Canberra in Autumn
It’s not hard to see why Autumn is my mum’s favourite Canberra season:
What’s your favourite season where you are?
PS Hello to my Ukraine readers: I have no idea where you came from, but you’re welcome here.
First Water Play Time
Way back when I was using all my powers of manipulation to acquire the baby gear I wanted without actually buying any of it, I convinced a friend (it wasn’t hard!) to buy a set of plastic shells designed to be both a sandpit and a paddle pool for very young children. At the time I thought it would only be useful when Louisette was well and truly walking, and starting to get restless for an outside play area.
More recently, I went to a Kidsafe talk and one of the main things they recommended was swimming lessons – “As soon as possible. Definitely before one year. They won’t learn to swim, but they’ll learn water awareness.” Drowning is the leading cause of death in children under five. . . so not only am I meant to get Louisette playing in the water ASAP, it may save her life.
Louisette has only recently gotten over a screaming hatred of baths, so I was careful to make the experience as gentle and as non-bath-like as possible. All went well, and Louisette didn’t show a single sign of distress at any time:
I’ll be bringing the shell inside regularly for more play time – probably today for starters!
Outside Play Area
CJ and I have a balcony. Awesome! It’s handy for hanging washing, killing plants, and (theoretically) getting sunshine. Now that Louisette is around and all “Gimme gimme Vitamin D” the balcony is more useful than ever. One small problem: it’s concrete, with several layers of paint that are all peeling away in deliciously toxic candy-coloured flakes.
Last weekend I turned any drowning hazards (saucers under pots) upside down, moved climbing hazards (pots again) away from the two-storey drop, braced the glass table against two walls for a teensy bit of stability, swept away as much dirt and peeled paint as possible, laid down comfy foam for lying/crawling/falling on, and organised our sandpit/paddle pool (the pool is usually empty and turned over as a lid).
Voila! An adorable, comfortable baby/toddler area that requires only a sane amount of supervision (rather than having to physically carry her at all times).
She enjoyed the new texture of the foam (my knees enjoyed it too), and had her first play in a sandpit.
It’ll be interesting to see how the foam copes with the outdoors (it’s designed for outdoor use, but probably not the extreme atmosphere of our South-facing balcony). It cost $60 altogether, so it’s worth the experiment of simply observing whether it needs replacing soon/immediately after the first lot of rain/never.
Louisette also played with shadows (cast on the wall) for the first time. We didn’t even bring out any toys, and we had a great time.
Louisette is four months old today, so I’ll be posting a month’s worth of photos tomorrow.
Mothers’ Day Pics
I was kind of busy yesterday, as usual on Mothers’ Day, but Louisette was all cute on her play thingy, and I thought it was a great opportunity for a face-to-face Mothers’ Day photo. Here are the results – I call them:
1. Look Mum! A wall!
2. Spitting up.
3. Faceplant.
Swimmers
I wrote some months ago about the search for a swim top (a search which began in December, during which the best swim top I found was a shoulderless hot pink bikini number that made me look uncannily like a footballer in drag). I recently found a swim top in Vinnies that appeared to fit me – but the instant I got in the water the straps fell from their hooks and the material increased in size by a factor of three. That was. . . not really the look I was going for.
Finally, aware that most of the big bargain shops are no longer stocking swimmers at all, I visited a shop attached to the Belconnen pool. Not only do I finally have a swimsuit that can fit all of me inside, but the high waist and decorative outer skirt actually look nice. So nice that, despite still being five kilos over my greatest pre-pregnancy weight, I am here posting a pic of myself in swimmers on the interwebs.
In completely unrelated news, I read a vividly angry response on someone’s blog to the question, “My wife keeps calling me at work and interrupting me to tell me really boring things about her day at home with the baby. What should I do?”
I added my two cents in the comments, and thought I’d repeat it here:
For the record, I’m married to a guy that is actually interested in his own child. How shocking. And you know what? He deserves exactly zero points for that.
Right now he’s putting her to bed and she’s crying. He just gave her a bath, cut her fingernails, and read her a book – all after a full day at a stressful job. Still zero points. Just base-level fatherhood: joy and fear and pain and love. There’s everything and nothing special about that. And he loves getting SMSes from me along the lines of: “She ALMOST turned over!” “She just wet the very hem of my ankle-length skirt with a single head-height burst of vomit. Bring chocolate.” and “She just laughed at the cat.” Because she’s ours, and everything she does is interesting – in sharp contrast to the entirely pedestrian antics of all other babies.
This is what NORMAL fatherhood looks like.
What could possibly go wrong?
I have a vivid imagination, so thinking about safety issues literally terrifies me. Luckily, Louisette’s enormous enthusiasm for standing up is something I find very exciting, and safety and Louisette growing up are now intertwined in my mind. So I’ve absolutely thrived on thinking about some of the bizarre and inventive ways my little girl is going to attempt to destroy herself, and how to foil her plans.
She recently got the idea of crawling, and just lacks the coordination and arm strength to pull it off:
My parenting class had a Kidsafe representative speak for us, and a couple of the things they recommended were very clever – treating bath and sink plugs as a hazard, and putting them on a high shelf or locked cupboard (most home fatalities are from drowning), and being very careful with anything containing beans (the inedible filling kind – they don’t show up on scans but do kill young children).
We’ve installed a safety gate (which is a trip hazard, unfortunately – I’ll keep an eye out for one that doesn’t have a bottom rail mummy has to step over), moved the cat food onto high shelves (yet another reason keeping cats is easier than keeping dogs), and taken some of our heaviest, pointiest, most top-heavy objects off the top of our tallest and ricketiest bookshelves. Including these gentlemen:
Yep, that’s a sword. A metal one.
In other news, I may yet end up with three different playgroups (one big one that meets in my church building; one medium one that evolves from the early parenting classes; one small invitation- and baby-only one that meets at my house), which is just fine by me.
Here are some photos that explain one reason playgroups are the biz:
Make your own pizza
Making your own pizza – especially with a group of friends who all bring ingredients – is so much fun. Every so often I come across an awesomeness that is so easy, so cheap, and so good. Don’t forget to play along at home. One had mars bars on top:
Day Off
Today (at the time of writing) I’m having a day off: a writing day. CJ is taking Louisette to visit some interstate relatives she hasn’t met yet.
In the morning I fed and minded the baby for an hour and a half before having breakfast. I folded and put away one load of washing, and washed and hung out three others (shifting most of one load inside when it began to rain). I washed and sterilised bottles, did the dishes, and put the dishes away. I organised and cooked a healthy dinner for that night, and began social and organisational preparations for the following night’s dinner. I made a fuss over the cats. I cleaned the toilet and bath. I took out the recycling. I made baby food in two consistencies. I took out the potent contents of the nappy bin (three times) and the kitty litter (once), and wheeled the outside bin out to the curb to be collected the following day. And I was sick, too.
I think there’s some kind of moral to this story.
I also sent the steampunk book to an agent (after researching her recent sales and her likes and dislikes) and this contest; finished constructing the fourth version of my picture book and prepped it for its first publisher; and edited and sent the first book of my young adult fantasy trilogy (the one with pirates) to a UK publisher. And I wrote this blog entry. . .
In other news, Louisette is extremely enthusiastic about standing up – not bad for someone who’s just three and a half months old, and can’t roll over yet!
Carillon Open Day
The National Carillon is one of my favourite places in Canberra (for those who don’t know, it’s an instrument made of a whole lot of bells, housed in its own building on a purpose-built island). When I first visited it, I declared here that I’d see the inside some day.
So when I saw an ad for an open day, CJ and Louisette and I were THERE.
We were too late; all the tours were full. But I had a frozen yoghurt with riberry (I’ve never heard of it before), cinnamon, and cloves. It was just as subtle and intriguing as the yoghurt stand said. And we listened to some Duntroon Military Band members playing dixie tunes while Louisette attempted to slide off my lap. It really was quite marvellous.
I got you, Babe
Not much to report this week. Louisette is off gaviscon and doing fine (gaviscon seems to have the effect of reminding one’s digestive system which direction food is meant to go). Feeds are both pleasant and short. Since I can feed Louisette and tutor at the same time, I can now have two students in a row (one day a week, at home). Earning $80 in a day feels good. We have set up her high chair and begun getting her a little used to it (although she does tend to slooooowly tip sideways):
Today I realised that I knew a lady from my early parenting class (a group that will be metamorphosing into a playgroup, possibly meeting occasionally at my house which would be SWEET) – we’d met at the Canberra Speculative Fiction Guild Masques book launch – she did a lot of the organising, and I helped very slightly while also having a story in the anthology (under my more grownups-oriented pen-name Felicity Bloomfield). So I have a friend who became a first-time mum less than a month before I did, who lives walking distance from me, and who likes speculative fiction. Gold.
Last week I felt oddly anxious and threatened and irritable/angry, and physically I was light-headed and uncoordinated every day (and no, it wasn’t that I was rapidly losing weight – I actually gained weight). Hoping it was just lack of sleep, I had a couple of extra naps with CJ covering me, but that didn’t help.
It looked very much like post-partum anxiety (particularly since my cycle has been wacky for a couple of weeks, so clearly there is chemical stuff not working normally), or possibly my old anxiety disorder coming back. That would mean helplessness, poverty, and possibly having to enlist vast amounts of childcare for Louisette if I was too sick to look after her (which, considering that until she was born I was only able to do up to twelve hours’ work a week, was pretty likely). Also daily misery and pain.
But I seem to be fine now, so I suspect it was a whole lot to do with my cycle being off (PMS twice in a week after an 11-month break), and although I may have more issues until things get regular last week’s badness probably doesn’t mean that the last three months were my last experience of sanity in this life.* As a precaution, I’ll be avoiding grocery shopping with Louisette for the next little while (there’s really no good way to change a nappy, and she needs up to three nappy changes every hour, all of which she announces with crying until the problem is solved), and I’m now only breastfeeding with the first and last bottle of the day (which makes me happier). If I do get mentally ill again, I’ll simplify things more and start self-medicating with chocolate. If that doesn’t work, I’ll go back on zoloft (which causes weight gain and is hard to stop taking, but is otherwise perfectly magical).
CJ’s great aunt gave us (well, Louisette) some money so we bought a jacket and a couple of gloved onesies – the gloves are cleverly designed so they just fold into place when required. The first time we used them, a new nickname was instantly born – Flipper Baby.
She enjoys sucking on her fists and drooling copiously. I presume this is peer pressure, since all babies share similar interests.
She’s also at the stage where she loves staring at her hands.
*Yep, even with the psychotic moments, the public breakdowns, and the hallucinations, the months since Louisette’s birth have been one of the best and sanest of my adult life.
Felicity Banks 