as reported previously, last saturday nite (was is saturday, i can't remember? maybe it was sunday, or even monday nite) percy slept that astonishing 12.75 hours. what a gob-smackingly lovely experience.... aaahhhh.
she followed up the next nite with a similar near 13 hour sleep. we attributed this to the vaporiser we purchased from the chemist and ran in her room both these nites. we think the steam and extra moisture in the air helped clear her nose and let her breathe easier.
did we prematurely celebrate? oh yes! i was quietly dancing jigs in the thought that we could reliably have 12 hours of sleep every nite from now on. ha ha ha. the miracle vaporiser turns out to be not such a gift from the gods afterall.
wednesday and thursday nites were not bad tho she did wake up at 5am on thursday morning. on friday nite (27th) she woke up at midnite and did not go back to bed, asleep until 3am. blrrrgghhh. we both tried to settle her for about an hour- nothin' happening. she did take another bottle of milk but didn't fall back to sleep even after that. finally i gave up, got her out of her sleeping bag and played on her bedroom floor for over an hour. i also made up a bit of a bed from pillows and blankets on the floor where we both lay down; when i could convince her. percy finally fell soundly enough asleep to be moved back to her cot at 3am. and then she had the hide to wake up at 7:15am- no sleep in even!
saturday she took a little while to fall asleep and last nite (sunday 29th) she went to sleep nearly immediately and despite two little rousings in the nite from which she put herself back to sleep, she slept the nite thru to 5am with no bottles or other assistance. she also contented herself with babbling and dozing to 6:15am before i got her up.
so you'd think we'd be getting a least more nites of good sleep than bad sleep. well the dark hours of the nite stretch before me nonetheless because my cold is running in its eigth week now and i'm having lots of bother sleeping with such a blocked nose. perhaps we should move the vaporiser next to my bed!
short winter days of half light and chill spill into the long dark hours of too many nites when pain and noise keep restless heads from drooping into half deaths, flashing eyes and flailing limbs are brought short by gasps for water and reprieve. can sanity be concluded in these days and nites? what change, what over-wrought point of break must be birthed to let peace with needed half deaths take hold? warmth and comfort with light and ease, acknowledging that gone and that to be, will mark a slumber of delightful wakefulness.
Sunday, June 29, 2008
wildlife world
percy had fun yesterday afternoon, with us and her grandad and gran, for a few hours at 'wildlife world' next door to sydney aquarium...
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
biggera and bettera
percy just keeps getting bigger and better. despite nearly constant colds and snotty noses she is learning new things and comprehending more and more every day.
these are some of things i have observed over the past few weeks:
1. can name and point to nose, eyes, ears, head and hair; on herself and others,
2. understands "sit",
3. can choose a book from her bookshelf and bring it to us to be read, unless it's one of the really big heavy ones, then she needs some help with the transporting,
4. understands "come here", and usually ignores it!
5. can pass, roll or kick (assisted) a ball,
6. likes to feed herself with a spoon. sometimes a bit of help from mama or papa is required to load food on the spoon. at these times she happily relinquishes the spoon and then takes it back once there is food on it,
7. brushes her teeth unassisted,
8. adorably does "up bum" to help us change her nappy. we've been repeating to her since birth "up bum" so we can slide the old nappy out and the new one under her. she now either curls right up so her bum is pointing at the sky or plants her feet and lifts her bum (bridge pose yoga-style) to assist,
9. does "high fives" with us and other adults or children. she likes this particularly when she is on the swing. we'll sit on the adjacent swing, in the opposite direction and as we pass, lean out and 'high five' each other. loves it!
10. brushes her hair- well the front half anyways,
11. likes to get a "wi" (read wet-wipe) out of the box to wipe everything from her nose, to the furniture, to the walls, to us...
12. says "num-num" and pats her high chair, or other chair or stroller if we are out, to tell us when she would like to eat,
13. adores dogs and would pat every single one we ever come across and bring them all home with her,
14. occasionally will grab her nappy/groin and say "poo" when she needs changing. she hasn't got the difference between poo and pee figured yet, so half the time there is no poo but she's definately peed. to this end we've bought a potty and we sit her on it a couple of times a day, usually in the evening after dinner tho i do want to try in the mornings after breakfast too. she doesn't get what the potty is for but at least she is getting familiar with it being about and sitting on it. she also likes to think she's helping us go to the toilet too. skip this if it's getting too personal! she'll come into the bathroom with us, pull off some toilet paper (the whole roll if we don't limit her!) and try to stick it between our legs! it's very cute. she can get adamant about you being finished too- she tried to pull paul's pants up last week determined that he'd had enough time and should come out to play more now. ha ha ha...
that's most of it, i think.
these are some of things i have observed over the past few weeks:
1. can name and point to nose, eyes, ears, head and hair; on herself and others,
2. understands "sit",
3. can choose a book from her bookshelf and bring it to us to be read, unless it's one of the really big heavy ones, then she needs some help with the transporting,
4. understands "come here", and usually ignores it!
5. can pass, roll or kick (assisted) a ball,
6. likes to feed herself with a spoon. sometimes a bit of help from mama or papa is required to load food on the spoon. at these times she happily relinquishes the spoon and then takes it back once there is food on it,
7. brushes her teeth unassisted,
8. adorably does "up bum" to help us change her nappy. we've been repeating to her since birth "up bum" so we can slide the old nappy out and the new one under her. she now either curls right up so her bum is pointing at the sky or plants her feet and lifts her bum (bridge pose yoga-style) to assist,
9. does "high fives" with us and other adults or children. she likes this particularly when she is on the swing. we'll sit on the adjacent swing, in the opposite direction and as we pass, lean out and 'high five' each other. loves it!
10. brushes her hair- well the front half anyways,
11. likes to get a "wi" (read wet-wipe) out of the box to wipe everything from her nose, to the furniture, to the walls, to us...
12. says "num-num" and pats her high chair, or other chair or stroller if we are out, to tell us when she would like to eat,
13. adores dogs and would pat every single one we ever come across and bring them all home with her,
14. occasionally will grab her nappy/groin and say "poo" when she needs changing. she hasn't got the difference between poo and pee figured yet, so half the time there is no poo but she's definately peed. to this end we've bought a potty and we sit her on it a couple of times a day, usually in the evening after dinner tho i do want to try in the mornings after breakfast too. she doesn't get what the potty is for but at least she is getting familiar with it being about and sitting on it. she also likes to think she's helping us go to the toilet too. skip this if it's getting too personal! she'll come into the bathroom with us, pull off some toilet paper (the whole roll if we don't limit her!) and try to stick it between our legs! it's very cute. she can get adamant about you being finished too- she tried to pull paul's pants up last week determined that he'd had enough time and should come out to play more now. ha ha ha...
that's most of it, i think.
Monday, June 23, 2008
brighton beach
on sunday we couldn't stand being home any longer, moping about, feeling sick and sorry for ourselves. we drove to brighton-le-sands had a play along the beach, collected some sea shells, ate kebabs and hot chips for lunch. just a little outing but quite nice.
percy loves the ocean we think. as soon as she came out of the back pack she made a beeline for the water. it was funny to tear after her as it's not really swimming (or getting yourself soaked, clothed) weather. we made a game of chasing the waves as they retreated down the beach and then dashing backwards as they came in again. percy needs a little help with the "dashing backward" as she's not coordinated or fast enough for that yet.
heebie-jeebies
when your baby, who has never slept more than 12 hours over nite, and much more often sleeps less than 11 and then only occasionally, more typically sleeps a few hours with bottles, cuddles, re-settles and rocking in between, turns around and sleeps nearly 13 hours it's alarming!
percy slept from 6:45pm to 7:30am last nite! truely astonishing. no bottles, no cries, no re-settles, nothing.
prior to her waking tho it was giving me the heebie-jeebies as i was envisigning her succumbing to SIDS or some other terrible thing. do 15 months old do that? once she woke, greeted me with a smile and a big hug i haven't stopped smiling myself. wow! do other people have babies that sleep like this? truly?!
i begin to understand that should you have babysitting available to you a couple could actually have a life "after hours" together. how novel! we could actually see a movie at a cinema, something we haven't done since before her birth. dinner? beach side walks? a trip to the observatory? theatre? exhibitions? even parties? unheard of!! theses things are not entirely missed and well compensated for, tho it would be nice to have the choice.
let's just forget four nites ago when she woke at 10pm screaming and inconsolable. the only thing we could think to do after exhausting other options was to take her to hospital. once in the car we thought just a drive about might make the difference and send her off to sleep. (expensive sleep solution!) she did calm, did not sleep, arrived home about 40 minutes later and went to sleep in her cot about ten minutes after that.
i'll take the 12 - 13 hours of straight sleep from now on please!
percy slept from 6:45pm to 7:30am last nite! truely astonishing. no bottles, no cries, no re-settles, nothing.
prior to her waking tho it was giving me the heebie-jeebies as i was envisigning her succumbing to SIDS or some other terrible thing. do 15 months old do that? once she woke, greeted me with a smile and a big hug i haven't stopped smiling myself. wow! do other people have babies that sleep like this? truly?!
i begin to understand that should you have babysitting available to you a couple could actually have a life "after hours" together. how novel! we could actually see a movie at a cinema, something we haven't done since before her birth. dinner? beach side walks? a trip to the observatory? theatre? exhibitions? even parties? unheard of!! theses things are not entirely missed and well compensated for, tho it would be nice to have the choice.
let's just forget four nites ago when she woke at 10pm screaming and inconsolable. the only thing we could think to do after exhausting other options was to take her to hospital. once in the car we thought just a drive about might make the difference and send her off to sleep. (expensive sleep solution!) she did calm, did not sleep, arrived home about 40 minutes later and went to sleep in her cot about ten minutes after that.
i'll take the 12 - 13 hours of straight sleep from now on please!
Thursday, June 19, 2008
sick again
well, it seems i did jinx it. in fact we're all having a crap time as paul has bronchitis, percy seems to have a dose of conjunctivits plus a general cold/miserable feeling, and i'm coughing up bits of lung here and there too. tho according to the doc no bronchitis for me.
i can't explain how over being sick i am. people did say the first 6-24 months of child care is marked by sickness as bub picks up everything from the other snotty mongrels at day care and dutifully tromps it home. i'd just really like to feel well enough to get back on track with life. my time with percy is poor quality as we just are too miserable to enjoy each others company and playing, my work is suffering as i'm not there much and feel too awful to concentrate when i am, and the house is hideous! i actually got a load of washing in the machine today because otherwise we'd be picking out the dirty stuff to give it a "sniff test" to see what could be worn again!
arrrggghhhh!!
can't last forever, hey? well it sure feels like it is!
[p.s. little bit of personal info here so skip it if you don't need to know my bodily functions... i can't emphasise enough for everyone (including men) to do pelvic floor exercises! coughing hard enough to feel your lungs rattle loose also causes me to occasionally pee myself. i had a couple of internal vaginal tears when percy was born and tho these were stitched up and apparently healed well i'm convinced muscles are a bit looser than they used to be. so do your exercises- before and after birth and anytime in between!]
i can't explain how over being sick i am. people did say the first 6-24 months of child care is marked by sickness as bub picks up everything from the other snotty mongrels at day care and dutifully tromps it home. i'd just really like to feel well enough to get back on track with life. my time with percy is poor quality as we just are too miserable to enjoy each others company and playing, my work is suffering as i'm not there much and feel too awful to concentrate when i am, and the house is hideous! i actually got a load of washing in the machine today because otherwise we'd be picking out the dirty stuff to give it a "sniff test" to see what could be worn again!
arrrggghhhh!!
can't last forever, hey? well it sure feels like it is!
[p.s. little bit of personal info here so skip it if you don't need to know my bodily functions... i can't emphasise enough for everyone (including men) to do pelvic floor exercises! coughing hard enough to feel your lungs rattle loose also causes me to occasionally pee myself. i had a couple of internal vaginal tears when percy was born and tho these were stitched up and apparently healed well i'm convinced muscles are a bit looser than they used to be. so do your exercises- before and after birth and anytime in between!]
Friday, June 13, 2008
climbing
another first today... percy is now able to climb up onto the lounge without assistance! i wonder if this is a good thing or a bad thing? now she can get up (and has been able to climb down for some time) by herself will she be falling off too? hope not, toddlers already get enough bumps, knocks and falls without adding this too.
it's very cute to watch her throw a leg up and grab tightly with herlittle fists and sure enough up she goes!
it's very cute to watch her throw a leg up and grab tightly with herlittle fists and sure enough up she goes!
Wednesday, June 11, 2008
sleep update
cross fingers that this doesn't jinx it...
percy has been sleeping eleven hours (7pm to 6am) pretty consistently now. this is great for our peace of mind, nevermind our actual sleeping too.
she has been getting a bottle of milk between 9:30 and 10:30pm while still virtually asleep in her cot. we'll have to tackle deleting that eventually but for now i'm content.
aaahhhhhhh.....
percy has been sleeping eleven hours (7pm to 6am) pretty consistently now. this is great for our peace of mind, nevermind our actual sleeping too.
she has been getting a bottle of milk between 9:30 and 10:30pm while still virtually asleep in her cot. we'll have to tackle deleting that eventually but for now i'm content.
aaahhhhhhh.....
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
help?
until i can figure out how to turn off the automatic spell check highlighting, i'm sorry you'll have to put up with the ridiculous red highlighting.
this is so stupid! i don't make spelling mistakes! i choose to write without capitals! why has this unwanted feature been thrust upon me!? come on blogspot- lift your game! make it option for twats that can't spell to choose to use your pseudo help. i don't want it.
this is so stupid! i don't make spelling mistakes! i choose to write without capitals! why has this unwanted feature been thrust upon me!? come on blogspot- lift your game! make it option for twats that can't spell to choose to use your pseudo help. i don't want it.
Monday, June 9, 2008
june long weekend
we rented a house in the blue mountains for the long weekend. it was a quaint two bedroom, weatherboard in bullaburra (two stops shy of leura.) we drove up on saturday morning and home again this morning (tuesday, stopping on saturday for lunch with amanda and tim at their home in winmalee
unfortunately it rained most of the time. however we still got out to see a few things and go for a couple of short bushwalks.
percy was very well behaved and slept approximately eleven hours each night in the porta-cot. we gave her a bottle of milk 'dream feed' each night between 9:30 and 10:30pm. perhaps this is something we need to continue.
aside from me wanting a weekend away the other reason we were up the mountains, and in particular chose to stay in bullaburra was an attractive eight acre block of land we were tossing around purchasing. we've decided against for a whole heap of reasons too boring i'm sure to go into now.
the trip was made possible by the 'extension' we've added to the car. some people extend the house, we extended the car. then we debated what to put in it- baby? suitcase? baby? suitcase?
Wednesday, June 4, 2008
evening capers
shortly after putting a tuckered out little percy to bed last nite paul and i were annoyed to hear one of our neighbours fire alarms continuously sounding. we said to each other, no-one can burn dinner for that long. upon investigation we discovered it was the townhouse immediately to our north that has recently sold and is vacant. what to do? can we break in and smash it with a baseball bat? not really as we don't own a baseball bat.
the new owners had a painter in yesterday who obviously either painted over one the fire alarms or used a paint so toxic the fumes leaching off it set the alarm off. i suspect the latter as the alarm didn't start 'til approximately 7:30pm, well after the painters had left. by 8:30pm both us and the neighbours to the other side had called the real estate agent asking them to get the owner to do something about it. a number of telephone calls later the painter was apparently on his way back -from castle hill! with the only set of keys to disarm the fire alarm. the thing about the fire alarms in our townhouses is that they are wired into the mains and then have a battery back up. i'm not convinced the painter could have solved this problem. as it turned out someone else had obviously got sick of the alarm and called the fire brigade. the boys in their big, shiny, red truck pulled up around 9:50pm. they quickly set a ladder up, cracked open the upstairs bedroom window, climbed in and disabled the alarm. ahhhhhhhh.....
and oooooooo...... firies....... is there a rule about them being scrumtious?
...... ............. ..............
sorry, where was i?!
yes, alarm off, us to bed way past our bed time which was doubly unfortunate as paul is quite sick and needs his rest.
p.s. percy slept thru the lot! right thru to 6am.
(and the fucking painter never showed up at all)
the new owners had a painter in yesterday who obviously either painted over one the fire alarms or used a paint so toxic the fumes leaching off it set the alarm off. i suspect the latter as the alarm didn't start 'til approximately 7:30pm, well after the painters had left. by 8:30pm both us and the neighbours to the other side had called the real estate agent asking them to get the owner to do something about it. a number of telephone calls later the painter was apparently on his way back -from castle hill! with the only set of keys to disarm the fire alarm. the thing about the fire alarms in our townhouses is that they are wired into the mains and then have a battery back up. i'm not convinced the painter could have solved this problem. as it turned out someone else had obviously got sick of the alarm and called the fire brigade. the boys in their big, shiny, red truck pulled up around 9:50pm. they quickly set a ladder up, cracked open the upstairs bedroom window, climbed in and disabled the alarm. ahhhhhhhh.....
and oooooooo...... firies....... is there a rule about them being scrumtious?
...... ............. ..............
sorry, where was i?!
yes, alarm off, us to bed way past our bed time which was doubly unfortunate as paul is quite sick and needs his rest.
p.s. percy slept thru the lot! right thru to 6am.
(and the fucking painter never showed up at all)
Tuesday, June 3, 2008
lesson learned
don't sign your baby up for extra-curricular activities until they're old enough to take themselves- like when they leave home.
once more percy has missed her wednesday music class. this time because she fell asleep 15 minutes before class starts. if you think you're being cute by saying "just wake her up; you'll be right." i want you to go and do something painful to yourself, really painful, i don't care what, you know what hurts most. and then do it again. and again.
it should be obvious the extremely angst-driven relationship that we have with percy and sleep.
so until i can be sure she's not going to sleep or be sick; no more paying for shit we don't end up using.
once more percy has missed her wednesday music class. this time because she fell asleep 15 minutes before class starts. if you think you're being cute by saying "just wake her up; you'll be right." i want you to go and do something painful to yourself, really painful, i don't care what, you know what hurts most. and then do it again. and again.
it should be obvious the extremely angst-driven relationship that we have with percy and sleep.
so until i can be sure she's not going to sleep or be sick; no more paying for shit we don't end up using.
Sunday, June 1, 2008
big day
percy had a big day today and went to bed utterly exhausted and sans bath at 5:30pm. we have no doubts she'll sleep 14 hours to 7am tomorrow. ha ha ha ha ha... cough... cough... ha ha ha... choke.. ha... cough.... ha ha... sorry, excuse me while i get over this completely inconcievable idea.
what was so big about today? coffee out with papa at 8:00am, swim class at 9:30am, two hours non-stop play with beautiful lavania from melbourne at little dynamos from 1pm. very active day.
(sorry to greg and dewi if i've spelt your little girls' name wrong.) greg and dewi were in sydney for the weekend due to greg's study commitments. despite the girls only being 3 weeks apart in age we didn't get to see each other thru out our pregnancies or the first 14 months of their lives. it was nice to catch up a bit.
what was so big about today? coffee out with papa at 8:00am, swim class at 9:30am, two hours non-stop play with beautiful lavania from melbourne at little dynamos from 1pm. very active day.
(sorry to greg and dewi if i've spelt your little girls' name wrong.) greg and dewi were in sydney for the weekend due to greg's study commitments. despite the girls only being 3 weeks apart in age we didn't get to see each other thru out our pregnancies or the first 14 months of their lives. it was nice to catch up a bit.
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