Bite me!
I can’t believe it’s Friday again and I have yet to finish either of the three posts I have in draft. It seems I can hardly keep my eyes open these days let alone finish anything.
Remember how I used to complain about never getting any sleep? And then I stopped complaining for a while? Well, for a short time there I was in sleep heaven. Or as close to it as I can imagine getting while caring for the young and restless. Anakin slept through the night several times, and at worst he would wake up once. Ah… those were the days.
Then we hit this massive patch of colds and teeth. And more teeth. And more colds. And nights went back to being what they used to be, torturous and sleepless. The only light at the end of this tunnel seems to be that at least one of the front teeth cut through yesterday and the last bit of the last cold seems to be fading. These upper teeth are killers. I haven’t had to deal with this amount of screaming from discomfort at night before. The other night i spent a good hour holding Anakin to get him back to sleep only to have him wake up with a scream every time he dozed off. I know he can’t help it, but it’s rough when every effort to help fails miserably.
So our days are as off as our nights. He’s cranky, I’m cranky, and frankly, these teeth can bite me. Figuratively speaking of course. There’s enough of the proper biting already. Damn those small pearly whites are sharp!
The other reason that has kept me from sitting down to share things is far better. One of my best friends has come to visit from Norway and I have been busy taking as much of him in as I can. 3.5 years of not seeing each other is a long time and we have much to catch up on.
In short, that’s what’s been happening in our world as of late. Here’s to hoping things will pick up soon and I can find the time to tell you about all the other exciting things we have in the works, like making animal costumes for a dress up wedding, deciding Anakin’s birthday “cake” (think edible sculpture), our alternative christmas tree (also edible) and much, much more.
Happy Friday! May your weekend be full of restful sleeps and bright, sunny (but not too warm) days. Until next time!
xx Dida
Monday blues
I’ve never been a fan of Mondays. I’m not one of those “new week, new opportunities” kind of people. I never have been. I’m more of the type that gets up on a Monday morning only to step in cat vomit or, like today, be sprayed in baby snot. Mondays hate me as much as I hate them. It’s a mutual kind of thing.
But back to the baby snot party. (If you were hoping I wouldn’t go there, I’m sorry.) Anakin was sick for about a week and then got a lot better. I say a lot because everything improved. He slept through the night for the first time and he was just simply ruling at life as a little guy of 10 months. Life, however, thought this was too good to keep up. Life likes to be challenging, it’s what it does. It wants you to grow. So what does life do? It throws some more bugs in Anakin’s face making young Anakin sick again. This time the face-full-of-snot kind of sick as opposed to the cough-out-a-lung kind of sick he just had. (Or… the culprit could possibly be that third tooth trying to rear its pearly head. Who knows.) And what does the weather do? It gets real stinking hot again. So out goes the good sleeps and in comes the sweaty, miniature human snot machine, and this time he’s found the spray function. Enter snot covered sleepy mummy on a Monday morning. Actually, let’s just make that snot covered mummy all Monday.
Human snot machine. Cute, but sticky.
I think life and babies are in cahoots on some of their cruel jokes. Every time I think I’ve worked it out and that I’m ruling at being a mum in every possible way, nighttime, naps, feeds, routines and whatnot, they whammy me right in the sucker. How dare I get too cocky, right? I really wish they’d give it a break though. Only a few weeks out from starting my research Master again and I’ve got my whole hand on the panic button. The mere thought of juggling that and full-time mothering is enough the threaten a panic attack. Oh, and did I mention that I’m applying to upgrade to a PhD due to the mere size of my project? I can feel my knees shaking already. Thankfully my brain is still so lost in baby space it can’t fully grasp the abyss it’s facing.
I hope you all had a good weekend. Mine definitely had its excellent moments. Here’s to hoping the week picks up from its dreary Monday face.
Now please excuse me, I have to put my snot machine to bed and bake some spelt bread. Until next time.
(Insta)Moments of late
(Instagram snaps from @didajenta)
- Anakin’s been sick and cutting a new tooth this week, but sick or not, he still has plenty of smiles, some full of banana.
- After feeds we spend some time cuddling. Lately this involves a lot of poking my belly button.
- The days of peace are over for the cats. Whenever Anakin sees them, he’s off as fast he can. Hedda wisely knows to keep her distance.
- Sometimes when we’re not feeling great we just need a hand to hold. I’ve spent a lot of time this week just holding Anakin and I think it’s done us both a lot of good.
- There has been a lot of cuddles lately. Staying close is even more important when we don’t feel well.
- Even big boys get excited about seeing trains.
- Tights made from my old knee-high socks, one of my DIY projects.
- Devilishly handsome in his homemade getup. (Another one of my DIY projects)
- A boy and his fish. Anakin loves our adopted fish, Olav. We can’t wait to take him to the aquarium.
- The black sheep finger puppet is a favourite toy. And as long as I am within reach (as in right there), it is ok to play alone for a bit.
- Anakin has found a new love in magazines. He turns (and tears) the pages talking to all the faces he sees. He particularly likes Johnny Depp on the cover. Steinar bought this for me the day Anakin was born before he left the hospital so I’d have something to read.
- Too soon for coffee? It doesn’t matter that the cup is empty as long as he gets to take part in what we are doing. Drinking or gnawing, it’s all the same.
Waking lion
The week is over. Our little lion now has two teeth! I hope you’ve all enjoyed your weekend, I know we did!
xx Dida
Close to me – An UpSide Down day
We’re having an upside-down day. We’ve had them before, but not quite like this. As I said yesterday, wee man is cutting his first tooth. I was hoping it wouldn’t affect him too bad, but I may have been a bit too naive.
Last night I was woken up by a cry I haven’t heard too many times before. Anakin usually lets out an “Eeeee… eeee..” (yeah, I know, real descriptive) when he wakes up, but last night it was a full-fledged “help me, I’m scared and in pain” cry at 4.30. He’d gone through his motions of waking twice and eating once at his (now) usual times and I was expecting him to be out until at least 5.30 so this one brutally pulled me out of my sleep with a sense of desperate urgency. I’m pretty sure I looked like a flailing idiot trying to fling the cat off me while looking for my clothes, getting dressed and trying not to wake my other man (Steinar) in the process. I stumbled into his room and found him in a heap of tears. I made a quick decision to give him another feed as it seemed to be the only thing that would settle him. He calmed down and started eating before he all of a sudden pulled off, looked at me and loudly exclaimed “Hedda!” (the name of one of our cats) before throwing himself back on the boob. “Shit, are we really starting the day already? But I’d only just fallen asleep!” I was less than happy in my groggy state, but reminded myself that in times of teeth Thou Shall Be Overly Nice To Thy Spawn.
About 10 minutes later he was out cold. I did a quick swap of boob with dummy and put him in his cot. He rolled into a weird twisty angle, spat out the dummy and grunted. I thought it was all over when he suddenly fell limp again. Victory! I waited a few minutes before sneaking back out and into bed. Then at 6.30 I was woken by the same desperate cry. This time he was inconsolable. I held him close, rocked him and sang the Winnie the Pooh song, which is his current favourite, until he calmed down. After his breakfast feed he fell asleep in my arms again. I figured it wouldn’t last very long so I just sat there admiring him, soaking him up thinking about how these days are numbered. And he kept sleeping. I curled up with him and just let him sleep in my arms. And we stayed like that until 8.15, him sleeping and me breathing him in.
Just stay close to me
Our schedule has gone out the window today and that’s ok. Anakin just wants to be close and I am more than happy to oblige. It’s 1 pm and we’re just having lunch after a late nap. I look like a bad impression of a scarecrow and his tooth is nowhere closer to coming up. It’s gonna be one of those days and that’s perfectly fine. He’s growing up so fast it’s nice to have a slow day where he needs me a little bit extra.
You stay close to me, little darling. You can bite my finger if it makes you feel better.
It’s got teeth! Run away!!
Alright, so that’s not entirely true, but it’s very close to true.
At just over 9 months Anakin is cutting his first tooth. I felt a little sharp edge last night, but it was bedtime and no time to get the flashlight out to go all excited (and terrified) parent/dentist on him. But when he happily started chomping down on my finger again this morning I felt it again and had a look. It’s a tooth alright. It’s not all the way through yet, but I reckon in a day or two we’ll see a pearly white. And I’m just a tad bit scared of it.
He’s been dribbling like crazy, as in needs a dry shirt a few times a day crazy, for a while and he’s been rubbing his little gums on my fingers whenever he can. Thankfully, he’s stopped biting when he feeds (for now). He’ll take breaks and pull off to gnaw on his hands or my shirt. Good boy! I can’t say the same for my face. A bite on the nose is more than common. He’s also really into kissing at the moment. Big, sloppy, dribbles all over your face kisses that can quickly turn into a chomp on the lip. Something tells me that sometime in the near future there will be blood and it will be mine.
That’s true love. Tasty, painful true love.
He’s been taking real shit naps today. I’ve been running up and down the stairs plugging him back up with the dummy, rubbing his tummy and cursing the noisy builders next door more times than I care to remember. But besides that, Anakin is his happy little self. I’m choosing to be terribly naive and believe that he’ll just breeze through the whole thing. We’ve been having some great nights and I’ll cry if he goes back to his vampire ways. Hah. Oh please have mercy on me… I actually felt almost human this morning after sleeping for over 4 hours in one go. I know, it’s pathetic, but hey, it was pretty damn good!
A tooth. Yikes! Is it ok to suddenly feel that time is going by too fast and getting all sentimental about my baby becoming a little boy?
Adventures in Jedi 