Did you spot it?
I got to stage five on my personal Richter scale of sleep deprivation again.
That poor, poor man who told Harriet to cheer up caught me on a bad day. (If you're in Cardiff and you happen to see a man dangling from a street lamp by his scrotum, please unhook him and apologise for me.)
Well, I've had a couple of nights of relatively good sleep and am back to feeling like I can cope with the mammoth task of caring for my baby.
One of the hardest things about the job is that you have nothing to show for a day of extremely hard graft: There is still washing hanging out to dry. There is still a little bit of washing up to be done. There is always at least one room in need of serious attention.
The frustrating thing is that it's fresh washing hanging there: yesterday's is neatly put away, and tomorrow's is in the wash. The same goes for the washing up. And that's fresh clutter making the room untidy, because as we go through our day we scarcely have the time to clear up after ourselves.
I used to sit down in the morning and write myself a list of things to do and I ticked them off one by one as I proceeded unimpeded through my chores. (Yes, yes, I'm very anal. I have been told.)
Now though, I have a list of things to do that I don't have time to write down, and I don't get to proceed unimpeded through it.
I get ticked off, but nothing on my list does.
I merely tread water. Frenetically.
None of that matters when I've had enough sleep though, because I know that I get to spend my days with Harriet. I'm just writing it so that anyone who has been to visit recently can see this tremendously lavish excuse for the state of my home.
Now that's done I can move on to Harriet's progress.
She knows her name now and responds when we call her, if she feels so inclined. It's very sweet. I think it helped that her dad and I stopped calling her, "Monkey".
Also, moving on from her development last week of hugging, she now kisses. Her dad got the first one. They are not tidy little pecks. Oh no. There's a lot of drool involved, which is further enhanced by her kissing with her mouth wide open. A wide-open mouth that she smears all over your face while grabbing at your ears. I'm pretty sure it's affectionate.
I think I'm getting better sleep thanks to the fact that Harriet now has three solid meals a day. She has pureed fruit for breakfast, vegetables or vegetables and meat for lunch, and the same for dinner.
She absolutely loves cottage pie. Whenever I offer her a spoonful of food she expects her favourite. If it's not, we have to go through an adjustment phase as she gets over her disappointment. If it is a cottage pie day she grumbles impatiently while I fill the spoon and makes yum yum noises while I spoon it in. As hard as I try, I can't get it to her quick enough.
I've been inventing games to help Harriet gain confidence on her feet. I hold her standing upright on the bed and after saying, "Ready, steady, go" I take my hands away and let her fall. She stands still for a second or two sometimes, before keeling over into the plumped-up duvet. Other times just the word "Ready" gets her too excited and she chuckles and collapses to the bed as soon as I let go.
I find it very hard to believe that Harriet will be five-months-old on Sunday. It has been the most intense / happy / exhausting time of my life and the part I struggle to believe is that I have got through it without losing any marbles.
I hope I'm saying the same in another five months.
Thank you for taking time out of your day to read this.
If you just clicked on the link to my blog and skipped to this bit, thanks for taking the time to do that, I suppose.
I got to stage five on my personal Richter scale of sleep deprivation again.
That poor, poor man who told Harriet to cheer up caught me on a bad day. (If you're in Cardiff and you happen to see a man dangling from a street lamp by his scrotum, please unhook him and apologise for me.)
Well, I've had a couple of nights of relatively good sleep and am back to feeling like I can cope with the mammoth task of caring for my baby.
One of the hardest things about the job is that you have nothing to show for a day of extremely hard graft: There is still washing hanging out to dry. There is still a little bit of washing up to be done. There is always at least one room in need of serious attention.
The frustrating thing is that it's fresh washing hanging there: yesterday's is neatly put away, and tomorrow's is in the wash. The same goes for the washing up. And that's fresh clutter making the room untidy, because as we go through our day we scarcely have the time to clear up after ourselves.
I used to sit down in the morning and write myself a list of things to do and I ticked them off one by one as I proceeded unimpeded through my chores. (Yes, yes, I'm very anal. I have been told.)
Now though, I have a list of things to do that I don't have time to write down, and I don't get to proceed unimpeded through it.
I get ticked off, but nothing on my list does.
I merely tread water. Frenetically.
None of that matters when I've had enough sleep though, because I know that I get to spend my days with Harriet. I'm just writing it so that anyone who has been to visit recently can see this tremendously lavish excuse for the state of my home.
Now that's done I can move on to Harriet's progress.
She knows her name now and responds when we call her, if she feels so inclined. It's very sweet. I think it helped that her dad and I stopped calling her, "Monkey".
Also, moving on from her development last week of hugging, she now kisses. Her dad got the first one. They are not tidy little pecks. Oh no. There's a lot of drool involved, which is further enhanced by her kissing with her mouth wide open. A wide-open mouth that she smears all over your face while grabbing at your ears. I'm pretty sure it's affectionate.
I think I'm getting better sleep thanks to the fact that Harriet now has three solid meals a day. She has pureed fruit for breakfast, vegetables or vegetables and meat for lunch, and the same for dinner.
She absolutely loves cottage pie. Whenever I offer her a spoonful of food she expects her favourite. If it's not, we have to go through an adjustment phase as she gets over her disappointment. If it is a cottage pie day she grumbles impatiently while I fill the spoon and makes yum yum noises while I spoon it in. As hard as I try, I can't get it to her quick enough.
I've been inventing games to help Harriet gain confidence on her feet. I hold her standing upright on the bed and after saying, "Ready, steady, go" I take my hands away and let her fall. She stands still for a second or two sometimes, before keeling over into the plumped-up duvet. Other times just the word "Ready" gets her too excited and she chuckles and collapses to the bed as soon as I let go.
I find it very hard to believe that Harriet will be five-months-old on Sunday. It has been the most intense / happy / exhausting time of my life and the part I struggle to believe is that I have got through it without losing any marbles.
I hope I'm saying the same in another five months.
Thank you for taking time out of your day to read this.
If you just clicked on the link to my blog and skipped to this bit, thanks for taking the time to do that, I suppose.
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