Long time between drinks

Yup. It's been a while between blogs.
(We blame society.)

And when you're only 6 months old, you can crank up a fistful of firsts in only a few weeks, so stettle in - we've a bit of ground to cover.

The latest set of firsts have included (but been far from limited to), her first plane ride (to Sydney and back - thank Ford for "earplanes" and hence no 1000 decibel screaming kiddie landing), the first crawl (13 Feb 2010), first tooth (9 March), first 10+ hour sleep though without even a faint whine (14 March) and, of course, her first six months of life (17 February).

The crawling (in so far as the traditional baby commando shuffle can be called a crawl; she'd be a star if/when required to slither below barbed wire under enemy fire) has been an unmitigated success. If only so she can access her current favourite food (newspaper); the first crawl coming after the temptation of a juicy copy of the local 'Leader' rag became all too great, so she took matters into her own hands and tootled off across the room to fetch it.

Her talents for mobility have since extended to chasing (via amazingly rapid commando crawls) her significantly bigger brother all round the house - that said, our house is smaller than some Rosebud foreshore tents - trying to steal his favourite Thomas trains, leading to our first case of parent enforced child separation before the lad instigated punitive actions against his aggressor.

There's also been no stopping the lass in the combined crawling and eating department - her balanced diet, as alluded to above, consisting of both tabloid and broadsheet.

(Never let it be said this family doesn't like to devour the Saturday Age on the weekend - literally. Come Monday there was semi digested newsprint strewn from welcome mat to compost bin until Mum decided that a solely printers ink diet didn't appear in any of the standard kidwrangling texts and hence should be curtailed.)

In fact it must be noted that Miss S is an avid eater in general; and not just of the (r)Age sub-ed's finest work. She can devour a jar of Heinz Organic's in minutes and watch out anyone who gets between her and a slice of banana; they will lose fingers. In fact, at times she appears to eat more than her big brother, who goes through extended periods digesting so little we've decided he must surely be generating his sole energy source through photosynthesis. We figure it's an evolutionary sidestep, if not advancement.

It must also be noted that all this food the girl devours has been gummed, not bitten, down.

The first tooth has indeed been a strange one. At the same age, and much to mums breastfeeding peril, Master M had a mouthful of choppers. Not so the lass. When finally one tooth did start to drop down from her top gum, it took one tiny sliver look at the world.... then disappeared!

Tru dinks.

Straight back to being gummy. (Not that mum's boobs are complaining...) Ok, you can feel a little tooth under there waiting to rear its head again, but it appears in no hurry.

Still, all this gumminess doesn't stop her grabbing a fistful of steamed carrot and mashing and masticating it into easily digestible bits; just takes her a little longer.

And in fact, combined with her new found passion for crawling, has embarrassingly led to another A4 dropped into the "dont tell the council nurse" file...

A parent (name deleted to protect the female) had been feeding the lass (or rather, letting the lass feed to herself) steamed sticks of steamed carrort, stalks of broccoli and the odd bean or three, resulting the inevitably detritus spread far and wide on the floor beneath the high chair. (Dad has taken to laying newspaper on the floor below- no, not as dessert, thanks for asking.)

Lunch over, said parent started doing the dishes/answering the phone etc, and popped little Miss S on the floor at their feet to play. Sure enough, it wasn't long before the lass grew a little sick of current surroundings and was orf.

No worries...
Until said anonymous parent realised she hadnt heard much "talking" for while.

So they looked. And there the girl was...
...beneath the dinner table, happily eating the food scraps she'd dropped off the high chair.

Oh well... saves buying a dog and it did indeed clean the floor; maybe we should rent her out to Dysons for evaluation.

Finally, the big first for little Miss S (and for mum and dad and Master M too): a true sleep through - no grizzles - from her 7:30pm laydown to a some vaguely decent hour (in this case 6:15am). Not that 6:15am on a Sunday is civil in anyones language...

The whole sleeping caper reached a head when Master M was emphatically denying that his sisters frequent nighttime cries and wakeups were not effecting him in the slightest, while at the same time his eyes were hanging out of his head and he'd developed an attention span measured in microseconds.

Not to mention that mum and dad were going insane(er).

Hence reactive parenting went proactive, and in was called a sleep angel; i.e., a nice lady with some ties to a horse-piddle and a knack for getting kids to sleep and parents to sanity.

In her words, Miss S was having a bit too much of the good life; all late nights, boobs and getting (milk) drunk whenever she dam well felt like it.

Hence it was onto the 12 steps of Mammaries Anonymous.
The first step is admission.

"My name is little Miss S, and I've been a nightime boobaholic for 6 months".

Going cold turkey overnight wasn't easy, and mum and dad staggered through the daylight hours for a few days like the terminally undead, but it soon came.
Only 3 wake ups.
Then only two.
Then one. (Then one. Then one. Then one.)
Till finally...
Only self-settled grizzles.
Ahhh.... sleep.

On the boy front we've discovered he has a memory like a steel trap; don't dare get one word wrong in any book he has read more than once, even if you think you haven't read all of it before.
Case in point: "Daddy - no, no, no, no.... its Jerry Smith"
Dad: "No, Phil Jacobs"."Daddy... no, no, no; Jerry Smith..."
Dad: "Phil Jacobs".
"Daddy... no, no, no..."
It went on like this for eons; arguing over who was listed on the inside front cover of the Thomas books as a co-illustrator with Robin Davies.

Seriously.

Then Dad opened the next book.
And what did it say:
Illustrations by Robin Davies and Jerry Smith
Oh, you gotta be kidding.

We've also moved forward rapidly with the potty training, and now have a boy who, if he puts his mind to it (if!), is able to spend a full day in the Reg Grundies with no accidents, and make it through many a night barely putting a drip into his pull-up.

However, there is one downside/learning experience we've encountered that we didn't imagine but in retrospect can almost understand. Almost.
{The squeamish should look away now; its been nice talking to you. Promise the next blog wont take so long to write.}

The boy took himself to the toilet (not potty), hoisted himself up on the ladder and kiddie seat attachment and did a great big poo.
Well done.
Then there was silence.
Followeed by a Homer Simpson-like howl from mum: "NNNNNoooooooo!!!"

Prologue:
Post poop, boy had hopped off the seat, turned round, and retrieved something from the toilet.

"Its a pea." he said proudly.
And so it was.
Partially digested.

He lifted it towards his lips....

"Its for eating!"

Mum: "NNNNnnoooooooo!"

{Told you to look away.}

Ok, to ease your mind/tummy; he didnt actually eat it.

.

Print this post