My first outing without Rose

Yesterday I went out without Rose for the first time!* It had been brewing for a while. In our parents group the nurse has been highlighting the importance of having time to yourself, regularly. Lots of the other women in the group have been having time to themselves, and also extending it to having couple time, without their babies. The fact that Chris and I don’t have family nearby complicates things. Chris and I are not at the point where we would feel comfortable leaving Rose with friends or a babysitter. This has largely been okay with us, we’re quite an independent unit, and are used to doing everything ourselves. However, there have been examples where it would’ve been nice to have more freedom. Take last Friday: I have been dying to get out shopping and buy a few clothes, as my body is changing pretty rapidly, but I still can’t fit all my old clothes yet. So the three of us drove all the way up the Parramatta Road to Burwood, which took a loooong time due to heavy traffic. Rose started crying hysterically when we arrived at the mall, so we had to turn around almost immediately and come back, which involved another hour of horrendous traffic. It was not quite the calm, restive, shopping break that I had in mind. To top it off, that evening I had been planning on going out for dinner with people from work, but Rose didn’t stop crying, and I felt that I couldn’t leave Chris to deal with the Rose situation all night by himself.

This week the urge to shop was still brewing, but I just couldn’t face the thought of rolling “the Rose dice” again. But I had an idea – maybe if I expressed some milk and left Chris and Rose at home, perhaps I could go by myself? That way I could also have some long-needed time to myself (that wasn’t an afternoon nap!) So we did it. I expressed a bottle, and left Rose and Chris at home. I drove out to a different, closer mall (that didn’t involve the Parramatta Road) and had a really great couple of hours shopping for Rose, Chris and myself. I felt so free! Every time I passed a mum juggling a stroller, crying child and bags of shopping, I felt serene. I didn’t stop for a coffee, because when I called home to check in I could hear Rose crying. Apparently she had slept the whole time, but had just woken up for a feed.

The sad thing is that the bottle business didn’t really work. Chris warmed it up, and gave it to her, but she would only take a little bit. She kept protesting and breaking the seal so that she could open her mouth wide to cry. Maybe we waited too long to introduce a bottle to her? We wonder if maybe she would drink it if she was really hungry. But we’re just not sure. It would really add to our (specifically, my) freedom if she would drink from a bottle, but if that’s the situation then I guess we’ll just have to deal with it.

*Actually, I had gone out for a coffee with Raewyn and Jen once before, but that was only for an hour or so, and it was local. In other words, nothing that involved a car or bus.

Status report – 2 months

Nicknames: Rosie, Bosie, Rosie Roo, the Roo (and variations and puns, such as “the Roo-ster”, “Roo-tabaga” and “Roo-tunda”*), sausage, pickle, blossom.

Favorite acts: kicking, “talking”, flailing, burying face and rubbing it in a parent’s chest

Favorite object: The mobile on her change table. It’s strange, but Rose loves the mobile seemingly more than she loves her parents. The mobile gets the biggest smiles. When she’s in full yelling mode you can put her on the change table and her little face will flick from tears to wonder like a light switch being turned on. She seems to be so in love with it that it makes her shy. I’ve seen her staring at it, and then shyly cocking her head and blinking as if it’s too much for her. Other times her face is completely in awe: she’s lying there, mouth open, staring at the glory of it. Here’s an exchange from the other day:

Chris: “When we go to New Zealand, we’re going to take the mobile.”
Me: “But it’s so big! How are we going to fit it in our suitcase along with all the other stuff she needs?”
Chris: “But how would she cope without it?”
Me: “Yeah, you’re right.”

Favorite words: gwaa and ullaa (could be “Goa” and “Allah”, but we’re not pegging our girl as being interested in religious activity in the Indian subcontinent at this stage.)

Things she aspires to: hold her head up (she’s able to lift her head for a few seconds, but then it gets big and wobbly and falls!), yell louder (but she’s giving it her best shot)

Favorite food: Milk. But not after a curry. Last week I ate curry and the next day Rose screwed her face up every time I put her on the breast.

Favorite form of transportation: tied between the baby bjorn and her pushchair, which we’ve nicknamed the “Rose Royce”

* Can you tell that we’ve got an idiolect going here?

Firsts

Today has been a day of firsts. Rose and I had our first conversation this morning. She woke up quite late, around 10am, very sleepy. I changed her nappy and gave her a feed. I then read her a couple of books*, and noticed that she was listening quite intently. So I put the books aside, and looked at her and said, “What did you dream about last night, Rosie?” She looked back at me and said “gwa”, gurgle, and “ullaa”. She then paused and looked at me quite seriously. I said, “Did you dream about having a big feed?” She then replied with “cccccc” (imagine a sort of dry throaty gargle), paused, and then gave me a huge smile! Then I asked, “Did you dream about going for a nice walk in the stroller?” She replied with more baby banter. Anyway, it went back and forth like this, with me asking about whether she’d dreamed about all the things she loves, like her mobile, cuddles with Daddy, kicking off the bottom of the bathtub, large ginger cats, etc. (Actually, Rose doesn’t know about the love of a large ginger cat, yet, but you get the drift.) Every time I talked, Rose listened. Then every time I paused, she talked. It may not have been a real conversation, but it was definitely communication.

In the afternoon we walked in to uni to go see the doctor, and Rose had her 8-week immunisations. She cried a lot during the actual injecting part, but luckily had her dad to hold her legs while it was happening and give her big cuddles afterwards. I, on the other hand, was a wreck. Fortunately, she hasn’t been out of sorts this afternoon, and is now sleeping very peacefully. Yes, I know, more sleeping! Where did we get such a happy baby from?

* For some reason reading books has become part of our normal morning routine, rather than evening. I’ve found she’s most receptive to listening and watching in the morning, so it’s a lot more fun than reading over the sound of her screaming. Does anyone else read books to their babies in the morning?

The rocker

Parents these days are faced with a dizzying array of baby stuff to buy. Most of it is over-priced junk with a very limited lifespan. I’m particularly reminded of the baby swing that Stephen and Delwyn bought, only to find that Cleo cried whenever she was put in it, so it ended up being used as a laundry hanger for several months. We decided to face this dilemma with a “wait and see” attitude, buying the necessary items first and then waiting until after Rose was born to get the rest. I have to admit that we weren’t completely minimalist. We had originally been planning on changing Rose on the top of a dresser, but then broke down in the weeks before the birth to buy a change table. Boy am I glad we did that. I can’t imagine changing Rose 10 times a day jammed up against a wall.

So up until now the only places we’ve had to “put” Rose is her baby gym (for fun), her cradle (for sleep), or our arms (everything else). It’s been great; we’ve had lots of cuddles and have been really close to our girl. But as she’s got older and has been having more awake time that’s not sleeping, eating or crying, it’s been driving me a little crazy to have to carry her around everywhere. Or more commonly, being stuck on the couch with her. Also, not being able to have a snack or lunch until Rose falls asleep has been frustrating. Some of the women in the parents group had been talking about how useful their “rockers” were, so on Saturday we went out, took the plunge, and bought one.

Now let me tell you, this thing has changed our lives. She absolutely loves sitting in it, whether it’s playing or sleeping. You can always tell when she’s really happy, because she babbles and coos away, almost as if she is talking. It has a toy bar so that you can hang soft toys just within reach, and she has been really enjoying looking around, and reaching out and touching them. You can take the toy bar off when it’s sleep time, and she happily dozes in and out of sleep. The best thing it has is a “vibration” function, which makes the whole thing gently shake. She loves it! When you turn it on she smiles and almost always goes to sleep. It’s going to be hard not to abuse it!

Now I’m not suggesting that we’re going to start using this thing 24/7. But it does allow us to put her somewhere safe in order to get things done. In fact, I’m writing this post as she’s sweetly nodding off to sleep. Ah, bliss.

Citizen of the world

She may be only 7 weeks old, but Rose is already a citizen of two countries! Her certificate of citizenship (by descent) for New Zealand arrived on Friday last week, and her Australian passport arrived on Wednesday. It’s very exciting knowing that she already has lots of choices about how to make her way in the world!

A quick update on other matters: Rose got over her cold very quickly, and we’re all pretty much back to scratch. In fact, we had a fairly busy weekend, and she coped very well. On Saturday we went out shopping and then Raewyn came over in the evening to hang out and celebrate the good fortune of her getting a new job. On Sunday we got up early to go to church for Cleo’s first communion, then over to Stephen and Delwyn’s for morning tea. In the afternoon we went off to an antenatal parents group reunion in the afternoon. Rose did really well, was hardly fussy at all, and managed to attract a lot of attention, particularly at church where Chris was standing up the back with her. Apparently this was a fatal charm combination for many elderly ladies, who flocked around him. All in all, a good weekend!

… and an even longer day

OK, so you guys all read yesterday that I wanted to spend the day recuperating and catching up on sleep? Well Rose had different plans. She was awake all day, apart from two hour-long walks outside in the front pack with Chris. The thing is, she seemed a little bit stuffy, so we didn’t think she was in that much pain from the cold. And her temperature wasn’t that high (can you tell that I checked it every 30 minutes or so?), so we didn’t end up using the baby paracetamol. I think she just had one of those apocalyptically bad sleeping days. We spent the whole day rocking her, cuddling her, nursing her, bathing her, etc. Thank god that Chris was home, I would’ve been a nervous wreck without him.

Now this won’t be news to the mums out there, but the hardest thing about sleepless periods with a baby is that you exist in an anxious-but-hopeful state that she will drop off at any minute. Even though you’ve spent the last 6 hours feeding and rocking her, you keep thinking, “If I feed and rock her for another few minutes, she might go to sleep.” By the end of a day of this, you’re at a point of utter despair, because within that day you’ve had minute after minute of your optimism being proven groundless. Now it may surprise none of you that I’m the kind of mother that gets discouraged easily (“she’ll NEVER go to sleep!”), but it should also surprise none of you that Chris is a paragon of patience and optimism when it comes to baby wrangling. She’s still crying? Let’s take her out for a walk! She’s still awake? Put her in the baby gym. Anyway, by the end of the day even Chris’s shoulders had slumped over and he had his head in his hands and was moaning about how he’d better get some sleep now (it was 5pm) so that we could start the evening shifts early.

But here’s one great thing about yesterday: at the darkest hour I rediscovered my confidence. It is with a small measure of personal pride that I can report to you that it was by my hand and my patience that Rose finally got off to sleep, at about 8pm, after 45 minutes of rocking her crib, in the dark. And then she slept for 7 and a half hours!

A long night…

Poor Rose has caught the cold that I’ve had for the last few days, and that Chris has had since the weekend. Last night, about 10 minutes after I posted the results of her appraisal by the pediatrician, she started coughing. We were up for most of the night comforting her (and worrying about her); she wouldn’t sleep longer than an hour or two before waking up with a coughing fit and screaming. Her temperature was a bit elevated, so I called one of the baby health phone numbers at about 5am to ask whether I should give her baby paracetamol (acetaminophen). They recommended that we get her to a doctor today, which we did this morning. Her temperature had gone up a little bit more, and the doctor said that it would definitely be safe to give her the paracetamol if it got any higher. He said we were doing all the right things, like offering her lots of breastfeeds and keeping her head slightly elevated (it seems to help with keeping her nose unblocked). He thought that she’d be fine after a few days, the poor thing.

Anyway, I can’t tell you how awful it is to see our baby girl crying and in pain. It hurts like you wouldn’t believe. However, I do feel a lot more reassured after seeing the doctor.

We’re going to try to get some well-needed sleep today. What with the cold, the stress, and the sleep deprivation, I’ve reaching new heights of space-cadetness.

Visit with the pediatrician

We visited the pediatrician today, and Rose turned on the charm. She was in a sweet, but compliant mood, happily letting Dr. G. undress her and weigh her, measure her, and even yank her legs around. Anyway, Dr. G. pronounced her as very healthy, in fact he even went as far as saying that “they don’t get any better”. He weighed and measured her, and proclaimed her as receiving “good nutrition”.

He had originally planned on re-testing her thyroid function at 6 weeks, but as her newborn screening was normal, and she looked so healthy, he decided not to. He will see her again at 6 months. He also decided not to give her a hip ultrasound, which he’d earlier thought might be necessary due to her being breech. So, all clear!

Mother’s Day

Happy Mother’s Day to Anne, Jo, Rita, pip and Laura, and also to me!

Rose decided to celebrate Mother’s Day by pooing so prolifically that we had to give her a bath. She made up for it though; I got a beaming smile.

Sarah

p.s. By the way, I posted a very short video of Rose on youtube.

95th percentile!

I just had Rose weighed by the nurse, and she’s up to 5.1 kilos (11 pounds 4 ounces)! She’s in the 95th percentile for height, weight, and head circumference, which means that she’s big, but she’s not out-of-proportion big. Chris keeps throwing his hands up in the air, also like Nixon boarding the helicopter, shouting “95th percentile”!