One of those days….

I looked at the clock.  7:30am.  Hannah was stirring, making cute little baby (ok toddler, I’ll try to stop kidding myself) noises, talking to her dollies.  I let her play for a while and then it went quiet.  Not like the “I’ve just fallen back asleep” quiet.  I don’t know how I knew she wasn’t asleep, but I knew.  I guess Moms just know such things.  It was more of a worried (my worry, not hers) quiet.  A something’s happened quiet.  Or maybe an “I’m doing something cheeky” quiet.  I wasn’t sure, but I decided to go in.  Usually I would assume she’d gone back to sleep and let her sleep on.

I slowly opened the door.  I suppose there was a chance that my intuition was chucking a sickie (pretending to be sick and taking the day off for those of you not used to such Aussie lingo).  Or that my intuition is just a little special anyway.  I walked into her room, a big smile on my face and peered into the cot.

My heart dropped.  I nearly wet myself.  I think I lost 2 years off my life.  My eyes continued searching the cot.  She wasn’t there.  The room was silent.  I don’t think I’ve ever been so scared in my entire life.

Busted!!!

A tiny movement caught my eye.  My heart was still pounding.  I was still silently freaking out.  But then I saw her.  She was sitting on the floor of her room, clothes and books scattered all around her, like a tornado had recently been through her room.  My bible was on her lap, it’s pages being not so gently turned by a mischevious toddler, excited by the fact that she was now in possession of a book I never let her play with.  It’s pages are so thin and fragile, I didn’t want her to break it.  Silently, she sat there, in awe of the book that Mommy reads to her every day before bed.

“You cheeky little baby!”  She turned and gave me the cheekiest little cute smile that she could possibly muster.  “How did you climb out of your cot?”

Luckily she didn’t hurt herself.  I’ve never had to put the cot rail up before.  Usually she

Surrounding her was a mountain of chaos

wore a sleeping bag to bed.  Not for climb preventing, but because she starts the night at one end of the cot and ends up at the other, losing her blankets in the process.  Last night though, it was really hot, too hot for the sleeping bag.  I put her to bed in light-weight pants and a t-shirt.  Perfect climbing attire, apparently.

Later that morning:

Why is there a raisin floating in the bath?  Did cheeky baby take a raisin with her?

Where did that pea come from? Hannah was squatting.  She momentarily stopped playing.  OH. My. Goodness.  She is POOPING in the bath!  SHE IS POOPING IN THE BATH!  Oh man, what do I do? It kept coming.  When she finished, she started playing again, oblivious to the fact that her pristine bath was now full of excretement, carrots, raisins, peas, and corn casually floating on the surface, looking like that hadn’t ever travelled through an entire digestive system.

“GRANDMA!!!!!!!!!”  I freaked out a little.  A lot, whatever, I won’t lie.  She didn’t hear me, she is a little deaf.  “GRANDMA!!!”  louder this time.  She came in, rather quickly for an 80 year old woman with hip trouble.  The urgent note in my voice must have tipped her off.

She looked at Hannah who was stark naked, standing next to the bath, clearly longing to actually be in the bath.  Grandma gave me a puzzled look.

“There’s been an accident….”  I pointed towards the bath.  Grandma laughed.  This is SO not funny right now!!

It would have been easy to clean up had the offending bodily waste been nuggets.  But no, it wasn’t nuggets.  It would have been easy if it were a log.  No, not that easy either.  No, this poo, this-first-time-she’s-ever-pooed-in-the-bath poo was runny.  It was everywhere.  It was like someone had put a kilo (ok, that is an exaggeration) of that flaky brown fish food in the tub and then threw in some pea, corn and carrot mix just for kicks and giggles.

Well, I wasn’t giggling.  How am I going to clean this up???

“Just drain the bath.”  Grandma told me.  I kept staring in the bath, unable to actually put my hand in to reach the plug.  You want me to put my hand in there?  With the POOP??!!!  My hand is going to be in the same water as the POOP?!

“Do you want me to do it?” Grandma asked.

“No.”  Well, I kinda did, but I had to woman up and do it myself.  I hesitated and then reached in, an “oh my goodness this is disgusting” look plastered all over my face.  The water started draining from the bath but slowed after all the chunky bits settled in the drain.  I can’t look, it’s too disgusting. I grabbed my razor; the only thing handy that was disposable and useful in such a situation.  The handle end proved good at stirring up the chunky bits, allowing the water to go down the drain without my hand having to once again enter the contaminated bath water.

A wipe proved useful in removing the chunky bits (aka peas, corn, carrots and raisins).  Everything was washed, scrubbed, and put back.  The bedraggled baby was put back in the tub, and bath time recommenced.  Please don’t poop, please don’t poop.

It’s gonna be one of those days.

`

Farts, Squeals, Cot, Fat, and Toys

Time since birth: 14 weeks

Pppfffllttt. Burp (how do you spell the sound a burp makes??). “Good girl! Get that wind out!” I’ve noticed that I’m not the only mom that praises her baby for “getting her wind up/out” (burping and farting). Newborns seem to have a difficult time getting their wind out sometimes, so when they do, we let them know how good they are. I still tell Hannah she is a good girl when she burps (I usually laugh when she farts. How such a big noise comes out of such a little baby is beyond me, but it’s very very funny. Sometimes she even looks right in my eyes and gives me a really cheeky grin when she farts). So, if we praise our babies for burping and farting, but then get older children in trouble for it, when does it become socially unacceptable? Doesn’t it confuse kids that one day they praised for it, the next they get in trouble? When is the cut off for being able to burp/fart in public (and by in public, I mean in front of people other then your family/friends you feel comfortable enough to do that in front of)? How do you explain it to your children after they have been able to do it freely all of their lives?

Ring Ring. I was calling the dentist’s office to make Aaron and me an appointment. “I think the line is breaking up,” the receptionist said. “No, that’s my baby,” I replied. Hannah was making so much noise, the lady seriously thought there was something wrong with my phone. Grandma was playing with her, and she just discovered how to squeal in delight. She was pretty much in one giant squeal for about an hour, she was so excited to play with Grandma. I’ve been trying to get her to do it for me, but she will only do little ones. I guess Grandma is her favorite. She adores Grandma. I tried to film her doing it, but as soon as the camera comes out, she stops what she is doing to stare at it (that goes for still camera’s too).

I’ve been pretty tired this week as Hannah was having a growth spurt. She was waking up 2-3 times per night (she usually wakes up once or if I’m lucky not at all). Babies have a growth spurt at around 3 months old, and hers was a beauty, she gained 700g in 2 weeks! I haven’t weighed her yet this week (I weigh her on Wednesdays), but I think she has gained a fair bit this week too. She weighed 5.8kgs last week, so maybe she will crack 6 this week.

It was 9pm, an hour past my bedtime (no laughing, Hannah goes to sleep at 7, so if I want a decent nights sleep, that’s just what I have to do). Following the instructions I got from the Google (haha), I was still getting us nowhere. The Jess pulled into a 7-11 to get some gas. I called Aaron and told him where we were. He got on google maps and laughed. “You’re like 3 streets down from where you’re going.” “But we’ve been down the road twice, and I haven’t seen the street we’re looking for.” He had to explain it to me about 3 times (I’m very special with directions… I don’t know how I was ever a pizza delivery girl). The road we were on turns to the left, and goes straight. We were supposed to go straight instead of veering left (road designers, why, oh why would you do that? One road does not need 3 different names in one mile!). Finally, back on track.

There was a van in the driveway, and the lights in the house were on. “There wasn’t supposed to be anyone home,” I said to The Jess. “Well, I drove you all the way here (which wouldn’t have been far had it not been for my special interpretation of the google directions), we have to get it now.” “Ok, let’s go.” We light-footed our way to the garage. We could see someone sitting on the couch. “Maybe he’s house sitting, I was told they aren’t coming home until tomorrow.” “What should we do.” “Let’s just keep going.” It seems the man on the couch was either ignoring us or had really really bad peripheral vision. We grabbed the some pieces of the cot and snuck back to the car. I was a little afraid the man would be waiting for us with a baseball bat when we went back to get the rest of the cot. Luckily he wasn’t. “I don’t know how he didn’t see us, but I really don’t think he did.” “That, or he knows we are there, but doesn’t want the social awkwardness of saying anything.” “Maybe.” We got the rest of the cot, loaded it up, and drove off. I sent a text message to the cots owner, letting her know that we picked it up. She was away until the next day, but told me I could go ahead and grab it out of the garage if I wanted to. We did feel a bit like robbers though, since there were people there.

The next day, I got a text message from the cots owner. She said her husband was home at the time and hosting a bible study. She said we were good robbers, no one saw or heard us even though we were right there and could see someone through the sliding door. Don’t worry, we have no plans of getting into that line of work….