during percy's morning nap we drove to paul's parents home in wollongong. the little car was packed to the rafters! we had borrowed from my brother a travel cot, this along with a bag of clothes for us, a bag of clothes for percy, her change bag, some toys and books, presents, two eskies full of seafood, a box of food, formula, bowls, spoons etc for percy, a couple of hats and the beach bag of towels and swimmers left no room for breathing!
the day was spent chatting and relaxing with paul's relatives out from britain for the first visit in 20 years. plus playing with the present we gave to paul's father for his birthday (we have a number of birthdays in december/ january) -a set of remote controlled cars. one police car and one "drifter" decked out in red flames on a black background. very clearly the "bad" car. if the police car is lined up correctly it boasts an immobiliser that can stop the drifter.
percy quite enjoyed all the attention. she didn't go so well with the sleeping tho. how surprising, hey? i don't recall how long her afternoon nap lasted but i do recall getting no more than four hours sleep through the night. unfortunately she didn't take to the travel cot and probably all the new people and stimulus kept her brain wired. i fed her four times and rocked her between 1am and 2:15am. bllrrgghhhh.... finally the mid morning hours seemed to bring some sleep- until a mobile phone (not one of ours!) received a message at 6:15am accompanied by loud music. why oh why do people need to have mobile phone ring and message tones that could fill a concert theatre and silence an entire public school???!! anyways, percy was awake and up. meaning i was too. paul had asked for the nite off so he could enjoy a few drinks with his cousins. i was happy to say yes. what i sort of figured was that he'd be fully functional the following day and i could have a bit of a break. paul sized hang-overs don't result in functional pauls the following day. oh well. it was 20 years between drinks...
plus this morning was now christmas morning!!
this day was just fine. my brother, sister-in-law and their two boys, our nearly neighbours/ parents group friends and their baby, and two friends came for an early dinner to note the passing of another year for me.
one day we are just going to have to make dinner for my brother et al that consists of meat and three veg! we made marinated lamb skewers to be made into kebabs with hommus, tabouli etc, etc. it's just not their cup of tea; the poor boys ended up having leb bread with cheese and tomatoe sauce! not exactly a nutritious and appetising meal. also we completely forgot that one of our guests is vegetarian. oops again. at least he's not a rabid-"don't even put it in the same kitchen/ plate/ table/ pan" vego.
dinner was about 5:30pm. then i bathed percy followed by our usual bedtime routine- bath, blow dry, massage, nappy, boob, book, bed. i recall she slept quite well despite the racket downstairs. in fact we think the dimming of the racket might cause her to stir! we've noticed on a few occasions she'll stir or awaken when we turn the tv off or otherwise decrease the volume in the house, and get ready to go to bed ourselves.
i think she woke twice for a feed. this seems to be what she does now- can pretty much settle herself from other stirrings but is hungry every four hours. wonder when she'll grow out of that..?
we had yummy sponge birthday cake for dessert. my nephews helped me blow out the candles. there is a photo of this but it is currently stored on a computer i don't have access to. will attach when i can.
i got a lovely red handbag, choccies and a massage voucher as my birthday presents. i did ask myself how one gets to 32 without owning any hand bags. i imagine this will be unimaginable to most women. i'm just not a bag person. i find them unwieldy and generally ugly. particularly the fashion of the last few years that includes lots of tassles, buckles that don't actually buckle, chains, more buckles, etc etc. i do have one bag that is incredibly plain and just black that i keep at work. it nicely fits work files if i have to take one or two to a meeting. so how do i carry all the junk about the women carry? well, i have a nice red back pack that is minimal and can look like a hand bag too. all i carry is my wallet, my keys and my phone. optional items include a water bottle, tissues, lip balm and sun glasses case. i'm beyond make-up; maybe one day again, and with the contraceptive implant i don't have periods so need none of the paraphenalia that goes with that.
having said all this, i really do like the new bag. i'm sure i'll find occasion to use it; and it will probably last me the rest of my life!
ahhh, the feastive season... way too much food, way too much family, way too much excess, way too liitle sleep!
we've had a mixed week. there's been no blog updating because i've either been asleep/zombied or we were visiting at paul's parents and didn't take the laptop with us.
let's see how i remember the days...
percy crawled today!!
at exactly 3:05pm percy crawled off her change mat (we change her on the floor by-the-way) and across the room to her papa! it was a definate crawl- none of the up on tippy-toes, downward dog yoga pose, roll back to sitting, roll to one side, sit up, caterpillar, flop on belly, up on tippy-toes again thingamingy around. however she is an opportunistic baby, meaning that she'll take what she gets easiest. so after that crawl she wouldn't crawl back to me because papa had a glass and her empty bottle that she was content to play with, plus he provides appropriate support to get to a standing position- which is what she'd much rather do. no repeat yet...
we also think that the bulk of the cloth nappies instead of disposable nappies may be hindering her some. she crawled to papa before i got to put a new nappy on her. meaning her cute little bum was having some air time, involving peeing on the carpet. oh well, the carpet is cactus anyways. we mean to replace it next year.
also, no pictures. we'll be more vigilant in coming days.
...in a good way. since being without a dummy (unless you count her two parents) percy has mildly improved in the sleeping stakes. we're definately heading in the right direction. cross fingers it continues. last nite she had two feeds at 9:50pm and 2:15am, then woke at 6:15am- no settles! the nite before it was two feeds and one settle. could this be the beginning of a trend?
i don't think we'll drop the feeds very soon. she seems genuinely hungry both times. she slurped thru the bottle paul gave her at 2:15 in no time at all. he thought she would have taken more if the bottle had been bigger. still two feeds with no other action is much preferable to getting up every hour or hour and half to replace the dummy.
i expect (perhaps foolishly) that as she eats more during the day, including me concentrating on getting lots of milk into her, she might drop one nite time feed.
day time naps are also managed quite well. she varies how long she takes to fall asleep so i can't say there is a 'typical' pattern yet. however i don't recall it being longer than 20 minutes in the last couple of days. how long she sleeps also varies. yesterday morning was one and a half hours, the afternoon only 40 minutes. i'm still operating in tired mode but i do see light at the end of the tunnel.
actually i thought it went quite well. paul might have a different perspective.
she took an hour to go to sleep (7pm to 8pm), the nite then progressing as follows:
9:50pm she woke, i breastfeed her, back to sleep at 10:05pm.
11:58 she woke, paul settled her by rocking and bouncing her; meaning his legs were on fire and the settling period felt like a lot longer than it was- back to sleep at 12:15am (he also changed her nappy.)
4:30am she woke, paul gave her a bottle of expressed breast milk as she lay in her cot, back to sleep around 4:45am.
5:05am she woke, paul settled her again to 5:30am.
7:00am i woke her up for the day with a breastfeed, change of nappy and getting dressed.
she since went back down for her nap at 9:20am, asleep without any action from us at 9:30am and now at 11:30am we haven't heard a peep. i'm about to make her a bottle and see if she is ready to rise.
so not the perfect nite but in the right direction i think. what's the bet it will all go to really smelly shit tonite?! "don't be so pessimistic!" paul would say.
we threw all percy's dummies in the bin today.
gasp.
anyone who has a baby that just won't sleep will understand what this action means. paul is trying to get her to sleep right now. so far we've only been going 27 minutes. however percy has been screaming so hard i'm sure her throat is raw.
we made the decision that the dummies have to go because her sleep is so badly dependant on them. aside from that four and half hours i mentioned earlier in the week she has been atrocious- i've been up at one and half hour intervals for either feeding her or to replace the dummy she has lost and can't find by herself nearly every nite. we think if she doesn't have the dummy going to sleep she'll not be wanting it later in the nite. if we haven't gone mental over nite i'll let you know how the nite progressed tomorrow.
the day today was not an encouraging beginning. she took 40 minutes to fall asleep for her morning nap and after 50 minutes of unhappiness we got her up without her sleeping at all in the afternoon. i subsequently took her out for a walk which saw her fall asleep before i got two blocks; she slept an hour. (the thing about walking in the rain is you've got the footpaths and parks all to yourself!)
hi, back. paul did his best for 35 minutes. then it was my turn. talk about a mummy's girl! she took awhile but she is asleep now. considering someone recently told me she did this for five hours one nite we doing alright so far. but let's not jinx it! she might awaken in ten minutes.
anyways, the line is crossed. there are no dummies in this house and all the shops are shut. see you in the morning.... hopefully!
who would have thought that four and half hours could be such a significant amount of time? i was up last nite to feed percy at 11pm and again to settle her at 2am. she was crying quite strongly at 2am and i couldn't think of anything else to calm her down than to feed her. so while i am very reluctant to feed her at less than 4 hour intervals in case she decides this is a nice way to pass the dark hours, demanding more and more warm drinks thru the nite. she did take one breast and fell asleep right away. i figured i'd be up again in an hour or two to do the other side- but no! not a peep; at least not one that i heard. so i got to sleep from 2:30am to 7:00am. how's that!? miserable on most accounts but near to bliss as i can expect. i almost feel refreshed.
this is significant on another account too. percy is quite capable now of rolling onto her stomach, there to pop onto her hands and knees. what she can't do is get back down again to sleep on her side or back. (i've only seen her sleep on her stomach twice.) in the middle of the nite, she's tired, frustrated, possibly a little frightened and just wants to sleep (i assume/hope.) she then cries out for help to roll her over. the previous two nites we were up three times to do this, adding in two feeds amounts to hardly any sleep. there are devices (eg. ockie straps) that could keep her pinned to the bed but i am reluctant to use these as they have to go eventually. we've already learnt the hard way not to get dependant on something!
so the significance is also in the lack of rolling over assistance requested in that 4.5 hours.
who's up for heavy vehicle driving today?!!
because percy only slept half an hour instead of the booked 2 hours at 1pm today i took her out for a walk at 4:30 today, hoping for a little doze in the stroller. we went around erko oval and then up park street, along henderson for one block then turned up clara street. approaching the tom bass sculpture school i thought i recognised a familiar shape... colour.... presence.... on the footpath ahead of us. sure enough, as it came into better view, there lay, in neglected and pensive mood purple futon. oh, how immeasurably sad. i stood beside it and mourned its demise in the world. i almost thought it might be staring back up at me; dejected, forlorn, asking 'why, why has it come to this?' this being a much raggeder state then when it left us- the purple cover torn, wet stains and marks, dirt, leaves, yet more animal hair...
i sorely wanted to scope it up and bring it home again; give it a bath, something hot to eat, a nice cuddle and replace it in our home and hearts. of course it's too heavy to pick up let alone drag across the entire suburb. (and i'm not sure a bath would suit.)
that's the nature of giving things away; you fool yourself that the two bucks you gave the homeless person will be spent on a mango, banana, berry swirl infusion blast from a juice bar but you really know it's going towards a bottle of burbon. once you give it away it's not yours to dictate how it's used any more. don't offer the beggar a burger, let them choose how to spend your largesse, does your boss tell you how to spend your wages? hence i walked away from purple futon ever so slightly misty eyed, ever so slightly heavy hearted, with the occasional backward glance and '"c'est le vie" on my lips.
hasn't been percy's month for family. which is not to say she hasn't seen other members of her family, it's more that seeing them is not conducive to her routine, especially her sleeping patterns. this causes her parents no end of grief. percy wouldn't be including 'good sleeper' as a "strength" on her resume anyways, with long drives to wollongong or castle hill and back thrown in it definately classifies as a "weakness."
we are not doing these trips again unless completely unavoidable. judges decision is final, no argument/ discussion will be entered into.
on a cheerier note everything else is pretty good. the list of attempted foods (not necessarily all accepted and repeatedly consumed) would now include: plum, kiwi fruit, weetbix, cherries, blue berries, banana, green beans, nectarine, zucchini, red cabbage, toasted cheese sandwich (mostly just the bread bit), chocolate, red wine (not by me! a dipped finger tip from her grandfather) tandoori lamb cutlet (very cutely gnawed on while clutched in a tight fist for a good half an hour) and some store bought mixes including fruit muesli and spaghetti bolognaise. the standard fall back is still baby cereal; farex, mixed with formula or water. it would still comprise 50% of her intake. we're not putting much effort into boiling water for her anymore. she hasn't had any illness yet and she's having straight tap water more than boiled.
crawling is anticipated pretty soon. she now easily gets to a hands and knees position, rocks for a while, sticks an arm or a leg out, then back to tummy down. this is frustrating for her- evidenced by the scrunched face and the whine so we think with the right motivation she'll be on her way to independant travels soon enough.
standing is still the preferred position. she's got the cordination to pull with her arms, get her legs under her and push up 'til upright. what she doesn't have is the balance once she's there. making standing a supervised only activity.
swimming class has been going well. this week is the last class for the year. i've re-enrolled her for saturdays next year, as i'll be working on fridays. this way paul and i could also share her classes while the other does some laps if they like. i think the main thing percy has realised from swimming class, and her baths, is that things still exist under the water. she will reach for things below the surface- toys and toes. i'm not sure she understood the three dimensionality of water when classes first started.
her laugh is infectious and everybody loves her- der!
paul made a delicious lemon cream sauce to accompany dinner last nite. we wondered whether percy would be interested in the taste of lemon....
what feels like more than half a life time ago i left my parents home to make my way in the world, as they say. i took with me, amongst other things, the single wooden bed that my father had built and that i had slept on for most of my childhood and teenage years. it was pretty nice of my parents to shift this bed for me given that my leaving was acrimonious with me unequivocally telling them to go fuck themselves. (story for another story.)
upon relocating to sydney after a year or two at uni i decided i would like an adult bed. me big girl now! i bought a double futon bed from a shop now closed on king street, newtown. they delivered it to the apartment i was sharing with my flat mate, now husband, paul, in parramatta. (story for another story-if you're interested that is.) i adored this futon. it was my first major purchase, it was furniture; a big deal in itself, it was funky, it was oh so comfortable! i know futons don't work for a lot of people but i really liked the hard mattress and the solid lumpiness of it as you tried to tuck sheets around it or turn it over.
this futon has been shipped to every place i've since laid my head; ashfield, ultimo, pyrmont, brisbane, erskineville mark I, jannali, erskineville mark II, kirribilli. it was in kirribilli, the first place paul and i moved into together as a couple that we sawed it to pieces, screwed hunking, heavy blocks of timber and industrial hinges to it and converted it to a sofa bed. this operation also involved covering it in psychedelic purple material and sewing lime green ties thru it. we broke at least half a dozen tapestry and furniture needles on that task.
as a sofa bed it has served us many years in accepting the weary bodies of expected and unexpected guests. it has sat and lain in our numerous, changing lounge rooms, bombarded by baby boys, clawed by our cats, dusted in dropped dinners; all equanimously recieved. only once did it extract a revenge. while in pyrmont, unfolding it from sofa to bed on slipping wood floors it threw me off balance, happily engulfing my right little finger in its closing maw, crushing the bone, causing me to cry and curse at once.
now the purple futon is adventuring without us, cast adrift in the unpredictable homes of the inner west. moving percy into her own room, where the futon had previously reigned supreme, necessitated me breastfeeding her also in that room. the futon without arm rests or method to support my arms and back sufficiently made way for an arm chair more suited to the task. poor futon took up position on the footpath with a neatly scrawled note "free - note, very heavy, no liability accepted." hardly two hours had passed when purple futon was gone.
so this bed that carried me thru many homes, many tears, many tumbles is now someone elses to enjoy. i hope they do.
percy accompanied us to her child care orientation day today. from mid january next year she'll be going to SDN early learning centre in erko for three days a week.
oddly, or maybe not so oddly to people that don't have mortgages and careers and do have under utilised family nearby, we were asked not to bring her to the orientation session. uh duh! if we had someone else to look after her we wouldn't be needing child care at $78 a day.
she did sleep for a little while, while there. hopefully she makes up the short fall this afternoon. on a funny note i got her home, while paul went to work, at 11am. since this is her usual getting up time from her morning nap, accompanied by a boobie feed i thought we'd do the feed and then try some more sleeping. feed good, sleep not happening. getting to the funny bit! we leave a dummy in percy's cot in case we really can't find any other way of soothing her, it's a last resort to reach for in the middle of the nite. well after half an hour or so of her being quiet in the cot i looked in on her- she'd wriggled up, grabbed the dummy and popped in her own mouth and turned on the music to her mobile. so much for sleeping!! it was adorably funny tho.
back to child care... we've got the enrollment form and all the other 'welcome pack' guff. i've written down her name for two settling in periods in the second week of january and then she'll start the week beginning the 14th (think it's the 14th.) so let the fun begin. i'm sure it will be harder for me than her. the settling in sessions are when i or paul or both us of accompany her to the centre for 2 or 3 hours to get her somewhat familiar with the surrounds, the people and the new life before being left without her usual "blankie" of mum or dad. for the little time she spent looking around today she was happy.
