mr wrigglebot

I have a new appreciation for my feet, or rather the things that I can do when I can see my feet. Without any belly obstruction I was able to go waterskiing last weekend, I took it rather easy but it was nice just to be active again. I thought leading up to the weekend that at least I would have my strength, from lifting Wrigglebot all the time, lets just say I would hate to see how I had gone had I not been doing weight training with the Wrigglebot. I just heard the sound of rumblings going deep down into the nappy of the little one, I will be back…

I’d forgotten how many nappies babies go through. Anyways… I am also finding it handy to be able to pick things up off the ground without first making sure that there is something or someone there to help me up again. It is nice to be able to eat and know that because I am breast feeding I wont put on any weight in fact I will probably lose it. It is nice to go for a walk and not have to map where all the public toilets are in case the need arises. Tonight, however, will be the test as I play a game of netball, I will try and take it easy but I am a very competitive person so we will see. Regardless of how I go tonight it is still nice to be able to see my feet, perhaps if I find it difficult tonight I will buy a new pair of shoes and just stand appreciating being able to see them.

The night life in our family has been very interesting lately. Now you would think that the biggest disruption to regular sleep would be from the little one, this is not so. She sleeps from 10 till anywhere between 4.30 and 6 which is quite good, so my lack of sleep does not come from her feeding routine. However, all is not perfect, she is a grunter and will grunt for up to an hour and a half after her feed, she is not upset she just grunts. If I had the room I would move her out of our room so I could easily fall back to sleep again but at the moment that is not an option so she grunts and I wish I was a heavy sleeper.

She is a minor disruption to sleep, Husband is another, he has deadlines looming for work and so has been up till at least 2 sometimes 4 in the morning working just about every night. Needless to say when he comes to bed he is not the most stealthy.

That brings us to Wrigglebot, we have been trying to get him to sleep in his ‘big boy bed’ and our efforts have not all been successful. We have been at it about a week now and as long as we stand guard at the door he will stay in bed and eventually fall asleep. In fact last night we simply closed his door and after a little crying and banging on the door we found him asleep in his bed, so success. The difficulty comes because he wriggles so much, some nights he can fall out of bed as many as four times, hysterically crying each time. After some big bumps on his head we put his cot mattress on the floor to aid his landing and that seems to have helped. We resisted getting a rail because he is such a climber and we figured he would just fall further as he climbed over it.

So that’s what has been happening in my nights. One day I might get a full eight hours of sleep again, until then I will nap, day and night.

When Wrigglebot first came home from hospital we made sure we didn’t have anything dangerous within his reach (we thought he may have been advanced and able to grab things and poke his eyes out rather than just lie there as all new babies do). He began rolling so we cleared everything non-furniture off the floor in the particular room where he happened to be. He began crawling so everything got moved up a level everywhere.  He began pulling himself up and standing so everything got moved even higher and he grew and grew so things kept getting moved up and doors were closed to certain rooms as he began walking. Quite frankly we are running out of room to move things out of his reach as he has become a climbing monster.

Some kids will just climb onto a couch, not our Wrigglebot. He has climbed up an adult sized ladder, I foolishly thought he wouldn’t get past the first rung but he managed to get all the way to the top. His latest thing is to push our dining room chairs over to the kitchen bench and climb onto the chair to see what is happening and to get closer to the food. He has almost climbed onto the bench from his vantage point. This is scary, knives and dishes often live on our bench and I worry about how far his curiosity will lead him. I cannot get rid of my bench or my chairs so the only option is supervision which is hard whilst breast feeding and trying to keep the bench clear. I guess I am just wondering whether child proofing ever ends and if it does what is that magic age? Maybe 4 or 5 I think, although Husband managed to cut his fingers with his knife just the other day so perhaps it never truly ends.

Wrigglebot has generally been very good with his little sister, he pats her head and is fascinated with her hands and feet. Each morning he comes into our room and checks that she is still there and well before coming to us. He gives her her dummy and proudly points her out as his sister. However, he also starts crying if I am holding her and can’t hold him and then there is the throwing. He throws things at her or rather toward her while she is lying in her cot. Sometimes it is a toy, sometimes a blanket, other times a box of wipes. So here is my question does he throw things out of good or bad intentions?

I like to think that he is giving her toys to play with, blankets to keep warm with and wipes, well I am stuck on that one, but I fear something more sinister. As a mother you always want to think the best of your child but in this situation I simply don’t know. He still can’t communicate well enough to explain why he throws things at her, but maybe that is a good thing because for a while longer I can still believe that though misguided he is still my little angel, and I don’t think this sentiment will last all that much longer as he approaches two.

A little video we made of the wrigglebot.

People say labour is a beautiful and natural thing, personally it may be natural but there is nothing beautiful about it, it is just painful. About halfway through my labour I began thinking that it would be nice to be a bird and have an egg, I wouldn’t mind sitting on it for nine months if in the end it hatched itself, unfortunately this couldn’t be. All that being said labour went really well for me, I went into labour naturally, was in observed labour for 2 hours and 40 minutes, didn’t need any drugs and both myself and the baby were safe.

And so at 1407 hrs on the 2nd of January 2008 little Winsome Bronte was born. She weighed 3.3 kg or 7 pounds 6 ounces in the old scale. She was 52 cms long and had a head circumference of 35 cms, 2 cm larger than the wrigglebot.