They all said it. They all said what creche would bring. They warned us. They said to stock up on Calpol, Neurofen, anti-biotics and anti-virals. They said that creche is a petri dish, a breeding ground for diseases, a veritable pot-puree of poxes and pustule causing nasties.
We laughed behind our hands. We sniggered, not our Max we said. He is a strong robust fighting Irish sort of a baby. He has white blood cells like Ice Hockey enforcers, he has skin of iron and the constitution of an ox. He won't succumb to the little bacteria or the viruses, he is immune.
Look it turned out he wasn't. Now it's not as though he has been wiped out, it's not as though he has lain in bed for the last two weeks. He has however had a sort of running sickness. The best medical advice is that this could last until he is 10 and it becomes uncool to be the guy in class with the runny nose.
The runny nose is a baseline. The runny nose is like the flour in baking, a constant. There are many different additives. The first is a dry cough. A dry hacking 20 Benson's a day cough. Thankfully he coughs very little. The second is a spot of reasonable conjunctivitis. Aparently everyone gets this. It's pus in the eyes, that seems to be all. It didn't seem to bother him too much but the gunk in his eyes when he woke up glued his eyelids shut for a few seconds. This distressed him, but then he got them open and he smiled. Then of course he coughed and got distressed again. These three things, the nose, the cough, the eyes, they are in a little revolving circle of low level illness.
What's next I wonder? Could he get a bit of a stomach bug? I have the wall cleaning liquid at hand. I have the industrial strength nappies in stock. There is enough talcum powder and baby-wipes around to plaster-cast the GPO. If its not a bug then we have the major pharmaceutical companies on speed-dial.
My question is this, why in the hell can we not eradicate this stuff. Think of the loss of earnings, productivity and sanity that is caused by low level sickness. There must be money in it. Are the big multi-nationals not throwing millions at this. Parents of rich and poor alike could surely get behind a campaign. I will certainly throw in a fiver which is all I have left after the creche fees that caused all of this in the first place.
Little Max is bearing it all like a trooper. He was off his food for a bit but is back on it in a big way. Shepard's pie was today's big hit. He is sleeping very well and he is seriously on the mend. The funniest thing is when he sneezes. A long tube of light green splurg shoots out and rests like a dead caterpillar on his upper lip for a few seconds. Just until his hand comes up and spreads the splurg across his face. The trick is getting the tissue to his nose before he gets his hand there. Believe me I have considered strapping his hands down but in the meantime I have become very adept at grabbing tissues and leaping over furniture.
I plan to set up a small virus and bacteria reference lab and let Max be patient zero in an aggressive Edward Jenner style elimination of all baby diseases. Are you with me?
Wednesday, February 1, 2012
Saturday, January 28, 2012
Getting my teeth into it
Yes that's right loyal readers, Max has his first tooth, teeth to be exact for the second one came a day after the first. They are two little sharp things like flint edges sticking out of his gums. He did exactly the right amount of crying and not sleeping to herald their arrival. He had red cheeks and runny stools. I know that this blog does verge on the coprophilic at times but a good teething nappy is an assault on the senses. The sights, the sounds, the smells and best of all, if your technique is not right, the feel. This will continue in fits and starts for a long time. The first set of teeth should number 24 and they take a couple of years to all come down or up. Shortly followed by a rapid falling out. It strikes me as a really stupid system. I would be delighted if a clever geneticist could splice out the milk teeth gene and trigger the regular teeth gene earlier. Or maybe we could just eliminate the milk teeth and have little baby dentures until the adult teeth started to grow. We also need to seriously consider some form of less intact gum. Even for adults, forcing a blunt piece of ceramic through a perfectly lovely piece of flesh is a bit of a pain. I still have two wisdom teeth to come down and they cause great pain when they decide to make a small advance. At least I am not still wearing nappies, otherwise my caregiver would be in for an awful time.
Max has also had a lovely two weeks in crèche. It is a perfectly splendid place full of bright colours, happy babies and caring staff. So caring infant that their titles are actually edu-carers. I do understand that this is a butchering of the English language to a criminal extent but it is reasonably descriptive. They are part nurses and part teachers. 'Nurchers' might be a better term. They look after Max from about 8:10 until 16:10, that's eight hours a day. That's a lot. Thank all that is good, he loves it. At the weekends we adopt a policy of accelerated learning so that we can balance out the amount of input the crèche edu-carers have. Everyone told us that once he went to crèche he would get loads of infections, colds, coughs and awful diseases. He has. His immune system is working like a fire crew on bonfire night. He is producing mucous and pus and doing it all with a brave face. He is equal to this task and the thing that keeps myself and Ciara going through the day's work is the thought of seeing him at the end of it and seeing his beautiful big smile!
But all of that is not all, he is sitting up properly now, he is reaching for things and he can shake a rattle like the best of us. He is singing to himself, he is talking to himself, he is simply growing up at a rate that frightens. We have resolved to grip the sides and hold on tight!
Max has also had a lovely two weeks in crèche. It is a perfectly splendid place full of bright colours, happy babies and caring staff. So caring infant that their titles are actually edu-carers. I do understand that this is a butchering of the English language to a criminal extent but it is reasonably descriptive. They are part nurses and part teachers. 'Nurchers' might be a better term. They look after Max from about 8:10 until 16:10, that's eight hours a day. That's a lot. Thank all that is good, he loves it. At the weekends we adopt a policy of accelerated learning so that we can balance out the amount of input the crèche edu-carers have. Everyone told us that once he went to crèche he would get loads of infections, colds, coughs and awful diseases. He has. His immune system is working like a fire crew on bonfire night. He is producing mucous and pus and doing it all with a brave face. He is equal to this task and the thing that keeps myself and Ciara going through the day's work is the thought of seeing him at the end of it and seeing his beautiful big smile!
But all of that is not all, he is sitting up properly now, he is reaching for things and he can shake a rattle like the best of us. He is singing to himself, he is talking to himself, he is simply growing up at a rate that frightens. We have resolved to grip the sides and hold on tight!
Thursday, January 12, 2012
Long Overdue Updates Pt. 2
So where are we? How is he doing? What exactly is going on in Max's world. He is simply turning from an infant into a baby. To explain this will take some doing and I am quite clear that this may be entirely inexplicable to anyone who is not a parent of Max but sure let me have a go.
Little Max used to have only himself to worry about. He used to enjoy a world of one where his every need was catered for like a high-roller in the most exclusive of Vegas Casinos. His routine was inviolate. His sleeping and waking carefully monitored, recorded and studied in forensic detail.
Things have changed for two very good reasons. The first is that he is now attending crèche and the second is that we discovered a lady named Hogg. Now sadly she is not with us any more but her whispering ways with children are. It turned out that we were falling into some of the accidental parenting traps. These are her words now but on reading one of her conversations about getting children to sleep, it seemed as if she had been spying on us.
Her approach was gentle, she didn't say we were bad parents for rocking our child to sleep, she didn't say we were neglectful of his intellectual needs if we played a bit of music to him. She just pointed out that there was an easier way for both him and us. Now Max is a great sleeper but he does disturb easily. He can start at the test noise and a couple of weeks ago began to give a bit of trouble going down and waking at 4am. So we had a go as Ms. Hogg's pick up put down technique. Bearing in mind that she had said that everything we were doing so far was just a little bit wrong, in the nicest possible way.
The pick up put down technique is sort of baby slight of hand. The idea is just to get him to sooth himself to sleep. That's fine. Put him down and he moans a bit and drifts off, but what if he doesn't. Rocking him to sleep is a prop. Feeding him to sleep is a prop, singing, noises, counting sheep, and certainly sleeping tablets are all props. The trouble with props is that the encourage dependence and reliance and next thing you know, your son is 25 and asks his girlfriend to rock him gently to sleep. So no props.
What one does is to pick up the crying child (any thing less than a cry should be ignored) and rub his back while shushing loudly. Shssh shssh until your lungs empty and you struggle for breath. When he has stopped crying you gently put him back into the cot. Then continue to shssh until he is restful. Pick him up if he cries again and repeat. If he doesn't make a sound when he is put down, the chances are he will be asleep in minutes. The only other trick seems to be that if he moves too much in your arms, you have to put him down. Pushing or kicking is not allowed in this system and is disencouraged through the put down. There would seem at first glance to be so many holes in this system to render it at best confusing and at worst useless, but it does work. How does little Max know he is being put down because he is quiet or because he is pushing and kicking. Well he does know - Ms. Hogg told me so. Why such praise, because it works. Max now puts himself to sleep and is doing better at sleeping in the crèche. Myself and Ciara get an easier time of it in the evenings and there is just a lot more happiness in the family unit!
It is certainly an advance on most of the baby book advice that is so vague as to be relevant to no one and every one. "Your baby is six months old, he should be able to clap his hands. This can happen any time from 3 mts until 24mts and may not happen at all don't worry. Your child will start to appreciate the difference between right and wrong - unless they are unless they are destined for a career in law or politics". You see? Useless.
This is because every child is so different as to need a baby book of their own. What a parent needs is a tool kit or a bag of tricks. We need list of techniques that are proven to work with at least 5% of the population, all listed and explained and cross referenced. We will try them all. Maybe they should be sorted on their popularity. That way the chances are success will be achieved by the law of averages. We don't want to know why something is happening or working. We just want to know how to fix it. Like the pick up put down technique. Let's survey a thousand parent s and see did they use a particular technique, and score the techniques by popularity. We just want to know that they work, not why. It's like raising one head end of the cot to help sleep during a cold. It works and helps the little fello breath easier because it keeps all the mucous where it sould be and not up in his nose and throat. We don't want to know the background, the studies, the medical references and explanations. At 4am with a screaming and snorting and sniffling child, we want to know to try it and if it doesn't work we will try what's on the next page. There is moneye in this! I think the title should be - "Did you try ...."
Well, that's the millions made!
Little Max used to have only himself to worry about. He used to enjoy a world of one where his every need was catered for like a high-roller in the most exclusive of Vegas Casinos. His routine was inviolate. His sleeping and waking carefully monitored, recorded and studied in forensic detail.
Things have changed for two very good reasons. The first is that he is now attending crèche and the second is that we discovered a lady named Hogg. Now sadly she is not with us any more but her whispering ways with children are. It turned out that we were falling into some of the accidental parenting traps. These are her words now but on reading one of her conversations about getting children to sleep, it seemed as if she had been spying on us.
Her approach was gentle, she didn't say we were bad parents for rocking our child to sleep, she didn't say we were neglectful of his intellectual needs if we played a bit of music to him. She just pointed out that there was an easier way for both him and us. Now Max is a great sleeper but he does disturb easily. He can start at the test noise and a couple of weeks ago began to give a bit of trouble going down and waking at 4am. So we had a go as Ms. Hogg's pick up put down technique. Bearing in mind that she had said that everything we were doing so far was just a little bit wrong, in the nicest possible way.
The pick up put down technique is sort of baby slight of hand. The idea is just to get him to sooth himself to sleep. That's fine. Put him down and he moans a bit and drifts off, but what if he doesn't. Rocking him to sleep is a prop. Feeding him to sleep is a prop, singing, noises, counting sheep, and certainly sleeping tablets are all props. The trouble with props is that the encourage dependence and reliance and next thing you know, your son is 25 and asks his girlfriend to rock him gently to sleep. So no props.
What one does is to pick up the crying child (any thing less than a cry should be ignored) and rub his back while shushing loudly. Shssh shssh until your lungs empty and you struggle for breath. When he has stopped crying you gently put him back into the cot. Then continue to shssh until he is restful. Pick him up if he cries again and repeat. If he doesn't make a sound when he is put down, the chances are he will be asleep in minutes. The only other trick seems to be that if he moves too much in your arms, you have to put him down. Pushing or kicking is not allowed in this system and is disencouraged through the put down. There would seem at first glance to be so many holes in this system to render it at best confusing and at worst useless, but it does work. How does little Max know he is being put down because he is quiet or because he is pushing and kicking. Well he does know - Ms. Hogg told me so. Why such praise, because it works. Max now puts himself to sleep and is doing better at sleeping in the crèche. Myself and Ciara get an easier time of it in the evenings and there is just a lot more happiness in the family unit!
It is certainly an advance on most of the baby book advice that is so vague as to be relevant to no one and every one. "Your baby is six months old, he should be able to clap his hands. This can happen any time from 3 mts until 24mts and may not happen at all don't worry. Your child will start to appreciate the difference between right and wrong - unless they are unless they are destined for a career in law or politics". You see? Useless.
This is because every child is so different as to need a baby book of their own. What a parent needs is a tool kit or a bag of tricks. We need list of techniques that are proven to work with at least 5% of the population, all listed and explained and cross referenced. We will try them all. Maybe they should be sorted on their popularity. That way the chances are success will be achieved by the law of averages. We don't want to know why something is happening or working. We just want to know how to fix it. Like the pick up put down technique. Let's survey a thousand parent s and see did they use a particular technique, and score the techniques by popularity. We just want to know that they work, not why. It's like raising one head end of the cot to help sleep during a cold. It works and helps the little fello breath easier because it keeps all the mucous where it sould be and not up in his nose and throat. We don't want to know the background, the studies, the medical references and explanations. At 4am with a screaming and snorting and sniffling child, we want to know to try it and if it doesn't work we will try what's on the next page. There is moneye in this! I think the title should be - "Did you try ...."
Well, that's the millions made!
Friday, January 6, 2012
Long overdue updates Pt. 1
Max is 6 months old. They have gone quite slowly from my vantage point. It is getting harder and harder to remember life without him. My memories are more full of happy times with him, and his mother too obviously. It is not sweetness and light every minute of every day, he can be tricky and the amount of work that has to be done to look after him is huge. But it is mostly sweetness and light.
He is a very happy baby. He smiles with very little provocation and gurgles and cheeps in the most delightful fashion. We have loads of games that we play with him, songs we sing and he's healthy and well. He can entertain himself and is progressing along all of the baby scales, graphs and charts that we can find, and we really have looked!
This weekend marks a big milestone in the family life. Ciara returns to work and Max goes to the creche full-time. He has had three sessions there already. The first was for one hour and he was the very model of a care-free baby. The second was for two hours and he was wonderful for the first hour and a half. Then the lovely edu-carers in the creche tried to feed him a bottle. He seemed hungry but in reality as it turned out he was just tired. Bringing him to the creche had knocked out his morning nap and he was not ready for this. He went nuts. The poor staff were doing their very best, but they just didn't know him yet and he didn't know them. We arrived and he was upset so we were upset and the aforementioned poor staff desperately explained how this can happen and how its ok (they had noo need for desperation, we are very impressed with them). He slept for three hours that afternoon and all was well. Of course this happened, sure it was bound to and thank God it happened on one of the short days rather than in the middle of a long day. Then on the third day all went according to plan with a bit of upsetting and a lot of happy play and crucially a long bottle feed and spoon feed from the staff. Mother and Father very pleased.
The other trial this week was of the bike. It was a windy and a bit wet of a morning but the bike made it in 28 minutes, door to door. There is still some tweaking to do on the set up of the bike in the morning, this should only take a few minutes but can take up to ten. I am reminded of the Full Metal Jacket training for assembling a rifle, I will have to practice hard and get it down to two minutes. The difficult part is the rain cover. There are two long poles that have to be disentangled and assembled and then the cover stretched over them and then zipped up. All the while Max has to be smiled at and reassured that the floor of the garage is not his new home.
Solid feeding is going very well but he has not put on much weight in the last month. This may be due to his very zealous approach to the jumperoo (bouncing toy - that he loves) or it may be due to several million other factors but if he ever hopes to play for any of the Munster, Clare, Leinster or Dublin teams he will need a bit more flesh on his bones. So we are carefully and steadily increasing his food intake. He is rising to the occasion and certainly the breakfast quantity has doubled in the last two weeks.
As I write it is Sunday morning and we all go to work tomorrow! Preparation is key and I expect that we will all sleep in our day clothes with our shoes on with our packed lunches clutched in our hands.
He is a very happy baby. He smiles with very little provocation and gurgles and cheeps in the most delightful fashion. We have loads of games that we play with him, songs we sing and he's healthy and well. He can entertain himself and is progressing along all of the baby scales, graphs and charts that we can find, and we really have looked!
This weekend marks a big milestone in the family life. Ciara returns to work and Max goes to the creche full-time. He has had three sessions there already. The first was for one hour and he was the very model of a care-free baby. The second was for two hours and he was wonderful for the first hour and a half. Then the lovely edu-carers in the creche tried to feed him a bottle. He seemed hungry but in reality as it turned out he was just tired. Bringing him to the creche had knocked out his morning nap and he was not ready for this. He went nuts. The poor staff were doing their very best, but they just didn't know him yet and he didn't know them. We arrived and he was upset so we were upset and the aforementioned poor staff desperately explained how this can happen and how its ok (they had noo need for desperation, we are very impressed with them). He slept for three hours that afternoon and all was well. Of course this happened, sure it was bound to and thank God it happened on one of the short days rather than in the middle of a long day. Then on the third day all went according to plan with a bit of upsetting and a lot of happy play and crucially a long bottle feed and spoon feed from the staff. Mother and Father very pleased.
The other trial this week was of the bike. It was a windy and a bit wet of a morning but the bike made it in 28 minutes, door to door. There is still some tweaking to do on the set up of the bike in the morning, this should only take a few minutes but can take up to ten. I am reminded of the Full Metal Jacket training for assembling a rifle, I will have to practice hard and get it down to two minutes. The difficult part is the rain cover. There are two long poles that have to be disentangled and assembled and then the cover stretched over them and then zipped up. All the while Max has to be smiled at and reassured that the floor of the garage is not his new home.
Solid feeding is going very well but he has not put on much weight in the last month. This may be due to his very zealous approach to the jumperoo (bouncing toy - that he loves) or it may be due to several million other factors but if he ever hopes to play for any of the Munster, Clare, Leinster or Dublin teams he will need a bit more flesh on his bones. So we are carefully and steadily increasing his food intake. He is rising to the occasion and certainly the breakfast quantity has doubled in the last two weeks.
As I write it is Sunday morning and we all go to work tomorrow! Preparation is key and I expect that we will all sleep in our day clothes with our shoes on with our packed lunches clutched in our hands.
Sunday, November 20, 2011
Feeding frenzy - are you sure you don't have worms
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?
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?
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.
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