Four Months

This last month has been quite a mixed bag for all of us. Here's a brief overview for you: - Oscar and Felix went back to school. Oscar is at a new school in a mainstream class. By the time this means anything to you he will be in highschool and the stress, anxiety and tears I am shedding over this will either be pretty stock standard for the start of each school year or something we look back on with a shake of the head. Either way, your oldest brother is one special cookie and loves you more profoundly than I suspect he will ever be able to put into words. Lets just say there is never a chance you will be left behind, not fed, left to cry while Oscar walks this earth. Felix is in Year 1. When you enter Kindergarten he will be in Year 6. At this point in time it is highly likely you will go to Oscar's school (our local) and not Felix's, but he is so excited about being in Year 6 and looking after you at school that part of me doesn't want to deny him that chance. I have a few years to worry about that one and well, you know I will. - Daddy's restaurant is getting closer to opening. The builders are in, the logo has been designed, the ads are out to hire staff and Daddy is looking more preoccupied and nervous that I think I've ever seen him. It is very very cute. This place is going to be a second home for us, somewhere we hang out on weekends so you can move from eating the sand to playing in it to freaking me out with your attemps at the (massive) climbing frame and showing us if you have Daddy's patience or Mummy's chronic frustration when having to wait your turn at the flying fox. All while we get to eat Daddy's awesome food. How good will that be? Bloody fantastic. That's what. I don't expect you will ever know (and nor should you) what a momentous time it was when you made this family even stronger and tightly bound than ever before. - And now, as you turn 4 months old, Mummy is going back to work. This is as complicated or as straightforward as it can be, depending on my frame of mind. Basically, we need both of us to work if you guys are going to be fed, clothed, schooled and offered extra-curricular things like swimming lessons, sporting opportunities and musical adventures. On a more complex level, I am a much better Mummy if I'm a working one. This has nothing to do with what you boys are like and how much time I love spending with you. It has everything to do with Mummy being an obsessive compulsive nutbag who needs many pots boiling, many projects underway and many outlets for her energy with minimal time to spend in her own head. Last week I had two whole days in my own head as we trialed daycare and you partied like it was 1999 with 8 other babies and I dropped myself into my all too familiar crevasse of depression, doubt, self loathing and over analysis. I don't know if you boys will ever really understand and I sure hope to HELL and BACK that this illness, with hereditary strains and all, somehow bypasses my beautiful sons so none of you ever feel the shutters closing in your head, heart or soul. If we're not that lucky, you need to know the best way through it is to just.keep.going. and to talk about it. God knows the people reading this are SO bored with it, but however and wherever it comes out, someone will say, "hey, you're not alone" or "here, let me help you" or "just have a good cry" or not say anything, but simply be there and you will come to know the quiet peace and relief that is hope. You are still sleeping like the Little Legend we know you to be. So much so that when you don't I unravel at such speed it brings a new understanding as to why I found life so hard when your brothers were little and I had YEARS of never having more than three (if I was lucky) hours of unbroken sleep a night. We have, as the picture above indicates the necessity of, discovered the joy of a sleeping bag. Please note this conga line of baby lovin' was not staged and how you ended up by the time you chatted to everyone in your cot and fell asleep. There is no longer a sheet or blanket in your cot as well, c.h.ok.i.n.g. h.a.z.a.r.d. central. You seem to love this sleeping bag concept and it has only served to make bedtime more exciting. GOODNESS you will never know how much I love how much you love going to bed and sleeping. The big developments of this month have been your ability to pull your legs under you and get your tummy off the floor. This involves quite an unsightly humping movment, but you have worked out that if you do a few of them together you actually m.o.v.e. and can, on occasion score that toy you've had your eye on that the rest of us didn't even realise was out of reach. You have mastered rolling well and truly. In fact, last week you worked out rolling across the floor, tummy to back to tummy to back to tummy. This is, quite frankly, making me puff up into one of those ridiculously proud parents of "look at what my child can do" but damn it, you can and I'm gonna strut around loud and proud. You might as well get used to it now. You nailed this maneouvre on the floor at daycare, the first day we went. That's right. I said the D word. Because Mummy going back to work means you do NOT get free reign of the house. You seemed to like it - so much so you rolled across the floor either in a sign of acceptance or displaying some rat cunning at getting all the staff to love you even more. You are the youngest in the Centre and let me just say, I think this is a good thing. What they don't have in the LIBRARY of Lamaze toys we have at home, they have in clucking women and non-stop entertainment in little people who sure, have permanently runny noses, but dig you big time. Now, if you'd just take the bottle and stop WASTING all that preciously pumped breastmilk, that would be tops. Look on it as a little piece of Mummy while she activates another part of her brain so she won't obsess about how many of those Lamaze toys are either a) lying on the floor, b) being lied on by the cat, c) need washing or d) not being picked up or washed by anyone else. You did, however, pick up your first cold from this brief introduction to childcare. Seriously, how Chef and I fawned over you was outrageous. We've had Oscar taken to hospital in an ambulance. We've had inter-hospital transfers and multi-hospital hook-ups to discuss the best course of action, we've had mad-dashes with almost severed fingers. You had a head cold with a low grade temperature and a bit of snot and it was as good as if it were meningicoccal. Enjoy it because seeing as you will probably have snot trails from now until you start school, I think we may tire of being sooo caring, attentive and concerned pretty soon. The other development this month has been your ability to screech like a girl. Seriously, it's like you're channeling Nathan Lane in The Birdcage. It kills me every time. You only only use it if we're in the car and you're hungry. I find this just adds to its charm. You are also the He-Man of four months old - I mean, how many babies your age could be bothered expening the energy to pull themselves forward to s.i.t. in their bouncy, as opposed to just lying back and enjoying the ride? And yes, in this photo you are ALL watching TV. So in years to come, when you can't remember what happened ten minutes ago let alone how many middle names you have, you can blame me for letting you watch afternoon kids television at 3.5months of age. But most of all, keep smiling and chuckling at all of us because little man, this is one smitten family.