I just read a post by one of the pages I ‘like’ on Facebook. It was a picture of the gorgeous Princess Kate holding the new Prince George, with Wills and dog posing beside her. They both look very happy. The person posting the picture made a comment about how they secretly hope life is as chaotic behind the scenes as theirs were with a newborn. This reopened an old ‘wound’ of mine from early parenthood.

As I approached the end of my pregnancy, I would constantly get comments (and I’m sure every pregnant woman does) about how I need to enjoy the last few moments of freedom, enjoy the last few weeks of unbroken sleep, of sleep at all for that matter, the last few weeks of organization – before utter chaos, sleep deprivation and horror descends on your comfortable life. This would frustrate me to no end. This poor child isn’t even born and people are trying to conform her to a certain type of evil child who causes her parents no end of grief.

I had a different approach to parenthood. It was: assume the best and be prepared for the worst. I did not go into the process assuming that I would get no sleep, be completely messy and disorganised and live in my pajamas. I made a pact with myself before bub was born that, every morning, I would get up and have a shower and get dressed, no matter the amount of sleep gotten. Obviously sickness would be the only exception here. I assumed that life would go on very nicely with a beautiful little addition to the family. I had a very positive outlook on the whole thing and it angered me when everyone tried to pin horror and insane screaming on a small, yet unborn, creature.

Anyway, bub was born. She was perfect as all babies are to their parents. She came home. I got up every morning after about 8 hours of sleep, not unbroken, but excellent sleep. Had a shower every morning. My house stayed organised. I had a happy, content baby who fed every four hours happily. She was in the 98th percentile for weight, so all the critics that told me I had to demand feed could go jump for all I cared. Anyone who saw her would consider her a happy, balanced, content and secure baby. 

At about the 6 week mark, when she hadn’t turned into a horror child as everyone had predicted, the same people who had wished evil on me earlier were now jealous and angry. They said things like ‘wait til 12 weeks.’ Or ‘don’t worry, you haven’t escaped this easily.’ It would drive me insane. Why did they have to wish the worst on their friend, because these were ‘friends’ of mine saying this. Why was everyone out to make her horrible when she clearly wasn’t? And by the way I believe every baby is beautiful and good, just sometimes their circumstances make them unsettled for whatever reason. 

We reached the 12 week mark and she still wasn’t awful. They all gave up wishing ill on this child and said things like ‘I hope your second child is the most ratty, awful, screaming child.’ Why? Why do you wish that? Why would ANYONE wish that? And these were friends of mine. 

I believe that a large percent of a baby’s temperament comes from the mother and father’s reactions to things. Their attitude, expectations and beliefs. I was always confident and positive. She fed off that. I didn’t like it when people wanted to make her unsettled and unhappy all the time. Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that there are many situations that are out of the parents control that can make babies unsettled and unhappy. I am not saying that this is the only factor. And I am not saying that if your baby is unsettled or unhappy that you are not a confident or positive mother. Not at all. All I am saying is I wish people would allow babies to be non-screaming, non-disruptive joys! And I wish they would stop wishing them otherwise when they are content and happy.

My Rascal is now a 14 month little lady. And still a joy. Occasionally when she’s teething she might whinge (see The West Ausralian Whinge) but in general she has remained a happy, content baby and sleeps beautifully at night with about 5 exceptions over the course of her life. I have no idea what will happen when I have another child but I am certainly going into it with the same attitude. And I sincerely hope Kate and Wills are having a wonderful, calm, contented time with their little bundle of joy. There’s no reason why they can’t!

Libby :) 

The definition of ‘whinge,’ according to the Google dictionary, is: to complain persistently and in a peevish or irritating way.  I have experienced this first hand in the last few weeks.  Here is how it happened....

It all began when Rascal was sick. And don’t get me wrong, I have no issue with a sick baby whinging. It is a natural thing and I do it myself when I am sick. The poor little thing had a temperature, stomach bug which included vomiting, cough and stuffy nose. And all this whilst travelling to W.A. from the eastern side of the country. So, she really had reason to be unhappy. She would whinge quite persistently throughout the course of the day. When playing, when eating, when going to sleep, whenever I moved more than 1 mm away from her. It was quite draining, but once again I didn’t mind as she was sick.

Rascal was sick for about a week and all the members of her travelling party were infinitely happy when she started to improve.  We couldn’t wait to see the end of this incredibly annoying whinge! So we waited for signs of its disappearance. We waited... and waited... and waited. And it didn’t go. In fact it increased in volume the more well she felt. The habit had been locked in. She had developed a West Australian Whinge.

Even if she was happy about something, she would whinge before smiling. She would whinge when put in her highchair even if she had been reaching up to it for the past few minutes because she was hungry. She would whinge if you picked her up, even if she had been reaching to be picked up. She would whinge when she got in the bath even though she loves the bath and always wants to go in there. It was really getting too much. I and my family, who were travelling with me, were all on tender hooks. We were so tired of this whinging sound and close to losing our minds!

One morning I woke up. Rascal had slept all night without a peep, as she usually does when not sick or teething. She was happy and cheerful. Apart from the whinge. Anyway, I had had enough. I knew she was practically fully better. I knew it had just become a habit. So I decided swift action was necessary. Each time she whinged, I would say firmly “No.” This usually resulted in Rascal bursting into tears (refer to "A Delicate Soul"). At first she cried a lot after I said ‘No.’ Well not really a lot, but a lot for her. About one minute. Then she would cry less until she didn’t cry when I said ‘No’ to the whinge. Eventually, over the course of the day, the whinge started becoming less and less. She wouldn’t leap to whinge at the first opportunity. Instead she might smile or laugh, as she had before, in response to something. It was refreshing! We were all excited to see the real Rascal back again! Especially my brother and sis-in-law who hadn’t seen much of Rascal so far and had a very non-typical introduction to her while she was sick and whinging. We were all happy to see the smiley, laughing girl back. 

We have lovingly named the whinge the West Australian Whinge as she developed it whilst on holiday there. Every time she whinges about anything since returning from our holiday, we comment and say “Not that West Australian Whinge back again!!!”  It will be forever in our memories!

Libby :)

It's never nice to have a sick child. I have been blessed in that it has hardly ever happened. Recently, though, I experienced a combination of sick child and really bad timing. It went something like this. 

Several days before our scheduled trip to visit my new nephew (as mentioned in "The Possessive Vibe" blog earlier), Rascal had a temperature. She was quite miserable and clingy with about 39.1 temp. She only wanted me, not Nanna or Papa who were there to come on the trip too. She had never been this ill, so it was sad in itself but in the back of my mind, I was hoping it was nothing serious that could impact our trip. I had been looking forward to this trip for months. Ever since my sister-in-law had told us she was pregnant, I knew I just had to trek over to the other side of Australia to see this little addition to our family. And when he was born, well it was a given! I had to go and see them! So I was horrified that this may turn out to be something that would stop us from travelling. One of my friend's little children had just come down with Chicken Pox so I knew it was a possibility Rascal could have it too. So we played the waiting game. 

The next day Rascal had little or no temperature. She was still not herself but was a bit better. We decided to draw a line in the sand and if we woke up on the day of travel and she had spots, we wouldn't go. If she didn't, we would. The day arrived. She woke up. I peeked under her singlet. No spots anywhere. Good. Ok. Trip's on. But she still wasn't 100%. So we left. Took the first flight (of three), a short 45 minute flight. She slept the whole way and was fine. We landed at our destination and about 20 minutes later, she vomited on Nanna. Luckily it was mostly all over herself. We cleaned that up and changed her clothes and went to wait for our second flight. She had a small amount of lunch. At this stage we couldn't tell if she was simply air-sick or if she was vomiting in relation to her temperature and an illness of some kind. 

The second flight was about 4 hours. She slept for over half of it. Then went to sit with Nanna while I got some space (she'd been sitting/sleeping on me for the whole day by this stage). About 5 minutes later she was sooky and wanted to come back to my knee. So I snuggled her in. This is where the day got more interesting. She sat up on my lap and looked at me. I knew something was wrong but nothing prepared me for what happened next. She started to be sick. Vomit was billowing up out of her. She cried after the first bout and then vomited again. Everything she had eaten in the last 24 hours came up in one incredible food fountain. 
It was everywhere. It was all over her. It was all over me. It was all over Nanna. It was all over the plane seat and down in between the seats. For one stunned second after it had finished, my mum and I looked at each other. Thoughts surged through my head. "I will never recover from this! It is not possible to clean this up!" Then we switched into gear and started wiping and stripping clothes off. We called for assistance from the air hostesses and they brought us wet towels and wipes and dry paper towels. We wiped and wiped and washed until all was as good as it could get. But it didn't take away the cloud of funk hanging around us. It stunk! Poor little Rascal was so upset. She almost looked apologetic. It was as if she understood that it was a real hassle for everyone else. I had to remove the outer layer of my clothing. (For the sake of the other passengers in the plane, I didn't remove any more, though they too were fountain-affected). We put a comfortable onesie on Rascal and she laid down and slept again. 

We counted the seconds until we could get off the stinky plane. Finally it was over and we were able to get to our hotel and clean everyone up. Rascal travelled well the next day on the final flight. She was off her food for several days but is almost back to normal now. I am relieved that I somehow survived a food fountain at 32,000 feet! It's not an experience I hope to ever repeat though, so I'm hoping for a settled stomach on the trip home! 

Meanwhile I am enjoying my gorgeous nephew and might just have to pay some excess luggage to sneak him home with me!

Libby :)