Oh Dear…

Rose is a squealer. This morning she yelped, squealed and shrieked with such force that Chris kept opening the door of the bathroom to check that everything was okay. I could only shrug and wave him back to his morning routine.

You’ve got to give the girl credit: she’s got both range and capacity. She can squeal like a kid riding his* first rollercoaster, squeak like a mouse (amplified), and yawl like a cantankerous mog. You can tell she’s really interested in her new ability, and she’s giving it her full attention. I don’t actually mind her squealing too much; our apartment is very solid, you can’t hear the neighbours playing loud music so Rose surely can’t be bothering them. But I do worry about the “social consequences” of this new behaviour. For example, Rose and I are headed out to see a movie called “Once”^§ this morning, and even though it’s a mums and bubs session, what if she squeals all the way through? And the 24-hour flight to the UK in a few weeks looms large. How will we keep her from squealing on the plane?

One thing’s for sure: nothing I do will keep her from her course. I’ve tried ignoring it, smiling, and of course there’s the old involuntary grimace when it’s particularly ear-splitting. It’s one of the only instances when she doesn’t look at me to see its effect or for reassurance; she’s pleasing herself.

(*I’m using the third person masculine purposefully. No one can squeal like a pre-adolescent boy.)

^§POST-MOVIE UPDATE: For those of you that saw a previous version of this post, “Once” is not a biopic of Bob Dylan. It’s an Irish film about a busker who meets an immigrant girl and… well I can’t explain the plot without making it sound sappy. It’s incredible, by the way. I don’t know if it’s because I’m sleep-deprived or breastfeeding, but I wept like a baby at the end. Rose also loved it. She loved it so much she sang along.

Vale Rocker

I’m sad to announce the demise of the rocker in Rose’s affections. Once useful, practical, portable and attractive, the rocker is now unloved. It was her first and most loved place of her own, where she played and slept happily. Now when you put her in it Rose arches her back and sticks her arms up (to be taken out).

The truth is, this is much harder on me than it is on her. Life is so much harder without the rocker. Now that she wants to play on the floor I can’t really leave her unattended, even to rush off to the bathroom or to put some make up on. Forget about taking a shower; she can get herself into all sorts of places and positions in the briefest of absences. And with her naps getting shorter, and her awake times getting longer, this is really starting to strain on me. It’s really tiring keeping a little baby entertained all day. It feels like life is getting harder, rather than easier!

Any suggestions, mums and dads? One of the other mothers in my parents group suggested something called an exersaucer. Apparently it’s an entertainment station, where the baby can sit upright, bounce, and play happily. They’re pretty pricey – around $150, so it’d be good to know if anyone has used one before we invest in something like that.

Hot Days

I can’t believe it – the mercury has hit 28 oC (81 oF) for the last two days here in Sydney! It’s way too early for it to be this hot! Rose looks quite shocked, and we’re going to have to do something about the swaddling ritual because it’s way too hot to wrap her up. Anyway, I thought I would share a few cute pictures of Rose in summer clothes.

The Cloth Nappy of Our Dreams

The cloth diapering is going great. I prefer them to disposables by a huge margin. They’re softer, cuter and much cheaper. Because we’re using biodegradable liners, the nappy changes involving solids are much more pleasant to deal with. The other benefit is rather intangible: they just feel right for us. The only problem with cloth, other than the “Groundhog Day”-like cycles of laundry, is the fact that they’re less flexible in terms of fit. We started off with two kinds of coth: a brand called Fuzzi Bunz and and brand called Happy Heinys, both recommended by different friends. The Happy Heinys seemed great for a while, but quickly became too small and leaked, especially in the crotch area. The Fuzzi Bunz have lasted a lot longer as Rose has grown, but they’re weirdly tight around her thighs and loose around her waist. And they bunch oddly if you try to rectify the waist problem by using closer-together snaps.

Recently, however, we discovered BumGenius. They’re ingeniusly designed to grow as the baby grows. They claim that you only need one size of nappy for babies from 8 to 35 pounds! I believe them, because they have disposable-like stretchy velcro closures that fit very snuggly. They also have a “suede cloth” interior that has worn much better than the fleecy linings of FBs or the HHs, which looked ragged after even a few washes. We only have six BGs so far, and I’m really hankering for more!

New Photos

Yesterday we went out and bought a new camera for my birthday. What’s that, I hear you say? Your birthday is a good 6 weeks away? Yeah, well we’re leaving for our big 7-week trip to the UK on September 20th, so my birthday is coming a little early this year.

Having the new camera made me snap-happy today, capturing visual highlights of the day: reading books in the morning with Rose, lunch with my friends Julie and Jen, and an afternoon hanging out with Raewyn. Enjoy.

Also, here’s a new video of Rose. I tried to catch her reading a book with Chris, but she kept looking up at me!

The lesser of two weevils

It seems to be pretty natural to compare yourself to others. Lots of things are positively ripe for comparison: academic achievement, career attainment, and knitting ability come to mind. However, when you have a kid evaluative comparisons hit new heights (if you pardon the pun).

My parents group is the main source of this activity because all of our babies were born around the same time. Some of the babies are rolling; some aren’t. Some are standing (supported), others haven’t tried. At the dangerous end is when you start comparing sleeping schedules. It’s not as if you hate the mothers who have better sleeping schedules (but you do); it’s more that the knowledge of their routines makes you feel incredibly anxious. Anxious about whether you’ll ever get out of the sleep deprivation you’re experiencing, anxious about the life-long abilities of your child to sleep, anxious about everything.

There’s a good side to all of this. I was just reading my mate Petra’s blog (she is in Kiev for six months with her partner and baby, Persephone) and she was talking about how Percy has been doing a lot of vocal gymnastics. “Rose too!” I thought. Rose has started squealing like a crazy cat in the last few days and it’s been both startling, exciting and terrifying (as in, won’t it be terrifying if she squeals all the way to the UK in September?). I was able to bask in the glow of a shared experience. But I also read that Percy has started proto-crawling and I was filled with awe. Rose has only been able to move in the slightest of ways: a sort-of inching backwards. I started thinking, “Oh my god, maybe Rose isn’t going to be a crawler,” but just managed to stop myself.

Hands are for grabbing

Along with her positively rambunctious behaviour Rose has been developing a set of new skills. For starters, her hands are getting really grabby. You put her in your lap and her hands grab-grab-grab at everything, from the pen in front of you, to your hair, to folds of your skin. The last two things are majorly ouchy, given her powerful little grip!

She’s also sitting up very nicely these days, although not entirely unsupported. On the play mat tummy down she loves pushing herself up in a sphinx-type pose, and can hold it for quite a long period of time.

The other pretty exciting development is that we think she’s starting to know her name! Today Chris and I ate lunch on the floor, while Rose was doing callisthenics on her mat. Every time one of us said “Rose” or “Rosie”, she looked at us and grinned. How fantastic is that!

Today is also a big day for us: Rose is going to be babysat by someone other than a member of our family. We’re meeting Delwyn outside at 2.30pm, and she is going to walk Rose in her stroller to her daughter’s school up the road. I will go in to the gym. The trade-off is that some days I’ll pick her daughter up from school and she’ll get an extra hour at home to herself. If it works out, it’ll be great!

Socialisation?

Rose was a bit cranky yesterday. Nothing alarming, just a sort of low-grade “grizzle grizzle” cranky. The situation was made worse by the fact that it was raining like crazy, and cold, so we couldn’t get out of the house for a walk. So I pulled out my last card from the deck: I went over to Delwyn’s place for a coffee (she lives in the same apartment complex and works at home). I got Rose into the sling, packed up Kirsten’s quilt that Rose plays on, her blue block and brightly-coloured ball, and shoved a few nappies into a bag.

For the first 10 minutes she sat mutely looking around, then looking back at me for reassurance. Then I took her out of the sling and lay her down on the couch next to me with one of her toys. She played silently and happily for a good 50 minutes. I couldn’t believe it! Gone was the annoyed, bored baby of an hour ago! I think Rose is starting to develop a finely tuned sense of social situations. She behaves very well when she’s in a new environment, or around people she doesn’t know so well. I’m going to resist the temptation to put her around new people and new situations every hour of the day. But it’s good to know that she’s starting to differentiate between people and situations.

Bye Granny-Jo!

We had a really nice long weekend with mum staying here. It was really fantastic having another pair of hands around the place. Also, mum was here to witness one of the biggest “poo firestorms” of Rose’s short life. I don’t want to get scatalogical on you, but we could only just cope between the two of us!

It was really nice to see her relating to Rose and enjoying how much she’s grown lately. But the best thing was getting an hour off to go the gym! It’s such a small thing, really, being able to have an hour away from the baby. Yet in our hectic lives without family nearby, it’s difficult to achieve. It sure made me really jealous of the mums and dads who have their grandparents close by.

Toys

For the first few months of her life, Rose wasn’t very interactive. She would mainly sleep, eat, and occasionally have periods of time when she looked around. (I’m omitting the crying.) We used to put Rose in her baby gym, but she would usually just lie there. She loved the mirror, but looking was all that she did.

Nowadays her waking day is divided into segments of playing, feeding and napping, and the playing has become increasingly vital. Her naps are generally short — 30 to 40 minutes — with the exception of certain random days when we’re out and about in the stroller (when she can sleep as long as two hours). When she wakes up she’s good for usually an hour and a half before she needs another nap. Sometimes it stretches to two hours, but after that she’s seriously in need of sleep. At the moment she either naps in her cot, or if we’re out and about, in her stroller. Lately she hasn’t been napping in her rocker, as she used to.

During her awake times she loves rolling around the floor and playing with her toys. Her favorite is the baby gym. She’ll eagerly grab at hanging toys, roll around and watch the flashing lights (when you turn it on). She also loves lying in middle of the floor on a play mat. By far her favourite toys are four coloured blocks that Laura and Dave gave us. She picks them up with both hands, trying to fit them in her mouth, and then dropping them. Sometimes I sit there with a rattle or a toy and jiggle them at her, sometimes I give her her own space to explore things by herself. She’s developing an independent streak and has definite times when she loves to play by herself.

Lately I’ve been getting her to practise standing up. I put my hands under her arms when she’s facing me in a low squat. She pushes up from the ground and can stand like that for about 5 seconds. She also used to be grumpy about being on her tummy. That is most definitely not the case now. She rolls over very easily and once on her tummy she can push herself up really high, into a superman-type pose. It gives her a different view of her toys, and she seems to enjoy that part of it. She also really loves sitting up (propped up by cushions or a hand). Sometimes I prop her up in an armchair while I sit at her feet, ready to catch her if she slides or falls over.

Pleasingly to her academic dad and librarian mum, she loves to read books. At the moment it’s best to read with her in your lap with her back to you because she’s most interested in turning the pages. She gets so excited about turning the pages that she starts kicking her legs. She doesn’t seem all that interested in the words yet, but I reckon that’s the wonderful thing about books: there’s so much to them (words, pictures, spines, pages, colours, sounds, rhymes, textures).