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!