Sleep, sits, bikes and beers

Routines, like rules, are meant to be broken.

There we were all settled into the inevitability of 5am wake ups for the term of our natural lives when suddenly....

**BLAH!!! BLAH!!! BLAH!!!**

"What the #$*& was that - and why am i awake???"

It was the alarm.

For the first time in 6 months we'd actually slept right in until the alarm(!).

The very same alarm that only 6 months ago we woke to every morning, cursed loudly and smashed on the snooze for a little more.

If that isn't the difference between the have (babies) and have nots, what is??

Not that we're complaining mind you...

For the boy though, the sudden sleep-ins have also coincided with an occasional wake-up only an hour after going to bed, with what seems like a bittova bad dream. Poor tike - damn brain development.

He's also now pushing through more teeth than Mrs Colgate, with one up top and two down below. This also means reddy-rose cheeks and lotsa ear grabbing as the nerves refer the pain up trough the cheeks and into the ears.

But on the plus side, he's also discovered sitting - sometimes just for a few seconds, quickly followed by a little falling over and a look of surprise. But its sitting none-the less and he seems quite proud of himself.

Not to mention how tantalisingly and frustratingly close (for him) he is to crawling. We're not just up on all fours now but actually doing the odd (and by that we do mean odd) little kangaroo hop with his back legs that do actually move him forward.

About an inch.

Cos he hasnt quite figured out that to move forward you also need to move your arms.

He's also discovered cycling. The weekend saw a trip to the Bot Gardens in the city for a picnic and visit to the final stage of the Herald-Sun tour, where he cheered on Baden Cooke (well, how often do you get to see a Green Jersey winner from the Tour de France?) He loved it! But even better...
he was in the finish post photo!!!

(We cant put it here cos of copyright reasons, but... if you check out the pic, and look just next to the street sign which is next to the "150M" sign you can see a little red dot that’s higher than anything else... THATS’S MIKE!!!! (Up on dads shoulders...) )

Ahhh... the fame (associated with being a single pixel).

Heartbreaker

Six months in.

And paraphrasing one of our friends, its without doubt been some of the slowest days (and nights) of our life, but perplexingly the fastest six months we've ever known. Bing bang... there it goes. At this rate we'll be waking up tomorrow morning and the kid will be tip toeing in the front door from an all nighter at the pub.

Still theres one thing about being a parent of an infant that we've decided no one tells you.
Tiredness.

Not just a bit pooped, but constantly feeling that little bit sleep deprived and a tad dazed and confused. Even when you get a good nights sleep you wake up wondering why you're buggered.

Dad, of course, has his biological theories:

1. its natures version of Guantanamo Bay; deprive the non-combatant of sleep for long enough and they'll bend to your every will - like changing endless crappy nappies, getting wee'd on at regular intervals and being spewed over with regurgitated milk product; all with a smile and love.
   
2. it prevents either parent from extra marital affairs. Any invitation to "come sleep with me sexy" will be taken literally. They will just sleep.

Speaking of crappy nappies, and the story that is mum's incredible shedding hair (a natural artifact of hormones that gave her more hair during pregnancy now cutting out, and said luxurious growth now shedding) and subsequent birdsnest of hair that is now the house... The boy did a poo containing hair. Mums hair. Its both gross and amazing all at the same time. (But mostly gross.)

As for the boy himself, he's now well and truly teething. And not just from the tooth on the bottom, but a newy thats now spurting down from the top and really giving him the yips. Hence out has had to come the baby panadol and the creamy stuff that you rub on his gums. Poor lil tike.

Made even poorer when he bit on mums boozies mid feed and she screamed louder than he ever could (and thats some scream). Freaked the boy out. Not to mention mum.

But even with a case of the whinges and mucky looking gums, the lads still the stud muffin he was way back when he was in horse-piddle six months ago. Taken to visit Jenni-from-(round)the-block, he met Beth, Jen's 18month old. Beth was instantly hooked on the masters charms, and kept stroking M's hair and generally giving the lad a bit of a touch up. Of course it all ended in tears; unfortunately hers when Mike left.

You lil heartbreaker you Mike.

PS. The wobbly dog goes all youtube - see below.

Six in the city

Six months old today!!!

Or to put another way,... only 36 x this = Mike can vote, drink, drive, watch porn, kill people in Iraq and have sex with the partner of his choice .

Crikey.

(We just hope by then he learns to sleep in past 5:56am; note microwave clock in background...)

Chopper

Its often said in meteorological circles that a month without records would be a record month. And this too could be said of the boy. Only in terms of weeks.

Seems that almost every day now something new is happening. For week 24 the biggies have included a love of all sorts of new foods (pear being the latest on the shortlist of faves), lifting ourselves off the floor (more later) and... first sign of a tooth.

Yes... October 8, a bit over a week shy of 6 months, the first "clank" was heard as the boy chowed down on the plastic poo-bear mush spoon.

"Mmmm... either pips have escaped the mush blending, or..." mused mum, as she put her fingy into Master M's mouth...

"OUCH!"

We've stuck calcium.

Yup... one tiny, almost invisible to the naked eye (mostly cos he thrashes about and shoves his tongue over it when you try to cop a look), bottom-jaw front tooth, just peeking a half-mill above the gumline.

Apparently most of the signs were there; bit more restless at night, slightly (but not very) pink cheeks, a fetish for chewing anything he could get his mouth onto (especially the new table), tiny bit more clingy, rubbing of the ears etc. But overall - he's been pretty much the same old/new Mike, and surprisingly less grizzly than according to "the books". (Knock knock knock on wood.)

The other biggie for the week is that rolling over is now so old school (dude). It's now time to get up and outta here. Getting outta here thus far has been fine - a kinda backwards butterfly swimming motion when face down sweeps him slowly across the floor. Only backwards.

Which is really starting to piss 'im orf.

Why?

Well being a mammal with forward looking eyes, naturally the toys/milk/mum he can see are in front of him, yet the motion he thinks will take him there inevitably sweeps him backwards. It really is a major kiddie conundrum. And has lead to tears. (Well, what doesnt?)

Hence, in just the last couple of days, he has decided to workshop this motion thingy once more, and has come up with a new project plan.

"I gotta get up".

And thus far there has been some success.

First it was a push up - just the hands and the toes/feet touching the ground. But that wasn't getting him anywhere except a slide backwards again when the feet lost grip. So he is now bringing his knees underneath himself... into the crawling position.

Ok, there hasn't been any actually crawling witnessed - he tends to get himself there and then just "wobble" backwards and forwards in a very amusing (for mum&dad) trance, but he seems to know that at least this effort isn't sending him backwards, and hence he's clearly ticked it as having forward motion potential.

We just call it the "wobbling doggy".

Of course he may well go back to the floor and take up "commando crawling", just like two of the other bubs from the mothers club, as thus far the wobbling dog has also managed to supply a couple of pitches forward onto his nose and subsequent
"WHAD THEFUG WOZAT OUUUCH!" cries.

But we'll see...

Finally, at 24 weeks, it was off again to the maternal health care place to get for the obligatory vitals.

Weight: 7390g (825g added over 8 weeks)
Height: 68.9cm (3.8cm added over 8 weeks)
Head Circ: 46cm head (4cm added over 8 weeks)

Which puts him at 75th percentile for height, 50th percentile for his head, and down to almost 25th percentile for weight.

So what does this all mean??

Tall and thin with enough room for a brain - just like dad for his first 30 years. (Arguably minus the brain bit.)

Nurse: "You could feed him a bit more".
Dad: "Stop him doing push ups all day and get him comatose in front of the TV like the other fat buggers/me."
Mum: "I love him just the way he is."

(Well until he chomps her boobies that is.)

Mush boy mush

The past week - week 23 - appears to have revolved around mush.

Orange mush. White mush. Green mush.

The boys been loving it. Solid (in-so-far-as mush can be considered solid) food. A defrosted ice cube of pumpkin (orange), rice (white) and broccoli (green) for brekky, and up to double that for din-dins. All washed down with a chaser of mums milk of course.

Plus now he has his very own IKEA high chair (as recommended by the mothers group/Brown Cow cafe...) which slots perfectly under the new table we bought. Hence Master M sits at the table like a big boy, though we are stilll battlinging to teach him basic kiddie manners.

Like... don't eat the table. Dont throw the place mats, spoon, mush, and/or mums dinner on the floor just cos it makes a fun noise. Dont scrunch/eat the morning paper into a ball of Gunns finest pulp - while dad's trying to read it.

Still, we figure we got a good several years to get such minor details ironed out.

He's also discovered rolling in a big way, to the point that poor old mum has to stand and hold him down in bed after the occasional middle-of-the-night feed. Cos if she doesn't... flippo... onto his tummy.

Which wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that he hasn't quite worked out that if you lie with your head at an angle you can actually sleep face down without suffocating. (Currently the face just goes straight into the matteress, with ensuing scream of piss-offedness.)

He's also taken to morning naps in his cot. "Woopee do" I hear you cry. But for us, and particularly Mistress P and her mountain of work-work and MBA stuff, this is a free-time granting godsend. Up till now the boy has refused cots till nighttime, and would only catch brief kips on the floor or surrounded by cushions on the couch. But now... 1.5+ hour kips in the cot of a morning is the new norm.

Ok... we find him at the end of it (as we do most mornings) flipped over, jammed headlong into the top most left corner with an arm trapped between the bars, but hey, ramming your noggin against the bed head can only do so much damage, surely???
(Why does Anna Nicole-Smith come to mind here?)