Bigger and better adventures

I was dressed up and waiting for the babysitter to arrive before we went out for dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary, when I noticed Talia had a big blotchy red mark on the side of her forehead. It looked quite nasty, as if she’d banged her head badly and broken a lot of little blood vessels just below the surface of the skin. I felt sick just looking at it, as I must have had my attention elsewhere and she’d fallen on a toy or something.

Then I reached out gently to touch it - and the lipstick came off on my fingers. Ooops. Guess who doesn’t put on make-up very often? I guess that classifies as “kissing it worse”.

I’ve been borrowing childrens’ CDs from the library, and the quality varies. Here are a couple of lyrics which caught my ear recently.

Most Annoying Lyrics Award goes to a song from a Play School CD. This song combines truly awful lyrics with an annoyingly catchy tune that went around my head for hours, the way some advertising jingles do. Fortunately for anyone who reads this blog, I am unable to share the tune but here is the chorus:

They’re round in the middle and they’re bigger at the bottom
They’re smaller at the top and we’re glad that we’ve got ‘em
And they’re egg-shaped…..’cos they’re eggs!
Every bird you’ve ever known, lays eggs.

Best Adaptation of an Old Favourite Award goes to an ABC Nursery Rhymes CD. Following the usual lyrics to I’m a Little Teapot, suddenly there was another verse:

I’m a little teapot, short and stout
Here is my handle, here is my handle.
Ha ha tricked you, I’m a sugar bowl!

The bottom drawer of our freezer (we have an “upside-down” fridge) belongs to Talia. It’s full of plastic tubs containing ice-cube-sized portions of stewed fruit, mashed veg, pulverised chicken, flakes of fish in cheese sauce etc. Wedged in the middle of this oyster of solids was a little pearl - the last remaining bottle of my frozen expressed breast milk (EBM).

I’ve rambled at length about the ups and downs of milk production. It wasn’t easy, but it was worth it. I wanted to do more, but now I’m happy that I did as much as I could. If I had to do it all over again, I would. So what’s the story with this bottle of EBM? Talia stopped breastfeeding exclusively last October, and ceased completely at the end of January. It’s now the end of March. This bottle of liquid gold was dated 21/6/07 - the day before Talia came home from hospital. This bottle of milk has reigned, happy and glorious, over the bottom drawer of the freezer for NINE months, as one by one all the other bottles (older) and baggies (younger) of EBM were defrosted and used up. (Don’t worry, my freezer is cold enough that it was safe to keep it longer than the usually recommended three months). This bottle was a testament to my hours of expressing but also a life-line which I had clung to for months in case of emergency, but which was no longer needed now that Talia is healthy and happy with formula and solids.

So two days ago, a week after Talia’s first birthday, I liberated this vintage bottle from its cryogenic home and defrosted it. Today Talia has been drinking half formula, half EBM, the final instalment of my first gift to her. It doesn’t usually happen, but today she completely finished every bottle. Tonight we will both go to sleep satisfied.

Today I made my first batch of chocolate crackles!
Talia supervised from the Bumbo seat on the kitchen counter, and even licked the spoon.
I feel ridiculously pleased with myself for this not-particularly-difficult achievement.

It was almost as exciting as the fact that *drumroll* Talia cut her first tooth yesterday!  Woo hoo!  Just in time for her first birthday.

Adam Gilchrist isn’t the only big retirement of the season; my boobs have definitely played their last Test for Australia too. Talia is pleased to see them - but only for about a minute each side, and only before breakfast. After that there is plenty of smiles and giggles but no more sucking.

So here for the record is our last breastfeeding song, to the tune of Old MacDonald.

Young Miss Talia had a mum, e-i-e-i-o
And on that mum she had a boob, e-i-e-i-o
With a suck, suck here and a slurp, slurp here
Here a suck there a slurp, everywhere a suck and slurp
Young Miss Talia had a mum, e-i-e-i-o

I don’t feel the urge to sing while she’s bottle feeding - and these days I make up a bottle and hand it to Talia who holds it with both hands and feeds herself. Clever cherub!

New foods since last week: lentils, spinach, parsnip, fish

Talia the kitchen fairy would like to make three wishes for all premmie babies for the New Year.

(Talia became a kitchen fairy by accident, after she discovered a fabulous magic wand in the cutlery drawer. It has special holes in it to make sure the magic comes out nice and evenly.)

First wish: to all premmie babies still in hospital - may you breathe strongly, grow healthily, receive the best possible care and come home soon

Second wish: to all premmie babies at home - may you eat to your mother’s content, play joyfully, sleep with your head full of growing dreams and find wonder in everything

Third wish: to all premmie angels - may you be remembered always with love

And a little bit of premmie magic to everyone who reads this!

(This post also on the main LAP blog)

This is another of our favourite songs at the moment, usually sung as I am feeding but also at other times when I am busy with Talia and feel the need to keep both of us amused. I make up random lyrics depending on my mood, some I remember and sing again and others I forget as soon as I’ve sung them. It is almost entirely meaningless but I like the tune!

She’ll be slurping on her mother when she comes (repeat)
She’ll be slurping on her mother, ‘coz she hasn’t anyone other
She’ll be slurping on her mother when she comes

She’ll be wearing a pink nappy when she comes (repeat)
She’ll be wearing a pink nappy, and be looking oh so snappy
She’ll be wearing a pink nappy when she comes

She’ll be sucking on a bottle when she comes (repeat)
She’ll be sucking on a bottle, until she’s drunk the lottle
She’ll be sucking on a bottle when she comes

Singing key-eye-yippy-yippy-eye (repeat)
Singing key-eye-yippy, key-eye-yippy
Singing key-eye-yippy-yippy-eye

Last night I went to bed at a sensible time but I just couldn’t fall asleep. I lay there, tossing and turning, until I finally drifted off three hours and an unscheduled breastfeed later.

So I was a bit tired today, which may explain why I ran a bath for Talia, got her undressed, picked her up and placed her in the bath tub - without thinking to take off her nappy first. Let’s just say that it might not have needed changing before then, but it certainly did afterwards.