Parental responsibility

As a parent I am constantly striving to be responsible and avoid compromising Michael's dignity. That is why I valiantly fought the urge to take a photo of Michael with a coffee filter on his head.

Latest stats

Michael had his latest appointment at the baby clinic yesterday and here are his 5½ month stats:

Age: 5 months, 2 weeks and 4 days old
Weight: 8.770 kg (19.3 pounds)
Length: 69 cm
Head circumference: 43 cm
Current temperament: Quietly alert and chatty
Current location: Sitting in his Maxi Cosi

We are expecting his second tooth to make an appearance in the next few days because he has been very unsettled; chewing everything in sight; coughing and dribbling like a leaky tap. Apparently the nipple biting is also to do with the teething and not just that he hates me and wants to punish me for something. We took him out to Schiphol this evening. He is always lulled to sleep by the car and the general bustle of the airport and Phil and I can enjoy ourselves with a cocktail at the juice bar. Not a drop of alcohol in them, but fabulous nonetheless.

Michael said "Mama" twice today. It wasn't in any particular context but since I have been trying to get him to say it for ages, I am very pleased. My genius child :o)

I'm not sure if I mentioned the fabulous playnest we bought for him a while back. It allows him to sit up whilst supported and play. Much better than him getting frustrated on his back. Sadly, he is now starting to try to climb out of it so I don't think it will be long before we have to put the baby gates up and find a way to protect the DVD player drawer from little jam-coated fingers. How time flies!

The Wiggles

Michael and I just caught The Wiggles on TV. How cool is that show?!?

Battered by baby

My baby is beating me up. They don't mention this problem in any of the baby books I have. His little tooth has left it's mark on several fingers and both nipples today (so far). He loves to explore my face with his hands and unfortunately this leads to my hair being pulled and me being somewhat tenderised.

I think it would be unsporting for me to report him to the domestic violence unit of the police department because he is a bit young to do bird.

The return of the fatty lump

We took Michael back to the doctor today so that he could examine the lump under Michael's left eyebrow. We were pleased to learn that it has not grown at all but Michael has, nonetheless, been referred to the clinic at the hospital for further testing. The doctor said that it's proximity to the eye was his motivation for the referral. I took a sneaky peak at the referral letter and his belief is that it is either a lipoma, a cyst or an exostosis. I certainly hope that it isn't an exostosis. It's location makes that an improbability.

In other news, we are still waiting for Michael's second tooth to make an appearance. He has been grizzling all week, with the exception of yesterday. Despite the pain and the temper it has put him in, he has been progressing very well. So far this week he has:

• Started blowing raspberries
• Sat unsupported for a few minutes
• Cut his first tooth
• Found his feet

With the last achievement came the sad realisation that he was never going to get his foot in his mouth. His torso is simply too long. He can get his big toe to touch his lips but that is all. Poor little guy.

Indecision

Why is there never any consensus where baby issues are concerned? After Michael's first tooth came through I realised I would have to clean it with something - but what? There seem to be four schools of thought:

1. Clean with wet gauze after every feeding
2. Clean with wet gauze after every feeding and clean with toothpaste once a day
3. Clean with toothpaste that does not contain fluoride once a day
4. Clean with toothpaste that does contain fluoride once a day

What the hell?!? Some dentists say that toothpaste is bad for children under two; some say that breastfed babies are more at risk of cavities; some say that fluoride is dangerous for babies; some say that fluoride supplements are necessary in certain situations. We've gone for a less severe version of option 2 (toothpaste and cleaning several times a day with gauze - not after every feeding).

I have always been guilty of over-thinking things but good grief - the supposed baby experts don't make it very easy for me.

Speaking of guilt - I discovered today that I should have been supplementing Michael with vitamin D since birth. This is because breast milk only contains low amounts of vitamin D - the baby gets the balance of what they need from sunlight. Given that Michael's routine is exceptionally nocturnal, and that in The Netherlands he isn't going to get enough direct sunlight in winter, a supplement is necessary. I immediately convinced myself that he was going to get rickets due to my ignorance (I haven't had much sleep lately...) and Phil and the baby clinic had to convince me that it would be fine.

Still not 100% convinced... ask me again after I get a decent sleep...

Progress

Michael did not seem to be in any pain at all today and went to sleep tonight without painkillers. We have been having some trouble settling him at night because his body clock is telling him to go to sleep for the night at about 3am and wake for the day at 1pm. I have been trying to shift the routine to earlier in the day but my efforts have been hampered by the teething.

I had a crisis of confidence tonight that I shouldn't be nursing him to sleep. Most of the books that I have regard nursing to sleep as a big mistake that will lead to a child who is overly dependent on the breast and cannot self-settle. I have nursed Michael to sleep since he was born. I decided to search on the internet for methods to teach him to self-settle only to find the two online resources that I trust above others (Dr. Sears and kellymom) affirm that nursing to sleep is not only perfectly natural but also preferable to many other methods (albeit tiring for the parents). The suggestion is that self-settling is a developmental milestone that will come in time. Well I wish I had read this before then I wouldn't have felt so guilty the whole time!

Baby-induced hysteria

Picture, if you will, two otherwise intelligent, educated and rational people huddled at the foot of the stairs and giggling like schoolgirls in an anatomy class. Baby-induced insomnia can lead to one of two things - a short fuse or a fit of the giggles. I don't think I have giggled like this since I was a teenager. Anything can spark it off and it is most likely to happen when we need to be quiet because Michael is sleeping. Last night we were both snorting and snickering for a good ten minutes before we composed ourselves enough to go up to bed. Having a baby is undoubtedly one of the hardest things we will ever do and I am tremendously grateful that we can see the humour in it (most of the time).

Oh... and don't bother to ask me why I'm still awake at 4am...

TOOTH!!!!!!!

Finally the tooth has come through!!! WOO HOO!!!!!!
Can I sleep now? Pretty please???

Baby-induced insomnia

Well... here I am again... awake at 5am. After my last post Michael finally went to sleep and last night we had to medicate him again. I'm not willing to automatically assume that the teething is going to interfere with his sleep so I get him ready for bed as normal and put him down to sleep to see how he copes. If he doesn't, then it drags the bedtime out but at least I'm not needlessly medicating him. Tonight was particularly bad and he is, again, dosed up on paracetamol and asleep. I really, really do not want to give him paracetamol on a regular basis so I sincerely hope that this tooth shows up soon.

The downside to dealing with Michael's sleep problem is that Phil and I end up wide awake and slightly on edge at ridiculous hours of the night. Now, the sensible thing to do would be to wind down with a hot, milky drink and some soothing classical music on the radio, but we aren't sensible people. So I'm chatting on Instant Messenger and blogging my woes. Phil is - pause whilst I ask him - browsing, blogging and resisting the urge to stuff himself full of food.

Speaking (or more accurately, writing) of urges, I've got the urge to rewrite Dracula in the style of Terry Pratchett so if I am still awake in an hour or so I may start on that...

Go to sleep!

It is almost 5am and I've been up and down the stairs to Michael like a jack-in-the-box for the past 2 hours. He just keeps waking up crying. This really isn't like him - he has gone down to sleep easily for 11 hours a night for the past 2 months. Phil took a turn trying to soothe him... no luck. We checked the usual things - he is well fed; no leaks; good temperature; no wind. Then we looked in his mouth and can see a red line across the little lump where his tooth will come through. The baby clinic advised us to give him some paracetamol if the teething interrupted his sleep and that is what we have done. I know we probably shouldn't play with him but we're trying to relax him now so that the paracetamol can take effect.

I feel so very sorry for him, but I feel sorry for Phil and I too. Phil always wants to do his share, even though he works full-time and he is going to be exhausted today if we can't get some sleep soon.

Fingers crossed...

5 months old!

5 months old! Where does the time go?!? I love this photo - it is of Michael having a very earnest conversation with Dweezil.

Baldy baby

Phil and I are rather gutted to discover that Michael is losing his hair around the sides. He has a thick mop of hair on top but it has never really grown round the sides (beyond what he was born with). Now it is falling out. I discovered this when I had a peek in his moses basket. Little red hairs everywhere - so sad.

We had some fun and games with him at the weekend because of him teething. He was whinging and grizzling all day Saturday and even held his breath at one point. When this tooth eventually parts company with his body, either exchanged with the tooth fairy for money or knocked out when he falls on his nose chasing a butterfly, I am going to remember these past weeks and I am going to jump up and down on it! Never mind keeping it for eternity in a little porcelain pot - I want REVENGE!

He is now in 9-12 month sleepsuits and I don't dare speculate how long they will fit him for. I may as well just empty my purse into the mothercare till once a month. I was rather alarmed to learn that at 8.5kg, he is actually larger than our colleague's baby - that baby being 4 months older than Michael. As an August baby, he is going to be one of the youngest in his school year but I somehow doubt that he is going to be the smallest. Just as long as I don't catch him giving children a couple of years older than him a swirlie...

Do recruiters have souls?

Possibly an odd title for a baby blog entry but today the worlds of a recruiter, baby Michael, and a set of weighing scales collided, leaving me pondering this question. This afternoon, Michael was being weighed and toppled off the scales. Fortunately he was completely unhurt, although a little distressed and perturbed (paranoid Mummy took him along to the doctor just to check him out). At the moment this happened, Phil was called by a recruiter. The recruiter would have heard something like this...

THUD
Michael: WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
Phil: SH*T!
Catherine (note of rising panic): What happened? MICHAEL?!?

Phil immediately hung up the phone. I ran to pick up Michael to soothe him, and the recruiter rang back. Phil shouted down the phone "NOW IS NOT A GOOD TIME!" and hung up again. Whilst we were on the way to the doctor's office, the recruiter rang for a third time and Phil let the call go through to voicemail. The recruiter left the following message:

Philip, hi, it's **** **** from ****. I'm not too sure what happened there
but the... er... phone went dead twice so I just thought I'd try you again...
erm... If you could please give me a call back... erm... I do have a specific
opportunity that I would like to discuss with you.

Eh? The phone went dead? Phil essentially told him to b*gger off and he somehow missed that?!? Since he will undoubtedly call back, I am tempted to answer the phone just to determine if he does have a soul. I imagine the conversation would go something like this:

Recruiter: Hi, this is **** **** from ****. Can I speak to Philip, please?
Me: I'm afraid that he spontaneously combusted whilst on the phone to you, yesterday. All I have left to bury is his left testicle and slightly smoking socks.
Recruiter (slightly subdued): Erm... I'm sorry to hear that...
Recruiter (brightening slightly): If you know of anyone... erm... who would be interested in a system administration position then please don't hesitate to pass on my details.
Me: I'll do that... yeah...

SHUT UP

Every bl**dy year it is the same. The local kids grab a selection of their parents' fireworks and roam the streets from sunrise to sunset letting them off. It turns the cats (indoor cats, but with excellent hearing) into gibbering wrecks and this year it is ruining the sleep of my son.

Little b*stards.



I'm not normally a violent person but right now I would really like a shotgun.

Help me, I'm stuck!

I've discovered the fly in the ointment with Michael's new trick of rolling over... he gets stuck. It goes like this:

1. I put Michael onto his back in his playpen or under his activity arch
2. Michael rolls over in seconds and in that moment is extremely pleased with himself
3. Michael looks around with interest
4. Michael gets fed up of squashing his dinner and wails to be turned back over
5. I turn him onto his back
6. Repeat to fade

He used to be able to play happily on his back for at least half an hour and until he masters the skill of rolling over and back again, playtime is going to be a very exhausting experience for both Mummy and Baby.

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!

I've finally found the time to write an entry now that Phil's mum, Linda, has returned to England. She came out on Saturday to spend Christmas with us. Michael was exceptionally well-behaved on the day that she arrived and sat peacefully in her arms for quite some time. Unfortunately his teeth started to cause him some upset late in the evening and he was *very* grumpy through Christmas Day and Boxing Day. He wasn't really smiling or making eye contact - he was just dribbling a lot and shoving anything within reach into his mouth.

His bad mood didn't stop him from reaching a new milestone, though. He is now rolling over from his back to his front. Michael is a very nosy baby and doesn't like to spend much time lying down. He prefers to be carried around so that he can have a babble at the bookcases and supervise whatever is going on in the house. He has never wanted to spend any time on his front so I haven't pushed it. I put him down on his back under his activity arch on Christmas Day and before I knew it, he had rolled onto his front and looked for all the world like he was going to crawl off (note to self - buy baby gates!) It was lovely that Linda was here to see it.

Here is a photo of Michael in the outfit I chose for him for Christmas Day. It was supposed to be a Christmas pudding outfit but I abandoned that idea for two reasons. Firstly, it would have been a bit of a squash because he is so long in the body. Secondly, I decided to leave him his dignity (for now!)













Michael is still exclusively breastfed, but we decided to sit him up in his new highchair during Christmas dinner. He quickly caught on with the new toy in front of him. It is a spinning toy with all kinds of whistles and bells to capture his imagination. All he has to do is bash it to make it spin. No problem for Destructo Boy ;o) He has, what we call, his bashing arm. He loves to pump his right arm up and down with quite some force and scatter anything in reach. I'm amazed he hasn't left any bruises! He bashed himself in the eye the other day and is now using his bashing arm a bit more gingerly.




I love this photo. Sadly, it is a bit grainy because of the low light in the living room, but I managed to capture three generations of Gleghorns in the one place and all looking at the camera.










Michael decided to investigate Phil's beer. He doesn't get to sample the contents for a good few years yet! It will probably be round the back of the school bike sheds in 15 years time, drinking something like Merrydown cider...














I suspect that Michael may have decided to start rolling over so that he can watch television... Thus begins a lifetime of being a telly addict.

New blog

I have created a new blog where I can post on topics that are not baby-related. You can find the blog at:
http://cjfogg.blogspot.com

I decided this was necessary after the post on Sir Jimmy Savile that I somehow shoe-horned into Michael's blog.

Tis the season to go ping

Our old Toyota Corolla, named Myrtle, has a fabulous sense of timing. Phil's mum is coming to stay on Saturday and we need to do quite a bit of last minute shopping, so Myrtle has picked this as the perfect time to fall to pieces. She is quite an old car and something big usually breaks during the winter but this year she is heading for the scrap yard.

Phil was on his way home from work in the dark yesterday when the drive belt went as he was going round a roundabout. There were ditches on either side of the road and I'm amazed that he didn't end up in one of them. What if we had been on the motorway doing 120km/h when it had happened?? It doesn't bear thinking about. Myrtle doesn't have tinted windows or air conditioning so is an absolute punishment to drive anywhere in during the summer. So... her time has come. Bye bye Myrtle. This little episode did bring forth some very welcome acts of kindness. Several people helped Phil push the car onto the verge and a lovely gentleman in one of the nearby businesses crossed two roads and a roundabout to bring Phil a cup of coffee while he waited for the breakdown service to arrive. Phil had had to go into this gentleman's shop to ask to use a phone because he had left his mobile at home. He never forgets his mobile so this is another example of Myrtle's fabulous sense of timing.

The garage that the car was towed to is going to examine Myrtle today. There is a good chance that when the drive belt broke, some components in the engine were damaged so we will probably have to get a rental car for the Christmas period.

In baby-related news, Phil got a small taste of what breastfeeding is like yesterday. Michael decided to have an evening where he did little but feed and I briefly passed him over to Phil whilst I did a couple of chores. Quick as you like, Michael latched onto Phil's nose and started sucking furiously. Phil thought it was funny initially but his nose quickly began to suffer from Michael's over-enthusiasm for the task. Matters weren't helped by Michael blowing dribble up Phil's nostrils at the same time. I couldn't locate the camera fast enough to take a picture so this amusing event will have to live only in my memory. Phil tells me that his nose is still sore this morning. Tee hee ;o)

Meme

If you are reading this, ask me four questions -- any four, no matter how personal, private, or absurd. I will try to answer them honestly, or if I can't be honest, I'll try to be funny. In turn, you have to post this message in your own journal and you have to answer the questions that are asked of you.