No sleep, no sight, no kitties here!

Time for a post. Dot points, methink.

• I think the kid reads the blog and has some sort of twisted vendetta. After saying how well he sleeps, he has woken up somewhere between 3 and 5 am every morning this week. What. The. I know, I know, this is normal for lots of people. But it wasn't normal for us. It better not become so. I'm blaming the three teeth that are on their way down. Or the weather. Or Jupiter. Or something. I must buy the girls upstairs some earplugs. And some gin.

Not sleeping.

• Little goatling has cut her eye on a blackberry bush or some such, so we spent Saturday night - in a raging thunderstorm including the loudest cracks of thunder I have ever heard and the most eery golden light - bathing her face in lukewarm tea while the kid, ironically, slept through enough tin-roofed noise to wake the dead. Thank you, 24-hour emergency vet. Apparently the antioxidants did the trick, at least as far as the weekend. It looked much better on Sunday morning, and The Boy went up after school on Monday with a shot of penicillin to give her, so hopefully she'll still be up and bouncing around when we get there this evening. Her name may be Blind Bessie.
• The new paint in the bathroom took all of 24 hours to start peeling again, so we've had two more visits from the landlord necessitating last-minute kitten-hiding. And more to come. Compared to the festering wreck it was before the paint job, it actually looks much better. But if I'd paid for it I'd be wanting it re-done too.
• We are going to Tasmania in January. tripadvisor is my new best friend.
• The kid wakes. More, or something else, soon.

Eglantine's cake.

We made it yesterday. I may have eaten it for breakfast.

8 months out.

The kid is eight months old today. Out almost as long as he was in. We had his MCH nurse visit this morning, and he's the picture of health.

He's the best. I haven't really done any kind of record-keeping of where he's at... We have a 'Very Hungry Caterpillar' baby book that someone gave us, which is awesome, but still empty. I never seem to get around to filling it in, so I guess now is as good a time as any to get it down.

He has two bottom teeth, and the little white ends of two upper fangs as well, with the top middle ones threatening to make an appearance any day now. So far, touch wood, he hasn't really bitten me.

He used to be all about the looking as we carried him around, but now things must be touched, or rather, GRABBED as he hurls himself out of our arms/the sling/wherever. And he is no longer easily pacified with alternatives to the contraband articles he desperately wants to chew on. Before, the ol' switcheroo worked a charm. No more.

He has a fiery little temper. I suspect he gets that from his mama. Turns red in the face and clenches his fists and shouts when he's frustrated. Mostly this happens when he can't maneuver whatever it is he's trying to get into his mouth. Mango seeds are slippery suckers...

He eats EVERYTHING. On his own. Will not be fed, except at breakfast time, when I have put my foot down. Mama delivers the porridge. But every other meal ends with food all over the kitchen floor. The kitten has learned to linger for scraps of cheese and chicken. Too bad she's not interested in the cucumber, carrot, peas, corn, beans, potato, apple, pear, pumpkin, watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, banana (banana! Overboard! At $10 a kilo! Mama applies the 10-second-rule to this exotic delicacy), broccoli, cauliflower, zucchini, bread, rice, pasta, eggs, cous cous, falafel, etc, etc, etc. He has tried everything and not turned his nose up at anything. Kid likes his food.

He talks and babbles and squeals and SHRIEKS at the top of his quite powerful lungs. I think his first word might be the cat's name.

He sings. Funny little baby monotone wah-wah-wah-ing along when we sing to him. Although, he's not so good with the usual nursery favourites. The photographer the other day was trying to get his attention by singing 'Twinkle twinkle little star', but the kid just stared blankly at her. Had she tried a little 'Love Cats', she might have had more luck. Nancy Sinatra is his bath music every night, and Bing Crosby knocks him out at nap time, no trouble.

He sleeps really well. It took what felt like centuries to get him sleeping for longer than 40 minutes at a time, and he still won't do it unless he's in his cot. But we usually get three naps a day in, and he's sleeping through the night like a champ. We're even beginning to lose the dream feed, here and there. (And when we do, I'm going to go to bed at 8 o'clock every night for a week.)

He loves riding on the motorbike at the farm. REALLY loves it. It's a little worrying. He does not love tummy time all that much. We still do it, but he gets frustrated more quickly than he used to. Bad luck, kiddo. You won't crawl unless you try. He is trying, but he's been trying for months and hasn't managed to put it all together yet. Oh well. Backwards and in circles is fine with me. At least I don't have to worry about him going anywhere when I leave the room.

He notices when I go, and cackles like a wild thing when I come back. He shakes his head and claps his hands and waves goodnight when The Boy takes him off to bed. He LOVES the mirror, and The Boy and my god, the cat. She may be his favourite. He loves going out for coffee with The Boy in his red sling, and bouncing up the stairs with me in his yellow pram. He loves pants-off, and bathtime, and saying hello to John, Paul, George & Ringo every day when we walk past the picture near his room. He loves banging and kicking and shouting and laughing and grabbing my hair. He loves, with great passion, a two-dimensional yellow duck that came out of a Lamaze book. He is indifferent about Sophie.

He is funny and sweet and BEAUTIFUL and so cute and hey-zeus, I love his guts.

 

Walking with bebe.

Thank you, AES+F

Walking with bebe.

Apple blossom, bees and sunshine.

It's that time again.

We left on Saturday afternoon (after our very successful brunch! Cross it off the list!), intending only to check on the goats and be back in the city for aikido on Sunday morning. The kid was cranky, having had his usual nap interrupted by a house full of people, so we pulled over on the ridge of Kangaroo Ground and I fed him in the back seat of the car. The view over the valley from there is a heartwarming thing. It's not a huge sweeping vista, nothing too dramatic. But it's green, green, green. Especially this year. Rolling hills, vineyards, and the mountains in the background. And from the road, with the grass gently waving up against leaning fence-posts grey with weather and age, it's a beautiful thing. Soothes my ragged edges. One for the memory, rather than the camera.

It was dusk when we arrived, and the yin and yang of springtime made the stay much longer than planned. Specifically, baby goats and fallen trees.

She's a girl, and she's funny! Longer ears than any of the previous babies, and a whole lot of personality, even at a day old. I said we should call her Sunday, seeing as we found her on a Sunday. The Boy said we should call her Paddock, because we found her in a paddock. Little baby goaty. She's the cutest.

Not so cute was the massive gum tree that fell in from the road, taking out two of the windbreak trees and the next door paddock's electric fence. The big chainsaw is temperamental, so The Boy tackled the clean-up with the little saw. A butter knife, compared to the size of the trunk, which is not visible in the photo. It was a long day.

The kid was happy enough.

 So was I.

The list. Four weeks.

Another fortnight has zoomed by. The list grows steadily smaller. Here's the latest...

1. Go swimming with the kid.  We went again, as a trio, and everyone had a ball. I think perhaps The Boy most of all. We've been slack at organising swimming lessons and it seems like the term has started now, but maybe we'll sneak in somewhere...
2. Collingwood Children's Farm.
3. Re-stock the wood pile at the farm.
4. RUN at least once a week. So far, so good.
5. Eat a lobster roll at Golden Fields.
6. Finish the Japan book.
7. Family photos. Done! They were fun! Viewing and fleecing to come.
8. Plant some vegies (tomatoes, lettuce, carrots). Still no progress on the carrots or tomatoes, but the lettuces are going great guns.

Lovely lettuces

Got some supermarket basil in too, so hopefully it survives this wintery spell. I want a summer full of pesto.

Sad supermarket basil

 There's also mint. Because that shit grows itself.

Mint what grows itself

9. Have people over for brunch. On Saturday! Turns out we only have four chairs, since the great baby's-coming cleanout! Ack!
10. Eat some sourdough from Firebrand. It was a thing of beauty. Slathered with Danish butter, soaking up our dinner juices, toasted, nibbled, sucked on by the kid. It only lasted a day or two, but my word, they were good days.

11. Date night x 1, 2, 3. I think The Boy's birthday counts.
12. Frame the kid's birth certificate.
13. Have a massage.
14. Take the kid to the beach.
15. Be able to run around the Tan by NYE!

All good. I'm glad I started this. I reckon there's a good chance I'll finish it.

Sugar highs and paint fumes.

So that was the holidays. We swam. We played. We farmed and slept and loved the kid. We saw our friends and ate a lot, and last night, we went out for The Boy's birthday. Little Creatures squeezed us in (and kept squeezing... Facebook invitations must be doing the hospitality industry's collective head in), and the kid was happy and bright until he wasn't. It was fine, though. One-handed dinner with him passed out and suckling was a-ok. And then The Boy's mum took the kid in her car back to our place so we could keep going. We ate doughnuts. They looked even better than this. (And we drank beer instead of tea.)

Pic is not mine.

Good lordy god almighty, I have the diabetes and it was worth it.

Because we're hardcore, after dinner, we ran through the rain down to Bar Open for GUITARELAY. It seems like in previous years the idea was one person did a bit of improv, was joined by another person, and then left the stage to be replaced by the next guitar and so on. You know, a relay. Last night they had the technical capacity for 17 guitars to be on at once, so they pretty much just said 'go', and let the noise commence. Alas, it was less free-improv tag-team, more drone-fest 2000. Lots of two-chord pedal-looping and not nearly enough collaborative baton-passing. Pretty much a case of biggest amp wins. Sigh. Still, it was good to see G again, and despite (or maybe because of) the lack of imagination of most of the musicians there, it was easy to hear his scratchy noises above the clamour.

We snuck home to feed the kid and go to bed, and then remembered that the homosexual handyman* was coming at 8 this morning to paint the bathroom. Oy. Nothing like emptying a room into the corridor and removing all traces of the kitten at 11pm the night before school goes back. But it's done now. Shoddy paint job covering up the mould and a house full of fumes. Hooray, renting! Free chroming high! Ack. I have a headache. Time to lie down.

* I say this in the best possible way. He is all pink polo shirt and diamond studs with his ladder and spanners and overalls. For realz. Hilarious.