Wave Of Light 2017

This is my story of our family. In some ways it’s a story with a neat beginning and ending. Then in other ways it’s not. Here’s one way of telling my story. My name is Lourda and I have 3 beautiful children, 1 boy and 2 girls. Healthy happy kids. A beautiful family. A neat story. Then there’s the other story. This one is invisible, unknown and probably one day forgotten. Because I’m also a Mother of four 8 week old babies. How to tell this story? It’s a tough one because even though our law is insistent about the importance of unborn life, my experience is that when early life is lost naturally no one considers it important. No one considers it to be a child. Or that this child has a set of parents that are grieving. Miscarried they said. I say what a stupid word. As if they were accidentally dropped. Absentmindedly put down. As if I didn’t put enough effort into carrying them. And here’s the thing. There is nothing to see. Nothing to hold. Nothing to show people. No pictures. No hand prints. No coffin. No names. No gender. Nothing. Like wisps of smoke. Fragments of breath. A whisper. A promise of life. Here and gone. There, there, sure you’ll have another one. Once I ingrained the details of each loss into my memory. One thing they all shared was that I knew with absolute certainty from the first faint line on the test that they would not survive. Maybe a little communication from the life inside me. Warning me not to relax. I’ve allowed my fierce grip on the details to loosen over time. Just so I could keep on going. Now I can’t remember which ones I saw heartbeats for; which one a co worker told me I caused by my lunchtime run, or which one a family member said was caused by breastfeeding. I remember which two I had operations to remove. But I mix up which left me weak and grieving outside the Coombe, trapped by Obama’s motorcade and whether that was the same time a kind Anesthetist held my hand as I lay crying on the table waiting for her to drug me to sleep. For both I remember the cripplingly lonely walk to the theater. Fragments of details from scans. Stark words, “Your womb is empty” .The sense of dread sitting in the early pregnancy unit. Disappearing from work on sick leave. Research on causes. Friends that dropped everything for a coffee and others that dropped out of my life. All blended into a blur. Now the only thing I hold close is their due dates. Random numbers that never evolved into their true significance. Dates that should be a cause for celebration every year. Now I simply have a silent toast and the day slips by as usual. There we have it. Never born. Only held as memories forever in my heart. These little whispers of life that just me and their Dad were lucky enough to hear. And that, is our story. 08/10/11; 21/12/11; 23/09/12; 23/03/15. (With thanks to Marta O Leary Art for the image with this post)

Sunshine on a Rainy Day

Here’s an abbreviated account of our holidays to Wicklow.
Get into car. Sun shines
Baby D – Waaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Stop car. Lashes rain
Baby D – Waaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Get out of car. Run to shops through puddles.
Baby D – Waaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Walk around shops. Sun shines.
Baby D – Waaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Go for walk in nice scenic area. Lashes rain.
Baby D – Waaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Get into car. Sun shines
Baby D – Waaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh
Repeat for 2 days.
(I should point out that Baby D was coming down with a cold, which explained his bad mood. Didn’t explain the weather though.)

Toy Story

I had a tough time in Smyth’s Toys recently. I went in to find some new toys for Baby D to stop him rooting around in our laundry basket. After wandering the aisles, blinded by blue and red plastic and amazed at the price tags, I eventually emerged clutching a seven euro Winnie the Pooh jigsaw. “Bargain” I thought, trying not to feel guilty as the other parents stumbled passed me struggling under the weight of Smart Trikes and life-sized Peppa Pigs.
Luckily I hadn’t just bought a jigsaw but a “valuable learning tool.”
“This will enhance your fine motor skills and hand to eye co-ordination,” I read off the side of the box to Baby D at home.
“Pooh!” said Baby D as he grabbed the box from me and tipped all the pieces onto the floor.
“And also can be used as an educational aid...”
He picked up a piece of jigsaw and chewed it thoughtfully.
“Aids problem solving...”
Baby D rambled off, jigsaw dangling from the side of his mouth.
“And helps develop reasoning and problem solving skills.” I finished as he re emerged, looking pleased with himself, the piece of jigsaw replaced by a sock.
“Toe–Toe!” he mumbled through the sock, trampling over the rest of the pieces.
“Seven euro well spent,” I thought.

And on a totally different note

And on a completely separate note, since when did people start dressing up to go to gigs? I was at the Tripod last night, in my 2007 Arcade Fire t-shirt and Dunne’s Stores jeans, and am still getting over the shock of the style on offer; designer shirts, skinny jeans, oversized bags; and that was just the men. Why would you want to get glammed up just to get hot and sticky and covered in beer? Is it because everyone watches the band through their mobile phone screens now, too busy tweeting about the gig to bother jumping up and down in an uncoordinated manner in the mosh pit? I blame it on the smoking ban myself. Clothes are no longer at risk of smelling like an ashtray after a night out, so faded second hand jeans salvaged from the mothballed recesses of a dusty shop in Temple Bar are being replaced by “vintage” denim with a three figure sales tag in BT2 and old band t-shirts are being consigned to Oxfam shops.
Or maybe it’s a leftover from the Celtic Tiger.
Or maybe I’m just getting old.

If I could walk to the animals, talk to the animals..

Baby D has taken some giant steps recently. He finally decided that the limits of mischief obtained by crawling had been reached and is now marching around the place like a veteran. (My dreams that he'd suddenly need 2 hour naps once he started to walk alas, remain unrealised, but I cherish a small hope that when he learns to run he might succumb to exhaustion.) He has also started to speak a form of Baby D Mandarin, where a slight change in the tone completely changes the meaning of the word. So ‘toe’ can mean Granddad Tom, or toast, but interestingly never an actual toe, which are called ‘toe-toes’. His favourite phrase is ‘Wassis?’ which sounds like he’s auditioning for a Budweiser commercial and is used for a variety of questions. He doesn’t mind yet what answer you give so you can make anything up. This morning though I was stumped by 7am, as Baby D woke up with a pressing question on his little mind; what does his stuffed Panda say? I wracked my brains through a chorus of “Wassis?” as I got him up. We clarified that cows say ‘Moo’, dogs say ‘Wuff-Wuff’ and for good measure tigers say ‘Roaaar!’ as I dressed him and changed his nappy, until eventually in the middle of our porridge (‘po-po’) we agreed that Panda would say the easily reproduced, “Ooooo Oooo”. I just hope I remember it tomorrow morning because if I don’t I’ll be hit with another barrage of “wassis?” until the correct Panda voice comes out of the teddy. Incidentally, what noises do Pandas make? Answers on a postcard please!

Everybody's Talking At Me

Baby D revolutionised my world yesterday. I was rushing about, late as usual; making heavy weather of putting his cardigan on when he looked me in the eye, shook his head and firmly said “No!” I nearly fell over with the shock of it all. A clear communication from Baby D! Be gone the days of crying spells and wondering what the hell it was all about! Be gone the days of guessing and double guessing what he needs! Be gone the days of thowing a coin into the air to determine what the tomato face was about this time! I swept him up for a hug and kiss and danced around the bedroom. “It's like meeting an alien and realising that they can actually speak English.” I thought, as I sang “Oh Happy Days!”
I stopped pretty quickly when I realised I still had to put on the cardigan, get out the door, make up for lost time and NOW on top of that I knew for certain that Baby D didn’t want to go. Hmmmmm. After a few days when I had been told in no uncertain terms that no he didn’t want to nap in his cot, no he wasn’t ready for brekkie and no, that’s enough banana thank you, the novelty was beginning to wear off. I began to feel guilty that he felt the need to learn the negative so quickly. Had I been doing lots of stuff that had intensely irritated him that spurred him in to taking the giant leap of saying "NO!". Surely there must have been something I offered him at some stage that excited him enough to exclaim “Yes?” or “Yeah” if that was easier to pronounce? Or have I been so negative that all he's heard to date has been in the negative? (not enough sleep, not the mobile phone, don't pull off the cat's tail, etc..etc..you see my point.)So I’ve started ending my sentences with “Yeah” and smiling inanely to look Positive! “Good Banana Yeah!" "You want the truck? Yeah!" "You’ve done a poo? Yeah!"
So far no progress, except I feel like a cheerleader at a positive thinking seminar and my cheeks ache a little from smiling.

Happy Birthday to You!

It’s hard to believe but it’s a full year since Baby D dived headfirst into our world, arms and legs flailing wildly. Twelve whole months since we tore up everything we knew to that point and stuck it all back together to include our little guy.
Not so long ago by evening time we would have had a track walked around the sitting room, with a little red-faced koala bear clinging to our shoulders, roaring loudly into our ears. Looking at him last night, as he sat ramrod straight by the bookcase, busily engrossed in divorcing our CDs from their plastic cases, I realised how grown up he’s become. Then he hit himself in the face with the edge of a CD and toppled over with surprise. He’s still a very helpless little fellow I thought as I picked him up and dusted him off.
About the same time a year ago we had just been wheeled down to the Hospital ward. We were both a little dazed and confused. “You two sit there now and get to know each other,” the midwife said when she left. So we sat and looked at each other. Both of us concentrating hard; me on keeping a slippery Baby D from toppling off my knee and Baby D on getting the world into focus with his big blue eyes. At that particular moment, neither of us knew very much about anything. We were at the top of a blank sheet of paper, of the first page of the first chapter of an epic novel.
“I’m your Mama,” I told him and kissed his forehead. Baby D yawned and closed his eyes.
And, just like that, our story began.

Sleeping Like A Baby

Shhhhhhhh…..whisper it………Baby D has started to sleep through the night!
There! I’ve officially announced it to the world – or at the very least to the two or three people that read this blog.A bit like He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named in Harry Potter, I’ve been a little fearful of saying it out loud, but it seems that 12 hours of unbroken sleep is now the norm. It’s certainly not due to anything different I’ve been doing so I can only put it down to Baby D’s new exercise regime of doing laps of the living room, pulling books off the shelves, opening drawers,attacking the guitar and chasing the cat’s tail. I daren’t write anymore in case I jinx it, but to the smug Mums that state proudly: “My Baby so-and-so is sleeping through the night. What about yours?” I can now smile and answer, “Baby D is a wonderful sleeper and doesn't wake up until morning," and I won’t bother explaining that it took us 11 months before we got there.

Work Sucks, I Know

Little Baby D has joined the rat race and now has to rush to get out of the house on time in the mornings. So far so good, although Sunday night he woke to have a big chat with himself at 4am, then snuggled down ready for a nice lie in when we must come in at 7.30, open the blinds and explain he had to get up for the childminder's. It’s terrible really that he’s not even a year old yet and already he’s not allowed to get up when he feels like it in the morning. Like the rest of us he’ll have to wait until he’s retired for that luxury.
After I’ve peeled him off my shoulder and driven off trying to banish the image of his little screwed up, tear ridden face, he continues on with his day as normal. He still spends his time playing on the floor, bouncing in his chair, feeding ducks in the park and going to the local play group; nothing much changed really except I’M NOT THERE !!!!!!!! I’m stuck behind a desk 10 miles a way looking at the clock waiting to rush out the door to go and collect him. Trying to appreciate the novelty of having a cup of coffee in peace and not having to wipe scrambled egg off the floor, but all the time wondering why I’m working in order to pay someone else to do all the lovely things I’ve being doing with my little boy for the past 11 months. The world is all mixed up.

Snail Mail

Baby D has learnt how to move in a straight line since our last instalment. He now slides across the floor on his tummy, one arm underneath his belly, the other dragging him forward like a wounded soldier in WWII crossing No Mans Land, keeping his head down dodging enemy fire; or as my less loquacious Mother would put it, like a puca-snail. Either way, yesterday he slithered out of the living room, all the way across the hall and into the bedroom all on his own with no assistance from Mama whatsoever. This was officially His First Independent Move. A milestone.
Another milestone on the horizon, of which Baby D isn’t yet aware, is Mama finding suitable childcare before she returns to work.
I’ve promised Baby D to find someone that will give him six hugs before breakfast and I won’t let him down. I met a girl yesterday who had glowing references and was great on paper but was hard to talk to.
I had a lot to tell her about Baby D. How he likes to prop his feet against your tummy and get his fat thighs stroked for a little bit before his nappy is changed; he prefers to lie for a few minutes after wakening up from his nap, hands and feet crossed, contemplating life before being picked up; he prefers to have his face wiped with his froggy sponge, not cotton wool and especially not baby wipes; when he bangs the table shouting “Eehhh!” after his Weetabix he’s looking for a mandarin orange; drinking a bottle is a task not to be rushed; he needs time to push it away, inspect the top, sit up, have a belch, think about things, then pull it back and drink some more; he flings his bunny rabbit out of bed when he can’t get to sleep but holding your hand and stroking a finger always helps him drift off.
But it was hard to talk to her, so instead of saying all of this I said, “It was great to meet you! We’ll be in touch!” and showed her out.
The search goes on…..

Fun and Games

I’m coming to the conclusion that Baby D’s teething symptoms are in fact a cunning Baby ploy to get me to take him out on an excursion. Each morning, after a bit of a rock and roll on the floor, he gets grouchy, rubs his gums a lot and starts to chew on anything within reach until I say, “Ah, are your teeth at you? Sure we’ll go out for a walk.” As soon as he’s in the buggy he settles back, teeth all forgotten and turns the charm knob up to eleven as he starts to play his favourite game of “how many people I can make smile at me.”
Today we’ve just spent an hour waiting in the doctor’s surgery, which would normally leave me chewing my nails down to my knuckles with frustration, but as far as Baby D was concerned it was the most fun way to spend the morning we’ve had in a while and his enthusiasm couldn’t help but rub off on me.
Here’s what we did: I read the Irish Times while Baby D smiled at the person behind me. Then we both walked around looking at the leaflets, Baby D keeping an eye on the door welcoming everyone in with a squeal and wave of the arms. After that it was time to play a game of horsey on my knee with a game of “Boo!” with the lady behind us thrown in for good measure (she was engrossed in her phone and didn’t realise she was participating in a game but it didn’t matter), and by the time we’d tired of that it was our turn to be seen!
I’m still not sure of the social convention when the little guy smiles at a random stranger until eventually they cave in, smile back and say “Hello!” Do I answer on his behalf (over eager) or ignore them until I’m addressed directly myself (standoffish). It’s tricky.
In the last week I’ve had this dilemma with winos on the Luas, barristers crossing the road outside the Four Courts, and an old lady in Marks and Sparks. “I have 5 children,” she told me as we sipped our teas. “It’s such a steep learning curve with your first. The second is much easier.” She was a little forgetful and repeated herself a bit, but even though her eldest was 55 years old, she still remembered how difficult the first year was. I'm not surprised, as I don't think I'll ever forget all the challenges Baby D has thrown my way either; but all the smiles and games balance it out. You just have to make sure to remember them as well.

Same as It Ever Was

Did you ever feel like you were in a Talking Heads song? I can’t remember the name of it but specifically the one that goes; “You may ask yourself, well, how did I get here?”
I’ve being feeling like that a lot of the time since Baby D arrived. Definitely after attending my first mother and baby group, being slightly appalled by all the spitty-uppy, wailing, pooey infants, then remembering that one of them was mine; humming Israeli lullabies sitting cross legged in a circle of women in a Baby Massage course; wondering how to solve the problem of baby and a poo being in the bath at the same time; every time I get excited about a sale in Mothercare, honestly the list is endless. (And that’s not even counting the whole experiencing of giving birth to the little fella, although that’s probably more a ‘Psycho Killer’ feeling!)
The other day I was in a playground for the first time since I was seven, chatting with friends of ours, all of us keeping an eye on our various aged kids. One couple would have been our default gig buddies and shared obscure band obsessions with Hubbie; the other girl I didn’t know well but was single handedly responsible for us tearing through Gatwick airport in a panic trying to find an internet terminal to book R.E.M rehearsal show tickets and nearly missing our train to Brighton. There we stood, on a Sunday afternoon marvelling at the soft surfaces they’ve got in playgrounds now for the kids to bounce off when they fall, and that song started playing in my head again.
Later Baby D sat in a swing for the first time. He looked small and unsteady, the swing seat looked very large. I gave him a push and his little face looked around solemnly, chubby legs dangling, totally fearless.
“Imagine all the mad stuff you might end up doing in the future.” I said to him. “You might even end up climbing Everest. And I’m here with you for your very first swing; a once in a lifetime moment! Aren't I lucky.”
Then I gave him a kiss on the top of his head and we went home.

Strange Days Indeed

Baby D is going through a rapid phase of development at the moment. He's now officially mobile. Inspired by the A-Team he spends his days busily rolling commando style across the floor, then, when he’s bored of that, barks commands at me to sit him back up, where he stays for a few seconds before flopping down onto his tummy and starting off again. You wouldn’t think he’d cover much ground but yesterday, I popped into the kitchen to flick on the kettle and came out to find he’d made his way to the cat’s bowl, tipped out the water and was about to chow down on her nuts.
The other big development is less fun as Baby D has what the books call separation anxiety. In other words he’s learnt how to worry when I’m not there and last week wouldn’t let me out of his sight at bedtime. I guess when I said to him; “Night Night Baby D. See you in the morning,” he heard, “As soon as I leave this room I’m going to be abducted by aliens, transported to the planet Zog and you’ll never, ever, ever, ever see me again!!” The poor pet.
Anyway the upshot is that another chapter has been added to the ever increasing tome that is the saga of Baby D’s sleeping habits. He spent several nights waking up on the hour, panicking because his little hand wasn’t firmly gripping onto Mammy’s finger. When I’ve finally convinced him that the aliens aren’t on the way I've been woken again at 5.30 am by a series of escalating coughs that translates as: “Please rescue me. I’ve rolled around until I've squished myself in a corner of the cot that I can’t get out of!” So I've ignored all advice to the contrary and started to bring him into my bed in the morning. I do my best to catch up on some more sleep with one eye ajar, making sure he doesn’t brain me with the mobile he’s playing with and a finger hooked into his baby-gro in case he bungee jumps off the bed. That lasts about 20 minutes until I feel a hot breath and heavy breathing in my ear as Baby D presses his nose aginst me wondering what’s so interesting on my side of the bed.
Anyway I’m back to wandering the streets of Stoneybatter bleary eyed in search of caffeine and wondering how my friends with more than one baby do it, and not just do it but work, email and socialise as well?
Then, this evening, I looked into the bedroom as Hubbie was getting him ready for his bath. Baby D looked straight at me, wrinkled his tiny button nose and said softly for the first time: “Mama!”
And, just like that, all the sleepless nights were washed away.

I was crawling through a festival way out west...

Last Friday I sat by Baby D’s cot as he shuffled about trying to find a comfortable position for the night, and realised that it was Oxygen weekend. After a medley of ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’, ‘Yellow Submarine’ and ‘Ten Green Bottles’, I sat down with a cup of tea and complained to Hubbie that I should have been in a field rocking out to Arcade Fire drinking beer.
“Ah we’re too old for that malarkey anyway,” he said as he removed the ‘Mozart for Babies’ CD from the stereo. In fact now that I think of it we were probably too old for Oxygen the last time we ventured down, drinking lattes and trying to read the Sunday Times on the bus as the 13 year olds behind us discussed the deadly buzz they had and how many cans they could knock back before security.
The deadliest buzz I get these days is the adrenaline rush when I manage to sneak out of Baby D’s room without waking him up. Cars, trucks and sirens can blare past outside his window but the tiniest creak of the floorboard in his room is enough to snap him into full alert. So currently it takes us ten minutes to get him asleep and another 20 to leave the room. Hubbie has taken to crawling out while I employ a series of maneouvres similar to that balancing thing the Karate Kid did for Mr Miyagi. What we really need is the contraption Tom Cruise used to lower himself from the ceiling in ‘Mission Impossible’. I might look on eBay in case the spies arrested in the States recently had a chance to flog some of their stuff before being shipped back to Russia.

A Small Rant

I’m officially sick of other Mothers advising me on how well their babies are sleeping. This week I bumped into a friend whom I hadn’t seen in a while and after dutifully admiring each other’s off spring, she couldn’t wait another minute before telling me breathlessly that, “Milseán is sleeping through the night already (dramatic pause)........ and she’s only three weeks old! We don’t know ourselves now that we are getting a good night’s sleep.” She looked triumphantly at me.
What I felt like saying was: “Please don’t tell me how your baby is sleeping unless I ask, or, unless they aren't sleeping at all. I don’t want to hear how bloody brilliant she is at napping and sleeping through the night until Baby D is taking naps and sleeping for more than 3 hours on the trot himself and at the rate he’s going that won’t be until he’s eighteen. And I definitely don’t want to hear about how you’re catching up on sleep yourself when I am so tired I went to a yoga class with my shorts on inside out."
Very grumpy of me I know, but here’s what happened last night;
7.00 pm I put Baby D to Bed
7.30 pm I manage to leave the room
9.30 pm Baby D wakes up. Feed and settles after a quick blast of “Ten Green Bottles”
12.30am Baby D wakes up. Feed and sit with for a while until he finds a comfy position to sleep.
1.00am Baby D Wakes up. I'm not sure why but change pooey nappy anyway.
1.15am Decide it’s teething. Wake Hubbie to help administer Nurofen.
1.45am Everyone back to bed.
2.00am Baby D needs to hold my hand going to sleep.
2.30am Withdraw hand and sneak back to bed.
3.05 am Baby D realises hand is gone, protests. I reinstate hand.
3.10am Gardaí discuss what to do about a vandalised car right outside the bedroom window - LOUDLY.
3.30am Finally Baby D is asleep and I’m back in bed.
3.35am Tow truck for vandalised car pulls up and LOUDLY removes car very s..l..o..w..l..y.
3.45am I am still waiting for tow truck to leave and Baby D to wake at any minute.
4.00am. Truck gone, Baby D asleep still, unfortunately I am now wide-awake.
6.50am Baby D awakes bright eyed and bushy tailed. “Gooooood Moooorning Kingscourt!”

Of course I didn’t say anything of the sort. Instead I lied.
“That’s super! You know Baby D is sooo much better at night as well!”

Buckets and Spades

We took the plunge and stayed at home this year for our summer holidays. I refuse to use the term staycation – in fact anyone over twenty five should be banned from using it as when we were young you definitely didn’t ‘staycation'. It just went without saying that you went on your holiyers to Tramore or Killarney and if you had notions above yourself you “went abroad” to an unspecified destination. Anyway, having said all that I haven’t spent a summer holiday in Ireland since I could afford to buy a flight so it was a bit strange heading down to Youghal for a week. Fortunately the weather was Mediterranean and we only had one day where we looked out the window and discussed options until eventually one of us declared “You know what, we’ll go for a drive.”
For Baby D it was business as usual as the Baby D Production Line™ simply relocated to Cork. He had a few problems to iron out, such as Mammy’s attempt to feed him baby food from a jar, (a face of horror with lips zipped up tighter than a pair of my pre-pregnancy jeans directed me into the kitchen to chop and mash something more palatable) and a spotty tummy, which resulted in a pleasant Sunday morning tracking down an on-call Doctor. The strong Cork accent didn’t faze him and he continued to converse fluently in Baby-D-ESE, “Splut – Ba Ba BA – DA HEH! HEH!…Splut.. Splut...Spluttttt!” He disccovered that rolling onto his tummy is the best thing ever and undertook a gruelling exercise regime of 100 roly-polys in the morning before breakfast. Eventually all the exercise and sea air finally caught up with him and on our last day Hubbie and myself managed to have a long relaxing lunch in a restaurant perched on the side of a cliff, with spectacular ocean views, the sun beaming down from a cloudless sky and without once being disturbed by Baby D. Ah Bliss. As the fella sez, you can’t beat a staycation.
Anyone for the last few choc-ices now?

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.

Let Sleeping Babies Lie

Motherhood leads you to doing many things you wouldn’t normally consider in a million years and yesterday morning I found myself taping three hours worth of Ireland AM on TV3. In my defence I had 3 weeks of sleep broken by an insomniac Baby D and the promise of an interview with a baby sleep expert was more than I could resist. So after another night of 2 hour catnaps I feverishly forward winded until I found the segment, one hand holding a vat of coffee shaking with anticipation at the nuggets of wisdom to be imparted, the other fiddling with the matchsticks under my eyes. As the fog of sleep slowly dispersed to the corner of the living room, ready to descend again as soon as the effects of the coffee wore off, I had a eureka moment and realised 2 things with absolute clarity.
1) Ireland AM is the greatest load of dross imaginable on TV
2) The baby sleep expert was a total nut case. A note to illustrate her fruit and nut cakiness – stimulate babies before bedtime; give them a piggyback for example, to really tire them out. Now Baby D is unpredictable but as he roars his little head off if he accidentally catches sight of himself in the mirror before bedtime, I can safely anticipate a tsunami of tears if we tried this and not the 8 hours sleep she promised.
Adding one and two together I came up with four and now realise that anyone can write a book and get interviewed by Sinead ‘shiny hair’ Desmond and Mark ‘I ask such rambling questions we’ve run out of time for the answer’ Cagney. To this end I’ve researched the multitude of books on how to get babies to sleep and come up with my own silver bullet. It’s called the “Scott’s Simple Sleep Solution- Hurrah!” or “Ssssh!” I won’t go into details save to say you simply need a set of earplugs, willing partner and a large house. I’ll say no more expect to say myself and a well rested Baby D are planning our outfits for TV3 already. Watch this space!