I'm going slightly mad

I just logged on to post an example of how sleep deprived I am and almost forgot about Alice's birthday cake in the process.  I could have posted a picture of a smoking Dora cake as an illustration and saved you all the tedium of reading the below.  Still, this is a period of our lives that will pass (thank goodness) and deserves capture alongside the good bits.

Yesterday was a particularly bad day.  Juliet woke at 3am after the thundering rain necessitated us shutting the window, which sent a pile of Alice's birthday presents thundering to the floor.  It's a big pile.  It was a big noise.  Not her fault, but she wouldn't resettle as she usually does.  Stu offered tender loving comfort: "Stop moaning, you got lucky with Alice", so I stomped off to the living room to feed her and caught up on Gossip Girl in the meantime.  Stu appeared at 4am to find me engrossed, Juliet asleep and Chuck and Blair reunited. 

Despite the broken night, we all set off early to see our names in lights on the Australian Museum.  It's a Sydney Festival thing and somehow in the 24 hour rotation of people's names in lights on the side of the building, we had the convenient slot of 09.40am.  On a Wednesday, so Alice was free to join us.  Perfect.  Unfortunately, I had missed an 09 in reading the email and our 15 seconds of fame was at 09:09:40 so despite being in front of the museum in the car at that point, we didn't look up at the crucial second.  Perhaps I'll post the picture of Mum and Alice in front of someone else's name for posterity.

We had a lovely morning at the museum anyway.  Alice and Nanna stayed on to see the dinosaur exhibit and Juliet and I went on home (me feeling slightly jaded from shouting at Alice not to touch a priceless fossil only to find that the curator swooping on us was actually swooping on me to let me know she could touch whatever she liked). 

By the time the dinosaur fans returned home, I was feeling refreshed and together.  Dinner was in the slow cooker; the house was tidy and I had my much needed daily nap.  Juliet was pretty grumpy, but we put that down to it being close to bedtime.  She got grumpier and the more she cried, the more tingly I felt.  Finally, with my baby and body screaming at me, I realised, at around 6pm, that her 5pm feed had been completley overlooked.  Oops.  She cheered up considerably when this was remedied.

Off I went to a friend's house for a little soiree, which degenerated into 7 women who have recently had babies reminiscing about childbirth.  Why can't we ever let that subject lie?!  The conversation at least left me with the happy memory of my only whole night's sleep in the past 6 months or so - when I went in to be induced with Juliet and they gave me a sleeping tablet.  Anyway, I had to leave all the fun as soon as was seemly because I'd forgotten to take my antihistamine and so I couldn't endure the cat.

With my brain as mush and evidence of this at every turn, it wasn't a great day.  It wasn't a wholly atypical day either.  I'm wondering if I really should be operating heavy machinery in the form of a big black 4x4.

Surely Juliet will sleep through one night soon........................................................please?!

Naps and nappies

Young Alice has all but dropped her lunchtime nap.  Just before she dropped it, she also stopped wearing nappies for it, which happened once by accident but since there were no actual accidents, became a regular fixture.  In answer to the mother I met at a birthday party last week (yes, we are in the January hell of constant children's birthday parties), yes, she does still wear nappies at night.  Yes, really.  I know.  She's nearly 3.  Did I mention that I have a 3 month old baby? 

Anyhoo.  While it was lovely to have the childfree time of a synchronised nap, it's also really nice that Alice has been able to go on daytrips with her visiting grandparents.  The way that she falls asleep at 7pm is also really great.  We bought her a clock that turns from pictures of stars and a blue glowing light to a picture of the sun and a yellow glowing light at a set time and she has just about cottoned onto waiting for the sun before getting up in the morning.  We had a few disturbed nights with the heat last week and also that she did start to wake if she needed a wee, but happily she's gone back to utilising the nappies of shame for now.

Juliet, on the other hand, has not cottoned onto the concept of silent nights as yet, so Alice is usually the first one up in our house and when the sun on the clock starts to shine, she has taken to getting herself up and sitting in the lounge until someone comes to find her.  If it were left to me, that could be quite some time, but Papa is usually up to go to work and Nanna has a pre-programmed need for a constant intake of tea, so is up early too.

So our youngest continues to wake up around 4ish and can usually be shh'd back to sleep until 5ish and can be shh'd again once or twice until the morning.  Pampers have now made it to Australia, so that has helped a bit, as she doesn't wake up wet any more.  She is able to be awake more in the day now, so we are pretty much in a perfect Gina day if not a perfect Gina night.  I don't know when that will come, but am slightly losing my mind in the wait.  It's a good job she's cute.

Learning the language

Listening to Alice recently has been akin to hearing a foreign student gain proficiency in english as a second language.  She is piecing together more complicated sentence structures, sometimes with a pause to consider the end and unfortunately, there are far fewer cute sayings as a result - "lots of peoples"; "ready or not, here comes me" are things of the past, for example.

This evening, arriving home very late, she gave this (accurate and without pause) account of Nanna and her journey:

"The train broke down!

We had to get off at Edgcliff!

We had to walk!

We had an adventure!"

Looking forward to ablative absolutes next week.

Use your words

There are many words which do not cross one's path before having children.  "Bumbo", "Oxytocin", "Swiper" and "KMart" to name but a few.  One which we didn't wish to learn so soon was "Bronchiolitis" or bronchitis for kids.  Poor ickle Juliet succombed to this over Christmas - we all had a nasty cough, as previously reported - but wee J couldn't shift it and had to be prescribed antibiotics and a steroid to help her out. 

Fortunately she's all better now and as she hit the three month mark yesterday, we decided to get tough.  Alice has frankly been a pain in the a$%e the past few nights and has been waking at least twice and staying awake for 20-30 minutes at a time, making a right old racket, so on top of Juliet's 4.40am revee, this was all too much.  They both had to be fixed. 

It's been terribly hot at night (with temps hovering around 22 degrees at minimum) so Alice is now sleeping with just a duvet cover and new, cool nighties were purchased.  (That was a big effort - no one seems to sell them any more - she has some very attractive, sleeveless Dora numbers now).  Threats were made, the television was withheld for a day and we had a silent night last night from that bedroom.

As for Juliet - she was shh'd back to sleep 3 times and made it to 6.30am, which was brilliant.  Perhaps she'll manage that alone soon.  Fingers crossed for them both...

Happy New Year

We had a lovely time at the fireworks on New Years Eve - a while ago now, of course.  The City of Sydney lights up twice with fireworks to celebrate and we all went to watch the family fireworks at 9pm. 

Both Alice and Juliet were brilliantly behaved - Alice had had a nap to ensure she could cope and Juliet unusually wouldn't go to sleep, but fed contentedly during the big bangs.   We had to park about a mile away so the four of us eventually got home just in time to see the midnight fireworks on the telly.  The grandparents rang in the new year by the harbourside.

I didn't really get any photos - the fireworks were great but I was feeding/ covering self up as an old nemesis of a student from my old job turned up to say hello at the crucial latching on moment.

So here are the girls enjoying their picnic and Nanna and Grandad baggsing their place at the front in a slightly germanic manner.

If you look between Alice and the fat bloke you can see the view we had of the bridge.  Perfect.

It was unexpectedly sunny, hence the baby bride sheltering from the elements.

And some amazing fireworks footage for the interested:
http://vimeo.com/18447991

Belated Happy New Year!

Summer days

We're just through that gorgeous hiatus between Christmas and New Year where the whole of Australia is on holiday; even Stu.  Mercifully our life over here means that these few days no longer involve hours on the M6 and even better, that Christmas falls at the start of a lovely long summer holiday.  It's been hot, but not too hot and Alice and Juliet have been enjoying being bathed in sun and surrounded by family for the festive season.

Good night sweetheart

Here are my babies at around 12 weeks. Can you tell they're related?!

Alice

Juliet

And there endeth the similarity.  Good old Alice was sleeping for 10 hours or so by this point, with no dream feed.  She was relatively easy to settle by this stage, following weeks of shh'ing and patting, but the evenings were quite hard work.  All worth it for the long stretch of sleep, however. What super dooper parents we were.

By contrast, Juliet shows that there's a lot to do with nature rather than nurture.  She is the easiest baby to settle that I have ever known - you just chuck her in the cot and off she goes (sometimes after a little chat or perhaps a song).  She's been like this for weeks.  However, she's still waking in the night.  It was at dead on 3am for about 9 weeks, but she has at least/last progressed to 4.45am which helps.  In the last few days, her nightfeeds have reduced to abour 15 minutes or so - and last night although she was feeding hungrily I stopped her after that amount of time and she settled straight away. 

If only she knew that Alice's sleeping was all down to me.  Hmm.  I have told her that she needs to get it together now that she is 12 weeks old.  However, she just doesn't seem to be listening.  And frankly, since she is so adorable, I'm prepared to humour her until we are all better.  I am feeling fairly demented, however, with the lack of sleep and am trying not to wish this lovely baby stage away.

Happy Christmas

Christmas was a bit too hectic to take many photos - between roasting the turkey and Juliet's feeds, things were very busy.  Still, we had a lovely day and Alice loved all her presents, even climbing into her sack to check for any residuals.

Someone has taught her some lovely manners - every time she opened a gift, she would rejoice "I was looking for a watch/ a Dora lamp/ a My Little Pony".  It was truly a pleasure to watch her on Christmas morning.

Juliet was a little tired from something or other and spent most of the day asleep.

Alice's main present was a bike.  We hung the stocking on it, in the lounge, as she had had a bit of a meltdown when it was suggested that Santa would come into her room and leave her presents there.  Imagine the surprise and joy on her little face when she comes in and sees a pink bicycle with matching water bottle and dolly seat on the back, we thought.  The reality saw Alice taking individual presents out of the stocking and completely ignoring the bike until the giant sock was empty/she was teasingly made to stand in front of the bike and acknowledge it.  It's currently in the lounge acting as a much loved seat.  We perhaps went too early with that one.

We've had the maternal grandparents here with us over Chrimbo, which has been great.  Apart from the smokers cough which is ripping through the females of the species, it's been a big help to have so many people around.  I feel as though both girls have come on in leaps and bounds with all the attention.  Alice has been moderately well behaved and her vocabulary continues to amaze.  She also seems to be getting stronger physically, climbing on things at the park and no able to take herself to the loo and to get on the normal seat herself, without using the step. 

Juliet has almost developed the ability to stay awake for 2 hours.  About 1 hour 50 is her comfort zone, but we are able to pass her around to keep her spirits up. 

I had big plans for lots of little drinks soirees, but back in the real world with a 3 month old baby and a streaming cold, we've had a nice quiet week in the sunshine.