Dancin’?

The girl can’t stand unassisted. She definitely can’t walk. But the craziest thing has happened: she seems to be trying to dance!

We bought her an activity table for Christmas, and it has lots of things to push and pull with corresponding songs and jingles. She got the hang of activating the music pretty quickly, and she started bouncing along to the music! Take a look at this video snippet and let me know: proto-dancing or baby foolishness?

A visit from the Christmas Police

Our Christmas ended up with us calling the police. All evening our neighbours had been playing really loud doof-doof music, and drunkenly calling out to passers-by. It was that really awful kind of techno music that’s played in suburban discos and gyms involving “oom-cha-oom-cha-oom-cha” bass lines. I heard an altercation with another neighbour from the street. The neighbour yelled up to the party-goers to turn the music down. “Fuck you! It’s Christmas!” was the reply.

We put up with it for a few hours, but when it got so loud that we couldn’t properly hear the DVD we were watching, even though all our doors and windows were shut, we snapped. They weren’t even that close – at least a couple of apartments along! Chris tried to go up to their floor but our keys only work on our floor, so he buzzed them from the lobby. Please turn the music down, he said. Okay, the party-goers replied. The music got turned down.

For about ten minutes. By bedtime, things were ramping up considerably, and we were having trouble getting to sleep (it was around 11pm by now, and we were tired.) So I called the council, they said that they don’t resolve domestic noise situations. They said to call the police. I thought, “surely my local urban police station has a few more things to be busy with on Christmas than a couple of annoying party-goers.” Surprisingly, the police were fantastic! The woman on the phone sympathised, and said she’d send someone over. The cop car got here around fifteen minutes later! Yay, for the Christmas police.

We could hear snippets of conversation while the cops were remonstrating with the party-goers. One guy said to the cops, “Don’t you ever have parties at your place?” (Not a particularly clever line of defense, I thought.) We could also hear the cops saying, “Turn it down! And close your windows!”

We didn’t hear anything else, and blissfully fell asleep.

Merry Christmas!

Well, Rose’s first Christmas was wonderful! It started rather early, at 6.40am. I tried to eek out a bit more sleep by breastfeeding her and putting her back down, but she was having none of it. Clearly the late bedtimes and excitements of the last few days have messed up her routines a little. So Chris and I got up; Chris gave her breakfast, while I got started on the lunch preparations. Then we started unwrapping the huge mound of presents under the tree, interspersed with long-distance calls from family in New Zealand and Melbourne. I have to say that Rose had the biggest haul of presents by far; she got so much that we haven’t actually unwrapped everything. She loved pulling the paper off, and she’s been having a lot of fun with the gifts she got.

At 11.30am we went over to Stephen and Delwyn’s place for lunch. We had a great time there. We laughed at how we had store-bought Christmas pudding and commercially prepared custard, but we all agreed that it meant we were all really relaxed and no-one was stuck in the kitchen. Rose had a lot of fun sitting at the table with us, and managed to eat quite a lot of finger food (as well as the odd plastic camel).

After lots of eating we came back home; Rose had a sleep while Chris and I started tidying up. After Rose got up we went out for a nice long walk to a park near us – it was great to work off some of that heavy lunch! This evening we had a low-key dinner and Chris and I have been watching a DVD I gave him for Christmas (“Summer Heights High“, in case anyone is interested). As I’m writing this Chris is catching up with his Aunt on the phone in NZ, and his brother in Denmark.

Merry Christmas to you all!

Christmas Eve in pictures

We took Rose out this evening to Christmas Eve mass. (Our friend is catholic, we aren’t, but we were keen on singing some carols!) We went through our evening routine a little early (dinner and a bath), but instead of ‘books and bed’ we dressed Rose up in a pretty outfit and blow-dried her hair. It was the first time I’d dried it that way and she looked very adorable.

Rose was a little cranky due to not sleeping a whole lot today, but she loved it nevertheless. She was very well behaved throughout, with no “singing”.

The presents are finally all wrapped and under the tree. (Can you tell who the big ones are for?)

Oh, and that unofficial tally of the number of times Rose has fallen asleep holding her foot? It’s now at three.

An early Christmas present…

Sometimes Rose is so compliant that I worry about taking advantage of her. Chris and I were up late last night ringing in some festive cheer with Raewyn, so when Rose woke at 6.10am we both groaned. In fact, Chris shook me and said, “Wake up, Sarah. [pause] Wake up, SARAH. Rose is crying, maybe you should feed her.” I might be paraphrasing here, but there was definitely no question involved. He then rolled back over and promptly fell back asleep.

I went into her room and found her showing the usual unbridled excitement about getting up in the morning. Legs and arms jerking upwards, and huge beaming smile. I got her up, fed her, then put her back down. She protested loudly when I put her back into her cot – a sure sign that she was up for good. I stroked her forehead and said pathetically, “Can we please have half an hour more sleep?”

I went back into our bedroom and promptly fell back asleep. I knew nothing more until 8am when I discovered both Chris and Rose were up. Chris told me that she had started crying again at 7.10am. Ah, we thought, she snuck in an extra nap after I put her to bed last. Yay.

She showed a lot of cranky tired signs as the morning progressed, but we kept her up the regular 2h20m before putting her down for her first nap. And here’s the crazy thing: she’s now been asleep for nearly 2 1/2 hours! There’s only one explanation: she was awake the whole time between 6 and 7, just patiently waiting in her cot. Poor Rosie!

Pop culture references

I’ve already mentioned that Rose does a particular yell that reminds me of Robert Plant. I was thinking today about the other things Rose reminds me of:

• R2D2 (She does the same squeals of surprise)
• Christopher Lloyd in “Back to the Future” (his hair)
• Nick Nolte’s mug shot (Same confused stare)
• The comic book guy from the Simpsons (same body shape, although she has a lot more hair of course)
• Gollum (coughing followed by audible swallowing)
• Charlie Brown (endless determination and hope in the face of adversity)

Am I the only mother whose kid reminds them of random things?

I could keep eating and eating, why can’t she?

Recent illness aside, the girl has a fluctuating appetite. Last week she couldn’t get enough of food. There’d be a round of peas, parsnip and lentils, followed by milky oats, followed by more fruit, and sometimes even more after that. This week? Fussy about most things, refusing to eat more than about five mouthfuls of the same food that she ate last week, and a lot of ‘closed mouth defiance’ when you try to cajol her into more.

It’s been like this for ages with her. Sometimes she loves food; sometimes she doesn’t. Is it related to teething, developmental stuff, or merely just changing tastes?

And I won’t even talk about the hours I spent this afternoon making her a special lentil and rice hotpot. She ate about five mouthfuls, then started rubbing it in her hair and refusing all other offers. How bloody discouraging is that?

On the mend

Rose is doing a lot better today, thankfully. She had a rocky time getting off to sleep last night, waking three times in the first hour and needing cuddles and back rubs to get her back to sleep. She woke again an hour after that, and then she slept through until 6.20am. Chris and I didn’t, of course, because we kept getting up to check that she was okay! Can you tell that we’re first time parents?

She’s still not that interested in food; only a few bites at breakfast. And she still looks a little sad and hasn’t been smiling much. But her high temperature has gone, and she’s definitely on the mend.

A fever of nonspecific origin

Poor Rose had a rough night. She developed a high temperature and woke every half an hour to an hour. Sometimes she re-settled herself, other times we got up with her. There was also a patch where we were all awake for several hours.

We took her to the doctor this morning because her temperature hadn’t abated and she just doesn’t seem herself. She’s very tearful and a bit listless. The doctor couldn’t find anything else wrong with her (her ears, throat and chest were clear), and said that it would either develop further in the next day or so, or might go away by itself. We learned something new, though. Her doctor said not to give her pain relief unless her temperature got very high. She said that fever is an important mechanism in the body for fighting viruses.

She hasn’t been sleeping well today. She’s been waking frequently, crying a lot, and we’ve been needing to go in and rub her back regularly. The worst thing is how quick to cry she is. When I put her down for her first nap she sobbed so much. I couldn’t bear it, and went in and picked her up. She fell asleep in my arms, sobbing. Poor little thing.

Parents Group Christmas Party

We had a fun time at my parents group Christmas Party today. We did a “Secret Santa” (also known as a “Kris Kringle” and a “Yankee Swap”) Guess who didn’t know that a secret santa was supposed to be anonymous?

More photos on my online album