Oliver

I seem to remember saying that age-old thing about time flying past in another post, but this is different. But the same. Sort of.

Anyway, I swear, I have blinked, and Oliver is already nearly ten weeks old. It’s strange, as although he’s only been born this relatively short period, our lives have changed so much all over again, and yet it seems like this is our new ‘normal’.

Just before Oli had arrived, it seemed like we had ‘settled’ into a routine, with ourselves, with Jack, with everything. Straight after Oli came, the regular pattern of getting up, getting ready to go out, and so forth was blown to smithereens. I’m not blaming him directly here (much), but it did seem like we were on  top of things. 

Oli came, and as Claire’s expressing milk, it pretty much pins her to a chair for the duration.  Oli, being a baby, cries and she’s able to manage ok, providing Jack isn’t kicking off, or demanding attention. Not that he would. Much.

Jack is all over Oli.  It’s funny, as we really worried about it going the other way, thinking that Jack would resent Oli for stealing his mum away from him and so on. But he loves him. Maybe a little too much!! He always wants to be involved if Oli’s about, kissing him constantly and very nicely too.  He tells visitors that Oli is his baby brother and that he loves him.  Trying to remember the age that I understood that word, I’m guessing Jack is repeating what we’re telling him about ‘love’ but maybe he does ‘get it’ too. Who knows.  Either way, Jack likes Oliver. And, Oli likes Jack too. He smiles when Jack’s there, or when he kisses him, even if Jack unintentionally gets a little heavy-handed, as three year olds do.  But in all, Jack is sharing his mum with Oliver really well. He’s not too fussed about his dad, but hey-ho.  Although, Claire did say that Jack is getting a little funny about sharing his grandparents (on my side) with his first set of to-be cousins…! All good fun, I’m sure.

It’s nice that they’re like this, and hopefully they’ll learn to play games and toys together, despite the age gap. But when they’re older, brothers will be brothers and pick the occasional fights too, as we all have done, so that should be interesting to see, possibly.

Literally, this morning before leaving for work, I had about 30 minutes with Oliver, where he has been quite the happy chappie; it seems that he’s been quite uncomfortable with wind for the past couple of weeks and, hence, has been a right grump.  But today, he must have had a decent night’s sleep, and was all “coo’s” and smiles for me, which was nice.

He’s still sleeping in the crib next to our bed at night times, despite that I’m not in there myself in the week! His grunting and snoring is nowhere near as bad as I remember Jack being at nights, but Oli is not yet sleeping through the night, so Claire’s been doing a top-job of bottle-feeding him in the nights.  Only fairly recently has this been extended to the first wake/feed of the night coming in at 03:00 – previously, it was every couple of hours.  Weekends, I try my best to help. I have been trying,where possible, to let Claire get away from it all, and sleep in the spare room (aka my office) where I’ve been hiding/sleeping, and trying to keep Oli happy with the milk too.  Problem is, I don’t seem to be able to cope on as little sleep at the moment that Claire is getting; the next day I’m a right old misery. Hey, perhaps me and the new nipper, Oli, are a right old pair together already, him being grumpy and me being miserable.

I seem to remember that Jack was sleeping through the night from about eight weeks old, and was in his own room by eleven weeks. Oli may be a little behind on that yet, but a week appears to be a long time for these babies!! Lots of things could change in that time yet..!  We shall have to wait and see.

But for those that haven’t had (yet or otherwise) children, here’s a summary of what a baby of Oli’s age does, in no particular order:

• Cries.
• Smiles, occasionally, between cries. (Maybe wind?)
• Drinks only milk at this stage. Then burps. Smiles. Then cries for more milk.
• Generate copious quantities of poo. Then cries, to make a point that they want it changed.
• Wait until you’re at the exposed, critical mid-point of changing a nappy, before successfully recreating the Bellagio fountains with a range only a fireman would appreciate, followed by a suspiciously evil-looking smile. Then cries as his ‘nads are getting cold because the second half of the nappy-change is now taking considerably longer.
• Sleeps. Lots in the day time, random/patchy hours in the night time. Waking to cries. Gets milk. Snores, grunts and farts until in R.E.M. sleep mode.
• Makes the occasional ‘coo’ noise for everyone else, even less for daddies.

All. Good. Fun.

Pool party for a 3 year old

It was Jack’s 3rd birthday the other week, and Claire and I had been discussing what to arrange for a party for him and some of his friends.

Claire had the idea of renting the swimming pool in Peterborough that she’s been taking him to for swimming lessons for the past 2 or 3 years, which is at the Calm-A-Baby swimming pool – a fantastic, heated swimming pool for children’s swimming lessons.

Calm-A-Baby are on Facebook too, which is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Calm-a-Baby/58803121893

The pool itself is warm, so even new-born babies can use it, without fear of them turning blue and shivering after 20 minutes.

We booked the pool for the Sunday after his party, and had invited a gathering of friends and family to join us. The schedule was to have the pool, entirely, from 14:00 to 15:00, and then half an hour of ‘Wiggle and Jiggle’ to help further wear-out any kids that might still be awake after an hour long session in the pool.

Wiggle and Jiggle is another group-type meeting that Claire and Jack have been attending only recently, held at the same place as the pool, but in an upstairs room.  Sarah, who runs the group, gets the gathering of children and gets them to be manic, whilst still under control; in that, they’re allowed to make a mess with a pile of stuffed toys, musical instruments and singing and dancing and so forth. Basically, far too much exercise for my liking, but the kids love it.

In the pool, we had a few of Jack’s friends from various other baby groups that Claire and he have been going to, along with, of course, their mum and/or dad, some of our neighbours and their children of the same age, in addition to some family members too, so a great mix of people and children in all.

The hour seemed to flash by! Both Claire and I were in the pool, one of us with Jack and the other with Oliver. Strangely, both sets of Grandparents managed to forget their swimming costumes, but there’s always next time!

To start with, I had Jack with me and even though he’s been swimming and playing in the pool for a few years now, he’s still a little unsure about trusting himself, and seems to want to hang on to me. Whether he does this with his mum, I don’t know, but of course I don’t want him to go under either, and so I am happy to help him.  I was trying to get him to swim/float/flap-n-paddle by himself and after about 10 minutes or so, he did! Admittedly, he did have a ‘woggle’ with him, which is a long, cylindrical float-aide that is bendy and flexy, or yellow rubber-ring at times too.  With the woggle tucked under his armpits and me not too far away in front of him (i.e. arm’s reach!) he was doing it!! Well done little mate! #ProudMoment

Claire and I swapped, and I took the newborn(ish) nipper, Oliver, out for a paddle; by now Claire had got hold of Jack and was diving down from the surface and swimming under water with him holding the arms of her swimming costume, sitting on her back! The other kids took a turn on riding on Claire’s back and being thrust underwater and they all loved it! Glad we didn’t have to pay Claire too for her entertainment work too!

As I said, the hour literally flew by. Everyone loved it in there, especially me.

After the pool party, we had a short wait until Sarah started the Wiggle and Jiggle. Jack was obviously shattered as he had started to show off a little bit and pick and choose when he wanted to join in and follow instructions. He wasn’t too bad, but everyone else was a little better behaved, shall we say.

They all banged drums, crashed symbols or blew flutes in a big chaotic mess, whilst all parents looked on in deafened-horror. Again, the kids loved it and had a whale of a time throwing things up in the air, or dancing around and the like.  Of course, I would have loved to have joined in, but I was designated to be the official photographer, so I was stuck on the safe side of the lens.

After all of this, the children had cooked finger-food and cup-cakes (provided by Selina's Tea Rooms, part of the Calm-A-Baby venue), as well as birthday cake.

Jack. was. shattered. Unsurprisingly, he slept well that night. And so did Claire and I, with the exception of Oliver waking throughout the night!

The whole party was great and much fun was had by all. The pool is a great place for these parties and we’d hope that we’d do it again there another time.  There’s lots of ‘little moments’ that I’d like to share about the party, but to be honest, I don’t know where to start in listing them.

We took a whole load of photographs of the day and if they’re not available on Jack’s website, they will be shortly.  If you came and there’s any that you’d like on a disc, just let us know.  During the swim, my mum had my camera and was taking pool-side shots, which have come out very well. (Well done, Granny Rigby!)

Nearly Christmas!!

Yes, t’is that time of the year again, where Christmas is but a few days away.  This year, by way of comparison to last year, should be totally different, as Jack is now running around a lot more, and certainly playing with toys a lot more too.

I don’t mean that in the sense that he didn’t play with toys previously, but rather than just knocking down the Lego buildings that I put together, or throwing the train-track sections, he’s actually playing with them.  He’ll get Lego blocks from the bucket and stack them up higher and higher, or he’ll push the trains around the track after attaching carriages, and so on.

He’s a lot more fun to be around, and again don’t read that as that he wasn’t before, but I think as he’s saying more and more things, as he’s slowly learning about the world, he’s doing more things that kids do, rather than babies.

Maybe I’m not wording this properly, or laying this down on paper screen as it is in my head, but I’ll carry on and see if this makes some sort of sense.

His talking is getting much better as the weeks go by.  I went away from work a few weeks ago, for a week, but when I came back, I noticed how much more words he was able to say, or see how pronunciation had improved of words he could say before I left.  I’m sure that before I went away, he was able to say/repeats words that were of three syllables; now, he’s onto four syllables, or say short sentences of around that length.  At home, we’re trying to talk to him properly, as we’re away of the words and phrases that we use, as he repeats them back like a parrot in seconds.  Because we knew this was going to be like this, we wanted to make others around him aware that he could repeat ‘stuff’, and something that we wanted to make sure he didn’t start repeating, was swear words. So much so, we’re quick to jump on someone that uses any form of profanity in his presence, threatening that they’d owe him a £5 for each curse uttered.  It’s not that people wanted particularly to swear in front of him, it’s just that I think sometimes they simply aren’t aware they’re doing it.  I know that the day will come when he mutters his first, but I’ll get the bar of soap ready for him to wash his mouth out. Or something.

Last year at Christmas, we didn’t really make too big a thing out of it for him, as he was, to be honest, totally unaware that anything was going on, except seeing more of our family members within a short space of time.  Presents weren’t really anything to him, except that he liked getting into the empty cardboard boxes.

This year, however, he’s a bit more aware of things going on, and it’s an opportunity to get him to do more things – Claire has been teaching him to sing Jingle Bells, which… is…. getting there…! Maybe next year, we’ll be teaching him to hush it up a bit, after the fifteenth time!  Claire has also been telling him who Father Christmas is, and he’s getting much better at saying it too!  He’s had the occasional present to unwrap already (naughty, I know) but he now knows that if you rip off the paper behind a big box, there’s a gift inside just for him.  Call it ‘preparation work’ for Christmas day!!

He’s also getting much better at telling us what the problem is, which is something that I think we, as grown-ups take for granted.  For instance, if he falls over in the other room and bangs his knee, by telling mummy where it hurts means that she can kiss it better quicker and the tears (and screaming) stop sooner.  Or if he’s getting tired, he’ll actually say ‘Tired.’ – short and sweet maybe, and admittedly we’re probably aware of this before he was anyway, but his own internal diagnostics have told him that, rather than us trying to tell him he’s tired and that he needs to go to bed!

There is one slight downside recently, in that we struggle to get him to clean his teeth.  So much so, it’s my job (bad cop) to pin him down on our bed using both arms and legs to do so, and then somehow manage to get a toothbrush in his mouth to give them a twice-a-day scrub.  He screamed originally because of the teeth coming through, but more nowadays because he’s being forced to do something he doesn’t want to do, but simply will not do it himself.  Both Claire and I are conscious that we want him to look after his teeth and if he gets used to cleaning them regularly, then maybe he will, but if we don’t make the effort ourselves to do so, then how can we expect him to when he’s older?  He’s got lovely little teeth and I’d hate for him to not look after them and for them to go bad and horrible.  My teeth aren’t so pretty to look at like Claire’s are, as mine are a bit twisty and irregular, but neither of us have any fillings or fake teeth, etc.  (Hell, I still have a baby-tooth!) But my point is that, independently of each other and with help (and/or restraining!!) from our respective parents,  we’ve both made an effort when we were young to look after them, and so far so good.

Anyway - All good fun. And I am looking forward to Christmas this year, in seeing his little face when he opens the mountain of presents that we’ve bought him.  Failing that, the look on our faces should be a picture when he goes for the boxes again this year.

Midnight Screams!!!

BANG!

It was the dead of night, and the noise woke me instantly.

I must have gone from fast asleep to completely 100% wide-awake in a small fraction of a very fast split second; in this time, I knew what had happened as, just then, it started….

WWWWWHHHHHHHHHHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

Yep, Jack had fallen out of bed at 03:30 in the morning. But not just any bed; Ours, which is quite high off of the floor.  But (luckily/unluckily) I wasn’t in it, so I had to climb out of the spare bed, realise where I was, navigate the piles of junk that we’re in the middle of sorting out, out the bedroom down the hallway a bit and into our bedroom to find Claire trying to calm down the ever-so-slightly upset Jack.

This was not an ordinary night, as the events earlier in the evening were almost trying to tell us.

Around 11:00ish, Jack woke up screaming, and I mean very loudly.  He seems to wind himself up into these screaming, crying tantrums, that it’s difficult to know what to do with him.  He doesn’t want to be picked up, he doesn’t then want to be put back in his bed/cot, you can’t soothe him, calm or anything. Nightmare. I can only conclude that this behaviour must be from his mum’s side.

Eventually, he went back to sleep, but only for a bit, as at 01:30, he’s awake again crying and screaming.  As I was due to go to work the next morning, Claire took over, which was good, as there was extra flappy-arms-screaming-paddy-tantrums when I tried to pick him up; his mum was ok, but not me.  Fine - I went to bed and was soon followed by Claire with a somewhat calmer Jack, but one that didn’t want to sleep in his bed, so she brought him into ours to see if that might help things.

For the record, Jack has never successfully slept in our bed. Ever. Even when he was really small, he only ever slept in his Moses basket/crib/thing or in his cot in the other bedroom.  So, to think that it might work was a bit of a faff. 

Knowing this sleeping situation would not work, I volunteered to sleep in the other bedroom, which was good for me, as I managed to sleep until the 03:30 awakening.  Claire, on the other hand, (bless her) didn’t manage to get any sleep, as Jack would wake every 20-30 minutes and have a bit of a cry, only to be soothed back to sleep instantly by his mum.

Getting up for 06:30 normally isn’t too much of a problem, but that day, strangely, it was…  Ho-hum. Fun and games of having kids, I suppose!

I’ve just added a ‘Tantrums’ category to the blog site… I have a feeling that I might be needing that in future.

There’s a giant in my car!

Claire and I have both suddenly noticed that this little crying ball of poo that we brought home from the hospital has actually grown. Lots.

I noticed when Jack and I were in my car, and he was strapped into his car seat; I looked around and saw that there was now this… child sitting there in the back, and not the shrivelled up baby that I remember being in there once.

Jack says she notices that he’s grown when she lays him on the changing table, as he nearly fills the length of it.

Having said that, he’s not over-big for his size, I don’t think. But his size/height is certainly put into perspective when he’s around other children! Our friends came over a little while ago with their son and daughter, and that’s when I noticed Jack was dinky compared to these older two.

For me, it’s a lot more fun now that he has grown and can do/say more.  Like going to the big play places, filled with padded climbing frames, ball pools, slides and more.  I’ve wanted to go before, and thought about borrowing someone else’s child just for that, but it’s really good that Jack likes it, although I end up sweating and more worn out than Jack does, as I have to constantly chase him around the climbing frames, as he gets easily bowled over by bigger kids running mad around, and to stop him from randomly jumping down great heights.  And to stop him from attacking other kids when they’re playing with something that he wants.  Little monster.

When we’re in the car, he’s much more aware of what’s around him, and can spot a tractor a mile away, even if it’s in a field perpendicular to the road we’re travelling on. “TRAC-TOR!” is what comes shouting from the back of the car!  Good eyes.

Nursery Update

Over the past several weeks, Jack has been getting considerably better whilst at nursery.  Ok, he cries a tiny bit now when we drop him off, but once we’re gone, they say he settles down really well now and actually enjoys playing with the toys, running around etc.

When I went to get Jack from nursery the other day, Tracey said that she was really pleased with how he’s been behaving as the weeks go on.  Obviously, they knew this would happen, as I’m sure that they’ve seen it lots before, but it’s probably more on our part, as when we used to leave Jack at nursery and he was crying, we seem to imagine that’s how he’ll be all day, crying and missing us, etc.  But he doesn’t and it’s more a case of Claire and I getting used to that more than Jack.

A week or so ago, I got there to pick him up after I got home from work, and had to chase him to get him to come home!  That made a bit of a turn-up for the books!

Nursery time!

We have started taking Jack to nursery just a few miles away from our home, and it’s fair to say that he doesn’t like, nor does he want, to be there.

Because of the usual working week that both Claire and I have, we have not needed to take him to nursery before, as Claire, her mum and I share looking after him during the weekdays over a fortnight.  But as we’ve been having him in environments that he’s been comfortable in, we thought he might need to learn to play with other children and get out a bit more, to learn somewhere else than our homes.  Get him out of his comfort zone a little and meet new boys and girls his own age. Plus, it gives us a bit of time to do stuff when he’s not around, so there’s benefits to us too.

The nursery he’s been going to have been really good with him so far.  They’ve changed their shift patterns a bit so that the same people are with him when he’s there, or as they know he’s not too happy, they try to get out the toy that they know he likes, like trains and cars, etc. But he still doesn’t like it, nor does he appreciate their efforts for him.

The first couple of weeks, he had to go for an hour-long ‘taster’ session, and then to keep doing that regularly such that he became familiar with the surroundings, but where one of us would stay during that hour. Then it would be himself for an hour, then four hours, and so on. Unfortunately, they don’t don’t do boarding, otherwise he’d be booked in as mummy and daddy could *really* do with the sleep!!

He’s getting better at going as time goes on and gets older and used to all of it, as in, he doesn’t cry all day now. Just most of it, but that’s progress eh?

He might look small and fuzzy-haired, but little Jack ain’t daft.  Last time I took him, he seemed to know where he was going before we even pulled into the driveway and instantly, the bottom lip came out, tear drops and everything. I thought this was just coincidence, but Claire’s mum said the same thing too, he seemed to recognise the road of where the nursery is even before seeing the nursery and burst into tears.  And before you think, again, coincidence, he doesn’t cry in the car normally; he’ll sit there in the car of the car and look out the window, pointing out things like buses, tractors and the like, so it can’t be that.

I’ve taken him this morning and dropped him off, but clever daddy had a little plan, in that we’d go the other way and come into the road from the top end, rather than from the bypass. Clever eh?  No.  He didn’t get it straight away, but he knew where he was.

Normally, I park out on the road, but this time we pulled into the car-park behind the nursery and he walked in; that is progress in itself, as last time I took him, I had to carry him as he was in his head-back-screaming-tantrum mode, which helps of course. But no, today, he held my hand and walked in, sobbing to himself admittedly but, nonetheless, he walked all the way into the tweenies room (i.e. less than 2 years old but older than a screaming baby). 

I thought I’d stay a little bit, just to help get him started and quickly retrieved the police car, fire engine and the helicopter from the toy box that they set out in expectation of Jack’s arrival, where one of the ladies that work there was happy to try and get his mind off things for him. 

I don’t think he’ll be too bad today, as although he did cry when I said bye-bye, he was pushing the cars back and forth and putting the little driver in his seat in the police car.  Little signs, but hopefully a big message!

I swiftly made my exit and until I shut the car door, I’m sure I could hear him crying.  But he’ll be fine, I’m sure.  If not, it’s them that had to bear his noise all day!! (Evil laugh!!)  Me? I’m off back to bed for the sleep I didn’t get last night because of his crying at midnight thru to 2:30am.