First night out…

…for Jack and for us!

For the first time in Jack’s entire life, we went out and left him with someone else. All night.

Basically, we left the dog and Jack with his Grandparents whilst we went out with ten pin bowling and for food with our friends, Phil and Lucy.

Not-so-basically, it was a bit of a wonder if he’d be ok, as he’s been a bit of a wuss recently with regards to his mum. Recently, he’s had a cold that some horrid person gave him (me), so he’s been sleeping badly too, as in he’s been waking up a lot and crying when he normally sleeps right through the night. So, in the back of our minds, we weren’t sure if he was going to cry their house down all night whilst we slept in peace and quiet!

Plus, on the other side of things, we weren’t sure how we’d feel about him being out all night, as new parents ‘n all. So, as new as it was for Jack staying out, it was for us too.

As it turned out, it went really well, for all of us!

We left Jack at Claire’s folks’ house at 6pm, putting him to bed just before we left. Claire left her mum a ‘do this at this time’ sheet, telling them when to feed him, when to give him his milk, etc in the following morning. It might sound a little odd to do that, but it worked out really well, as it gave her folks a cheat-sheet to keeping Jack quiet/happy in the morning, from 6am onwards! Claire left me a cheat-sheet before when Jack and I spent the day together, and it makes it sooooo much easier to be expecting to feed him at a given time, rather than to try and ‘read’ him and see what he wants. Claire’s definitely the expert on Jack and she really does know him and his moods, timings etc. She’s dead good.

Anyway, we were almost putting bets on as to the time of the night that we get told that had woken up… but he’s been sleeping really well for the past couple of days, so in theory, he should be ok.

As I said earlier, Claire and I went out and met Phil and Lucy at the Bowling venue and later went out for a meal at a Beefeater restaurant, which was all good. We still couldn’t be out all night (not that we ever did before, really) because Claire is still expressing Booby-Juice for Jack, so she had to do her pumping when we got back.

But, getting back to an empty house without the baby and the dog, was brilliant. It was almost like we had stepped back 2 years or so before all this happened.

Having said that, it was more of a novelty that we were by ourselves; we did miss the fact that Jack, and the dog even, weren’t in the house and weren’t there in the morning, making the usual noise and commotion, etc.

Jack seemed happy enough and Claire’s folks enjoyed having him. He did wake up at 6am exactly (which I’m still trying to work out how he knows what time it is!!) and they’ve been entertaining him all morning until Claire went over there at around 11-ish. (I had to go out this morning) but he seemed like it was ok and everything.

Good fun all round then?

Uh oh – he’s mobile… nearly!

Yes, that’s right. Young Jack is able to get about under his own steam, which is a bit weird as up until now, he’s tended to stay where we’ve left him.

In the mornings, we have been laying Jack on our bed and one of us has been reading stories to him whilst the other gets showered and dressed etc. But now, the stories are a little broken up by the catching of Jack as he wriggles towards the edge of the bed!

He’s really funny to watch, as it’s more of a commando-crawl-under-barbed-wire-and-netting-on-an-assault-course than a run-of-the-mill baby-crawl-across-the-floor-towards-his-toys routine. Especially as he’s looking more and more like Bam Bam Rubble..!

Also, today, when I have got back from work, Claire made a point that Jack has been jabbering all day. Not just the usual girly-sounding squeals that he’s always done, but total nonsense-waffle-jabber, as though he’s talking to someone. Which is strange how yesterday when I was at home all day, I don’t remember him doing anything like that, but today, he’s all motor mouth! Must be a Rigby then…

Bad night

It was. Really.

Jack has not had the best of days today, partly due to the cold that I lovingly gave him, but also because of his teeth (we think!).

Claire said yesterday that she found a tooth coming through in Jack’s gums, but today, she’s sure that it’s ever-so-slightly through, which might be why the last day or two he’s been how he has. Looking more closely (as he’s given us more chance as he’s had his mouth open slightly whilst crying… lots) it appears that there may be a couple more coming through at the same time, but not before this first one.

Anyway, so: he’s got a cold, he’s teething, and then possibly earache as result of the toothache. Either way, he has cried more today than I can remember for a long while.

We’ve given him Calpol (children’s medicine) to help with things, and it really does work… when it kicks in. I just wish we had given him a bit more before he went to bed last night, as he was awake crying (loudly) every 2 hours throughout the night… which was fun for him and us.

He’s had some more Calpol today, and has been much better; he’s still had his moments, but I think that we’re starting to learn when would be a good time to give him some, as yesterday we may have been a little too late in the scheme of things, meaning that he’s already got himself in such a state that it’s hard to calm him down easily.

Hopefully, he’ll sleep a little better tonight, and hopefully, so will we!!

He’s unwell, and it’s all my fault…

No, seriously, Jack isn’t well, in that he has his first ever cold. And yes, I gave it to him.

I don’t feel good about it, but it’s happened. It came on this morning; his nose just started dribbling as much as his mouth normally does, except this nose-dribbling-thing wasn’t normal. He also started acting a little more grumpy than he does normally, not drinking as much booby-juice as he normally would, and not wanting any of the food that his mum has spent so long making for him. Recently, he’s been having about 800-900 mls of milk plus food, but today, he was well down on that number, having around 550 mls by the time he went to bed, around after 6pm, crying, I might add.

He also has his first tooth looking like it might shine through, which might be adding to things. He had a bit of pain-relief, but it takes a little while to work, so the poor little guy had to fight through it for a while. Or fall sleep. Either way, he had to stop crying, which he eventually did.

We decided that we’d wake him up to give him more booby-juice before the night was out, otherwise he could be a problem in the night. So, his mum went upstairs to try and give him a little more and he’s ended up drinking about 200 mls – much more that I thought he would…! So, he was hungry, and, since he’s calmed down (as he’s been asleep for a couple of hours and not crying like he was earlier), he was much more amenable to topping-up his milk levels.

Hopefully, it’ll be enough to see him through the night, as if he wakes up, we’re waking up too, which I’m not looking forward to…

Time has flown by!

Just a quick post to say that it’s August 7th today, which means that the 4th August was Jack’s unofficial half-birthday! (as in, he’s now 6 months old!)

We didn’t have a half-birthday cake, nor did we get him to blow-out half a candle – we’ll save that for when he’s a full year old! - but, nonetheless, he’s still a whole 6 months-old already! Time literally has flown by! It seems funny to say, but it seems like a million years ago during the days when we didn’t have him.

I know, I’ve heard new parents say that before, and I groaned when they said it. The only benefit you have, dear reader, is that you don’t have to worry about me hearing you say it!!

He’s doing really well though – he’s not crawling yet, but he doesn’t seem like he’ll be long at it!

He’s also taken a shine to the Sky remote… not for it’s purpose in life of changing what noise-and-pictures comes out of the big box in the corner of the room, but more to press buttons (as the red light appears at the top of the remote) and shove as much of the thing in his mouth as he can. Claire was going through the ‘Planner’ on the Sky box, asking me about what tv-programmes that I had recorded – turns out, Jack had been having a go at recording things too… Shame it wasn’t anything interesting!!