It was a more relaxed day – with Grace sleeping most of it and seemingly over the worst of her stomach aches. The maternal health nurse visited, and found Grace is back up over her birth weight and doing well.

We are paying for the calm day now however. I am currently listening to Grace screaming her head off as Grandma C tries to settle her. Grace has been up for 2 hours, is over tired and seemingly desperate for a feed that she doesn’t need and is at least an hour away from. It is already rather hard for anyone other than Al to settle Grace when she gets so worked up – she knows who her mum is. This time however Al has had to go to bed to get some sleep.

My mum seems to think Grace’s cry isn’t too bad – but I often find it especially grating. She cries with such force that she makes her bellybutton weep and soils her nappy. I wonder if babies can give themselves haemorrhoids.

Posted by Doug at 10:00 PM

Grace swallow’s copious volumes of air during her screaming sessions. Tonight she would suddenly fart several times in quick succession, belch loudly on the verge of vomiting, and with some of the excess air expelled, fall instantly into an exhausted sleep. A few minutes later her eyes would flutter open and she would start up again at full force.

A hastily convened conference came to the conclusion we were not going to be able to settle her, so after checking with Al we broke out the dummies. The shield on the first we tried was a little too big, but the second worked better. Grace knew she is being duped by the dummy, but was quiet for 15 minutes while sucking on it furiously. Then she got a bad case of the hiccups that she tried to ignore, but in the end she couldn’t keep the dummy in. Queue her crying starting to ramp up again.

Further distraction, a nappy change, a little more dummy, and we were able to hand her over to Al for a feed only 30 minutes early. After such a long and strenuous effort, we hope she falls now gets some good sleep.

Posted by Doug at 11:00 PM

After last night’s session, Grace fed, slept well, fed, slept well, fed, and slept for a while before waking up cranky again mid morning. I remember saying Jack would give us about 2 seconds warning before exploding – Grace seems to go into that state instantly.

This time the dummy only made matter worse, so we had to resort (for the first time) to tucking her up in the pram and walking around the suburb in the weather. This kept her quiet until we got home, then we passed her over to her Mum.

There seem to be two common triggers for these episodes. The first is if she falls asleep on the breast, she is extremely unhappy to wake up and find herself anywhere else. The second is that she seems to expect to wake up and be fed, regardless if she is hungry or not, or how long ago it was that she was feed last. Failure to meet this expectation quickly results in angry Grace.

Of course I mustn’t forget that for the majority of time Grace is not crying. She is responding well to our voices and presence, is able to lift and hold her head for periods of time, really loves nudie time on the change table, and getting massages and stretches.

Posted by Doug at 11:08 AM

Grace slept well last night, and I didn’t notice any long screaming sessions today. That may relate to Al moving more towards demand feeding (within boundaries), and the fact she spent almost all the day with her, settling her when required. Both changes did however leave Al extra tired.

Grace has been an incredibly noisy sleeper so far. She grunts, groans, snorts and moans almost constantly. She can also be like that during feeds, especially while being burped. I wonder how long it will last, or if she will always be noisy like that.

She seems very alert during her waking times – is follow movement, looking at faces, and reacting to sound. To Grandma C’s surprise she was obviously seeing the mobile above the change table, so she is seeing further out than we would have expected.

Her head control is also surprisingly good. In particular when being burped, Grace can hold her head up looking around for quite a while, or tuck it lovingly into the crook of Al’s neck.

Jack had a doctor’s appointment today. Yesterday at Childcare he woke up after the midday nap with a red eye and a slight amount of discharge around it. They were concerned it might be conjunctivitis. We thought it looked more like something was aggravating it, which the doctor also thought today. He is getting saline dripped into it every few hours, a process he isn’t entirely happy about, but goes through with it anyway.

Posted by Doug at 10:09 PM

Jack has managed to keep a pull up nappy dry for his entire day at childcare yesterday and again today. He isn’t quite so diligent at home, but is managing (with our prompting) to go to the potty before soiling his nappy more often than not.

We are relieved to have seen continued (be it slow) progress. We had feared we wouldn’t have been able to focus on his toilet training with Grace’s arrival, but both Grandmothers’ during their respective visits helped keep on top of it.

Posted by Doug at 10:05 PM

It has been a strange day.

Early on Grace was getting some quiet time on our bed, and Jack crawled over to her and set his face close to hers. Grace looked back at him, and then knocked his face with her little fist. Jack rolled away with exaggerated force saying that Grace had hit him – before rolling back and positioning his face for another go. To my surprise Grace did it again, this time I would say more deliberately. This game went on for quite a while, with Jack having a ball, and Grace’s perpetual frown being replaced by a look of intrigue, and towards the end the first hints of an actual genuine smile from her. It was quite a touching moment.

I had a productive day. I got up early to do the pre-cleaner clean, and took Jack to swimming and on to childcare. After getting home I did my half day of work, made lunch, took the opportunity to have an afternoon nap with Al and Grace, and did some clothes washing. I then picked up Jack, went to the supermarket, the chemist, and finally mowed the lawns. Grace had her moments, but all told she and Al were having a pretty good day. We were on top of things, and everything was calm.

Then Grace went through one of her antsy periods at the same time as Jack had an over tired meltdown, his first real one in a while…

Jack got metaphorically slammed (again) – told by both parents in the harshest of tones to stop his crying and complaining and to shut up. Threats of naughty corner and going straight to bed were thrown at him, and as he thrashed about out of control and utterly upset, Jack inadvertently threw himself off the couch, landing heavily on his lower back and leaving what looks like will be a large bruise. At that point I picked him up, told him (ridiculously) that he was an utterly stupid fool to do that, and carried him upstairs to give him a bath.

Grace actually calmed down for a short period during all of this, looking around with some interest at all the commotion.

It was yet another totally failed parenting moment. Jack and I managed to calm ourselves down, but I could see he was still really affected. At one point when I was filling the bath, he was sitting undressed with a towel wrapped around him. He was growling at the towel in a guttural and forced tone, saying “naughty towel, you do not listen”, over and over – getting himself upset before I interrupted him. He was literally starting to shake – seemingly reliving the clash from earlier.

At the same time Grace was soon back to crying and needing to be walked around - which was running Al ragged. So I put Grace in the pram and pushed her around the block, while Al managed to do the bedtime routine with Jack and end the night with him on a better note.

Grace dozed in the pram, but started crying as soon as I handed her back to Al. Al has then worked hard ever since, carrying Grace constantly to keep on top of her crying. This has left Al frazzled, tired and upset – although she did finally get to sit on the couch with Grace in arm, propped up with cushions, and watch some of her backlog of recorded TV shows.

I feel particularly horrible for poor Jack, who is on the receiving end of parents who are more tired and stressed than usual, and who are short and impatient with him. Every time he tries to express his emotions we are jumping down his throat, telling him to be quiet and to shut up. Afterwards he tries to make it up to us by being extra good – which is totally unfair, since he really has done nothing wrong.

We are coping at the moment – but just not as well as we would like. This evening was a reminder of just how thin that line is between sinking and swimming.

Posted by Doug at 11:04 PM

After her antsy period, Grace ended up sleeping well over the rest of the night. Unlike Jack at the same age, if Grace is relaxed and obviously ready for sleep, you can actually put her down and she will often nod off in her own time. The problem is when she is obviously tired but not ready for sleep! (That is when Al ends up having to carry her constantly.)

This morning Jack came into our room upset. It took Al a while to work out what was wrong – but apparently he had been dreaming about a big blue bike, and was upset to wake up and find it wasn’t there.

I started back at work on Tuesday. The transition hasn’t been without a few bumps and scrapes, but overall it has gone better than expected. Having to deal with both Grace and Jack is a lot more stressful for Al, although for the most part Jack has been pretty good. I think most of the problems so far relate to Al and me getting too flustered when we hit a hiccup. If we concentrated on being calm and relaxed, we’d be doing a better job of it.

Posted by Doug at 10:20 AM

One of the better days so far. We went out as a full family for the first time – a walk with the pram down to the local shops, which were running their annual community event with sideshow rides, police cars, fire engines, displays etc.

Grace has continued to play with Jack – an interaction he now calls “the punching game”. Aside deliberately touching Jack, she has also started to knock down skittles. This seems to be some 3 weeks earlier than we remember Jack doing it, and she seems somewhat more coordinated. Today she even seemed to be deliberately trying to vocalise towards Jack. We need to keep a close eye on such interactions however - as they very quickly seem to over stimulate and upset her.

Equally astounding to us is just how worked up she gets when she cries forcefully. Within literally seconds her temperature skyrockets and she sweats buckets. Twice after short crying session’s today we had to change her jumpsuit as it ended up being too wet under her shoulders and back. We don’t remember Jack being like that.

Posted by Doug at 11:55 PM

Another good day. One of my sisters visited with her family. Jack played independently with his cousins all afternoon, with very few problems and a lot of laughter and fun.

Posted by Doug at 6:52 PM

Today has not been so good.

Grace went from first light through to 3pm without properly going down for a sleep, insisting on being held and walked around almost the entire time. This left Al exhausted. Thankfully giving Grace a bath seemed to do the trick, and she has finally gone down now. Al has also taken the opportunity to sleep.

Posted by Doug at 4:04 PM

Another not so good day - Al hasn’t been able to put Grace down since around 3pm.

It might be gas keeping her uncomfortable – but it is hard for us to judge for sure. When she is put down, even if looking to be in deep and comfortable sleep, she awakes and screams so quickly and so hard she gives herself gas as she gulps down huge volumes of air.

The last couple days seem to have been extra hard on Jack. He is missing his mum and asking for her constantly. When she has been available, she has often been tired, stressed, short with him and flustered. Then Grace cries again and she disappears once more.

Again Jack seems to direct his blame for this towards me. He has gone back to regularly mentioning how he loves his Mum and Grace, but not his Dad. The fact he is constantly volunteering this to all and sundry is not easy to hear.

As expected, I am having to spend a fair bit more one on one time with him. I wasn’t particularly looking forward to this. While that sounds horrible to say – I simply don’t have the patience that Al does when it comes to his overly pedantic way of playing. I could see myself getting annoyed with it, clashing more with Jack, and seeing the quality of our relationship deteriorate. It hasn't however turned out that way so far. We have instead done more activites together - from shopping and gardening, to visiting a nearby construction site to watch the progress being made. The result has been some great time together - and not the sort of conflict I was worrying about.

Given that - the “I don’t love Dad” comments have been particularly disappointing.

Posted by Doug at 11:09 PM