Portrait of the Artist as a Little Baby

Last week, armed with a battery of distracting toys, Baby D and myself ventured to the cinema for a charmingly entitled “Babes in Arms” screening.
“Babes no-where near arms wriggling about in lap would be more accurate,” I thought as I tried to restrain a squirmy Baby D who was determined to practise his speech: “Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Da Daaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”
The women beside me had perfectly mannered little boys and I couldn’t help but overhear them compare how great they were.
“Little Michael weighs 20 pounds now and is growing out of 6-9 months clothes already and he’s only 5 months!”
“Little Danny is the same! And you know he’ll be crawling before long. The other day I caught him trying to move forward just before he rolled right over!”
“My sister sent me an art book for babies recently. Little Michael loved it so much he started to cry when I put it away. He just loves the stimulation!”
Hmmmmmmmmmmm. I smoothed down Baby D’s 3-6 month t-shirt as he chewed on a sock. He’s not a great fan of trying to crawl and ends up with his face squashed into the mat gasping for breath after a few seconds. He can roll over, but only on soft carpets at Granny’s house and spent a large part of yesterday inspecting a crumpled up piece of newspaper. The latest thing he’s learned to do is stick his tongue between his lips and go blubblubblulbblub” at speed, spraying spit all over the place. Should I be worried? Nah. After all he’s clever enough to wait until after I’ve loaded a spoon of food before blowing the biggest bubbles.
“Heh heh heh HEH HEH HEHHHHHHHHH!” shouted Baby D thirty minutes into the film until I got the hint and left, leaving the rest of the babies resting serenely in their Mammys' arms in peace. I had an idea for when we got home. I’d sit him in front of the wall of his new bedroom, feed him some spaghetti bolognaise and let him spray paint the wall. Who says he isn’t talented?

Snoozy News

I’m quite excited this week as Baby D managed to sleep for more than 3 hours in a row the last two nights. The only problem is that instead of nestling under the duvet I still expect a call at any minute and spend the night literally with one eye open. I’m sure once I’ve got the hang of sleeping through the night myself Baby D will have changed the rules again just to keep me on my toes. We’re never happy, I complain when he wakes up and when he doesn’t wake I worry something’s wrong. Last night he didn’t stir for 8 hours, and I found myself looking at the ceiling at 3.30am willing myself not to get up and check he was ok. Because now I have to get up and look, as the big news from Baby D camp is that he has moved into his own room. He didn’t even notice but myself and M were ecstatic, although a little sad as it’s the first of a long long line of steps to moving out of the house to go to college. Although I’ve noticed a fist resident in his mouth again this week so he could be moving back in pretty soon if it’s Killer Teeth: The Sequel.

Teeth

Aaaaah there's been a long gap since the last entry and even as I'm writing this I am wondering why I'm not going to bed at 9 pm and getting some valuable sleep. Recently we have retreated into the twilight of newborn days and been surviving on bursts of 2 hr sleep at a time as poor Baby D has being teething. And not just any old teeth but BabyBoy Teeth (infant precursor to Manflu see Blog Archive.) So after 2 months of sobbing his little heart out every 2 hrs on Mammy's shoulder (Daddy's just didn't cut the mustard; boy do I feel special!) we finally have a couple of shiny new teeth and 2 weary, glassy eyed parents to show for our efforts.
Unfortunately now that he's stopped growing teeth in the middle of the night, Baby D is now embracing the day at half five in the morning with a dawn chorus of his own. After a week of creatively draping bin bags and rugs over the windows, I decided that blackout blinds are the answer to my prayers.
"We thought these would work for our kids but they still woke up at the crack of dawn. Babies have their own bodyclock you know." said the man who came to measure the windows. "That will be 120 euro if you decide to go ahead."
It was worth a punt I thought as I wrote the cheque, wiping the sleep from my eyes.
If I manage to post another entry before July you'll know the blinds worked.