The crying game

31 August 2008 – 8 weeks old

Jack says: Mis abuelos se fueron ayer y me puso triste de verlos partir. As you can see I’ve picked up un pocito de español. Ay ay ay!

We went to our first mother and baby group this week. I was asleep when we got there so mum left me in the pushchair. When I woke up I shouted across the room that I wanted to get up and join the fun but mum totally ignored me. The maternal health nurse told mum I was crying and when she finally came to get me she was all red in the face. Perhaps she’s teething?

Mum told me we should make a good impression so after feeding I did one of my best and loudest burps followed by a rapid, raspberry-sounding evacuation of my bowels. Mum looked really pleased with me.

I sat next to this kid called Daryl who was 13 weeks old although his ‘corrected’ age is 4 weeks cos he was born, like, really early. He was tiny next to me and his mum said I looked like the playground bully. The nurse lady explained how to raise a baby and I found it a bit strange because it isn’t really like that in my house.

Mum was a bit sad this morning because my godparents got married in France and it was too far away for us to go. I haven’t even got a passport yet. But we are going to visit them in January next year :)

Keelie says: Compared to some of the baby-crying horror stories I’ve read, Jack is a pretty easy baby (TOUCH HUGE BIT OF WOOD). We can’t complain about his nocturnal habits either. Asleep by 10pm and give or take a bit of wind and fidgeting, he sleeps until 8-9h. This is minus time for feeds of course but now we’ve both worked out how to feed lying down, he latches on, sups, rolls off and goes back to sleep.

So when he decides to spend most of his morning alternately crying, screaming and grizzling, it is incredibly exasperating. At least when there’s two of you, you can tag-team with the little monster. He’s starting to drool and bites down on my finger which is symptomatic of teething…but he’s 8 weeks old…so that can’t be right..can it? On the other hand he is the biggest baby in the mother’s group and is already wearing size 3-6 months clothes. I have spawned a monster! But when he coos and smiles it's the cutest thing ever so we'll keep him for now.

He is asleep now. Praise the lord.

We said goodbye to Alexis’ parents yesterday. I really enjoyed having them here. It’s lovely to see your baby with the grandparents because no one (apart from the parents of course) loves that child more. They also have buckets of patience and lots of experience – two qualities which babies love. When you’ve seen someone sing your crying baby to sleep over and over again you start to wish you could keep them in the back of the car full-time…

We have decided to enter Jack into the Guiness World Book of Records under ‘baby-who-has-most-circumnavigated-the-globe’ and have booked to go round the world again in Dec-Jan-Feb. At least I’ll get to use my silver Qantas card at last! Priority check-in here I come! Quite handy with a baby. Here are the dates:

29 Nov: Oz to BA

21 Dec: BA to London

10 Jan: London to Oz (Alexis)

17 Feb: London to Oz (Keelie & Jack)

What is everyone doing for new year???

Photos here: http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=149811&l=d2ef2&id=855875421