A big boy gets his big bed

Yes, Operation 'Henry in a big bed' is now a success. After many weekends spent shopping for a perfect bed for our perfect boy, we finally got it all together and now Henry is happily sleeping in his big bed. Amazingly, he's only fallen out twice. His cot remains in his room as we hope to move Milly in with him as soon as she starts sleeping through the night (please let it be soon).

We've had a couple of goes at introducing Milly to food. Some attempts have seen her grab at the spoon and have a good lick, most attempts have seen her not interested, so we will start again when she turns six months in two weeks. She's certainly not like Henry who grasped the total concept of food from the word go and hasn't looked back. Milly prefers mother's milk to anything else on offer.

Weekend away

We’ve just had a wonderful and relaxing weekend visiting Nanoo. It was Milly’s first trip away and she travelled ok for the two hour car journey. She didn’t sleep that well in the car, unlike Henry who pretty much falls asleep on car trips longer than 30 minutes. Other than that she was happy enough with the change of scenery and routine.

Henry was every excited to be visiting Nanoo and he spent the whole weekend following her and wanting to help whatever she was doing. They had a great time together gardening, making a wooden boat to float on the lake, drilling holes for some DIY home renovations, flying a kite, and visiting the local library.

Thank you Nanoo for having us visit. It was a relaxing time for me and Michael and an exhausting one for you (but you loved every minute of it).

August

This August has been an interesting and busy month. I'm now officially a homemaker, having been made redundant from my job when the company I work for decided to exit Australia. We've had family visits from the Bartley's with Nanoo making her monthly pilgrimage, and Grandad and Nanna Trace in Sydney for a weekend.

Operation 'Socialise Henry' has started with him attending Gymbaroo and a playgroup - so far so good. He is starting to be a little less anxious around other kids and is slowly building his confidence. Operation 'Toilet Train Henry' has been postponed. After a less than successful few attempts at introducing Henry to no nappies and sitting on the toilet, we've decided to put this project to the side for the moment. Operation 'Henry in a Big Bed' is slowly coming along. Interestingly this one was initiated by Henry who one night decided he wanted to sleep in a big bed instead of his cot. Problem is when we talk about getting him a big bed he has made it pretty clear he wants a pink, green and black one.

Little Miss Milly (actually she isn't so little - check out the size of her thighs below) is revealing herself to be a bit cheeky. She has a naughty smile and giggle. She has discovered her arms and hands and managed to grab a fist full of Henry's hair last week - he was not happy Jan.

Look-a-likes

Thank goodness Milly looks like me. I’m not saying Michael is tarnished with the ugly stick and looking like him is a bad thing, I think he’s hot stuff, it’s just when I look at pictures of me with Henry we don’t look like we are related. Sometimes when out and about with Henry I wonder if other people are looking at us and think I’m the nanny. It’s also got me wondering if Henry and Milly will grow up looking like brother and sister.

This blogs pictures show Henry having fun at Luna Park, Milly in Aunty Kathy's outfit, Nanoo with the grandkids (although Henry doesn't look that happy, we are sure it is more to do with his proximity to Milly than to Nanoo), Milly and me, and Milly actually smiling during tummy time.

Lessons

It’s amazing what you learn as a parent. I’m not talking about the art of how to look after babies and toddlers, I’m talking about the stuff you learn or relearn as you teach your child about the things they see in their life. For example, I would never have been able to name the different types of trucks on the road if Henry wasn’t so interested in modern day machinery. Now he is beginning to show an interest in dinosaurs which is forcing me to learn about velociraptors, the brontosaurus, whether they were plant or meat eaters, how big they were, how long ago they lived and much more. It will be interesting to see what things Miss Milly will want to know about, at the moment she is all too keen to box and whack her toys as they hang on mobiles in front or above her. Anthony “The Man” Mundine had better watch out.

Domestic goddess

I can’t stop baking. Cakes, cupcakes, breads, biscuits, muffins – sweet and savoury. Henry helps with the pouring, sieving, whisking, beating, and mixing …and of course the taste testing. We are lucky he is such a good eater and willing to try most things.

Milly is now 11 weeks old. She is smiling more and more and loves watching Henry play – she always has a super big smile for him. She is sleeping well at night between feeds, and on a couple of occasions has even skipped a night time feed.

A big thank you to Elke Kremer who gave Milly the giraffe. Happy Birthday Elke!

It's all in a name

When we found out the sex of our firstborn we came up with a very short list of two boys names. We picked Henry because it was old fashioned, rarely used, couldn’t be shortened, and we couldn’t think of any nasty nicknames that would come out of it. Since having Henry a little over two years ago, it appears that celebrities are choosing the name which is now making it popular. Supermodel Heidi Klum and singer Seal, Australian actress Deborah Mailman, and now ‘Pretty Woman’ Julia Roberts have since all named their sons Henry.

Hair, there, everywhere

What do we do with Henry’s hair? It’s lovely and blonde, thin and wispy. It curls at the ends and he has a couple of ringlets at the back. We love that he looks like a free-spirited child or a bit like a surfer. We get lots of comments about his hair. Friends and strangers all say how much they love it. The only negative opinions come from my parents. When my dad visits he always leaves telling Henry (jokingly) when he next sees him maybe he’ll have had his haircut; and whenever my mum visits she always makes several disapproving remarks about the length of his hair and the need to get it cut. Of course this just makes us more determined not to cut his hair. We love his hair as it is and he isn’t fussed about cutting it either. In fact we know there is no way he would find getting his hair cut an enjoyable experience or sit still for one. I’ll even admit I don’t want him to lose his curls or his blonde ends. I’ve been told by a few friends and other mums in the playground there is a kid’s store that has a hairdresser just for kid’s haircuts, but I’ve noticed all these kids have the same haircut. We fancy something different. So for now it remains as it is. The plan is to bring Henry to my hairdresser at the end of my next appointment and he can see me get my haircut and hopefully he won’t feel too threatened by a pair of scissors near his face and he’ll get some of his hair trimmed.

As for Milly, the great news is the hair she lost is growing back quite quickly, so we can finally say goodbye to her being mistaken for a monk. Milly also had her 8-week check up at the Early Childhood Centre last week. She now weighs 5.3kg, and is 58cm long. All the things she is meant to be doing developmentally she is doing and no one has any issues other than me who is still grieving for chocolate and isn’t enjoying the smell of baby’s vomit.

He and Me

Karma. I was just boasting to a pregnant friend the other day about how little washing I did when Henry was a newborn because he wasn’t a baby that vomited and pooed all the time, therefore requiring many changes of clothes for himself and me. Milly is not such a baby. Karma. She likes a vomit or two and sometimes her poo’s are so explosive they burst out the top of her nappy and can be found smeared up her back and over her torso. Not bad. Karma I say.

Milly is also a noisy little thing. She grunts, snorts and squeaks while awake and asleep. She likes to snuggle, loves being bounced on the fit ball or rocked in her rocker, and instantly falls asleep when we go out for walks or a drive in the car. She has also started smiling at us.


Henry still has a big sleep in the middle of the day and I haven’t quite got them synchronised yet so I can get a rest as well. However, their daily routines are such that one sleeps while the other is awake, so they both get one-on-one time with me – that is until around 4.30pm when they are both awake and wanting attention and I’m knackered and just trying to get through the remainder of the day until Michael comes home. But I feel like I’m getting enough sleep at night.

Henry is slowing starting to show an interest in Milly. He can’t quite say her name properly, it comes out as “Me”, which is funny because he can’t say his own name properly so refers to himself as “He”.

In other news, both Henry and Michael have been recovering from colds and me from mastitis.

And Milly makes four

We can’t believe Miss Milly is already one month old – where have the last four weeks gone? We couldn’t be happier with our little family and feel like the luckiest parents in the world for having two beautiful children.

Milly is quite a different looking baby to Henry. She was born with dark hair, which is slowly falling out on the crown of her head, giving her a hairstyle likened to a monk. She also currently has blue eyes. She is feeding well, and sleeping well between feeds. In the first few weeks she suffered from colic/wind. The Early Childhood Nurse who visited us for our first week check up suggested I remove spicy foods and/or caffeine from my diet to see if that made a difference. I told her I didn’t drink coffee or tea so caffeine probably wasn’t the problem. The nurse replied that chocolate has caffeine in it. Naturally I tried giving up spicy foods first, as I wasn’t ready to give up my daily hot chocolate or other indulgences. But alas, it has been proven since giving up chocolate Milly’s colic discomfort has all but disappeared. When she is older, I’ll be reminding her of this sacrifice.

Henry is pretty indifferent to Milly’s presence. He acknowledges her at bedtime when he goes through his ritual of giving everyone a kiss goodnight, and occasionally he likes to touch her or pat her, or watch me give her a bath. Other than that he is just going about his daily business and isn’t showing much in the way of jealous behaviour. He doesn't wake from her cries and she doesn't wake from his squeals.

As for me and Michael, we don’t feel too sleep deprived. I express milk for Michael to feed Milly in the evening, so I can go to bed early and get some sleep. Although now we have two kids to look after and it can be exhausting, overall it feels easier because we aren’t the nervous new parents we were two years ago.

Milly Jane Dorothy Hobson - the birth story

With Henry I was nine days overdue, had an induction and experienced a 14 hour labour that didn’t progress; reason being Henry was still high in my pelvis and didn’t want to or couldn’t drop or become engaged. The end result was an emergency caesarean.

In the final week of this pregnancy we learnt that this baby was also carrying high and had not dropped into my pelvis. This lessened our chances of a normal delivery, as I would need to go into labour naturally, as once you have had a caesarean obstetrician’s don’t induce labour as it risks rupturing the past scar. So we had to book into the hospital for a caesarean on the chance I didn’t go into labour on my own. The hospital told us we were scheduled for 7.00am on Thursday, 19 April 2007 and to be there by 5.45am.

So in the early hours of the morning we arrive at the hospital and are taken to the delivery ward. A midwife gets me to have a shower and put on a hospital gown. The anaesthetist comes in and tells me he will do a spinal block and goes through the risks etc. I suddenly feel quite nervous about the whole thing and I’m really being read my last rights. A hospital orderly shows up and its time to be wheeled down to theatre and Michael is taken away to get changed. When Michael reappears he is dressed in blue surgical gear and wearing a big sticker saying “DAD”. We are told this is so he isn’t confused with the actual doctors and nurses and isn’t handed a scalpel by mistake.

Everyone in the operating theatre is really nice and introduces themselves and tells us what role they play in the op. I get put on a drip and then receive the spinal block, despite shaking uncontrollably through nerves (thank goodness for all the breathing techniques I learnt in prenatal yoga, they helped settle my nerves and I relaxed straight away) – the spinal block injection didn’t hurt a bit. From the shoulders down I feel numb and am vaguely aware the operation has started. I’m feeling quite spaced out and light headed and the anaesthetist pumps some drugs in my drip to stop me from passing out. Michael is looking at me and not over the blue sheet separating us from the actual operation. He tells me later he thought at one stage he was going to faint, especially when he saw the table with the scalpels and scissors etc.

My obstetrician tells me they are about to pull the baby out and I'll probably feel a tugging sensation. Next thing we hear a small cry and are shown a baby girl. I'm a little shocked. One that it is a girl, and two that we have another baby (with all the drugs flowing through my veins, for a split second I had forgotten why we were there). The nurses clean her up, Michael cuts the cord and we get to hold her while I'm stitched up. Michael then gets to spend the next hour with her while I'm taken to the recovery ward for monitoring. As it turns out my blood pressure and oxygen levels remain low for the rest of the day and I have to wear a lovely nasal device on my face (thanks to Michael for posting those flattering photos).

So for those who like to know, details of little baby no.2 are:

Weight: 3.625kgs (8pds)
Length: 54cms
Head circumference: 34cms

We are now at home and so far so good. Milly is a good sleeper, doesn't make much of a noise, wakes for a feed, barely wakes to be changed, and settles easily - but it is early days.

Thanks to everyone who has sent cards, pressies, and well wishes.