Day 3 Man Shopping

Day 3 Man  Shopping

Francis apparently slept well last night – again I have to rely on a second hand account of this, despite the fact that the baby monitor – now functioning correctly again- is on my side table!

We let time slide a bit this morning and Ananda was two minutes late for work, before she had even left the house. We do need to be better organized at who does what task in the morning now that we have swapped roles.

I did achieve one thing though, and that was finishing my morning tea. Quite an achievement considering I finished yesterday morning cuppa at 4pm.  After our morning with the ladies at SPACE, I decided to balance Francis’ gender exposure by doing some more masculine stuff, so headed over to Bunnings the DIY store. 

I had practiced popping young F into the ergo at home,  in the hope that I would be practiced enough to not drop him on his head on the asphalt in the car park.  And you know what they say – practice makes perfect – or in this case makes safely bungled into the ergo. I may not be able to reverse a trailer, but boy did I draw some jealous stare from other Men as I put F in the ergo!.... hmm maybe not.

We needed to buy some light bulbs for the bathroom and a toilet roll holder. The first we achieved easily – and yes they were LEDs – the second was a bit of a  downer. Two choices of toilet roll holder – one at $16 which looked really crappy – if you pardon the pun – and the other at $60!!! What sort of toilet paper needs to go on a $60 holder. Jeez!

We had more luck in the garden centre and picked up some cucumber, tomato, butternut squash, jalpeno peppers, and basil seedlings for our garden, without getting Francis stung by any bees, or him pulling the leaves off anything.

It was about this time, after about 20 minutes of wearing Francis in the ergo that I regretted having finished my cup of tea this morning.  I also got a slight insight into what a pregnant ladies bladder goes through carry a heavy weight constantly against their bladder. My desperate need to use the bathroom was then largely overshadowed by the fact that Francis was becoming very still in the ergo – yep he was beginning to fall asleep.  Well my bathroom need was not really overshadowed, it just meant I had two pressing emergencies to deal with.

A Rookie Mistake

After paying for our goodies we headed back home in a hurry – me trying to be jovial and witty and entertain Franics with my best bon mots – and singing to try and keep him awake. But that and my bladder-filled erratic driving failed to do the job. At one traffic light I reached behind me into his car chair and he gave my finger a very limp squeeze, a bit like an American handshake.

A bead of panic-sweat appeared on my brow.  I remember many tales of woe from Ananda, saying that if he fell asleep in the car on the way home, he would never go to sleep again once you got home. Like forever- ever!

Lo and behold the wee Tyke was asleep in the back of the car when I pulled up at the  house. After dealing with aforementioned bladder emergency and cursing at the empty cup as I passed it in the kitchen,  I contemplated leaving Francis in his car, but always being one for a challenge I decided to wake him up, give him a bottle full of liquid gold – cold from the fridge – and try and get him to go back to sleep.   Oh and his nappy was wet too. 

Not withstanding these challenges, the wee little fella did go back to sleep for a couple of hours.  I have to say that Ananda and I are still holding him in our arms until he goes to sleep.  I know I hear some of you “tsk tsking”, and that we should probably by now be able to put him down in his cot when he is awake and walk away. BUT I actually really like having him go to sleep in my arms. Those moments when he is settling down and relaxing and he just looks up into your eyes with such unconditional trust and loves, are so precious to me. My heart just melts. Moments that can’t be caught on your smart phone and posted or tweeted (I use that word as if I know what that means), but images that will be forever burned in my memory.

Not Alan Titchmarsh.

During Nap Time – yes I capitalize it is as any parent will tell you it deserves to be a proper noun- I was quite productive in getting some of our moving clutter sorted in the kitchen. Ananda was on a half day today, so when she came home, and Francis was awake, we set about organizing our garden.  We popped F into his waterproof pants and hoped he would crawl around the newly mowed lawns whilst we planned where our veggie boxes would go. Alas it turns out he does not like grass very much, and as for the drizzle he did protest greatly.

We did get some stuff done…..

New Foods

Francis has finally gotten the hang of swallowing food. Previously he liked to chew and taste, then like a grand sommelier he would spit it all out.  We have noticed a change in this in the last month or so with him chowing down his spinach and pe-ana. So we decided to try adding some more foods and found today that he likes mashed potatoes, swelled up raisins from our morning kheir and some curried pumpkin soup that I made from some left over pumpkin our friend Michelle brought down for us at the weekend.  

It’s really fun watching him try new foods. He first approaches it in slow motion with one outstretched index finger (think “home phone” from ET) and gentle touched. Then, still in slow motion, he takes the food and brings it closer to his nose for a bit of a sniff, then lowers it down until it just touches his lower lip, which he has expressly pouted out for this task (think car ramp lowering on a ferry). After the slightest touch of his lip the food is then hastily removed, whilst he contemplates what to do next. Next is usually then turning the said food around in his hand and repeating the process with the other end.  If the food is rejected it’s off to the floor with it – or if accepted a more generous tasting ensues. If  he still likes it then he will want to try and eat every last bit of it on the earth, regardless of what other tasty treats we try and temp him with.

Finally in the New Foods category should go a dried up old garlic clove he found on the floor and a dog biscuit he stole from Sunny’s bowl at dinner time.

We have trained Sunny from the get-go to be messed with at eating times, and he’s been great with Francis, but do realize that from now on we should keep Francis away when they’re eating. Must do better.

Spoon Conveyor Belt and Spoon a Trois.

For foods that require a spoon as a mode of transportation to his mouth,  we used to have trouble because of his spoon obsession. But we have reversed-spoonologied him. As the food on the spoon is heading to his mouth, we grab a second spoon and offer that to him. So distracted, or overjoyed at the presence of a second spoon is he, that his jaw drops and we can shovel in his food.

This has since morphed into the Spoon Conveyor Belt. He does like to try and feed himself with the spoon, so as he is popping one spoon in his mouth (sometimes even the right end) the other is on it’s way back to him – fully loaded. He grabs that, removes the first and then fills himself up again. And so on…..

Tonight, though we had to step up our game when it came to yogurt time. We added a third spoon, so that both Ananda and I could feed him one after another whilst he still held the “spoon of distraction”. This obviously gets a bit messy but it’s heap of fun for us.

So Day #3 completed, here are the scores on the doors for anyone interested

No poos – maybe Francis ate too much cornflour gloop at SPACE yesterday.  Good job he ate a lot of raisins for breakfast

Babies falling from couch – one (not under my watch)

Tupperware drawers re-organised – one (72 assorted tubs with lids  - we need to stop buying Tupperware and I need to stop counting)

Naps 2.5 – including short car nap.
Raisins soaking in liquid gold overnight in the fridge  - about a dozen - to hopefully help with first point.