Being Momma G: Day 65

Oh what a night.

Mina woke up just after midnight to go to the bathroom before going back to bed. Within 2 minutes of returning to bed, and without trying at all, she whimpered for Daddy and complained she couldn't get back to sleep. Jonathan got out of bed and stayed with her for 20 minutes to ensure she was asleep before returning to our bedroom.

Sean woke at 3am for a dream feed, and he stayed asleep enough for me to take him back to his bassinet. Good little man.

Apparently, Mina woke up again some time during the night, and again needed Jonathan to comfort her back to sleep. Lucky for her, I slept through that. My patience with this whole sleepover shamozzle was had just about worn through.

Mina did wake me, at 6.30am, by coming into our room to tell Jonathan that she had an itchy spot on her arm, which was now hurting because she'd scratched it. The rule that we had always asked Mina to observe when in our house for sleepovers was to not disturb us before 7am, but for some reason today, the selfish little shit came in and woke me at 6.30am. I don't get much sleep as it is, so I was pretty pissed off to be woken unnecessarily.

Jonathan got out of bed and took Mina back to her room and the two of them stayed there. Meanwhile, I was seething at being woken from my dreams, and Sean must have sensed my anger, as he woke up with a start at 6.45am. I brought him into the bed and fed him, and once he was full, I put him back into the bassinet and got him to sleep. Then I joined Jonathan and Mina for breakfast.

After breakfast, I decided to tackle the sleepover shamozzle head on. I sat Mina down and asked her, face to face, why she was feeling so reluctant to sleepover and why there had been such a kerfuffle recently. Mina told me that it was because she didn't have her special blanket and her teddy bear Marshmallow with her when she slept at our house. For this sleepover (and the last), Mina brought both, and she said that she was feeling a lot more comfortable about sleeping over now that she had her blanket and teddy. I wanted to interrogate at her about the temper tantrum a fortnight ago, but thought better of it.

If having familiar things around Mina will make her feel better about sleeping over, and have her resume the pattern of sleeping over 2 nights every fortnight, then Mina can bring whatever she wants to our house. I told her the same - if there was a special outfit she wanted to wear, or special shoes she wanted to bring, or special toys she wanted to sleep with, then she should ask the Evil Witch to pack her a bag and bring the lot. Anything Mina ever brought to our house would always return with her at drop off, so there was no threat of her not seeing her favourite shirt/dress/toy/blanket/etc for a whole week. Heck, if she wanted to bring the contents of her entire bedroom to our house, provided she was happy to make a full list of everything that came into the house so we would repack everything to go home with her, then I say "bring it".

I reiterated the point to Mina, that she could bring whatever she wanted to make her more comfortable and happier about staying with us, and I was fairly certain that she got the point. Here's hoping anyway.

Around 9am, I decided that I wanted to go to Church for the first time since Sean was born. I tried to go about 3 weeks ago, but failed as Sean was too unsettled and would have caused a big scene at Church. With Sean a little more settled and starting to show he is able to adhere to a routine, I decided to try taking Sean to Church. Sean and I got dressed, and we headed out to Sean's first Mass.

Sean was quite well behaved for his first visit to Church. He was hungry, and as we were sitting up the back of the Church away from the congregation, we had a surreptitious feed under a muslin cloth. During the feed, Sean's nappy sprang a leak, which I discovered when my lap started to feel warm and wet. At least it was only a wee - it could have been worse.

When Mass was over, all the ladies who were friends with Mum and had followed my pregnancy with keen interest came over to us and met Sean for the first time. They all cooed over the little man, and told me how adorable Sean was. Marcia, Mum's neighbour until she moved just before Christmas was there, and she had given Sean a gorgeous singlet with some delicate embroidery on the front, so it was fitting that Sean said thank you in person. Ever the charmer, Sean gave Marcia a great big smile, which was enough to melt all the hearts around.

Sean also met Father Paul for the first time, and we are looking forward to Father Paul presiding over Sean's baptism in a few weeks' time.

We had an appointment at St Leonards to meet with a painter to quote for the painting at 11am, so after a short chat with Mum, we got in the car to head towards St Leonards. I checked the phone just before we left, and saw there was a message from the painter, saying he was running an hour late and he wouldn't be able to get to St Leonards until 12pm. Stuck for something to do, I texted Emily to see where she was, and luckily, she was in the area, picking out carpets at Home HQ in Artarmon, so we headed over there to catch up with Emily.

Since Sean came home, I'd rarely spent any time with Emily, so it was good to see her and catch up with her. Sean and I helped to pick out a carpet for Emily, who had recently purchased an apartment. We had a coffee while at Home HQ, and Emily caught me up on her most exciting news. I was so behind with the times, I didn't even know she had been looking to buy a property! Emily's apartment was in a leafy pocket of Lane Cove, in a quiet street between Pacific Highway and Mowbray Road. Emily said the apartment needed a fair bit of work, with the bathroom and the kitchen both in their original conditions and desperately needing an update, the carpet definitely needed to be replaced, and the walls and ceiling (which was that awful spray concrete finish so popular in the 1970s) also needed to be refreshed. Emily was going to tackle the renovations one bit at a time, having deemed the carpet and painting to be the most important of all jobs and must be completed before she moved in.

I can't wait to see the apartment! I was so excited for Emily - such a grown up thing to do, buying an apartment. Emily and I reminisced about our days at uni and the wild parties and outings we use to have, and the late nights / early mornings / walks of shame. They seemed like such a long time ago, compared to our now responsible ways of home ownership and parenthood.

Just before midday, Andrew the painter called to say he was almost at St Leonards, so we left Emily and headed to The Forum. Andrew spent 10 minutes looking at the apartment before giving me a quote, which was in the ball park of what I was expecting to pay. I asked when he could do the job, and he told me he was available on Wednesday. SOLD! We locked in the details and I went to leave the keys at the concierge desk for Andrew to use on Wednesday.

The desk was empty, so Sean and I went to wait on the seat in the foyer. Just as we were about to sit down, Caitlin walked into the foyer and was delighted to see us. She got her first cuddle with Sean, who by this stage was getting a little bit grizzly. Caitlin and I had a quick catch up before I raced home with a hungry baby, who cried the whole way.

Sean was both hungry and tired after the big morning trip, and the little man had a good lie down after his meal. Jonathan and Mina had already had lunch by the time Sean and I arrived home, so while I was feeding Sean, Jonathan made me some lunch which I ate with one hand. Mina had been in a creative mood all day, and she and Jonathan had a creative morning and spent most of the afternoon making artworks.

We had a lovely Skype hookup with the family in New Zealand. Tammi, our gorgeous little niece, turned 1 on 27 February, and Jonathan's Mum and Dad were hosting a birthday party at their house in Papakura to celebrate the occasion. We chatted with Mum and Dave and Jolie and Jolie's mum, and we saw the girls Alyssa and Tammi. We talked a little bit about Mum and Nana's impending visit, which we are really looking forward to. As it will be a sleepover weekend, we are hopeful that Mina will have sorted out all her issues by then and return to enjoying her sleepovers with us.

We didn't chat for too long, as Mum had a house full of people she needed to get back to. We will have her undivided attention in a few weeks, so we signed off and wished them a good afternoon of fun.

The afternoon went by quickly, and as we'd decided to hit the shops at Rhodes Shopping Centre to buy Mina a birthday gift, we needed to leave around 3pm. We had hoped to also fit in a short play time for Mina in Småland@Ikea, but by the time we arrived, the waiting time to get in was 45 minutes, which meant Mina would have been lucky to get 10 minutes of play time before Jonathan took her home.

So off to Target we went and straight to the toy section we headed. Mina was allowed to choose something to the value of $25, and she decided to buy a game called Popcorn Panic, which shot out balls of toy popcorn that the players caught in popcorn boxes, and the person with the most toy popcorn won. I spotted 2 board games in a bundle - Junior Cluedo and Junior Monopoly - which scanned at $15 for the 2 games, so we ended up buying those as well.

There was still time for Mina to have a bit of play in the kids play area in the shopping centre, and she had a great time running around with the other kids. Mina was in huge demand that afternoon - after introducing herself to a group of girls, they all wanted to play with her and they were all calling out her name during the whole time she was in the play area. All too soon, play time came to an end and while Jonathan took Mina home, I did a little bit of window shopping before waiting outside Coles for Sean to wake up and Jonathan to return. Throughout the entire shopping trip thus far, Sean was asleep and slept well in the pram.

Sean woke up just as Jonathan walked up to us, so we hurriedly did the grocery shopping and race home to feed the little man. Sean was quite restless and didn't sleep all that much between the 6pm feed and the 8.30pm feed.

What a full weekend it had been. Jonathan will be working from the office next week, so Sean and I will be on our own during the day for the next 5 days. The little man is still crying as I type this, so I'm going to head into the bedroom and see if I can get him to sleep.