised he was somewhat fragrant. Oops.. go get nappy & wipes, I can't put you to bed like this.

Off I trotted, and on my return I opened the door and SHRIEKED!

I should explain. Braeden's bed is a Fire Engine, with a "roof". Between the head of his bed & the window is his old cot mattress that is temporarily parked there (on its end) because there's nowhere else for it to live just at the mo. The mattress "top" is about five and a half feet from the floor...

... and standing right on the tippy top, swaying happily like a surfer dude, was my 21mth old son. Big glass window one side, all sorts of furniture hazards & a goodly drop on the other. And when his mother screamed, he got a bit of a fright and nearly came tumbling down.

That was one hell of a climb for a wee dude, and must have taken some nutting out. For him to undo that STS & scamper up there in less than a minute yesterday meant that he'd already practiced it the day before, while I was blythely working, and listening to his (safe?) happy chatter. That kid will turn me completely grey at this rate :-)

Last night I was invited to a meeting at his kindy, where other parents of potentially gifted kids were also in attendance. Statistically speaking, it's very unlikely our country village has 20+ gifted kids (hmm.. but it could be something in the water? LOL), but there are certainly some very bright kids at this kindy, and my sprog is right up there amongst them.

This of course delights his father, but is of considerable concern for his mother.

Whatever Brae turns out to be, I'll love him and I'll always think he's rather special. Given a choice, though, I'd rather he was "very bright" rather than "gifted". The world can be a hard place for the special ones; not the least the expectations of those around them to constantly be the best at everything. I had a much happier time as a kid when everyone thought I was slightly retarded (no shit, sherlock.. they IQ tested me at 1o to see if I should be bumped to a Remedial School). Once they found out I was supposedly gifted, life turned to custard.

Special kids are expected to skip childhood altogether (especially by their own agendas). And given that "gifted" often comes with a bonus present of learning difficulties, social awkwardness, and sometimes even emotional immaturity, it's a rather sharp two edged sword.

He's far too young to test (they recommend 4 years old at the minimum but it has been done for 2 1/2 yo's on rare occasions). However I will be monitoring him, and giving him whatever he needs, but I bloody refuse to "push" this kid.

He's got enough ambition of his own without his parents' lumped on top.

Don't grow up too fast, sweet baby. Slow down a bit & enjoy the ride.

Pix time!!!

It's been ages since I had a chance to post pics. Enjoy!

Okay, let's back up to me at 18mths (seeing as it's such a milestone, and my negligent mother failed to report it!). Cute eh! Note the puppy fat.. it was about to go bye-byes in a big way! Oh yeah.. and so did the long hair when Mum ran the clippers over me. Do you know she uses HORSE clippers on Dad and me? Appalling!

Here I am a few weeks later, prowling in Mum's office with my favourite teddy bear, Nobby. My mouth was hurting lots and lots because both my eye teeth took a long time coming through, and I got some nasty inner ear infections. I felt pretty rotten for a while, and I needed my dummy back just when everyone thought I'd outgrown it.

Playtime on Dad's legs! Hmmm.. when's Father's Day?
I think I might buy him some new slippers!

Up on my favourite play table, sorting through peek-a-blocks. Mum gets a bit anxious when I walk around on tables and windowsills. Silly mummy! But she's got my number.. I either get down or she turns off the stereo, and this dude's GOTTA have music, man!

Waiting in the car for Mum to finish at a Uni workshop.. Dad let me try to drive. What a pity the only key I could find was an old house key. I thought I'd outgrown that bib.. but my sore toothypegs meant I needed to be a bibbedbaby again. Oh, the humanity!



Peek-a-boo with a slide from the Toy Library, that Dad made into a fort on a rainy day.

And now I've outgrown my cot (and the law has changed and my cot is now illegal for resale because the top height is less than half a metre from the rail), I can play on my cot mattress. Mum is still hoping to use my cot again... but I make sure she gets very little time off to play!

Here I am at our coffee group, playing with some of the boys I've known since we were a few months old. These dudes are the coolest! (And for once Mum remembered to take my rotten bib off before we went out in public!)

Who needs fancy beds when an old printer box will do?

Nighty night!

We're thinking about the unthinkable...

We're seriously thinking about selling Nutters Grove.

Eight years ago when we bought this farmlet, no one wanted to live out this way. Now subdivisions are springing up eerily close by, the boonies are becoming a village (complete with nearby village idiot aka Moonie the Loonie), and our farm is worth close to five times what we paid for it.

Good grief!

We don't NEED all this land. We'll either have to do something with it (and not the original plan of walnuts, either), or let it waste like it is now. But blocks with just this amount are getting rare as hen's teeth, whereas smaller blocks with nicer houses are significantly cheaper.

So (for a change) I want a nice house. Not into impressing anyone but me, btw. But I would like not to get frost bite when I traipse down the hall to visit the powder room in the middle of the night. I'd like to not worry so much about the alarming increase in traffic on our road (big trucks going way too fast). I'd like to let the Squidlet out more often for rambunctious fun without having to fret about our lack of fences, a bloody great water race and the neighbour's nasty dog.

Poor Wayne is aghast, but it was his idea in the first place. Not my fault if I took a few years to change my mind in line with him. Motherhood gives you the right to move a few goalposts.

Oh.. and I want the hell away from Frank. The guy gets scarier by the day.

So it's going to take a lot of work, and we're already very busy people (which is why I've been conspicuous by my absence.. but hey, I'm still pulling nuthin but A's so you'll forgive me I'm sure!). We figure we'll be here for a while yet. Wayne says "two years at least". Karl says "Hmmm... 18 months TOPS!"

I could stand to drop from 30 acres to 5-10 :-) That's enough for a geegee or two.

Btw, you didn't log on for this. You wanted to know how Braeden's getting on.

He goes to private kindergarten two afternoons a week, and only recently was open to the idea of Mum ***not*** staying for the entire time. Now he is so laid back about my leaving that he looks at me as if to say "Why are you still here? You're cramping my style."

Last Friday it was persisting down, so I thought they probably had a hard time with keeping Mr Outdoors inside but when I collected him, his teachers had some funny news to impart.

It seems he spent the entire rainy afternoon sitting under the artist's easel (sp? too lazy to look it up), with TWO little girls of 2+ years of age, and all the teachers could see were three little heads in a huddle, exuding frequent giggles & chortles.

That's my son...

Twenty months old and already pulling the birds! Good thing modern nappies deter little people from playing doctor too early :-) What were they giggling about? Brae's not saying...

How to communicate with your mother

I do worry about Brae's reluctance to use words. You try not to compare them to other kids (or your family's memories of what a chatterbox you were alleged to be), but it happens.

I think comparisons are a necessary evil that we parents try to keep in check.

Braeden has shown that he's every bit his father's kid in that he adores TV. Lately I've been cracking down on this addiction, and he only gets 1 hour of his programmes each day, and then the TV gets turned off and we go DO something.

Yesterday I decided to watch a programme I had on tape.

Brae came wandering in after a while with his drum, and sat with his back to the TV.

"Are you drumming, darling?"

"noooooo!"

"Oh! You're NOT drumming?"

"noooooo!"

"Are you sitting down?"

"Nooooo!"

"But you are, darling. You're sitting down, and playing with your drum!"

"Noooo!"

(Then he cast a very telling look over his shoulder, then gazed back at me and said "Noooo!")

"OH!" I exclaimed. "What you're trying to tell me is that you don't like what's on the TV, and you want your programme?"

At this, he threw both arms in the air, rolled his eyes, and shouted "Yayyyyy!"

I fell apart laughing at the clever little basket, but no, I didn't change the channel :-)

Ooops. Better go. I let him take his toy piano to bed with him, and I guess he's awake from his nap because I hear lots of music coming through the monitor...

Quick update

Gack, look at the time. Good little people should be long in bed.

And I was, but the dog decided to make a huge unannounced "mess" throughout half the house. Bloody marvelous. When I don't want her to bark (ie kidlet asleep), you can't shut the tart up for love nor death threats. When she should let rip with a warning "browWOW!" she's as silent as the tomb.

Grrrr... I love her really, but she can sleep outside in her kennel tonight. It's kinda hard to snuggle back down in bed when all the adults have tipped out to clean & disinfect.

Brae continues to be an utter delight & education. He's back to "oh no I don't go to bed!", and it's lasted for about a week now, which you just take in good heart and plaster a nice thick false smile across your face as you manhandle the child into his Safe-T-Sleep, kiss his contorted furious self, and try not to flounce out the door too obviously.

Little sweetie was trying to copy me yesterday when I was vaccuuming (gasp horror.. I had to vaccuum! That's Wayne's usual job but I've hardly seen him lately, such has been his workload). So cute to see Braeden gaily slamming the vaccuum hose + head back & forth across the carpet, and never on any pass did he fail to slam that head hard into his mother's toes or heels.

Prodigy, I tell ya!

It's been a (so and so insert very rude words of frustration) difficult time trying to balance round the clock parenting with running both businesses AND university studies. Wayne was supposed to be around at least three days a week (gasp, maybe even a weekend occasionally?) but it just hasn't worked out like that. So by the end of the day I'm usually in a state of high panic, trying to fit study around a very active and Mother-attached toddler, and Wayne often is almost thrown the baby when he gets home as his wife grabs a coffee & a fag (not necessarily in that order) and heads outside in whatever the weather to cram & jot.

But having said that, something must be working because I got an A on my first assignment.

Wayne said it's going to cost him a fortune in bribes to lecturers, if this keeps up ;-)

Dribbliss bib-less

The faucet finally got a washer!

I think it's one of those signs my baby is growing into a big boy. We now are like other parents of toddlers, and do not need to change his bib hourly (at grave risk of drowning, I might add). In fact, Braeden hasn't worn a bib at all in five days. Five whole days!

Good Gods.. that's nearly a whole washing machine load just there, if you add it up :-)

Even more amazing when you consider he's cutting not one, but four teeth. The left eye tooth is through, the right one nearly there (causing his first ever ear infection.. ugh!), and the corresponding two on the bottom are also peeking/swelling. Many wise parents warned me "you think his teething is bad now, you just WAIT til those eye teeth come through" (with blanched faces, rolled eyes and general air of gloom and apocolypse)

But they haven't been too bad, actually. Oh yeah he was miserable with that ear infection, and who wouldn't be, but the antibiotics have been effective, and although the bump behind his ear hasn't gone away yet, at least it hasn't grown. The Doc said sometimes the bump never completely goes away; his 30 yr old son still has his, which made Braeden's 43 yr old mother reach behind her right ear (yep same side as Brae) and sure enough, I've got a bump too. Oh bugger.. ah well, shouldn't be too much of a problem for him as long as he doesn't wear earrings with long posts ;-)

Another rite of passage is that from cot to Big Boy's Bed. Brae loves his fire engine bed, and happily clambers up & puts himself to bed most times. You can count on at least one "OH NO WAY AND YOU'RE NOT GOING TO MAKE ME!" refusal once a week, but that's par for the course. It's far more likely that you look up, realise he's stomped off somewhere (the kid always stomps, even on tippy toes), and you find him snuggled up on his bed, dummy in gob, one grubby fist clutching Puppy (favourite toy of which we have twins!), and the other clutching half a soggy banana or sandwich.

Another sign he's a big boy is when I made his bed this morning, half a stale sandwich shot out & flew under the dresser. There'll be grimy plates with strange new life forms next.

Ah well.. better get off the computer and read my assignment aloud to nearly 18mth old son (gasp!!! 1 1/2 already???) and ask him to critique it before I complete the referencing. Given that his newest word is "Me!", I guess I'll have to settle for eloquent analytical dissection via baby babble.

And doesn't that say it all about literary criticism!

Let there be light...

It just occurred to me that very few of the pics I post of Braeden are outside.

Anyone would think the kid is a shut-in :-) Fact is, when he's outside, I'm too busy running around with & after him to muck around with a camera. Not when you've got two dogs, a road and a fast flowing stream nearby.

I should take our camera along to PlayCentre and get some shots of him there. Even in the filthiest weather, you can count on Braeden to be out in the muckiest activity to be found.

He's feeling much chirpier today. I got a slide from the Toy Library (baby sized, of course) and we spent a good chunk of the afternoon practicing climbing, sliding etc with both Important Baby People, and balls and stuff.

Yay for the end of the flu!

Square eyed cabin fever

Braeden's insistence on drinking from other kids' drink bottles ensured he caught that rotten flu that's going the rounds. And of course, he passed it on to me.

So we've spent a fair bit of the last 10 days feeling decidedly ick, sick and thick in the head, and neither of us had a lot of energy for terribly much.

As a result, we vegged in front of the Disney Playhouse Channel a fair bit. Now I'm not a total stranger to the kids' channel; Braeden usually gets about 45 minutes most mornings after breakfast and while he's waiting for me to get the dishes & the most basic housework done (can't wait until he's older and I can take advantage of slave labour, bwahahahahahaha!).

But apart from diving in to do the interactivity bits on Little Einsteins (can we say "pat pat pat BLAST OFF!" ??), I haven't taken too much notice.

Hmmph. I'm now on intimate terms with them all, and I'm having to watch my acerbic asides to young Master Braeden because it's not fun for him to grow up realising his mother entertains grisly fantasies about some of his screen idols.

Seeing as I mentioned Little Einsteins, let's start there. Great show, love the art and the geography and of course the music that they incorporate, but guys, PLEASE! There were more than five great classical tunes ever written, and I'm totally sick of seeing you recycle the same old ones for different story lines. And it's von Beethoven, not van. He wasn't Dutch. Sheesh. But that pales to the most aggravating thing about this show... Annie. Her whiny nasally voice is nails down the blackboard material, and what IDIOT thought she could sing? She must be related to the show's producers or something, for them to fail to recognise total lack of vocal talent.

"Oh isn't she a darling twee little thing. Let's give her the main singing role!"

I've heard more tuneful renditions coming from a tomcat with his ghoulies caught in a barb wire fence.

Check this out: http://www.theblogfathers.com/2006/11/07/anniegive-me-your-gun/ This writer has some rather pertinent comments on quite a few kids' shows, and I agree with every point he makes. Those Doodlebops are just plain creepy, and it's not cool the way they plaigarise popular songs and turn them into Doodlepoop.

But speaking of plaigarism, what about Johnny and the Sprites? I've had "Delta Dawn" in my head for days because he's adapted that tune to an episode. Bwah! And surely the guy has too many teeth to be real? I'm sorry Johnny, I'm probably being hard on you, but your whole show screams "Failed Broadway Queen Who Intends To Get Noticed NO MATTER WHAT!".

(You're quite cute though, for a wee princess. Nice tan!)

JoJo's Circus is also sick-making, especially with their PC-er than thou attitude towards kids' fitness and moralising. And another nasal whiny female voice.. sheesh. Get your adenoids seen to, will ya?

And that "Nutrition With Captain Carlos" surely HAS to be taking the piss out of itself!!?? If you haven't seen it, I urge you to surf the Playhouse Channel in the hopes of lucking on to it. It's a filler, so you never know when it's likely to be on. Remember those cautionary news stories/docudramas of the 50's etc, warning you of the perils of anything from The Bomb to sex to voting liberal? You know the type: patronising middle aged male narrator, really bad cinematography, unbelievably obvious moralising, and only really good for unintentional laughs. Well "Captain Carlos" is another just like it.

But it's not all bad :-) I think Bob the Builder is fantastic (so does Brae), and we also enjoy The Wiggles (ooooh that Captain Feathersword can shiver me timbers any time he likes), and Handy Manny.

Thank goodness Braeden is feeling better, and we can get back to our usual routine with a bit more gusto. Another day of TV and I think I'd have run screaming. I'm already waking up at night humming one of the theme tunes or other, and entertaining luscious fantasies about slapping Annie and the like.

Btw, Uni is coming along. Not easy finding time to study AND nurse a sickly child & self, and all the other shit I do in a day. I'm starting to get the hang of this study lark, which is why I'm online tonight, waiting for my caffiene rush to wind down enough to make going to bed less of a farcial exercise.

Puny-versity student

Well I finally got access to my uni courses. I rang on Monday, determined not to be fobbed off with the previous line of "we'll get to you, please be patient". THIS time I got an actual live person, and someone who genuinely cared. It was almost disappointing not to use the well prepared arguments I had lined up, but within ten minutes I had my login & password, and most importantly, the URL to take me where I needed to go.

Seems that was the stuff my "Welcome" letter would have contained.. cept I didn't get one, and in fact it still hasn't turned up ;-)

So in I went, two weeks down. Figured I could catch up without too much hassle..

Pah. You know what "thought" did. Good GODS but things got harder since parenthood! (Or else I just got radically dumber, which is a definite possibility)

And Brae decided that no way, no how is he prepared to share his mother's attention. Not even for a nanomicrowhatever second. I am tempted to use TV as a babysitter, as Braeden loves a couple of the shows on the Disney Playhouse channel (Little Einsteins, Bob the Builder & The Wiggles, namely). However that's not fair to him, and if I was to do that then I might as well throw the kid in daycare after all as surely it can't be worse than Nanny TV?

So if I am really lucky, I get 1-1.5 hrs at midday when he has his nap. It would be great if I could concentrate (ie stay this side of comatose).

Matters are not helped by stinking hot weather (roll on winter!!), and Wayne working his sexy butt off, trying to catch up with his many clients old & new. He was wonderful when Mum was ill, and shelved a lot of work so he could give me whatever time & support I needed (even if it was just to take Braeden for the day so I could sit with Mum), but now we have to pay the piper. The clients can't wait any longer, and the critters gotta eat, so it's work like mad. Somehow I caught up completely on my clients (weird but true), and now poor Wayne is putting in 13 hour days (without lunch.. he doesn't stop at all when at work) in the scorching heat. For extra fun & giggles he's presently landscaping on a recent subdivision (ie the ground is harder than concrete due to all the big machinery that went into creating said subdivision). The section is too narrow to take the truck into, so he's not just digging it out & over by hand, but he's wheel-barrowing all the stuff out, and the new stuff in.

To say that he's knackered at the end of the day is pretty fair comment.

I did have plans of sitting down & doing a good couple of hours after Braeden's bedtime tonight, but my head is pounding and I'm physically whacked after a very long day with Mr Pissy Britches. When this child has finished cutting all his teeth you may well hear the cheers from where you are. Funny how kids are either non-plussed by teething, or turn it into some major tragedy (with very few somewhere in between). Today "The Bubbly" was back to biting, head butting, hair pulling & slapping at my face if he didn't get exactly what he wanted, a split second before he realised he wanted it.

You do find yourself laughing though, when they slap/scratch down your eyes & cheeks, then scream "OW!" at you, and run away holding THEIR face as if they were the victim and not the perpetrator. If someone came in late & saw the second half of the performance, I think I'd have a lot to answer for to the police etc ;-)

But between the storms we had a lot of fun. We stacked & demolished blocks, had a train race, and did creative things with shape sorters. Then a mate came over for coffee which was a happy decompression treat, and now Wayne's making pizza.

I am halfway through a juicy, raunchy faerie/drama/whodunnit (Laurell K. Hamilton's latest), and there's no good reason why I shouldn't open one of the many bottles of wine that seem to have bred (much like the old milk bottles & jam jars tend to) since I got preggers with The Bubbly.

Yeah. Make mine a double :-) The books will still be there in the morning. If caffiene doesn't seem to locate my missing brain cells, maybe booze might!

Beware the ideas of March

I'm too damn clever for my own good.

My university of choice has been delayed due to "unprecedented enrollments", and instead of Semester 1 starting on Feb 19th, we're still waiting for our course materials & go-go-go. I presume it's "we", and not just "me", because every time I check their website or ring their help desk I am told the same thing.

"Yes we know we're behind, but we hope to get the majority of you all sorted out within three weeks." (And yet they're still advertising on TV... go figure)

Wayne (ever the glass half empty mindset) helpfully pointed out that this is a goodly chunk of my first semester wasted on downtime. Thanks for that.. And the exam dates are set, so let's hope no one has speed cameras on how fast we're going to have to work once TOPNZ pulls their ruddy finger out!

A relative works at Canty University and she was not terribly good at hiding her disdain that I chose to enrol with (gasp!) The Open Polytechnic rather than the usual type of university. So let's not tell her they've had delays, otherwise she's going to smirk and I'm far too fond of her to kill her & hide the body.

And why did I choose TOPNZ? Well for starters, I've done other courses with them, and found their correspondence system works very well for me. This is no "phone it in" degree; you have to work just as hard as if you trotted along each day to a bricks'n'mortar type of establishment (except there's no parking hassles, no wasted time traveling, and Braeden doesn't have to go into daycare).

Actually the non-daycare thing was the clincher. If "attending" was my only option, I would not be doing this degree. No question. Brae is not a daycare kind of kid, and I am not a daycare kind of Mum. To each their own, and I don't knock the parents who have to dance with this particular devil, but as I am free to choose, I vote HELL NO.

And here I am... my kid is down for a goodly sleep (after a great morning's play), Wayne is off doing someone's hedge, it's the weekend so my bored friends & family are out doing their thing and are guaranteed NOT to ring me, and you couldn't get better studying opportunities if you asked.

So that's why I'm whining on here, instead of grinding on the books. Then again... I do happen to have all of Semester 1 & 2's books (most bought through Trade Me for a song, yehaaa!), so I could just crack one open and read. Yeah. Sounds like a plan :-) Take the baby monitor out under a tree, get comfy, get one paragraph into it and... the baby will wake up.

I guess the better plan would be to prattle on about Braeden for a bit.

He's a total gem. Today the local trail riding group are having an endurance ride that takes them down our fenceline, and I admit to several pangs of "UNNNHHHH!!!" teeth gnashing to watch them trot past. I'd started riding again just before I found out I was pregnant, and if I hadn't been preggers I'd be riding still. In fact the chances are extremely good that I would have been in that competition today.

Hmmm... Baby or Riding...

No competition :-) Gimme the baby any day. I can always get back to riding later.
(stop laughing dammit)

(And he's awake, told you didn't I! But he's happily playing or talking in his sleep so we'll leave him for a bit)

He now has 12 teeth (8 incisors & 4 molars), needs a haircut every 8 weeks, weighs 14 kilograms, is 85cm tall, and wears size 2-4 clothes. (Depending on whether the clothes were made in Asia or not. Asian kids must be teensy compared to my hulking lad!)

Brae runs, climbs, clambers, rollicks, frolicks and tumbles with the best of them. He's taken to carrying one of his chairs around, and using that to gain access to kitchen chairs, which then gets him access to computer desks, kitchen benches, yada yada yada.

Instead of "James" I think I will change his middle name to "What are you doing up there GET DOWN THIS INSTANT!". Dumb of me not to think of this sooner, don't you agree?

The huge stray cat (remember Horace aka Horse?) has taught Braeden what I could not: to be gentle. Basically, if Brae is rough, the cat leaves. But if he's even slightly gentle, the cat nuzzles up to him, purring loudly & bunting him for affection. No Liverpool Kisses allowed.

He still hates shoes, but will tolerate (um, possibly enjoys?) gumboots. I bought him a pair from The Warehouse the other day. I don't know what was more frightening; the price ($15.99) or the size (6!!!). And the sod's had a growth spurt, so these boots might be too small in another month or so. Bugger this.. I'll get all future footwear second hand until his growth slows down to lightspeed.

Another Mum told me that if you want to how how tall they will be at adulthood, measure them on or near their 2nd birthday, and double it.

Given that Braeden is now 16 months old and is 85cm, he's likely to be *at least* 170cm (around 5'10" if my memory serves, ie a fraction taller than his parents). But what are the chances he won't grow any more in the next 8 months? Zero.

So I think it's like puppies.. the ones with the biggest paws are likely to grow to be the biggest dogs. And given that my not-quite 1 1/2 year old takes the shoe size of your average school-starter, EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEK!!!

And this is another reason why I lean towards musical or manipulative toys for him. He's going to have great big hands, so let's encourage them to be dexterous & usefull, right from the get-go. He loves bashing away on his toy pianos, so I'm hoping this will grow into a keenness for piano lessons when he's older.

Can't have him like his paternal grandfather. Cliff's massive hands are so big & clumsy, he's a menace to any keyboard (till, computer or otherwise), and no mobile phone has big enough numbers for him to use it.

LOL.. Like I would have trouble getting Braeden to learn to use a phone!!!! We spend half our days hiding our various cellphones & portable house phones from him.

A right little button pusher, he is, and in more ways than one :-)

Double standards

Do as I say, not as I do.. and all that jazz.

Funny how many perceptions shift when you have a sprog of your own. I truly thought I'd be a much more authoritarian mother (just ask my dogs). Loving, but quite quite firm.

Hah. Bally hahahahahaha, in fact. See that rib I just busted from laughing?

I'm not yet a complete pushover, but give me time. Part of this is because the apple of my eye did not fall very far at all from the mothertree. Getting all staunch & confrontational just ups his ante, and you get nowhere extremely quickly. Better to steer, suggest, distract & (gasp) lead by example. Brae is teaching me the right way to get him to respond, and you need large doses of humour, patience and an eye ever on the long term picture.

Using these strange new methods means that his tantrums are almost a rarity these days (for him, anyway!), and I haven't been headbutted or bitten in about a month. He even says "Ta" now when receiving an item; although sometimes he forgets if he's in a big hurry to get hold of said item.

One of the things that I've learned to insist upon (in my new & improved laid back manner) is gentleness and awareness of other people's boundaries & feelings. With me so far? Okay. Scroll forward to other day at PlayCentre when a bigger boy (probably about 3?) was roustering around the babies, and being generally too energetic & clumsy with his big shoes and their tiny fingers. After too many close calls, I lost my reserve when he started barging into the smaller kids deliberately, and knocking their toys away. His darling but incredibly PC (and I don't mean "PC = PlayCentre, LOL) Mum was right there, but was leading the kids in a big fun dance, so couldn't be expected - I suppose - to see everything & everyone. In hindsight, I guess I should have directed my comment via his Mum, but it just slipped out...

"Gently", I admonished with a smile. "Be nice to the babies please."

Well! The LOOK that child threw me stopped me in my tracks. A really HORRIBLE stare of "and YOU can get f*****d!!", and no two ways about it.

He just carried on (after trying to vapourise my eyeballs), but admittedly he did move over a bit and was less of a hazard to the wee ones.

I was left with a feeling of "Whaaat!??".. and realised I was lucky to get away with it.

Then not five minutes later I heard another Mum remonstrate with MY CHILD and take the toy he snatched off her tot, and return it.

Now I KNOW she was absolutely right, and if I'd been closer, I'd have beaten her to it.

But knowing she was right meant nothing. For a snap instant the mother bear in me reared up in fury (How DARE you censure MY BABY!!!!) and was only just quelled in time before I made a right prat of myself.

And I also realised in that instant that had she made eye contact with me, she also would have received a nasty glare just like the one I'd been treated to.

(I resolved to try to memorise those two lessons, before I peeve-off the nice ladies at PlayCentre.)

Then later that day...

I was at the supermarket with a very thirsty young man. I'd forgotten to take his sippycup with us, and it was a hot day. Nothing for it but to find the lowest-sugar fruit drink in a container somewhat suitable for a toddler, and have the nice cashier run it through the bar coder first so that Brae could sit drinking while the rest of the groceries rode the conveyor belt of doom.

Now you know how my kid dribbles, right? He's cutting his 4th molar at the mo, so you could irrigate whole paddocks just by wringing out his bibs. Thing is, when a dribbler drinks an orange drink, the dribbles can be seen when they plop to the floor.

A cashier at the next counter scolded me for my messy baby, and made a big fuss about wiping up those few splots. She was quite officious about it.

Mother bear started to snarl internally ... but somehow I kept my cool by responding "Very sorry, babies dribble sometimes. Good thing it's from his mouth, eh!" and muttering under my breath "easy to see someone isn't a mother!"

And on the way out, I snared a supervisor and suggested that she explain to the staff member about kids & predictable messes, and how it's not good business to encourage shoppers to buy elsewhere.

Felt bad about that.. but I'd have felt worse if I'd let her away with it. The ex-retail-slave within insisted, I'm afraid.

Told you I was a hypocrite :-) It's all my kid's fault!

O.C.U.

We have a saying in our family; One Comin' Up.

That saying tracks back to when Mum, Dad & I were travelling around Australia, in one or other of our Holdens (well occasionally a Ford or Valiant, but usually it was a Holden).

Dad was usually driving, with Mum in the passenger seat, and me perched on the armrest between them. Dad would ask for a smoke, and Mum would light it, and hand it to me, and I would pass it to Dad. The signal to let the recipient know that it was time to extend a hand to collect it was "One Comin' Up". After years of this, somehow along the way we started signing correspondence to each other with O.C.U. xxx

Even quick notes reminding someone of a job to do had this tagline.

So I think it's fitting that it should become the title of this post, because Mum passed away on Wednesday, after a brief but hard fight with leukaemia (AML). In honour of Number One Grandma, I'd like to remember her with this poem.

Maggie

Insightful & clever, quick-witted & wise
Her warmth shone out brightly from smoky blue eyes
Face creasing with laughter, she’d soon put you right.
But woe betide you if you woke her at night!

She was quick with a joke to lighten the mood
(even if sometimes those jokes could be lewd).
You could take her your problems. She’d listen and then,
She would offer solutions or her ear to bend.

With a grin and a wink she’d get the job done,
Be it a bowl on the head, or a meeting to run.
She taught us to care about how things were spelled
Her motto was, “Those who don’t know should be telled!”

You’d be in for some hell if ever you were late
Her revenge might include some Lamb’s Fry on your plate.
But her sumptuous dishes were too many to name
And her kick-ass Pavlova put store-bought to shame.

We remember with laughter that cold July night,
When we all played Pontoon til the dawn’s early light.
And how Mum went home tiddly (for one not so young)
Singing “Happy Birthday to You” at the top of her lungs.
Some might be embarrassed; it WAS five a.m.!
But Mum merely hiccupped, “Neighbours? To ‘ell with ‘em!

Sometimes reserved, and sometimes a scamp.
Sometimes demure, and sometimes a vamp.
Very few understood her, she was complex ingrained.
Through our eyes she was lovely, yet she thought herself plain.
But her best attribute was the strength of her love
And we’re blessed beyond measure because she was our Mum.

(Hey Dad... one comin' up.)

Baby bibs with a difference

When I get time, I want to whip out the fabric paints & the sewing maching and make some of these. If I had a fancy sewing machine that did lettering, even better.. but I'm afraid I'll probably never be that rich.

In the mean time, get a load of these amazing sayings they're putting on bibs these days!

Step away from the bottle!

The biarch better have my bottle..

Don't laugh; that's my Mum.

He thinks he's my Dad.

Who needs Lotto ... I've got Nana!

My other car seat is in the Ferrari

All I want for Christmas is my two front teeth

Watch out! I had a bottle of bitchy for breakfast!

Millionaire in the making

Pimp my stroller/cot/carseat

If you think I'm cute, you should see my Mummy

Pinch my cheeks & I'll kick your ass

Last one to hold me changes my nappy!

Got boobs?

I only cry when ugly people hold me.

Don't bother me when I'm downloading!

When God made me She was just showing off!

It's not a milk belly! It's a fuel tank for a Poo Poo machine!

Been inside for nine months.

If it tastes so good, let's see YOU drink it!

Nap? Nah, I'd rather go drifting with my Dad.

All Mummy wanted was a back rub.

Army Baby: Pee all that you can pee.

Von Dribble (with the Von Dutch type underscoring logo)

Weapon of Mass Distraction

Boobaholic: The first step is admitting it.

Gucci Gucci Goo

Limited Edition 2007

Santa's little helper

Stolen from Plunket

Who's my Daddy?

My first word was Broadband.

As a matter of fact, the world DOES revolve around me!

Technobabblebaby

Braeden's obsession with remote controls continues unabated.

You think you've outsmarted him by hiding the remote (or the cordless phone) but the first chance he gets, ZOOOM! We usually say "Ta to Dad/Mum" and sometimes he relinquishes it, but usually you're in for a fight.

The best technique is to offer him something in trade, like a toy he's forgotten he owns (the kid has so many toys, it's frightening).

But this can rebound.

On Boxing Day, Braeden went trotting up to his Dad and solemnly handed him his sippy cup. Wayne had to put down one of the two remotes he was holding, and Braeden swooped on the discarded item, and bearing it aloft like a triumphant orang-utan, he trotted off gleefully, out of the lounge, out past me in the office, and heading for the hallway. There is a better than average chance he was planning on "hiding" it in the toilet, btw.

It took his Dad a second to realise he'd been carefully outmanouvered!

The tanties continue, but we pretend to ignore them and they don't seem as bad these days. Yesterday though we both got a bit of a shock when Braeden flung himself backwards (as is his special trick), and landed smack on my most abused of big toes. Kerrrrrunch!

I think bubs thought he'd whacked his head a little too hard, although he only got a shock because my poor digit broke his fall. That's not all that felt broken, LOL.

I haven't been headbutted much lately, but it's still on the cards and you get used to carting him around with your head held much like Quasimodo, fully expecting a Liverpool kiss any time soon. I never seem able to predict his latest trick, unfortunately. You could be on a business call and suddenly experience the delight of eight sharp little teeth chomping down on any given part of you; boob, shoulder, inner arm, KNEE (I ask you!) or thigh. Yet to be bitten on the ankle, however, so I guess the term 'ankle biter' doesn't quite apply.

It's all down to Braeden wanting what Braeden wants, when he wants it, and if he doesn't want it then lookout to you! Can't think for the life of me who he reminds me of...

He's presently cutting molars (one each side) so it's been a *fun* week. I hear eye teeth are worse, oh goodie.

I'm still washing 8-10 bibs a day, such is the the state of powerdribble. I see other parents out with nattily dressed tots, and glance at my bibbed grublet in amused resignation. I can dress him up for a few seconds, then he finds something to get creative with (pen, gingernut, my full cup of cold coffee), and whammo. Good thing I'm not overly fussed on appearances, because if I were one of those fussy mamas, I'd have taken to drink a long time ago.

Ah well.. it's gone midnight & I've just re-tucked Mr Nearly 15 Months after a restless patch, so time to nudge husband over to his side of the bed and climb in beside him.

Btw, yes, we are definitely trying for #2. Well.. at least I am. Wayne has worn himself to a frazzle the last few weeks working on a rush job, and came home tonight sunburned, dehydrated & with an egg on his knee (lovely case of water on the knee, but WILL he see a doctor? Don't be bloody ridiculous!)

Then again... sleep is a luxury so I'd better settle for that, and be graceful about it ;-)

Photos take 1 (before Christmas)

With my sister Tina, on their farm. Braeden liked the bike... until Tina zoomed him around the corner of the house & he couldn't see us anymore. We heard his "siren" over the noise of the bike, and Tina soon came back, with him clutching her shoulder & howling for his parents. Tina is a proud Grandma four times over, and is very good at leading kids (big & small) astray ;-)

On the swings, Rawhiti Domain, Chch.

At his first horse show, SRRC In Hand Show, Sept 2006.
Skip (the geegee) is 17.2hh, btw (for non horsey folk, think BIG!)

Mako wanted in, in the worst way.
Then he encountered Braeden and wanted OUT in the worst way.

I've got Dad's hat! (I can ransom this for at least TWO remote controls!)

With No. 1 Grandma, on my birthday.

I've got measles here.. nearly all gone but I'm running hot so I'm stripped off.

Hoppy New Ears!

Bunny nappers on the loose!

Someone in our district breeds rabbits for use in laboratories, and just before Xmas, Wayne found a young albino out on our road. Not tame so not a pet, and the tattoo in its ear indicated he was considered stock in trade (not even nicely done, a thumping great tattoo on such a dainty ear!).

Now we could have knocked on a certain door & returned him to his destiny ... but nah. We looked after him for a few days until we found a brilliant new home, and he's made a young family extremely happy. In the mean time Braeden met his first rabbit, stole his first "jellybean" (can you hear my mother's scream from where you are?), and learned that some teddy bears get about under their own steam.

Did we get a picture of this? Not sure.. will check..

Braeden has given us a variety of frights recently. First he contracted chicken pox, and no sooner threw that off when he came down with measles. (Mild doses each, but still utterly miserable for the wee man and not a basket of fun for the parents either)

Then he discovered how to test the front door, which does not always click completely closed. One evening when I was with clients, Wayne paused mid-DVD to notice that baby was unnaturally quiet, and went looking.

There was Braeden, on the verandah happily belting The Wobble. Count the hazards: elderly impatient dog who will bite, big stream (water race) not 15 feet away & unfenced, road 60 feet in other direction.. I went quite peuce when Wayne told me the next day.

Then the next time Wayne was left to look after baby, I got home to hear "You really have to watch the child all the time, don't you!" (Um..... take a deep breath Karl, and don't kill your dear, dim husband. You need him for stud services, among other things.)

Turns out Braeden went quiet again.. and Wayne went looking. Front door was firmly closed (yeah but he can close it behind him; I've seen him do it). Has to be inside.. (don't bank on it). Call baby.. baby doesn't answer. (They never do) Look everywhere.. Discover child has climbed over the back of the couch & is standing in No Man's Land (fenced off area for hot coffees, remote controls, pens, study books etc) with a remote clutched in each grubby hand, and a grin a mile wide.

A mate gave me a good tip the other day: put food colouring in the bath water. I was highly sceptical (tinted baby? tinted enamel? tinted towells?) but it turned out she was right. Braeden is now back to being interested in baths, which is good because he went off the idea when he kept roistering around & falling over. If the child would just sit in the damn bath he'd be fine, but the best compromise he'll offer is squatting, but always stands up when you try to wash his hair, unfortunately.

Speaking of hair.. we ran the clippers over him the other day. Worked a treat! He sat on his father's lap while his mother attacked him with the noisy thing with the long comb attachment. No ears were nicked in the making of this haircut.

Okay, will post this then see if Braeden will grant me some time to make a second post, this time with pictures!

Little monkey!

Right up until Sunday a week ago, Braeden was supremely unimpressed by playground equipment.

Now that he's gained mucho confidence walking, he's suddenly decided to become upwardly mobile. This extends to clambering over windowsills & table tops. We had to take his table & chairs out of the playroom because he was giving me heart failure.

Amazing how fast they change... Hopefully he will still feel like climbing everything/one in sight when Playcentre starts up again next term in February.

Which, by the by, is when I start Uni. I'm finally going to get a crack at that degree I had on schedule before I found out about the impending baby.

Thank goodness for modern universities who offer online study. You can pretty much guarantee I'll be doing most of mine in the wee hours ...

Btw, busy month just lately. Brae got the seasonal flu, then chicken pox, then measles. His doc grinned and said it meant he was getting plenty of exposure to other kids, and that all (normally healthy) under-fives need this to built their army of antibodies.

The most obvious of Braeden's antibodies is his aversion to some male bodies ;-) You never know when Mr Shy Guy is going to surface, and oh BOY can he suddenly become velcro-kid at top volume!

Photos ARE coming.. I just have to get my A into G.

Sh*t happens

Amazing how parenthood changes your perspective. I can remember goggling in horror at friends' children if they had the slightest bit of muck or slime about them, and our cats will tell you how spectacularly unimpressed I am to be dribbled on.

While the 'ew yuck' factor is still present within me, it has been swamped by the 'aw cute' invaders still surfing in on my maternal hormones.

Braeden is the quintessimal grubby child. He has perpetually sticky fingers, moist face & bits of biscuit (well, we hope it's biscuit?) leave a permanent trail to show where he's been. If he were anyone else's sprog, I'd be clutching at the ceiling panels to avoid him, but instead I welcome his sloppy kisses, sticky pats & have even graciously accepted strange things thrust into my mouth for "sharing" (ohhh I really hope that was a gingernut!)

It's not like I don't TRY to keep him clean! However attacking him with a facecloth is almost as much of a battle as changing his nappy. Fists & feet fly, he does a marvelous imitation of the round-house Buffy The Vampire Slayer kick-thing (body acts like a top, legs act like flail mowers, sort of Kenny Everett meets Bruce Lee). The screams of outrage are deafening. And some of those even come from Braeden!

I'm proud to say I wimp out. When it's nappy changing time (and especially if he's at all fragrant!) I find something enchanting for him to clutch & afterwards I deal with the megatanty when I have to retrieve the DVD remote/cellphone/lipstick etc. The alternative doesn't bear thinking about.

Wayne, on the other hand, doesn't believe in distraction therapy, so you can tell when it's Dad's turn to change a nappy by the sqawks of "ARRRRGH BRAEDEN, PLEASE BE GOOD FOR DADDY, OH NOOOOOOO! NOW IT'S GONE EVERYWHERE, OH MY GOD, HONEY HELLLLLLPPPPP!" (At least that's what I think he's saying.. it's kinda hard to hear over Braeden's screams of outrage & indignation)

Matters are not helped about 24 hours after Braeden gets what Wayne so charmingly dubbed "Karl's Poo Stew". Once a week I grab a good selection of what's fresh in the vege line, simmer them together for a while, then mash up in the food processor with the contents of a tin of baby food (liver flavour). Then the pottles get frozen, and it's a great help when you're in a rush to make the baby's dinner, or if you have to go out.

For some unknown reason, this gets things moving again (and how!). Wayne gets quite white around the gills if Braeden ever misses his usual 8am motion, and gets distinctly nervous if it still hasn't arrived by mid afternoon, because that guarantees what baby is going to get for dinner that night.

Strangely, Wayne usually remembers urgent pressing reasons he has to be on the other side of Christchurch all day the next day.

Chicken! Poook pook poook...

Groovy, baby!

Braeden has always enjoyed music; even when he was a foetus he would kick enthusiastically when I played catchy tunes, and would also respond with delight when I sang to him.

(The child must be tone deaf, LOL)

Since his birth his interest in music has expanded, preferring musical or noisy toys, and when unsettled the best remedy has always been cuddles and soothing or silly made-up songs.

Yesterday Braeden hose to play with one of his musical toys, and when he activated this week's favourite song (Rockin' Robin) he began to clap (not new) and started twisting his arms and torso to the music (very new!). He maintained eye contact with a happy grin, clearly inviting me to respond. I was rapt to see him link movement to music, and to communicate that he wanted a dance partner.

I followed his lead, dancing on the spot and showing my enjoyment at music, movement and partnership (checks swiftly to make sure no one is watching the grown woman acting like a clown on speed).

We expanded the game by adding a "musical instrument". I picked up one of his rattle/teething ring thingies, a trinagular object with swinging disks. This made a very good impromtu tambourine, and I shook & banged it with gay abandon.

(more "demented drag queen" than "gay", methinks)

Braeden loved this adaptation, and took the rattle from me, bashing it and shaking it like it owed him significant sums of money.

I told you he was fun to be around :-))

Watch out! Baby on the move!

I'm making no promises, but (work & other committments permitting) it might be possible to update this blog a whole lot more often than I have had opportunity of late.

The reason for this is His Lordship has graduated out of the oversized playpen, and now runs amok under my feet. (Listening to stirring noises coming from the cot.. oh bugger.. that was the second too-short sleep of the day!.. BRB...)

Play Centre has given Braeden the confidence to allow his mother to multitask while he plays. He still loves my company, but now I'm allowed to be at my desk while he dissembles the contents of the kitchen cupboards & chases Auntie Poodle around the house. Poor dog.. she is the poster child of canine patience, but when he's been too rough, too in-yer-muzzle, and too hard to outdistance, she retaliates with vigorous licks to his face and hands.

(Btw if my attention seems disjointed, it's because a farmer's barking dog woke Braeden up early and BOY is he Mr Crankypants! There are roars of outrage coming from the play pen where Braeden is refusing to drink his after-nap bottle. The gate is open and he can pop on out any time he likes, but he prefers to throw a major tanty right where he is. Ah hah.. here he comes, grumbling disenchantment & disappointment that his audience wandered off. Now he's found me I expect his list of complaints to resume in person! Yep.. never one to disappoint, LOL! I apologise to people in the next town for the noise level.)

I wish Braeden would return to the sleep pattern we enjoyed up until recently, but he's not showing much sign of it. He's back to waking before 6am, and wants to go flop around 10 or thereabouts. This is a pain in the &$$ for Play Centre or any other morning activity, but we work around it the best we can. These days I'm only there for an hour or so before I'm taking a tired & pissy baby home for a sleep. Oh yeah, before you ask, YES there is a cot for the littlies to use, but Braeden won't hear a word of it. Sleep while other kids are running about, laughing, splashing, and having fun? Yeah riiiiiight. (pauses to remove child's searching fingers from keyboard, undoes weird changes, hands child a cool calculator to annoy... err.. play with)

He's never been a particularly consistent sleeper, this one. With dogged persistence, a sleep journal, outside help and more books than seems wise, we seem to have learned some skills for getting close to the amount of sleep the experts seem to think a one year old should have. What REALLY bunches my panties is that he routinely give his father 2 hour sleeps, and the other day (are you sitting down?) he gave him nearly three hours! Three! I bloody ask you!!!

Today I got half an hour, then an hour. And he's cranky because he's tired. (Well actually right now he's chortling at all the 7's he can get to come up on the calculator screen, but give him a few minutes and he'll be yelling again.)

But what a beaut kid :-) He's started coming up and expecting to nestle into you, usually when you've just collapsed with a hot drink that you now have to move to a distant shelf until it's reached the unpalatable but safe temperature. He leans in to you and purrs "awwww awwww" noises as he pats your arm, leg or nose. He's got an opinion about everything, and he isn't afraid of telling you about it.

I could do without the tanties though, especially when you're trying to change a nappy. What is WITH that??? I think he's ticklish/don't mess with me, but his father has a different theory which involves a future as a career nudist! Oh, we're unhappy.. I'd better come back later!

Yeah RIGHT I'm gonna be able to work, post more often, yada yada yada... hahahahahahah

This time last year....

I was a woman in serious need of drugs ;-)

Yep, as of 5.25 tomorrow morning, my little man is one year old.

Good Gods, where did that year go!

Braeden's having his birthday party on Saturday, with a melee' of family & friends turning up to celebrate his first year, and to officially witness his naming ceremony. After much debate, we've chosen his Good Parents (which is what Godparents were originally called before religion got in on the act), and he's not related to either of them. Not that we're short of perfectly wonderful people within the families, but in the end we chose long time friends who have proven themselves excellent parents with very similar values to our own, and have chosen to be very heavily involved with Braeden since his birth.

If I thought I was busy in the first eleven months of Braeden's life, I had another think coming. Once he considered himself Totally Toddler, he simultaneously became more interactive, more extra active, and yet both more and less restful! He went from three sleeps per day down to two, and he tries on a weekly basis (but never "weakly"!) dropping that down to a grudging single daily sleep.

However (fingers, eyes, toes & legs firmly crossed on this) he seems to be finally (gasp!) SLEEPING THROUGH!

Part of this is having his own bedroom, ever since his parents moved out to half of the lounge. Part is his mother finally learning that it's okay to turn the sound & movement monitor down from top volume, and thus not necessarily responding to every burp, fart & grumble. And part is getting him to give up his night drinkies, so that midnight nappy changes are no longer as essential.

He now goes to Playcentre twice a week, and loves it. Wayne has taken him once or twice when I've been unable to be in two places at once, and despite feeling a bit discomforted about waltzing in to what is considered (at least by men) to be womens-only territory, he coped well and was warmly welcomed by the other Mums (at least, when they finished picking their jaws off the floor.. but that might have been his nerves causing him to think they were that surprised).

Braeden isn't totally confident about walking by himself without something to clutch (furniture, parent, dog, etc) but if you sneak a peek you might see him stride about four feet from one toy to another when he feels like it and doesn't want to take the time to drop & crawl.

He's doing very well with baby sign language, communicating when he wants milk, food, cuddles, picking up & a nappy change. His babbletalk is quite impressive, and he can carry his half of a conversation for quite a long time, raving enthusiastically about all sorts of Very Important Baby Things (as Very Important Baby People are wont to do).

He has nearly nine teeth, and has become fascinated by other people's teeth ever since he saw his paternal grandmother pop hers out at him (ARRRRGGGHHHH .... and the more I scold the wench the more she does it! Good thing I really love my MIL, heh heh).

So on this momentous night of memories, I look back on some of the things I thought I knew back then, and snigger.

I hated dummies, yet Braeden has four. Every so often he gets down to one (the dummy fairies seem to hide them for some reason), and we live in clammy fear that he'll lose that one too.

I thought that working parenthood was pretty much a matter of organisation & determination. I had no room for the possibility that it 99% depends on the largesse of the child, the amount of sleep deprivation, and the ability to utterly tune out & tune in. Nowadays I work when he sleeps, and that can mean sitting up til 1am just so I can get the deadlines met & the mortgage paid. The rest of the time is Braeden's; either doing the physical care stuff or the hugely FUN stuff! Forget having a second childhood. I'm enjoying Braeden's too much to fret the mundane stuff.

I read a quote recently that defines motherhood as walking around with your heart outside your body. That's too true, and it is not confined to your own sprog. There's something about parenthood that makes you realise your days of self centredness may have been fun at the time, but they are now soooo over! Not that you don't sometimes secretly yearn for them on days when you've got a scorching migraine, the child is doing the whiny MMnnnnnHHHHHHH noise, the nor'wester is howling and the fax machine keeps spewing out more work and shorter deadlines. But then you get a big beamy smile, a grubby fist hands you today's favourite toy for you to enjoy, and you hear "Mum!" and suddenly it's all in perspective again.

Thanks for your first year, my heartsong. I wasn't properly alive before I met you.

You know you're busy (lazy?) when...

your blogger update consists of an excerpt of an email to a friend.

So here 'tis :-)

"... I guess someone will update me when and if anything happens that needs my attention, but in the mean time I'm happy to be busy doing other stuff.

And the other stuff I'm busy with (apart from work, etc) is Braeden's introduction to Playcentre.
I admit to being a bit confused with all the similar thingies going on with babies, ie Playcentre vs playgroups vs creche vs kindy etc. But I finally got my befuddled head around Playcentre being like Kindy except that it's open to kids from birth upwards, and instead of dropping off and going, you have to stick around if your child is under 2. Which is no hardship; in fact it's a hell of a lot of fun.

So my little monster is now the hellion of the S***** Playcentre, and is thoroughly enjoying himself. Surprisingly, he has so far shown no interest in the sandpit, but he loves the swings, the musical activities, the paints (especially if he can annoy another child who is trying to paint), and the sheer huge s-p-a-c-e-s to scuttle around like a demented crab.

Except.. today he spotted me cuddling someone else's baby, and oh-my-bloody-god you should have seen the over-reaction!
Never mind he'd totally ignored me for an hour and a half while he inspected and approved everything and everyone in sight.
Never mind he'd belted me over the head when I tried to give him his midmorning feed.
Never mind that he wasn't even in the same room as me (but was still within sight.. just!).

As soon as he saw me holding a sweet little six month old angel, he ROARED like a beestung bull, and charged at me in a straight line (which scattered everyone in his path, young or old). Still roaring his fury and jealousy, he tried to climb UP my leg (I was standing, and I am not short or at all treelike) to displace the baby in my arms.

I gave the baby back, picked up my infuriated lump of pea-green envy (and goggled at the weight difference between the two!), and have spent the rest of the day dealing with Velcro Baby.

Now if I were a higher class of mother I wouldn't have laughed.. but I did, and I think I'm going to keep chuckling about this for a long time. I just wish someone had caught it on video. Never mind that meteorite - this had a MUCH noisier sonic boom :-)

(Addendum.. the word verification code on the bottom of this post as I go to submit it, strikes me as rather apt.. "nvoyh" My strange and tired brain sees that transform into Envy Of Your Hoyden.)

Month 10 in pix (well, the first week & a bit, anyhoo)

The Member for Tauranga....

absolutely **has** to be a relation. Last night's faux pas removed all doubt.

He doesn't just physically resemble two of my uncles, last night he pretty much channelled all my family's males of that generation, including my father. (Except Dad would have realised what he said the moment he said it, and thoroughly enjoyed the joke).

The redneck quote of the day:

"I'm not against gays and lesbians, I don't mind them personally, I just don't want them ramming their thing down my throat."

Shall I send him the cleaning bill for the coffee I hiccuped all over the sofa?

Pix from the ninth month

There are a lot of these, so polish your specs, grab a coffee, and enjoy!

Braeden has discovered his voice, and practices enthusiastically. We often experience the "noise of the day" which can sometimes be scary (barking cough) or downright hysterical (flibble!)

We're pretty independent a lot of the time... unless we feel like being snuggled.

Important Baby People like loud, spangly toys.

And we like to believe we're the next Elton John (more on this later..)

We like our People to be on hand, just in case we feel like hangin'

Sometimes we lie back and take stock.. and realise we need to work on our abs a bit more.

Mothers are annoying creatures who get in the way of an Important Baby Person's meanderings. However being rather bright, I worked out that although I can't step over a big cushion, I can drop to my knees and crawl.

I'm getting really good at this, nya nya Mutha!

I like to steal food from my parents' plates, especially Dad's home cooked wonderful date scones!
I learned to clap, and I applaud my achievements rather a lot. Mum taught me this because every time I do something clever (or fall over and need to be distracted from crying), Mum claps and yells "Yay The Braeden! Wooohoo Clever Baby!"
Sometimes Mum can be a little bit silly, but I guess I should let her cos she doesn't really have a social life any more.

Here I am, planning mischief (or just staring down the paparazzi ... you choose)
Check out those incredibly long eyelashes!

Here I am playing "pat a cat" with an indignant Badger.

I really must learn to shut the hell up.

Wow.. where do I start.

First off, I guess I'd better warn you that I might have to dash off any moment if my child wakes up howling, because that's been the pattern of the last 24 hours. Poor little sod's got the flu (caught it from his mother), and he's not enjoying it at all.

Between tax season, GST time (that two month break seems like two days, sometimes), family duties (Mum's in hospital again), and motherhood.. well I'm not surprised that I've lost another couple of kilos from stress alone.

But the motherhood part is a hell of a lot of fun. Well.. mostly. I'm getting better at not falling apart when my kid cries (visibly, anyway). I even stepped outside today and left him snuffling unhappily into The Poodle because I had to answer a very important client question and couldn't hear myself think. Naturally I stayed just on the other side of the French doors, waving like a lunatic and "signing" incy wincy spider while chatting seriously about extensions of time and other serious stuffiness.

Yep, you know you're a parent when you can carry firewood, talk on the phone AND keep that spider on the trot.

Exhaustion has been the flavour of the last month or so. We fell (unwittingly & unhappily) into a pattern of constantly broken night sleep, which meant Karl (who did night shift for more than a decade) needed to get some sleep when Braeden woke at 5am, which meant Wayne was housebound until something like 8.30 when his wife finally woke and resembled something human, which meant he wasn't getting away from the house until close to 10.

There were many days when we stared blankly at each other and said "Ahhh stuff it. The landscaping can wait until tomorrow."

And of course "tomorrow" rained, hailed, sleeted or otherwise snotted something dreadful.

So that hurt the bank balance, and of course offended the bank manager. All fixed now but it was sausages & cabbage for a week or so there. If (and I mean "IF") we could be bothered to eat it. Sleep deprivation is a nasty thing.

Wayne decided that enough was enough, and seeing as it was unlikely we'd get the renovations done any decade soon, we'd have to compromise and soon. So one night (to test the theory) we crashed out on the couch and let Braeden have the whole bedroom to himself.

Guess which little baby-flavoured pumpkin pretty much slept through!

Ah-hah! Remove the snoring, wriggly parents and the snoring, wriggly dog (it's 90% dog : 10% parents on the nuisance factor), and the kidlet sleeps better.

Hence the parents might too?

So the big lounge is now tweeny, as we've put partitions up across half of it and tucked our bed in behind. Braeden has the entire master bedroom to himself, and is loving it. (Or was, until he got the bot).

Despite feeling sick today, he's had a great day. We sat in the playroom and played joyfully for two hours, then it was lunch and a nap (while Mum whizzed around cleaning up). Then we woke up crying (tooth #8 coming through), and got to nuzzle with Mum (dripping snot down her cleavage.. yum) for an hour or so, before becoming suddenly recharged and launching ourselves backward off Mum's lap and wanting to get down & parteeeeee!

Hallways are marvelous things in which to play tag with a baby. Extra good if you add in a couple of large rubber balls, an over-mothering dog, and a baby who can out-scuttle any crab.

Unfortunately Mum & Bub group is a no-go tomorrow, for obvious reasons. Bit of a shame, because most of the babies are now crawling, and last time was a real hoot with three of them racing each other up and down the step into the sunken lounge and off into the kitchen. Braeden was seriously outclassed by pretty Kelsey, (a totally gorgeous wee sprite with a mass of auburn curls and the brightest blue eyes), so he decided to get even and resorted to botty hopping.

The toddlers looked up from their "serious older kid play" and as one, they silently decided this looked like fun, and soon we had a congo line of botty hoppers following Braeden, who was trying to chat while bouncing. If you've ever bottyhopped and talked at the same time, you get a weird sort of verbal "buh-uhhhh-buh-hunnnh" effect, so of course the toddlers joined in on the sound effect as effectively as they did the bottom elevation technique.

We mothers laughed so hard we had to work hard not to spray each other with coffee. The host Mum ended up with some nicely buffed floors, into the bargain.

On a more serious note, poor old Mum is in hospital following a bladder infection that led to blood poisoning, and has some problems with what is sounding suspiciously like pernicious anaemia. She's had three blood transfusions so far and is in isolation due to reduced immunity to disease, and there are more tests coming.

Poor old gal. And I can't take Bub up to see her because we're riddled with the dreadful lurgy. What a shame her cellphone doesn't have pix capability.

(A darkly humourous aside.. this time I decided NOT to bring her cat home for the duration, given that we lost the previous moggie!)

It's time to explain the title of this update. I'm about to wander right off the point for a moment, and remind my mates from UC of the post I put up 18 months ago where I bewailed my month of misery (January '05), with Mum in hospital, a fight with the bank manager, two relatives and a friend dropping dead, and to cap it all off I said the fateful words. "Oh yeah. And I'm late."

With me so far? So when Mum went into hospital on Thursday, I turned to Wayne and said "remember last time, yada yada". He rang me later that day and said "Here's #2.. grumpy note from the bank manager."

Then the next day I got word of #3.. a wonderful lady who was sort of an honorary grandmother to me has passed on. Not entirely unexpected, but nevertheless not welcome news.

So I'm putting everyone on notice. Do not walk under any ladders, run over any black cats, or otherwise push your luck, because I really don't want to completely repeat last year's hellmonth.

But I could totally stand to be "late" again ;-) Especially now that I don't have to worry about waking the sproglet in the cot next to the bed. I think Wayne would prefer it if I got rid of the flu first, however.

Photos coming soon, I promise :-) Bub is now 10 months old.. can you believe it!!

No, I hadn't forgotten the blog :-)

Sorry about the unreasonable delay! Between a very active young man and the many client demands (being this time of year), when I did have a spare moment I spent it collapsing on the couch like some wilting 18th century heroine.

So much has happened in the interim! As I said to a friend the other day with a younger baby, "You will get a nanosecond's break between when they can self-amuse and when they are off and about. Enjoy it while you can!"

At his last weigh in, Master Braeden tipped the scales at an impressive 11.48kgs, and is now 74cm in length. Whooohaaa! No wonder my arms want to drop off, some days!

Up until four days ago he was still a two-toofer (two teeth) but on Friday he popped through another bottom tooth, and after a dreadful night last night, Wayne was the first to spot that both top teeth have cut through at once. We had an idea he might be close, as he did the same thing with the other bottom tooth (can't sleep, too sore, can I get in bed with you?). No one slept properly last night, but the baby didn't cry if he was snuggled between us, and who's counting if I was driven mad by baby hair under my nose, or that I was woken at 4.33am by the sensation of staring up into the nappy that was sitting on my face?

Braeden just that day got to use the smaller of his toddler table & chairs and must have decided to put that into practice on his mother's head in the "wee" hours (ie, time to change the nappy, Mum!)

On the development front, Boyo continues to rocket along. He botty-hopped his way around the lounge & play room until one night about two weeks ago he unceremoniously pulled himself to his feet while we weren't looking. Since then he's progressed rather quickly into furniture navigation, and can now get almost anywhere he wants to.

As his destination of choice is the television cabinet, we spend a goodly part of each day retrieving a naughty child who thinks it's all a terrific game, thank you very much. We put on TERRIBLE SCOLDY FACES AND VOICES (so much so that the dog runs off and hides under the desk) but the baby just laughs in our faces, which makes it very hard to not collapse under the strain and grin back.

So I started putting big cushions & other obstructions between the child and his desire.

That worked. For about an hour.

Then the little sod decided he could learn to crawl after all, and now can choose the ambulation of his choice: botty hop, furniture shuffle, or crawl.

Blast! (but I'm actually rapt he learned to crawl in the end.. essential in right/left brain interaction)

He teases us about sleeping through. Just when we think we've cracked it, he throws the game plan out the window and we have to start again. He's most determined to disrupt his parents when the timing is right to try for a little brother or sister. Now I believe I know what my mother meant when I asked her why I didn't have a little brother or sister and she replied "Well you seemed quite certain you didn't want us to have one!" To my five year old self this seemed a dreadful lie, and I got quite pissy about it, but now I get the joke.

Mum & Baby group continues to go extremely well. Some of the mums in our group have what most parents call "Other people's babies". One girl was in labour for all of two hours, needed nothing more than a cool flannel, and her baby has never been the slightest bit troublesome and slept through pretty much from the moment she came home from the hospital.

No we did not gang up on her and shove her in a nappy bucket.

And guess whose child is the naughtiest of the playgroup babies? Yep. Last time he became totally enamoured of a pretty toddler of about 4, and followed her everywhere. If she became engrossed with something, he would sneak up behind her (mysteriously able to restrain from babbling or other giveaways), then launch himself up and at her head, holding on furiously to her long blonde hair and giggling with delight as she tried to get free.

Horrible child. He must have a very bad mother ;-)

I did not dare let him play with the other babies his age - he's too rough. For the most part they are at exactly the right stage for their development and a hell of a lot less boisterous & bolshy than my boy, so putting him with the no-nonsense toddlers is much more appropriate for the moment. The other mothers might get upset if my big son swings their lovely children around by their noses.. just because he can.

Btw, I don't hate Mums with easy babies. I've adopted the philosophy that it's 50% genetics, 50% luck of the draw. Better to pat them on the back and hope that some of their good luck rubs off on me for next time.

Child is also outrageously good looking, and can ride a scoot-along motor bike (teaching himself how in less than an hour).

Yep, leader of the (nappy) pack :-) Will post more updates and some delicious photos when I get a chance but for now, this'll hold ya!

Mr Opinionated

Braeden's personality is showing signs of continuing to develop.

Never backward in coming forward with his wants and needs, he's learning to use his facial muscles to convey greater depth to his current mood. I'm surprised his nose (for example) doesn't fall asleep long before the rest of his face, simply from over-exertion. He's learned to wrinkle it up like a little porklet, which is rather endearing when teamed with a volley of facial farts.

Which brings me to the "sound of the day". Often it's the juicy raspberry mentioned above, but can also be a whooply-sounding cough, or a single word, or whatever takes his fancy. That cough thing really had me going there for a bit, as it sounds just like what the books describe as Whooping Cough. Wayne was on to it, however, and pointed out that Braeden was only doing it in "conversation", ie when it was his turn to contribute, he would cough rather than go "bahbahbabble" or similar. This is when we had to put our parrothood training into effect, and pointedly NOT respond to this noise no matter how tempting, and sure enough, without the feedback he retired it to the box marked "Doesn't seem to work for me".

Banging-type games are very popular at the moment, with all three of us playing the 'drum' on the footstool the other day. It evolved into Wayne slapping a rhythm, then me, then Braeden. Everyone waited their turn, which is pretty amazing for an 8 month old, I reckon. He very much enjoyed this game, and I think it might have to become a regular thing.

Another great fave is paper! Both Braeden's parents are addicted to Sudoku; even going so far as to print out a few dozen puzzles at a time and keeping them on a clipboard for easy access. (Don't tell Wayne I told you, but one of his major gripes when we lost power for two days last week was that we didn't do a big printout of Sudoku first!)

Anyhoo, as wannabe conservationists, we reuse the reverse side of the paper for the next round of printouts, and even when both sides are used up there is still life in the paper yet, as Master Braeden has a ripping good time with the discarded sheets.

Still waiting on that top tooth. Darn thing woke Braeden up every 15 minutes the other night, which meant by around 2am neither parent could go back to sleep (37th strike, yerOUT!). Bubs wasn't unhappy as such, just not able to settle into deep sleep for long. He was fine the next day, but we were write-offs. Thank goodness for tag-team-parenting that we could go back to bed in shifts, leaving the other one to mind the baby & make the coffee.

Enjoy the pix :-)

Now how does this open??? (Am I supposed to be over here?)

Pick me up!!

It wasn't me!!! (But who wants a nice big kiss???)

Hey! I stand up to play!

(with lots of soft stuff behind me, and Aunty Poodle watching me like a hawk)

Mr Fussbucket

Braeden is again going through that phase of being very anti-anyone-who-isn't-Mum-or-Dad. Yesterday I took advantage of the break in the weather to get out to some clients, and also to pop in on Braeden's Nan-Nan who hasn't seen him since his haircut. First he roared at a client (even though I assured Braeden that builders only eat babies on Fridays, and yesterday was a Thursday - and the builder agreed with me), then he threw major wobblies at his Nan-Nan.

Even though Nan-Nan sacrificed herself on the altar of satorial splendour by donning baby's new woolen hat, he still pulled squidgy faces then finally succumbed to tears. (Maybe he'll like his hat better when I get a chance to sew on its pompoms?)

We're still working on bedtime, but Braeden is moving closer towards sleeping through. Before the snow, he was sleeping from 8.30pm - 7am with a few short wakies (dummy hunts). His routine was thrown out by the power outage, but we're back to 8.30-5.30am, which is better, but I still wish he'd go back to that 7am upsie-baby!

The little one's batteries run out when he's in the strangest positions. Here he is asleep in the sitting position, taken from two angles, then finally when he's been repositioned (still sleeping) into a more ergonomic snooze.

Presently he's just woken from a short nap, so my break is over and I'll post these pix while he drinks his bottle, then it's Mum & Baby time in the lounge while Dad brings up some more firewood just in case they are right in predicting more snow (insert grimace).

More snow pix!

Firstly let's have a reminder why you turn the camera's flash off before getting snow pics ;-) Still, it's a good indication of how cold it was outside.

As promised, here's the snow falling at dawn.
Taken from the front door, looking out toward the nutty neighbour's and across the water race.

The dogs were spectacularly unimpressed by the inconvenience.
Pood became so attached to the fire she nearly climbed inside it.

Dawn on Day 2. Looking out the kitchen window towards our paddocks. The horses were sheltering under the pine trees down the back, the pig was in her hut, and the cattle were standing around the frozen trough moaning about it all. Pretty though, wasn't it :-)

An hour later and Mr Pheasant strolled into view, in laconical pursuit of his wife who was out shopping. (She is just out of frame)

Speaking of snow birds, the aviary fared well (once Wayne put up another support in the huge centre flight, as we have to do when it snows). The canopy of snow as usual formed an igloo effect, and the birds are snug and warm, catching all the morning sun and none of the wind.

Just some of the icicles hanging around the place today. Watch your step!

Piste & powerless at Nutters Grove

(There was a very cool pic here of the snow coming down at dawn, but I hit the wrong button, deleted it, and now Blogger for some stupid reason won't let me reload it. Arrrrghghh!)

Two days without power due to the "weather bomb" which hit Canterbury this week. I'm not fooled by the 80's sounding terminology (the decade of buzzphrases that meant exactly nothing). A "weather bomb" is merely code for "Oops.. we didn't forecast this!"

As usual, we lost electricity. This time for just shy of two days. Mooney the Looney (crazy dude next door, you will recall) kept ringing up all and sundry threatening to top himself if the power wasn't restored. Apparently one of the recipients was the (and I quote) "Chief of Police", which to my way of thinking means he was asking for American help because NZ doesn't have any of these. Every time he rang us to whinge, I kept reminding him "this is what you get in the country" in the vain hope it might convince him to move. Yeah, well.. we live in hope ;-)


Thank goodness for log fires! At least we could keep warm & cook food & sterilise bottles. The animals are none too impressed, but we scored some hay from a neighbour (traded for our gas heater as their logfire is out of action) and that kept the hooved critters fed when they couldn't get to the grass.

Heaviest dump we've seen thus far. A foot in some places, and despite glorious sunshine yesterday, we still have 6-8 inches around the house. My niece in Oxford said she got 10 inches but I told her to stop talking about her husband like that ;-)

The mini-thaw yesterday froze overnight in seriously subzero temps (my friends in Canada will find this funny in comparison to what they routinely experience!) and now everything is hard, slick and damn dangerous. Good thing we snuck out yesterday before lunch and made it to the store, because I would not be brave enough to drive anywhere today.

Anyhoo, enjoy the pix :-) Oh and something else they didn't teach us in antenatal class (grin!). When giving the baby his first rusk, first strip baby naked and place in upturned umbrella. Anything else (like in a favourite stand-up toy, for example) means you will be cleaning til the cows come home ;-)

Note how we put one foot in front now, when we try to crawl. Usually the same foot, but not always.

Watching TV on Dad's knee.

Our week in pix (7 1/2 months)

(Note from Mother... Don't let this week's smiley pix fool you. Braeden's parents are not allowed out of his sight for an instant, particularly if you're his mother. Very clingy, grizzly and quite unhappy with the whole painful business of teething. It's been quite a challenge to find ways to distract & cheer him, but we did okay, I think)

Playing with my toys, and this week's fave is this toy where I tap the balls through the holes, and they come out the chute again.

Oh yeah, too much fun not to be squealing!

Playing with Dad on the floor, note my trademark sideways glance and that my Dad has been busy building a tipping deck for the truck, and that's why he's a bit of a grub.

Later on in the week I was introduced to the joys of a metal bowl and a wooden spoon. See my bright red cheeks? This teething biz sucks, man!

But bathtime cheers me up! Hey... hang on a minute, someone CUT MY HAIR!!!!

Taken this morning (around 6.20am). I've had a bottle & clothing change, and now I'm playing with my toys while Mum checks her email & snaps a pic of me with my short hair. I look quite different now (as you'll see in later shots when I'm actually awake). Much less like a baby, and more like a big boy. Also I now resemble Dad more than Mum :-) (Must be the 'boy' thing, haha)

Raspberry fool

We're still trying to convince Braeden of the benefits of sleeping through. We've had the odd morning he's played "find the dummy" a few times, and finally woken around 6am and said "Hello world, I need you to wake up because I'm about to play chairman of the bored and pass a motion!"

Last night was a bit different, however.

There were no dummy-hunts at all during the night, and his grateful parents got to bed at 9.45pm ( scant hour after His Lordship), and slept through until being woken (drenched?) by vigorous facial fartings from the cot beside the bed.

Yep, Braeden has rediscovered blowing raspberries, and he's rather good at it. Anyone/thing within six feet of him is in for a shower surplus to their usual morning one (but with more bubbles to make up for the lack of soap). Wayne thinks it's dreadful that I refer to the baby as Fartface, but I was brought up in the school of "the more offensive the terminology, the more I love you". It's a hard habit to break, especially when you lovingly call a friend "Oh you poxy bitch" and instead of a reciprocal insult of the compatriot, you see furious face and the door slamming behind their exiting ass. (Sheesh, was it something I said???)

Anyhoo, if you saw how well Braeden PHBBBLLLTTTTSSSSSSTTTSSS then you'd see what I meant. He let rip a real beauty last night, and his granddad (not realising it was the baby) glanced at me in surprise, then averted his nose towards the dogs. It's a worry when someone prefers the scent of two old dogs to oneself!! I did explain it was the baby, but the look changed to one of pity that I would blame my child for my dreadful sins.

And Wayne was no help.

"Oh blame the baby!" he exclaimed. "Some mother you are!!"

Bastard. (You know I love him, really...)

Anyhoo, I suppose hearing wet exuberances from the cot makes a change from the usual roar of chagrin we often hear, especially the other night when he woke up with a sore mouth. Bless the mums of our M&B group who advised me to try Baby Neurofen. I did (half the dose recommended for a 6 month old, just to be on the safe side) and it worked! In FIVE minutes, which beats the heck out of the 20-30 minutes it takes a pink gin to work.

Btw, speaking of the M&B group, when we arrived at our last meeting I had a burning question.

"At what age do babies start having tantrums?"

The general feeling was that "pretty much any time now" with "but wait until he's in the terrible twos, THEN you'll see a real tanty" with one Mum mumbling "My nine year old still throws them." (I know a certain #1 Grandmother who might say her 42 year old does, too .. but that would be a vicious rumour and I counsel you never to repeat it).

Anyway, a few minutes later Braeden spotted another baby who had a bottle. Never mind he'd just finished one himself (leaving nearly half behind & claiming to be full to bursting), oh no, he wanted that one. When he didn't get it, he threw himself backwards from the sitting position, and bucking like a bronco, he flailed his arms and legs vigorously while yelling his fool head off.

Suddenly the room went silent (except for Master Braeden, of course) and the other mothers watched in fascination.

Finally, one spoke. For all.

"Oh my God .... that IS a full-blown tantrum, isn't it!!!"

With my hand still trapped beneath his head (can't let him fall down uncaught, can I?), I nodded with a grin. Can't think where this kid gets his spirit from ;-)

...oo0oo...

And on a completely different topic, the time has come to give Telecom the bird.

Not only are they still refusing to honour the Kiwishare agreement (see, some of us still remember even if the Governments of years gone past have pretended to forget!) to upgrade every single telephone line in the country, apparently the "final" word is that they will never ever ever upgrade our pathetic country line. Ever.

And that came directly from Telecom.

But yet I still have to pay exactly the same fee as someone who gets broadband? Oh gimme a break!

So today I have signed up with their competition, and soon will get faster (but still dial-up) internet for less than half what Telecom have been charging me. Once I have updated my contacts with my new email addy, the change will be complete and it will be with a large dollop of relish I tell Telecom where to stick their lack of service.

Still pissy about no broadband, but who knows.. maybe this new service that is being trialled 50 kms south of me that uses electricity supply to deliver super-fast internet service will be adopted NZ-wide. (Ohhhh mummy wants!!!) Apparently wherever there is a power outlet, you can get telephone and thus internet, and at far faster speeds than our fastest broadband.

Unbundle THAT, Telecom :-)

Guess what we did on Wednesday night!!

Well knock me down and tickle me with a goose!

The police DID get back in touch, and asked Wayne to come in and pick Mz Marcia Robins (the fraudulent moll who rips off Christchurch contractors) out of a lineup.

Not in person, unfortunately, but by photograph.

Of course I decided I had to go along too!

Just as well I did, as Madame had changed her hair colour, style, clothing type AND we've had some facial work done dahlingk! She's still a bottle blonde, but less obviously so, and with the wrinkles and saggy cleavage off view, poor Wayne had a hard time picking her out. It also didn't help that she was smirking off to one side, avoiding looking at the camera.

So Wayne picked out some other poor sod. As the nice officer later said to me, "It's clear he isn't in the habit of looking closely at other women".

I quipped in reply that Wayne was there to give the GARDEN a makeover, not the owner ;-) Ask him anything you like about the measurements or plants involved and he can tell you.

So seeing as I was there (holding the baby, literally) I handed the son & heir off to his father, and went with the nice detective into the interview room.

Okay so it took me about five seconds to snap my finger at her face, and 4.5 seconds was spent looking at the rest to make absolutely bally sure that I had the right one.

Oh yeah.. I see you, you troll. Gotcha.

Mr Nice Policeman was carefully non-committal about my choice, and proceeded to take my statement in support of my identification, ie 'how many times were you there, did you speak to her, can you describe her to me' and so on.

When I closed my eyes and picked her apart from the top of her regrowth down to her pierced navel, the officer praised me on my observation skills. "You took a good look at her" he grinned.

I had to set the poor bugger straight, seeing as no one else has.

"I'm a woman. That's what women do. We check each other out, particularly if we don't like each other. She was pissing me off with her changing story and the way she kept trying to change the job on Wayne. Naturally I wanted to size her up, and I wasn't impressed by the way she couldn't make eye contact, so I looked even harder!"

"Well I'm glad you came along" Mr Policeman said, "we can go ahead with the prosecution now."

So Marcia will be arrested next week and charged with crimes against no less than four contractors. The police seem to think we'll get our money back, which would be very nice thank you very much, but I'm far too cynical to believe it. I will however, gleefully front up and say all this again in Court, should I be called.

At least maybe perhaps ever so slightly she might pause before she next steals some poor bugger blind.

But as the Toohey's billboard would say, "Yeah right!"

Just checking in ;-)

Does anyone else still have the menu visible on the right hand side of the text, or is it just me who seems to have "lost it"?

Oh yeah okay.. we all know I "lost it" long ago, but I'm referring to the links to older posts and to other blogs (which I must update to include some totally spiffing ones such as Wino's, Mamabeek's & Tam's).

Like so many things, it annoys me enough that I want to find time to investigate & fix, but the energy escapes me. Yep... you guessed it. Braeden still doesn't sleep through, and we have the battle of the "good grief child go back to SLEEP!" at least twice every night.

But in all this there is time to pause & giggle at the swapsies in roles.

Another of my (now dashed) expectations was that I would end up being the rule-setter with any child of mine, while his father blythely dashed rules into the ground by being that typical Saggitarius favour-seeker. Yep I know that's not fair, but that's how it can be seen by a micromanaging Leo on a headtrip :-) I had good reason for assuming this, because with our animals, clients, etc it's always ME who insists that shoes come off when inside, dogs obey commands, and parrots not bite. (Stop laughing)

Wayne breaks the rules with gay abandon. (Don't get me started about how good he is at arranging flowers, LOL..)

Instead it has turned out that I'm the one Braeden has wrapped around his littlest finger, and Wayne is the one who can say "No!" to baby and get away with it.

What's more galling is that baby actually seems to listen and obey. Like at 3am when Master Braeden is banging the bars of his cot with his dummy (not having a tin cup on hand) and chattering loudly in babybabble about wanting to get up and play.

Karl removes dummy and mutters "Go back to sleep honey, your mother is knackered"

Baby just ups the ante on the noise front to make up for loss of dummy.

Wayne (didn't know he was awake but then, how could he not be?) suddenly calls out "Braeden! Go to SLEEP!"

Silence.. then BABBLEBABBLEBABBLEBAHBAHBAH

"BRAEDEN! Go. To. Sleep!"

(silence.. then a few minutes later snores are softly heard)

If I tried it, the Killinchy Noise Machine would erupt into gale force ten wails.

It's not bloody fair ;-) I wonder if I could coax Wayne into being so consistent with the animals? (hah)

7 months old today

Here's lookin' at you, kid.

(If the web reproduces this faithfully, you can get a good look at his amazing airforce blue eyes. With the dark rings, they are not your usual blue.)

If these damn bibs weren't so heavy, I'd be crawling by now.

Heya Mums! Do you EVER put that camera down?

(The kid loves the lens, what can I say! As soon as he sees a camera, he's focused in faster than you can say "shutter speed")

And in case we forgot, this was Braeden (and Karl) exactly seven months ago today.

Happy Monthday, my heartsong.

Son & Air

Braeden is seven months old on Friday. Where has the time gone!!

Autumn is giving way to wintery blasts, and the bedroom was getting too cold at night for our wee man. At his 3-4 am feed/change sessions it took ages to get his wee popsicle fingers to thaw out to our satisfaction. Bubs didn't seem to mind, but we did, so a trip to the hardware store was in order.

A couple of days ago we installed an air ducting system which takes the warm air from above the log fire and sends it down to the bedroom, pump-assisted. It's not as noisy as I expected, probably because my clever DIY'er mounted the pump on a thick pad of rubber.

The trip down to the bedroom still requires thermal underwear as you navigate the hallway, but once in the bedroom itself, it's surprisingly comfortable.

Just before the installation Braeden took it upon himself to abstain from his usual 5am "Hello World!" sparrowfarties, and now prefers to go through to about 6.45am. An entirely more reasonable and civilised hour, his parents agree.

We're back to just one wakeup during the night (or at least a wakie that requires more attention than playing Hunt The Dummy). This is also a thankful improvement, but I'm still finding it next to impossible to get back to sleep afterwards.

We also pinched one of the large wool carpet sections that was earmarked for the new office and have laid it in the lounge, sort of like a large mat. This also made a remarkable difference to the overall tropicality of the house - bring on the umbrella drinks ;-)

The fat-spurt seems to have slowed and maybe rescinded a little. Thanks very much, Wino, for your reassurance :-) I was much heartened to hear it's common, and the next day I got back from a client visit to find my baby standing up to welcome me. Okay so his dad put him in that position, but Mr CleverFeet stayed there for many minutes, happily playing with his slipper until he decided being a big boy was old news, and in the spirit of many a team-building seminar, threw himself backwards into his father's hands.

That second bottom tooth has finally come through, but if we thought we were in for a small reprieve we were quite mistaken. The next day two cherry-red cheeks gave us scant warning of the escalation of dribble (is that possible?) and the return of Mr Great Grey Grumpy.

I nearly didn't take him to Mum & Baby group today, such was his dark mood, but figuring I could always bring him home again if the distraction of other people didn't work, we went anyway. Good thing we did - it cheered him up no end to forget about his tender mouth and to impress the other babies with his rendition of the World According To Gargle.

I didn't realise babies went through a gargling phase. It came hard on the heels of the MumMumMum and BubBubBub and NnnHhh NnnnHhhh NnnnHhhh days. Unlike the others, however, it seems to be much more fun and we've been listening to this Top 20 hit for about a week now.

Well it was good for a giggle amongst the other babies today, and a few startled and amused glances from the other mothers :-)

Wonder what it will be next week?

Braeden on his new potty, which plays a tune when he adds some "liquid". Next stop, a motorbike :-)

I don't like "walkers" but I would be lost without Braeden's exersaucer where he can sit or stand as he chooses, and play with any of the ten built-in toys he swivels around to access at his pleasure. When he's older and more interested in cars, the exersaucer clips into a figure 8 shape on the floor, complete with a car track, and loading bays for such vital cargo as balls.

Yep - another Trade Me bargain :-)

Oh, and if I needed something else to worry about...

Wayne reckons Braeden is getting fat.

For a long time I poo-poohed the idea, 1. because being told I was a fat kid when I wasn't ended up making me fat, and 2. because for the first few months I privately thought Braeden looked peaky.

But I'm sorry, I was wrong. (again)

Mr Porklet is most definitely living in the land of pudge. He is now too fat for his supposed nappy size. If they are big enough to go around his middle, they gape alarmingly (and wetly) at the legs. And it's not as if he has skinny legs.

I think it's because we've got the upchucking under control, and he hardly ever loses his lunch these days, thanks to thickened formula and Losec. So he's getting everything, and stockpiling as much as he can.

A 'good do-er' as they used to say.

The obvious answer would be to reduce his intake, except according to the feeding guidelines he doesn't get enough now as it is. He's supposed to be on 250ml five times a day (total of 1.25 litres of milk). If I can get 800ml into him all up I'm doing well.

He has to have solids at least twice a day at twelve hour intervals for his meds, and YOU tell this kid that a teaspoonful is enough ;-)

Then there's lunch, when he has an entire pottle (about 1/4 of a cup) of pureed vegetable & protein. As a quick aside, imagine my amazement that he actually relishes liver. Good grief.. I'm glad he didn't expect me to sample it first or he'd still be waiting.

And a good serving of fruit for afters, ie a kiwifruit or two feijoas or half an apple. All well within (if not under) the printed guidelines for a six month old.

My sister tells me he'll burn it off once he starts walking. Hell, I hope so. Even Wayne is getting backache just lugging Mr ChubbyChops around for short periods.

Anyhoo, better go make something for ME to eat while he still snoozes. It's been nearly an hour, a rare treat this week of the impending two-tooth. Trust the kid to inherit my metabolism ;-)

TV is bad for your mental health

Two excellent TV programmes are giving me heebyjeebies at the moment.

First we have "Bodies" which I avidly watched last year while pregnant, and vowed with gusto never EVER to let anyone open me up after seeing what can go wrong in Ob/Gyn surgeries. The new season started again last night, which of course I taped for viewing this morning over breakfast.

Um. Perhaps not a good idea... I forgot how gory it can be when viewed with muesli in one hand and a baby in the other. It just reinforced our decision that perhaps stopping at one is a good idea after all. Seeing upfront and person what it looks like when a baby is ventoused out is a bit much. Poor Braeden, no wonder his nose is still a bit squished.

The other one was nothing like as gory but ten times more frightening.

"House"

Last night the storyline followed a guy who was exposed to Brucellosis. Normally this would not be fatal to most people, but he was on antacid medication and thus his digestive juices did not kill off the nasties, which caused "vegetation" to grow in his heart, thus damaging it beyond repair.

If ever I needed MORE encouragement to be frantic about nasties around Braeden, this put the kibosh on it. Before Baby I was of the attitude that exposure to a certain amount of life was a good thing, but I have to admit that since that date I've revised my attitude a lot.

And that was before I found out that antacids stop a body from killing of ingested nasties.

Of course Mum will say that I'm not nearly careful enough (she bids me to DUST, dammit, and that's not something I have time to do more than once a week these days), and part of me thinks she's right.

Another gung-ho part says "Oh good grief you manic tart, everything the kid touches gets washed within an inch of its life and you've ruined more toys than you care to admit by putting them in the steriliser or washing machine. Let the kid get ***some*** antibodies, will ya?"

But until Braeden is able to come off Losec, I guess I will just have to continue to keep the cats outside and the dogs on their respective beds, and off ours. It did not help that Psittacosis was one of the possibles bandied about as to why this guy was on death's door..

Now how to repair my relationship with my father in law who does not understand why I won't let him pat the dog then cuddle his grandson unless he washes up thoroughly first?

Is there a twelve step programme for neurotics? This is NOT one of the things I was warned about when expecting :-)

Validation & vindication

There have been plenty among my friends & family who have thought me mad because I won't let my baby cry.

He barely gets out a few squeaks before I'm racing to attend, no matter what hour of the day or night. I have no idea how other mothers can cope with the physical pain of hearing their child crying; you'd think the belly cramps etc would have eased off once we stopped breastfeeding, but they haven't. In fact I sometimes think they've become worse.

However as it turns out, the latest school of thought supports my behaviour 100%.

What was once called "bonding" is now termed "attachment" and is deemed to have bigger implications than just the hookup between mother and child. (Or victim and tyrant, depending on your level of sleep deprivation, ha ha)

Apparently someone somewhere has measured "good" and "bad" experiences young children have, dating right back to when they popped out all gooey and brand new. The current wisdom is that if a child has more negative experiences in a day than positive ones, and this continues, then there is damage to a part of the frontal lobe that helps determine self esteem, confidence & personal growth. If the damage continues for long, (ie into toddlerhood) then the brain is not only smaller in this area, but will self prune. Yep - they're so hooked into feeling bad that they will keep the hurt going because they have become programmed to do so.

If the situation isn't rectified VERY soon afterwards, the child ends up one of those they consider "hard wired", and for examples of this go on a tour of any prison or mental health facility, apparently.

And guess what one of the most traumatic 'bad experiences' your average baby experiences most commonly? Yep. Being left to cry.

So despite being told that running to comfort my child every time he cries will surely make him into a moody, emotionally unstable, demanding child, the hot word is that the opposite is true.

All I know is that my son laughs more than he cries, and is very full of confidence & trust for one so young. While the study is interesting, my validation comes from Braeden himself.

That's all any mother can do.

Our week in pix (6 1/2 months old)

Taken today, just a few minutes before updating the blog.

Dads are the fathers of invention (perhaps due to laziness?) Just the other week Wayne discovered that if you leave Braeden's bottle on his chest, he will pick it up and drink. I think it's a bit cheeky to ask a six month old to feed himself, but hey.. maybe I'm being overprotective? Now if Wayne can get Braeden to self-burp, I'll be REALLY impressed!

The latest toy from the library. Okay... but not a fave.

However it was good for half an hour of intense scrutiny.

Hey look at me! One tooth, and size 2 shoes! His first pair of proper sandals, and he will have outgrown them long before spring gets here. Dig the jigsaw mat.. the squares interlock, the numbers pop in and out, and when he's older this will be a very interactive play mat.

No matter what, Braeden can't seem to sleep past 5.30am at the latest. It's just as well he's cute in his alertness, otherwise it would just be obscene!

Having a ball, literally. This is the coolest new toy as far as Braeden is concerned. You can slap it, you can pick it up with your hands OR your feet, you can kick it, you can watch your mother run to retrieve it, AND you can use it to bash against the playroom walls. Also a rare shot of bibless baby. I continue to be amazed and aghast at how much dribble this kid can produce.

A cautionary note

I've made a sign, and will have it laminated before affixing it to our back door. This is the door most easily noticed by visitors, and I am sick to the back teeth of visitors blythely bashing on it when Braeden is asleep.

Don't wake the sleeping baby,

otherwise the mother may bite!

Please (quietly) use the

other door

I bet most Mums can relate ;-) I'll let you know if it works or not. Wayne's suggested sign read something like: "For painful disembowelment by enraged sleep-deprived parent, please bash on door. Those who wish to live are invited to use the other entrance!"

...oo0oo...

While I'm feeling carniverous, I might as well deliver a bitchslap to those offspring who are cashing in on their fathers' war efforts. Overseas friends will wonder what on earth I'm talking about - here's the quick oil. Anzac Day is tomorrow (Australia & New Zealand soldiers remembered & honoured for their sacrifices in both World Wars, but especially the first which is when the term was coined). Two sets of daughters are planning to sell their father's Victoria Cross & Victoria Bar (in one situation) medals to the highest bidder, and if the NZ taxpayer (ie Govt) doesn't happen to make the highest bid, then too bad.

I'm not going to touch on the loyalty vs greed aspect. Nope, not a bit ;-)

What I do think sucks big purple weenies is the timing. "What did you do in the war, Grandad, and do you have anything I can hock? Cos it's the season for it!"

I'll end with a fruity and quite appropriate quote from my Dad :
"If it weren't for us, you kids would be picking your nose with chopsticks."

Deck-adence

The days of Wayne slipping on the snow outside our front door, and colliding with the makeshift breezeblock doorstep are over.

Wayne's auntie no longer required her front deck, and asked him to dump it for her. Being a clever chap, he dismantled it in such a way that it could be reassembled with a minimum of fuss.

It went up here the very next day, and improves the front of the house 1000%. I've been quietly fretting about the front door for ages, but did not imagine such an improvement any time soon.

Now I have a secure, stylish front area to sit with Braeden when it's not a howling nor'wester (ie not today!)

On the Braeden front, we're still bum-bouncing. Some days we move about a lot, other days we're happy to sit in one place. Just when you think he's eschewed crawling altogether, you find him on his belly, vigorously "swimming" with his legs which are firmly held as far off the ground as he can maintain.

Grunting the whole time.

I really am going to have to get this kid into swimming class.

We still have just the one tooth, but its' next door neighbour is playing the hide & seek game. (Oh goodie..)

We now have 40+ bibs and wash at least 25 a day. In fact, I think our bibs are being eaten by something, or hidden by fairies. I know for a fact I had a set of 12 plastic backed yellow & red bibs and now I can only find five. Maybe Braeden is eating them when my back is turned?

He eats just about anything else. Presently he's into feijoa's & grapes. I peel these and break the flesh into tiny portions and he gobbles them up. Everywhere I look I see choking hazards, and visitors have to be firmly reminded to keep their hot drinks OUT of reach of the baby, because he's quick, strong and bloody determined! Eating your dinner is an exercise in guilt and torture. Even though he's fed first (to bursting), he leans towards you with sad, hungry eyes and drools.

I have my dogs trained not to guilt-beg, but how do you resist a baby? We're back to sneaking our meals when he goes down for naps. I'm looking forward to when he's on proper people's food, and can eat with us.

Although I suspect that even if his plate exactly matched mine, he'd still suffer from 'greener grass' syndrome.

So he's six months old (plus a few days). Good grief, where did that time go?

Just when I worked out his schedule of five short daily sleeps, he's thrown it all out the window and now seems to prefer three slightly longer sleeps with "up" times of 3-4 hours at a stretch. And when he's up, he's UP! Activities need to be changed every half hour or so, and you rotate around the house keeping Mr I'm So Bored With That happy & loudly babbling.

Did I say loud? I meant to say .. LOUD! I suspect any day now we're going to get a phone call from Christchurch Airport (45k's away) asking us to please keep the noise down, as they can't hear themselves think. Loud & proud, and intent on communication, whether it's with his people, his feet, or his toys. I've started babysigning with him, and just this morning he actually waved back at me. Dunno if it was a fluke, but it was a great pick-me-up at 5am, which is his preferred wakeup time. How did a night owl like me end up with the earliest of birds for a son, I don't know. Maybe I wasn't a good person in a previous life ;-)

The shy-boy continues to prevail, with sudden and emphatic rejection of nearly everyone who isn't Mum or Dad. Even previously adored grandparents have been slapped in the face with a no-go baby, whose profusion of tears and horror makes everyone feel bad (except Braeden).

Mum warned me this would happen, but it still came as a rude shock to find my "gidday come here and cuddle me" baby had turned into the wettest of blankets.

On the bright side, he now throws his arms around my neck and burrows his face into my shoulder (with or without scary people present), so it's not all bad news.

I wonder if I can get some client work done while the baby sleeps? One thing about these longer up-times, the chances of 1 1/2 hours' sleep at a time are greatly improved.

Beats the snot out of those dratted 10-20 minute power naps!

Toon time

Mum won an auction on Trade Me for a big stack of toys ($20!), and inside the stack were some foam cartoon characters to liven up any kidlet's room.

These were just begging to go up in the playroom, but as Braeden is on search & destroy (ie suck to death) these days, they had to go up with caution.

Here's where hot glue & windows come in handy. Wayne assures me that the glue won't damage the windows or the toons, and I bow to his superior DIY skills.

Braeden loves his new room, and I confess I didn't get much work done the first day it was up. Far too easy to sit in there and play, or take a book & have lots of reading time.

Speaking of reading.. Lynley Dodd is a very firm favourite. I love how she captures the essence of animals. The day I had to go walkabout in labour we went to a bookstore (which is where we saw the 'wide valley' version of Braeden's name, LOL) and came away with a Lynley Dodd book of four stories. I swear she must have snooped on "The Gremlin P" when Grem was younger, sleeker and more able to resemble Slinky Malinki before she had six kids and lost her figure forever.

And as for Stickybeak Sid.. anyone who's had a lorikeet can recognise the antics and expressions. I must check out who her illustrator is.. they are equally skilled at channelling animals.

Presently we've got "Hairy McLary's Rumpus At The Vet", where a Cockatoo starts off a chain reaction in a very Cocky-like way.

Great stories, and it's very cool to have the excuse of reading to a baby when you're found clutching one. Barry Crump's "Mrs Windyflax & the Pungapeople" (illustrated by Murray Ball) is another fun read, and of course we can never forget Dr Seuss.

Sadly, Yurtle The Turtle was not available at our local library. (sob) I may have to track it down & buy the wretched thing ;-)

Pix from the playroom!

Standing at the entrance to the old lounge, looking out the window. My office lies to the immediate right of frame. Playroom dimensions are (can't find tape measure) approx 10ft x 12ft.

Just back from Plunket, all tired out.. carried in from car and placed on crash pad in playroom while Mum makes herself a cuppa (and somehow finds time to snatch a pic of the cutie).

I can't decide what to play with first! The purple cow is this week's favourite, so I guess I'll start there!

Playgyms are a full body experience, especially when you have prehensile toes.

This is one of the toys Mum hired for me. The fishy spins around if I hit a button, and the lights flash, and I hear canned giggles and music. This is very interesting at the moment, because I'm practicing to play the drums on every bit of body or toy I can lay my fist on!

Playing safe

It hasn't just been Braeden keeping me up at night. I worry a lot about all sorts of things - the water race (drowning hazard), the Wobble getting more senile & snappy, and of course the continuing renovation hazards that this house abounds in. While it would be lovely if Wayne could find the time to finish the major renovations that were started before we found out we were having a baby, it's very unlikely. Even though he protests that he will still get the exterior office built by spring, my intimate experience of his workload makes me doubt that very much.

Poor guy really should clone himself, then at least one of the clones could catch up on sleep and urgent jobbies around the home.

Despite never having been considered a domestic Goddess, I find myself getting incredibly anal about nasties being walked inside. I just can't seem to train my father in law (for example) to take his bloody shoes off when inside, and when I do remind him, he's a bugger to walk right over the baby's playmat. Euchh.. has he never seen that Braeden can pick up the smallest piece of debris and shove it in his mouth in a nanosecond? Probably not. He's not a neurotic ubermother. But I am, and I worry.

Our doctor's office has this wonderful playpen that takes up a whole corner of the waiting room. The walls are made of MDF (particle board), it has a hinged gate with a safety latch, and I have dreamed of this set up with a fondness previously aimed at sports cars, island holidays and chocolate gateaux.

Because I married the most wonderful bloke in the world, Braeden now has one of his own.

Wayne set to yesterday, and while I was clearing out the second lounge (other half of my office and that which shall become the master bedroom one distant day), he built the enclosure in an afternoon.

Then the large carpet square (pure wool) was given the cleaning of its life (twice), and put down as the safety surface inside the new arena.

Apart from the obvious benefit of being able to visit the powder room without worrying that the baby will find a dog/electrica lead/handbag, it means all Braeden's toys can be kept in one place, thus making the house instantly 1000% tidier! One part of the house now looks like a kindergarten, and the rest looks .. well.. better. No one's going to step on his toys, he's got a clean surface to go nuts in, and it's right beside my office so I can see him and he can see me. Plus he's got a large window for one wall, which means he gets a view and indirect sunlight.

There's a couch in there for reading stories, cuddles, and all sorts of Mum & Baby activities. You could even snooze on it, at a pinch.

To make matters even more fun, I tootled down to our local toy library on Saturday, and came home with two excellent (and otherwise very expensive) toys. An "Exersaucer" (think "walker" but make it immobile, with loads of activity toys/buttons situated around the baby), and a battery operated thingummy (see pic) which literally has all the bells and whistles. Ideal short-term toys, but not things you expect a baby to love unconditionally forever.

At $1 per item for two weeks, this makes excellent fiscal and baby sense.

So all in all, baby's got a new groove and just in a nick of time, given his sporadic determination to get moving.

Btw, he had his Plunket weigh-in this morning. 9.06kg (19lbs15oz), 68.5cm long. Full marks all round, and the Plunket nurse was heard to say he was exactly right for a nine month old baby. Of course I had to ruin it by grinning "Yeah, and he's not quite six months old yet", which earned me a "don't be a smartass" look, and a re-qualification of his age.

...Pictures will have to come later. Blogger's server is being verrrrrrrrrry slowwwwww and my baby is due to wake up any second. I'll keep trying right up til I have to run away, but I don't expect much more luck than I've had for the last half hour.

Isn't it ironic!

I've had a bit of trouble getting little lord & master to sleep today. I blame the nor'wester.

Nap #3 was attempted at 1pm, and an hour later I gave it up as a bad joke because he was far more interested in throwing his blankies off to suck on his toes, and grin at me every time I popped my head in to see if silent news was good news.

So out he came for a snack and a play, and a nappy change.

We tried again at 3.30, and after a bit of resistence, off he went.

At 3.50 an almighty rapping sounded at the back door, mere feet from where Braeden lay sleeping. A neighbour's son (hitherto unmet and obviously didn't realise it was a house with a baby in it) used his knuckle jewellery to rap on our glass (I hate it when people do that) to tell me that our senile old dog had wandered down to his house, and leapt up on his bed for a cuddle.

Wobble stood there grinning at this guy's feet. Loyalty thy name is NOT Golden Retriever!

I whisked the dog inside, whispering "Thanks, but can we keep it down? I've got a baby asleep inside." Pretty sure the guy failed to hear me as he loudly said goodbye and wandered off.

Yeah, I missed my opportunity. I should have given him the dog as a reward.

Somehow, Braeden slept through all that. Bear in mind also that when the visitor announced himself, my loyal dog Tamsin (aka Pood) went ballistic with loud and ferocious barks.

Checked bubs.. still sleeping peacefully. So soundly in fact that I had to look twice at the breathing monitor to make sure he was inhaling on cue.

Settled back at the computer and resumed working. After all, I don't get many good bites at working during the day, and I'm kinda tired of putting in 6am-9am and 6pm-10pm each day/night.

I was five seconds into a bank reconciliation when the wind caught a cat food bowl off the front step and slapped it against the house. The noise was so minor as to be a a mere footfall by a moth.

Sure enough... WAAAAAAAAAAAAGUUGHHHHHHHHH!!! And that was the end of that little nap!

Advance from behind!

And he's OFF!

Five and a half months old, and Braeden is on the move.

He's discovered he doesn't need to crawl to get around, not when you have a bouncy bum and agile legs. In the last half hour, Braeden has moved THREE FEET across his play mat and on to the carpet, in search of his mother who has spent the day on the computer doing taxes while his father wilts unhappily on the couch. Wayne is horrified/pleased, and I'm frankly rapt!

Too damn cute, I just had to share. Baby looks incredibly pleased with himself, and now he's got the basics down, he'll probably have the lounge scoped out by tomorrow and will be heading for my pot cupboards.

Yikes.. time to look around in panic to see what a floor bouncer can reach. Power cords, bird's cage, power points, dogs.. My baby is growing up!

Got a call from the Police yesterday!

And no, we haven't been naughty! (Chance would be a fine thing..)

Remember that gang at Amyes Rd who stole a landscaping makeover from us? And how the Police kept losing the complaint file? Well apparently they didn't lose it completely, because a warrant of some sort (not explained) is being executed on the property, and we were invited to lay claim to our unpaid goods.

Uh.. yeah.. except the dog has probably trashed the trees & shrubs, and second hand bark & decorative stones are more trouble than they're worth to upload. You can reuse the stones, but not the bark. About the only things possibly worth salvaging are the magnificent driftwood sculpture pieces Wayne erected around the fishpond.

So on reflection, the police said they felt we'd probably prefer cash rather than goods, and would keep us posted. How we are going to get any cash is beyond me.. but at least that moll isn't going to continue to enjoy ripping off Christchurch contractors scot-free. She must have burnt the wrong person, I reckon.. someone related to someone with clout. Or else the new top policeman implemented a policy change of cleaning up old offenders, and she got the broom right up her . . . . . fountain ;-)

Speaking of fountains, the police asked if we owned the magnificent fountain in her front yard. No, but we know a friend of the guy who does. A phone call to the wise, and another victim stands in line for reparation.

Maybe I could repossess her cockatoo? It's certain the poor beast would have a better life with us, than stuck in a cage on her front porch with skin heads staring at it hungrily.

Hmmm... just THINK what that bird could tell the police, if they thought to ask. Hey Mr Plod, need the services of a bird whisperer? LOL!

In praise of bassinetworking

I'm rapt with our mum & baby group. It's taken us a few sessions to get to know each other and relax, but the core group are becoming very comfy, and it's lovely to see the babies grow up a bit each week.

I am a bad person for admitting it, but I'm also quite relieved that Momzilla has not returned after her initial session, and I think this has also helped the overall mood.

At the second session I noticed we were tending to sit in exactly the same spot each time, so at session #3 I got there early, and sat on the other side of the circle. This threw the oncomers into a bit of a tailspin at first, and everyone ended up shuffled, but as a result discussions then went across the circle (engaging everyone) instead of little arcs of muted conversation. I didn't do it for this reason, but hey, it turned out rather well. I did it because Braeden has been fascinated with little Sam since day 1, and this was our opportunity to let the boys sit together.

Braeden is very much enjoying interacting with the other babies, although I am ashamed to say my son is a total thief! He reached over and snatched away little Sam's book and toy, even though I didn't think he could lunge that far. I returned them with apologies to Sam's laughing mother, and it's going to be an ongoing battle to keep my son's sticky fingers to his own toys.

It's not as if he was short of playthings.. four chew toys, two foam books, a bear, a purple squeaking cow (rather see than be one) and two rattles were spread around his playmat, but no, he had to have Sam's precious hoard. Braeden would say (if he could) that he can play with his stuff any old time..

I am again reminded of his "type" as predicted in the Baby Whisperer book where she advises that spirited babies are the first to steal other babies' toys!

The tooth has FINALLY arrived! Yay tooth! And without much fuss or fanfare, when it came down to push & shove. The second tooth is now doing the dance of the reluctant virgin. There's a swelling next to the tooth, and Braeden keeps tugging on his left ear, and is still drooling oceans.

Braeden now disdains any tummy time as a waste of time, preferring to sit upright and bounce. It started as rocking back and forth, but now he gets that padded bottom a good inch or so off the ground with every bounce, and can travel a few inches in a play session.

Sleeps are slowly improving, especially as he's better at keeping his dinner down and now has 200 ml every feed, about six times a day. He's presently down for nap #3, and went happily to bed after two stories (one is never enough, sometimes we need three), and there wasn't a grizzle or cry to be had.

Wayne tells me bubs is awake (per the monitor) so it's time to make his dinner and feed him. What a lovely baby he is; every day I fall deeper in love with him. I really should have done this years ago and had a tribe ;-)

Some people are dead from the neck up

I got a visit from an acquaintance the other day, completely without warning. Those that know me know you just do NOT drop in on me.. you could run the risk of having a coffee brought outside and handed to you in your car, if I didn't get warning to tidy the house a little.

And yeah, this was one of my messy house days. I'd been up since 6am feeding the baby & getting some client work done, and at 9.30, Braeden had just woken from his first nap and was looking for his solids + meds when the knock hit the door.

Shiiiittt..

There she stood, with two of her kids in the car behind her. "Feel up to visitors?" she grinned.

Well whaddya gonna do.. I hadn't seen her latest baby & she hadn't seen mine, so it was "Ignore the mess & come on in. Cup of tea?"

And she stayed for two hours, until Braeden's next nap time. Totally threw out our day, and it was a mad scramble to get organised for Mum & Baby group that afternoon, but we made it.

Unfortunately she left behind the nasty cold or flu her kids had, and despite my disinfecting everything like a woman possessed, Braeden caught it and so did I.

Shiiiiitttt...

Braeden's nearly completely over it, just the odd little bark & grizzle. I, on the other hand, am death warmed over. Barely. This is the third thing to knock me off my feet within two weeks, and my bod's just not bouncing back like I would hope it might.

So here I am, desperately trying to get client work done, run the house, organise my man, and raise my very active bouncy boy when all I want to do is curl up & hibernate in a snuffling lump of self pity ;-)

Oh yeah.. and would YOU go visiting with a six month old & a 4yo, and take no nappies, wipes or food for the kids? She was going to let the baby sit in a messy nappy until I insisted she take one of ours and get her cleaned up. She's a nice woman, but ... (you guessed it)

Shiiiitttt....!

Photo time!

Braeden's still napping, so here's this week in pictures. Only the nicer moments, naturally!

Here I am in my new Jolly Jumper (new = Mum got a Trade Me bargain)

Oooh this is TOO much fun! My play gym has all new exciting angles from up here!

Bath time is now something I look forward to!

Starting to sit by myself.. damn, those toes look tasty!

Hey look at me! Aren't I clever! Aren't I adorable! Do you think my mother has enough catch-cloths down??

Three strikes, yerout!

Last Monday it was time for Braeden's 5 month innoculations. I was dreading them, but needs must etc etc so we trotted off in smiling trepidation. Dr David was again delighted with Braeden's progress and reminded me that he's going to be an early walker. He was astounded to see that baby sits completely under his own balance, and can do so for a very long period of time, happily playing with his toys/toes while simultaneously carrying on an energetic discourse about all manner of things important to a five month old.

The shots were quick, and despite not being on the boob any more we coped with the "waaaah Mum!" panic by having a dummy ready with a little teething gel smeared on it. (Dummy for comfort sucking, the gel for a "hey what's that?" sensation to take his mind off his troubles. The tricks you learn, LOL!)

The aftermath failed to appear. Braeden did not become feverish, fussy, lethargic or sleepless. In fact he pretty much carried on as if nothing had happened.

WOOHOO!

We didn't get off as light as we thought, however.

I was hit hard at 2am on Wednesday morning with what felt like food poisoning, (almost exactly six hours after having left overs for dinner) and the following six hours were hellish.

Wayne kept Braeden at the other end of the house, while I staggered back and forth in the Bermuda triangle (bed, loo, shower) so many times that I think I wore new grooves in the floor.

I felt a lot better by that night, and by the next day the only real leftover (sorry) was raging hunger and feeling more than a little washed out.

So that afternoon (swearing, after all that it was food poisoning as the rest of the household were fine and NO ONE gets over such a savage virus in less than 24 hours), Braeden & I toddled off to Mum & Baby group. I'm not into touchy sharing anyway, and so I had no physical contact with anyone, but we did sit in the same room.

That night Wayne started presenting with symptoms, and a few hours later, so did Bubs. Shiiiiiittt...

Brae was happy enough in himself, just spectacularly upchucky. Ever seen a baby vomit for more than a yard without pausing once in his yabbery play? It was like I had the mini Exorcist gurgling on my playmat (but way cuter).

Back to the Doc's, where we discovered we had the Norovirus. Yep that strain (or in the family thereof) that closed down those wards at Chch Public last year when Mum was in there. Oh goodie!

And we'd seen just about every one of Braeden's grandparents in that time and I'd been to Mother & Baby group. Oh no...

Frantic phone messages left everywhere, apologising & alerting and then apologising again for good measure. If I see a noose & hangman when I walk into the next M&B group on Thursday, I'll understand. I'd be ropable if someone knowingly exposed my kid to this.

So far though, it seems we might have contained it. I truly hope so.

We're all on the upside now, and everyone feels much better (and lighter.. I lost three kilos in less than a day, despite drinking five litres of water). I discovered that our son is clearly made of healthier stuff than his parents, as he recovered in a fraction of the time we did, and really only had a couple of hours of moderate unhappiness where he felt most reassured sleeping in my arms and waking occasionally to have a good moan about the inconvenience of it all.

Guess what else is also doing the rounds... Hepatitis B. At least Braeden's had his full quota of immunisation for this, but naturally his parents haven't. Pretty sure we didn't catch that though ;-)

Buyer beware

I'm on record for taking the easy route and using disposables. I still chuckle over my initial decision not to, then finding out that I had so few moments to get work done that I definitely didn't have time to wash nappies.

We've shopped around, and found the most efficient (and close to the cheapest) disposables to be had came from a certain well known baby store chain.. the one whose name implies wholesale discounts.

For many months now we've been buying our nappies in box lots of 6 x 36 packs, working out to around $53 a box, and lasting about a month. These nappies are always "on sale" for the same price, which indicates that the sale is a bit of a "have" really, a bit of marketing trickery.

Yesterday I was in town looking to buy two of those remarkable formula dispensers, and as we could stand to stock up on some more nappies, I decided to go to the Riccarton branch of this chain and kill two birds with one stone.

Luckily I'd found out that their competition chain stocked the exact gadget I wanted, which is just as well because the chain store in Riccarton had nary a one. But I also needed socks for the Sock Muncher Pursuivant, so I took a couple of pairs up to the counter and asked for a box of the nappies, size L, cloth-like please.

When all was sorted out and I was told the amount payable, I did a double take.
"No, these are on special, it says so on the sign. $9.95 a pack, NOT $12 odd, please recalculate."

"No, that's the plastic-like nappies. The cloth-like are more expensive, see?" The shop assistant pulled out a pricing book and showed me.

Back & forth we argued, with my points being that the sign on the nappy stack did not distinguish between the two types, and that the other two branches of this chain had never charged me a different price. A younger staff member joined in at this point, taking her senior's side.

They hung firm, so I put the socks down and left, telling them I'd go to one of the other stores.

And amazingly, they let me. If I was their boss, I'd kick their butts for passing up such a big sale.

I didn't find time to go to another branch, but I expect no problems when I do.

I did however buy my socks from the Red Shed (major saving!) and got two wonderful formula dispensers at the competition baby shop at Tower Junction, for $4.95, which is a whole $10 cheaper than the type made by the bottle manufacturer I most commonly use. Utterly identical, except the cheaper one probably wouldn't survive a trip through my steam steriliser, but would stand up to being washed then sterilised with tablets in cold water just fine.

And come to think of it, I don't recall reading that the name brand dispenser was sterliser safe.. probably is, but I don't remember it being blazoned in capitals or anything.

Next time I'm in there I'm going to get one of those amazing shoulder-fastening sleeping sacks. They've got a great rack of them there, in two styles, and plenty big enough for my overlong blanket tosser. At $16, it's a cheap & cuddly way of keeping my boy warm at night, despite his marvelous dancing legs.

My niece told me the two most expensive lifestyles to outfit are boats and babies. I think she's probably right, especially for the meek or unwary shopper.

As for clothes in general.. well I'm still buying off Trade Me, and with very few exceptions I've been rapt with the quality & bang for my buck. Braeden has a resplendent choice of barely worn designer duds (and more practical combinations, LOL) from which to choose.

But naturally, he hates every single one. Keeping clothes ON this kid is a bit of a mission ;-)

Now THIS group, I like!

For a start, I don't think there was a mother there under 25. The average age was easily into the 30's, and I might possibly not be the most senior. Not polite to ask, so I won't.. but at least I don't feel in my dotage.

All bar one were what I would classify as "my type of people". Gods, but that's arrogant... it's also honest ;-) Down to earth, slightly cynical, quick to chuckle, eminently practical and not a single bit of mascara anywhere (or if there was, it was well naturalised).

And they make excellent coffee & nibbles. I may never go home.

The babies were all delightful, with ages varying from 12 weeks to nearly 5 months. Yep, Master Braeden is the eldest, which is nice because with no other baby older, no one's going to be upset if he hits a mark ahead of them.

I was in two minds in the finish whether to go, as my S.O.D. (so obviously determined!) son delayed his midday nap and it was bloody obvious he'd fall asleep in the car for the short trip. As it has hitherto been impossible to carry him (still) sleeping anywhere, I was dreading the inevitable meltdown. The quick answer is "take the babyseat in" but it's heavy and my hands are knackered. Not a good thing to drop the babyseat with the baby still in it.

So Wayne decided to meet me there, and carry the seat in for me. Cept by the time he got there, I'd finagled the stroller out of the boot, and somehow kept the snooze bunny asleep while I buckled & blanketed him in. Then it was a quick stroll inside, whereupon a kindly Mum stuck her head in his face and said "oooh isn't he beautiful!"

I bit down on my lip in despair as two navy blue eyes snapped open, and the dummy fell out as a huge grin swept over Braeden's face. However instead of everything turning to custard, he graciously accepted the compliment and went straight back to sleep, still smiling.

He slept for nearly 45 minutes, almost completely missing the first half of the meeting.

As a group we decided the subjects we wanted to cover over the four week course, and I'm hoping nearly everyone ticked the box indicating they wanted to continue to get together as a coffee group once the course finishes.

When I say "nearly everyone", there's one in every group, eh.

I was collared by a woman at half time who (having seen my hand go up when the room was asked if any babies had reflux) quizzed me quite rudely on what medication Braeden was on 1, when it was prescribed 2, what the expiry date was 3, who was the consulting pediatrician 4, WHEN did you go on solids?? 5 and generally tested my patience to the extent that I had to force a smile, remind her that every baby is different and that I trusted my medical professionals who had made the world of difference to my baby's enjoyment of life.

1. Losec. Losec's useless. Not for him. You should be on omaprezole. That's what it says on the bottle. YOU SAID LOSEC! It says that too. Big letters say "Losec" small letters in brackets say "Omaprezole"
2. When he was just over three months old, when the Gaviscon did squat.
3. What's the expiry date? I have no idea. You should know!! Braeden is prescribed one month's supply at a time, but if it makes you feel better, I'll check it when I get home (there wasn't an expiry date.. Braeden is on capsules, not liquid).
4. I have no idea, some hospital expert. (Note I did not offer up Braeden's doctor's name.. she probably hates him too)
5. Eight weeks. WHAT kind of mother are you?(implied) That's far too young! Not for this baby.. (insert woman going into rant here, until I finally gritted out "ALL the experts including both grandmothers agreed with my decision, and as a result he's a happier healthier baby. Remember, every baby is different!"

Then abruptly she announced she wanted to talk to someone else, and stalked off to corner her next victim. (To quote Billy Connolly, "And I shall watch as off you f...")

I saw her collar several different women throughout the afternoon, and I can only hope that she got her shit off her liver with me, and was much less confrontational with the rest of them.

But hey, apart from that, the group is amazing. We talked about teething, sibling rivalry & new baby acceptance, bedtimes, shared useful ideas and raised some suggestions for next time (yes Adrienne, I said "baby signing" which seemed to interest a few).

Our Plunket facilitator distributed some excellent packs of baby activity pamplets from www.pushplay.org.nz which promotes active movement. Too cool! I was digging into mine the moment I got home.

Two things caused incredible envy in my covetous heart. One was the four & a half month old baby girl who lay happily on her belly on her mother's thighs, and played contentedly for half an hour. She was so steady and content that at one point her mother rested the clipboard on her back and used her as a writing desk. Gawd.. I can't even write one handed leaning over to the desk with Wrigglemonkey upright on my distant knee.

The other was a very cool gadget used to store & dispense measured amounts of formula powder straight into the bottles, and was so very clever that it could be done one handed while the mother held the baby with the other hand. If I can't find one like it by next meeting, I will have to ask the Mum where she sourced hers from.

Nah, it's all good. I like this bunch, and Braeden does too given that once he did wake up, he was completely uninterested in his bottle, preferring to gaze about in wonder & delight at all the different faces (and toys.. I detect trouble on the horizon when he decides he wants the other babies' toys. Bad enough he was openly coveting their breastfeeding, LOL)

Starting Mother/Baby group today

Yay! The new season of PEPE classes start today. Apparently this acronym stands for "Parenting Education" but I can only assume it is repeated to avoid confusion with the dreaded memory of high school PhysEd classes.

Innnnteresting name though, don't ya think?

Adrienne gave me some insight as to why our antenatal class fell apart, apparently baby comparisons kill a collective stone cold dead. There were enough comparisons at our once-only meet up to sink a ship, which (when you also consider how un-connected we felt as a group) must have spelled the death knell.

The ladies & babies I meet today are unlikely to contain anyone from my antenatal class, as it's technically out of my area, but that's where Plunket put me. It could possibly contain some of my riding school compatriots, but we'll see.

I will go forth and LIE about Braeden's age. Just yesterday my hairdresser kindly told me to shut the hell up when I told her Braeden can now sit upright by himself, is trying to crawl, and is cutting a tooth. Her granddaughter is doing these things (except she's cutting her third tooth) and she's nine months old. Imagine what she'd said if I told her Braeden has two words already, and knows his name!

So I might have to bribe our nurse who is taking these classes to conveniently forget to correct me if I add another couple of months on to his age. I'd get away with it too, as he wears size 1 clothing, and certainly looks more the toddler than the nearly 5 month old baby.

Nah, just kidding. I won't lie. But I'll have to play down his wonderfulness and keep silently chanting the mantra of "Every mother knows her baby is the nicest".

Last night our little sweetie went off to bed at 8pm, and despite a few mumbled grumbles & sighs, slept through until 5.45 this morning.

I nearly kissed his cheeks down to the bone when he woke, for two reasons and the second one was the fact that he'd slept for nearly ten hours straight.

The first reason was because he'd woken me out of a dream where I'd found him unresponsive and covered in meningitis spots. Far too bloody realistic thank you, and no doubt brought on by my booking his 5 mth innoculations for Monday, and watching a TV drama yesterday where a child had died from meningitis.

I was never more pleased to hear him yelling out for a nappy change & top up!

I'll enjoy the long sleeps while we can, because it will probably go by the boards after Braeden gets his shots on Monday, if the last lot were anything to go by.

Big beautiful baby person is now happily awake and sitting in front of me, so I'll sign off and go feed my adorable child. Btw, he weighed in at 8.18 kilos on his last Plunket visit, and now measures 66 cm in length. Whooohaaa!

Adrift & home alone

Braeden is off with Wayne in the work truck; seeing the sights, running errands, and generally being googled & cooed at by all and sundry.

I'm back early from a client visit, gradually thawing in my nice warm office by the fire. Gads but factories are cold places on an autumn day. Remind me to dig out my Ugg boots next week for my return visit ;-)

It's very strange to be ***alone*** in the house, not having to keep one ear on the monitor or an eye on the baby. I could go completely mad just THINKING about the things I could do in this marvelous bit of freedom, but priorities will out, so here I am updating the blog.

Here's some two day old photos hot off the bedroom press. We removed Braeden's ubiquitous bib for some of these shots, and were rewarded by instant dribble. Now you know why just about every photo shows the lad in a bib. I wash 20+ of these a day.

Speaking of washing.. I heard an idea the other day on the Trade Me notice board, and mentioned it (sceptically) to Wayne, who declared it something close to brilliant and suggested we try it out as soon as possible.

The result was less than brilliant, and saw me painfully scooping out the washing machine by hand, and running two extra 'water-only' washes to get the last bits to hell and gone.

The idea was (if you haven't already guessed it) to wash disposable nappies.

Well don't bother. It doesn't bloody work. Even on the Delicate cycle, the damn things self destruct.

Spectacularly!

But while I ponder ideas bright and otherwise, I DID come up with a real pearler this week, all by my lonesome.

They make these clever spoons for babies, and one brand comes in a three pack, and changes colour if the food substance in question is too warm for a baby's safe enjoyment.

Braeden is still on the very soft spoons for his solids (he gets so enthusiastic about pumpkin that if I didn't use the spoons made from teat-material he'd be covered in bruises). However these spoons get used every single time I make a bottle, because it's a brill way of making sure the water is warm enough on these cold days without being too warm.

The water has been boiled (and cooled boiled water added) and is in sterilised bottles, so it's a very quick and hygenic trick to whip a spoon out of its' sterile container, test, and replace.

That tooth (insert nasal grrrr) has decided to feck off again, just when it looked like it had hit the point of no return. Colour us all completely unimpressed. It hasn't gone down for good, as my 6am yowling no doubt proved to every neighbour within a kilometre can testify.

That's one hell of an alarm call - a savaging on a cold nipple at sparrowfart. Try hitting the snooze button on THAT alarm clock ;-)

We'd just about considered ourselves done and dusted on the breastfeeding front, when Braeden went a week playing peek a boo behind the boob, and laughing himself sick every time I tried to latch him on. Well I can take a hint. (I read the same thing in a baby book recently, down to almost the exact quote, and knew exactly what the mother meant).

So for three days straight I didn't even offer. Thought we were all dried up, and even dug my crop top out of the drawer, only to reel in shock when it not only dismally did not fit, but felt horrendously uncomfortable. Ye Gods, am I forever doomed to strap hell?

Anyhoo, when the teething started, baby decided the boob had better make a return. To my amazement he had me back to full production in less than two days. But if he wants to KEEP his chest access, he can save his nips and bites for his teething rings. I have never wanted pierced nipples, and I don't intend to change my view any time soon ;-)

Btw had our Plunket meet yesterday, and Mr Fattybutt weighs 8.18 kilos and is 66cm long. Got a mild reprimand about him on solids (oh somebody's soooo out of touch, LOL) despite him needing it for his medicine, and was quizzed over the most trivial of things like "Why does he get vegies for breakfast and fruit for dinner?" (A: Because he bloody likes it that way, plus Mum recommended it, plus it helps create a balanced diet. So there, nya nya)

Heh heh.. just remembered something. The other night Braeden attended his first (and probably only) Riding Club committee meeting, and was a very good baby for his Dad while his mother stepped right back into her old job of making everyone's life hell. (I'm pedantic & bossy, they're relaxed and informal. You get the idea)

I have no idea why (!!??LOL) but at the end of the night, one of the committee stepped up to baby and said "I want to shake your hand. You've got your parents VERY well trained!"

Whatever gave her that idea!

Btw, Plunket said if Braeden is still waking up a bit at night by the time he's 6 months old, they suggest we try Tough Love.

Hmm.. does that mean that I wait 30 seconds instead of 3 when he wakes and cries in the night? Yeah. That sounds about right ;-)

Here he is in his "Kid-a-piller" wrap (sleeping bag + safe-t-sleep). Thinks it's a hoot, as you can tell. Heaven help me when he's too big for the sleeping bag, and is once again able to do da leg flip and throw all his covers off every two seconds.

He is a much happier little tyke since we got his meds sorted out. Yay for Losec!

Milestones & millstones

His majesty is still chasing that elusive business of mobility, but if persistence & frustration have anything to do with it, he'll soon be off & away. It won't be long before I'm fencing off large portions of the house as baby-free zones, ie power cords, dogs' tails & modem lines.

He's getting better at sitting up by himself, but still gets side-tracked and goes for a fast nosedive towards a tasty toe with absolutely no notice. Same deal as his frequent and also under-advertised head-butts that occur several times a day.

The kid should come complete with indicators, and perhaps a P plate ;-)

He's had a cold the last few days, compliments of the changing seasons. We went from scorching 30's to freezing single digits in less than two days, and despite my efforts Braeden still managed to get a wee dose of the snufflies, complete with an occasional cough and a nicely blocked nose.

GrandDad advised putting Vicks on baby's feet rather than the chest, claiming he had been told this by a doctor years earlier, and had proved the truth of it many times over.

I was incredibly sceptical, but eventually succumbed and put it on one sole, then later on applied it to both. Bugger me - the nose cleared up within an hour and has stayed clear. That's better than our old method of "a bit on Braeden, and a bit on Mum so Braeden breathes it in while feeding".

Today Braeden has aired his complaints pretty much all day. Not so much crying (well, not often) but continual grouching as he muttered to himself all through his play & interaction times. When sleeping he would wake suddenly and almost hysterically, but would allow himself to be soothed back to sleep within moments.

Sure enough.. that tooth is looking very much like it's going to erupt within a day or so. Between the Bonjela and the pink gins, we've kept our boy snuggled & comforted, and hopefully he'll have something to show off at his Plunket appointment on Wednesday.

Another milestone happened two days ago. At first I thought I was imagining it, but then it kept happening every time Braeden felt he in need of a rescue. (This can be as dire as a sore gum, or as minor as being bored with this particular set of toys and wanting the ones in the toybox)

"Mum-Mum-Mum-Mum-Mum!"

And he never says it to Wayne, but instead looks towards me when Wayne says "Where's Mum?"

So I'm erecting my flag and claiming his first word in the name of Mothers Everywhere. And to think the *experts* claim that "Dad" is most often the first word a baby says.. PAH!

(ps.. will post photos when back on main computer, instead of the laptop which I moved to the lounge in the hope of getting some work done while spending time with Mr Grumpylumps)

A blast from the past

A very unexpected package arrived by courier yesterday. It must have cost my ex's new wife a fortune to send, as it was very large, and very heavy. Yep, by courier no less.

No, she did not pack up and send me my ex - but thank you for asking ;-)

To cut a long story short, my ex retained our photo albums when I left. I didn't leave them behind on purpose, and I did ask for them back many times, but after hearing he'd thrown the lot on a bonfire it seemed pointless to ask again.

It hurt to think all my teenage memories were gone; my horses, my school friends, my boyfriends, my motorbikes.. all gone. (Didn't wince once about the loss of wedding photos.. I really don't *do* white lace anyway!)

Anyhoo, the ex's-next must have seized an opportunity when his back was turned to dig them out of whatever musty shed they've been mouldering in (and do I ever mean "mould"!!) and send them on with a terse and emphatic note on the front "Remember Karlene, NO COMMUNICATION".

(Does that mean dinner's off, then?)

It does seem rude not to say thank you, especially as she retained the "Karl & Greg" photos and sent on the rest. But you don't have to ask me twice.. I can play mum with the best of them.

(But hey, new Mrs S, if you're reading this.. THANK YOU!!!)

I do have to wonder though, just how many tabs she keeps on me. She addressed it to me using my job title within our Riding Club, and named the club in the address.

WTF???

Also a bit freaky to think other people have flipped through my teenage ramblings, and I wonder if they snickered as much as I did when the list of my boyfriends (by the age of 18) fell out of one of the albums, or what they made of my Billy Idol scrap book.

Among the dusty treasures (and some trash, ie the scrapbook) were Dad's bone carvings, his briefcase, and some family tree information. Braeden will appreciate these windfalls later.

So here's some of the photos that made me snort with laughter last night, and I hope you get a giggle from them too.

Only seems fair to lead off with the love of my teenage life.. a big bouff stock horse named Luke, who most commonly answered to his nickname, "Boo".

I rode him in a snaffe for the first week or two, until June (my trainer) got hold of me and suggested I use his rightful bit, a Pelham. It sounds dreadful, but Boo had been a riding school horse and as such had a mouth like a steel trap. The only thing that stopped him (errr.. slowed him is probably more accurate) from putting his ears between his knees and launching you into orbit was that snib chain. I do not recommend Pelhams in the wrong hands, never fear!

Here we are learning to do poles. Boo needed to stretch out and become more limber, after many years rotting in a paddock after getting caught in wire mid-gallop and nearly becoming a biped in the process. Long story, tell ya later. Get the tissues in first, okay?

Stealing toast out of the toaster. Gee.. I wish any of us could take a decent photo back then.

With my dog, Manu. Yep, Manu really was a poodle ;-) Funny how Boo never bucked anyone off unless they were teenagers, eh!

And my boyfriend at the time, David G. Was I smug or WHAT, 17 years old and dating a forestry worker in his mid 20's who had his own bike. Some pushy pom came and took him off me by doing what I wouldn't. You could say I was kinda mad over that for a while, but it was for the best, as he went off to have about a million kids with her, then divorced, while I went on to have outrageous fun, ride many more bikes & horses, and finally settled down (err.. grew up?) just last year when Braeden was born.

Baby pix will resume next time. And be grateful you only had to sit through one horse and one boyfriend.. LOL! (20+ of one, about 8 or so of the other.. I had my priorities right!)

Arms & legs marching up & down

My child is possessed.

Possessed by the instinct to get mobile as soon as possible, that is.

Even in his sleep, he rolls on to his stomach and those irrepressible arms & legs start their marching up and down, as a result pretty much no one in our household was getting any sleep.

Matters were not helped by the plastic wrap on his mattress (supposed to be a preventative against cot death/SIDS, but definitely a preventative against sleep!) All night long: crackle crackle grunt snork crackle whimper grizzle crackle.

Several times a night we would get up and disentangle Braeden from the cot which to all intents and purposes seemed to be trying to eat him. Those bars double as teeth, don't you know.

In frustration, I removed the plastic mattress wrap, and dug the old Safe-T-Sleep out of the drawer. (You'll ballywell stay in one position, sunshine, and be a bit quieter with it!)

The first day he fought the new bedding for a bit, but buckled after half an hour each time. Not really crying, just disoriented and bewildered. Then once he got the hang of it, he was off to dreamland with no further argument.

That night he slept from 9pm until 5am, waking only to announce a wet nappy and oh yeah while you're at it, you might as well top me up? Thanks very much. (Oh you're WELCOME, darling son!!)

Last night was a bit more complicated - he worked out how to wriggle those legs free of his bedding, and although his midriff was still imprisioned in the Safe-T-Sleep thus preventing him from wandering onto his belly, he still made himself cold regularly and thus woke twice in discomfort. Finally at 4am his awful mother announced "I'm gonna fix YOU, sucker!" and dug back into his bedding cupboard and came to light with his old sleeping bag.

That which he has grown out of.. but is still big enough to restrain those emphatic legs if the top of said bag is nappy-pinned to the bottom of the safety sleep.

Thus wrapped, our wee sprog snuggled off to sleep and woke refreshed at 8am.


He's just starting to stir now, so I'll pick him up and see if I can put the pix up while I feed him.

Enjoy!

4 months old & trying to crawl

I need arms like an orang utan to reach around my son to the keyboard. And as many as an octopus to keep his feet from helping me typeB !hjn I;'m going to kleave the Braedenisms in (and cp9olour them foor your entertainmenf) .. hang on .. turn kidlet around and get him to stand peering/wriggling overmy shoulder .. stop to adjust collapsible kidle6t who has sat down and wants to lie on the keyboard.. adjust again because child wants to do the splits..

Ah stuff this../ brb

Okay. Kidlet now in cot but not tucked in because he likes to do his own wind-down time. This usually means at least one rescue mission mounted to retrieve him from a face down mattress munching strugglefest.

That body wants to be mobile, but hasn't quite worked out the kinks yet ;-)

Brb.. I hear grunty squawks..

Rightyho. Dummy retrieved & replaced, and Braeden's answer to that was to immediately roll over on to his right side and cuddle up to his sleepybyebye bear that Mum knitted him. I decided the bear needed a face so I got my embroidery silks out and.. well.. have YOU ever tried to freestyle stitch a face on a knitted item stuffed with cotton balls? Not my best work, and the expression could be considered that of either great pain or maniacal amusement. Braeden doesn't care, and Mum wasn't offended, so it's all good. By the time he's old enough to take a closer look at the face, it will probably be forever etched into a good memory.

I've got photos, and I will get around to putting them up, I promise.

Ahhh I hear loud silence coming over the monitor. My grumblemunchkin is asleep within five minutes of being put to bed. What a good baby!

Braeden continues to develop a bit more each day, which is totally cool & awesome and all that, but also means more work for me because he's constantly getting cast on his tummy and gets into strange positions with his playgym that I'm sure the manufacturers never thought possible. He expects to have at least a minute or two standing upright in each play session, and stands very straight and strong. Just before, I answered my email and did a bit of internet banking with His Majesty standing on my desk, leaning against my chest and both his arms akimbo over my shoulders as he vigourously sucked his hand and mumbled deep & meaningfuls at the office wall. Bit scary tho.. his nappied butt is right beside my cheek when he does that, and remember, this kid can fart for NZ (should they ever make it an Olympic sport!).

Anyhoo, this is a precious bit of the day (20 minutes to grab some lunch & make some phone calls) so I'm off now to have some "Karl time". Before I forget though, top marks to Dad who babysat his son for the first extended time ever on Wednesday, allowing me to spend most of the day helping a client in town. A major wrench for me to be away from my son, but both my boys did splendidly. Wayne actually got baby to sleep **twice**, and there were no major dramas anywhere. I think they enjoyed each other, but both appeared very pleased to see me when I got back ;-)

They're doing it again tomorrow... as long as Wayne remembers to follow Braeden's schedule (carefully written down), they should be fine.

And remember, if he's fed, burped, clean nappy, etc etc & he's STILL cranky, remove all his clothes. Guaranteed to turn that frown upside down.

(the baby, NOT the father. Although... ;-)

Not a kid you can "park"

I have it on very good authority that other riding Mums can park their kids in strollers or under trees while they exercise their horses. When told of this the clear inference was "well why aren't YOU out there riding Grandly?"

Oh yeah. Right.

Much as I can't wait to get my hairy horror out of the paddock and get back to teaching him how to move like a horse and not like a discombubulated centipede with three wooden legs, I can't see Braeden putting up with it. Grandly probably put my friends up to the suggestion on one of the many recent occasions when he's somehow Houdini'd out of his paddock and come up to the house. On the most recent occasion he left a pile of steaming regard very close to the kitchen window. At least he was philosophical about Wayne popping him back where he was supposed to be (and probably had a good laugh at Wayne scratching his head wondering how and where the sod got out, because all fences seem intact).

Given that Wayne and Grandly are not exactly mates (Grandles nearly put Wayne in hospital once), top marks to both my boys!

But getting back to other riding mums of legend, how do they do it!???! Perhaps I've ruined this kid in that he expects interaction, and not of the passive variety thank you very much. You might get away with popping him in his highchair and parking him in front of the TV if you really have to (ie you're trying to eat dinner) IF:
1. You make sure it's something interesting on TV (and not kids' programmes thank you, this kid likes SciFi, forensic dramas and movies.. much like his Mum)
and
2. You eat really really fast!

Leave Braeden in the car seat and go for a ride? HAH! He sometimes tolerates waiting while you open the house and come back for him, but don't count on it. You wouldn't even get the horse unloaded off the float before a major meltdown was in order.

But that's okay. When he's a stroppy teenager who doesn't want to know his Mum in preference to his cool mates, I'll remember what it was like when my baby seemed to think the umbilical cord hadn't been cut by 4 months post partum.

And anyway, it's just too much fun to sit with him and play. Every day he does something a little better or tries something new. Right now he seems to be doing ab crunches as he strains to sit up by himself. Take his little hands in yours and he pulls himself up to a sitting position all by himself. He can roll right over and back again, and will play happily on his tummy for ten minutes or so before it becomes "sooo yesterday!" and then he's too tired (or lazy!) to roll back, so bellows for assistance.

There's a white lump that suspiciously resembles a tooth coming up on his lower gum, and he was a very crotchety baby yesterday who found the teat or nipple too aggravating. Time to present him with the chilled teething "keys" out of the fridge which he decided was the best thing since sliced bread. And drool! Maybe I should take him out to the paddock and park him, at least then we could ease up on the irrigation!!!

Farewell to the family mole

You're not of my mother's bloodline unless you have a mole on the side of your nose, on your top lip or on the front of your chin (or a combination thereof).

I was *blessed* with the top lip & chin varieties, completely missed the nose one (yay) but made up for it by getting a matching pair - one at each end of my eyebrows! No shitsherlock, I really do have a small mole at the far end of each arch.

Anyway, the top lip beautyspot was getting annoying. Damn thing was threatening to sprout hairs and was showing every inclination of ambitions of resembling a hag's wart.

As I had discovered a strange circular lump under my right arm over the holiday weekend (*1) which was later diagnosed as 'wandering breast tissue' (??), we took the opportunity to ask the doctor about a mole on the bra line on the other side which had been worrying me for ages. He concluded it was fine, but hey if you want it taken off...? Yes please. And while you're at it, get rid of my hag's wart at the same time!

So to cut a long story short, I submitted once again to needles and am now two moles lighter. The worst part was the numbing needle, especially when inserted into the top lip. How DO those botox-riddled women stand this! OW! Nasty stingy OW!

Mind you, you'd have to be quite certifiable to get Botox anyway, in my not at all humble opinion. Pay big dollars, endure much pain, only to look like someone smacked you over for a few weeks, then the swelling goes away and you're left with lips that look like deflated balloons, and away you go again. At best you're announcing to the world that you're insecure about your looks, and at worst, well it IS a toxin, innit!

Anyhoo, I'm supposed to be going to a BBQ this afternoon with the Squidlet, but dunno if I can brave it with a great sticking plaster tickling me under the nose. Think "Norman Gunston & toilet paper post shaving" and amp it to the max ;-) Kinda unmissable (and who's vain now!)

But the removal itself was a doddle, so the chin blemish might just find itself going bye-byes soon. Master Braeden thinks the white thing on Mum's face is very funny, and I have no idea how he knows, but he's pinched me right on the stitches (bra site) three times in 24 hours. No other pinches, just there. Can we say "YEOWWWWCH!"?? (I knew you could)

*1 : Funny how you only need a doctor when you can't have one for days. Ever notice that?

Babies and other gadgets

There are upsides to parenthood, apart from the blindingly obvious.

Braeden attended his first funeral yesterday (if you don't count the six he attended last year in utero, one of which was on his due date). He was asleep to start with, but the minister droned on and on and on (as it is their job to do.. LOL the pagan in me coming out I guess, but I have little patience for having any religion crammed down my neck just because I'm part of a captive audience), and Braeden woke up. He enjoyed the hymns but finished his bottle in record time and started to fuss a little, wanting the boob.

Um.. no.. not here, munchkin! The average age in the room is 110 and I think half of them would fall out of their walkers in shock!

Nothing for it but to navigate his stroller out of the congretation and go walkies. Magically, we managed to make it back just in time for the last moments of the service, which we observed solemnly from the back row.

(No I did NOT pinch the baby to make him fuss.. LOL)

...oo0oo...

You can run from committee obligations, but it seems you can't hide. SRRC need a secretary to fill in until the AGM, so back I go into my old job until August. Taking minutes while juggling a very active 7.6 kilo wriggle monkey is going to be interesting to say the least. Might have to play "pass the parcel" at the meetings, with the clear instruction being "do NOT remove a layer unless you're changing that nappy for me!"

...oo0oo...

And to end on the best news of the week, Adrienne has had her baby!!! Poppy Dallas made her entrance on 1st February, and all the pictures indicate that she is a totally gorgeous child and is already adept at melting every heart in cooee. Can't wait to hear more from Adrienne, but in the mean time, Congratulations Adrienne and Fred, and WELCOME baby Poppy!
(I'd post the pics Fred sent but this is their special news to share so I'll leave that particular pleasure to them, and fervently hope we get lots more!)

Barmy days of summer

Gods but it's hot. We're just getting kidlet back on track after a stressful two weeks, and today's heat hasn't helped anyone's temperament one jot.

Remember his throat ouchee a couple of weeks ago? As soon as that was healed it was time to get his 3 month innoculations, and poor little blighter got three jabs (and six innoculations) in one foul swoop. One of them was the #2 meningicoccal jab, and like the first one, he got a fever and was out of sorts for a few days.

Well that's understating it really.. it knocked him for six. (A cricket term that may or may not be understood by the Northern Hemisphere readers, but sufficeth to say, a good time was NOT had by all!)

Such was the disruption to his system, that he went from one (often none) wakeups during the night to more and more wakings, reaching a crisis point on Thursday night when he wouldn't sleep for more than 45 minutes at a time. Getting up to a hungry & grouchy baby five times in one night is a bit much.

During the day, however, he was right as rain, greedier than ever, mostly happy in himself once the first rough few days had passed.

Nothing for it but to go back to the doctor and ask if his reflux problem had returned.

Yep.. with a vengeance. Seems I picked a very bad time to lower that cot.

So Braeden is now on Losec once a day, and is a changed kidlet. Instead of 1200-1500 ml of milk (a litre of formula and the rest off MummyMilkBar) plus solids, he's now only looking for about 800ml all up (plus solids, natch). (Speaking of solids, he's become very interested in the meat part of his parents' dinner and I thought he was going to make a grab for my spare rib tonight)

(Hang on... kidlet waking. I'll grab him and come right back)

It seems he needed the extra milk to act as an antacid (and as a side effect was in such a massive growth spurt he put on 4 cm length and nearly a kilo in weight in less than a month!). Remove the tummyache and the pressing need for extra milk was reduced ... except he's now waking up after sleeps thinking he's cruelly starved because his belly isn't quite so full all the time.

His doctor is quite chuffed with him, and said he's closer to a 5mth old in development and behaviour. Braeden can now roll to and from either side with ease, and today twice rolled from there on to his tummy during his "naked baby time". (Play mat on floor, nekkid kid on mat, fan circling above. That and two baths were the only things that kept my boy sane today in 32+ degree heat)

Braeden can play with his hands as easily as he does with his feet now, and engages all four limbs to assault the playgym. He has long chats with the baby in the mirror, and generally generates quite a lot of noise most of the time. If he's not cooing, giggling, chortling or gabbling, he's bellowing about some outrage or other ;-)

Anyhoo, it's damn hard to touchtype with a seven bloody kilo baby on your arm, so that's all from us for the mo, Brae and I are going off to have a cool drink.

Sorry about the delays in updates, but until two nights ago we were only getting about three hours of very fractured sleep per day (between us, sometimes) so just getting through the day and doing a little client work (and being full time baby slaves) was all we could find the energy for.

Oh yeah.. and littlest Barraband is now getting feathers, and is big and strong enough to insist on his fair share of the rations so our interventions have ceased :-)

Pix when we get the chance :-) Hope all is well with you and yours!

Pix catchup!

I fell behind a bit, so here's some of my favourite scenes from the last week.

First off, the littlest Barraband was slipping behind his/her much bigger siblings, so we decided to intervene and assist the little one's dietary intake. S/he's now on two pureed vegetable, ground cooked rice meals a day, plus a bit of lorikeet wetmix added in for extra flavour.

(Okay you caught me.. the vegetables are actually baby food, namely the Kumara, Carrot & Potato mix that Braeden absolutely detests. Well SOMEONE had to eat it!)

He's had three warm dinners now, and seems to be more than holding his own.

OMG It's Osama Bin Braeden!

Nah.. just kidlet wrapped up apres bath and just before his nightly baby oil massage. Does he look smug, or what!

Here's a father son profile that I never get tired of looking at. (Yeah.. if anyone wants to know what Braeden inherited from his old man, the answer is simple.. TV addiction. I reckon his first word won't be Mumma or Dadda, oh no. It'll be "Telly!" Well why not.. rumour has it that was his father's!)

And here's a beaut of Braeden & #1 Grandma. There's an even better one but it's slightly out of focus (damn), and one where Mum is grinning beautifully at the camera, Braeden is throwing a bit of a tanty. (Won't share the spotlight, I reckon)

Remember the swing photos from about two months back? Compare to this one taken at 12 weeks. Has he grown or WHAT! (It must have been a catching sleep bug.. note Auntie Poodle asleep behind him). Yes that's right, he sucks his hands. I'm more than okay about this, in fact the day he puts himself to sleep sucking on his fist rather than his dummy is the day I dream about. At least he can always find his fist in the middle of the night, LOL.

And here he is in his highchair. (Playing is a full body experience, too much fun to confine just to fingers, when you have ten prehensile toes that can get in on the act!)

I actually had another one I was going to show you, of a slightly lower angle.. but when you look closely you see there's a nappy in need of changing. Not terribly surprising, as I had been using the camera video function to capture the Amazing Squid Kid who changes colour (red white red) when engaged in the energetic business of pooing.

I've decided to keep THAT shit .. er .. shot up my sleeve for when Master Braeden is a teenage snotbag who thinks his (ahem) doesn't stink. One flourish of that photo should be good for a week's worth of moody silence, don't you think?

(Especially if I threaten to show it to his first date.. heh heh heh.. who needs bunny rug pix!)

Putting the frighteners on your parents

It's been in the news about the meningicoccal vaccine (or rather, the extra shot the Health Dept now say very young'uns need) and the various pros and cons and the proponents thereof.

Okay so ten kids who were vaccinated still got it.. but they all survived, apparently. Would they have if they hadn't been vaccinated? We'll never know, but it's likely the vaccinations helped in some small way at least.

Anyhoo, yesterday afternoon Braeden decided to scare the living daylights out of his parents.

The day went well enough - considering he'd woken early that morning with a horrible scratchy cry and a slight temperature. In the day, he was his usual greedy, full-on self; enjoying his playtimes, napping at regular intervals, generally being adorable kidlet.

The day got hot and windy, so I did what I usually do - I stripped baby off down to his nappy, lay down on the bed with him, and we played then napped together after a bit of a booby top-up to make sure he was fully hydrated in the nasty heat. (I have no idea why my child HAS to be in full skin contact with me when we're both hot and sweaty, but as he clearly enjoys/needs it, who am I to argue?)

Anyway, he slept an hour and a half like that, which is not unusual as he sleeps well when he's close to me.

Wayne got home, we lay chatting for a bit, baby woke up so it was time to get up and feed him properly.

And then we discovered the awful cry was back, and our child refused to consider bottle or breast, and was indeed a very unhappy wee man.

We rang the after hours number for our doc, and were told to go straight into hospital, take no chances.

You don't have to tell us twice. Wayne did the hour+ trip in 40 minutes, including traffic lights.

Luckily A&E put babies on the high priority so we didn't have to wait the four hours the sign advised, and Braeden was being checked out within ten minutes after we got through the slow registration process. Initially he seemed fine again - wriggling on the bed, looking at this and that, happy and quite content.

Except he'd missed an entire big feed and thus **should** be going ballistic by now.

They tested his blood sugar, which hurt, and this started him crying.. and there it was, that awful scratchy weak cry that just sounded damn WRONG.

Further checks ensued, and we were reassured it wasn't meningitus or anything like that. Baby's got an inflamed throat and a bit of a temperature, hence the diagnosis of an upper respiratory ouchie that should ease off in a day or two, and no doubt is why he's off his feed and sounds so terrible. (You try getting up a good howl when you've got razor blades in your throat)

So it's baby paracetemol four times a day (timed cleverly so that he gets his major feeds in afterwards when his throat is numbed, but carefully so that he doesn't aspirate his food ie go down the wrong tube!)

He's cranky and fussy, poor wee darling, but he's had more than 500 mls since last night, so there's no danger he'll dehydrate now we know what's going on.

Luckily I started keeping "The Book of Braeden" a week earlier, where I was recording his feeds, sleeps, and activities so that I could pinpoint patterns within patterns and improve the evening bedtime battles. It was very reassuring for me, and helpful to the docs, to be able to answer **exactly** when he last fed, how much, any behavioural differences throughout the day, and so on. No guess work in a time of stress, just the facts Ma'am.

He's just finished another 250ml in his dad's arms, and is quietly watching "Alien Ressurection" (!!!) with Wayne.

But last night, with a limp weak baby with an awful cry and refusing to feed, it was a very different picture. You just don't take the chance with a wee one.

When we got home again and baby fed then fell asleep in my arms, I popped him on to his dad claiming I'd make the coffee and start dinner, but what I really needed was to stand outside and shake for a bit. Relief, adrenalin aftershocks.. call it what you will, but I made the willows look steady in comparison ;-) Turns out I've got what Braeden's got (such a generous child I've got, shares everything with his Mum), so I'd better get on to making those antibodies for him ;-)

Picking your battles

(What a cute grin! I can refuse this child nothing, and I defy anyone to feel otherwise)

I get greedy sometimes.

First off, it was time to lower the baby's cot height before he one day decided to clamber out. Nah he's not quite there yet, but best NOT to find out the hard way when he is!

Then it was decided to affix blankets over the windows to further darken the room. All this was done on one day. Baby was a bit taken aback by the changes, but not too badly.

Then that night, I decided it was time he learned to go to sleep without the dummy.

Yeah. A bridge too far. Three strikes and you're out!

After a pitched battle of more than an hour, I caved. Poor little bugger.. I wish I hadn't tried, now.

He's fairly forgiving though, and settled back into his routine pretty quickly..

.. only to throw it out the window entirely last night when he had a bit of the ouchies, and needed a monster feed and mucho cuddles at 4 am. I didn't like the wheezy quality of his cry (probably just tired baby, but best to err on the side of caution) so I sat up listening to him, watching the breathing monitor tick off each breath. Wayne woke around 5 and found me, and made me get up off the floor (no seat by the cot any more) and get into bed.

Braeden woke at 8am for once (instead of his usual 5 or 6 am), and Wayne kindly took him off for breakfast in the lounge, letting me sleep an extra hour.

Or that was the plan! Some bloody cropduster decided to use this morning and our house as his focal point. What kind of dumb ass continually overflies a house with a large aviary (and birds going beserk at the large "hawk"), and failed to notice five manic horses about to rupture fences in their panic?

Asshole. I was quite tempted to throw spuds at him but exhaustion prevailed. Yeah, he was that low that you could have hit him with a hand-thrown missile. I just hope he wasn't dropping any nasties on our farm as he sprayed the neighbour's lucerne (two farms away, I ask you!).

Anyhoo, it sounds like my wee darlin is waking from his lunchtime nap, so it's time to go rescue him from the cot, but before I do, here's one of the three baby birds in our aviary at the moment.


This is a baby Barraband, and will be brilliantly green, gold and red when s/he's grown. This is the largest chick, and (despite aerial idiots) all babies are thriving.

With Braeden, playing on the floor at Grandma's

Studies in sleeping

This is going to have to be quick; Braeden went down for his second morning nap half an hour ago, so he's due to wake up any moment. I have great plans (!!!) to get some reorganising of the office completed today, plus get the Thank You cards printed & sent (!!!!!!!!!!) hence my hurry.

He now has at least four naps a day. Some are power naps of ten minutes or so; some are as much as an hour. The evening still evades me, as it's a bit of a juggle avoiding the Arsenic Hour meltdown whilst keeping kidlet awake enough to make night sleep a possibility. We'll find the balance sooner or later.

Hopefully sooner, which is why (starting tomorrow when he's 12 weeks old officially) I am going to start a journal to see if I can identify more subtle patterns within patterns.

Going to bed is now quite straight forward. You keep him up until he's ready/eager for bed, and then you stimulate him a tiny bit more with a story or a wee play. This heads off the "Ah, now what's THAT???" attention flip that used to throw a spanner in the bedtime works.

Then it's in to the very darkened bedroom (blankets nailed up over and beneath the lined curtains!), and hey presto, one sleeping child, tantrums not required.

No shit Sherlock. Within a minute of placing him in his bed, you're out the door and he's snoring.

(That weird sound you hear is my happy dance; hey it's hard to be a fairy elephant when you've got flat feet.)

And (get this.. are you sitting down?) For the past two nights he's slept through from his very late last minute top up midnight snack (11pm) to 6am. He actually **starts** waking up at around 5 (dawn) but it takes about an hour for the wriggles to become full on fist-munching growlies that are impossible to ignore.

Well okay, yesterday I did try, but ten minutes later he melted down so scrub THAT idea, Murgatroyd!

The trick to nixing the 3am wakies was to go up a size in nappy (ie, more absorbency), and to employ the "dummy instead of a feed" technique when he wanted to sate his oral fixation. Okay.. well we actually put another step in there as well. For two nights instead of his usual 200 mls, he got 50 mls on a very slow teat. Both times he fell asleep before finishing, which meant he really didn't need the caloric intake, he was just hooked into the habit of sucking on something. If not for his wet nappy, he probably wouldn't have stirred at all. A question posed on the Trade Me notice board elicited the suggestion of going up a size for the night nappy, and that solved THAT little problem!

Six hours straight, two nights running. Wooobloodyhooo!

Yesterday I sorted through his clothes, and only kept out what he still fits. Um.. 6-9 months sizes, plus a few "1" sizes. Ohkayyyy.. and you're not quite three months old yet, sproglet!

The outgrowns (some never worn, including a LOT of knitting!) are going to be boxed up today and put away for the next baby. The one that we keep trying to find time to get started on, except every bloody time, Braeden wakes up and says "MY time! Me, now. NOW NOW NOW NOW!"

Do you think he knows, and is trying to prevent any rationing of later attention?

Anyhoo, he's totally thriving, bless him. He now sits up in his high chair, playing with his toys (which are threaded on a cloth rope so he doesn't drop them), watching TV. This development means there's another activity in his rather full day, right alongside playing in his play pen, going for walkies with Mum in the country, massages and tummy time on the bed, and of course story time and big discussions.

I read a good tip yesterday; for tummy time, put a mirror in front of them so that they are "rewarded" with something interesting to look at when they push up. Braeden noticed the boy in the mirror for the first time the other day - not for the lack of opportunity, I might add, he just didn't give a toss before.

This time was different, and was so totally engrossing that it stopped a particularly annoying batch of hiccups within a few seconds.

Ah. I hear wriggly stirrings coming from the bedroom. Heck, THAT was a good sleep! Nearly an hour, quite unusual for this time of day :-)

Coming, darling!
(photos to come, camera playing up)

Bag a baby

Happy New Year!

Whew what a busy Xmas it's been! Did you have a good one? Ours was great ('cept for the car, but that's another story).

Loads of photos, waaaay behind on updates, a scant few minutes before kidlet is ready for bed (he's starting to make phflbbbb noises with a few "moo!" whimpers).

The trick, (this week at least) is to make sure he's really quite sure he wants to go to sleep before doing the bedtime tango. Forget the books that say "get RIGHT on to it at the first sign of tiredness!" That might work for other babies; but definitely not for Braeden (or at least, this week).

Here's his majesty cooing and grinning on our bed, saying in effect "I'm quite comfy here, thank you!" (Just had a cuddle and a nappy change)



Here he is in full wail, totally outraged at being put in his own bed.

And about 20 minutes later, here he is when exhaustion and his mother won out in the face of extreme defiance!

(1,2,3 Awww..)

Yesterday I found a baby sleeping sack I'd bought at the first fabulous Plunket sale and forgot I had. A-Hah I thought! Maybe THIS will foil the dastardly child who routinely throws his legs straight up in the air when you're attempting to get him to sleep, and indeed, also when he's fast asleep! This wee baggie just might 1. keep him warm at night, and 2. thwart those irrepressible dancing feet!

And it did. Three times we've put kidlet to bed in this today, and each time he's gone to sleep in record time.

5 minutes the first time.

2 minutes the second.

30 seconds the third.

I'm about to attempt the 4th so fingers crossed, okay? (Back again.. he's in his sleep sack, happily drifting off to dreamland. I'll check on him in a minute or two. Oh MAN what a difference!)

To end this lightning fast update, here's a really cute shot taken three days ago at Barry's Bay on Banks Peninsula.

Yep. That scratch (and the matching one he gave himself on the other side of his nose the next day) signals that it's that time of the week when Dad trims all baby's nails, while Mum blows raspberries on baby's foot and distracts him with silly faces.

Eleven weeks old tomorrow. Where has the time gone!!!

Shock Horror! Awful unfeeling mother gets firm on bedtimes!

I'm pleased to report that Braeden is getting much better at keeping his food down. He still spills, but nothing near as poorly as before. We haven't given him any Gaviscon in about a week now, which is particularly helpful as he's now on solids and I didn't want the medicine making for any sore tummies when he's trying to adjust to a new diet.

A major change is that he no longer projectile vomits when he's allowed to cry a little, which of course means I can get a bit firmer about the cot being used for it's rightful purpose.

On Monday after the Plunket nurse's visit, I popped baby into his bed when he gave me his usual tired signs. He fussed, cried, and went into full melt down no less than seven times. Each time he got too upset (or I felt he needed reassurance) I picked him up, cuddled and crooned, and once he calmed down he was laid back down with a loving kiss.

Of course he reacted each time with an immediate renewal of outrage, but I kept going.

Almost to the minute an hour later, he fell asleep and slept very soundly for three hours.

Since then I've asked him to have one sleep in the morning and one at night. Proper sleeps.

He still fights it gum and nail (no teeth yet), and as Wayne pointed out, this kid will achieve anything he sets his mind to when he grows up because his willpower is incredibly strong! Sometimes he goes down with a minimum of fight (20 mins), sometimes it's longer. This morning's battle lasted from 8am until 9.20am, probably in part due to his daily poo still being on board. Some gripe water and a bit more soothing and now he's finally settled with very bad graces into an unavoidable sleep. Even if he gets an hour in, I'll be satisfied. (Prefer 3, but at the moment we're establishing the pattern and fine tuning can come later.)

It still "kills" me to see him upset, but I know we're bound to have the battle of the bedtime sooner or later, and it's probably better for all if we make it sooner. Not for anything could I leave the room and let him cry it out! I stand there patting, stroking and gazing down with love and reassurance, often whispering "It's okay baby, Mum's here and it's okay to go to sleep. Goooood boy, that's my lovely boy."

What Braeden says in reply roughly translated is "You rotten bitch, pick me up! How COULD you put me to bed? I thought you loved me! Can't you see how miserable I am? All I want to do is be in your arms! Pick me up and get me out of here because I'm heartbroken that you could be so mean!"

This application of parental firmness has its benefits and drawbacks. The benefits include some precious time off for the mother, and a better sleeping pattern at night. The drawbacks are that he looks at me with such heartbreak and unhappiness in his tear filled eyes, and when he's awake, he's a bit less cuddly to me than he usually is.

Braeden is bearing a grudge, that's for sure.

But another benefit is that when he's awake, he's much more settled and will actually allow himself to play happily by himself for longer sessions each day, rather than expecting to be wearable art (ie permanently carried by his parents).

Given that kidlet is now 13 and a half pounds in weight (6.15 kilos!), that's a hell of a lump to lug around.

Btw, I read in an article that how a baby falls asleep, is how they expect to wake up. If the situation is unchanged, they can more easily self-settle without parental input. This explained why when Braeden fell asleep at the breast in the lounge, he became very disoriented and unwelcomely surprised to find himself breastless and in his own bed some time later.

Such was the power of this logic that I've even applied it to the dummy. (Not counting today.. I had to relent today otherwise I'd still be in there, ears bleeding.)

And it works! Most times now when Braeden wakes up (usually from bopping himself in the face with a flying fist), he can re-settle himself quite well, unless of course there's something he can't fix (wet nap, dog barking, etc). But the old way meant he almost never self-settled!


Hey.. get a load of this photo. At first glance you perhaps thought it was another of Braeden, but actually it's his mother and grandmother when I was one month old. Spooky, eh!

Baby wanna cracker?

Years of being certified (certifiable?) parrot slaves is very good practice for parenthood.

Parrots enjoy hearing their name repeated back to them in little stories and songs, because most parrots are the mental and emotional equivalent of a toddler human. Long ago I cast off embarrassment and got moderately adept at taking perfectly ordinary songs and making them bird happy.

This comes in handy for The Meltdown Kid. Take that old Doris Day standard and soon it becomes

I don't care if the sun don't shine
I'll kiss my baby in the morning time
When I'm bathing Braeden
I don't care if the skies are grey
Cos I'd rather stay home all day
Playing with my Braeden

Etc

Or the Bangles song "Eternal Flame" can easily be morphed into a lullaby to rival Brahms totally overdone ditty. (Try it... it works very well especially if you slow it down and do the rhythmic pat thing in time)

I was a bit self conscious about anyone hearing me; after all, I can't carry a tune in a bucket. But sooner or later, it had to happen. With the hearing of a bat, Wayne heard me and took note.

Soon he had his own wee offering and it's not a bad one, either! See if you can guess the original tune:

Meltdown Baby, two foot long
Do dah Do dah
Meltdown Baby, two foot long,
eight weeks old today
Gonna feed all night
Gonna scream all day
Got my parents on the run
That's the Braeden way!

You'd think the bloke would consider it a compliment when his wife started borrowing his ditty, but no..

"Get your own" he complained. The cheek of it!

...oo0oo...

Btw, the party went off particularly well yesterday, despite Kidlet refusing to get much sleep in the morning, and almost none in the afternoon. A few minor meltdowns but nothing much in the scheme of things. Lots of cuddles for all who wanted them, and very few upchuckies.

#1 Grandma had fun with #1 Grandson, even down to giving him his bath at the end of the day. We got lots on mpeg video (clever digital camera!) and lots of fun family shots too. That's the other thing I forgot to put on a "must have" list for parents - a digital camera with rechargeable battery and a big memory card. Dunno where we'd be without ours.

Happy Birthday again, Mum :-)

I need a warning label

"Caution: Distracted Mother at large!"

Or just a big neon Post-It Note stuck on the end of my nose reminding me to do a basic check after feeding the baby when out and about.

I wondered why I got some funny looks (and some loooooong sideways glances from men) when I zipped in to the supermarket yesterday to pick up a few things. I'd just fed bubs, and left him crowing at his father in the car, full of gas and giggles.

It wasn't til I returned to the car that I noticed (at the same moment Wayne did) that the only buttons done up on my shirt were the ones at the neck. Thank goodness that for once I'd remembered to do up the bra! I probably had the motherhood badge of honour (spew spot on the shoulder) but years of parrot parenthood have pretty much guaranteed I'm used to white bits on shirts.

Ya gotta laugh, I suppose. I hope that old guy in the frozen section was kept warm by the sight of a loaded boob flashing on by.

Yesterday was my first day back at clients post-baby, and it all went rather well. Wayne was packed off to his mother's for an hour or so, with the instruction of "pay attention, and learn her secrets! Oh yeah, and have fun!"

When he picked me up he was still chuckling about his mother's reaction to Braeden's customary melt down when asked to burp between bottles. Apparently she looked him firmly in the face, and said "Stop that! You are not the only horse in the stable!"

And magically, stop he did! (little bugger.. grrr!)

He gave up every burp easily and dryly, and didn't throw a single wobbly at anyone at any point.

When Wayne asked her how the hell she pulled that one off, she adroitly replied "You just have to say it like you mean it."

So last night Wayne tried the same trick, and was astonished when his son just roared louder. Hmmm.. methinks we have to work on the authority air a bit more.

Right now Wayne's camped out on the bed with the fan going, amusing a hot cranky kid who hasn't slept all day (it's 5.45pm). I did the first shift, now it's Dad's turn. I'm supposed to be whizzing around like some domestic goddess (ROTFLOLPRDML!) cleaning and cooking in preparation for #1 Grandma's 80th birthday tomorrow.

(All together now, "Happy Birthday, Margaret!")

Wayne's done the vaccuuming (and it didn't get baby off to sleep, despite it working for OTHER PEOPLE'S BABIES!), and I'll flounce about with a dust cloth and a saucepan later.

Around 3am when Braeden's having his night feed sounds about right ;-)

Btw, last night was a trip. Bubs went off to sleep at 8.30, and slept right through until 4.15 when he roared into wakefulness, damn furious that he'd missed an entire feed.

He was so pissed he didn't have his usual 75 mls of formula, oh no! He avidly consumed 200 mls, then a boob for good measure. His dreadful mother then proclaimed "That's enough thank you" and burped him once more, then popped him back into bed and turned out the light.

No "pat pat soothe soothe wait for baby to go to sleep", HELL no!

It worked rather well.. which means it will probably never work again but I'll be a bugger for punishment and try it on again tonight.

Btw, Braeden woke at around 8am, and for once lay in his cot playing with his feet and gurgling happily until his mother finally collected him around 8.40 and popped him into bed with her. By the time Dad woke at 9ish, baby was fed and exchanging compliments with his happy Mum.

Oh yeah .. another funny to close on. Yesterday Wayne popped into a nursing home to show a dear elderly friend our baby, but of course Mrs C was fast asleep as is her usual state of being. The nurses and residents thoroughly enjoyed a visit from the cute baby however, so the trip was far from wasted.

Naturally the usual questions abounded:
Look at all that hair!
What's his name?
How old is he? (etc)

When Wayne stated "He's eight weeks and two days old", one sober-sided nurse was heard to remark in a less than charitable way "There's no WAY that's an eight week old baby!"

Sorry luv, but I think the dad would somehow know. He was there, after all ;-)

I hear a lot of happy vocalising coming from the sproglet, so I'm going to have to be in on this. After all, the rate this kid is growing up, he'll be enrolling to vote in another week or so!

Breaking all the rules

Wayne's going to laugh.. I told him the other day that we'd keep the next bit a secret until much further down the track, ie something good to report.

But Wino wasn't the first to make this observation, and probably won't be the last, so rather than play silly buggers I might as well fess up now (and make my mother either very anxious or very happy, or perhaps a combination of both).

No, I'm not pregnant (I think?) but it's not for the lack of trying.

It's taken 20 odd (some, very odd!) years for us to be blessed with Braeden, so neither of us are expecting a second miracle, given our age and everything ;-) But if we did have a second healthy baby, we wouldn't sniff at the opportunity.

Especially if we could somehow finagle the age gap between the two to be rather small (Irish twins would be nice, ie two within a year of each other).

I might get my daughter after all.. but then again, a second son would be extremely welcome especially by his older brother!

Mates were the first ones to mention this (and got walloped.. don't mention sex to a woman who can barely sit down, let alone think about engaging in horizontal olympics!), followed by our midwife who said we had so much love to share, it seemed natural to spread it over a second baby.

So I hummed and hawed (and had a run of sleepness nights that nearly put paid to that idea prontoburger.. "TWO of these? Am I INSANE???") then finally broached the subject with the lord and master. Wayne was initially sceptical but realising that it meant that bedroom antics would resume rather soon, he soon saw things my way. (That's his excuse anyway, but I think he's got the baby bug as badly as his wife, he just doesn't want to fess up to it)

After all, it seems a shame to only get all this gear, clothing, and skills for a one time only use.

But some conditions are attached, okay?

Next time we get the Chorionic Villii sampling done at 12 weeks. We were very lucky with Braeden that he's fine, and I largely wimped out because I was so scared of needles. However (as I joked to my midwife), two epidurals, a spinal block and various drips meant I'm nowhere near as terrified of metal things inserted in me as once I was, and so I'm willing to have that test next time even if the technicians again think it's not necessary.

The other condition is that next time it's a caesarian AND while they've got me open, they can tie my tubes at the same time. A tummy tuck would also be appreciated, but I doubt they'd oblige.

Because after #2 (if IF IF there is a number 2!), that's it Curly.. there aint gonna be no mo'. (Moe.. old joke, geddit?)

Anyhoo, back to the charming little specimen we already have (and bless his cotton socks I've just got him back down to sleep while we wait for his spectacular once a day poo..)!

He passed his pediatric visit with flying colours, and CWH don't see the need to see him again unless our doc at some point that another checkup is necessary. Nothing really to be done about the upchuckies.. he'll grow out of it, and he's not exactly starving in the interim (ahh.. that would be because his parents keep topping him up whenever he asks for it post-vomit).

The belly button is quite normal, only worry about it if it fails to retract afterwards. Doesn't look like it's going to be much of an innie though, and definitely not the innie his mother's got (makes the Grand Canyon look like a drainage ditch).

And yes, we can start him on solids. (YAYYYYYYY!)

Normally they'd like us to wait until he's 4 months old, but his extrusion reflex has gone (poking of tongue at food) and he's more advanced physically than most other babies his size, and it might just help him keep his dinner down. Keep it small to start with, go slow, and watch out for a tummy ache until he's got used to the new stuff. Also only offer the solids after he's had a good feed of milk (makes sense, really). I did not know you could use breastmilk to mix the Farex, so that's even better news.

We had a really good night last night - baby in bed fast asleep by 9.30, woke at 3.01 growling (you can set your watch by this kid), back asleep by 4, woke again at 6.15 whereas his mother rolled over, noticed his eyes were still closed so went back to sleep herself until..

(nudge nudge)
"Honey, the baby's awake"
"shaddup I waz azleep no he's not gnight"
"But he's crying"
"No he's grumbling in his sleep will wake soon so in the meantime I'm sleeping so shaddUP!"
"Oh.. want to..? Oh you're asleep already. Bugger."

An hour and a bit later, Braeden woke properly with a fart and a vicious final kick at his blankies, sending the lot to the bottom of the bed, and roared his awareness of imminent starvation. One look at his mother laughing at him from above soon brought the giggles and coos back to his countenance, and the day started off with obligatory cuddles which turned into manic snarfing of Mum's pajama top when she took two seconds too long to attach the beloved leech.

And now later in the morning, the sun is shining, there's a gentle cool breeze, I've booked in two clients, the baby is still happily sleeping, and my husband has exited stage left to keep his own clients somewhat sated (but would very much have liked any chance at all to stay home and start baby #2).

It's a bloody beau