Disappointingly I created the last post over the week gone by and it managed to disappear somewhere other... somewhat like the last 3 months of my life.
I couldn't really tell you very much about the two weeks since my last post - in fact, without this blog and the contents of my 'sent items' folder in my emails I couldn't tell you anything about the last 3 months at all.
What I do recall is basically a flicker book of repeated moments, most of which involve breastfeeding. However, since I put my back out and have started feeding Charlie lying down, even those memories are fading as about 20 seconds after I lie down beside him and latch him on to a boob, I fall asleep. In fact, I am getting more sleep than is publically acceptable for a new mother. The downside to this is that so is Charlie which means we are staying up progressively later and later every night, 'we' being Charlie because all mothers refer to their offspring as 'we', I've noticed. 'We had a good feed this morning didn't we?' 'Didn't we do a good poo?' 'We love our bouncy chair' 'Aren't we going slowly around the bend?'.
Tonight we were awake until 10pm (with a few catnaps thrown in) and we are now having nightmares about something. Not sure what a baby has nightmares about. Being left alone in the cot for five minutes while Mum sneaks in a crafty trip to the loo? The boob falling out before we're finished? Perhaps it's the shark attack we let him watch on TV tonight. Charlie isn't allowed to watch TV because of the reported link between children watching fast-moving images on TV and hyperactivism, however while he was feeding I let him watch a very slow-moving and beautifully filmed nature documentary, in the middle of which a shark ate a seal in slow motion. I somehow doubt his baby mind is dreaming up sharks however and so I'm quite concerned about this early predisposition to nightmares.
I do try to make Charlie's days interesting, however as he is not so easily amused these days and he is also not yet fully able to amuse himself due to lack of motor skills, making his day interesting means paying him a lot of attention, which means that I don't get anything done. So, between getting up, feeding him, dressing him, changing him, amusing him and getting him to bed there's not much time to formulate day-specific memories. Some afternoons he can happily sit playing with his hands and cooing to himself but some days, any attempt on my part to have anything resembling a moment to myself results in swift revenge - shouting, yelling, screaming and, if I am so bold as to stay in the kitchen buttering my toast through all three of these stages, inconsolable sobbing, as though he had been left alone at the end of time. Interestingly, (and appropriately) inconsolable sobbing can be consoled by in-action. After I finally can't stand it any more and rush to the side of my offspring over-flowing with motherly love (amongst other things) I usually find him happily playing with his fingers, or fast asleep.
Actually, Charlie's occasional fits of rage are becoming more and more well-timed. He can sense an important phone call before the phone ever rings and can time his once-a-day poo for the precise moment we are leaving the house 10 minutes late. I suspect I may have a budding Machiavelli sobbing quietly to himself in that cradle. At least he'll give me something to remember at some point.
Soon, I hope.
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