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