Cherish Your Cherubs - Praise

I'm joining in this week with Naomi @ Seven Cherubs.

Praise is something we have been practising more and more lately as the little man is understanding and seems to be listening to wht B and I tell him. It amazes me at times - the things he understands.

Yesterday we were watching the football and at half time I started cleaning up all the mess the little man had been making, packing his toys back into their baskets etc. As I was doing it I verbalised 'Time to pack up' 'Put your toys away' and similar things ;) and he suprised me by grabbing toys and putting them into the baskets! It was so cute actually and he was so proud of himself. I couldn't help but shower him with praise. He had the biggest smile on his face.

I'm really trying to keep things positive in our house, I try to only say 'No' when he is doing something that could be dangerous for him.

I also try and explain why I want him to do or not do different things, even though I don't know how much he understands. Like the other day when he was pulling all the MCN's (Modern Cloth Nappies) out of the basket. Even though it was frustrating to watch as they take aggggggggggggggggggges to put together, I tried to remain calm and asked him to stop and then explained why. B and I are really trying to let him explore and allow him to be naturally curious. Whenever he does something really well we give him the necessary praise and I think that this has helped especially recently with his eating and touching of finger foods.

No matter what though - This parenting thing is always a challenge no matter how cute your kid is
xx

Love

Love is a beautiful thing and this week I am grateful for the love I have in my life.

I'm Grateful for B - he is an amazing husband and father, I still smile when I see the way he interacts with the little man. He is so hands on with him, without me having to do a thing! He is and always has been a wonderful source of support for me through this journey of motherhood and I love him more each day. (soppy I know).

I'm grateful for each and every day I have had so far with the little man. I still am amazed at how much I can love a single human being. He has in 11 months taught me more than I ever thought possible. His smiles light up my days. His laughter melts my heart and his growing personality makes me so proud on a daily basis. I'm grateful for all that he teaches me about being a mum. He has definitely made me a better person :)

Lastly I am grateful for my family. I love how close we are. This week has showed me once again that when it comes down to it my family will be there to help me out - no matter how much they need to put themselves out. My sister, my brothers, my mum and dad would do anything for me and in turn my little man. With the illnesses and events we have had this year, the love in our family has proven to be strong. I love the way that we are always here for each other.

Love. So blessed to have a life full of it.
xx

Destructo-Man

He cannot walk - He cannot talk! But my oh my can he make a mess!


The little man is getting around the place faster and faster these days. Toys are apparently now obsolete for the most part. whacking and dropping remote controls, tissue ripping and pulling washing from clothes horses seem to be the most entertaining things to do so it would seem.

I've always had a thing about playpens. I guess it's one of those things that as a mother you either use or don't use. I don't really like the look of them - Whilst I can definitely see the merit in them (especially today....) it's just something that I've got a thing about. I have no idea if it stems from my childhood? (Note to self to ask parentals if we had one).

To say the little man dislikes tissues is an understatement. He throws a massive turd like tantrum dislikes it intensely it when you try to wipe his nose. So it makes me smile when he sees a tissue lying around or even the box of them and his eyes light up like it's Christmas. He looks at you cheekily and even if you say NO (which frankly seems to encourage him) and rips it to shreds. I'm not talking ripping in half, literally piece by piece ripped apart and thrown on the floor. It's like he thinks 'haha you can't get me with this one!'.

So constantly now I am having to monitor his every move. As soon as he is on the floor he either crawls to the TV cabinet pulls himself up and bangs it like a drum, finds tissues to destroy or chases his ball around the floor and when he sees the clothes horse pulls all the washing in his reach off. I don't love hanging washing out. But I really dislike hanging it out again and again and again. I do not like this game little man. It does make it fairly hard to get any facebooking/blogging housework done whilst he is awake.

Today I had a plan......We have a safety gate on his room so that Malibu and Roxy are deterred from entering. He loves playing in his room and I have babyproofed it all so he can only reach things that are safe for him. So I changed his nappy and left him in there to play while I hung a load of washing out.

This is when destructo-man came to visit.....

I walked back in and heard silence - Which ever parent knows means only one thing.... I'm doing something I shouldn't be doing.

This is the trail of destruction a 10 month old cause in less than 3 minutes :)

I wonder if he found what he was looking for?

Spot the baby :)

So all the toys were pulled off the shelf. Poor teddy got thrown around a bit! He obviously tried to find a book to read :) Pulled clothes and nappies out (not his MCN's thank god!) but the funniest part was that I actually had to look to find him! He was under the change table and he thought he was pretty funny yes? I love the fact that he knew he was being cheeky!

Ahhh that face makes my heart melt.
xx

Teeth - you are ruining my weekend

I hate teeth.

There are many reasons why - I guess it goes back to being a child and having to visit that smelly dental van that came to your primary school.
Then when I had a massive toothache in high school and had to get a root canal.
Then again when I went on Christmas holidays to Merimbula and had a toothache for 3 days, couldn't sleep, eat, or see a dentist as Christmas and boxing day were on the weekend so the Monday/Tuesday were public holidays... my oh my I still remember that pain.

But most of all I hate teeth because of the little man. I can't stand seeing him in pain. This would honestly be the worst part of parenting by far. Seeing your child in pain breaks your heart. EVERY TIME.
He is such a happy bub most of the time, and generally gets through teething fairly well (or he did last time). But this time he has been dealt a cruel blow. This time he is getting 4 top teeth. At once. This has been happening for about a week and a half now. Little man will be happily playing and then all of a sudden screaming in pain. It's horrible.

Yesterday was the worst. B has been away with work this week so it makes it even more difficult (Respect to the parents who do this alone 100% of the time) because I'm the only one who can get up and console him. Teeth don't really care that I only had 2 hours sleep. Nor do they care that after trying to console him for an hour and a half (think constant screaming) I had to break my no co-sleeping rule. They also don't care that my baby is almost 10 kilos and is hard to restrain/hold tightly and cuddle.

I don't think the little man has fallen asleep in my arms since he was a wee little thing. But yesterday after crying his eyes out he did - bless him.

Ignore boobs - look at his poor red eyes :(

We don't have much planned this weekend thankfully but I do want to take the little man to the footy as he was ill last time we were going to go. Maybe this is a sign he isn't a footy fan!

So hurry the heck up please teeth! cut through and then leave the little man alone.

xx

Eeerily quiet in here tonight....

Wow - so tonight is the first night our little man has slept away from us. It's so quiet in this house that it is scary ahaha.

My sister turns 21 tomorrow - and what did she want? A day with my little man :) Seriously I can understand that! He is tooooo cute. He usually spends tomorrow with my mum anyways so instead of her coming here to look after him he is staying the night there and my sister will bring him back tomorrow afternoon.

B and I are kind of lost without him. 8 months of putting our little man to sleep and going through our nightly routine it feels so strange not to have him in the house. B even emailed me from work today to say 'What are we going to do tonight? I  miss him already!'. I thought that was really cute!

So at work today people were asking what I was going to do with my night off and B got the same questions. So when we got home we decided to go out for dinner. Not because we wanted to really - just so as we'd have something to say when people ask tomorrow. How strange is that!

I cannot beleive how much stuff I had to pack for him for a one night stay! Food, clothes, bottles, bedding, bath stuff, nappies, toys..... it was like 4 bags worth!

So here I am feeling lonely in this big house and wondering... What do you do when your kids aren't around?
xx

Sunday bloody Sunday

I had some awesome plans for today.
B and I were going to take the little man to see his first AFL game and I was super excited about it. He has the cutest beanie and little Carlton jersey. Seriously looks so cute I could eat him (For those on FB - you probably know the pic I am referring too!)

But as you have probably guessed we didn't make it to the game. About 11:30 last night the little man awoke happy as larry. B was already asleep so I got him up did a quick change and put some teething gel on him (His FOUR top teeth are coming through) and was about to put him back down when..... KAPOW!!! He did his first ever projectile. Literally covered me :( I have photographic proof! The only good part about it was that I was wearing B's jumper :)

So we changed him and put him back to sleep and he slept perfectly until 7:30 this morning. B got him up so that I could have a sleep in. I heard the little man grizzling a little but I slept through somehow. Anyways I woke properly at around 10 and checked my phone to see two texts from B asking me to come and help. I came down to the lounge and saw my little man snuggled up asleep on B. Which would have been really cute except he was super sick.

So my beautifully planned trip to the footy was replaced with nursing, cuddling and trying to keep my gorgeous little mans temperature down. He had a few big sleeps and didn't go off his food/drink which was good but inevitably it was a long and exhausting day - As all of the parents reading this would know.

I would so much rather be 10 X sicker myself and just take away his pain - It's so horrible when they are so sick that they lose that spark from their eye :( Parenting at it's worst!
Thankfully he is much better tonight and I'm hoping that he continues to get better tomorrow.
So much for a fabulous long weekend!!!!!

Hope you are all having a better one!
xx

Brand New Blogger

Okay well here we are.

I have been following a couple of blogs for a while now and have decided to give it a go myself.

Newmumma - Yep thats me :) I became a mum in October - my bub is 3 weeks old now and continues to amaze me each day. Not only in his growth and development, but also my own. How much I have changed in the past three weeks! My thoughts, my needs, everything really has become about my baby.

I can't imagine my life without him, even on those sleepless nights when I would do anything for a wink of sleep, or even for him to stop crying, the amount of love I have for this tiny human being who has only been here for 3 weeks is amazing.

Do all new parents feel like this? I hope so!

xx