PG 1 [Post-Granny Day One]

This morning was the first time in a few weeks that I was alone on the early-baby shift. Wren was a superstar sleeper in one way. He went to bed at 6.45pm and woke to nurse at 4am. This is the longest stretch EVER. However, he thought that 4am was a fine time to get up and blamed my reluctance on lack of light and that silly digital clock saying 4 something.

I spend a lot of my time in bed counting hours on my fingertips. My mental math, once brisk, is now a sorry mess so I have reverted to my digits. For example (in the dark of bed) I count on my mental fingers. If I got to sleep at 10pm and get up at 4.15am that is six and a quarter fingers of sleep.

This morning, having no coffee companion, I decided to stay in bed. So I nursed Wren and then let him crawl around the bed without speaking to him. My only intervention was to stop him falling off the bed or pinching my nose. After 45 minutes he realized he was tired and fussed and flopped a bit. When he started crying more loudly I nursed him and he slept another horu from 5.20 till 6.20am. Somehow that feels like a great triumph.

This was made possible by Josh being in "grannies room" with Frost. Frost woke at 4am crying because he was "scared" on his own and wanted to come into our bed. This is not an option for me until I get 8 hours of sleep so I offered Daddy as a sacrificial sleeper and he staggered in and is still asleep. Frost tells me that he is scared at night because he thinks "bad thoughts" about things he sees on TV. Scooby Doo is a particularly rich source of bad ideas because there are "always bad guys who get some stuff".

I have suggested he stops watching Scooby Doo and he has agreed. I doubt this will stop the anxiety but perhaps the monsters will more manageable.

I nearly forgot to feed Wren real food this morning because Granny had taken total responsibility for feeding him. She has him eating a wide variety of food. This morning he ate the cherry cubes she made him. Recently he has been eatng sweet potato with baby rice mixed in, pureed cherries, cherry chunks, avocado chunks, banana chunks, chicken pieces, floorboard and dead moth. The last two were a la carte (or floor).

Yesterday I visited Babies r Us on the way to the airport. While there we picked out two gates to limit Wren's roaming. He is pulling up on everything and is starting to shift his weight from foot to foot. He crawls like a wind-up toy... vrooooom... Frost says that he is wonderbaby because he doesn't even see him move and suddenly he is somewhere else!

The first gate has been installed between the kitchen and corridor. This corrals Wren in the living room and kitchen area. The second gate is going at the top of the back stairs so I can leave the back door open and still have basic baby proofing in place.

Oh, on that count. If you have tried to phone us and found that the answering machine does not pick up it is because Wren has taken to pulling down the telephone and bashing the buttons, invariably turning off the answering machine function. Sorry.

Now its time to get Wren ready for a short short walk. Today Josh has the car so we are having an at-home day and will be making choc-chip cookies and catching up on laundry. I hope Mum made it hope okay and her luggage makes it too.