Hello there poppets! / L Plate Mama

More on the trip – home away from home My mum always used to say, a house is just bricks and mortar, a home is where the heart is. My brothers and I grew up in South Wales and London was always the other ‘home. When we moved to London when I was 10 part of our hearts stayed in Wales, continuing the ‘two homes’ experience. Moving to the other side of the world has kept this going, I both ‘went home’ and ‘came home’, my wee man will grow up with me talking of my ‘home’ meaning the UK and ‘our home’ meaning here in sunny Melbourne. So he and I ‘went home’, and London put on a very cold show for us; unseasonably cold, and a thick blanket of sparkling white snow cloaking the usual sludgy grey of London in November. My family live on a Dutch barge, family home floating on the Thames with spectacular views of Kew Bridge and the escapee budgerigar population that have taken up residence on the island (ait) in the middle of the river. The British winter never bothered me previously, but four y...

The wee man and I are back from our trip to the frozen land of student protests, austerity cuts, mushy peas and early snow. More about our trip later, right now I want to write about L plate mama’s favourite topic – SLEEP. Following the long journey with odd sleep for both myself and the boy, swapping day for night was our next big challenge. Seen as I openly admit I am a soft first time mum I did not opt for waking the bub too much when he was sleeping at the WRONG time of day. Instead tried to make the environment noisy and light encouraging shorter lighter sleep in the hope (I can’t stress the weight with which this little four letter word is used) that the little fella would sleep at the RIGHT time. Although my wonderful step-mama had borrowed a travel cot for us, the wee man didn’t use too much as I found it much easier to have him in bed with me. I know this is very naughty on a number of the levels; flying in the face of the SIDS recommendations, setting a rod for my own back wi...

So door to door it took us more than 35 hours to get from our house in sunny Melbourne to the lovely 100 year old Dutch barge on the Thames where my family live. It is a long long way, and it takes a long long time.... Me and Bub on our first big adventure. All things considered Bub was amazingly good natured and lovely, but it was hard going! The first flight to Hong Kong was dreadful, it was delayed by more than 2 hours, not a good start. There was a lovely lady with her 4 month old flying back to China to introduce her son to her family, she was travelling with her mother-in-law. We rocked and patted our bundles of joy to try and get them to sleep in the noisy terminal. I never noticed how LOUD airports are until this trip, frequent booming announcements startling the bub, requiring a near constant sssssshhhhhh from me in his little ear. When we boarded I was sat next to the lovely lady's mother-in-law, while she was 9 rows back, so we swapped. This meant however we were seated...

Last night the little man woke at 12am, 3:30am, 4:30am, then at 5:15. He was up up, back to bed at 7:15am, and up for the day at 8:15am. My eyes sting, my limbs are heavy, and my brain doesn't work. All I need to appropriate is the wee man's tendency to dribble, and perhaps a few extended yawning growls and I would be closer to a character from a zombie movie than a human being. When I was planning to write this blog I was going to pack it full of research, links to cool websites, try to provide a balance view to help navigate all the choices you are confronted with as an L plate Mama. As with many other things I thought I’d be able to do in the past few months I haven’t had the time, and when a good moment does arise I haven’t had the ability, the two remaining brain cells in my skull crying out for sleep or some passive activity that doesn’t require too much of them (TV god how I love you!). There is so much I want to write about; mother's group, the trip to the UK comin...

Hey, today I've tried an Audioboo recording for a change :) Listen!

The other night the cat escaped. Now Maxxie is strictly an indoor cat, although he often loudly expresses his desire not to be so, and frequently (several times daily) tries to escape his home/prison. Whenever he manages his lightning fast moves, squeezing through the door just as you are shutting it, racing out into the big bad world, he always comes back. It maybe 3 in the morning, it maybe 10 that night, but at some point he will return. As the Other Half and I are very protective of him we often try and catch him - interupting our lovely neighbours evening by prowling around their garden calling for our wayward feline, over and over. Maxxie loves their garden, I love their garden, it is more than double the size of ours, with a huge tree in the front yard. Max can often be found high in the branches of said tree, peering down at us lesser beings. This night he escaped before the Other Half came home, and I thought - I really can't be bothered chasing him, he'll come home wh...

I haven't yet written about how besotted with my baby I am. Seen as I want to write about how I've been apart from my bubba a lot (comparatively), it seems like a good opportunity to start off with how ridiculously inlove with the wee man I am. It is difficult to put into words how much I love him, I had no idea I had the capacity to love someone so much, it is almost like I have grown a whole new heart that is devoted just to him; for his sweet milky breath, his golden wispy fine hair, his adorable chubby cheeks, his sparkling blue eyes and his Elvis-like lopsided smiles. When he beams his happy smile at me, it makes all the broken nights, all the crying and explosion poos more than worth it. Loving him so, and his reliance on me as his only source of food, it hard to leave him. It is very easy for me to imagine that no one else can care for him as I do, no one else can endure his crying with the patience and love that I can, no one else can jiggle him just so. So I have...

Good morning (or whatever time it is where you are when you are reading this). It is a bright and sunny spring morning here in Melbourne, and the bub is 'chatting' away and kicking about on the floor. You may think from this cheerful observation that I had a good night sleep; however this is not the case. Despite giving Bub a dream feed at 9:30pm (a dream feed for those of you not in the know, is where you feed the bub without waking him up, he latches on and feeds while fast asleep), he woke at 12am, 3am, 4am and at 5am there was going to be no way to resettle him, so took him back to bed with me to listen to him wriggle and suck furiously on his dummy. I didn't get up to him at 4, he grizzled for a few minutes and went back to sleep, which was a really lovely thing. This very broken night, followed our best night ever with only one waking at 3, and then he slept through until 7:15am - hardly believable! The other half woke up and worried there was something wrong. Good ni...

This week I had the pleasure of helping a friend decide upon her wedding dress. It was an absolute honour to be there to help her make her decision, we had a wonderful day; the weather was beautiful, the babies were well behaved, we had a lovely coffee and a yummy lunch. Unfortunately there were two little blips to the day - we had a horrible incident on the tram, and I came away with a terrible case of buggy (pusher) envy. First of all let’s tackle the tram trauma. Perhaps my language is a little extreme, but both my friend and I were a bit shaky after the experience. It was about 3:30 in the afternoon, and we got both buggies on the tram coming down Royal Parade from Sydney Road. This was my first buggy/tram experience. The tram was not busy when we got on, but a few stops later a hoard of uni students crammed on, and we were surrounded. When we rung the bell to get off, the tram was packed so tight we couldn't move. Some of the students got off to allow us to move, a grown man d...

Tonight I went to bed (after successfully dream feeding bub - hurray) and there was sand all over the sheets. Arghhhh! The Bella dog had managed at some point in the evening to get on to the bed, our human-no-dog-bed, and deposit sand and god knows what other grime in the place where I go to sleep! The other half was already in the bed, in doze mode. When I registered my disgust and frustration he responded 'it's just dirt, the sheets need to be changed anyway'. But it's in our bed, at bedtime, after all the other activities, to get into a gritty bed is not the way I choose to end the end. Seen as he was if not happily, but definately comfortable upon the gritty unclean sheets I couldn't change them then.... ARghhhhaaaa! Now I cannot relax, and drift off to sleep so have got up to vent. Deep breath. Slow exhalation. Deep breath. Sneaky little minx of a dog. So it is not just bubs that can get overtired and then cannot easily fall asleep, it can happen to mums too.

Not enough sleep? Too much stimulation? Too little stimulation? Tummy pain? Some other pain or discomfort? Is he just having a difficult week? What is the reason Bubba is grouchy? Seems that is likely that it is not enough sleep.... Since his 8 week birthday I've been providing more active stimulation for the little man; more tummy time, more toys and eye contact and all that stuff. But he is still not sleeping for longer than one sleep cycle (approx 45 minutes) for his 2 day sleeps, and we've had a lot more unsettled time, which up until now, bar one week, we've had the luxury of all crying being solved with the classic suite of care - feed, change, soothe. Up until now Bub just fell asleep wherever he was when he was tired. It's like now he's a bit older he's forgotten how to get the sleep he needs. And he is still waking 3 or 4 times a night. I am tired, and to be honest a bit overwhelmed and anxious about the whole sleep thing. I'm no good at the leavin...

Before Bub arrived our Miniature Schnauzer Bella and Burmese cat Maxxie were the centre of our world. Bella is a lovely, passive, happy creature, very affectionate and a tad demanding. Maxxie is a vocal, crafty beautiful being, who we keep inside to prevent an untimely death- for him and the local wildlife. Maxxie gets 'crazy eyes' on occasion, signally the onset of a period of insane behaviour, often in the middle of night, when he runs the length of the house at high speed, protests at the top of his feline lungs about the injustice of the world, and pounces on Bella and sometimes my other half. Both petimals were bestowed with affection night and day, and allowed to sit on the couch (Bella) and sleep on our bed (Maxxie). When I was at work envisioning maternity leave, I used to say despite the fact the pets would usurped by the new little human, at least I'd be around in the day, and this would ofcourse be lovely for them. I really had no idea. A pamphlet is provided ...

Oh my goodness, before I had bub I thought the ad with the baby and the explosion poo that fills the interior of a car was amusing, I did not realise how close to the truth the No 3 poo is. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=paw0M7p1-8k) Today, which is wonderfully a Sunday, Bub did an explosion poo that needed two people to clear up. It was up to his shoulders! Trying to remove the soiled garmets resulted in bright orange poo on his arms and a little bit on his forehead. Luckily none of this phased the little man, he was happy as a pig... How is possible for more to be on the outside of the nappy than on the inside! It is a remarkable feat.

I was inordinately excited. I had really wanted to get a sling, had ummed and arrrhed, researched all the different types, all the different brands. I already have a baby bjorn type carrier (otherwise known as soft structured carrier) on loan from my partner's sister, did I really need a sling? The carrier is good, the bub can be safetly nestled against me, and I can carry him for a good hour before getting achey, but it is a pain in the bum to get on and off. I wanted something that can easily put on and used, and can be folded up and popped in the nappy bag - and here I had nabbed a peanut stretch cotton sling on sale! Fantastic. These simple stretchy cotton tubes are pretty pricey and the other product in the shop was 4 times the price, how cool, how very cool and very exciting, and wasn't I going to look like the coolest mummy with the funky red pattern, and wasn't bub going to love being carried around in a lovely 'cradle position'. The ridiculous excitement an...

I was out for lunch with the wonderful god-mummy of my precious bundle of human today, and one of the staff clearing our plates comments on the sleeping bub. “Oh what a cute.... girl?” “Boy” “Oh, but he’s too pretty to be boy” Short pause, maybe reflecting on the fact this comment may upset some people “My son was the same, far too pretty to be a boy. Sorry I can’t tell when baby’s are wearing lemon” – it was lime. Lime, lemon, girl, boy it’s a baby, a young one, 8 weeks and a day. I was not offended, doesn’t bother me, and it doesn’t bother him. He is rather beautiful, if I do say so myself, and it was a bit of a relief that someone else said that he is too pretty, I’ve caught myself in the early days saying ‘good girl’, I attributed this to my dog being female, and phrase had been used so often it just rolled off my tongue. At this point in his life it really doesn’t matter. Assigning gender roles to creatures that cannot hold their head up for longer than 5 seconds doesn’t hold muc...