Pandy and Andy create a baby...

Saturday, September 26, 2009

Break it down -Tummy Time.

You're bleary eyed from waking in the night.
Your shoulders hurt from so much rocking.
Your shirts all have vomit stains on the shoulders.
And Lady Macbeth-like; your hands have that faint eau-de-poop you just cant get off.

Yet the little girls first smiles and coos make you go all wobbly at the knees.

Yup - we've already skipped over that first few weeks when you barely get a "hows your father" from the bub and we're into the next stage.
The stage of vague recognition of the world.

Unfortunately this recognition of the world also includes the dreaded witching hour, and hence there is an increase in the cry factor - right on cue when dad arrives home from work.
"Hi dad. How was your day? Mum was really nice to me. I started crying 20 minutes ago. I'm going to scream at you now. "

But its not all tears and tantrums.
The little miss is slowly managing to sleep just that little bit longer in the night. Well, kinda...

Case in point.
Mum&Dad being the sleep zombies they are, had gone to bed in time with the girl - 9pm (yes, being a parent is that wild) - fully expecting to be woken the ISO-standard 3 hours later with a bub demanding a grease and oil change.

Sure enough, sometime later, bleatings were heard in the dark.
Something felt a bit different.
Mum&Dad rolled over and stared at the clock.
2am.
2am!
That's {counting fingers} FIVE HOURS STRAIGHT SLEEP!
("There is a god!" rejoiced dad.)

However contrary to expectations, the bleatings were not the girl but rather number one son in an extremely rare nocturnal wandering, complete with subsequent swan dive onto the marital workbench and none-too-subtle request for bed buddies and/or Chuggington DVDs.

Which subsequently woke the blissfuly sleeping little Miss S and it all ended in 2am tears.
("Geez, gods a bit of a prick really..." mumbled dad.)
Cie La Vie.

But anyway,... she's slowly/occasionally sleeping more hours and that has to be a good good thing.

As are her somewhat amazing abilities with Tummy Time.
(We'll have to pause here; we cant help but sing "Tummy Time" in tune to "U Cant Touch This", a.k.a, 'Hammer Time', by MC Hammer - its the curse of living our formative years through the eighties.) Only we're already having to be extra careful if we pop her face down on the change table as it seems she is somehow (levitation maybe?) able to move herself several inches forwards and backwards. Now thats, as we say in the parenting biz, extreme tummy timing.

Just, hopefully, not off the edge of something high. Onto something hard.

All this cuteness of the early childhood weeks is also a constant reminder to Mum&Dad that - barring unforeseen cock ups (scuse the pun) - we wont be seeing any of these stages again in our lives. Which is kinda sad. Well for the cute stuff anyway; the sleep deprivation and poo up to our elbows we can probably go happily to our graves without repeating.

As for the boy...
Well he is slowly coming to terms with the little Miss, and hence his hugs are now genuine acts of affection and less attempts to smother her out of existence. (Its a fine line...)

And he's still cute as a button too. And still going through his very own firsts.

Is this case (and only parents will understand the joy this brings to a parents heart), the first time he has announced he wants to use the potty.
Yes.
Wants.

Mum&Dad were so stoked they said "You get a reward! What do you want boy??"
"CAKE!" he replied.
As we had no cake, he was offered another first.
His first Tim Tam.
What we haven't told you is that this all came about because he was in the bath and didn't want to wallow in his own pee. Hence he ate the TT in said bath, dipping it in a few times for good measure. Tim Tams, bath, applauding parents - he was like a pig in poo.
Just not his own.

Next day dad had a shower (as you do).
"Whats this brown ring round the tub??" he bellowed.
That be arguably the worlds first Tim Tam bath ring.
Here's hoping the cleaning lady didnt think it was what it looked like. (It was all a bit "Chokito scene from Caddyshack" really.)

Its also a somewhat significant, if not slightly depressing, time when your progeny first teaches you something you never knew. No, not as in "don't hold a naked baby above your head when they haven't had a wee for a while" indirect teaching, rather common or garden variety master-to-grasshopper education.

In our case it was train signals.
While looking at yet another Thomas the Tank Engine book, dad asked Master M what the "arm out" semaphore train signal meant. M said "Stop".
When he asked about an arm down signal, M said "Go."
As dad had no idea he just nodded in agreement, with later investigation revealing the lad was spot on. How he learnt this we have no idea - it isn't in the text of any Thomas we've seen - so we'll just have to assume that humans are born with this instinct which is subsequently lost with the progression of time.

Finally, the lad has also decided that if mum can nickname little Miss S "Pumpkin", we all need vegetable names. Henceforth, according to Master M, his new name is 'potato', mum is 'broccoli' and dad is Mr 'Bean'.

Some may say, how very apt.





Thursday, September 17, 2009

1/1008

One month old today.

Yes.
Seriously.
Already.

Seemed like only yesterday mum & dad were hanging around in a big white room waiting for a doctor to hurry things up, reading the newspapers, snacking on jelly snakes and twiddling their thumbs thinking the girl would never arrive, then...
WHAMBAM...
a month old.

Just like that.

It'll be bras, booze and boys (not necessarily in that order/with dads blessing) before we know it.

In the meantime there's a beautiful little girl who can already lift her head up off the floor during tummy time, has grown her first ackers (baby acne is stock standard stuff, with the added bonus of being a window onto her teenage soul), is experiencing the joys of her first sickness (a dreaded cough, brought to you via big brothers childcare; surely the petri dish for all modern man's sicknesses), and felt the warmth of her first global warming enhanced Melbourne temperature record (29.9°C in the first half of September).

Better pace yourself grrrl.
One month down.
At least 1007 to go.


Wednesday, September 09, 2009

Sleep, suckling, and sparrows flatulence

"What in the wide wide world of sports did we used to do with all that spare time???"

We seem to remember asking ourselves this exact question when Master M was a wee lad, but now we look back at that era like we were fair dinkum bludging it in lazy land; we'll call it our Paxton phase.

Ok, so with the first babe you're wondering what in Fords name to do in every new and unusual circumstance, feeling out of your depth and the proverbial fish out of aqua all at the same time, and indeed it is hard yakka - dont get us wrong, but...
...with a second, while you know the ropes (well, vaguely remember stumbling through their tangles), everything has an added "other child" complexity factor that you never even dreamt about.

Lets, for example, take the seemingly simple act of sleep.

Sleep.
Ah yes, we remember you well.

While the lass is still feeding every 3-4 hours during the night, at least with number one you still had a vague choice about when you got up in the morning; i.e., if the bub had a feed at 5am you may well be able to rest till 8.
But when it comes to having bub number two, well, 8am... tell 'im he's dreaming.
Cos number one is up at 6am, or earlier if woken by number two feeding, and then thats it.

You're up sunshine.
Even if the sunshine isn't.

And it seems no amount of "Does the clock say 7? It isn't getting-up time till the clock says 7..." will cut it with the lad.
He wants up.

Not to mention that being spring and with twilight officially commencing at 6:05am, it means the birds are a chirpin' well before the alloted awakening hour, and hence Master M cant be convinced that the rest of the world is not up and about and watching Thomas the Tank Engine videos at such an unFordly hour.

"Birds are talking!"

Yes.
The birds are talking.
Thank you Mother Nature.

All that said, the little Miss is not too bad in the wee small hours, and has managed a couple of four and even five hour breaks between feeds during the hours of dark. Which is a pretty stunning turnaround from the first few days at home when night was day and day was night and its seemed never the twain shall meet.

She's an impressive learner this one.

Not to mention grower.
We're now up to 4.4kg and motoring along powered only on premium unleaded mum juice.
Sure she has already had her first cold, and sure she has had Krakatoa-like vomits (usually over mum and/or dad) that leaves you thinking there surely cant be anything left in the tummy, but it doesn't stop her coming back for more.
And more.

But then mum's glad for it too.
Indeed all the mums.
Being a second kiddie, we're still doing the weekly catch-up with the first kiddie mothers-group mums, a number of whom are also dealing with suckling infants.
At one such catch-up, dad was somewhat perplexed at the high correlation between a) infants crying, and b) new mums crossing their arms. Till it was explained that the wonders of evolution have resulted in a "let down" (as in milk) reflex which accompanies the cries of a newborn.
Even one that isn't your own.
Its kinda cute.
If not moist.

We're also now discovering the differences/joys between boys and girls.

First, pink is good.
Which is infact great when Dad puts the new red towel in the wash with the new white baby suits 'n booties and pinks the lot.
"Hey, who'll know - she looks great!"

Secondly, quicker nappy changes.
Dad reckons he's saving seconds every change by not having to check that the willy is pointing down and into the nappy, as opposed to up and allowing overtopping during wee wees.
("Thats potential extra sleep time gained right there...")

Finally, the boy.
Boy oh boy.
Theres a tad bit of jealousy going on, which is taking the form of random acts of naugthiness in order to get attention.
Any attention.
Which has also been accompanied by an apparent confusion between the english terms "why" and "how".

Hence the question "Why did you hit mummies arm?" is responded to by:
"I did it like this!"
...followed by a second, albeit lighter, demonstration arm whacking.

We know its not a put on cos when the question was:
"Why did you hit your head on the chair?"
he also tells us he did it like this...
...and clobbers himself again. Complete with "thats-gotta-hurt" factor.

And yes, we did indeed try rephrasing the question to:
"What were you thinking when you did that Michael?"
to which he paused, thought and answered;
"Wiggles!"

Fair enough hairy mutt. (At least he's honest.)

Finally, Mike has also supplied us with his version of whats happened over the past few weeks.

In his own words, here is the Michael Henry Watkins abridged version of this very blog;
"Sarah was in mummy's tummy.
Then in her house. {i.e., the house of blue light humidicrib}
Then she came to visit."
She's here to stay lad.
She's here to stay.

(You reckon we get bags under our eyes like this for mere drop ins?)

Postscript: Sarah's first brush with "fame"... Mum noticed a nice chap at the next table making goo-goo eyes at lil Miss S while mum and dad were having a coffee and filling out Ms S' official Birth Registration form at Ricketts Point Cafe'. Mum had no idea who it was, but dad pointed out it was Paul Mecurio. We figured either he was admiring her twinkle toes or wondering what she'd taste like (with a nice beer of course), but he came ..t.h.i.s.. close to being asked to sign as witness on Miss S' birth certification. (We chose our wonderful friend Lyn.)

Postscript II: To all the incredible mums from the mothers group who have brought us dinners (one every Monday and Wednesday!) - you are amazing.
And we're so lucky.
Thank you.

.