I was all ready to get this out yesterday as planned, but as Daddy says, I have as much chance of predicting what my little Wombat is going to do as I have of predicting where my darts will land :P notoriously, if I say I'm going to get a bullseye, the dart will end up stuck in a nearby door, and if I say I'm going to miss entirely, I'm just as likely to get a bullseye! For the past few days, Wombat, you have been very alert and feeding voraciously during the day, and then sleeping soundly all evening, giving me a chance to get on with some uni reading. Yesterday, however, you decided to sleep all day, which I didn't mind as I was very tired and sore myself so I joined you, but then you were awake and hungry from 7pm until midnight. That meant my computer time went out the window! Today has been more balanced, with both sleeping, feeding and play (though not necessarily in that order!) and I have just got you settled into a sound sleep - let's see how long it lasts :D
My other excuse is that Grandpa Tony sent me a cd of photo-enhancing software, so you will notice that this week's photos are much better quality :) I have only had a few minutes to play with it, but there looks like a lot of fun stuff there - especially when I have time to do more website work again. My work on Grandma's website seems to have been something of a minor success - she has just received an order for a cake from a lady in London!!! I also have a new product to rave about this week - the embroidered chinese baby carrier which Daddy found on Ebay, and which I will discuss below...
Whoops, Wombat, I hear you calling from your cradle... excuse me, I shall be back shortly :)
>>> a nappy change and 20 minute feed later >>>
Let's see, what did I want to tell you all about this week?
Wombat, my dear, you seem to have the same digestive problems as your Mum - a bad tendency to breathe your milk instead of drinking it *cough choke splutter* and nasty reflux, so you often have to swallow your dinner twice. We have at least removed one problem - I noticed you are very sensitive to chocolate, and you have been a lot calmer and happier since I stopped eating it entirely - if I eat even a little piece it will upset you! You are also responding well to my drinking a herbal nursing tea - an unlikely blend of stinging nettle, aniseed, fennel seed and caraway seed which surprisingly doesn't taste all that bad if you add sugar or honey to it. It certainly seems to help you with the tummy bubbles.
Auntie Steff gave us a magnet which reads "Grow a little every day" and Wombat, you have been taking that message to heart. In Australian baby's clothes, size 000 is supposed to last from 3-6 months and size 00 from 6-9 months. You are already pushing your toes through the bottom of your 000 suits, and at least one of your 00 suits fits quite nicely :) Of course, the sizes are notoriously unreliable, but there is no denying that you are getting longer in the torso - I notice it every night as you now take up three quarters of the bassinet's length, where you only reached halfway a week or two ago. You have your six week medical check-up on Thursday, and I am sure you will get a clean bill of health. In other developmental milestones, you have graduated from dry-eyed baby tantrums, and now cry very wet and salty tears... and you have started smiling in earnest - lovely big smiles to melt your Mummy's heart (as you will see in the first photo) :D
With the christening, our latest thoughts are that it would be nice to gather at the church's cafe around 1 o'clock and have a cuppa and snack together before the ceremony (at 2). This means we don't have to ask them to stay open past their normal closing time, we can all be rested, well-fed and happy (especially the babies!) before we go into the church, and we can (hopefully) avoid the worst of peak hour traffic by getting out of the city earlier.
And now I had better show you the photos and get back to work. I have had to ask for a week's extension on handing in my thesis proposal (which they were happy to grant under the circumstances). I have done the "finding" part of my research and have a folder of relevant articles which I have skimmed and I am quite happy with the results (especially once I discovered that the university gives me access to the American law journals that I needed), but the actual reading, assimilating and summarising is not going as quickly as I had hoped - in formulating my working hypothesis, I am having the classic trouble of not being able to see the forest for the trees - although every day the picture of what I want to say grows a little clearer!
So, first the smile - here is my Wombat having a little "tummy play time". You don't like it much unless you are propped up on some pillows so you can get a good look at the world, but you are having lots of fun here, talking to Spiny Norman. (Tonight we were playing "When Hedgehogs Attack!" with squealing Wombat giggles accompanying Spiny Norman kisses on your tummy, toes or chin.)
Here you are showing off your new 00 suit... you look fatter than you really are, because you have slumped down on the pillow :D but once again the wide awake eyes and big smile are a contrast to last week...
This is the gorgeous embroidered baby carrier we bought from a tribal village in China - all handmade!
It cost us more for the postage than for the actual carrier - about AU$80 all up, and I would recommend them to anyone. We are totally happy with our purchase. (Does anyone know Chinese? I would love to know what the characters on the bottom panel mean!)
After spending two weeks looking carefully at all their designs, we finally decided to go with the dragon and phoenix design, thinking that even if it didn't work out as a carrier it would make a fantastic work of art for our wall. As it turned out, 4000 years of history mean a very well designed and functional product!
Here I am wearing it - a front and side view - and yes, there is a rather large baby tucked in there, and you are perfectly happy...
Then a top-down view showing a sleeping Wombat!!!
I can feed you in public while you're in there, in perfect comfort and privacy, and since you are held upright, it's a built-in burping machine!!! and best of all, if you're overtired and grizzling, you go to sleep in it almost immediately :D
Another cute pic of you, Wombat - wearing your knitted pixie hat. The hat looks very easy to make - a knitted rectangle folded in half and stitched down the back, and at the front, the top is folded back and held with a button, and there is a little chin-strap which closes to a button on the other corner - simple but adorable!
And finally, a little package arrived for me today from an internet friend in Houston, Texas. THANK YOU :D We loved all the little things she sent, but especially the snowflakes!
We have been looking for a picture to put on my wardrobe, because Wombat, you spend a lot of time staring at it (studying the patterns in the veneer?) So I carefully glued the snowflakes (cut from magazine pictures) to some creamy pearlescent card, and now you has two lovely complex pictures to entertain you!
You can't see in this photo, but the picture on the left is of a field of yellow flowers with blue and green hills in the distance, while the picture on the right (my favourite!) is of a stand of trees reflected in a lake at sunset. You can see them from your bassinet (when not sound asleep!!!) but more importantly, you can see them when you are lying on our bed, where you spend most of the day at the moment. (Playtime often consists of watching Mummy clean the room...)
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