Alien Spouse

Kinetic Art.

Having moved from a one-bedroomed shoe box to a palatial two-bedroom-and-a-dining-room bread box we find ourselves suddenly feeling that the space is a touch spartan.  I mean we want it to be fairly minimalist, and we certainly don't want clutter - but Eva's room echoes because there are only three small pieces of furniture in there right now!

We are going to by a sofa/bed to go in there at some point in the next month, because otherwise where will Moth sleep when she comes to visit? (squeeee!) Before then though we have to do something to make the space feel a touch more inviting and fun for Eva; I especially thought she needed somethinbg entertaining to look at whilst lying in her crib.

So we bought her a mobile.  Not one of those sugary sweet nursery mobiles though, oh no, we went with a design classic that also happens to depict one of my favourite birds.

It's a Flensted Swallow mobile, and the minute I saw it I was like "Oh,  of course!  That!"

The shop we bought it from was the rather lovely Mod Sprog, and they had all of their Flensted mobiles on sale - So we also got this one for the living room.

 

This is the Flowing Rhythym mobile in red, which was originally designed in 1955 so, of course, it goes nicely with our current mid-century modern look AND our love of red home furnishings.

I knew exactly where this one was going to hang, because there was an ugly hook screwed into the ceiling in th ecorner of the living room, so I knew I had to put something there to at least excuse the damn thing.  The trick was going to be how to hang up the one in Eva's room, but the mobile is extremely light so I thought that I'd take the advice of the manufacturers and use a drawing pin (US Translation: Thumb Tack).  I got out the step ladder, grabbed a drawing pin and unpacked my new avian friends.

When I looked at the ceiling above Eva's crib I was surprised to find that there was already a drawing pin there in almost exactly the right position.  Dude, that's just spooky.  I mean it's not like there are drawing pins all over the ceiling here; there is just that one precisely where I wanted it to be.  Asheville just provides everything... (or, and this is just a crazy theory, that room has been a baby's room before and the crib is in the most logical place for it).

Better! Back to Work!

Well, someone slept for most of yesterday - and it wasn't Eva!

I feel a lot better today; for one thing my throat no longer hurts and now it merely feels like my ears won't pop, which is a distinct improvement. This morning was a bit groggy from the night-time cold meds so I felt like my head was bobbling around on my shoulders like, well, a bobble head and I'm not sure I was making that much sense before I'd had my second cup of coffee.  Fortunately I could limit most of my interactions with people to e-mail and that meant I could hone my words to make sure they made some sense before I hit send.

One very good thing about working part-time is that I don't feel completely exhausted by the end of the day, so when I got home I still had enough energy to play with Eva and read her a story.  After that I needed to have a quick nap, but then Madam had a nice splashy bath and she went to bed like a little lamb.  I, meanwhile, get to enjoy a glass of wine but I'm sure I'll be in bed well before 10.

Singing My Baby to Sleep.

The bedtime routine for Eva involves singing appropriately soothing songs for about twenty to thirty minutes - And "Twinkle Twinkle" is only a couple of minutes long, no matter how slowly you sing it, so you either have to sing it on repeat, or come up with something else.

I remembered a fair number of other lullabies, but not a huge repertoire, so then I moved onto a selection of songs from "The Sound of Music" - This is odd because it's not one of my favourite musicals and never has been, and yet I know the whole "Favourite Things".  Doc C has never seen the film (or stage version), so he thinks my rendition of "Edelweis" is lovely, and it seems to have a suitably narcotic effect on the kidr.

Now I've gone a little more classic jazz musical by adding a few Cole Porter standards ("You Do Something to Me", "Miss Otis Regrets", "Don't Fence Me In" are the most frequent) along with "One for my Baby (and One More for the Road)", which is perhaps not the most traditional of nursery rhymes but it does the job.

This evening out of nowhere "Diamonds are Forever" made an appearance.  It's come to Bond themes now?  Oh dear.

Exhausted.

I am so tired - I am actually not 100% sure that I'll make it through the whole of this episode of "Star Trek".  Mostly I'm just tired from working and keeping care of the baby, with a dash of still having to unpack a few boxes which is particularly energy sapping for some reason.  

Really I just need to start going to bed earlier of an evening, because Eva is sleeping really well again, but she has settled on six a.m. as the proper time to wake up.  Ugh.  I have no idea where she gets that from, neither Doc C nor myself are that keen on mornings.

Likes/Dislikes

Things Eva wants to put in her mouth:

• Anything - No really, keep an eye on her.
• Your glasses.
• Cat fur - Freshly plucked from the cat for preference.
• That bit of paper.
• Grass.
• Her own foot.
• Any toy.
• Any clothing.
• Home-made puree of roast organic sweet potato. Oh yes!
• Whatever you are eating at the restaurant.  Things will get shouty if you refuse.

Things Eva Refuses a Third Spoonful of:

• Beef Baby Food from a Jar.  The horror.

 

Meet the Neighbour.

Doc C went out to the laundry this evening, as a matter of some urgency so that the Eva had a clean nighty and a swaddler to go to bed in.

When he got back he met our downstairs neighbour for the first time; we had already left a card in her mail-box to pre-apologise for any disturbance the baby might cause though.  It turns out that she hadn't heard anything over the past week (and Eva has really been giving it some wellie...), which was very reassuring.

She also mentioned that she is a nanny, and Doc got the distinct impression she'd be up for the odd spot of babysitting. Ooooh!

Comfortably Ensconced.

So, we moved this week! It was glorious! (note dripping sarcasm)

Actually it was mostly ok, just the usual pain of seemingly endless packing, which once that's finally over, is followed by apparently infinite amounts of unpacking.  Doc spent early Tuesday morning wandering around looking in boxes trying to find 1) the kettle (unsuccesful), and 2) his underpants (fortunately succesful).

Eva really doesn't seem to notice any difference in the apartments, she's just as happy here as anywhere else; I do think she's sleeping better in her own room though,  The cats, however, are noticeably happier.  There is distinctly kittenish gambolling about the place and they clearly love having free access to our bedroom at night again.  We thought they would miss the balcony (we do have one here too, but it faces east so it only gets the sun in the morning and it's enclosed by fly screens), but the additional space seems to make all the difference to them.

The best bit about this move is that we have much more room - I told Doc on the first morning we woke up here that this must be what toothpaste feels like once it gets out of the tube.  I loved the last place, and for a single person it would be amazing; for a couple it was a tight fit; for a nuclear family it was a squash; for two adults, a baby AND two cats it really was too small.  We really had to economise quite drastically when I left my job and we re-located here, but now I'm working again and Doc C has got tenure (Squee!  Jus this week!  I'm so proud of him!!!) we can afford to actually spread out a bit.

The other thing is that, whilst our old neighbours were all very sweet people, no one here has so far woken us up playing the mandolin.  Or the guitar.  Or exuberantly singing.  There are more than double the number of apartments here, and we've heard almost nothing of our new neighbours.  It's rather soothing.

A Time for Bed.

So it turns out that the baby really just wanted to go to bed at the same time every night, and she fairly organically has selected a time for that.  Eva likes to be changed into her pyjamas at 8, or a bit earlier if it's been a busy day, and then she likes to have both of us in the bedroom singing our (limited) repertoire of lullabies.

I am so sick of "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star".

I am also suddenly very much aware of how macabre British nursery rhymes are, I mean "Oranges and Lemons" is a charming little song about church bells, until out of nowhere it suddenly changes to "Here comes the chopper to chop off your head. Chip chop, chip chop the old man's DEAD!" I mean, really? Yikes! That is dark.  We just skip that bit for the moment.

Anyway, Eva seems to be doing well with a bedtime around 8ish.  She is still waking up at night, but usually only once at around 5ish; it's really tough but we are trying not to go to her then, because she will go back to sleep and then she won't wake up again until 7.  That is more like it.

 

Not Sleeping - Like a Baby...

Had I mentioned that Eva's good sleeping habits were merely a ruse?  The little mare was just waiting for me to start working, and she's been waking up every couple of hours for the past few weeks.  Urgh.

So I'm tired, the Doc's tired and even the cats seem pretty damn tired.  We need to do some serious sleep training fairly soon I think.  No one is looking forward to that, not one little bit.

Urgh.

A Damn Fine Breakfast.

It's Wednesday already?  Jeez!

Today Doc and I went to the Sunny Point Cafe, which we'd heard served the third best breakfast in America (I don't know who decided that though!) I cross-questioned the waitress about the maple syrup was real maple syrup or not, she was very nice about it and assured me it was.  With her guarantee on that important point I happily ordered waffles. It was a really good breakfast, Doc (who ordered sausage, eggs, potatoes and a biscuit) and I both thoroughly enjoyed it and it was only just over $20.

Eva had fun too.  She grinned happily at everyone else in the cafe and tipped a glass of ice water into her dad's lap.  Poor Doc had to sit through his delicious breakfast in cold soggy jeans.  I may have laughed.

Evalyn and Hobbes.

I was thrilled to find a soft toy tiger that looks almost exactly like Hobbes for $10; but I must admit I am feeling slightly guilty too.  This isn't an official Hobbes, and has no mention of Bill Waterson on it's tag... But on the other hand there don't appear to be any official Hobbes available... So...

Doc C pointed out that this tiger has a beard, Hobbes doesn't, and I then noticed that this tiger has a white tip to his tail, instead of black.  I suppose that is enough of a difference to not be a copyright infringement? Really?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Anyway, Eva has a Hobbes to get into scrapes with so let's not over analyse, eh?

 

A Tuesday in Asheville.

I had anticipated a relaxed start to my day, because I was going to a meeting round the corner at 12 instead of going to the studio at 10.  So naturally I woke up with a splitting headache, a vomitting cat and a baby in need of a bath - None of those things were connected, except that they all seemed to happen at once.

Still, my day itself was good.  We are filming in local bars at the moment, and one of the guys in the video has needed to bring his year old daughter with him to the sets.  As project manager I see my role as including taking care of any issues that might delay filming, so I've been the on-set British nanny as needed!  It was actually really nice to play with a toddler and get a glimpse of where Eva will be in a few months.  Apparently there will be a lot of climbing up and down stairs, as well as a fair amount of toothy grins.

Whilst I was trying to source props for Thursday (how hard is it to find DJ decks in Asheville on two days notice?), Doc C was taking Evalyn to her six month check up.  She's very healthy and now weighs nearly 16 pounds, so she's almost tripled in size since she was born.  I'm told she still hates having vaccination jabs, but then who could blame her for that really?

Drops of Water.

Eva is still very happy about baths, even if she always forgets that the baby bath stuff doesn't taste very nice.  She particularly likes when we squeeze the flannel out to let drops of water fall on her and catch the light.

Eva's reaction is always "Duuuuuudddddddddddddeeeeeeeeeee! That is amazing! I must catch it!"

 

Nice Cup of Tea.

Every time we have a cup of tea within her sight Eva r-e-a-c-h-e-s for our mugs.  Whilst there is any hot tea left we keep it well out if her reach, but, once the mug is empty, we sometimes let her touch it.

Usually she'll pull the mug to her mouth and start licking the the rim in a very determined manner.

Awww! Look at her!

She thinks she's people!

A Cat and Her Girl.

When we're getting Eva ready for bed last night she was already pretty much zonked out, so we put her down on our bed for a bit whilst we got the crib ready.  Edith took the opportunity to snuggle with her for a few minutes.

Edith is so besotted with this child.  She doesn't complain when Eva grabs fistfulls of her fur or pats her a bit too hard; all Edith wants is some of Eva's attention and she seems to understand that Eva doesn't yet know quite how to behave with cats (or parents for that matter - My nose was bitten quite hard yesterday!)

"Whadda You Got?"

Saturday is my only day off at the moment (which sounds worse than it is!), and we have a nice little routine going.  I love listening to NPR's "Car Talk", "Wait, Wait Don't Tell Me" and "The Splendid Table" with Doc C and Eva whilst we eat a leisurely breakfast, play silly baby games and generally sit around in our pyjamas.  It's very civilised.

The afternoon varies depending on our mood; so today we got out the scooter for a short scoot and a short photo shoot.

The weather wasn't very nice today so I really didn't do much more than ride up and down in front of the house at a top speed of about 12 miles an hour.  It was exactly like something out of "The Wild One".

After that we went out for a lunch of burritos, a walk around the UNCA Botanical Gardens (Eva loves it there!) and then we went to three different motorcycle dealers to look at helmets.  A helmet was included with the scooter - but the previous owner was quite a heavy smoker, so it does smell of cigarettes and besides I have no idea how old it is and therefore how sound it still it is.  So I want a new one.  No luck today, but there's no rush.  I want to buy something that I really like the look of, co-ordinates with the scooter (obviously!) and that keeps me safe.

Today has been fun and we even have some frozen yogurt for desert.  Yum!

Hello Again! Also - Pilates : Why It Rules!

A blog?  I have a blog?  Huh!  Well, who knew?

Anyway, we have come to an understanding with Eva (I hope), so she starts off the night in the crib and usually manages a couple of hours in there at least.  She still waking up around 2am, and I am sure it's because she's getting cold, so I've been bringing her into bed with us, and then she sleeps until around 6:30, which is acceptable.  Not great, but acceptable.

With slightly more sleep in hand I felt human enough to sign myself up for a pilates mat class this evening, this is a drop-in class and costs the amazingly low price of $9 - However when I got there I was the only student, so I basically got a private mat class.  It was terrific!  My back has been really tight and my legs have been aching just from being so tired, but after the class everything felt stretched and renewed.  It was like I was two inches taller and floating.  Bliss.  And it was NINE DOLLARS.  Amazing.

 

Lack of Sleep = Lack of Updates.

Ok, so Eva is no longer sleeping through the night now she is in the crib (although I don't think that is why, I think it's coincidental).  Hmmmm...  This is not quite what I was hoping for... I preferred her original operating system, this upgrade is rubbish...

Also, bloody hell, I am tired.

Cribbed.

Saturday night was Eva's first night in her new crib, and she slept like a little tiny snoring log.  It was most satisfactory.

Of course on Sunday night she woke up a couple of times to be fed, but it really wasn't anything to do with the crib.  I'm fairly sure she just wanted to illustrate her awe inspiring baby powers of control over her subservient parents.

A Logical Place to Sleep.

Well, the crib was quite easy to put together (as far as I could see anyway - Doc C actually built the crib, because I had built the changing table/chest of drawers earlier in the afternoon).  Eva doesn't seem to hate it or anything, but we will see what she makes of sleeping in it.  Please keep your fingers crossed that our little science officer decides this is a good place to take her r-and-r of a night.

Eva's New Furniture.

This evening we bought Eva her own bed, well, it's a crib that will convert into a bed when she's old enough. Point being she won't be sleeping in our bed for very much longer - first, we have to build the thing, and, second, get her comfortable with sleeping in it.  I'll report back on which is the most difficult.

Sleeping Like a Baby.

Remember how a while back I happened to nonchalently mention how well Eva slept? Well, pretty much since I've been working again, she's been experimenting with having a few mid-night snacks - Generally she likes to be fed at 2, 4 and 6.  It is ever so slightly bad timing on her part, but I'm struggling through somehow.

Coffee can do amazing things.

Puree of Pea.

Eva, like her dad, is a big fan of mushy peas.

Me?  I'm not so keen, but then that was exactly the colour of my school uniform.

Day Trip Back.

It's been snowing today, but Doc C needed to go and get some books from his office - So we went on a day trip.  Eva slept on the way there, and on the way back (impressively I only slept on the way there); whilst we were in town she was a very sociable baby and smiled at everyone she saw.

We grabbed the books (fed and changed the baby), and then had lunch at one of the best sandwich places in town. I'd also called our favourite bakery yesterday to reserve a loaf of their Friday special - The chocolate cherry sourdough.  We also bought coffee and cookies for the road, so today was a total carbs-fest.

All in all, quite a pleasent day.

Baby Noms.

 Eva has become very interested in food recently, she watches us very closely when we eat and gets really excited.  That's apparently a good sign that she's ready to try eating herself - So we decided to try her some baby food, even though she's only four months old.

For some reason Americans tend to start feeding babies on rice cereal, but that didn't sound very appetising, so we kicked off with a butternut squash puree.  Eva wasn't particularly excited by that, and I suspect it was quite bland.

When Doc C went shopping this week he bought a sweet potato puree instead and that has been going down an absolute storm with our diminutive gourmand.

Ah nom nom nom!  Tasty orange gloop!  She's actually only eating a teaspoon or so at a time, but it's clearly very satisfying for her (and Doc C!)

 

Six Days a Week.

So now that I have two jobs I actually only get one day off a week, but at least I have managed to make that one day a Saturday.  I don't know how well that is going to work in the long term, but as I'm not actually at work for nine hours a day any more (I was working from 8 to 5 with an unpaid lunch hour at the University), and as I am having so much fun with both of them it doesn't seem too daunting at the moment.

Having said that, I am pretty tired and I am going to sleep like a log tonight.  I sincerely hope that a certain someone, *cough*Eva*cough*, got that memo as well.

 

One Thing After Another.

What a day!  

First of all Eva woke up at three again.  This had better not become a habit - Actually I suspect she knew I had a long day ahead of me, she likes to make sure we know who is boss around here.

Anyway after that my nine o'clock (I have "nine o'clocks" now.  Hehehe!) was cancelled at the very last minute - So last minute that I was actually already at the client's office when I heard.  So I came home and had a bit of a nap.

Then I opened the shop and that all went fairly smoothly; it was freezing this morning so the shop was totally empty for the first hour.  I started unpacking a delivery of jeans, checking it against the invoice, pricing the merchandise and putting it out on display.  This is usually pretty straight forward, but today I found one pair of jeans had a hole in the crotch so those had to be kept to the side and I made a note of them.  No problem!

Then Doc C rang to tell me that he'd tried giving Eva some formula, because we were low on milk and that she had found it absolutely unacceptable and was inconsolable.  So he had to bring her to the shop for me to feed - And of course that's when the customers suddenly streamed in.  Fortunately she had calmed down enough that she could wait until we had a quiet moment and I could flip the closed sign on the door for a few minutes.

That crisis over I re-opened and Doc took Eva into the staff toilet to change her, this is just off the stock room which is seperated from the shop by a curtain.  The next set of customers brought a very friendly and inquisitive dog with them, and he was happily and politely  exploring the shop when he suddenly took an interest in the stock room.  I suspect he could smell Eva's nappy, and the next thing we knew he'd nipped behind the curtain to check things out.  He was very easy to get back out though, so again all was well.

Ok.  Then I was running a customer's credit card and the card reader first of all rejected her pin and then seemed to spontaenously void the sale on the next attempt.  So I tried a third time, and at that point it announced it was out of paper.  Good grief.  When I'd sorted that out it became clear that the card reader had read the customer's card twice, so I had to call the owners of the shop to ask how the hell to stop it doing that.

Around two-ish I vaguely remember hearing a distant crashing noise, like slates sliding against each other.  I didn't really pay too much attention - Until the street filled with fire engines and paramedic vans.  I could see where on the street they were focussing their attention, but I had no idea what was going on - until a customer told me a building that was being renovated had collapsed when they removed a load bearing wall.  Fortunately no one was hurt, but the street was closed off to traffic for most of the afternoon.

I started to unpack a delivery of socks, price those and display them.  I'm not sure why I was surprised when the gun that spikes those little plastic hanging hooks just came to pieces in my hand and refused to do it's job any further.  So I arranged the socks on a table instead of hanging them up, really not too much of an issue.

Moving on to my next task I set up the counter for bag printing (This is super fun - It's a hand stamp of the shop's logo, that's satmped onto each bag by hand), and got a stack of blank bags ready to print. I took the lid off the ink pad, and turned to put it on the side... And as I did that I knocked over a display of earrings, they flew off the counter and all over the floor behind the till.  Even better two of them went all the way under the cupboards; I had to get down on my hands and knees, and get my arm covered in dust and spider webs to retrieve them.

Let's recap:

1. Eva's three am snack.
2. Last minute meeting cancellation.
3. Holes in the merchandise.
4. Eva's complete rejection of formula on a day when we were low on pumped breast milk.
5. A dog maurading in the stock room.
6. Card reader madness!
7. A BUILDING COLLAPSED.
8. Tag gun malfunction.
9. Earrings knocked onto the floor.

Can you believe after all of those things that the till actually balanced?  And, whilst I was really tired by the end of the day, I was in a pretty good mood actually.

Doc C came to pick me up and when we got home he made me a nice cup of tea.  Then he ordered us a curry, because I'd had a slightly tricky day and also because it's our sixth wedding anniversary.

As I said - What a day. Still once I'd had a snuggle with my baby (and eaten a delicious salmon tikka with a locally brewed beer) I was totally chilled out and now I'm ready to sleep for, um, the next three days or so.

Molasses Cookies.

The Christmas before last (I think) I saw a recipe for gingerbread houses that looked really fun because they were designed to sit on the rim of a mug.  I had everything I needed to make them; except for molasses, so I bought that, and then totally didn't make them.

When we moved house the molasses moved with us, and I kept looking at it and feeling guilty.  This Christmas I looked at it again and realised that a) it needed to be used and b) it was not going to end up being gingerbread houses because Eva was not going to give me enough time for that!

I started looking for a molasses cookie recipe, and nothing in our small library of recipe books really seemed quite right.  So I used the one on the label of the bottle.

The batch I made this evening is the third time I've baked these in the past month.  They are delicious.

Molasses cookies.  Think about them.

Afternoon Snooze.

 

Today was a pleasantly stark contrast to yesterday, and Evalyn Alice was in a bloody lovely mood all day.

Ok, as far as Eva was concerned, the day did start promptly at 5:30, but it was all smiles and delightful cooing noises right from the start.

We took her for a walk to the Botanical Gardens at UNC Asheville this afternoon.  We hadn't taken her there before and the novelty of it was clearly rather exciting; she was smiling and doing her happy wriggles (these are very very different to her angry wriggles, beleive you me).  Several people said hello to us, and Eva gave them all a nice big gummy grin.

When we got home she had a lovely snooze, and was extremely photogenic about it.

All in all - Adorable.  That's what I signed up for!

Loud Day.

What?  Sorry?  I can't hear you, my ears are ringing from all the baby yelling in my ear today.

I think Eva's started to develop some seperation anxiety, because the moment that either myself or Doc C left her sight she would start fussing, and then she had a couple of major shouting fits for good measure when we didn't come back again soon enough for her liking.

It wasn't for the whole day, and she did have some smiley happy spells as well, but anyway, she finally fell asleep after her 8pm feed and I don't blame her, I have to say I'm a bit sleepy myself now.

Klingon Opera and Unwelcome Insects.

There is a possibility that we've been watching far too many of the series in the Star Trek family of TV shows, because Eva has developed a taste for Klingon opera and she spent most of last night treating us to a impromptu performance.

It's really sweet and no doubt an important developmental stage, but my goodness it is LOUD.

Naturally Eva was as fresh as a daisy at six o'clock this morning, whereas Doc C and I were pretty shattered.  Fortunately this is a very rare occurrence, but we do have an agreement in place that covers just this type of contingency; one of us will get up with her for two hours whilst the other parent sleeps, then we swap for two hours.  By eleven thirty we were all up to speed, and able to get on with our day.

It was pretty exciting actually - Doc C did the laundry and I got my hair cut.  It's amazing to think that this time last year neither of these things would have warranted mention, but now I am proud to log those achievements.

Oh, also; I have declared war on the stink bugs in our apartment.  In the summer I didn't mind them, in the autumn I almost admired their tenacity but now it's winter and I have had enough.  They really brought this on their own insectoid heads because a couple of them have climbed INTO my clothes, whilst I was wearing them no less, on two separate occasions.  And if they can do that to me, then they could do it to Eva and my protective mothering instincts have kicked in at the mere thought. I am not having that.

Weekend of Contrasts.

The bad news is that I spent the weekend fighting off the cold that Doc C had, and I managed it fairly well - At the cost of needing to sleep for the majority of Saturday and Sunday.  Fortunately the Doc was better so he could look after Eva, and, even more fortunately, Eva doesn't seem to have caught anything.

On the other hand, the good news is that I got a call on Saturday to say I'd got the job!  Squee!  I start my six week trial period in a fortnight's time - It's just two days a week, but it is at my very favourite shop in Asheville!  I cannot believe my luck!  Squee, Squeee, Squeeeeeeeeeee!

 

Sleep Eating.

Due to popular demand (Hi Mum!), here is another video of Eva!  

I filmed this one this afternoon, when she fell asleep on me after eating her afternoon tea.  Whenever she does this she tends to try to carry on eating even as she naps, babies are very single minded

 

Eva Naps on Doc C.

Eva sleeping in Doc C's arms.  

Cute. Cute. Cute!

A New Year's Day Wish.

Doc C has had a nasty cold this weekend, and he's been super-paranoid about passing it on to Eva; so he slept on the sofa for a couple of nights and he's still too worried about germs to pick her up.  Naturally Eva decided that this was the perfect time to be a weeny bit needy, so I've been catering to her every whim and trying to persuade the Doc to let me occaisionally make him a cup of tea.

The saying that doctors make terrible patients is very true, in the case of my Doc (Phd) it's because he tries really hard to be no trouble at all.  It makes it very difficult to look after him, because he will insist he doesn't need to be - even when he can barely open a can of chicken soup for himself.

Anyway...

Happy New Year and let's hope that 2013 brings a wave of incredible good health to us all!

Sound of Laughter

Today was pretty good actually - I got a call to set up a job interview, and it's somewhere I think I'd really enjoy working.  I was so excited by the phone call that I was dancing around the living room in a fairly silly manner, and that made Eva laugh for the first time!

Doc and I have been in friendly competition over this and I won. According to Eva I am hilarious, or at least my dancing is. We then discovered that if we put Eva on her play-mat and rocked her gently from side to side she laughed again, and we have video of that.

Please enjoy!

 

 

Health Round-Up.

This Christmas I have been given the gift of elevated liver enzymes, which is frankly not something I had on my Amazon wishlist.  It first showed up in my basic blood test when Doc C and I went to see our new doctor for the first time, so then I had a ultrasound of my liver and gall bladder to see if I had a gallstone.  

The ultrasound showed that I did not have a gall stone at that time; so the Doctor suggested getting another basic blood screen to see if the enzyme levels were still high, the hope was that they would have dropped back to normal because I'd passed the gall stone between the blood test and the ultrasound.

The second blood test showed that my enzyme levels were still too high for my doctor's liking, so I went in today to have more blood drawn for a whole barrage of other tests.

All this, and that weird rash I've had for a few weeks?  Yeah, that turns out to be ringworm.  Where the hell did I get ringworm?  I mean honestly you have one baby and you just start falling to bits.  That's not really true though, other than those two things I am fine and I haven't had a cold or anything like that since 2011.  And long may that continue!

Driftwood for Christmas.

I mis-spoke when I said that Eva hadn't had a Christmas gift from my Father-in-Law - He actually sent her a lovely illustrated book of fairy tales last week.  I regret the error (Additionally I note that my own Dad has yet to acknowledge her existence, much less sent her anything for Christmas. So. Father-in-Law is ahead on points here.)

Doc C and I got our presents yesterday:

That's one rather nice piece of driftwood, and a bit of palm tree that has had a glittery green pompom and a pipe cleaner glued to it.  Both of these were given to us along with very specific details of where they were found.  I think we're going to keep the driftwood but maybe we can return the bit of palm tree.  Of course we don't have a receipt for that, so maybe we can get credit instead of a refund.

Father-in-Law Christmas.

Ah, Christmas -  It's just not the same unless there is some sort of family drama, is it?

Doc C told me that his Dad had mentioned that he might visit sometime between Christmas and New Year's Eve... By which he clearly meant he'd be arriving on the 23rd!  Otherwise unannounced! Ta-Dah!

I'll be honest, we really didn't have anything particular planned, but it's still thrown me off my holiday stride.  I've been assured by Doc that his Dad won't expect us to do anything special like cook a turkey, and it's not like he brought presents for anyone (*cough* Brand new grand-daughter *cough*) so maybe I should try to relax.

After all, as I said, he arrived yesterday and has so far actually only visited us for about an hour this afternoon.  I had just started making molasses cookies when he arrived, and I was pulling them out of the oven when he left for the day.  He said he'd be back tomorrow, but who knows when?

Sunday Evening.

Sofa. Ice cream. Deep Space Nine. Not being screeched at.

And...

Relax.

A Teeny Tiny Napoleon.

It's been quite cold today, so I decided to dress Eva in this fleecey footy jumpsuit that Doc's sister sent us; which was good because it'll be too small for her in the next few days.

Doesn't Eva look adorable in these pictures?  Almost angelic in that full length one, right?  In fact this was a brief respite in a day of shouting, not crying or grizzling, just really loud yelling at us.  It felt like we were being berated by a very small dictator.

She has been a horror today, a HORROR.  Still, she's asleep now and tomorrow is another day.

 

Sapling.

After a really lovely day with a happy Eva on Wednesday she became a screaming demon yesterday - We reasoned that perhaps she had enjoyed being around more people, so we decided to take her out today.  

We went back to The Treehouse with her this afternoon, and she had a lovely time STARING at the small boys who were running around in capes playing superheroes.  Whilst Eva was happily preoccupied Doc C and I were able to have a coffee and chat with Jessie, another new mum, who we orignally met at the CPR class and who we saw again at the Smarty Pants party.  Her baby boy, Sam, is six weeks old and he is such a little sweetheart.  It's really funny to see a baby that small next to Eva, because it is amazing to realise how much she has grown in such a short time and I just hadn't really noticed it because I was just to close to it.  Not seeing the woods for the trees indeed!

Eva's Afternoon Visits.

We put Eva's sociability to the test today, and introduced her to several new people in their homes; happily for us she loved it, and was very smiley and well behaved.  When she's interested in something she leans as far forward as she can and STARES, and she was doing that a lot today.

My favourite part of the afternoon was when Eva was being held by our friend Megan, and was clearly perfectly happy, but then Eva caught sight of me and held her arms out to me!  She has never done that before and it was really very sweet.  Of course it could have been because she felt ready to spit up her afternoon snack, and I'm always a comfortable person to do that on apparently.

Eva only actually cried when we put her into her car seat to bring her home, but by that point she was also very tired so she fell asleep very quickly.

Happy Mothday!

Today is my lovely Mum's birthday - So I'm boxing up Eva and sending her via airmail!

Happy Birthday Moth!

I'm joking, obviously I'd never put a baby in a large cardboard box with a bunch of packing peanuts and then tape the lid shut.

Edith on the other hand...

That is her idea of heaven, plus she loves to travel and meet new people!

Again, I'm kidding!  Please don't put either babies or cats in a cardboard box and ship them internationally.  I'm pretty sure there would be some shipping tax issues for starters.

(In all seriousness the baby was never let out of my sight whilst lying on the packing peanuts, because I wouldn't trust her not to choke on one and that would be so awful - Edith knows better then that and simply bats the packing peanuts around with her paws.)

Big Box.

Doc C is the youngest of 9 children, and all of his siblings already have kids - So we've been getting a lot of stuff sent to us for Eva over the last few months.  One of Doc's sisters had a particularly posh pram slash pushchair that her own daughter had just grown out of, so my Mother-in-Law paid for it to be shipped it to us along with a big bundle of clothes.  We knew to expect it, but when the UPS guy knocked on the door with a box almost as big as he was, well, it was still a surprise!

This thing is ENORMOUS.  I mean I knew that Jamie had only just grown out of it, and she's now five, but this is really built like an upholstered tank.  We weren't sure if we would actually be able to fit it in the car (we can!), and it is totally impractical for this apartment unfortunately.  Fortunately our current pram will be fine for a while yet, and then we can switch to the super-fancy-hand-me-down when we really need to. By that point we may well have moved apartments, and I think we really do have to find something on the ground floor next time.

In the mean time we've been forced to put it in storage, because it was taking up so much floor space and because Edith had decided it was a mobile cat condo.  Having taken that away from her we haven't quite had the heart throw away the box yet, so Edith been throwing herself around in that this afternoon.

Eva's First Social Engagement.

Sunday was extremely exciting, because we'd been invited to a customer appreciation party by the fantastic diaper service we've been using since bringing Eva home.  It was at The Treehouse, which is a sort of play group, pre-school and cafe all rolled into one really fun space; you can bring your child to play on the indoor slide or there are classes in yoga, music and science offered.  Eva's not old enough for the classes yet, but this is a great find for when she's older!

We were a bit nervous because Eva hadn't actually met any other babies before, and, up until quite recently, whenever she caught sight of her reflection in a mirror, she would yell at it angrily.  So we weren't sure if she would just freak out at the sight of other infants, or quite what to expect.  As it happened she was fine, and was happy to just be carried around by either myself or Doc C whilst we chatted with other parents.  At first she seemed quite subdued, but was soon leaning as far forward as she could to really see everything properly and seemed particularly interested in the toddlers. By the end of the party Eva was definitely tired, and she slept for most of the afternoon, so I think she had a lot of fresh information to process.  It was a really nice morning out for all of us, and I'm really glad we went!

By nine thirty that evening Doc C and I were also exhausted, but we knew that Eva would need another nappy change and a feed at about eleven - So we set an alarm, and had a nap for a couple of hours, then got up again to actually get Eva and ourselves ready for bed.  Having a baby, let me tell you, it's a none stop rock 'n roll party.

Chilli Sauce and Milk.

This week I discovered Sriracha sauce.  It is AMAZING.  I know you probably already know this, because I seem to be extremely late to this party, but if you haven't had it before I highly recomend just spending the $4 on a bottle to try it.

Since buying this bottle I have so far added it to:

• A slice of fake bacon (my first taste)
• Chickpeas and rice
• A bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon
• Mushroom risotto.

It was delicious with all of that, and I find myself planning what I want to try it with next.  Scrambled eggs on toast is a definite.

By the way I did stage this photo specifically to include the breast milk next to the sriracha in the photo; the milk is not usually kept in the door like that so there is no possibility of a comedy mix-up I promise.  I;m just super-proud of myself for thinking of getting those really small post-it notes and using them to put the date of pumping on the bottles.  It should make it a lot easier to keep track of the milk and that's just one less thing to think about when Eva is screaming for her next meal.  

The girl has no patience what so ever

Related articles

What To Eat With The Best Hot Sauce In The World: A Guide For People Who Aren't Anti-Sriracha Bores

Faux-Hawk!

Doc C dressed Eva today, but he was shamelessly pandering to my taste and I was particularly smitten with this outfit.  Look at that faux-fur faux-hawk!  Ridiculous AND Adorable!

We actually had to go out this morning to get blood taken for some blood tests (nothing interesting, just standard tests for the medical we had with our new doctor yesterday) and we weren't supposed to eat before hand - So we were very motivated to leave the house early today.  

Eva slept through the whole thing, and only really woke up when we went out for breakfast, and even then she was really good.  There was a bit of crying, but only because she wanted to get out of her pram and STARE around the restaurant at people.  She is definitely getting really interested in other people and what they are doing, which is really fun to see.

She wasn't quite so good when we later had to go to the chemists to pick up our prescriptions, but who can blame her?  Walgreens is really not as much fun as the Early Girl Eatery!

ARG! Milk!

It's Thursday?  Really?  How the hell did that happen?  Babies really are the most incredible time drain, who knew? (I know that really everyone including myself and Doc C "knew" that but we didn't really know that, you know?)

Anyway...

Today Doc and I went for our initial check-up with our new doctor, who seems very nice and we both got flu shots whilst we were there.  Obviously we had to take Eva with us, because Edith and Nancy are really not stepping up to the task of baby sitting in quite the way one would hope.  I prefer to take a bottle of milk with us to this sort of thing, so that if Eva gets hungry she can eat immediately.  To keep the milk cool I like to use the coozy we got at the first Appalachian Rollergirl exhibition we went to see.

So useful! So cool! Love it!

Primary Parenting.

Today was the first day of Doc C's paternity leave!  Woot!

The cats and Eva decided to initiate him into it with a trial by fire; there were multiple pukings, peeings (in nappies, which is fine; and on the floor in front of the litter tray, which is not fine at all) and grumpy grizzling.

We'd already planned to celebrate today by going out for sushi, and also handing in my CV to anywhere we'd missed in our last sweep of down town.  After Doc C showered and dressed he put on his usual after shave (Bulgari for Men - It's a really nice smell), and Eva who had been sleeping in the bedroom woke up screaming apparently at the scent.  Once she had stopped crying she didn't seem bothered by the cologne, and we carried on getting ready to leave.  As I was getting my shoes on I heard Doc ushering Nancy hurriedly outside, because she'd been about to throw up on the sofa.  That disaster averted we left the house.

Lunch was delicious and I applied to a particularly nice jewellers that I've often admired as we went past it.  Eva was actually very well behaved whilst we were out and didn't start complaining until we were on our way home anyway.

When we got back someone, and, whilst  I have no way of knowing who I do have my suspicions, had vomitted on the sofa.  Doc C very calmly took the covers off the seat cushions and took them to the laundrette.  When he got back, Eva decided to demonstrate her exciting new super-sonic screams and it took both of us over an hour to calm her down for her usual evening nap,

I am very pleased to say that my husband did not run screaming after such a day.  Instead he had a shot of whiskey and then cooked dinner.  He's a keeper.

 

****Post Script**** After I wrote this Doc C discovered someone had peed in the bath (Edith is the prime suspect), and whilst we were discussing this Edith jumped up to the bookshelves and knocked off one of Eva's toys.  sigh.