Whoops, I Did It Again!

See? Start forgetting about the blog and the wave of life crashes over you. One reason I stopped for a little while is the photos I post on here look shocking, pretty much SOOC and it's all of a sudden too, no real reason that I can work out. So suffice to say that all of these photos are actually a lot more vibrant when not viewed here on the blog. Judy don't print these, I'd be mortified! Email me and I will send them on.

So, on to life. Where to start? Harry is amazing at the moment, just chock-a-block full of adult perceptions about life and a huge curiosity - not so much for her immediate surroundings but for the big questions (like just an hour ago when she said to James "What's forgiveness?"). She's going through a period of intense independence too. No longer are we permitted to do things like hold her hand crossing our road, today she insisted on going in to a public toilet by herself and then I was told she didn't need me to stand nearby at the park - in fact it was demanded that I go far away to where the other mothers were talking. However I was desperately and immediately required to twist her around on the spinner. Hmmmm.... independence is obviously a state of flux and I think it stays that way until she moves out of home.

Teddy's really been the reason I haven't written on here for all this time. As you can see, he's not suffering from malnutrition. A couple of weeks ago he weighed about 8.3kgs. Our little butter ball is an absolute cherub - smiling constantly, making delicious cooing noises and making love eyes at Harriet. But he has been an evening screamer. Each evening, come about 4-5pm, he starts his screaming. WOW, it is intense! Poor little mite obviously has a lot to release because it lasts for about 2.5hrs each night and to tell the truth by the time he has finished screaming right in my ear for that length of time I am completely exhausted. Mentally from hearing him 'upset' like that (I use quotation marks because there is a thought that babies 'need' to cry at the end of the day to release emotions since they don't have language or comprehension to process it differently) and physically from standing around walking and rocking for that amount of time when I'm already starting to wind down from being with Harriet during the day.

But I don't want to focus on that aspect of him because he is such a sweet little thing when he's awake. Yesterday we all worked out outside and Teddy, when he woke up, sat in his bouncer for the first time for a length of time, to sit and watch James saw off some trees. This is a photo of him just being...well...happy, butter ball Ted. He's not asleep, just grinning away. He poos like a champion and we manage to catch them out of the nappy about 90% of the time which is great. I've started teaching him the sign for poo because he has already started signing consciously for milk. I was sitting on the floor chatting away to him (he loves it when you start echoing back the sounds he makes - great way to get the big grins!) when he made sure he had my gaze and started opening and clenching his left fist (the sign for milk). It was so cute! And then last night he signed for poo after only having been shown it a handful of times. Of course he's a complete genius and will be enrolled in Mensa accordingly.

At night he sleeps in with me and wakes a couple of times a night for a feed. The night sleep is fine but yesterday we headed out to a late lunch and he missed out on going down to sleep in the afternoon. Which meant that he was not only upset in the afternoon (even though we had had two nights free of screaming before that - I wrote it on Facebook so I obviously jinxed myself) but last night he woke up at 3.30 and was soooo adorable, smiling, cooing and gurgling away and wanting me to play. But boy oh boy I was much more interested in sleeping and he seemed ok with my occasional lapsing into REM rather than smiling back.

We took him to the paediatric ophthalmologist at Randwick on Thursday - he's had an exotropic strabismus in his left eye and I wanted to get it assessed. When I first called up to make the appointment they wanted to give me an appointment in September! I calmly told the woman that I was going to wait on the phone until I had an appointment before he was 6mths of age. When we went in there it was such a depressing place. No windows, old fittings, sad parents. I would recommend no-one go there unless they had to. The good news is that Harriet's protective arm around Teddy at every opportunity when he was being examined seemed to work. He was declared fine and we're scheduled back in for a follow-up appointment in three months just to make sure. However I've also been taking him to the chiropractor and he's been working on trying to adjust the eye as well. And whether he would have grown out of it by his own accord or not, he has definitely helped. Two major changes in the status of his eye were noticeable just after each session, so I'm so happy we persisted with the visits.

Harry is on school holidays now for three weeks. I'll have to find loads of playdates for her to keep up with her social side. She loves playing with older children and is currently in love with a friend's 6yr old daughter, Lily. The funny thing is that even when she's totally in love with her and goes all shy around her because she is in such awe, she still refuses to be swayed on anything she doesn't want to do or believe in. Lily was talking to her about doing something for a show and Harriet refused to budge. Poor Lily, she was distraught that the show wasn't going to work but Harriet was determined and had such a quiet stubbornness to her nature that Lily was forced to acquiesce (to her credit!).

I know I said it before but truly, I will try to stay on top of the blog. Michelle has once again pulled me out of the quagmire, thanks Michelle! Hopefully Ted will start screaming less and I can get more time on here to upload photos and a few words. If I can manage it I will try to be weekly over the school holidays at least, how's that for commitment? Well it means nothing until I actually do it of course, so I'll work at it. Trust me.

Harriet Takes on the Classics

At Harriet's preschool they are asking for each of the children to come forward and describe their favourite book. Each child is assigned to one particular day and they also encourage you to try and think of other aspects of the book to discuss. For example if they bake a cake in the story to include a recipe for your child's favourite cake, or something similar.

Harriet isn't due to give her talk until mid-June, but I broached the topic with her to see what book she would be interested in covering. I had a feeling it would be Anne of Green Gables but you can't always tell. This girl is the queen of obscure and I wouldn't have been surprised if she mentioned some book we'd only read once a year ago in a cafe somewhere. But she held true to expectation and said she wanted to talk about Anne. A bit disappointing really, because Milly Molly Mandy has some cool things in the stories that we could have done for the class.

But I thought maybe Harriet could take in a map and show where Canada and Prince Edward Island are on a map, and discuss how they have snow over there, or something similar. I also thought, briefly, that she might like to know that when Anne's boat springs a leak and she has to cling to the bridge, she was in there pretending to be the Lady of Shalott. The problem with being me however is that I don't just think these things, I invariably say them aloud. And then of course there is no turning back. Once I mentioned this, Harriet wanted to know all about the Lady of Shalott.

So we found the poem by Tennyson in an anthology and James read her out a short stanza over dinner, expecting her to tune out and start a conversation on why peas are green or some other typically Harry-esque segue. But no. She sat there asking questions. And then she asked me to read the whole poem to her. Now this is a poem that runs over about five pages I think, and full of words she didn't know. I read her the poem and just when I thought she wasn't listening or was getting bored she would ask another astute question about the text. Turns out she loved it! Who would have guessed a three year old would love Tennyson?

Then I thought she might like to see the famous paintings. I learnt they were painted by John Waterhouse (I know vets, I KNOW!) and we found a series of images that we printed out for Harriet. Then James and I also learnt about different interpretations of the poem - that it is about women and sexuality, about the creative process itself, and oh of course it could be about The Lady of Shalott dying in a boat too.

Anyway this all happened unexpectedly over dinner one night. The next morning Harry woke up and painted her own paintings of the poem and the next step is she wants to hang them up with the Waterhouse print-outs to 'make my own art gallery'.

I love how this girl's mind works. I also love how genuinely enthralled she was with the poetry. One of her current games is to make up words. Just made up words for everything and usually in a song. I guess when you're so young all language sounds new and crazy and the idea of having your own language seems completely normal and plausible, as well as the Tennyson-style English being just as accessible as everyday English. New is new is new.

I distinctly remember making up my own words and songs for them when I was young as well, but I'm pretty sure I was more like 5 or 6 when that happened. Did any of you reading do something similar? Anyhow, I'm now convinced Harry will be a Classics major at uni.

Life Over Here

Once I start leaving this blog for a little while, things spiral out of control and I don't gt a chance to pop on here to keep things up to date. And I know I need to get back on when find myself telling stories of what happened during the day and thinking "That's the fifth cute story I haven't written about" and knowing that if I don't write them down they'll never get written and we'll all forget about them and Harriet will have no record of what a crazy loon she was when she was three and a half going on four.

Example in point is seen in that first photo. Jay and Poe were over for a play and just as they were leaving Jay found a dead bird in our backyard. It was intact, no lacerations or pulled out feathers or anything. Just a dead bird lying on the concrete next to the table. Unfortunately Jay found it first and with all good intentions, called Harriet over to have a look. And of course Harriet being Harriet doesn't just LOOK at a dead bird. No, Harriet has to be completely consumed by the idea of the bird, concepts of life, death and the eternal nature of the soul.

So instead of curiously observing the bird and going back inside to play, Harriet insisted on holding the bird for the next FIVE HOURS. She insisted on holding it, talking about it, talking to it, playing with it, and generally making me quite trepidatious about how to approach the topic of removing the bird. We discussed how our choices were to bury the bird in the ground, cremate him or put him in the bin. Of course all of those were met with howls of anguish and sorrow, but I did manage to convince her that one of those options was a necessity. She chose cremation.

James came home to her in the bath and lots of stories about the bird. We went out into the backyard and placed the bird in a shoe box on the bbq. I said a few words about how the bird was our friend and how sad we were to have to say goodbye to the bird (with Harriet's anguished sobbing in the background). Then we burnt it, not without a couple of hiccups and a generous amount of turps in the end. Harry also wanted to see it afterwards and seemed to be quite happy with the closure that provided which was a relief.

In other Harriet news she is loving reading right now. She reads words everywhere and knows by sight quite a few longer, non-phonetically-viable words (eg: school) . She counts up to 110 and can read the numbers too, rather than just rattle off the list of numbers. Each night at dinner we play I Spy, wich is such a great game for her at the moment. Asking questions about the item as well (eg: is it in this room? can we see it?) are developing her (already well established) problem solving skills. It's also developing her sense of humour - she loves to be silly with the words and say things like 'charrot?' with a giggle when I said it starts with 'ch'. It also shows us that she knows more than she lets on at times, with her asking if the item was 'shirt' when we said it starts with 's'. I knew she was aware of the digraph /sh/ but didn't realise she had committed it to memory.


If there's one thing we do know about her though, it's that she LOVES her little brother. In fact when I asked her to stay still for a photo recently (actually with the bird I think), I asked her to think about how she felt when Ted was born. She stopped squirming, I snapped the photo and asked her what she had felt when he was born. "A lot of happiness and a little bit of sadness" was her reply. What was the happiness for, I asked her. "Because I love Teddy and he's so cute". And what was the little bit of sadness for? "Because now I can't play everything with just you, Mum". Now is it just me or does that seem quite emotionally astute for a 3.5yr old?

He is growing at a fierce rate. I can barely believe he is now 10wks old! Just this morning he gave me his first huge, gummy-mouthed smile directed straight at me. I could have melted away with love right there and then. He is starting to be spend more time awake and alert, looking around calmly and peacefully from the comfort of his sling. He currently loves to have his milk sitting upright in the Maya sling - will post a photo when I get a chance.

Teddy is just so sweet, and so easy to fit into our days right now. Except that he hates the car. And when I say hates, I mean prepare to hear the most heart wrenching, blood curdling, toe curling screams and sobs of horror from him. That's why we're going to pick up Harry from preschool in the bus today! He is a huge grunter and grunts away whilst asleep, but especially if he's doing a poo or getting ready to fart - actually that's what keeps him awake at night. He'll be squealing and grunting like a piglet, until he lets it all out and then it's straight back to sleep. How great is that?!

You Poor Things

I feel so sorry for all of you. You don't get to see and smell and hold the delicious Teddy. You are also unable to have the coolest children ever because I've already had them. But you can always try I suppose.

In Teddy news very quickly - he is doing his own ECing! We have nappy free time each day at around 10-11am and he has decided to consolidate all of his poo to this time alone. So all of his other nappies each day are just urine and we have only poo on the terry flats we lay out for his nappy free time. I thought maybe it's just that I'm timing it with his normal poo time, but thenyesterday we all went out to the Powerhouse Museum to see a show and have a generally fun time. Didn't get a chance to give him nappy free time and yet no poos all day. Get home at after 5pm, whip off his nappy and look at that - three massive poos in about one minute! Poor fellow had obviously been holding on.

I have a few other things to write about Teddy and lots to write about Harry but will have to do that when we're not heading out the door to another shcool holiday activity. Be back soon!

I Have Children! TWO!

It's definitely a shock to the system to say that you have 'children'. Somehow saying that I have 'a child' makes it sound like I'm only a wardrobe change away from flitting out into the night and not returning until daybreak. Or that my regular infantile journey to egocentrism just took a momentary detour and now I'm back on track to self-indulgence.

But talking about how I now have 'children'. . . For some reason the plural dips me in terry-towelling and leaves the mental image of myself bedraggled, unkempt, surrounded by washing and dirt and screaming across the playground. I guess the beauty with having a second child is that I know what to cherish and what to ignore. I think the list goes something like this:

Cherish

* the smell
- the night we took a 5 day old Harriet out to dinner with us, a friend immediately asked if she could smell her. Sure I thought she was weird then, but now I know exactly what she was doing. I smell Teddy regularly. Even the nappies smell sweet (seriously!).

* the deep sleep
- as has been well documented, Harriet was not much of a sleeper. Having said that though, her first two or three weeks of life were peppered with heavy sleep periods. Teddy does that a lot at the moment, but we've been primed to expect that all to change once he reaches about 3wks past his term date.

* portability
- friends keep offering to pop over to our place in order to save us having to move around with Teddy. Let me tell you, it's never a problem to move Teddy, but it's a darn sight more stressful to get Harry moving! Newborns are so, so easy. Pop them in a sling and away you go!

* warmth
- Teddy radiates such a glorious warmth, just perfect for snuggling. Feeling his body against mine in the Hug a Bub is better than wearing a cardigan any day.

* predictability
- if he's crying, we know why. Or if we can't work it out we also know that we're bound to hear a nice big fart soon after the grizzle and there's the answer to that one. Teddy is quite windy but he has Harry's strong constitution so far in that he hasn't brought anything back up (touch wood), it's just a gassy bottom he has to deal with. Welcome to the family!

Ignore

* baby stores
- out to sell you more crap than could ever have been imagined in the past. Really all you need is a sling, some nappies and some clothes. Baby-sized blankets are a bonus (and we have plenty of them) and some are really beautiful too. A padded change mat and some teeny tiny cloth nappies are about the only investment we've really had to make.

* milestones
- Harriet never rolled. Or crawled. Yet miracle of miracles, she is still able to walk! *shock* Who would have thought?! Teddy will do stuff in his own time. If we feel that something's not quite right we'll follow it up, but we definitely won't work ourselves up into a lather about it because of some average ages generated without any consideration of our child.

* other people
- We parent differently to most, I think it's fair to say. For example, Teddy will eventually learn to sleep through the night. I definitely don't have to leave him screaming in a room by himself to teach him that. Learned helplessness is ugly and sad in animals; in people it's reprehensible. So suffice to say in this house we don't need to listen to that suggestion, thanks anyway.

The birth of Teddy and his hospitalisation has really brought out the kindness and generosity of our beautiful friends. A few of them have online stores, so I thought it only fair to also link to them here:

* Mamaluna - bookmark this site! Kristie is going to be stocking so many cool items, including a delicious body butter for babies that I have been lucky enough to receive as a present. It smells delicious! We've also been the lucky recipients of her nappies and wipes. Lucky us, lucky Teddy!

* Natural Parenting - a comprehensive online resource for any aware parent in Sydney. Jenny has selflessly offered us Harriet-minding, wraps, food and advice. We are indebted to her generosity.

* Frangipani Baby - the ever beautiful Sarah has a fantastic site for all of your babywearing needs. What sets her apart from others is her ready availability to discuss your specific needs and pinpoint exactly the right carrier for you. She is wonderful!

* Making Mothers - my awesome doula for Teddy's birth. I can't speak highly enough of her and her support and skill. If you are planning on a birth, please do yourself a favour and book her!

Hanging out at Home

Teddy looks so small in all of these photos! He has actually grown a bit lately. His little suit from Rebecca (which is a perfect weight for the weather at the moment, it's in the b&w photo below) used to be much baggier and now it fits him like a proper suit would. Yay! He is still wonderful - basically he cries when he's doing a poo, doing a wee or trying to get down to sleep. Other than that? Well he either sleeps or gazes out intently at everything with deliciously big eyes.

Having James at home has been great for the past couple of weeks. Teddy and I have been able to get up when we want rather than me having to rouse him when it's time for James to leave. Teddy sleeps so deeply that he can stay soundly in slumber whilst *right next to him* Harriet screams blue murder about something or other not meeting the exacting standards of a three and a haf year old. However if I try to move from the bed...well, then he can wake in a flash. He also makes the most hilarious noises when he's asleep or stretching - they sound like a duck trying to quack inside a moist plastic bag. They can be pretty longwinded too - I really do have to get a video of them.

I'm just posting this photo because I think you can get a glimpse of what he's going to look like when he's older - the heart shaped face is a little like Harriet's and more than one person has commented on how similar their mouths are. Yesterday I walked about 400m from our favourite local restaurant to the supermarket and Teddy, Harriet and I got stopped twice. Everyone exclaims at how tiny he is, especially when he's in the hug a bub he looks like this tiny little munchkin skull peeking out between my breasts. Harriet loves to inform people with great authority, "He's my baby brother and he came out too early. The placenta was coming away. His nickname is Teddy but his full name is Edward Stanley R***. Now he's home with us and I'm the big sister".

On that whole having-a-baby thing. The other morning James was talking to Harry about how babies get inside mothers. She already knows but we hadn't talked about the details in a while so she needed a refresher obviously. Anyway, the inevitable topic arose. "So is that what you did with Mama?". HAHAHA!! James replied yes, and Harriet said "But I didn't see it. When did this happen?". Errrmmm...needless to say this particularly sticky situation was not really top of James's list of pre-coffee ideas for the morning.

The blanket over the head look was from the other day when she had both of us engaged in some great game about dying. You needed to have a blanket over your head in order to be safe from being killed and then dying. So Papa and Mama and Harriet all had blankets over our heads. Then there was something to do with water squirters...and we were all in Magicland of course, where all good blanket wearing saves the soul.

This outfit is courtesy of Mars. Harriet has a helmet on to protect her head from space dust, a hat to keep her head warm, glasses to ensure her eyes are kept safe and a little toy screwdriver in her hand to 'chip' rocks with. She and I go down the side of the house (which is Mars) after blasting off from Earth in the rocket (aka the lounge in the playroom) dressed in our appropriate outfits. We then scour the planet for rocks and plants of interest. Harriet will chip the rocks and collate them in her collection bag, whilst I...well, I just go along for the ride and to be told what to do. One of the fun asides of going to Mars is finding out that the rocks can also be used as chalk - Harriet then marks her territory in proper imperialistic manner by writing her name on the ground ("So that everyone knows that I was here on Mars you see Mama").

Oh and for some reason my photos are coming up looking very wan on blogger. No idea why, I'm saving them in the same colour profile (sRGB). Anyone have any ideas?

Wearing Babies

If you look closely, you'll see that there is a little baby head peeking out from between the two blue straps over the front of my chest in that photo. After having him in the pouch sling kindly leant to us from Jay for a week, he has now decided that the Hug a Bub is the coolest thing and refuses to be in any other carrier now. It's so cute - he has a carrier preference already!

We watched the instructional DVD on my computer and after watching it, Harriet was determined to make her own "in case there are women who want to watch that one but can't find it. Then they can use my one". Not too sure just how helpful it would be, but she gave it a good go as you can watch. James is convinced she's going to be a film director - she loves to set things up and then film them or create the story that goes along with the scenario she's set up. She also enjoys saying "Can we make up a story about it?" in regards to...well, just about anything really. Show her a new toy and she wants to make up a story about it and how it found its way to her. Find a dead beetle in the backyard? Harriet is eager to make up a story about it and its life. She's definitely a storyteller!