Auto Pilot

Tricky has an adorable little shirt that has a picture of a cute dinosaur and the words "Sleepy Saurus" on it. If it wasn't a size 000, I think I'd wear it myself.

I'm tired. This is no great revelation, every mother I've ever spoken to is tired too. You adjust pretty quickly to less sleep, but you do function on auto pilot for a lot of the day. But being a partial zombie isn't the best – on planes, the auto pilot is used only when going straight ahead at high altitude, when the plane doesn't have to do anything fancy like land or time the potatoes to be ready at the same time as the steak.

Some of the stupid things I've done recently as a result of being in a permanent state of sleepwalking include:

• Missed entire steps of the cooking process. I'll have a dish in the oven and look at the table to see one of the ingredients still sitting there. This has made for some very interesting meals but Hubby, knowing what is good for him, always says it still tastes great
  
  
• Tried in vain to put the cordless kettle back on it's little stand only to discover that I was actually holding the milk
  
  
• Told the same story to the same person at least three times. I now start each and every conversation with “Did I tell you...”
  
  
• Left the front door not only unlocked but ajar when I went out to the shops
  
  
• Lost my keys on an almost daily basis. They are elusive little suckers, keys - I do not know how they end up in the cutlery drawer
  
  
• Put my breast pad on backwards. This wouldn't be so much of an issue if the backs of them weren't adhesive. Peeling off a breast pad that is glued to your golden nipple is on par with a brazilian wax

Have you done anything silly/memorable/embarrassing in a sleep deprived state? Leave a comment below with your story. No seriously, do it – just so I know I'm not the only one!

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An A-Z of Infants Part III

Tummy Time – In order to help them develop strong neck and back muscles, the experts recommend you give your baby 'Tummy Time'. Tricky loves it and will do little mini push ups and raise his entire chest off the floor, and has done so since he was three weeks old. Strangely though when on his back his head control is still developing (lazy sod!).

Uncoordinated – If you would like a good laugh all you have to do is find a baby and watch it. The number of times they wave their little arms around and end up whacking themselves in the side of the head is amazing. They don't hurt themselves but if they're getting really worked up and manage to give themselves a bit of a smack, the look of surprise on their little faces as they try to work out what just happened is hilarious.

Vision – The distance a newborn can see is approximately 30cm, which is not coincidentally about the same distance between your boob and your face. The vision milestones that a bub has to reach all centre around if they look at your face and then if they track you as you move around. Now that Tricky has mastered tracking he can finally enjoy his mobile that hangs above his cot – he goes very quiet and stares at it – you can actually see the point where the toy goes out of focus and he looks for the next one coming round. There is a slight problem though because the mobile runs on a five minute loop and then shuts off, and he doesn't like that at all. He starts to kick his legs and flail his arms around, trying to make it move again. When that doesn't work he starts to whimper in short, sharp bursts as if he is telling it off, “Hey toys, keep it moving!” These little moans are my cue to run in to the room and start it again, assuring me another five whole minutes in which to finish doing whatever exciting thing I was doing (like folding laundry or preparing dinner).

Wriggly – Like a worm. You have to hold on to the little suckers really tight less they wriggle themselves free. Add to that their out of control heads. I'm amazed at how someone so small can be so strong – strong enough to head-butt me and give me a fat lip.

Xanthochroia – A big long word (thank you, Google) that means yellowness of the skin. However it does refer to patches of yellow and in newborns any yellowness tends to be most noticeable in the whites of the eyes but can be all over (you try and come up with one for X!). It's called Jaundice and is caused by an excess of Bilirubin in the blood. In hospital if I stood by the huge windows in my room with Tricky, in the brightness you could see the tinge of yellow in his eyes – he was my werewolf baby. If it's severe then the bub has to go under UV lights to help break down the Bilirubin, but if it's mild then it actually has a beneficial antioxidant effect.

Yawning – You know how yawning is 'contagious'? If you watch an infant soon enough it will yawn. If your baby is anything like Tricky it will be a big, long, stretchy, all consuming yawn. And then you will follow suit. But it can't happen the other way around. You cannot make a baby yawn because they don't understand what it is. They will copy you and open their mouth wide, but it's not a yawn.

Zzzz – Yeah so I cheated with the Z's (it was the same for the A-Z of Pregnancy) but hey, they do sleep a lot. At the moment Tricky normally sleeps for four hour stretches at night, but occasionally he'll go six. Out of the two I actually prefer the four hour intervals better because each time he goes for six, he will then wake up two hourly the rest of the night, as if to make up for lost time at the boob. Everyone tells you to “sleep when they sleep” but it's not that easy – it takes me an hour to fall asleep at least and during the day Tricky only naps so he'll be awake right when I'm about to drift off. Add to that the endless “I'll just put on a quick load of washing/have a shower/start dinner/cry and rock in the corner” and that siesta just never happens.

Next month I'll be hosting my first competition! To enter you have to be a follower - you can do this by clicking on Follow either at the top left hand corner of the screen (if you're logged in to your Google account) or on the right hand side under the banner. You might already have a Google account and not know it - Gmail, Picasa, YouTube and Blogger are all run by Google so if you're signed up for one of them, it carries over all of them.

An A-Z of Infants Part II

Kicking – Little babies are so much stronger than you think! You haven't seen strength until you've seen a twelve week old in a Jolly Jumper going for it like there is no tomorrow. Chubby legs kicking with all their might while their body remains bolt upright in the supports. When Tricky is old enough to do this I'll film it and play it to the music from Riverdance.

Looks – As soon as your baby is born you, and everyone who visits or sees a photograph, will try to figure out which traits are from which parent. It thought by some that bub will look more like dad in an effort to confirm their paternity. Whilst I have no idea if evolution has found a way of increasing the chances of a guy sticking around to help raise his offspring, what I do know is that Tricky is a carbon copy of Hubby. I put a picture of Hubby aged three next to one I took of Tricky last week and you would swear it is the same child – same eyes, same nose, same smile and coincidentally they even had a similar outfit on!

Moro Reflex – The cutest of all the reflexes. This is the startle reflex and a baby's legs and arms will fly out if he hears a loud noise or feels unsupported – it would appear even in his dreams. My favourite part about it is that it looks like he's doing 'jazz hands' or 'spirit fingers' and so each time he does it we say “Ta daaah!” Yes, this kid is going to grow up with a complex. Either that or become a dancer.

Nappies – When he was first born Tricky was put in Huggies newborn nappies that the hospital provided and they had an 'indicator panel' that went from yellow to blue when he needed to be changed – the was no opening up the side of the nappy to check. Then when he was about five weeks old he was big enough to fit in to his funky and environmentally friendlier, modern cloth nappies. The only downfall is that they most definitely do not come with a fancy indicator panel. Unless you count the wet patch on his pants the couple of times they've leaked?

Odours – This alone puts many people off having children in the first place. I had been told that if breastmilk goes in the top end, the stuff that comes out the bottom end doesn't smell (babies who have to have formula have been known to make the wallpaper curl). I didn't believe it at all. But I'm delighted to say it is sorta true – it does smell a little bit, but it is a very sweet smell and isn't offensive at all. I wouldn't go so far as to put it in a perfume and spray it on myself, but it's not bad. When Tricky starts on solids though, it'll be pegs on noses time.

Palmar Grasp – Another reflex, the one responsible for the oh so cute way a bub will grab your finger and NEVER LET GO. And even though it's a reflex I still feel loved when he does it.

Questions – Hundreds of questions a day zoom through my head but they all revolve around one thing: Is that normal? Am I supposed to do this? Is he meant to do that? What did parents do before Google? But how many questions must be going through a baby's head? What is that? Who is this? Is that smell coming from me?

Rooting Reflex – This is where you brush their cheek they will turn that way and open up their mouth, ready for a feed. In the earlier days when we had no idea what each cry meant (we only have half a clue now), it was a great way to see if he was hungry because if he was he wouldn't just turn his head, he'd lunge violently in that direction. We call it 'gobbing' and sometimes Hubby will bring Tricky over to me and say “Here, you take him, he's gobbing my shirt.”

Smiling – According to some research it is no accident that babies start smiling at the six week mark. It is right when the sleepless nights and endless nappy changes are getting on top of you and voila! You are rewarded with your bub's first true smile and it melts you. The bags under your eyes just became worthwhile.

An A-Z of Infants Part I

Accidental discovery – This is how babies learn. The first time Tricky rolled over from front to back at three weeks old it was an accident – he just lost his balance and toppled over to his side then wriggled to be on his back. But it obviously started something in his brain because then he did it again... and again... and again. The ability to control his arms is his next accidental discovery – he has started swatting in the general direction of the toys that hang on this bouncer chair. He manages to connect with one about 10% of the time but each success makes him a bit more excited and his little legs kick furiously in delight!

Blinking - Or more accurately, lack thereof. One of a newborn's reflexes is to blink... can someone please inform Tricky that it is rude to stare please? I'll never win a stare-off at this rate.

Crying – You should expect a lot of this if you have a newborn in your house. Tricky is considered an 'easy baby' and doesn't really cry very much, but he does whimper. It's a sad and pathetic sound, but because he's mine I naturally think it is absolutely adorable. In the middle of the night it is these whimpers that wake me up, letting me know I have about five minutes to get up and get him before the proper crying starts - such a courteous young man not to wake me with a piercing scream.

Dummies – No, not referring to myself, I'm talking about the ones that you stick in their gob to shut your kid up. You could use nicer terminology and say they are there to soothe your agitated babe, but that's just being pedantic. Some people are for, some people are against. We didn't buy any dummies to start with, having heard that they can interfere with breastfeeding due to 'nipple confusion'. Other than trying not to laugh every time I heard that term, I didn't think any more about it until he was born and wanted to nurse every five minutes but was obviously not hungry. So we bought some and haven't looked back since. It's his plug.

Eyes – Because he's not blinking I get to stare at Tricky's baby blues all the time. All Caucasian bubbas are born with blue eyes that can change colour anywhere up to a year. Because he is currently a clone of his father, everyone thinks they'll stay blue. I'm not sure since my eyes are brown (I tell everyone they're hazel because if I'm looking directly in to the sun or other massively bright light, they are a beautiful green colour) and that's a dominant gene.

Feeding – The fastest we ever grow in our lives is in our first year. In order to do all this growing a baby needs a lot of food. In the first two weeks Tricky wanted to feed every hour or so and because his sucking action wasn't developed yet he would take almost an hour to have his 'meal'. It was one hour on the boob, one hour off. It's not surprising they got sore! Now that he's older he goes approximately four hours between feeds and is only on for fifteen minutes at the most. Phew.

Giggles – Little baby giggles are, in my opinion, the most amazing thing I've ever heard. A sound of pure joy. The snort that can follow is not quite as gorgeous, but still kinda cute. However they are quite elusive... Tricky has only managed to giggle once when awake but twice whilst asleep! He must have some very funny dreams.

Hands – At around three weeks old, Tricky found his hands. As a result they are now constantly in his mouth. Sometimes he tries to get both of them in there at once which is quite the spectacle – they may only be teenie weenie fingers but it's only a teenie weenie mouth too and he's yet to figure that out so keeps trying. Because he still isn't in full control of his arms he will move them from his mouth and get a little bit upset that 'someone' has taken them away.

Immunisations – OUCH! Having a baby means taking them to get immunised. Whilst it's not compulsory, it's pretty hard to get your child enrolled in a school without them... and I'm not up for home schooling. Holding your child still while someone jabs them in the thigh is hard enough, but holding them still for the nurse to do the second thigh, all whilst they are screaming the roof down, is even harder. I don't know how I managed to not cry when Tricky's face turned bright red and he let out the loudest scream he's ever done. Sorry, my angel.

Letter to Tricky – Two months old

Dear Tricky,

I can't believe you are two months old today – it seems like you've been here forever. I can't even remember what life was like before you arrived (other than there was more sleeping and I was quite convex). When people enquire as to how old you are they are always shocked to hear you're so young because you, my love, are massive - you weigh almost six kilos! Their replies are always "My God he's a big one!" My beautiful, big, chubby boy.

You are such a happy baby, content to sit in your bouncer or lay on your rug and talk to whomever is listening (more often than not it's your giraffe). You coo and gurgle as if you're having a great conversation and I can't help but laugh at how sweet it sounds. But yesterday you out-cuted yourself when you giggled for the first time! Well, actually it was the third time, but the previous two were in your sleep so they're not official.

The rolling over from front to back has continued and you've added rolling from back to side to your repertoire - so that makes you pretty clever (it's only in the mornings when you're really awake, by the afternoon you're too exhausted!). You're Dad was the same though, always doing things early - he could tell time on an analogue clock when he was four, and I'm sure he's going to teach you as soon as you can talk. Actually I wouldn't be surprised if he started teaching you now.

Your Dad bought me a gift voucher to a fabulous hair and beauty salon so on Friday I went off to be pampered for a few hours while your Nanna and Aunty Penny looked after you! You were a very good boy and had lots of fun with them, but I missed you a lot.

We've been on lots of adventures together - to the movies, to mothers' group and to yoga! But the biggest adventure of all was down south to Albany to meet your Great Grandparents on your Dad's side. You were the centre of attention! They all think you're super cute and every one of them commented on how relaxed you are. My little chilled out, laid back man.

You are everything I ever hoped for and dreamed of, and have made us a little family. Some mornings when you wake up we get you out of your crib and lay you between us in bed - these are the times when I feel so happy I could burst.

Love Mummy xxx