Screamdelica

Since we've been back from Canada, Emily (and I) have recovered from a nasty bout of "fizzy gravy". Mine was accompanied by a case of dehydration and some aching (I mean aching) kidneys. I'm actually quite happy I went through it, as I have a better understanding of the hell Emily must have gone through, not having experienced diarrhoea before.

Since she's got over it, and to celebrate returning from North America, Emily growing up and Sue and I thinking it's about time, the evening feed has stopped. There have been evenings when she's fallen asleep without a feed and all has been well, but these past few days (I'm counting almost a week here), she's been a little scream monster. It's not a small bout either, it goes on and on and on.

I've lost my patience on a number of occasions (although not in a Christian Bale way... yet) and have to calm myself down before dealing with her. Sometimes I think there's actually something wrong with her and can recall all too well the aching in my kidneys, wondering if the pain is mirrored. However, the screams then can slide right into a smile or laugh and I realise that that kind of pain doesn't turn off like a tap.

She'll get used to it eventually, going to sleep without boob milk. No one can enjoy the sweet delights of bittie forever, else we'd all be clamouring to the teet still and no work would ever get done. I just hope she gets used to it sooner than later, as her banshee-like shrieks are ripping a strip off my hearing.

Eating with a utensil

This is another one of those baby book moments, up there with sitting up unaided, crawling, first teeth, etc.

Emily fed herself tonight WITH a fork! We jammed some brocolli onto the end of the tines and left the fork in plain view, and Em picked the fork up and jammed it in her mouth. This only happened a half-dozen or so times before she got bored and started grabbing carrots from the bowl with her hand, but it's a definite stepping stone to her feeding herself completely.

I long for the time when she can feed herself cereal and leave me to do other important things during breakfast time... like having my OWN breakfast, shaving, etc.

Real Food

Image via WikipediaSue tells me that not only is Emily growing by leaps and bounds down under, she's also eating toast!! That's real food.

All I've seen her eat so far (or fed her) is bland looking mush - baby rice, or blended up veg.

Toast is a big deal, although Sue tells me Em is sucking on it more than eating it, so I may not be missing too much.


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When is hunger sated?

With Sue out for the evening, it's fallen to me to feed and change and do all the evening things with Emily.

Normally this is fine, bottle of formula, clean nappy - bob's yer proverbial.

Now we're weaning her though, I have no clue how much is enough. I made what looked load a LOT of baby rice mixed with carrots tonight and proceeded to feed.

She was hungry for it to start and the desire to cram her gob grew less with each mouthful. Toward the end she was taking it in and just letting it drop out of her mouth all over everything.

I put an awful lot of the mix back in the fridge.

Now I've subsequently changed her nappy and played with her a bit, all the while watching her rubbing her eyes and yawning.

Normally, the magic bullet to her sleeping is Sue feeding her. Tonight, however, I have just left her on the bed with the lights off, praying it works.

Have I fed her enough? Will she sleep? Am I starving her? Who knows. It's not like I can ask her "are you starving?"

We are the Weaner!

Well, it had to happen sometime and it happened today. Emily got her first taste of "real" food. Since she was born she's only known milk in some variety - either mummy's or formula.

Today we entered the world of baby rice - a mushy, liquidy paste made from organic rice and water.

The books all say that the first time you give it to a child, just give a teaspoon to get them used to the taste. We were all prepared for the first taste, and the screwed up face and the crying and the uphill battle to get Emily to accept any food other than trusty old Righty and Lefty.

Well, as in many other things, Emily proved us wrong. Instead of the crying or the screwed up face, her whole demeanour was more "what took you so long?" She polished off the whole bowl of rice in a matter of minutes and - as you can see by the photo - pronounced herself victorious!

Sue and I also pronounced ourselves weaners!

Usually a train trip home from work with Emily is close enough to torture that I recoil in mental pain at the mere thought. Screaming, squirming, embarrassed looks by other passengers and if you recall my trip on Friday, seat theft of the highest order!

Tonight was none of those things. Having picked her up from day care, we had quite the placid uneventful trip home. She was attentive and inquisitive as we walked along to Moorgate to get the bus.

Having fallen asleep mid-way to London Bridge she awoke half way home. This is usually when the bawling and screaming etc. happens - usually due to tiredness or hunger. Amazingly, she just sat there in her pram looking out the window at other passengers and at me. We giggled, cooed and smiled at each other and not once did she even curl her mouth up in the threat of a cry.

Amazing! I surmise that the lack of sleep she had at daycare was the culprit for her placid demeanour. If so, bring it on.

When we got home, and tiredness took it's hold, she became inconsolable to a degree. I've also discovered that she doesn't take kindly to silicone teats - a truth brought home from reports from the day care centre that she only took about nine ounces of milk all day.

When mummy came home, she was consoled, fed and brought back from the brink of sleep and food deprivation.

Good ole mummy.

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Being a Weaner

The last week or so Sue and I have been contemplating the next phase of Emily's life - real food. Most of the books suggest that this phase doesn't start until six months. For Emily that would be September, when she's in Australia with mummy.

However, Sue has been reading another baby book that suggests that weaning can begin as early as four months, depending on size of baby, etc. Well, four months is TOMORROW!

All I can say is, we are not really all that ready to begin the weaning adventure.

I understand it just means you blend the hell out of real food until it's bland and as runny as milk, but I need to read up - do you serve it in a bottle? How much do you give? What if they don't like it? Do you have to play that damn airplane hanger game with them to eat it?

Thankfully my babies guide for dummies is handy, so I'll be doing some weaning boning up when I get home.

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Remorseless, just remorseless

So far between Sue and I, when one of us has been off our nut with tiredness, the other has held the mantle of sanity and let it prevail. These days, with the sleep deprivation that Emily has wrought on us, it's been really difficult keeping it real, as the street kids say.

The last few days, the little tyke has been relentless in her eating... and subsequent crying if point A is not fulfilled. As the non-lactating parent, I can but look on as Sue cries things along the lines of "not more!" and "aren't you full yet?" I then roll over for more sleep as she spends hours at a time giving Emily her food.

I do what I can, trying to entertain Emily to give Sue some moments to regroup mentally. It's difficult entertaining something that is essentially a remorseless eating machine, but at least I was able to get all the way through an episode of "The Fall Guy" today before her lungs tore the air a new one.

Back to the very fragile layer of sanity that is still among us.

The breaking point almost came today. We went to Mothercare to buy Emily a "Flutterbye Dreams Swing" from Fisher Price. It's a motorised swing (that takes 4 D batteries and 4 AA batteries!!!!) designed to shut your grizzling child up and entertain them with noise, lights and fluffy creatures.

It did none of these things.

Emily sat in the seat and grizzled. Sue sat on the sofa and grizzled. I sat there wondering why a child would not want to enjoy a piece of kit so obviously designed to please a child.

The search for peace continues.

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The Commute Test - results

well the picking up of Emily and the carting home on the train of Emily went well-ish.

Left work about 10 mins early and got to Em and Sue with buckets of time to spare. Picked the l'illun up and walked to the train. Got on the train and before we'd left she decided on a grizzle... which didn't really stop until mummy called for a pick up around 8.45p

Between those two points we went through mummy's expressed milk and a bottle and a bit of formula, something we're both loathe to do, but when you have a child that's screaming and red in the face it's either feed them, or put the out in the garden shed to scream themselves to sleep. We don't have a garden shed.

Em's asleep now and about the only benefit of formula is it's heavy and knocks babies out. We MAY get a good night's sleep tonight, so that's something. I personally need it as my eyes are like two piss-holes in the snow right now and I feel like the walking dead most of the time.

Yay for me! Yay for us!

Baby weight

Sue took Emily to be weighed today and she's clocking in at 10 lb 13 oz. That makes an 11 oz gain in a week.

All is on track which is good. Emily seems to be eating more and more often which is not good news for Sue, the milk machine. Speaking to my colleague, the new dad, his son's hunger got so bad they had to switch to formula to sate his hunger and give his wife something else to do during the day than feed.

Food, as they say, for thought.

Tired... and where do the hours go?

Why is it that with a child time seems to have sped up? I was used to a 24 hour day feeling about 18 hours usually. Now we have a baby (or time vacuum as they actually are), a 24 hour day feels about 5 hours long. I blink and the baby's already over a week old. I'm back to work a week tomorrow and Easter came and went in the blink of an eye.

To add to the time concerns, both Sue and I are quite tired, not feeling 100% and prone to being snappy. I can usually keep it together but the veneer tends to slip the more I get exhausted.

We went out today in the car. This is the first car-venture since we came home a week ago. We dropped mummy off at the doctor's then went to the chippie for mummy's lunch, followed by hanging out in The Oaks, a local park. All topped off with Emily's first trip to Asda.

Excitement!

This evening has been filled with Emily feeds, then crying when she's taken from the feeding-machine. Sheesh. Sometimes you think it HAS to END!!

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First full day at home

Emily woke us up this morning, some time around 6am. Wonderful, start as you mean to go on, kid.

Got a nap around 9 and woke up when the community mid-wife showed up around 10. Also received a really nice and unexpected bunch of flowers, balloon and stuffed Gund teddy bear from my colleagues at work, so that was quite nice.

Apart from that action, today has been spent pleasing Emily. It seems that when she's awake she's hungry and then there's the sleep state. We figured out this afternoon while changing her that we need to introduce stimulation into her life - something besides mum and dad on the bed and mum's boob lunging for her face. We have a nice Disney mobile situated near the change table that was a gift from Canada-ways. Having that on while changing Em really pre-occupied her, which was good.

Later this evening, we decided to try the dummy / soother in her mouth when she makes the sucky-sucky motion and see if that works, and hopefully give mum's nip-nips a break. She enjoyed it apart from spitting it out every few seconds by accident. I ended up singing nonsense to her as well so she could hear some soothing tones and hopefully go to sleep. After MANY false starts she's finally nodded off, with mum beside her.

I know Sue's done the sleep deprivation gig for a few days longer, but this sucks. I'm exhausted, irritable and have had a lingering headache all day. This, dear reader, is only the beginning! OUCH

Breastfeeding session

Went to the breastfeeding class last night.

Wasn't really sure what to expect when we got there. Unlike the other ante-natal classes, this one took place in the home of one of the breastfeeding counsellors.

It was quite a laid back, almost question / answer session, where the pros and cons were laid out in front of us.

Having said that, apart from feeding every 2-3 hours (the look of Sue's face at the mention of that was priceless), there really seemed to be no downside to breastfeeding. The baby gets contact with mum, immunities and antibodies are passed down through the milk, baby needs less feed and less winding (as there's not much air in the breastmilk delivery method), there's less need to sterilise bottles, etc. and the most important thing - I don't have to feed baby.

It looks like we'll try it for about three months, and then see how much sleep Sue's actually getting.

I've been wearing an NCT bracelet that says "Breastfeeding makes a difference" for months, mainly because I paid admission to the NCT nearly new sale and received it in my admission pack. What I was wearing as an almost defiant joke I now actually believe. Funny that.

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Little Lord Costingtons

As much as we try to compartmentalise the fiscal impact of the impending baby on our lives, it's ALWAYS going to be more of a blow. As we attempt to list everything we need for B-Day, it's becoming apparent that, apart from our lives, our money won't be ours ever again.

The impact, of course, is more painful given that Sue will be on maternity leave, but she's not alone in taking that and we - as they say - will make due!

Thankfully many places like Boots, etc seem to always have various necessities on sale. Walking to the train station today, I spied a BOGOF on baby wipes, so that's good. Also, some of the things we need will be needed on an ongoing basis, like the aforementioned baby wipes. Start-up costs high, ongoing costs, not so high... hopefully.

There's no doubt about it, with another mouth to feed and less one income, things will be tight but we'll manage... I hope.