Week 7

6th - 12th February 2005

Caroline's Entry

Yep, I can hold it mum!

The things we do to placate our babies... One morning in the week Emma had had a rough night and was really tired so I took Evan in the front carrier so she could get some undisturbed sleep. We were milling around the house quite happily and I got peckish so I went to get myself some cereal and went back upstairs to do some stuff at the computer. Evan had other ideas :/ He started to cry so I stood up and jigged him a bit. It still didn't work so I turned on Avril Lavigne and jigged a bit more. In the meantime my cereal was getting soggy and I hate soggy cereal so I picked it up and attempted to eat it whilst still jigging!

Evan smiling at Caroline's mum

As if that was not enough, Cleo (the cat for those who don't know) decided that she wanted a bit of my cereal too. She jumped on the desk and started trying to climb up me. So there I was jigging up and down to Avril Lavigne with a baby bouncing around on my chest, a bowl of soggy cereal in one hand and a cat's head in the other! I'm glad the blinds were closed that morning! I also managed to bonk Evan on the head a couple of times with the cereal bowl, but don't tell Emma :-D And after all that my cereal was so soggy that I gave it to Cleo anyway :-(

I had another go at bottle feeding this week. He didn't like the formula that we tried last week (SMA Gold) so Emma expressed some milk. She got the hang of it this time and managed to express about 5 ounces. The really cute thing was that he seemed to hold the bottle in his hands! He hasn't actually showed any signs of grasping at things with open hands yet but he held his fists up to the sides of the bottle and held it there throughout the feed.

It was a week for grannies this week. Emma's gran came to visit and at the weekend we went to visit my mum who lives about 70 miles away. It was the first time my mum had seen him since a few days after the birth so she noticed how much he'd grown and changed! He had lots of smiles for her which was nice.

Caroline

Emma's Entry

Jump to Caroline's Entry

"hmmm... What's this?"

My little boy is growing so much, he has outgrown most of his baby clothes and me being a naughty mummy have spent all of his Toys & Clothes monthly allowance for the next 2 months already and it wasn't on the clothes we needed! He is looking so much older and definitely doesn't look like a new born anymore. He weighed 11lb 12oz this week which is a great weight so even though at times I feel like my boobs are drained and not satisfying him, he is certainly gaining the weight that he needs.

This week Evan had a visit from his other Great Grandmother who lives up North. She was surprised at how much of a little wriggle pot Evan is. He is a really active baby and I actually think he gets frustrated because he can't move much. His favourite position is being held upright and even then you need good reflexes and hand movements because he can move his heavy head really quickly but with little stability.

My time at home caring for Evan is flying by and I am enjoying it immensely. It can be a strain and very tiring at times but on the other hand it truly is rewarding when I see him all day long developing. I have changed emotionally whilst being at home with Evan and over the last week or so I have started having doubts about returning to work. When I think about leaving Evan to go to work and worse, having to send him to an expensive nursery, it fills me with sadness. I am his mum and I want to be his care person, I want to be there when he takes those first steps and speaks his first words, not some stranger. With Caroline being at University full time I had planned to return to work after 6 months. At that time though I wasn't aware of the changes that Evan would bring out in me and now I have presented myself with the biggest and most important challenge I have faced to date - How I could become a stay-at-home super mum!

A special moment I had with Evan this week was in front of the mirror. For several days I have been putting him in front of the mirror to see if he recognises himself. This week I held him in my arms and he did indeed smile at himself, it was lovely and epitomized my reasons for wanting to be at home with Evan on a permanent basis.

Emma