Week 12

13th - 19th March 2005

Caroline's Entry

Evan likes to carry his toys around with him these days

Ooh we had a bit of a 'mare this week - the first time I caused an injury to Evan! There were tears... baby tears, Emma tears and there were screams! How did this happen? Well it all started with some baby fingernails and a pair of clippers :/ I'm sure you can guess the rest!

Due to the little "jazz hands" thing he tends to do when he's feeding (see the piccy in week 6) it's usually quite easy to trim his nails as he's fairly relaxed and sleepy when he's been feeding for a while and he splays his fingers for me. But this time I'm not sure how I managed it but I snipped the end of his thumb off! Ouchie!!!

You should have heard the screech! Emma panicked of course but upon examination it turned out to be fairly minor and he soon calmed down.

As if the finger-sniping trauma was not enough for one week I managed to traumatize the poor boy even more! One night Evan was on the change mat in the bedroom and I was just about to go off to bed. I just went into the room, leant over the mat and said "Hello!" to him. Pretty harmless you'd think huh? But nooooo, not for our jumpy little boy - it made him jump and once again he screamed his little heart out. Emma came running in the room shouting "what have you done to him??" I picked him up immediately to try to settle him but he screamed like I'd just snipped off more fingers. This was one of those occasions where I just passed him to Emma with a "your baby" and let her do the hard stuff! Now, I take care to let him see my face before talking to him!

Caroline

Emma's Entry

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I introduced Evan to a new environment this week, we went to "Teddies Music Club". Teddies is run once a week and is more suited to children at toddler age as they can interact more. I think it is also good for babies as it gives them new experiences, but they won't be able to sing along to the songs and do some of the actions, however it gets us out of the house for a little bit. I didn't realise this, but Evan had never heard anyone clap - hmm, unless me clapping when Spurs score on TV whilst Evan was in my womb counts? :). We happened to be sitting right next to the lady running the club and she had a really loud clap and as Evan had slept on the way in the push chair, he wasn't quite awake when the club started. When the lady clapped her hands Evan jumped and burst into this really traumatic cry - he's getting good at that! Everyone just looked at us, I smiled and coo'ed to him that everything was ok and after a quick cuddle he seemed ok again.

It was an interesting experience for both of us and I think Evan started to enjoy it towards the end, though when the children started banging on the musical instruments, even that made me squirm. A year ago I could definitely say that this was not something I could see myself doing, having Evan has really changed me! We rocked and swayed as we sang along to the nursery rhymes. I tried to sing quietly as Caroline likes to remind me that my singing voice is terrible, though Evan doesn't seem to object... yet. £3 for 35 minutes is quite expensive, but if Evan enjoys it, then it's definitely worth it. I am sure he'll be able to hold the maracas soon, so we'll be able to interact more as he develops.

Evan demonstrating his new fist-chewing ability

I love bed time these days, but I can remember as a child never wanting to go to bed, now why is that? It is the worst part to date in parenthood, trying to help a sleepy child get to sleep when they either don't know how to or don't want to. I wish babies would come out into this world knowing how to sleep. If Evan doesn't get his sleep when he needs it, he is very grumpy until he finally gets that rest that is required. This week I managed to put Evan to bed awake and he did fall asleep himself. I was so happy after that success and silly old me thought he'd do it every night. Our attempts at bed time for the remainder of the week were abysmal and by Saturday night I had him sleeping in the push chair next to me in the evenings so that I could give him a gentle rock whenever he stirred.

Baby Massage was a hit this week, it relaxed Evan so much that he slept for 5 hours straight when we got home!

Emma