Being Momma G: Day 60

We have a gorgeous 2 month old baby!

Sean is 2 months old today - can you believe how quickly time has flown?

We love our wee man, and in the past month, Sean has learned to smile more and more, and he's started to laugh. He has so much to tell us, and often provides quite a bit of chatter after his meals when he's at his happiest. Sean has also gotten stronger by the day, with quite a bit of power behind those long legs of his, and his neck muscles are so so strong - he's able to hold his head up by himself and look around. When we have tummy time, after being propped up on his elbows, Sean is able to push his head and neck up and stay this way for quite some time. Sean recognises my voice, and follows me around with his eyes.

Sean has almost outgrown his bassinet. I remember how little he looked sleeping in the big bassinet only a few weeks ago. The singlets that we "sub-legally acquired" from the hospital are all getting too small for Sean. We use to be able to pull the hem over his bottom; now they barely cover his belly button!

I always thought I'd have a chubba bubba, and while Sean is almost 5kg, he's a long and lean baby. He has such long arms and legs - I bet he is going to be taller than me by the time he turns 6.

Sean is truly magical, and we fall in love with him more and more as each day passes.

I can't say I was so in love with him early this morning though. After feeding just after 10pm last night, Sean slept through till 2am before wanting more. With both of us being tired, I brought Sean into the bed and fed him there, and left him in the bed with us. The little mite woke at 3.30am and again at 5.15am for more milk, which meant I didn't get a lot of sleep at all. Jonathan got out of bed for work at 6.30am, at which time Sean was happily asleep in our bed and I was wide awake.

I did get a little bit more sleep before Sean woke at 8.30am for another meal, and he was able to go straight back to sleep after the feed. Jonathan and I spent the morning rearranging a few things in the laundry. Sean made a good effort with his sleeping, and didn't wake again until 11.30am for his lunch.

After Sean went back to sleep, Jonathan and I got ourselves some lunch, and took turns having showers and getting ready for Mothers Group. I always loathe waking a sleeping baby, but by 1.45pm, Sean was still asleep and we had no choice but to wake him, to dress him and head to Mothers Group.

We arrived at the West Ryde ECHC in good time, and sat down to wait for the GP who was coming to talk to us and answer any medical questions we had. There were lots of questions from the other mothers, which were answered efficiently and effectively by the doctor. Sean wanted a feed almost as soon as the questions started, so I fed him and kept him quiet. Sean was so well behaved today during the session, with very little to whinge and whine about. Jonathan and I took turns to hold Sean during the session, and as soon as the questions were all answered, we raced into Catherine's office to start the 6 week check up.

Catherine asked how Sean had been in the week since we last saw her. We told her that he was good, albeit with a skin irritation. We told her that we had been to Dr Siva who prescribed some antibiotics, and we saw Dr Arnold yesterday who told us to stop the antibiotics immediately. We also told her that Dr Arnold thought the rash was a bad reaction to the Mustela body wash. We told her that the paediatrician was happy with everything, so we hoped she would be too.

Catherine went to start the check up by looking in Sean's blue book, and found that the 6 week check up had already been completed - by Dr Siva when we took Sean to see her for his 6 week jabs! It dawned on us that I really didn't need to drag Sean out last Tuesday when he was so unsettled! Catherine didn't seem all that impressed that she didn't need to do the check up, but still made us weigh Sean on her scales and measure Sean on her ruler, even though Sean was weighed and measured yesterday by Dr Arnold. In fact, when Sean was weighed at the West Ryde ECHC, the scales said he was 5.1kg, and using Catherine's measuring tools, Sean was 59cm. Jonathan and I made comments about him being 4.95kg and 60.5cm yesterday, and Catherine snapped and asked where we were yesterday to have a different set of numbers. When we reminded her that we'd been to see Dr Arnold, she shut up.

Jonathan's impression of Catherine was that she was an alarmist. Any little thing that appeared out of the ordinary with the baby was blown slightly bigger than it should be. There really wasn't any point in alarming me and upsetting me so much last week, but unfortunately, Catherine was able to do so because I was tired and frustrated with a very unsettled baby, and she was alarmed by the sight of the pimply spots and rash on Sean.

Once the non-event of a check up was over, Jonathan and I headed back out to the meeting room to talk to the other mothers. I introduced Jonathan to Candy, Rachel, Suzie and Janet and their babies, and talked to Daisy for the first time since we started Mothers Group. Daisy often attended the sessions with her husband, and they always left almost as soon as the information session was finished. Daisy attended today's session with only her baby, and she stayed to have a chat with the rest of us.

We chatted for a while, and the mothers were a bit wistful now that the "official" Mothers Group sessions were finished. We all agreed to return for the information session on solids next week, so that we could try and plan for future meet ups and stay in touch with one another.

As Jonathan had to get back to work by 4.30pm, we left the West Ryde ECHC and went to Woolworths to pick up a few grocery items before heading home. As Sean didn't really have a sleep after the feed at Mothers Group, he was a bit unsettled, so after we got home, I fed him again and hoped he would settle down for a sleep. That was not to be, as Sean remained quite unsettled for most of the afternoon and into early evening. I was able to get Sean to sleep, but within 10 minutes of being put into his bassinet, Sean would wake up again. Sean and I repeated this over and over again - I settle Sean, Sean falls asleep, I place Sean in his bassinet asleep, Sean stays asleep for 10 minutes, Sean wakes up, I re-settle Sean, etc.

By 6.30pm, I was over it. I was getting hungry and wanted to cook dinner, but I couldn't prepare and cook dinner when I had a screaming baby to settle. After a full hour of trying to get the little man to sleep, I was so fed up with Sean's unsettled pattern that I stormed out of the bedroom and went straight to Jonathan. Even though he was suppose to be working, there wasn't a lot for him to do except monitor some data transfer progress, so Jonathan was surfing the internet and waiting for something to happen. At the sight of this, I got a bit angry and blurted out that I found it hard for him to be working from home, especially when I was hungry and wanted to cook dinner, but the baby refused to settle and sleep, which meant I wasn't able to get away from the baby to cook dinner. I told him that I felt guilty asking him to settle the baby, especially if he was busy with work and he physically couldn't walk away from the computer and go and settle the baby. Jonathan asked how he could help me, and I told that I simply couldn't settle the baby and cook dinner at the same time. Jonathan then offered to settle the baby, and I huffed off to the kitchen to get dinner ready.

All day long, I'd told Jonathan that I wanted to make sweet and sour chicken for dinner. We usually had rice with sweet and sour chicken, and we had recently discovered the joy and goodness of brown rice. Brown rice took twice as long to cook as white rice did, which meant that even though I could prep the chicken and vegetables, I still needed the rice to be cooked (or almost cooked) before I could cook the chicken. I estimated that by the time dinner was ready, Sean would want another feed.

And I was correct. The rice was ready, the chicken was ready, and Sean was ready. No food for Mummy!

I love my husband, but I don't love the fact that he sucked at planning. I sometimes wished he was able to plan, or think about planning, as it would make life a little bit easier for me. For instance, tonight, if Jonathan had thought about dinner, he may well have put the rice on while I was settling the baby. It would have taken 2 minutes to get the rice cooker out of the cupboard and plug it in at the wall, measure out the rice, put the rice in the rice cooker bowl, rinse the rice with cold water, put in the appropriate amount of water into the rice cooker bowl, put the lid on the rice cooker and turn it on to cook. Instead, he was happy to wait until I was ready to cook, which had a real chance of not happening at all with an unsettled baby. And even if I was able to settle Sean and get the chicken going, the rice was going to take half an hour to cook. If I had do it all, we weren't going to have dinner until 10pm at the rate things were spiralling. And I was hungry. Very hungry. And I wanted dinner now.

By the time I came out of the bedroom totally frustrated with Sean not wanting to sleep, I was upset enough to deliver Jonathan an ultimatum - either I settled the baby, or I cooked dinner, for there was no way I could do both. But damn it, I was hungry, so what will it be? I left Jonathan with no choice but to go to the bedroom and take over.

After Jonathan settled the baby, and while we were waiting for the rice to cook, Jonathan and I had a chat about how we could better manage dinner time when he was working from home. I told Jonathan that I would be happy to cook, provided someone else could look after the baby if Sean was unsettled. If Jonathan was busy with work, then we would have to look at other meal options that Jonathan could handle, like Latina pasta and sauce, or ordering home deliveries or pizza.

Sean started crying just as dinner was ready, so Jonathan ate dinner while I fed Sean, and afterwards, Jonathan took Sean for a bath while I ate my dinner. By the time I was finished with dinner, Jonathan and Sean were finished with bath time as well. Jonathan had to go back to work, so I took over trying to get Sean to sleep. After 45 minutes with no success, I asked Jonathan to make up a bottle of formula as a top up for Sean, as he seemed to be hungry. Sean practically inhaled the 60mL of formula!

Even though he was full, Sean was still unwilling to settle down and sleep. Again, I was able to get him to sleep, but the second I put him in his bassinet, the little man would wake up. In the end, I propped myself up with all the pillows, so that I was able to lie down in the bed with Sean snuggled up in my arms. This was the only way he would sleep, and I was too tired to fight it.

We stayed this way until Jonathan finished work just after 11pm. By this time, Sean was asleep enough to be put into the bassinet without waking. My shoulder is hurting so much right now, it feels like it's on fire. But the little man is asleep, so thank goodness for small mercies. Jonathan and I are both wrecked, and Sean and I have a big adventure tomorrow, when we will be spending the whole day at the Camellia Family Care Cottage with Margot to learn how to sleep. I certainly could do with some new techniques to put Sean to sleep, and Sean needs to learn to sleep on his own. It's going to be an interesting day.

Oh, one last thing. Happy Birthday to Mina, who turned 6 today. Hope she had a lovely day!