I am glad that myself and Ciara are fans of Prof. Brian Cox. It is not that he has taught us about keyboard stylings or the music of the 90s. Rather he has explained to us, by-the-by how it is that Max can eat so much. He clearly has a fully functional Black Hole somewhere in his digestive system. The Litres of breast and formula milk, the spoons of carrot, butternut squash, melon and sweet potato are trapped in the inescapable gravity well that is little Max - the output does not match the input so a Black Hole is the only explanation.
He has always chugged down the milk. He takes to both the nipple and teat with a fervor that does little to damage the teat but has a rather dramatic effect on Ciara. He took a little while to get the hang of solid foods.
Well they are called solid food but they are don't follow any of the normal features of a solid. They are a mush, a big mushy mush. As I say, he took a little while to get the hang of them. For the first couple of weeks he was a cat, he lapped at the spoon and it was more luck than planning that some morsels got in. Those few morsels tasted good though and the banana especially. Once the taste stuck, he approached the problem and in true Max fashion and came to a startling realisation. If he opens his mouth and then chomps down, it works much better.
There is a cliche that babies get their food all over themselves when they eat. This is true, to an extent, but I think it is more to do with the feeder than the feedee. Max is willing to suck in all food that comes within reach. He is also however a twitchy writher when being fed. The hand of the feeder must match the movement of the face, the timing of the spoon insertion must be as accurate as Luke Sywalker's attack on the Death Star or the food will explode harmlessly on the surface. Eyebrows, nostrils, cheeks, chins and foreheads have all ended up encrusted.
As the feeders get better the radius of encrustation gets smaller and more and more of the food gets into the aforementioned black hole. The more that goes in, the more that young Max would wish went in and so it goes.
As for preferences, Max loves Banana and sweet Potato the best. The sweet potato washes out beautifully. The banana is a different matter entirely. It stains black. It stains the floor, the bibs, the muslin cloths. It should be used as the basis for dyes and inks. I think that the famous ink squirting squids of the world must attack banana boats and consume their contents to restock.
The mystery is where the food goes. What alternate universe gets the ever-so staining banana, squash, carrot cocktail dumped on it, and do they mind?
Sunday, November 20, 2011
How to tire out a child
Max continues to change on a weekly basis. He must therefor change on a daily basis but I can't spot it. It's only when I have a bit of time with him at the weekend that I really notice. He now has many hundreds of reactions, facial expressions, noises that make for an hilarious symphony. I shall try and chronicle a few of them. To do this I shall put them in a context and that is the daily goal - to tire out a child.
The premise is this. Sane parents make good parents. Sane parents remain sane by sleeping through the night. In order for the sane parents to sleep though the night, young Max must also sleep through the night. This is achieved by a routine and a programme of activities that would scare even the most dedicated multi-tasker. Do not misunderstand me, we are not slaves to the routine but if it is stepped away from, chaos ensues. Young Max does not sleep and his parents become a jot less sane. This is fine. A jot we can handle, two jots even. Three or four jots and some of the wheels come off. Five jots and Daddy is buttering his tie and peeing in the closet. So the routine and the tiring out.
All of this action to ensure parental sanity and a stimulated Max. To be clear we never over-stimulate the child. Never. That can almost be as bad as under stiumlation and will lead to unfortunate incidents with sniper rifles and clock towers later in life. Max responds with the reactions, facial expressions, noises and so on. They change as the day goes on.
Lets begin with the 4am squawk. Around this time every morning he wakes, squawks and goes back to sleep, unless some of his conditions are unsuitable. If, for example it is too cold, he is too hungry (the 11pm feed stops this), if he is sniffly or if the night light is not on then he wakes up properly and demands, food, cuddles and a song or two. I can't think of a better word to describe the noise. Its a squawk - that's all there is to it.
7am rolls around and he has a softer sort of mewing noise. Its not a whine, its not a cry, its a mew. He mews and we pick him up. We all know just how awful it is when someone turns on the light in a dark room. Our eyes pain us, the reality of day time is difficult to face. Our dreams dash away like hit and run drivers. Max has a similar reaction when he is brought into the changing table. He clamps his eyes shut, he clenches his fists and mews all the harder.
He then smiles once the changing process has begun. Two things can disrupt this happy mood. The first is if Max does not feel he is a part of proceedings, he must be talked to and jollied along or he will cry. The second is if the cold air stimulates the sphincter to relax. If this happens he will hold his breath for the duration of flow and make a very low nnnnnnnnnnnnnnggg noise. Peeing is not a trivial thing and has all of his attention for those few seconds. Since we learned the trick of the pee-pee-tee-pee we have no problems with this (The PPTP is a piece of discarded clothing placed over the groin during the changing process that catches all micturations).
He will then get fed and this is when the crying makes its first real appearance. Babies have an internal dial that moves like the second hand on a clock - fast. It has all their emotions on it and because they cannot talk, all of their communication must be done through radical mood change. It can run like this. I'm happy, I'm content, I am enraged, I am happy, I am a screaming ball of rage, I am happy, I am tired, I am happy, I am content..... This could be 10 seconds worth. Its like watching a flock of starlings change direction twenty times a minute. For a baby a cry is just a way to demand things. There is no polite requesting. There is not gentle hint - I'm terribly sorry could you pass the bottle - no, its wwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh and hope someone is listening. It works of course so its being used more. We shall have to work on that.
When the feeding and burping are over its onto the entertainment. Teddies, rhymes, funny faces and rolling over practice are all brought to bear and the smiles between the occasional cry would make proud parents feel like they are on top of the world. It must be an evolutionary thing. That smile is like opium. I will do whatever it takes to get more. I am often found dancing and singing like a deranged budgie on the streets of this and other fine cities seeking an elusive smile. Just one more hit, just one more....
So its crying and smiling and an occasional laugh until the evening - with one exception because he gets tired and needs a nap. That action/reaction interplay is very like the evenig-bed-time one, so we'll do that later.
At about 5pm the raspberries start. He looks off into space and blows raspberries at everyone. I find I can't easily manage them anymore, I suppose the older mouth just can't handle a noise as complex and multifaceted as a raspberries. These are long wet bbblllluuuurrrrrps sounds that ensure another developmental goal and keep passersby amused. When I try to blow one back, my tongue goes numb and I get a tickling sensation in my lips - see what I mean.
Then comes the delighted squealing. This happens during or just after the bath. If is often prompted by a song. He currently likes "I like the way you work it - no gigity" - Blackstreet or "Loser" - Beck. I'm sure his tastes will change. The lower these songs are sung, the more he squeals. He's a drum and base boy for sure.
The last noise I shall talk about in this blog is the sleep whine. Its not really a whine, more of a moan. Could we call it a whoan? He places them a fixed distance apart. Whoan, whoan, whoan, - It conveys so much. Max is saying. I'm tired, put me in my sleeping bag and put me to bed, but please keep the noise to a minimum, turn on the light so I don't wake at four and carry me around for a half an hour now so that I can fall asleep where you stand, where its warm and cozy. The whoan ends with fast asleepness.
All of these interactions must be kept at a high energy level, they must be repeated and they must be interspersed with food, play, kicking time and bath time. If the high energy level is kept up and each day there is a walk or a singing class or a yoga session then the routine will do its job and the whoan session will be short and sweet. He will rest and his parents will stay sane.
The premise is this. Sane parents make good parents. Sane parents remain sane by sleeping through the night. In order for the sane parents to sleep though the night, young Max must also sleep through the night. This is achieved by a routine and a programme of activities that would scare even the most dedicated multi-tasker. Do not misunderstand me, we are not slaves to the routine but if it is stepped away from, chaos ensues. Young Max does not sleep and his parents become a jot less sane. This is fine. A jot we can handle, two jots even. Three or four jots and some of the wheels come off. Five jots and Daddy is buttering his tie and peeing in the closet. So the routine and the tiring out.
All of this action to ensure parental sanity and a stimulated Max. To be clear we never over-stimulate the child. Never. That can almost be as bad as under stiumlation and will lead to unfortunate incidents with sniper rifles and clock towers later in life. Max responds with the reactions, facial expressions, noises and so on. They change as the day goes on.
Lets begin with the 4am squawk. Around this time every morning he wakes, squawks and goes back to sleep, unless some of his conditions are unsuitable. If, for example it is too cold, he is too hungry (the 11pm feed stops this), if he is sniffly or if the night light is not on then he wakes up properly and demands, food, cuddles and a song or two. I can't think of a better word to describe the noise. Its a squawk - that's all there is to it.
7am rolls around and he has a softer sort of mewing noise. Its not a whine, its not a cry, its a mew. He mews and we pick him up. We all know just how awful it is when someone turns on the light in a dark room. Our eyes pain us, the reality of day time is difficult to face. Our dreams dash away like hit and run drivers. Max has a similar reaction when he is brought into the changing table. He clamps his eyes shut, he clenches his fists and mews all the harder.
He then smiles once the changing process has begun. Two things can disrupt this happy mood. The first is if Max does not feel he is a part of proceedings, he must be talked to and jollied along or he will cry. The second is if the cold air stimulates the sphincter to relax. If this happens he will hold his breath for the duration of flow and make a very low nnnnnnnnnnnnnnggg noise. Peeing is not a trivial thing and has all of his attention for those few seconds. Since we learned the trick of the pee-pee-tee-pee we have no problems with this (The PPTP is a piece of discarded clothing placed over the groin during the changing process that catches all micturations).
He will then get fed and this is when the crying makes its first real appearance. Babies have an internal dial that moves like the second hand on a clock - fast. It has all their emotions on it and because they cannot talk, all of their communication must be done through radical mood change. It can run like this. I'm happy, I'm content, I am enraged, I am happy, I am a screaming ball of rage, I am happy, I am tired, I am happy, I am content..... This could be 10 seconds worth. Its like watching a flock of starlings change direction twenty times a minute. For a baby a cry is just a way to demand things. There is no polite requesting. There is not gentle hint - I'm terribly sorry could you pass the bottle - no, its wwwwwaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhh and hope someone is listening. It works of course so its being used more. We shall have to work on that.
When the feeding and burping are over its onto the entertainment. Teddies, rhymes, funny faces and rolling over practice are all brought to bear and the smiles between the occasional cry would make proud parents feel like they are on top of the world. It must be an evolutionary thing. That smile is like opium. I will do whatever it takes to get more. I am often found dancing and singing like a deranged budgie on the streets of this and other fine cities seeking an elusive smile. Just one more hit, just one more....
So its crying and smiling and an occasional laugh until the evening - with one exception because he gets tired and needs a nap. That action/reaction interplay is very like the evenig-bed-time one, so we'll do that later.
At about 5pm the raspberries start. He looks off into space and blows raspberries at everyone. I find I can't easily manage them anymore, I suppose the older mouth just can't handle a noise as complex and multifaceted as a raspberries. These are long wet bbblllluuuurrrrrps sounds that ensure another developmental goal and keep passersby amused. When I try to blow one back, my tongue goes numb and I get a tickling sensation in my lips - see what I mean.
Then comes the delighted squealing. This happens during or just after the bath. If is often prompted by a song. He currently likes "I like the way you work it - no gigity" - Blackstreet or "Loser" - Beck. I'm sure his tastes will change. The lower these songs are sung, the more he squeals. He's a drum and base boy for sure.
The last noise I shall talk about in this blog is the sleep whine. Its not really a whine, more of a moan. Could we call it a whoan? He places them a fixed distance apart. Whoan, whoan, whoan, - It conveys so much. Max is saying. I'm tired, put me in my sleeping bag and put me to bed, but please keep the noise to a minimum, turn on the light so I don't wake at four and carry me around for a half an hour now so that I can fall asleep where you stand, where its warm and cozy. The whoan ends with fast asleepness.
All of these interactions must be kept at a high energy level, they must be repeated and they must be interspersed with food, play, kicking time and bath time. If the high energy level is kept up and each day there is a walk or a singing class or a yoga session then the routine will do its job and the whoan session will be short and sweet. He will rest and his parents will stay sane.
Monday, November 7, 2011
Further uses for arms
I have written before about how Max appears to develop before our
very eyes and the pace shows no signs of abating. At the moment he is
working on his fine motor skills. Frankly these have been embarrassing
up until very recently.
At Mini-Music he has steadfastly refused to open his fists for clapping. While others have been clapping and smiling he has been drooling and sitting with fists clenched on his knees. He has not been able to grasp any of his toys without a lot of help and has kicked rather than grasped with his hands. As I said, really embarrassing. His parents have been hiding their faces in shame and the moniker 'very advanced' has been slipping away from him.
All of that has changed in the last week or so. He has leapt forward with manual dexterity and it is worth reporting on. Over the last few weeks he has started to clench, grasp and grab with his left hand and slap and push with his right. He can even flick images on an iphone, though he quickly looses interest and we expect that he is holding out for the iphone 5. His left hand can hold rattles, rings, toys, fingers, and put all of them into his mouth. He can shake his play gym and he can even, when in a good mood grasp his bottle.
His right hand used to just flap up and down uselessly but now he lashes out with unerring accuracy. He can push his bottle away when he has had enough. He can hit all of the rattles on his play chair, he can smack his knees with delight, at the right times and at the same time as smiling and laughing. So the icing on the cake came when he opened his fists at mini-music and while he didn't quite clap, he didn't actively resist. Well he is only four months old. He has also developed an affinity for one of the songs that they sing in Mini-Music. It's called 'Forwards and Backwards' and it calms him instantly. He can be crying and screaming and he will stop when he hears this song. It use to take a lot more work, now its just one song, making the Mini-Music worth every penny and a lot more! He can also shake the rattle properly now, not in beat, or even when there is music playing but progress is progress.
Two other items of note swimming and babysitting. While on holiday in a hotel it was the turn of a local Primary school teacher who we contacted through an agency. The role of a Babysitter is long established and both Ciara and I have babysat in our day. But how would it work in a single room? There was no downstairs to move to or kitchen to raid. The lady was a pro. She breezed in, took one look at Max, they smiled at each other and she turned to us, so much as to say 'off you go'. The only question she had was 'where is the internet connection?' We came back three hours later to a happy sleeping baby.
Another non-typical set up was last Saturday. Grandad flew solo and looked after Max for the whole evening. He walked up and down with him on his shoulder, he peered in at the cot and listened very closely for the proof of life. His dedication was admirable and his unflappableness remarkable. Max enjoyed the whole experience and slept very well. He has been consistently good for babysitters. Though in fairness they have been very good for him. From Ennis, Dublin and Cork they have all been professionals. They have not brought their boyfriends around, they have not smoked drugs, they have not eaten all the food in the fridge and they have looked after our little man wonderfully!
On holiday I also got a chance to swim with Max. It was amazing. He has no fear of water and will swim (supported) on his back and front. He even goes under water and his face is delightful. He scrunches his mouth into a pout and closes his eyes so tight that it looks like he is bowing a massive bassoon or contemplating a particularly difficult bowel motion. Ciara has done fantastic work with Max and he knows his floating from his swimming and his gripping the side of the pool from his diving in. Key lessons. He was very popular in the pool, one small girl with a pair of floating arm-bands bigger than her head came up to me and asked very sweetly could she play with Max. She explained that she like babies and that she liked swimming and saw no reason why she couldn't marry the two likes. When I explained that Max was a bit tired and had to go, I could see her look of skepticism and disbelief. Here was another adult telling her things she couldn't do. Max then solved the problem of breaking a small girl's trust by rubbing his eyes and yawning. I had plausible deniability and he did sleep long and hard that afternoon - almost all the way through his visit to Fota Wildlife Park.
At Mini-Music he has steadfastly refused to open his fists for clapping. While others have been clapping and smiling he has been drooling and sitting with fists clenched on his knees. He has not been able to grasp any of his toys without a lot of help and has kicked rather than grasped with his hands. As I said, really embarrassing. His parents have been hiding their faces in shame and the moniker 'very advanced' has been slipping away from him.
All of that has changed in the last week or so. He has leapt forward with manual dexterity and it is worth reporting on. Over the last few weeks he has started to clench, grasp and grab with his left hand and slap and push with his right. He can even flick images on an iphone, though he quickly looses interest and we expect that he is holding out for the iphone 5. His left hand can hold rattles, rings, toys, fingers, and put all of them into his mouth. He can shake his play gym and he can even, when in a good mood grasp his bottle.
His right hand used to just flap up and down uselessly but now he lashes out with unerring accuracy. He can push his bottle away when he has had enough. He can hit all of the rattles on his play chair, he can smack his knees with delight, at the right times and at the same time as smiling and laughing. So the icing on the cake came when he opened his fists at mini-music and while he didn't quite clap, he didn't actively resist. Well he is only four months old. He has also developed an affinity for one of the songs that they sing in Mini-Music. It's called 'Forwards and Backwards' and it calms him instantly. He can be crying and screaming and he will stop when he hears this song. It use to take a lot more work, now its just one song, making the Mini-Music worth every penny and a lot more! He can also shake the rattle properly now, not in beat, or even when there is music playing but progress is progress.
Two other items of note swimming and babysitting. While on holiday in a hotel it was the turn of a local Primary school teacher who we contacted through an agency. The role of a Babysitter is long established and both Ciara and I have babysat in our day. But how would it work in a single room? There was no downstairs to move to or kitchen to raid. The lady was a pro. She breezed in, took one look at Max, they smiled at each other and she turned to us, so much as to say 'off you go'. The only question she had was 'where is the internet connection?' We came back three hours later to a happy sleeping baby.
Another non-typical set up was last Saturday. Grandad flew solo and looked after Max for the whole evening. He walked up and down with him on his shoulder, he peered in at the cot and listened very closely for the proof of life. His dedication was admirable and his unflappableness remarkable. Max enjoyed the whole experience and slept very well. He has been consistently good for babysitters. Though in fairness they have been very good for him. From Ennis, Dublin and Cork they have all been professionals. They have not brought their boyfriends around, they have not smoked drugs, they have not eaten all the food in the fridge and they have looked after our little man wonderfully!
On holiday I also got a chance to swim with Max. It was amazing. He has no fear of water and will swim (supported) on his back and front. He even goes under water and his face is delightful. He scrunches his mouth into a pout and closes his eyes so tight that it looks like he is bowing a massive bassoon or contemplating a particularly difficult bowel motion. Ciara has done fantastic work with Max and he knows his floating from his swimming and his gripping the side of the pool from his diving in. Key lessons. He was very popular in the pool, one small girl with a pair of floating arm-bands bigger than her head came up to me and asked very sweetly could she play with Max. She explained that she like babies and that she liked swimming and saw no reason why she couldn't marry the two likes. When I explained that Max was a bit tired and had to go, I could see her look of skepticism and disbelief. Here was another adult telling her things she couldn't do. Max then solved the problem of breaking a small girl's trust by rubbing his eyes and yawning. I had plausible deniability and he did sleep long and hard that afternoon - almost all the way through his visit to Fota Wildlife Park.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
finding my feet
Finding ones feet is quite the achievement! Max has managed to fold in half and Grab hold of his toes. If he has socks on at the time, they don't stay on for long. If he is in his gro-bag then the whole bag is grabbed. It's fun to watch. He can really only use his left arm properly. His right arm doesn't seem to reach as far. This could mean that a future of left arm dominance lies ahead for our Max and that a future of smudged writing is also his lot.
The added benefit of the feet finding is the potential for rolling. It is the next natural step. He folds up and rolls over. Now all his has to do is learn how to control this movement and reverse it and we are in real trouble. No longer can he be left for a moment on the changing table, no longer for a second on the bed. I'm going to have to up my organisational game to ensure there is no going back for things. Another developmental step is Max no longer bouncing as well as he used to when he falls.
Teething has begun. There are no red cheeks and dodgy nappies but there is loads of drool and a huge amount of gnawing. Our fingers are kept very clean attempt moment as they are his favourite chew sticks. We have Sofi the Giraffe, a teething ring and several other toys that have plastic bits for exactly this purpose, but no, Max prefers the finger. We tried Bonjella for the first time today and that seemed to work. We are waiting for a repeat to prove its effectiveness, it could have been a fluke.
I have also noticed a similarity between iPhones and babies. They know instinctively which way up they are. Max can be fast asleep on my shoulder and when I put him down it takes two seconds for the internal gyroscope to kick in and he curls his bottom lip and wails. This could be gastric reflux, coldness or just a reluctance to be separated from his parents or grand parents. Whatever the case, it's both amazing and infuriating!
We also invested the little guy into the Roman Catholic church. It was a lovely ceremony with the usual components and some readings that Ciara selected. There are some obvious questions about baptism and whether it's the right thing to do and whether we should support the church with all that went on etc. here is my take on all of that. The church has a very good central message. Be nice to one another and try and do the right thing. This is something that I can sing up to and would like my son to too. There are also many many more fantastic men and women in the church than there are bad ones. Fair enough, the institution handled things really badly but that's no reason to desert it utterly. We shall try and fix from within. well when I say within, I mean near the door, sort of in the porch. I'm not beating a path to the church door every Sunday morning, but then I do manage a prayer or two from Christmas to Christmas.
Max is nearly four months old. As far as I can figure the only important milestone this month is being able to take Bonjella and not a moment too soon!
The added benefit of the feet finding is the potential for rolling. It is the next natural step. He folds up and rolls over. Now all his has to do is learn how to control this movement and reverse it and we are in real trouble. No longer can he be left for a moment on the changing table, no longer for a second on the bed. I'm going to have to up my organisational game to ensure there is no going back for things. Another developmental step is Max no longer bouncing as well as he used to when he falls.
Teething has begun. There are no red cheeks and dodgy nappies but there is loads of drool and a huge amount of gnawing. Our fingers are kept very clean attempt moment as they are his favourite chew sticks. We have Sofi the Giraffe, a teething ring and several other toys that have plastic bits for exactly this purpose, but no, Max prefers the finger. We tried Bonjella for the first time today and that seemed to work. We are waiting for a repeat to prove its effectiveness, it could have been a fluke.
I have also noticed a similarity between iPhones and babies. They know instinctively which way up they are. Max can be fast asleep on my shoulder and when I put him down it takes two seconds for the internal gyroscope to kick in and he curls his bottom lip and wails. This could be gastric reflux, coldness or just a reluctance to be separated from his parents or grand parents. Whatever the case, it's both amazing and infuriating!
We also invested the little guy into the Roman Catholic church. It was a lovely ceremony with the usual components and some readings that Ciara selected. There are some obvious questions about baptism and whether it's the right thing to do and whether we should support the church with all that went on etc. here is my take on all of that. The church has a very good central message. Be nice to one another and try and do the right thing. This is something that I can sing up to and would like my son to too. There are also many many more fantastic men and women in the church than there are bad ones. Fair enough, the institution handled things really badly but that's no reason to desert it utterly. We shall try and fix from within. well when I say within, I mean near the door, sort of in the porch. I'm not beating a path to the church door every Sunday morning, but then I do manage a prayer or two from Christmas to Christmas.
Max is nearly four months old. As far as I can figure the only important milestone this month is being able to take Bonjella and not a moment too soon!
Sunday, October 16, 2011
A big day out
Max's Mum is wonderful, lets be clear about this. Though I blog
about my interactions with Max she looks after his upbringing,
education, nutrition and emotional security on a height that I can only
view from the metaphorical foothills. For those reasons (and because I
went to a big party on Friday night) I took Max yesterday. It went a
bit like this.
We dropped Ciara off at the massage parlour (it is actually a massage parlour, not anything else) at about 9am. Then we drove to the school and I took some photos of the tiny students playing rugby against Willow Park. I planned a cunning walk down the drive and circled around past Spar where I picked up the best coffee in Dublin. I know that there are other pretenders to this throne, but the little coffee machine in the Spar in Rathmines is a blessed fountain of sweet ambrosia.
Then back to the car and off to Mini Music. Mini Music is held in one of the many rooms above the main hall in the National Concert Hall. A wonderful and long suffering lady named Rebecca leads a bunch of 4-12 month olds through a bunch of sweet little songs, while their parents look on. At the beginning I was very skeptical about this class. What could Max possibly get from a bunch of songs, he can't sing, he can't dance, all he does when he hears music is drool and twitch. But I was wrong - he loves it. He doesn't take his eyes off Rebecca from the beginning of the class to the end. He follows her every move. He smiles when he is supposed to smile, he rocks backwards and forwards when he is supposed to and he comes out full of smiles and excitement. When we sing the songs to him during the week, his face lights up! So kids love Mini Music, even 15 week old kids.
We dashed from Mini Music much to the disappointment of the other parents who love to make a whole social event of the the affair. The students were in Rathmines right on time and they started to collect for the Irish Autism Society. They were selling bands for €1 and roses for €2. They were wearing their full uniforms and the little old ladies of Rathmines bought roses, left, right and center. I helped by marshaling the troops and by alternating feeding and walking Max. Max took to this strange change in his schedule with ease. He smiled at all the collectors, he grinned at the old ladies and he took the bottle first time, both times. First it was breast milk and the second was formula. The staff and customers in the Kylemore Cafe were simply lovely. They took pity on an overwhelmed father and they carried my tray and got me milk and warmed a bottle. I had a coffee and a sugary bun, that had enough glucose to kill a weaker man.
Max drank, ate, burped and smiled away the afternoon. He talked and he gurgled at everything that went on and made his father's life very easy. The students came and went on the hour and at 3pm we finished up. Max even waited while his dad had a sandwich and a can of coke, though he seemed quite concerned that I didn't need to burp afterwards.
I thought that my working day was hard. I thought that looking after students was tiring. Dear Lord, I was wrong. The energy of watching each twitch and move of Max, the nervous observation of his every breath is exhausting. So the evening went by with my new admiration for Ciara and all of her day to day care for Max. We had a big day out and I look forward to many more. But here is a quick personal memo. Never have a big day out after a big night out. I need another two or three weekends to recover.
We dropped Ciara off at the massage parlour (it is actually a massage parlour, not anything else) at about 9am. Then we drove to the school and I took some photos of the tiny students playing rugby against Willow Park. I planned a cunning walk down the drive and circled around past Spar where I picked up the best coffee in Dublin. I know that there are other pretenders to this throne, but the little coffee machine in the Spar in Rathmines is a blessed fountain of sweet ambrosia.
Then back to the car and off to Mini Music. Mini Music is held in one of the many rooms above the main hall in the National Concert Hall. A wonderful and long suffering lady named Rebecca leads a bunch of 4-12 month olds through a bunch of sweet little songs, while their parents look on. At the beginning I was very skeptical about this class. What could Max possibly get from a bunch of songs, he can't sing, he can't dance, all he does when he hears music is drool and twitch. But I was wrong - he loves it. He doesn't take his eyes off Rebecca from the beginning of the class to the end. He follows her every move. He smiles when he is supposed to smile, he rocks backwards and forwards when he is supposed to and he comes out full of smiles and excitement. When we sing the songs to him during the week, his face lights up! So kids love Mini Music, even 15 week old kids.
We dashed from Mini Music much to the disappointment of the other parents who love to make a whole social event of the the affair. The students were in Rathmines right on time and they started to collect for the Irish Autism Society. They were selling bands for €1 and roses for €2. They were wearing their full uniforms and the little old ladies of Rathmines bought roses, left, right and center. I helped by marshaling the troops and by alternating feeding and walking Max. Max took to this strange change in his schedule with ease. He smiled at all the collectors, he grinned at the old ladies and he took the bottle first time, both times. First it was breast milk and the second was formula. The staff and customers in the Kylemore Cafe were simply lovely. They took pity on an overwhelmed father and they carried my tray and got me milk and warmed a bottle. I had a coffee and a sugary bun, that had enough glucose to kill a weaker man.
Max drank, ate, burped and smiled away the afternoon. He talked and he gurgled at everything that went on and made his father's life very easy. The students came and went on the hour and at 3pm we finished up. Max even waited while his dad had a sandwich and a can of coke, though he seemed quite concerned that I didn't need to burp afterwards.
I thought that my working day was hard. I thought that looking after students was tiring. Dear Lord, I was wrong. The energy of watching each twitch and move of Max, the nervous observation of his every breath is exhausting. So the evening went by with my new admiration for Ciara and all of her day to day care for Max. We had a big day out and I look forward to many more. But here is a quick personal memo. Never have a big day out after a big night out. I need another two or three weekends to recover.
Saturday, October 8, 2011
Three things that I find remarkable
Max is developing at a rate of fifty new things a second. He is gaining new skills and moves and noises and facial expressions. It is all going at about 400 kph.
I choose these three to titillate you with. Titillate literally as the first concerns the breast. This will require a little background for the non lactating reader. The milk, once the latch has all been sorted out comes naturally. But to make things more difficult, there are two types of milk. The fore milk and the hind milk. The fore milk is kind of an amuse bouche, a taste of things to come, a small sample of what the chef is capable of given the right restaurant and a bucket of cash. The fore milk is tasty and nice, but that is about it. The hind milk is your bowl of spuds with a load of butter on top. It is yorkshire puddings and lashings of gravy. The hind milk develops as the baby sucks and he loves the hind milk. The hind milk release can be stimulated and encouraged by pressing the breast. Max is wise to this game. While breastfeeding he now bashes the breast to make the hind milk come faster. The comedy of this is his lack of coordination and the less than delicate slaps that he gives the breast. When he settles down he just places his little fist high up on the breast and clenches and unclenches his fist. The true hilarity and rolling around on the floor laughing, as it goes, is when he does it to me when he is bottle feeding. I know I am a little overweight but moobs, really?
The second thing to talk about is his words. He can now squeal with delight (major developmental goal - tick) he can say g, o, a, w, h, and now n. He is about a quarter the way through the alphabet. He is very good at turn taking during conversation and he really tries to copy what you say. His Nana and Nanny (either sides of the family, very different to avoid confusion) have great success with getting Max to talk. They click, coo and warble and screech like mad women and he warbles, screeches and coos right back at them. He cant click yet, but it is only a matter of time. He will talk when there are no other pressures on him. When the nappy is empty, the belly full and the mind rested he will be a little chatty man but once the delicate three way balance is upset, it is only whining and then wailing. That's ok though because getting him talking again is a perfect way of stopping the crying. I still try and talk to him in adult language, the EU's English as it were, but the odd wooo and brpppp and woogie woo gets a much bigger and better response.
The final aspect of this evenings blog is "1 - 2 - 3 upsie doodles". This is a perfect example of Pavlovian science. Ciara worked hard at getting Max to hold his head up while being picked up. Each time she would hold his hands and lift him and cry "1 - 2 - 3 upsie doodles". He would be told he was a good boy if his head was held straight. Now the child gets twitchy if he hears the number 1. He is tense as a board if he hears the number 2 next and if you get to 3 his back arches and if you are holding his hands he will bear weight on his legs and with your support stand straight up. Try it. It works.
I'm thinking that if he can be trained to do this so quickly, if he can understand this system of complex noises so quickly what else should we teach him. Well the first thing is going to be his name. Oh yes he responds to "1 - 2 - 3 upsie doodles" but does he turn his head when you call his name. No way. He continues doing what he is doing happily oblivious. Maybe we should have called him "1 - 2 - 3 upsie doodles" and that would have made life much easier. I hope that he shakes this training off because if his first teacher says 1-2-3 he is going to stand bolt upright and be the laughing stock of the class! I'm sure he'll know what to do, he is very advanced after all.
I choose these three to titillate you with. Titillate literally as the first concerns the breast. This will require a little background for the non lactating reader. The milk, once the latch has all been sorted out comes naturally. But to make things more difficult, there are two types of milk. The fore milk and the hind milk. The fore milk is kind of an amuse bouche, a taste of things to come, a small sample of what the chef is capable of given the right restaurant and a bucket of cash. The fore milk is tasty and nice, but that is about it. The hind milk is your bowl of spuds with a load of butter on top. It is yorkshire puddings and lashings of gravy. The hind milk develops as the baby sucks and he loves the hind milk. The hind milk release can be stimulated and encouraged by pressing the breast. Max is wise to this game. While breastfeeding he now bashes the breast to make the hind milk come faster. The comedy of this is his lack of coordination and the less than delicate slaps that he gives the breast. When he settles down he just places his little fist high up on the breast and clenches and unclenches his fist. The true hilarity and rolling around on the floor laughing, as it goes, is when he does it to me when he is bottle feeding. I know I am a little overweight but moobs, really?
The second thing to talk about is his words. He can now squeal with delight (major developmental goal - tick) he can say g, o, a, w, h, and now n. He is about a quarter the way through the alphabet. He is very good at turn taking during conversation and he really tries to copy what you say. His Nana and Nanny (either sides of the family, very different to avoid confusion) have great success with getting Max to talk. They click, coo and warble and screech like mad women and he warbles, screeches and coos right back at them. He cant click yet, but it is only a matter of time. He will talk when there are no other pressures on him. When the nappy is empty, the belly full and the mind rested he will be a little chatty man but once the delicate three way balance is upset, it is only whining and then wailing. That's ok though because getting him talking again is a perfect way of stopping the crying. I still try and talk to him in adult language, the EU's English as it were, but the odd wooo and brpppp and woogie woo gets a much bigger and better response.
The final aspect of this evenings blog is "1 - 2 - 3 upsie doodles". This is a perfect example of Pavlovian science. Ciara worked hard at getting Max to hold his head up while being picked up. Each time she would hold his hands and lift him and cry "1 - 2 - 3 upsie doodles". He would be told he was a good boy if his head was held straight. Now the child gets twitchy if he hears the number 1. He is tense as a board if he hears the number 2 next and if you get to 3 his back arches and if you are holding his hands he will bear weight on his legs and with your support stand straight up. Try it. It works.
I'm thinking that if he can be trained to do this so quickly, if he can understand this system of complex noises so quickly what else should we teach him. Well the first thing is going to be his name. Oh yes he responds to "1 - 2 - 3 upsie doodles" but does he turn his head when you call his name. No way. He continues doing what he is doing happily oblivious. Maybe we should have called him "1 - 2 - 3 upsie doodles" and that would have made life much easier. I hope that he shakes this training off because if his first teacher says 1-2-3 he is going to stand bolt upright and be the laughing stock of the class! I'm sure he'll know what to do, he is very advanced after all.
Sunday, October 2, 2011
A personality emergent
So it turns out that as a baby grows, gets older and all of his relatives tell us that he is getting bigger by the minute, he is also growing a personality.
His behaviour before has had an edge to it, a pattern, a focus so we thought that was it. But now he is really working that smile, really frowning and really talking. So the sounds are gibberish but the delight that he has at being listened to is infectious! He will say something, we will respond and he will say something longer and louder. We respond again that bit louder and the crescendo builds up until he is squealing with delight!
I think it is the success of the character Stewie in Family Guy that his words are heard and responded to but clearly not understood. That's what it must be like for Max. Maybe he is saying things like. I love you guys and I like it here but that teddy bear is giving me nightmares, if you could get rid of that I'd be thrilled. Or perhaps it's as simple as when you put on my nappy you are making it just a shade tight. If you could loosen it a bit I'd be much happier.
We are trained by this experience that nothing will ever be done by people about the hundreds of minor irritations that plague us as adults. Oh yes, they will smile, nod and even respond but they will do nothing.
Max the chatty man. I just hope he is saying nice happy things. I think that he is probably just saying feelings. I'm comfortable, I like that face, that noise, no not that one, the last one, do that again. I am warm and happy. I am getting hungry, I am wet, why?
But it's the cheeky grin that gives the personality away. That grin could win over even the most cold hearted stone of a man. His parents are soppy sentimentalists so unless we play it carefully he will run rings around us!
On a more practical note: the routine is going well but it needs a tweak with an eleven o'clock feed. He is nearly into the 3-6 month old clothes right on schedule and all goes well in the outgoing department!
A quiet week of watching a little man come out from the body of a baby.
His behaviour before has had an edge to it, a pattern, a focus so we thought that was it. But now he is really working that smile, really frowning and really talking. So the sounds are gibberish but the delight that he has at being listened to is infectious! He will say something, we will respond and he will say something longer and louder. We respond again that bit louder and the crescendo builds up until he is squealing with delight!
I think it is the success of the character Stewie in Family Guy that his words are heard and responded to but clearly not understood. That's what it must be like for Max. Maybe he is saying things like. I love you guys and I like it here but that teddy bear is giving me nightmares, if you could get rid of that I'd be thrilled. Or perhaps it's as simple as when you put on my nappy you are making it just a shade tight. If you could loosen it a bit I'd be much happier.
We are trained by this experience that nothing will ever be done by people about the hundreds of minor irritations that plague us as adults. Oh yes, they will smile, nod and even respond but they will do nothing.
Max the chatty man. I just hope he is saying nice happy things. I think that he is probably just saying feelings. I'm comfortable, I like that face, that noise, no not that one, the last one, do that again. I am warm and happy. I am getting hungry, I am wet, why?
But it's the cheeky grin that gives the personality away. That grin could win over even the most cold hearted stone of a man. His parents are soppy sentimentalists so unless we play it carefully he will run rings around us!
On a more practical note: the routine is going well but it needs a tweak with an eleven o'clock feed. He is nearly into the 3-6 month old clothes right on schedule and all goes well in the outgoing department!
A quiet week of watching a little man come out from the body of a baby.
Monday, September 26, 2011
My liquid son
In Star Trek - The Next generation a Klingon refers to humans as 'ugly bags of mostly water'. Now anyone who describes Max as ugly will be on the harsh end of a Klingon pain stick but the bag of mostly water bit. That bit I get.
I didn't really understand it until I accidentally shook him. Now I'm not talking about a violent shake, I was just going a little fast in the feeding chair and it was like a slow shake. I heard a gloop, a very distinct gloop. The same type of gloop that you would get if you tilted a half-full bottle backwards and forwards on its side; gloop, gloop.
This was added to the other Sci-Fi reference which is equally alien. In fact it is exactly Alien. A newly born Alien in the Sigourney Weaver series pours water from its mouth almost constantly. This is often the harbinger of the vicious large critters and it puts me in mind of Max's constant stream of drool.
When these two fantastical references are put together with his constant peeing (my shorts are the most recent casualty) and his splish splasing aroung in the local pool, the real meets the fantasy and I am sure that my son is a big slooshy gloopy bag of mostly water. That does not in any way take from his wonderfulness and beauty!
What it does do is make fast movers out of his mother and father. We run for the nappy, we run for the muslin to soak up the drool, we run for the muslin to soak up the vomit and we run to replace everything that he pees over. Water is key and without it we would all be prunes. I have tried to imagine us all as prunes and its not pretty.
Along with this dependence on water comes the sounds. Not just the gloop, the cornucopia of other liquid noises. For the want of a Taxonomy I will start at the head.
When he feeds he makes a very vampiric sucking noise, accompanied by a sort of liquid snort that sounds like a sucked straw at the end of a Macdonald's soft drink. His throat then makes the funniest sound when there is stuff going in or coming out. It's like a little gargle. It's like a little gargle except that that it goes on for quite some time.
Further down into his chest there are the swallowing noises that are a bit like a central heating system with loads of air in it. There is a rattle here and a drip drip there and then the whole system explodes in a fit of hic-coughs.
Even further down are the farts. They are very funny indeed and the stuff of many a low budget English sit-com. They are even funnier when caused by a sneeze or a cough. They have a distinctly watery side to them but I cannot describe them any further as readers are fed up of me talking about Max's rear end!
The only part of Max that has nothing to do with water are his legs. They are solid as a rock. He can't stand on them yet but he can bear his own weight and he kicks like a mule. He has also taken to smacking them down, sometimes to his own surprise.
On the news front, he has some new noises, 'nga nga' and the arrival of the 'g' is good as soon behind it will follow the 'd' and then it's a short hop to da-da! He also grasped a rattle. He shook it, it made a noise and he reacted and then he smacked himself in the head with it. He's a very advanced bag of mostly water.
I didn't really understand it until I accidentally shook him. Now I'm not talking about a violent shake, I was just going a little fast in the feeding chair and it was like a slow shake. I heard a gloop, a very distinct gloop. The same type of gloop that you would get if you tilted a half-full bottle backwards and forwards on its side; gloop, gloop.
This was added to the other Sci-Fi reference which is equally alien. In fact it is exactly Alien. A newly born Alien in the Sigourney Weaver series pours water from its mouth almost constantly. This is often the harbinger of the vicious large critters and it puts me in mind of Max's constant stream of drool.
When these two fantastical references are put together with his constant peeing (my shorts are the most recent casualty) and his splish splasing aroung in the local pool, the real meets the fantasy and I am sure that my son is a big slooshy gloopy bag of mostly water. That does not in any way take from his wonderfulness and beauty!
What it does do is make fast movers out of his mother and father. We run for the nappy, we run for the muslin to soak up the drool, we run for the muslin to soak up the vomit and we run to replace everything that he pees over. Water is key and without it we would all be prunes. I have tried to imagine us all as prunes and its not pretty.
Along with this dependence on water comes the sounds. Not just the gloop, the cornucopia of other liquid noises. For the want of a Taxonomy I will start at the head.
When he feeds he makes a very vampiric sucking noise, accompanied by a sort of liquid snort that sounds like a sucked straw at the end of a Macdonald's soft drink. His throat then makes the funniest sound when there is stuff going in or coming out. It's like a little gargle. It's like a little gargle except that that it goes on for quite some time.
Further down into his chest there are the swallowing noises that are a bit like a central heating system with loads of air in it. There is a rattle here and a drip drip there and then the whole system explodes in a fit of hic-coughs.
Even further down are the farts. They are very funny indeed and the stuff of many a low budget English sit-com. They are even funnier when caused by a sneeze or a cough. They have a distinctly watery side to them but I cannot describe them any further as readers are fed up of me talking about Max's rear end!
The only part of Max that has nothing to do with water are his legs. They are solid as a rock. He can't stand on them yet but he can bear his own weight and he kicks like a mule. He has also taken to smacking them down, sometimes to his own surprise.
On the news front, he has some new noises, 'nga nga' and the arrival of the 'g' is good as soon behind it will follow the 'd' and then it's a short hop to da-da! He also grasped a rattle. He shook it, it made a noise and he reacted and then he smacked himself in the head with it. He's a very advanced bag of mostly water.
Wednesday, September 21, 2011
The Routine!
Max has a routine, this has taken some great work on the part of his wonderful Mum to organise. Meanwhile I have been busy with the odd bit of teaching here and there. I play a part in the routine but its genesis and keystone is the morning.
At about 7am the little fellow wakes. He doesn't enjoy this. He wakes up hungry. He wakes up angry. Do we sort out his hunger, do we heck. We change his nappy first. This is my job. I have previously blogged about nappies. They are boring boring boring now (except for when they are not - about once every two or three days). So his boring nappy changed he goes back for his first feed of the day. This is Ciara's job, she does it really well.
Having prepared everything for my day I return at about 7:30 just in time to burp him and say good bye. This is very hard.
He then plays for a bit (maybe has a mid-morning snack) and goes back to sleep. An hour and a bit later he is ready for food and action and there is plenty of action. He gets dressed up into his day gear. On one day he is swimming, another at baby yoga. Suffice it to say that his future development is safeguarded by a schedule of activities that stimulates body and mind. After these activities and another snack it is lunch time.
He then has some more play and mat time (that's play on his mat with the bee and the mirror). He does have an afternoon nap but its time is a bit variable. In fact the middle of the day is a big variable. This suits me fine. I am at work, no worries. For Ciara it can be a bit of a roller coaster. Most days work out fine but some days when I get home, young Max is thrust into my hands and - tag I'm it!
So as the afternoon drifts away like one of Max's particularly virulent farts, the routine begins to reestablish itself. At around 7pm, it's bath time! This is a wonderland of emotion and wriggling and splashing and suds. Sometimes both of us are involved and sometimes just one of us. A clean Max is brought to the bed, redressed into night gear and read a lovely story. There will be many posts about childrens' literature in the future but for now lets assume that the story is lovely and that Max is very relaxed and ready for a feed and bed. He then gets his bottle, up to 220mls and theoretically falls into a stupor until 7am again. Meanwhile we fit in the evening dinner and small amount of relaxation time around this. Like water pouring into a bucket of stones. In fact that's how we work with the routine, we dance around it like particles flung around in Brownian motion.
It's an imperfect system because it is so variable in the middle. You can't set your watch by him but you can at least have a good crack at figuring out day from night. He is much happier with the routine. When we don't follow it, he is upset. He is much more difficult to settle and our lives are full of misery. So we follow the routine, and woe betide anyone who gets in the way. They have to get him asleep while his parents rest - be warned!
At about 7am the little fellow wakes. He doesn't enjoy this. He wakes up hungry. He wakes up angry. Do we sort out his hunger, do we heck. We change his nappy first. This is my job. I have previously blogged about nappies. They are boring boring boring now (except for when they are not - about once every two or three days). So his boring nappy changed he goes back for his first feed of the day. This is Ciara's job, she does it really well.
Having prepared everything for my day I return at about 7:30 just in time to burp him and say good bye. This is very hard.
He then plays for a bit (maybe has a mid-morning snack) and goes back to sleep. An hour and a bit later he is ready for food and action and there is plenty of action. He gets dressed up into his day gear. On one day he is swimming, another at baby yoga. Suffice it to say that his future development is safeguarded by a schedule of activities that stimulates body and mind. After these activities and another snack it is lunch time.
He then has some more play and mat time (that's play on his mat with the bee and the mirror). He does have an afternoon nap but its time is a bit variable. In fact the middle of the day is a big variable. This suits me fine. I am at work, no worries. For Ciara it can be a bit of a roller coaster. Most days work out fine but some days when I get home, young Max is thrust into my hands and - tag I'm it!
So as the afternoon drifts away like one of Max's particularly virulent farts, the routine begins to reestablish itself. At around 7pm, it's bath time! This is a wonderland of emotion and wriggling and splashing and suds. Sometimes both of us are involved and sometimes just one of us. A clean Max is brought to the bed, redressed into night gear and read a lovely story. There will be many posts about childrens' literature in the future but for now lets assume that the story is lovely and that Max is very relaxed and ready for a feed and bed. He then gets his bottle, up to 220mls and theoretically falls into a stupor until 7am again. Meanwhile we fit in the evening dinner and small amount of relaxation time around this. Like water pouring into a bucket of stones. In fact that's how we work with the routine, we dance around it like particles flung around in Brownian motion.
It's an imperfect system because it is so variable in the middle. You can't set your watch by him but you can at least have a good crack at figuring out day from night. He is much happier with the routine. When we don't follow it, he is upset. He is much more difficult to settle and our lives are full of misery. So we follow the routine, and woe betide anyone who gets in the way. They have to get him asleep while his parents rest - be warned!
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Rubbing his hands with glee
My last post was very indulgent and soppy, some readers have admitted to tears and other to gastric distress. So this time I have decided to report only the facts without comment. This way I am assured that the tone will be appropriate to all readers no matter what their disposition and digestive health.
Max will be 11 weeks old tomorrow. His age wears heavily upon him. He stares inscrutably at almost everything and wrings his hands constantly. The black and white mobile provides him with hours of quiet reflection. The play mat is far too much for his fragile state and drives him into convulsions of sensory overload.
The small bee (that he has been fixated on) has been replaced in his affections by his own reflection. This I see, not as a narcissistic development but one of severe self reflection. Such self examination is a clear sign of a deep intelligence, he must be very advanced.
The only thing I can't get past is the drool. He drools constantly. This I am told is a sure sign of teething, but it is also a sure sign of rabies. I am pretty sure that Max does not have rabies, for he shows no signs of madness or writhing above that level that is normal for a child his age. But the frothing and drooling is a bit discomforting.
He has graduated to the larger bottle. Combine this with the cot, the clothes and the inscrutability and you have the measure of a man. To see all of this in an eleven week old is surely presumptuous and pompous, but I beg your indulgence.
The larger bottle is big enough for an adult drink (that is not one that contains material unsuitable - just large), it is only just short of the 500mls that approximates a pint. No one should ever drink a pint in the one go. That is far too much liquid for any one throat. In fact Max found it so this evening and the slower teat had to be brought to bear. He took this without complaint on the first go and so broke all of the rules. I was waiting for the merry dance but he just wolfed it all down, about 180mls.
On a more serious note, the bumper is gone from the cot side. This is a bit of a tale but its worth telling. The books (the infamous books) and the websites (fonts of all knowledge) say that bumpers around cots are not a good idea as they have been linked to incidence of SIDS. That is fine in theory but when your son is whacking his head around in his sleep you think that a bumper is necessary so you tie it up according to the manufacturers instructions. Then a good friend passes on a bit of research and info and it is very clear that an odd knock of the head is the least of our worries. Two quick links followed and the bumper is gone. All of this, all of this, and the little fellow has not put his head near the edge and shows no signs of doing so. Thank you friend.
So what else to report on this Saturday evening. He still retains his youth, beauty and loveliness, he still steals the hearts of all who sees him, but now there is a wryness. There is a little curl to the edge of his lips. There is a wring to the holding of his hands. There is a glint in his eye. There would be a jaunt in his step, if he could walk. There is at the very least a swagger in his kicks. Max is growing up and developing a personality. Look out world.
Max will be 11 weeks old tomorrow. His age wears heavily upon him. He stares inscrutably at almost everything and wrings his hands constantly. The black and white mobile provides him with hours of quiet reflection. The play mat is far too much for his fragile state and drives him into convulsions of sensory overload.
The small bee (that he has been fixated on) has been replaced in his affections by his own reflection. This I see, not as a narcissistic development but one of severe self reflection. Such self examination is a clear sign of a deep intelligence, he must be very advanced.
The only thing I can't get past is the drool. He drools constantly. This I am told is a sure sign of teething, but it is also a sure sign of rabies. I am pretty sure that Max does not have rabies, for he shows no signs of madness or writhing above that level that is normal for a child his age. But the frothing and drooling is a bit discomforting.
He has graduated to the larger bottle. Combine this with the cot, the clothes and the inscrutability and you have the measure of a man. To see all of this in an eleven week old is surely presumptuous and pompous, but I beg your indulgence.
The larger bottle is big enough for an adult drink (that is not one that contains material unsuitable - just large), it is only just short of the 500mls that approximates a pint. No one should ever drink a pint in the one go. That is far too much liquid for any one throat. In fact Max found it so this evening and the slower teat had to be brought to bear. He took this without complaint on the first go and so broke all of the rules. I was waiting for the merry dance but he just wolfed it all down, about 180mls.
On a more serious note, the bumper is gone from the cot side. This is a bit of a tale but its worth telling. The books (the infamous books) and the websites (fonts of all knowledge) say that bumpers around cots are not a good idea as they have been linked to incidence of SIDS. That is fine in theory but when your son is whacking his head around in his sleep you think that a bumper is necessary so you tie it up according to the manufacturers instructions. Then a good friend passes on a bit of research and info and it is very clear that an odd knock of the head is the least of our worries. Two quick links followed and the bumper is gone. All of this, all of this, and the little fellow has not put his head near the edge and shows no signs of doing so. Thank you friend.
So what else to report on this Saturday evening. He still retains his youth, beauty and loveliness, he still steals the hearts of all who sees him, but now there is a wryness. There is a little curl to the edge of his lips. There is a wring to the holding of his hands. There is a glint in his eye. There would be a jaunt in his step, if he could walk. There is at the very least a swagger in his kicks. Max is growing up and developing a personality. Look out world.
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Moving on...
So where did I leave off, there was swimming and the battle over the milk. Well the swimming is going really well and so is the bottle feeding. But it's really funny. There is a little dance, a baby/adult thing, a waltz, a cha cha cha. I give him the bottle and he pretends to suck. He pretends to like it. He pretends to wolf it down. Then I look at the bottle and there is none missing.
I take it out and give him a break. He has shown me. He is the boss, I get it. I try a second time and he wails. Loud and sobbing, telling the world that I am a bad parent and that I am trying to poison him with snake venom flavored milk. So I stop, settle him and try again. At this point he admits that there is purpose to the bottle feeding after all and drinks the milk as if it was the last 120mls on earth!
The most important addition to this story is the 'Mother can't be in the room' thing. Some send mother away for a night out or a long walk. Well certainly the time it worked perfectly the first time, Ciara was in another room, but today she was in the room and he stared at her for most of the feed. He has graduated to an easy feeder.
There was a bit of screaming along the way and a good load of wriggling and one really unpleasant afternoon, but we are there. There is a very good maxim that says never row over food, that can lead to all sorts of difficulty later on. I console myself with the hope that he'll never remember that row, he's too young. Can we have scarred him for life already? The baby books tell us we have so I'm already saving for the therapy sessions. Or maybe it would be easier to retrain as a psychologist.
The other graduation is to the big bed. Its a cool apartment friendly transformer cot that has two levels, interchangeable sides and concertinas down into a tiny little thing that fits in a cupboard. It has a massive sleeping area which hopefully means Max won't smack his head against the sides. He has just outgrown the Moses Basket. The wicker sides were about to be broken down by his gorilla fists and massive gorilla head. He's not out-sized you understand just bigger than the Moses Basket. If he were relying on that basket to float him down the river he would now be a child of the Mer-People.
We had a very exciting day today, home at 2:45 and back out the door to the new art Gallery in town by three. Max had already been out to the Botanic Gardens but he rallied and took the opportunity of the car journey to nap. It must have been really weird, given that when he awoke he was in a room full of barbed wire. He then went into a room with chalk drawings of ghost estates and stonehenge. He made a decision late in the trip that he prefers the classics, we must go to the National Gallery soon and confirm that decision. We then went to Tesco and sorted out the shopping for the week. The magic ended in the car on the way home when hunger finally struck properly and the wailing began.
The magic of the organisation slipped too as the bottle leaked all over the bottom of the changing bag. There is a reason a dampener is called a dampener. Some days are just packed and wonderful and perfect. Dampener or no dampener, it was Ace!
I take it out and give him a break. He has shown me. He is the boss, I get it. I try a second time and he wails. Loud and sobbing, telling the world that I am a bad parent and that I am trying to poison him with snake venom flavored milk. So I stop, settle him and try again. At this point he admits that there is purpose to the bottle feeding after all and drinks the milk as if it was the last 120mls on earth!
The most important addition to this story is the 'Mother can't be in the room' thing. Some send mother away for a night out or a long walk. Well certainly the time it worked perfectly the first time, Ciara was in another room, but today she was in the room and he stared at her for most of the feed. He has graduated to an easy feeder.
There was a bit of screaming along the way and a good load of wriggling and one really unpleasant afternoon, but we are there. There is a very good maxim that says never row over food, that can lead to all sorts of difficulty later on. I console myself with the hope that he'll never remember that row, he's too young. Can we have scarred him for life already? The baby books tell us we have so I'm already saving for the therapy sessions. Or maybe it would be easier to retrain as a psychologist.
The other graduation is to the big bed. Its a cool apartment friendly transformer cot that has two levels, interchangeable sides and concertinas down into a tiny little thing that fits in a cupboard. It has a massive sleeping area which hopefully means Max won't smack his head against the sides. He has just outgrown the Moses Basket. The wicker sides were about to be broken down by his gorilla fists and massive gorilla head. He's not out-sized you understand just bigger than the Moses Basket. If he were relying on that basket to float him down the river he would now be a child of the Mer-People.
We had a very exciting day today, home at 2:45 and back out the door to the new art Gallery in town by three. Max had already been out to the Botanic Gardens but he rallied and took the opportunity of the car journey to nap. It must have been really weird, given that when he awoke he was in a room full of barbed wire. He then went into a room with chalk drawings of ghost estates and stonehenge. He made a decision late in the trip that he prefers the classics, we must go to the National Gallery soon and confirm that decision. We then went to Tesco and sorted out the shopping for the week. The magic ended in the car on the way home when hunger finally struck properly and the wailing began.
The magic of the organisation slipped too as the bottle leaked all over the bottom of the changing bag. There is a reason a dampener is called a dampener. Some days are just packed and wonderful and perfect. Dampener or no dampener, it was Ace!
Friday, September 9, 2011
Swimming and Milk
There are many things to report. Young Max is coping very well with the work-a-day routine. He seems to have a little routine of his own that sometimes coincides with our plan and sometimes doesn't. He is patient with us, and for that we are thankful.
One of the key developmental goals for someone his age is the 'regarding of a raisin". I suppose it is small enough to be relatively difficult to see and yet dark enough to provide the contrast that his young eyes require.
I have muesli in the morning and it has raisins in it. So this morning I took a raisin and held it in front of him. Well he regarded it with a style and grace that supersedes anything in the developmental books. We now know that when Max regards a raisin, that raisin stays regarded.
He also got his first pair of jeans today. They look cool, that is all.
He is developing a very curious attachment to a toy bee that hangs from his play-mat. He kicks the overhanging bars and the bee moves and he giggles. We are not sure whether he is controlling his feet with any level of precision. It seems as if he hits the bars one in five times but when he does the giggles are worth hearing. Once fixated his eyes will not leave the bee. I am reminded of the urban myth that penguins fixated on an over flying aircraft will tip over while watching it. Max will follow that bee wheresoever it goes. I am concerned that when he encounters a real bee for the first time he will develop repetitive strain injury in his neck from futile attempts to track it as it goes about its pollination activities. To ensure that this does not happen, the bee will be retired for a while and replaced with an elephant - they are slower moving.
He also had his first swimming lesson - who knew that 'twinkle, twinkle little star' could be used as a tool for learning how to swim on your back. He has a very cute swim nappy that is heavily elasticated to prevent leakage. Leakage of any kind in a pool is bad news but leakage of the nappy kind will close the pool for 24 hours. It's funy how some people can't handle a bit of E-Coli. He loves the water, he loves his nightly bath, he loves the rabbit towel and he loves the story afterwards. There is no end to the things he finds delight in. Sure why wouldn't he!
There is only one thing that he doesn't like. That's the bottle! He has been known to take all 120mls in one long gulp but he doesn't like it! He prefers breast milk but he can't have that forever. He is due in the creche in January and at the rate that time is passing that will be in a week or so. He needs to begin a very slow weening off breast milk and onto the formula. At the moment no dice. There is a bit of crying, there is a bit of screaming and we give in. The process begins again the next day. We have consulted the books and websites and other parents and the advice is as conflicting as the number of sources but the on coherent comment is perseverance. He tries all sorts of tricks to avoid it. He falls asleep, he turns his head and he flicks the teat out with his tongue (he's very advanced). I'm in favour of some form of drip system but Ciara says that that is cruel. All I know is that I don't like the drink either.
I have never tasted breast milk. But that formula stuff is rank. It smells like grass and tastes like a cross between iron bars and petrol. No wonder he doesn't like it. I am not surprised that it has never caught on as an evening tipple. Max - though it causes me great frustration, hair pulling and fear for the future. I am with you all the way, the milk is muck!
One of the key developmental goals for someone his age is the 'regarding of a raisin". I suppose it is small enough to be relatively difficult to see and yet dark enough to provide the contrast that his young eyes require.
I have muesli in the morning and it has raisins in it. So this morning I took a raisin and held it in front of him. Well he regarded it with a style and grace that supersedes anything in the developmental books. We now know that when Max regards a raisin, that raisin stays regarded.
He also got his first pair of jeans today. They look cool, that is all.
He is developing a very curious attachment to a toy bee that hangs from his play-mat. He kicks the overhanging bars and the bee moves and he giggles. We are not sure whether he is controlling his feet with any level of precision. It seems as if he hits the bars one in five times but when he does the giggles are worth hearing. Once fixated his eyes will not leave the bee. I am reminded of the urban myth that penguins fixated on an over flying aircraft will tip over while watching it. Max will follow that bee wheresoever it goes. I am concerned that when he encounters a real bee for the first time he will develop repetitive strain injury in his neck from futile attempts to track it as it goes about its pollination activities. To ensure that this does not happen, the bee will be retired for a while and replaced with an elephant - they are slower moving.
He also had his first swimming lesson - who knew that 'twinkle, twinkle little star' could be used as a tool for learning how to swim on your back. He has a very cute swim nappy that is heavily elasticated to prevent leakage. Leakage of any kind in a pool is bad news but leakage of the nappy kind will close the pool for 24 hours. It's funy how some people can't handle a bit of E-Coli. He loves the water, he loves his nightly bath, he loves the rabbit towel and he loves the story afterwards. There is no end to the things he finds delight in. Sure why wouldn't he!
There is only one thing that he doesn't like. That's the bottle! He has been known to take all 120mls in one long gulp but he doesn't like it! He prefers breast milk but he can't have that forever. He is due in the creche in January and at the rate that time is passing that will be in a week or so. He needs to begin a very slow weening off breast milk and onto the formula. At the moment no dice. There is a bit of crying, there is a bit of screaming and we give in. The process begins again the next day. We have consulted the books and websites and other parents and the advice is as conflicting as the number of sources but the on coherent comment is perseverance. He tries all sorts of tricks to avoid it. He falls asleep, he turns his head and he flicks the teat out with his tongue (he's very advanced). I'm in favour of some form of drip system but Ciara says that that is cruel. All I know is that I don't like the drink either.
I have never tasted breast milk. But that formula stuff is rank. It smells like grass and tastes like a cross between iron bars and petrol. No wonder he doesn't like it. I am not surprised that it has never caught on as an evening tipple. Max - though it causes me great frustration, hair pulling and fear for the future. I am with you all the way, the milk is muck!
Sunday, September 4, 2011
ahwooo
Nine weeks, can you believe it, nine weeks. Max is a full nine weeks old and he is growing up, developing, changing at a massive rate. He is even getting a routine. His Dad is back to work and his Mum is looking after him wonderfully. It's amusing how my priorities have shifted.
It's not that I have to be home at a certain time. If I need to stay late at work I can, the thing is I don't want to. I want to be able to do my teaching, look after the students and then get the hell home to see my wife and child. It's like one of those scenes from a very bad Disney film. The hero is rushing past obstacles on his way and the camera cuts from each vignette back to a still or almost still of the forlorn family minus the hero, standing at the doorstep. Casting myself as the hero speaks volumes, but its my psychosis and I'm sticking to it.
In reality of course there is no forlornness, I get home and it is domestic bliss, I hear about the day that they have had and do my best to fit in. Ten minutes later it's as if I was never at work and there is a little stream of baby vomit running down my back, I've changed a nappy and it's time for dinner - welcome home daddy!
And that's the funny bit. I want this, I want it all the time. I wonder could I teach from home. I wonder could I set up some sort of a web link and then I stop wondering and come back to earth. This is the way it must be. Stop trying to change the things that are immutable and focus on maximising time at home while still also being able to pay for it.
The title of this post is 'ahwooo' - that is Max's default noise for I am contented and talking to you. We talk back and if there is more to say another ahwooo comes our way. He communicates other things like hunger and discomfort by crying but lets put them aside for a minute. The ahwooo phenomenon reminds me of a device controlled by a single button. Press the button once, something happens. Press it twice, something else happens. Hold the button down, something entirely different, and so on. Max is a bit like that in reverse. If we knew what the Max Code of ahwooos was, we would have communication with our nine week old baby sorted! Forget your baby sign language, forget your flash cards. Ahwooo is where it's at.
It is such a delightful noise. It's soft, it's accompanied by a smile. It has a tonal interrogative at times, a guttural imperative at others. It's a delight to try and decipher this undecipherable communication. In the not too distant future he will find a consonant and aghooo will arrive, but I want to hold on to ahwooo. It's like it has everything good, wise and cuddly about it, like the Owl in the hundred acre wood.
Just one more thing, lest you though I was finished with scatology, I'm not. The poo still fascinates. It's just gone to ground. One good nappy only every two or three days now. What a perfect feeding system that basically uses up every morsel that isn't chucked back over dad's shirts. Every few days a minimum of waste is ejected and it now has the consistency of paint, Dulux probably have a lovely name for it, Autumnal Leaf or Disturbed Earth. Well its disturbed all right. I wonder what its Pantone Colour reference number is? Max is also very respectful of his nappy changer now. No more wild peeing. He can last a full 10 minutes with his nappy off, to prevent rash. It is a little like Russian Roulette as you never know when the metaphorical chamber is full but as long as there are no expensive furnishings around, you're all right.
Nine weeks, nine weeks, sure he's very advanced for nine weeks :-)
It's not that I have to be home at a certain time. If I need to stay late at work I can, the thing is I don't want to. I want to be able to do my teaching, look after the students and then get the hell home to see my wife and child. It's like one of those scenes from a very bad Disney film. The hero is rushing past obstacles on his way and the camera cuts from each vignette back to a still or almost still of the forlorn family minus the hero, standing at the doorstep. Casting myself as the hero speaks volumes, but its my psychosis and I'm sticking to it.
In reality of course there is no forlornness, I get home and it is domestic bliss, I hear about the day that they have had and do my best to fit in. Ten minutes later it's as if I was never at work and there is a little stream of baby vomit running down my back, I've changed a nappy and it's time for dinner - welcome home daddy!
And that's the funny bit. I want this, I want it all the time. I wonder could I teach from home. I wonder could I set up some sort of a web link and then I stop wondering and come back to earth. This is the way it must be. Stop trying to change the things that are immutable and focus on maximising time at home while still also being able to pay for it.
The title of this post is 'ahwooo' - that is Max's default noise for I am contented and talking to you. We talk back and if there is more to say another ahwooo comes our way. He communicates other things like hunger and discomfort by crying but lets put them aside for a minute. The ahwooo phenomenon reminds me of a device controlled by a single button. Press the button once, something happens. Press it twice, something else happens. Hold the button down, something entirely different, and so on. Max is a bit like that in reverse. If we knew what the Max Code of ahwooos was, we would have communication with our nine week old baby sorted! Forget your baby sign language, forget your flash cards. Ahwooo is where it's at.
It is such a delightful noise. It's soft, it's accompanied by a smile. It has a tonal interrogative at times, a guttural imperative at others. It's a delight to try and decipher this undecipherable communication. In the not too distant future he will find a consonant and aghooo will arrive, but I want to hold on to ahwooo. It's like it has everything good, wise and cuddly about it, like the Owl in the hundred acre wood.
Just one more thing, lest you though I was finished with scatology, I'm not. The poo still fascinates. It's just gone to ground. One good nappy only every two or three days now. What a perfect feeding system that basically uses up every morsel that isn't chucked back over dad's shirts. Every few days a minimum of waste is ejected and it now has the consistency of paint, Dulux probably have a lovely name for it, Autumnal Leaf or Disturbed Earth. Well its disturbed all right. I wonder what its Pantone Colour reference number is? Max is also very respectful of his nappy changer now. No more wild peeing. He can last a full 10 minutes with his nappy off, to prevent rash. It is a little like Russian Roulette as you never know when the metaphorical chamber is full but as long as there are no expensive furnishings around, you're all right.
Nine weeks, nine weeks, sure he's very advanced for nine weeks :-)
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Absence makes the child grow blonder
Bless me readers it has been a week since my last blog. I am finally back to work. Heavy stuff. So heavy that my wonderful wife and beautiful son have taken the opportunity to head home to the West for a few days. I am left to work late and fend for myself. I managed to get down to see them at the weekend but only for 24 hours.
So for the last week I have not seen much of the subject of this blog. It is difficult to blog about someone who you can't see. I could try and explain the depths of separation that I feel. The long days and weeks together and then a simple separation. But this blog is not about me. So I will rely on second hand reports and pictures and my brief impressions of him at the weekend.
He seems very indifferent to the move. Different hands change his nappy and a different shoulder comforts him but it seems that he doesn't notice. He will smile if smiled at and will respond to tickles and the right baby noises. He is in the best hands and his Mum is right there to provide the nurture and nourishment.
The other piece of news is that he is taking an irregular bottle to augment his normal feeds. It is early days but he will take whats given to him only in a very specific set of circumstances. He must not be too hungry, he must be calm, he must be where he wants to be and he must be able to wriggle. It takes a bit of work but if all the things are right then he will drink it down in seconds, even through a special slow breast-like teat.
He has a little rash. It's just a little one but he has sort of pimped the rash by scratching himself. Take two or three light scratches and in a certain light he looks like a zombie child. If he rolls his eyes at the same time then its brainzzzzz for everyone. So I bit his nails. It was a bit weird but if you nip the edge of the nail and then tear sideways the nail rips off along the grain and the extra claws are gone. This also cleans the nails - which are very dirty and make me ashamed.
The first time I did this I got a very funny taste in my mouth. It was like a tasting history of everything that Max had touched since his last bath. The floor, his mouth, milk, clothes, the pram, the car seat, all the people who have held him. It tasted like a combination of milk and baby and clean dirt. But I took it like a man and reckoned that if his hands go into his mouth then I can probably handle it too! Properly shorn, he can scratch as much as he likes without adding to or subtracting from his complexion. At least until next week when he will grow a new set of them.
A note, he is now eight weeks and a few days, that's two months. Two months! Two months! sure he is practically applying for his driving license - slow this train down!
So for the last week I have not seen much of the subject of this blog. It is difficult to blog about someone who you can't see. I could try and explain the depths of separation that I feel. The long days and weeks together and then a simple separation. But this blog is not about me. So I will rely on second hand reports and pictures and my brief impressions of him at the weekend.
He seems very indifferent to the move. Different hands change his nappy and a different shoulder comforts him but it seems that he doesn't notice. He will smile if smiled at and will respond to tickles and the right baby noises. He is in the best hands and his Mum is right there to provide the nurture and nourishment.
The other piece of news is that he is taking an irregular bottle to augment his normal feeds. It is early days but he will take whats given to him only in a very specific set of circumstances. He must not be too hungry, he must be calm, he must be where he wants to be and he must be able to wriggle. It takes a bit of work but if all the things are right then he will drink it down in seconds, even through a special slow breast-like teat.
He has a little rash. It's just a little one but he has sort of pimped the rash by scratching himself. Take two or three light scratches and in a certain light he looks like a zombie child. If he rolls his eyes at the same time then its brainzzzzz for everyone. So I bit his nails. It was a bit weird but if you nip the edge of the nail and then tear sideways the nail rips off along the grain and the extra claws are gone. This also cleans the nails - which are very dirty and make me ashamed.
The first time I did this I got a very funny taste in my mouth. It was like a tasting history of everything that Max had touched since his last bath. The floor, his mouth, milk, clothes, the pram, the car seat, all the people who have held him. It tasted like a combination of milk and baby and clean dirt. But I took it like a man and reckoned that if his hands go into his mouth then I can probably handle it too! Properly shorn, he can scratch as much as he likes without adding to or subtracting from his complexion. At least until next week when he will grow a new set of them.
A note, he is now eight weeks and a few days, that's two months. Two months! Two months! sure he is practically applying for his driving license - slow this train down!
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Long time no blog
Now all two of you avid readers will have noticed a long absence of news about little Max. Well we were on holidays. En vacances en France! Tres bien! I didn't advertise this beforehand because I know for a fact that one of you avid followers is a burglar with my home address, just waiting for advanced notice of a trip and bang - the apartment would be cleared out! Sorry I seem to have slipped through a few tenses there.
So news of Max - well it turns out that there is a little switch in a baby's head that flicks on at about five or six weeks. This activates their personality, motor function and realisation that there is a world and people in it. Max's has flipped. He is of course seven weeks old (and two days) now, and still 'very advanced'.
His switch flipped a couple of weeks ago, just before we went to France. He started to properly look at things. Not just stare blankly into space. He started to recognise his mum and dad and not just flick his head from side to side in search of food. It is very funny to look back at what we thought were smiles. They were just wind, we turn to each other and knowingly smile at our young parent naivety. I wonder if there is a conspiracy of silence amongst older parents to let the young ones have their imaginings and not burst their bubble.
Well if I thought that the things he did were cute, there is a whole world of cute having its six days of creation at the moment. He is smiling, laughing, grabbing for things, looking at his mobile, toys and visitors. He is very nearly properly interactive. Now we are not at the stage of teaching him the alphabet but we have high hopes for an early appearance on 'So you think you can dance' judging by his hyperactive arms and leg movements.
So the real sickeningly cute thing is the smiles for his mum and dad. I was not prepared for this. When he is not troubled by hunger, wind or a nappy and when he sees one of us, his face breaks out in a smile. And it is just us. We two are the two he is happy about - distinctly. Sure in his world - she is the one with the food and he is the one who takes away the waste but i will settle for that level of pigeon-holing if it means a smile like that!
But it's not all joy and glee. I want to recount a very disturbing development that goes along with improved brain function, drool. Lots of drool. The vomit I can handle. That's simple, wipe it up, wash the clothes and move on. The drool is more subtle. It creeps where the vomit assaults. Let me explain. It's the summer. At night I take the astonishing move of discarding the top half of my Dickensian style night attire. When the little man needs soothing in the darkness, up over the shoulder he goes. Rocking backward and forward is the best plan for getting him back to slumberland. Imagine then if you will the sensation of warm but cooling liquid dropping down your exposed back in the middle of the night. Horror stories begin in such a way. At first it feels like an insect is crawling - legs, creeping down. then it feels like an itch, so you scratch and your hand comes away moist. Cue the screaming girl and you have the full picture. I know I should hang a cloth over my shoulder, but lets face the reality of sleep deprivation, at 2:30 am I am incapable of any cleverness, nevermind motor function.
So news of Max - well it turns out that there is a little switch in a baby's head that flicks on at about five or six weeks. This activates their personality, motor function and realisation that there is a world and people in it. Max's has flipped. He is of course seven weeks old (and two days) now, and still 'very advanced'.
His switch flipped a couple of weeks ago, just before we went to France. He started to properly look at things. Not just stare blankly into space. He started to recognise his mum and dad and not just flick his head from side to side in search of food. It is very funny to look back at what we thought were smiles. They were just wind, we turn to each other and knowingly smile at our young parent naivety. I wonder if there is a conspiracy of silence amongst older parents to let the young ones have their imaginings and not burst their bubble.
Well if I thought that the things he did were cute, there is a whole world of cute having its six days of creation at the moment. He is smiling, laughing, grabbing for things, looking at his mobile, toys and visitors. He is very nearly properly interactive. Now we are not at the stage of teaching him the alphabet but we have high hopes for an early appearance on 'So you think you can dance' judging by his hyperactive arms and leg movements.
So the real sickeningly cute thing is the smiles for his mum and dad. I was not prepared for this. When he is not troubled by hunger, wind or a nappy and when he sees one of us, his face breaks out in a smile. And it is just us. We two are the two he is happy about - distinctly. Sure in his world - she is the one with the food and he is the one who takes away the waste but i will settle for that level of pigeon-holing if it means a smile like that!
But it's not all joy and glee. I want to recount a very disturbing development that goes along with improved brain function, drool. Lots of drool. The vomit I can handle. That's simple, wipe it up, wash the clothes and move on. The drool is more subtle. It creeps where the vomit assaults. Let me explain. It's the summer. At night I take the astonishing move of discarding the top half of my Dickensian style night attire. When the little man needs soothing in the darkness, up over the shoulder he goes. Rocking backward and forward is the best plan for getting him back to slumberland. Imagine then if you will the sensation of warm but cooling liquid dropping down your exposed back in the middle of the night. Horror stories begin in such a way. At first it feels like an insect is crawling - legs, creeping down. then it feels like an itch, so you scratch and your hand comes away moist. Cue the screaming girl and you have the full picture. I know I should hang a cloth over my shoulder, but lets face the reality of sleep deprivation, at 2:30 am I am incapable of any cleverness, nevermind motor function.
Tuesday, August 9, 2011
The baby sling
It's lovely to have the young fellow close to you. He likes it too, his preference for falling asleep is on someones chest or shoulder. He is a snuggler. That is wonderful. He is small, he is cute and most of the time he smells very nice so there is no problem. There has been a bit of difficulty at night getting him to settle in his basket. He does prefer the bed with us. We are working with this and he is spending most of his time in the basket. There are times though, like that random 6am feed and the impending 7am wake up that it is just better to get him to sleep quickly rather than face an hour pacing. He had his first dream feed last night where he stayed asleep through the whole process. Sure he is getting on for six weeks now.
The other manifestation of his snuggliness is his fondness for the sling. We have his and hers slings. Ciara has a sort of long indian sari thing with a DVD of instructions on how to tie it. If you don't have a DVD player a group of scouts come along and tie it for you, they each get a badge for their efforts. Mine is the BabyBjorn sort of rucksacky one. It's fantastic. The little guy sits into it and falls asleep. I carry him around and with both hands free can eat food, drink (a cold drink to avoid scalding) and do some typing like I am doing now. It is warm and comfy. It does have a bit of a drawback though.
My son is an independent soul, he likes to look around, he likes to wriggle, he likes to thrash wildly at a moments notice, lets put it bluntly. The collar of the sling accommodates this by being higher than Max's head. There are two straps at the side that enable the head area to be enlarged or made smaller. He still finds a bit of room to headbutt my chest. It's not that he hurts me, the space is small, he is asleep but it's the suddenness of it that is slightly shocking. I will be walking along minding my own business and bang, a blow to the chest, could be a heart attack or a mugging, or just my little man seeking attention. He doesn't even wake up. The first few times it happened I was desperately concerned, I opened the sling, check his head forensically and thought about MRI scans and x-rays. Now I just snigger (i understand that this is wrong). You are reading this thinking that Max headbutts me on a sort of hourly basis and will be a loon by the time he is two. Far from it. It happens very rarely and is all the more shocking for it.
The other thing about the sling is the lack of eye-contact. Max is now at the stage where he is looking straight at us and smiling and gurgling so it is nice to keep him at eye level. The difficulty with this is it makes looking at things really hard as infants are not known for their transparency. The benefits of having both hands free are out weighed by the lack of vision. Soon he will be able to hold his head up by himself and then he can turn around and face the outside world himself.
The other thing about the sling is the girls. Now let me be very clear. I am happily married, very happily, I am in no need of womanly attention. Nor would I act on any if I got it. It's still nice though, to be collaterally noticed for my son. Girls like babies. They flock, cooing, poking, sort of swooning. I do not like to be sexist, but men do not act in this way, nor do they seem to want to. It's not as if there are sub-groups of men in dark rooms cooing over babies in a clucky way away from the harsh glare of the manly men who's peer pressure keeps them from doing it in public.
Girls like babies and they flock around a man who has one. They especially find it cute if you are being independent and caring for the child yourself. Swinge benefits I guess.
So the next big thing is six weeks. This is a sort of Baby Mecca when all sorts of developmental changes are due to happen. Also a massive feeding frenzy growth spurt! Don't worry, I'll keep you posted!
The other manifestation of his snuggliness is his fondness for the sling. We have his and hers slings. Ciara has a sort of long indian sari thing with a DVD of instructions on how to tie it. If you don't have a DVD player a group of scouts come along and tie it for you, they each get a badge for their efforts. Mine is the BabyBjorn sort of rucksacky one. It's fantastic. The little guy sits into it and falls asleep. I carry him around and with both hands free can eat food, drink (a cold drink to avoid scalding) and do some typing like I am doing now. It is warm and comfy. It does have a bit of a drawback though.
My son is an independent soul, he likes to look around, he likes to wriggle, he likes to thrash wildly at a moments notice, lets put it bluntly. The collar of the sling accommodates this by being higher than Max's head. There are two straps at the side that enable the head area to be enlarged or made smaller. He still finds a bit of room to headbutt my chest. It's not that he hurts me, the space is small, he is asleep but it's the suddenness of it that is slightly shocking. I will be walking along minding my own business and bang, a blow to the chest, could be a heart attack or a mugging, or just my little man seeking attention. He doesn't even wake up. The first few times it happened I was desperately concerned, I opened the sling, check his head forensically and thought about MRI scans and x-rays. Now I just snigger (i understand that this is wrong). You are reading this thinking that Max headbutts me on a sort of hourly basis and will be a loon by the time he is two. Far from it. It happens very rarely and is all the more shocking for it.
The other thing about the sling is the lack of eye-contact. Max is now at the stage where he is looking straight at us and smiling and gurgling so it is nice to keep him at eye level. The difficulty with this is it makes looking at things really hard as infants are not known for their transparency. The benefits of having both hands free are out weighed by the lack of vision. Soon he will be able to hold his head up by himself and then he can turn around and face the outside world himself.
The other thing about the sling is the girls. Now let me be very clear. I am happily married, very happily, I am in no need of womanly attention. Nor would I act on any if I got it. It's still nice though, to be collaterally noticed for my son. Girls like babies. They flock, cooing, poking, sort of swooning. I do not like to be sexist, but men do not act in this way, nor do they seem to want to. It's not as if there are sub-groups of men in dark rooms cooing over babies in a clucky way away from the harsh glare of the manly men who's peer pressure keeps them from doing it in public.
Girls like babies and they flock around a man who has one. They especially find it cute if you are being independent and caring for the child yourself. Swinge benefits I guess.
So the next big thing is six weeks. This is a sort of Baby Mecca when all sorts of developmental changes are due to happen. Also a massive feeding frenzy growth spurt! Don't worry, I'll keep you posted!
Saturday, August 6, 2011
Calling Social Services
Babies cry. I know this. I want to be clear that I know this. I also know that they do it for a variety of reasons and sometimes for no reason at all. Babies cry. I get it. There is a simple elimination process, food, nappy, wind. Once you have them out of the way the little fellow normally stops and all is well. But sometimes he just cries.
I suppose that because a great many of us have had children already this fact is know to many. In fact you could call it notorious. So why do I feel like I do? Why do I feel that when I am out minding him and he cries, at any moment someone is going to call Social Services. When Ciara is around it's not a problem. She can feed him (the number one solution) or she can smile that smile and let people know that, you know, babies cry. Me, I'm just an old man with a child in a buggy.
I have stolen the child and that's why he's crying. I have not fed him for weeks, I haven't changed his nappy and he is harbouring a lump of wind as big as a football. That's what runs through my head. The wails of my young child are so plaintive. They go directly through my brain and demand a physical response. When that response is as weak as picking Max up and rocking him and he still wails, I am convinced I am next in the family courts.
Everyone can hear him, there are seasoned parents turning to each other and exchanging knowing glances and whispers. They are commenting on my parenting skills or lack of them. They are taking out their phones and calling the authorities. They are explaining to their own daughters how important it is that they don't marry a man like that fellow. They are coming over and offering advice as a ruse to see the child and make sure he isn't physically harmed. They are....
Then he stops crying. My heart rate returns to normal, the sound of approaching sirens recedes and the man in the hi-vis jacket turns down another street. Panic over. Run back to Mum for a good feed and a nappy change.
I suppose that because a great many of us have had children already this fact is know to many. In fact you could call it notorious. So why do I feel like I do? Why do I feel that when I am out minding him and he cries, at any moment someone is going to call Social Services. When Ciara is around it's not a problem. She can feed him (the number one solution) or she can smile that smile and let people know that, you know, babies cry. Me, I'm just an old man with a child in a buggy.
I have stolen the child and that's why he's crying. I have not fed him for weeks, I haven't changed his nappy and he is harbouring a lump of wind as big as a football. That's what runs through my head. The wails of my young child are so plaintive. They go directly through my brain and demand a physical response. When that response is as weak as picking Max up and rocking him and he still wails, I am convinced I am next in the family courts.
Everyone can hear him, there are seasoned parents turning to each other and exchanging knowing glances and whispers. They are commenting on my parenting skills or lack of them. They are taking out their phones and calling the authorities. They are explaining to their own daughters how important it is that they don't marry a man like that fellow. They are coming over and offering advice as a ruse to see the child and make sure he isn't physically harmed. They are....
Then he stops crying. My heart rate returns to normal, the sound of approaching sirens recedes and the man in the hi-vis jacket turns down another street. Panic over. Run back to Mum for a good feed and a nappy change.
Wednesday, August 3, 2011
An inordinate facination with baby poo
Don't let the title of this blog put you off. This is a serious discourse on one of my young child's three main occupations. I'm not really sure that anyone has truly explored the diversity of baby poo. It is quite extraordinary. It's like playing a game of Russian Roulette with a loaded canon.
Just to satisfy those who really want to know, Max is doing really well. He is gaining weight and height and his attentive grandparents and parents who are monitoring him on a second to second basis pronounce all well. I still think he is the best in the world and would kill to protect him and lay down my life to save him. Fine, mush out of the way, back to the fecal discourse.
I mentioned before, the various colours. These have settled down into a sort of muddy brown colour. Do you know when you were young and you were using water based paints and you had washed the brush after each paint colour. The shade of brown that the cleaning water went, that is the colour of Max's poo. I refer to it as poo, because that is the name that I think suits it best. Feces is fine but it sounds far to clinical for this comedy. Shit is very coarse and not at all appropriate when referring to a child. So poo it is. The child poos.
Now most of the nappies are soiled in a very light way. This is fine, a quick flip of a cotton ball or baby wipe and it is all forgotten. The lad still lacks continence and little else can be expected. Some days however you get a real doozie.
They are pure comedy. The system is so ridiculous as to be comic. What intelligent designer would arrange things this way is beyond me. These nappies smell, feel and look like the Marx brothers are in charge of waste disposal in the human design shop. Let me tell you more.
The other day, Max had a lightly dirty but very wet nappy. I changed him on a new easy clean mat on a bed. This meant that he created a little easy clean mat bowl. That was fine he was gurgling away happily. I turned around to get a new nappy and as I did heard a baby farting noise behind me. I smiled to myself because it is a well known fact that farts are very funny to men. The smile was very quickly wiped off my face as I turned to see my little boy paddling in a little pond of poo. Oh Dear God, his legs were brown, his thighs were brown, his whole lower body was brown. There was no cotton ball or baby wipe that could soak up this desperate deluge. We grabbed him and ran for the sink. As I ran little drops ran from his legs to the bed sheets, the floor and most horribly my feet.
The sink washed him clean. The easy clean mat turned out to be exactly that. It turns out that our son is also the easy clean version. The clothes, the bed sheets, the floor and my feet, were less easy. I look back and laugh at that image of the little hippo wallowing in his little brown pool.
The second and no less dramatic incident I would like to relate is that of the inflating nappy. One of the real challenges of childcare is knowing when to change a nappy. Sometimes it is very obvious, the lingering smell that would curl your nose hairs. That's fine. Sometimes the smell is merely a fart and that's another nappy wasted and another slice of the rain forest irrevocably ripped asunder. Some other times the little fellow's face goes bright red and his brow furrows just like an old man who has not had his bran intake for the week and is in need of a good dose of concentrated prune juice.
Other times it is very obvious. Like Tuesday... He had just fed, he was happy, he was cooing gently and he farted. My hand was under his nappy at the time and I felt it inflate, I felt the air find an outlet along his back and I felt it deflate. At least I thought it was air. The brown stain that spread along his back made a lie of this thought. I whipped off his baby-gro and vest and was greeted by a war zone of a dorsal area. His poo had exploded up his back and to his neck and behind his ears. Small flecks were found at the tips of his south-most hairs. I looked in horror, I looked in awe. I laid him down and stood up and clapped!
Thank all that is good, poo is like gold, it can be spread very thin without loosing its colour. As such it can be easily cleaned off. A bath that evening saw to the last of it and though the clothes will never be the same again, the young fellow will always have that achievement under, over and all around his belt!
Just to satisfy those who really want to know, Max is doing really well. He is gaining weight and height and his attentive grandparents and parents who are monitoring him on a second to second basis pronounce all well. I still think he is the best in the world and would kill to protect him and lay down my life to save him. Fine, mush out of the way, back to the fecal discourse.
I mentioned before, the various colours. These have settled down into a sort of muddy brown colour. Do you know when you were young and you were using water based paints and you had washed the brush after each paint colour. The shade of brown that the cleaning water went, that is the colour of Max's poo. I refer to it as poo, because that is the name that I think suits it best. Feces is fine but it sounds far to clinical for this comedy. Shit is very coarse and not at all appropriate when referring to a child. So poo it is. The child poos.
Now most of the nappies are soiled in a very light way. This is fine, a quick flip of a cotton ball or baby wipe and it is all forgotten. The lad still lacks continence and little else can be expected. Some days however you get a real doozie.
They are pure comedy. The system is so ridiculous as to be comic. What intelligent designer would arrange things this way is beyond me. These nappies smell, feel and look like the Marx brothers are in charge of waste disposal in the human design shop. Let me tell you more.
The other day, Max had a lightly dirty but very wet nappy. I changed him on a new easy clean mat on a bed. This meant that he created a little easy clean mat bowl. That was fine he was gurgling away happily. I turned around to get a new nappy and as I did heard a baby farting noise behind me. I smiled to myself because it is a well known fact that farts are very funny to men. The smile was very quickly wiped off my face as I turned to see my little boy paddling in a little pond of poo. Oh Dear God, his legs were brown, his thighs were brown, his whole lower body was brown. There was no cotton ball or baby wipe that could soak up this desperate deluge. We grabbed him and ran for the sink. As I ran little drops ran from his legs to the bed sheets, the floor and most horribly my feet.
The sink washed him clean. The easy clean mat turned out to be exactly that. It turns out that our son is also the easy clean version. The clothes, the bed sheets, the floor and my feet, were less easy. I look back and laugh at that image of the little hippo wallowing in his little brown pool.
The second and no less dramatic incident I would like to relate is that of the inflating nappy. One of the real challenges of childcare is knowing when to change a nappy. Sometimes it is very obvious, the lingering smell that would curl your nose hairs. That's fine. Sometimes the smell is merely a fart and that's another nappy wasted and another slice of the rain forest irrevocably ripped asunder. Some other times the little fellow's face goes bright red and his brow furrows just like an old man who has not had his bran intake for the week and is in need of a good dose of concentrated prune juice.
Other times it is very obvious. Like Tuesday... He had just fed, he was happy, he was cooing gently and he farted. My hand was under his nappy at the time and I felt it inflate, I felt the air find an outlet along his back and I felt it deflate. At least I thought it was air. The brown stain that spread along his back made a lie of this thought. I whipped off his baby-gro and vest and was greeted by a war zone of a dorsal area. His poo had exploded up his back and to his neck and behind his ears. Small flecks were found at the tips of his south-most hairs. I looked in horror, I looked in awe. I laid him down and stood up and clapped!
Thank all that is good, poo is like gold, it can be spread very thin without loosing its colour. As such it can be easily cleaned off. A bath that evening saw to the last of it and though the clothes will never be the same again, the young fellow will always have that achievement under, over and all around his belt!
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Night Time Hallucinations
So Max is doing really well, feeding, pooping, sleeping, crying. Everything a baby should. Parents still proud and both sets of Grandparents, prouder. I thought that I'd be sort of settling down to a revelation equilibrium at this stage, yet he does something truely astonishing every five minutes or so.
His first awake proper smile in response to us, a full bodied laugh in his sleep and interested glances at high contrast pictures. These are just a few of his most magnificent achievements. We have noted his consistent rise in weight using the Wii and he even has his own little Mii complete with babygro. So full steam ahead!
What I wanted to mention today is the night time dream world that I now inhabit. Max feeds well up until about midnight and then has between three and four hours sleep. This means he wakes up with a full nappy and an empty stomach at about four AM. I obviously can't feed him, so my job is to change him and try at least a little bit to keep Ciara company while she is feeing him. The interruption to sleep I can handle, up I get, dodge the pee and ruturn a clean child to his mother for a night-time snack. I dutifully write down the start time of the feed and contribute a few comforting and supportive words. Ciara has also been roused from sleep and neither of us are the most conversational at that time. So we sit in the low light and Max feeds. I do not have an eager pair of gums latched on to one of my nipples, sucking literally for dear life, so I fade, fade, fade and eventually sleep. Then I have a little dream, then I wake up, then I fade and half dream and then wake, then ....
This quick change between sleeping, half sleeping and waking makes for the ideal environment for a good dose of hallucinations. Colours spiral, images flash, there are abductors just outside the door. There are spiders waiting to eat my wife and son, levying me to take the rap. There are pages and pages of documentation to fill out to get soup from the shops. The apartment has grown and has two levels with a snake pit under the stairs and a mezzanine floor with a cocktail lounge. These are all perfectly good dreams, they are standard enough fair. The mixing of awake concerns with sleepy exaggeration. But that is what they are and what they should stay. Unfortunately these days they are spilling over into reality. I walk with fear from the bedroom, waiting for the four storey drop from the door onto spikes. I spout complete drivel to Ciara like "we need to get a grow pot for the baby" or "I'm going to get the Facebook".
None of this has become a problem yet. I am still functioning, I haven't changed Max's nappy and wrapped him in tin-foil or anything, but it's only a matter of time. On the other hand I could get used to all of this and the hallucinations will stop. That'd would be a little bit of a pity. I know I would be more useful to my family and less likely to attack imaginary intruders with the fire extinguisher, but it would be a pity. Some people would pay really good money to some very dodgy characters for the same experience. I have it for free. The whole trip, the 'doors of perception', 'the whole of the moon', 'the path to enlightenment' or the 'long dark tea-time of the soul'. Sure I could become a transcendental guru. But Max doesn't need a hippy daddy.
I have a limit though. If any of my students make an appearance, I'm going to have to reconsider! I have enough of them during the day.
His first awake proper smile in response to us, a full bodied laugh in his sleep and interested glances at high contrast pictures. These are just a few of his most magnificent achievements. We have noted his consistent rise in weight using the Wii and he even has his own little Mii complete with babygro. So full steam ahead!
What I wanted to mention today is the night time dream world that I now inhabit. Max feeds well up until about midnight and then has between three and four hours sleep. This means he wakes up with a full nappy and an empty stomach at about four AM. I obviously can't feed him, so my job is to change him and try at least a little bit to keep Ciara company while she is feeing him. The interruption to sleep I can handle, up I get, dodge the pee and ruturn a clean child to his mother for a night-time snack. I dutifully write down the start time of the feed and contribute a few comforting and supportive words. Ciara has also been roused from sleep and neither of us are the most conversational at that time. So we sit in the low light and Max feeds. I do not have an eager pair of gums latched on to one of my nipples, sucking literally for dear life, so I fade, fade, fade and eventually sleep. Then I have a little dream, then I wake up, then I fade and half dream and then wake, then ....
This quick change between sleeping, half sleeping and waking makes for the ideal environment for a good dose of hallucinations. Colours spiral, images flash, there are abductors just outside the door. There are spiders waiting to eat my wife and son, levying me to take the rap. There are pages and pages of documentation to fill out to get soup from the shops. The apartment has grown and has two levels with a snake pit under the stairs and a mezzanine floor with a cocktail lounge. These are all perfectly good dreams, they are standard enough fair. The mixing of awake concerns with sleepy exaggeration. But that is what they are and what they should stay. Unfortunately these days they are spilling over into reality. I walk with fear from the bedroom, waiting for the four storey drop from the door onto spikes. I spout complete drivel to Ciara like "we need to get a grow pot for the baby" or "I'm going to get the Facebook".
None of this has become a problem yet. I am still functioning, I haven't changed Max's nappy and wrapped him in tin-foil or anything, but it's only a matter of time. On the other hand I could get used to all of this and the hallucinations will stop. That'd would be a little bit of a pity. I know I would be more useful to my family and less likely to attack imaginary intruders with the fire extinguisher, but it would be a pity. Some people would pay really good money to some very dodgy characters for the same experience. I have it for free. The whole trip, the 'doors of perception', 'the whole of the moon', 'the path to enlightenment' or the 'long dark tea-time of the soul'. Sure I could become a transcendental guru. But Max doesn't need a hippy daddy.
I have a limit though. If any of my students make an appearance, I'm going to have to reconsider! I have enough of them during the day.
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Very Advanced, Very Advanced
Every new baby is a unique sunbeam with all of his or her own abilities, skills, intelligences and idiosyncrasies. That's how we feel about Max. Whatever he does that's his best. Whatever he does next, then that's his new best. We don't compare him to any of his peers, we don't check up what he should be achieving and when. We don't obsessively research each developmental milestone and cheer when he passes it.
LIES - of course we do! I'm at least a half-scientist and Ciara is a proper medical scientist. If we didn't at least wonder about these things there would be something wrong with us. There is however so much vagueness about these targets that we can hold our heads and Max's head (we still have to hold it - he won't be able to until at least six or eight weeks) high, no matter what he does and when he does it.
A phrase that I have often heard used, is that a child is very advanced for his or her age. Now I am part of that cult. Our child is very advanced, very advanced. At least that's what we're telling people.
The one thing that wasn't going well was his weight. Again with the precision and obsession with figures. When breast feeding, its impossible to know exactly how much he's eating. There are the requisite numbers of nappies and burps and suckles, but the scales don't lie. With a birth weight of 3.63kg, a subsequent and normal drop to 3.31kg after the first week and then a climb back to 3.6Kg weight was looking very good. Then last week Max was more of a supermodel than a model child. He was weighed at 3.55Kg. Our hearts fell because he was off the graph of greatness, the scale of superness and he certainly wasn't very advanced, he wasn't advanced at all. Again, there is wooliness on the figures. The Doctor spoke of margins of error, different scales, nothing to worry about. We just need to get a second opinion.
So today we made another long walk down to the Public Health Nurse and her accurate scales. Before you make assumptions about whether this weight-gate means that Max is not very advanced, lets look at his achievements. These are the listed "should be able to..." targets from Heidi Murkoff's "What to Expect - The First Year".
Baby should be able to...
Lift head briefly when on stomach on a flat surface - CHECK
Focus on a face - CHECK
Baby will probably be able to...
respond to a bell in some way, such as startling, crying, quieting - CHECK
Baby may possibly be able to...
lift head 45 degrees when on stomach - CHECK
He can also push himself across the blanket during Tummy Time, fill a nappy with extreme force, make a cooing noise, cry like a maniac and steal the heart of anyone who meets him. Very advanced, very advanced.
With all of these milestones in our pockets we made the second long walk down to the Public Health Nurse. He looked so scrawny lying there with no nappy or baby clothes on, in the dish of the scales.
The night before I had bet a bottle of beer on 3.8kg, but this was just optimism. The nice nurse pressed the button and the lines on the scales flashed.
We were confident that this was going to be definitive. The scales had just come back from calibration. That meant that it was as accurate as it could possibly be. This was going to be definitive.
Is the suspense built up enough yet? He weighed in at 4.1Kg. That's right, he's a fatty. A very advanced fatty.
Forget normal, forget being regular. He is advanced, very advanced, very, very advanced.
LIES - of course we do! I'm at least a half-scientist and Ciara is a proper medical scientist. If we didn't at least wonder about these things there would be something wrong with us. There is however so much vagueness about these targets that we can hold our heads and Max's head (we still have to hold it - he won't be able to until at least six or eight weeks) high, no matter what he does and when he does it.
A phrase that I have often heard used, is that a child is very advanced for his or her age. Now I am part of that cult. Our child is very advanced, very advanced. At least that's what we're telling people.
The one thing that wasn't going well was his weight. Again with the precision and obsession with figures. When breast feeding, its impossible to know exactly how much he's eating. There are the requisite numbers of nappies and burps and suckles, but the scales don't lie. With a birth weight of 3.63kg, a subsequent and normal drop to 3.31kg after the first week and then a climb back to 3.6Kg weight was looking very good. Then last week Max was more of a supermodel than a model child. He was weighed at 3.55Kg. Our hearts fell because he was off the graph of greatness, the scale of superness and he certainly wasn't very advanced, he wasn't advanced at all. Again, there is wooliness on the figures. The Doctor spoke of margins of error, different scales, nothing to worry about. We just need to get a second opinion.
So today we made another long walk down to the Public Health Nurse and her accurate scales. Before you make assumptions about whether this weight-gate means that Max is not very advanced, lets look at his achievements. These are the listed "should be able to..." targets from Heidi Murkoff's "What to Expect - The First Year".
Baby should be able to...
Lift head briefly when on stomach on a flat surface - CHECK
Focus on a face - CHECK
Baby will probably be able to...
respond to a bell in some way, such as startling, crying, quieting - CHECK
Baby may possibly be able to...
lift head 45 degrees when on stomach - CHECK
He can also push himself across the blanket during Tummy Time, fill a nappy with extreme force, make a cooing noise, cry like a maniac and steal the heart of anyone who meets him. Very advanced, very advanced.
With all of these milestones in our pockets we made the second long walk down to the Public Health Nurse. He looked so scrawny lying there with no nappy or baby clothes on, in the dish of the scales.
The night before I had bet a bottle of beer on 3.8kg, but this was just optimism. The nice nurse pressed the button and the lines on the scales flashed.
We were confident that this was going to be definitive. The scales had just come back from calibration. That meant that it was as accurate as it could possibly be. This was going to be definitive.
Is the suspense built up enough yet? He weighed in at 4.1Kg. That's right, he's a fatty. A very advanced fatty.
Forget normal, forget being regular. He is advanced, very advanced, very, very advanced.
Sunday, July 24, 2011
Red Tape
Three weeks ago we got a lovely new son. We have seen him every day and I can warrant that he is alive and that he is lovely and perfect and a wholesome bundle of burpy, farty fun! The offices of this fine state of ours require a little more proof however. Our experience of the red tape began in the hospital.
A very grumpy lady stormed into the room and took a whole load of details. The usual, dates of birth, names, our names, our mothers' maiden names, addresses and general stuff. Her job, her only job, her one and only job, is to record these details from all new mothers and send them to the Registrar's office. This process takes two weeks and the lady told us that we shouldn't try and do anything further for at least two weeks, did you hear me? Two weeks.
We thanked the nice lady, she left. We got on with bringing up our little man and waited patiently, for fourteen days.
I don't really know why we couldn't have put the details into a computer and had a doctor sign off on the fact that there actually was a child. It would certainly save a salary or two. Anyway, I traveled to the Registrar's Office in Lombard St. checked in and waited. The group of people in that room was a perfect snap-shot of this country right now. There was a family with three children, the mother was on the phone constantly chasing job applications. An African mother consoled her three year-old while some Irish young mothers compared notes and buggy models. The couple of Eastern European families over by the other wall, were calmly dealing with their very well behaved kids.
The doors opened and discharged the newly registered parents, and the queue moved along by one. I was impressed at how many people had all of the information required. You have to have proof of address, PPS numbers and marriage certificates if married outside Ireland. Not one person was turned away for not having the correct documentation. My name was called and I was brought into a small room with a computer and a long haired gentleman. He stoically took all of the details again and cross checked them against my forms, computer records and his own eyes. He pronounced that all was in order. I signed my name on a digital pad and he pressed print. Two minutes and sixteen euro later, I held two Birth Certificates for Max. It used to be that the lady in the Hospital did all that on paper and sent the details at the end of the month to the Registrar. Now the lady in the hospital could do it on a tablet PC and print and email it all off before she left the room. I'm sure having that power would make her far less grumpy.
The following day the State had gotten around to issuing him with a PPS number and now the fun really started. Now we could apply for the local National Schools, we did that. Now we could start the next step on the process, we had done the domestic, now lets try the foreign.
Passports are still the golden ticket when moving countries and we might travel this summer so Max needs a passport. That's easy enough with a Birth Certificate, a PPS Number and a friendly Garda who can sign off on it all.
The tricky bit is the passport photo. The conditions are strict. Neutral white background, no limbs in the picture, both ears in the picture, eyes open and looking directly at the camera. To get a 3 week old to achieve this is no easy task. We laid Max out on a rug and started snapping. I held the child, Ciara pressed the shutter button and I whipped away my hands at the last minute. It took sixty five shots to get it right and I think a decent bout of wind helped us no end. Thank god he gets a new passport in three years. His future self will have changed so much :-)
A quick email of the photo off to Cons Cameras in town, and the passport versions were collected the following afternoon. It's late, I'm off to the passport office tomorrow and I will wrap up this post here. Beware red tape and hope that the passport office like the photos as much as we do!
A very grumpy lady stormed into the room and took a whole load of details. The usual, dates of birth, names, our names, our mothers' maiden names, addresses and general stuff. Her job, her only job, her one and only job, is to record these details from all new mothers and send them to the Registrar's office. This process takes two weeks and the lady told us that we shouldn't try and do anything further for at least two weeks, did you hear me? Two weeks.
We thanked the nice lady, she left. We got on with bringing up our little man and waited patiently, for fourteen days.
I don't really know why we couldn't have put the details into a computer and had a doctor sign off on the fact that there actually was a child. It would certainly save a salary or two. Anyway, I traveled to the Registrar's Office in Lombard St. checked in and waited. The group of people in that room was a perfect snap-shot of this country right now. There was a family with three children, the mother was on the phone constantly chasing job applications. An African mother consoled her three year-old while some Irish young mothers compared notes and buggy models. The couple of Eastern European families over by the other wall, were calmly dealing with their very well behaved kids.
The doors opened and discharged the newly registered parents, and the queue moved along by one. I was impressed at how many people had all of the information required. You have to have proof of address, PPS numbers and marriage certificates if married outside Ireland. Not one person was turned away for not having the correct documentation. My name was called and I was brought into a small room with a computer and a long haired gentleman. He stoically took all of the details again and cross checked them against my forms, computer records and his own eyes. He pronounced that all was in order. I signed my name on a digital pad and he pressed print. Two minutes and sixteen euro later, I held two Birth Certificates for Max. It used to be that the lady in the Hospital did all that on paper and sent the details at the end of the month to the Registrar. Now the lady in the hospital could do it on a tablet PC and print and email it all off before she left the room. I'm sure having that power would make her far less grumpy.
The following day the State had gotten around to issuing him with a PPS number and now the fun really started. Now we could apply for the local National Schools, we did that. Now we could start the next step on the process, we had done the domestic, now lets try the foreign.
Passports are still the golden ticket when moving countries and we might travel this summer so Max needs a passport. That's easy enough with a Birth Certificate, a PPS Number and a friendly Garda who can sign off on it all.
The tricky bit is the passport photo. The conditions are strict. Neutral white background, no limbs in the picture, both ears in the picture, eyes open and looking directly at the camera. To get a 3 week old to achieve this is no easy task. We laid Max out on a rug and started snapping. I held the child, Ciara pressed the shutter button and I whipped away my hands at the last minute. It took sixty five shots to get it right and I think a decent bout of wind helped us no end. Thank god he gets a new passport in three years. His future self will have changed so much :-)
A quick email of the photo off to Cons Cameras in town, and the passport versions were collected the following afternoon. It's late, I'm off to the passport office tomorrow and I will wrap up this post here. Beware red tape and hope that the passport office like the photos as much as we do!
Friday, July 22, 2011
Faeces and Faces
I mentioned in a previous post the many faces of Max. There were colours and metals. They continue to amuse and baffle. They continue to make my life a mystery and a wonderful rainbow of emotions, colours and noises. We are trying to learn what each one means, the nuance of each and whether its long term effects are serious. Are we damaging his ability to perform higher maths by allowing that slightly constipated look to remain a moment or two longer? Are we pandering to his inner manipulator and allowing him run amok?
Well, the various books that we have read say that you can't spoil the little fellow yet. So we are just letting him do his thing. We are trying not to fix the weird looks, we are just trying to decipher them. It is hard not to want to stop him crying. But when the trinity of solutions has been completed; feeding, changing and burping, and he is still crying or making another crazy face then we learn the benefit of patience. There is nothing else we can really do. We can love him and squeeze him and hold him and rock him. It might work but he is more than likely going to make a new face and wait for a few minutes and start crying again.
It does appear that a two and a half week old's method of dealing with the millions of developments in its brain, body and all around it, is to cry. We have just got to get used to it. Apparently I used to cry for three hours each evening when I was his age, like father, like son. We will get used to it, we will get used to it, we will get used to it - do you think if I say it often enough it will happen?
Just a quick side-bar. Max's hands are a perfect compliment to his faces. They rest either side of his head when he is asleep, they fly out from his body when he is startled. There is a mix of hand in and hand out when he is doing anything else. It's like semaphore. It's like he is signaling to passing ships or planes that his parents aren't really treating him all that well and haven't worked out what his faces mean yet!
So he is a bit of a crier and a bit of a mystery, that's fine, we'll deal with that. Besides we have the comic relief of his nappies to keep us amused. I wrote before about his peeing and how funny that is. We have nailed that issue (it was getting boring). The solution is to use a piece of already dirty clothes as a pee absorber - full credit to forthelongrun for this! So where now is the comic relief? As the title suggests it's in the fecal matter. I never imagined that something so clearly based on an homogeneous input could have such a panoply of output conditions. Forty shades of dirty green, fifty shades of mucky brown and textures ranging from nutty surprise to smooth hi-gloss finish. The nappies are a god-send. They absorb everything and the remainder can easily be scooped up by the cotton balls. The cotton balls, by the way, stay together better when wiped in the same direction. What glorious systems inside the little fellow's gut convert lovely white milk into slurry coloured crazy glue? Well Lord bless those processes because they make me look forward to opening the nappy fasteners so that I can grin and grimace in equal measure.
Then after the nappy is changed, after the clothes are back on, when his eyes are closed and he is gently snoring. When the crying is over and when his mother is happy, then he is at his most beautiful. He is beautiful when he is crying but it is a terrible beauty.
Well, the various books that we have read say that you can't spoil the little fellow yet. So we are just letting him do his thing. We are trying not to fix the weird looks, we are just trying to decipher them. It is hard not to want to stop him crying. But when the trinity of solutions has been completed; feeding, changing and burping, and he is still crying or making another crazy face then we learn the benefit of patience. There is nothing else we can really do. We can love him and squeeze him and hold him and rock him. It might work but he is more than likely going to make a new face and wait for a few minutes and start crying again.
It does appear that a two and a half week old's method of dealing with the millions of developments in its brain, body and all around it, is to cry. We have just got to get used to it. Apparently I used to cry for three hours each evening when I was his age, like father, like son. We will get used to it, we will get used to it, we will get used to it - do you think if I say it often enough it will happen?
Just a quick side-bar. Max's hands are a perfect compliment to his faces. They rest either side of his head when he is asleep, they fly out from his body when he is startled. There is a mix of hand in and hand out when he is doing anything else. It's like semaphore. It's like he is signaling to passing ships or planes that his parents aren't really treating him all that well and haven't worked out what his faces mean yet!
So he is a bit of a crier and a bit of a mystery, that's fine, we'll deal with that. Besides we have the comic relief of his nappies to keep us amused. I wrote before about his peeing and how funny that is. We have nailed that issue (it was getting boring). The solution is to use a piece of already dirty clothes as a pee absorber - full credit to forthelongrun for this! So where now is the comic relief? As the title suggests it's in the fecal matter. I never imagined that something so clearly based on an homogeneous input could have such a panoply of output conditions. Forty shades of dirty green, fifty shades of mucky brown and textures ranging from nutty surprise to smooth hi-gloss finish. The nappies are a god-send. They absorb everything and the remainder can easily be scooped up by the cotton balls. The cotton balls, by the way, stay together better when wiped in the same direction. What glorious systems inside the little fellow's gut convert lovely white milk into slurry coloured crazy glue? Well Lord bless those processes because they make me look forward to opening the nappy fasteners so that I can grin and grimace in equal measure.
Then after the nappy is changed, after the clothes are back on, when his eyes are closed and he is gently snoring. When the crying is over and when his mother is happy, then he is at his most beautiful. He is beautiful when he is crying but it is a terrible beauty.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Two weeks and counting
So here we are at the two week plus marker. Max is thriving and his parents are coping, admirably, in their own humble estimation. There are a few things to record at this stage and I'll try and do them justice.
The first thing I would love to remember are Max's facial expressions in his early days. They are wild. They range from the now infamous 'windy smile' to the 'whistley pout' to the 'skeptical wince' to the 'generic frown'. It's not easy for a two week old child to maintain such a varied portfolio of looks. If Zoolander had Blue Steel, our young Max has Green Aluminium, Brown Bronze, Green Copper and Red Sodium. All classic looks, I'm sure you'll agree. The real skill is knowing what each look means, if it means anything. When they are combined with a cry, the message is clear, it's one of three; hungry, dirty, windy. However there are about twenty different looks and mixed with about four different cries there are eighty different conditions. I'm not sure I have that many states of mind and I'm 936 times his age (give or take).
What adds an extra element to all of this is the flailing of his arms and the kicking of his legs. There is no need for gyms or treadmills or spin classes. He is hardcore and not afraid to show it. All this exercise must be matched with appropriate levels of food intake, this can be the struggle. The extreme of this was last Friday and today. A suspected growth spurt or difference between flow and demand.
If the young man feels hungrier than the food supply supplies then he will suckle more frequently and will let you know at great volume. The more he feeds the more the glands produce. Sometimes the two get out of sync and this leads to monumental hissy fits. It's called cluster feeding and is nature's way of getting one system to match another. It could also be a growth spurt but I like the supply and demand idea better. He's not ready for a growth spurt, sure he's only a little fella.
Another great milestone has been passed with Tummy Time. I can't recall if I have mentioned this phenomenon of the modern age or not yet, but here it is. The tragedy of cot death has meant that kids now sleep on their backs. That's brilliant. The drawback is a generation of kids who spent no time on their stomach's and who can't crawl. So the invention of 'Tummy Time'.
For five or six minutes a day, little Max is put on a blanket on the floor and he flails around. We shout supportive slogans from the sidelines and try and get him to move his head and flex his muscles. So he turned his head from left and right today. He lifted his body and turned his head from side to side. He also pushed his way across the blanket. Now I am no child developmentalist but that sounds like a crawl to me. I didn't crawl until I was twelve months old, so already my child out-strips me. I have a feeling this will be a long repeated pattern.
The first thing I would love to remember are Max's facial expressions in his early days. They are wild. They range from the now infamous 'windy smile' to the 'whistley pout' to the 'skeptical wince' to the 'generic frown'. It's not easy for a two week old child to maintain such a varied portfolio of looks. If Zoolander had Blue Steel, our young Max has Green Aluminium, Brown Bronze, Green Copper and Red Sodium. All classic looks, I'm sure you'll agree. The real skill is knowing what each look means, if it means anything. When they are combined with a cry, the message is clear, it's one of three; hungry, dirty, windy. However there are about twenty different looks and mixed with about four different cries there are eighty different conditions. I'm not sure I have that many states of mind and I'm 936 times his age (give or take).
What adds an extra element to all of this is the flailing of his arms and the kicking of his legs. There is no need for gyms or treadmills or spin classes. He is hardcore and not afraid to show it. All this exercise must be matched with appropriate levels of food intake, this can be the struggle. The extreme of this was last Friday and today. A suspected growth spurt or difference between flow and demand.
If the young man feels hungrier than the food supply supplies then he will suckle more frequently and will let you know at great volume. The more he feeds the more the glands produce. Sometimes the two get out of sync and this leads to monumental hissy fits. It's called cluster feeding and is nature's way of getting one system to match another. It could also be a growth spurt but I like the supply and demand idea better. He's not ready for a growth spurt, sure he's only a little fella.
Another great milestone has been passed with Tummy Time. I can't recall if I have mentioned this phenomenon of the modern age or not yet, but here it is. The tragedy of cot death has meant that kids now sleep on their backs. That's brilliant. The drawback is a generation of kids who spent no time on their stomach's and who can't crawl. So the invention of 'Tummy Time'.
For five or six minutes a day, little Max is put on a blanket on the floor and he flails around. We shout supportive slogans from the sidelines and try and get him to move his head and flex his muscles. So he turned his head from left and right today. He lifted his body and turned his head from side to side. He also pushed his way across the blanket. Now I am no child developmentalist but that sounds like a crawl to me. I didn't crawl until I was twelve months old, so already my child out-strips me. I have a feeling this will be a long repeated pattern.
Friday, July 15, 2011
The long night's journey into day
Nights are tougher than days. This is a matter of social, political and historic fact. More people die at night, your biological cycle is at its lower ebb and well you are supposed to be asleep. When you are not asleep, all is not well. There are a couple of exceptions to this, partying and sex. But lets assume that neither of these two activities are going to feature in this blog, unless we are talking 9 or so months ago.
At the moment little Max is not simply putting his head down at 9pm and re-emerging from his Moses basket at 9am. I emphasise 'is not'. Now this is not unusual, this is not unexpected. All of the books say it will be this way. All of the ante-natal classes say it will be this way. All of the Grandparents, friends, aunties and uncles say it will be this way. They all snigger and poke each other in the ribs and you can see them casting their minds back to when they were there. They remember it with a sort of fondness, more for the leaving of it than the living of it. All of the above have fantastic advice on how to deal with the aforementioned wakefullness but they are all doing it from a slight distance. They are not doing it right then, right there, right in the middle of the night.
So I can only tell you what it is like from my perspective. Its like a crazy dream. Ciara has to be on mental high alert. At any moment she can be called into lacteal action. She must be ready to jump from sleep, straight into full activity. I must be ready to write the beginning time of the feed, record the total time of the feed and change a nappy. At this stage I can do all of this without waking. This has led to some amusing incidents. Two nights ago I jumped from the bed and Ciara, a little shocked asked 'what was I doing?'. I responded that I was 'going to get the thing'. 'What thing?' Was the immediate response, 'The thing' was my witty comeback. My comedian wife pithy response was 'I'm gonna need a noun john'. Sadly the only noun that I could gather from my somnolent mind was 'The Facebook'. I also play a very silly sleepy game. Its called - Time The Pee. The premise is straightforward. Babies' bottoms are cleaned by wet cotton balls followed by dry cotton balls. When a warm babies bottom is met by a cold wet cotton ball there is a special reflex reaction. The bladder empties. Its a randomly selected directional fountain. It can hit walls, floors, chairs, faces but most annoyingly, Max's clothes (which then have to be changed - don't worry we change him every day anyway but don't like too much change). So I play a game, from when the old nappy is opened I count, one one thousand, two one thousand ... This was going great, we all had a great time, me counting, him peeing. I was wasting a lot of nappies and changing a lot of clothes. Its a great game, but it has to end. I think it's bad for the environment. He averaged seven seconds by the way.
So it's all fun and games for me. It's very different for Ciara and Max. They have to deal with the Russian Roulette of hunger and feeding. Little Max has to grow his young mind at an alarming rate while dealing with the mundane biological necessities. Ciara has to cope with an absurd convention that says we should do business during the day and sleep at night. So she and he wakes up every couple of hours and they join in the merry feeding dance. This is a real physical activity for both of them and one that leaves them tired. They were already tired. Now they are tireder. They are tireder than tired they get to 9am exhausted and the day begins.
Evolution is silly. It turns day into night and turns night into a curious mix of insomnia and absurd activity. There are strange things about bringing up children. Nightimes are the worst.
At the moment little Max is not simply putting his head down at 9pm and re-emerging from his Moses basket at 9am. I emphasise 'is not'. Now this is not unusual, this is not unexpected. All of the books say it will be this way. All of the ante-natal classes say it will be this way. All of the Grandparents, friends, aunties and uncles say it will be this way. They all snigger and poke each other in the ribs and you can see them casting their minds back to when they were there. They remember it with a sort of fondness, more for the leaving of it than the living of it. All of the above have fantastic advice on how to deal with the aforementioned wakefullness but they are all doing it from a slight distance. They are not doing it right then, right there, right in the middle of the night.
So I can only tell you what it is like from my perspective. Its like a crazy dream. Ciara has to be on mental high alert. At any moment she can be called into lacteal action. She must be ready to jump from sleep, straight into full activity. I must be ready to write the beginning time of the feed, record the total time of the feed and change a nappy. At this stage I can do all of this without waking. This has led to some amusing incidents. Two nights ago I jumped from the bed and Ciara, a little shocked asked 'what was I doing?'. I responded that I was 'going to get the thing'. 'What thing?' Was the immediate response, 'The thing' was my witty comeback. My comedian wife pithy response was 'I'm gonna need a noun john'. Sadly the only noun that I could gather from my somnolent mind was 'The Facebook'. I also play a very silly sleepy game. Its called - Time The Pee. The premise is straightforward. Babies' bottoms are cleaned by wet cotton balls followed by dry cotton balls. When a warm babies bottom is met by a cold wet cotton ball there is a special reflex reaction. The bladder empties. Its a randomly selected directional fountain. It can hit walls, floors, chairs, faces but most annoyingly, Max's clothes (which then have to be changed - don't worry we change him every day anyway but don't like too much change). So I play a game, from when the old nappy is opened I count, one one thousand, two one thousand ... This was going great, we all had a great time, me counting, him peeing. I was wasting a lot of nappies and changing a lot of clothes. Its a great game, but it has to end. I think it's bad for the environment. He averaged seven seconds by the way.
So it's all fun and games for me. It's very different for Ciara and Max. They have to deal with the Russian Roulette of hunger and feeding. Little Max has to grow his young mind at an alarming rate while dealing with the mundane biological necessities. Ciara has to cope with an absurd convention that says we should do business during the day and sleep at night. So she and he wakes up every couple of hours and they join in the merry feeding dance. This is a real physical activity for both of them and one that leaves them tired. They were already tired. Now they are tireder. They are tireder than tired they get to 9am exhausted and the day begins.
Evolution is silly. It turns day into night and turns night into a curious mix of insomnia and absurd activity. There are strange things about bringing up children. Nightimes are the worst.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
Who passed the test?
A slightly nervous family trouped down the hill today for their second meeting with the Public Health Nurse. She's a lovely lady, expecting her own baby in a few weeks. Why were we nervous? The purpose of the visit was Max's second weigh-in. To re-cap he was 3.63kg at birth and at his fist visit last Thursday he was 3.38kg. This is perfectly normal. Babies loose some weight and as long as they don't loose much more than 10% they are fine. Keen mathematicians will note that this is a perfectly normal 9.3% difference. Then of course we had Friday's feeding trauma and the difficulties surrounding it.
The big sign that everything is going right would be an increase in weight. The Public Health Nurse and the Lactation Consultant (may she see her children's children in a happy Jerusalem) were both at pains to point out how it wasn't a disaster if Max wasn't heavier at his weigh-in today. What we heard was that it wasn't a disaster but questions would be asked and more visits and more weighings would be needed.
They pointed at the healthy sized and coloured nappies. They talked about the regular feedings and they said it wasn't all about his weight. We knew different and that is why we made the long walk with the red pram to the Health Centre at the bottom of the hill.
Now the Health Centre itself is an old parish Hall, the buildings around it have a stamp of 1901 on them so that's about it's vintage. It's falling down a bit. There are lots of bits of the red bricks on the ground rather than in their more traditional location. The caretaker/receptionist welcomed us and put out two chairs in the main hall waiting area. The inside is bright and not at all crumbling but it looks like every other public health building in the world. Lots of posters tell you what to do and what not to do and what to do if you got either of the previous instructions wrong. Our Public Health Nurse bustled in and let Ciara tell the story so far. The pleasantries and niceties and informal bit didn't take long and Max was soon down to his nappy and up on the scales. He normally pees 8 seconds after the nappy is removed but he must have known he was a guest and didn't this time. In his birthday suit he weighed in a whopping 3.6 Kg. Back to birth levels. The PHN could not have been happier, Ciara gave Max a big kiss and I relaxed in my chair. Max was pleased too, we know this because he peed then, just before I got the new nappy on.
We took a quick trip to the Botanic gardens then and took a few moments to enjoy the flowers before mounting the great expedition back up the hill.
The title of this post is, 'who passed the test?'. I ask the question because it occurred to me that I was telling you how well Ciara and I were doing without giving Max a look in. This one was a team effort. I like to think that even I played a part. I bring the food that feeds Ciara who feeds Max. In fairness she and he do all the hard work but who are they without a pit crew! We can all look at the little guy on the scales and imagine a podium and him firing the champaign around the place. We're the guys who are hugging each other back in the team room.
The big sign that everything is going right would be an increase in weight. The Public Health Nurse and the Lactation Consultant (may she see her children's children in a happy Jerusalem) were both at pains to point out how it wasn't a disaster if Max wasn't heavier at his weigh-in today. What we heard was that it wasn't a disaster but questions would be asked and more visits and more weighings would be needed.
They pointed at the healthy sized and coloured nappies. They talked about the regular feedings and they said it wasn't all about his weight. We knew different and that is why we made the long walk with the red pram to the Health Centre at the bottom of the hill.
Now the Health Centre itself is an old parish Hall, the buildings around it have a stamp of 1901 on them so that's about it's vintage. It's falling down a bit. There are lots of bits of the red bricks on the ground rather than in their more traditional location. The caretaker/receptionist welcomed us and put out two chairs in the main hall waiting area. The inside is bright and not at all crumbling but it looks like every other public health building in the world. Lots of posters tell you what to do and what not to do and what to do if you got either of the previous instructions wrong. Our Public Health Nurse bustled in and let Ciara tell the story so far. The pleasantries and niceties and informal bit didn't take long and Max was soon down to his nappy and up on the scales. He normally pees 8 seconds after the nappy is removed but he must have known he was a guest and didn't this time. In his birthday suit he weighed in a whopping 3.6 Kg. Back to birth levels. The PHN could not have been happier, Ciara gave Max a big kiss and I relaxed in my chair. Max was pleased too, we know this because he peed then, just before I got the new nappy on.
We took a quick trip to the Botanic gardens then and took a few moments to enjoy the flowers before mounting the great expedition back up the hill.
The title of this post is, 'who passed the test?'. I ask the question because it occurred to me that I was telling you how well Ciara and I were doing without giving Max a look in. This one was a team effort. I like to think that even I played a part. I bring the food that feeds Ciara who feeds Max. In fairness she and he do all the hard work but who are they without a pit crew! We can all look at the little guy on the scales and imagine a podium and him firing the champaign around the place. We're the guys who are hugging each other back in the team room.
Monday, July 11, 2011
Our one week old son - Day eight
OMG, like totally OMFG the last couple of days have been sooooo exciting. We've been sooooo busy with little Max that we had totally no time to like blog and stuff. *Jumps up and down and flaps arms*
Even typing those words makes my brain hurt but the reason I do type them is to try to capture the sort of breathless excitement that goes on when all three of us are awake at the same time. On Saturday it was 10 of us, but some were small.
So rather than go through things minute by minute I shall run thematically with paragraphs addressing each area of novelty. First item under the microscope is feeding. Thanks to; all the messages of support, advice (professional and familial), hard work, reading, recording and most of all perseverance, the feeding is going much better. Though, the mysterious latch keeps avoiding the Naturalists and is only seen in glimpses, much better glimpses mind you than before but still glimpses. To push a metaphor to its absolute limits, the aforementioned Naturalists are a little bruised and battered by their scrambling through the jungle. Given the benefits of skin-to-skin contact, perhaps that should be Naturists. The much easier feeding has improved mother and baby's state of mind no end and there are lots more smiles from both of them. He doesn't know he's smiling yet of course, it's very hard to distinguish a smile from the reaction to a complicated and stubborn bit of wind. As the Lactation Consultant said on her return visit today - 'Gold Star for Mother and Baby'. By the way, anyone who snorted at the idea of a Lactation Consultant, hang your head in shame, in shame, for they are angels of joy and bring peace and happiness where ever they roam.
Another significant milestone was reached over the weekend - the mustardy poo. So legendary is the mustardy poo that a jar of coarse seedy mustard was produced at an ante-natal class to demonstrate the reality. Young Max has, up until now being firing out the muconium which for the uninitiated is the product of the little fellow eating the amniotic fluid and the effluvia of his growth and development. Muconium is green and sticky. Real poo, the digested milk, is yellow and has little flakes of curdled milk. So Max produced some. This means in short that he has ingested, digested and egested the right amount of milk. We are looking forward to lots more. Incidentally boys pee just after the nappy is opened. Often they wait until the new nappy is in place. They have a marvelous range and can hit faces, book cases and well meaning visitors. I and several nappies have fallen foul of the delayed wee. A fresh new nappy is sitting sweetly neath my son just ready for fastening. Then as if by magic it is wet. I'm not sure if simply fastening the nappy anyway would make me a bad parent. Sure isn't that what a nappy is for. I haven't done this I hasten to add, I have risked the death of the environment by binning both the old and new nappy, cleaning and drying my son and fastening on a new nappy. The serene look on his face when the new nappy is placed and the last snap fastener on his baby-gro has snapped is a joy to behold. Then we can get on with the serious business of the day, be it wind, food or more poo.
The last theme of this post is Max's first wash. I can't call it a bath because it was in a sink and I'm not sure he needed it. He smelled just fine. The congealed blood on his head wasn't freaking us out at all. His toe cheese was endearing in a mycological kind of way. So into the towel/hoodie and off to the sink. www.mycontraception.ie have helpfully provided a small bath thermometer which is very difficult to read. This told us that no degree burns would be inflicted on Max if he was submerged. Thankfully a new thermometer has been very kindly gifted to us that works for rooms and baths. Max shall never be outside his operating parameters again. We washed his head, all the blood disappeared and his hair attained its natural colour. It turns out he is a mousy brown and not ginger after all. He looked fresh and ready for hair and make-up. We washed his feet and legs and removed all the dubious stuff that looked like it ought not be there. He does not have webbed feet so the future of evolution is not towards the water. Throughout this process, Max remained stoic. No screams, no fights. He is either too young to care or he enjoys baths! Regardless of which he is clean.
Today, day eight was a very pleasant one crammed full of wonder at this perfect little human! Until tomorrow...
Even typing those words makes my brain hurt but the reason I do type them is to try to capture the sort of breathless excitement that goes on when all three of us are awake at the same time. On Saturday it was 10 of us, but some were small.
So rather than go through things minute by minute I shall run thematically with paragraphs addressing each area of novelty. First item under the microscope is feeding. Thanks to; all the messages of support, advice (professional and familial), hard work, reading, recording and most of all perseverance, the feeding is going much better. Though, the mysterious latch keeps avoiding the Naturalists and is only seen in glimpses, much better glimpses mind you than before but still glimpses. To push a metaphor to its absolute limits, the aforementioned Naturalists are a little bruised and battered by their scrambling through the jungle. Given the benefits of skin-to-skin contact, perhaps that should be Naturists. The much easier feeding has improved mother and baby's state of mind no end and there are lots more smiles from both of them. He doesn't know he's smiling yet of course, it's very hard to distinguish a smile from the reaction to a complicated and stubborn bit of wind. As the Lactation Consultant said on her return visit today - 'Gold Star for Mother and Baby'. By the way, anyone who snorted at the idea of a Lactation Consultant, hang your head in shame, in shame, for they are angels of joy and bring peace and happiness where ever they roam.
Another significant milestone was reached over the weekend - the mustardy poo. So legendary is the mustardy poo that a jar of coarse seedy mustard was produced at an ante-natal class to demonstrate the reality. Young Max has, up until now being firing out the muconium which for the uninitiated is the product of the little fellow eating the amniotic fluid and the effluvia of his growth and development. Muconium is green and sticky. Real poo, the digested milk, is yellow and has little flakes of curdled milk. So Max produced some. This means in short that he has ingested, digested and egested the right amount of milk. We are looking forward to lots more. Incidentally boys pee just after the nappy is opened. Often they wait until the new nappy is in place. They have a marvelous range and can hit faces, book cases and well meaning visitors. I and several nappies have fallen foul of the delayed wee. A fresh new nappy is sitting sweetly neath my son just ready for fastening. Then as if by magic it is wet. I'm not sure if simply fastening the nappy anyway would make me a bad parent. Sure isn't that what a nappy is for. I haven't done this I hasten to add, I have risked the death of the environment by binning both the old and new nappy, cleaning and drying my son and fastening on a new nappy. The serene look on his face when the new nappy is placed and the last snap fastener on his baby-gro has snapped is a joy to behold. Then we can get on with the serious business of the day, be it wind, food or more poo.
The last theme of this post is Max's first wash. I can't call it a bath because it was in a sink and I'm not sure he needed it. He smelled just fine. The congealed blood on his head wasn't freaking us out at all. His toe cheese was endearing in a mycological kind of way. So into the towel/hoodie and off to the sink. www.mycontraception.ie have helpfully provided a small bath thermometer which is very difficult to read. This told us that no degree burns would be inflicted on Max if he was submerged. Thankfully a new thermometer has been very kindly gifted to us that works for rooms and baths. Max shall never be outside his operating parameters again. We washed his head, all the blood disappeared and his hair attained its natural colour. It turns out he is a mousy brown and not ginger after all. He looked fresh and ready for hair and make-up. We washed his feet and legs and removed all the dubious stuff that looked like it ought not be there. He does not have webbed feet so the future of evolution is not towards the water. Throughout this process, Max remained stoic. No screams, no fights. He is either too young to care or he enjoys baths! Regardless of which he is clean.
Today, day eight was a very pleasant one crammed full of wonder at this perfect little human! Until tomorrow...
Saturday, July 9, 2011
Now I know what it feels like to fail as a parent.
After the all the excitement of the first few days, there had to be a down day. Well that's life isn't it. That's how the cookie crumbles. That's the swings and round-abouts. I'll tell you what that is, that's a royal pain in the ass.
So the basic things you do as a young parent is feed, sooth, burp, change and dress your child. You also stand in astonishment at the wonder of him on an almost minute to minute basis. For the astonishment, please see earlier posts. The soothing, dressing and changing check - both of us are playing the veritable blinder on all those fronts.
The burping too, is simplicity itself. Feeding now, that's a totally different tea-pot of pigs. It turns out that feeding is something that evolution has forgotten or that the SMA marketing division have had a hand in eliminating. It's bloody hard, it happens at the wrong time of day and it's about as consistent as an Irish Summer's day. There is a thing called a latch. This is a mythical creature that lives somewhere in the upper Andes and can only be seen by the light of the full moon while holding a olive branch. This latch is achieved by pointing the nipple at the child's nose and theoretically he should raise his upper jaw and clamp up and over the aforementioned nipple, think Hungry Hippos. The funny thing is, children have a few competing instincts, the rooting instinct causes them to move their head from side to side. The sucking instinct means that as soon as anything comes near their mouth, they are away - fingers, tassels, other children, fire irons or flying insects are all fair game. Finally another part of the rooting instinct means they use their hands to locate the nipple, so they bring their hands up in front of their rooting, sucking head.
Picture the scene, baby serenely placed on the belly, arms crooked, nipple pointing directly at the nose, milk beginning to pour. The babies nostrils fill with the scent of freshly produced milk, his hunger is at peak and the instincts kick in. Hands come up, hands get near mouth, head is flailing around, mouth finds hands first before nostril adjacent nipple. Result; the child get a nostril full of milk, a mouth full of hand and he firmly believes he is being conned! The direct result of this con act is tears. Tears lead to a lack of any sort of latching ability and further upset and tears. The babies tears lead to parental tears.
This would be fine in the calm light of a summer's day with the sun shining and a gentle breeze lifting the dandelion seeds to pastures new. But mix this emotion with tiredness, soreness and a good dose of post birth hormones and the result is the feeling of failure. This feeling is quickly passed on to the father who is standing around like someone watching something through a glass screen, unable affect the outcome. I can write all of this because Ciara persevered and got through it. We got help and advice and we got through it. Having seen the real difficulties that she and Max faced and the strain that it put on both of them I have even greater pride in them both. That's not to say that it mighn't become difficult again tomorrow or next week, but at least we know it can work and who to go to for help.
So what's the point here. Breast feeding for a while is a good idea. This seems to be universally agreed (http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/breastfeeding/facts/en/index9.html). So one should give it a good shot. One should try and try hard. A man should support his partner to achieve this. If it doesn't work, have we failed?
It turns out that the answer is no. Breast feeding is really really good but if it doesn't work neither the child or parents have failed. Some mothers simply can't breast feed for many reasons and their kids turn out wonderful. Look, millions have grown up on formula and regular milk and have done very well. So why last night did it feel like failure. I think it's because myself and Ciara like to be good at stuff. One of those games, you have a hen, a bag of grain and a fox and you have to get them across a river. You can only fit two of the three in the boat at the same time. You can't leave the fox with the hen, or the hen with the grain. The solution is straightforward, people have been solving it for ages, but we saw or see moving away from breast milk as going out a buying a bigger boat or a muzzle for the damned fox. So lets not feel like failures and keep playing the game. If it changes difficulty level to something like P=NP? (one of the great mathematical problems) then we will buy a bigger boat!
So the basic things you do as a young parent is feed, sooth, burp, change and dress your child. You also stand in astonishment at the wonder of him on an almost minute to minute basis. For the astonishment, please see earlier posts. The soothing, dressing and changing check - both of us are playing the veritable blinder on all those fronts.
The burping too, is simplicity itself. Feeding now, that's a totally different tea-pot of pigs. It turns out that feeding is something that evolution has forgotten or that the SMA marketing division have had a hand in eliminating. It's bloody hard, it happens at the wrong time of day and it's about as consistent as an Irish Summer's day. There is a thing called a latch. This is a mythical creature that lives somewhere in the upper Andes and can only be seen by the light of the full moon while holding a olive branch. This latch is achieved by pointing the nipple at the child's nose and theoretically he should raise his upper jaw and clamp up and over the aforementioned nipple, think Hungry Hippos. The funny thing is, children have a few competing instincts, the rooting instinct causes them to move their head from side to side. The sucking instinct means that as soon as anything comes near their mouth, they are away - fingers, tassels, other children, fire irons or flying insects are all fair game. Finally another part of the rooting instinct means they use their hands to locate the nipple, so they bring their hands up in front of their rooting, sucking head.
Picture the scene, baby serenely placed on the belly, arms crooked, nipple pointing directly at the nose, milk beginning to pour. The babies nostrils fill with the scent of freshly produced milk, his hunger is at peak and the instincts kick in. Hands come up, hands get near mouth, head is flailing around, mouth finds hands first before nostril adjacent nipple. Result; the child get a nostril full of milk, a mouth full of hand and he firmly believes he is being conned! The direct result of this con act is tears. Tears lead to a lack of any sort of latching ability and further upset and tears. The babies tears lead to parental tears.
This would be fine in the calm light of a summer's day with the sun shining and a gentle breeze lifting the dandelion seeds to pastures new. But mix this emotion with tiredness, soreness and a good dose of post birth hormones and the result is the feeling of failure. This feeling is quickly passed on to the father who is standing around like someone watching something through a glass screen, unable affect the outcome. I can write all of this because Ciara persevered and got through it. We got help and advice and we got through it. Having seen the real difficulties that she and Max faced and the strain that it put on both of them I have even greater pride in them both. That's not to say that it mighn't become difficult again tomorrow or next week, but at least we know it can work and who to go to for help.
So what's the point here. Breast feeding for a while is a good idea. This seems to be universally agreed (http://www.who.int/features/factfiles/breastfeeding/facts/en/index9.html). So one should give it a good shot. One should try and try hard. A man should support his partner to achieve this. If it doesn't work, have we failed?
It turns out that the answer is no. Breast feeding is really really good but if it doesn't work neither the child or parents have failed. Some mothers simply can't breast feed for many reasons and their kids turn out wonderful. Look, millions have grown up on formula and regular milk and have done very well. So why last night did it feel like failure. I think it's because myself and Ciara like to be good at stuff. One of those games, you have a hen, a bag of grain and a fox and you have to get them across a river. You can only fit two of the three in the boat at the same time. You can't leave the fox with the hen, or the hen with the grain. The solution is straightforward, people have been solving it for ages, but we saw or see moving away from breast milk as going out a buying a bigger boat or a muzzle for the damned fox. So lets not feel like failures and keep playing the game. If it changes difficulty level to something like P=NP? (one of the great mathematical problems) then we will buy a bigger boat!
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