I was speaking to someone recently and she asked me if I was still blogging regularly. She said that she initially thought the project was a little ambitious and had wondered to herself if anyone's life can really be "that interesting." With that in mind, today's post is dedicated to the minutiae of my life (which is apparently what this blog is all about), and you can be the judges of whether or not it's at all interesting!
Monday
J woke at 5 again this morning. We're not sure what's suddenly changed but this new routine is not working out for us at all! I spoke to my friend K about this yesterday and she told me that she gets her boys up at 6, gives them a bottle and puts them straight back to bed. They then get up somewhere between 7.30 and 9 for breakfast. This sounded pretty good to me so I decided to give it a try. J loved the early bottle but would not go back to sleep. We battled for an hour before he crashed but he was up again by 7.30. He passed out around 10 and missed playgroup so I had to take him out in the afternoon. We went to see the triplets but after the early start and only one nap, J was a very grumpy boy indeed. He was in bed by 6.30 and I wasn't far behind him. I think tomorrow we'll go back to what we were doing; ignoring him till 6.30, or until he started shouting at us to come and get him up.
Tuesday
The day started for us at 3.30am. This did not bode well. J woke up crying and couldn't be consoled. We gave him another bottle, and had flashbacks to the days when we were up at that hour every night. In the end I got into the cot with him, an exercise in bendy gymnastics, and rubbed his back till he finally fell asleep around 5. D got up to him at 7 and I got a sleep in, a rare treat but well earned! Our helper was off today so while J napped this morning I tidied up, baked a cake, vacuumed and still had time for a shower! Definitely feeling like supermum today. We missed playgroup again but went to the playground in Mui Wo, which J just loves. He chased another little boy around and came home filthy and exhausted. I was pretty wrecked too but had to leave the boys at home and head to Discovery Bay for the 2nd half of a CPR/First Aid course I've been doing. I did a proper first aid certification several years ago but I never renewed it. I always thought I'd know what to do in an emergency, but if a child was involved I'd probably end up flapping my arms about shouting "help, help!" This course was invaluable, and the procedures for CPR have been simplified so much since I last took the course, now anyone can do it, and should. My helper also did the course and we both agree it was invaluable. I just pray we never have to use our new skills. I came home and watched my little guy sleeping for a while before heading to bed.
Wednesday
I remember reading somewhere that if a baby is habitually waking every night at the same time you should wake them an hour earlier to reset their body clocks. Well, J woke this morning at 6.30, so even though it wasn't intentional, I think yesterday's early start probably did just that. Today we realised that our little man is officially a walker. He still wobbles quite a bit and crawls when he wants to get somewhere quickly but he's walking all the time. He went from taking a few steps here and there to walking across the room so quickly, it almost happened overnight. We filmed him walking towards me, with the biggest, proudest grin on his face and emailed it to the grandparents. We spent most of the day today organising our upcoming trip to Sydney. We fly out on the 1st and it feels like we still have so much to do. There are so many people we want to catch up with, and so many family members who want to see us. It always feels like we spend our time trying to please everyone and we end up disappointing someone. I'm trying not to let it worry me, but I can't help feeling like it'd be easier just to stay home...
Thursday
Another relatively uneventful day. I have been working on an article for Playtimes magazine, and I finished my first draft today. It still needs a lot of work but I'm very pleased with my efforts, and even more impressed that I finished a draft 6 weeks before the deadline! We took J out shopping today. He's still at an age where a trip to the supermarket and a ride in a shopping trolley counts as an outing. We decided to have some lunch while we were out but it wasn't quite the leisurely seaside meal we used to have once upon a time. J was a bit cranky and restless, he hates sitting still, but once we started feeding him from our plates he was quite content. He played with a drinking straw for about 15 minutes and we ended up having a lovely time. He has started to reject lumps and chunks in his food so we're back to purees this week. At the same time he'll eat anything we're eating. Last night he had spaghetti and tuna off D's plate. I'm not sure he could eat a whole meal of it but we're going to start trying more grown-up food when we're away. D went off to work tonight and he'll be in LA till Sunday night. I had to trim his moustache before he left, it's getting a bit unruly now. He's growing for Movember and has raised quite a bit of money. I don't think he had any idea what he was getting himself into when he drunkenly declared at the rugby that he was going to grow a mo for the month, but I'm very proud of him for following through!
Friday
The little man woke early again today but it meant that he had an early nap, so we finally made it to playgroup. When we got home I spent some time rearranging the furniture in his room, something I've been wanting to do since we moved in. I was sick and had a newborn baby when we moved so everything was done for me. We had a huge wardrobe in J's room and D laid out the furniture differently to how I would've done it. It's always bothered me and this week I was determined to rectify it (while my husband was away and couldn't argue with me). I think it's important that little people have their own space. I hated that we used J's room to store our crap, and I felt like he deserved better. So with our helper by my side, I put things right, and I'm so happy with how the room looks now. By 2pm J and I were both pretty tired so we had an afternoon nap. J's favourite game at the moment is hiding things under the sofa or behind the curtains. He hides something and holds his hands up and makes a sound that we know means "where is it?" Tonight while he was eating his dinner he was repeating 'daddadadadad' over and over, then he stopped, looked at me, held up his hands and said "where is he?" It's only been in the last month or so that J has started to notice that his dad goes away. He gets very excited when Daddy comes home (as do I), and I'm starting to wonder how long it will be before we gets tantrums when Daddy leaves...
Saturday
J slept last night from 7pm-6am, and I took that as a sign that he also loves his new room. We're on our own for the whole weekend so we took the dog for a walk and while J had his morning nap I did the dishes and tidied up. I don't mind being on my own now, and it's definitely manageable, but it does make it harder to achieve anything. We went out to Tung Chung, something I hate doing on the weekend but couldn't avoid. We went to Taste and J was quite happy until we got to the checkout. Of course there were about a million people in the queue and I had to try a few different tricks to avoid a complete meltdown. In the end I pulled the straw off a juice box and he played with that till we were done. Unfortunately I realised at the checkout that I had had a mummy-brain moment the day before and hadn't noticed. I had been at Park N' Shop on Friday (yes, we do go to the supermarket an awful lot!) and paid with my card to get cash out. Only, they didn't give me my cash and I didn't notice. So after Tung Chung we made a quick trip to Mui Wo where I explained my dilemma and the helpful staff at Park N' Shop corrected their mistake. Thank goodness they were helpful, I don't know how I would've explained to my husband that I left $500 at the supermarket! After that a coffee and a quiet afternoon were in order. I also weighed myself today and the scales (might be broken) showed that I had hit a 10 year low, so I celebrated with pizza and chocolate for dinner.
Sunday
J didn't have the best night's sleep last night so we both woke up at 6am feeling pretty shabby. After breakfast I ran upstairs to get my glasses so we could go out for a walk and "had a fall" on the way back down. It was the kind of fall that knocks the wind out of you and breaks hips in older people, and the only thing that stopped me from bursting into tears was J standing at the bottom of the stairs with a look that was equal parts concern and impatience. I brushed off my bruised ego (and elbow and bum) and we went out. Still feeling pretty rotten I decided that there was only one thing to do when we got home; put on Christmas carols and kick off Pudding Sunday. But that's another story...
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