Grace is going out in the car more frequently now and seems to enjoy it. After chatting or playing she tends to calmly put herself to sleep. In line with this, she has also started to complain more if Al tries to rock her to sleep while walking around with her in her arms. Instead she prefers to be sitting on Al’s lap, watching TV, and putting herself to sleep when she is ready.

Al is now carefully watching for Grace’s tired signs, and is then putting her down in the cot before she actually drops off. Surprisingly, and with only minor complaint, Grace is then regularly just dropping off to sleep.

Early days, but so far this has been a pleasant change.

Posted by Doug at 10:43 PM

Grace has just turned 6 months so it is high time I put in an entry.

Life continues to be flying by at a rapid rate. We have had a busy couple months with kid’s parties on many weekends. We managed a trip to Ballarat to catch up with Doug's family for a 30th celebration. While there Jack loved playing at a park with his cousins and extended family. Grace and I have also made it down to Geelong. I enjoyed the chance for my first 'Grace-free' lunch with my sister while Grandma Q and Pa looked after her.

Grace has continued to keep me busy with appointments. After her 4 month checkup I was sent first to the GP, then the pediatrician. The pediatrician then sent Grace for urine tests and a kidney ultrasound. After a urine infection was detected and cleared up with antibiotics, and some various creams to fix up other issues, she is hopefully back to good health. She has mostly taken all the appointments and the infection in her stride. I have also finally taken the time to get my teeth x-rayed and 4 fillings done (after about 9 years absence from dentist visits other than cracked tooth while pregnant with Grace). Thankfully Jack didn't need any further work at his 6 month checkup.

Grace started her first term of Gymbaroo. She has enjoyed watching the other babies, and participating in exercises. She laughs when bounced on the trampoline, and seems to enjoy going up and down the slides. We still make it along to story time at the library with the mother's group most weeks. Grace and I have also managed to get along to watch Jack swimming semi-regularly this term. I have also enjoyed the couple times we have made it to his Gymbaroo. Doug has kept Grace occupied while I have had the chance to participate with Jack.

Jack had a hard couple months of constant tantrums and difficult behaviour a while back. Thankfully he seems to have passed this phase, and while he still has his days and plenty of moments of tantrums and tears, he has been much better overall. Yesterday was one of his best days yet as far as playing by himself. This timed nicely for us all to have a happy father’s day at home.

Summary of Grace at 6 months

. Has spent most of the past month 'aeroplaning' with her arms out when on her tummy. In the past week has started to put her arms down more and get her chest up off the ground

. She is starting to try to push herself forward on her tummy, digging the feet in. With a bit of help she can move a metre or so forward to reach toys

. She handled the transition to sleeping in her cot with ease, and seems more comfortable in there. At night I now mostly just sit down in front of the TV with her wrapped up in my lap, and she puts herself to sleep. In past few days I have started putting her directly in her cot for day sleeps. Sometimes she goes straight down, other times it takes a few minutes of whinging but then she goes down. If I have got the timing wrong and she isn't yet ready for sleep she protests loudly and lets me know about it. It generally helps if I walk her around upright wrapped up looking around at things for few minutes before putting her in the cot to give her some quiet wind down time.

. Grace has handled the introduction to solids well. She wasn't overly keen on the original rice cereal but is currently enjoying the pear and banana rice cereal for breakfast. She wasn't that enthused about vegetables only eating a couple of teaspoonfuls. However fruit has been much more interesting and she is eating a couple of tablespoons. So at times we start with vegetables then top up with fruit, and other times just have fruit.

. She went from only waking once a night or sleeping through to suddenly waking 3 times a night for feeds at 5 months which gave me the indication I was waiting for that she was ready for solids. After a week of the rice cereal, I moved her to 2 meals a day, and then a couple weeks later to 3 meals a day. She does seem to sleep better on the nights she gets more solids into her than the days she doesn't eat much.

. She is often still waking for a feed about 10-11 at night, and sometimes another one around 2-3am. Most mornings she is awake after a feed at about 5-6am. She usually still has 3 sleeps a day which usually involves 1 sleep of about an hour and a couple shorter (20-45 min) sleeps. Occasionally she is having 2 longer day sleeps instead.

. Grace has really found her laugh. She seems to find plenty of things amusing at this age such as peek-a-boo games. She delights in company and smiles happily at most people she encounters, and laughs at some people. It is a good age to go out and about with her as she enjoys looking at new people and places

. She enjoys time in her portacot and watches through entire episodes of her baby videos without complaint

. On her back, she delights in lifting her feet up and banging them down on the ground

. Grace is having fun in the big bath with her mum and big brother. She kicks her legs enthusiastically and grins and laughs at her brother. She also has showers with me most days. She was rather tense to start with but is starting to relax more. She is hard to hold as she leans over peering at the water going down the plug hole.

. Grace loves sucking on her toes. She also enjoys doing her baby exercises.

. While she has a temper and will quickly let you know if you aren't doing what she wants, generally she is a delightful, happy little girl at this age and doesn't spend much time crying.

Jack at 49 months

. Is enjoying playing games such as snakes and ladders, Toy Story Board Game and dominoes. I am enjoying playing these with him.

. Has recently started saying '2 plus 2 equals 4', '4 plus 2 equals 6', although sometimes gets it wrong. He is also asking questions such as 'what is 100 plus 100'?

. Is enthused to be learning Italian at childcare. He comes home and tells us words he has learnt. Sometimes they sound like made up words but when we have checked the translator he is correct. At other times he is making up words and telling us they are Italian. I have just signed up for an online Italian course to participate in this learning with Jack.

. Is starting to tell lies, such as blaming 'invisible people' for doing things he has done

. Is enthused to have a TV upstairs, and this is helping him play there by himself more

. Has understood the concept of staying in bed till 6:30 since getting him a new clock recently

. Has mastered somersaults at Gymbaroo

Posted by Al at 4:19 PM

The process of putting Grace down continues to work well. She soon lets us know if she doesn't want to be in the cot; otherwise she puts herself off to sleep with minimum fuss. It is such contrast to Jack at that age, who would never accept being put down to sleep by himself.

Yesterday when we picked Jack from childcare his favorite carer remarked that he had had a good day, but had been sad for some of the afternoon. She had asked why, but he wouldn’t say. In the car on the way home, Jack soon volunteered that some of the other kids had laughed as his new T-Shirt. It had a pirate symbol on the front of it which Jack had thought was cool and was quite excited about. I assume he made some remark on it accompanied with a pirate stance (which he had been doing at home), but hadn’t got the response he was expecting. He told us “laughing at a cool t-shirt is not nice”.

I’m not sure what we can do to help Jack be able to cope better and be more resilient about such things. He is just a really sensitive kid, who wears his heart on his sleeve. That flags him as an easy target. What do you say? “Listen Jack, other kids will often attack anything you like or feel is important – so keep your feelings to yourself, don’t give them opportunities to upset you, and be more emotionally dead…” Of course you can’t.

Al recounted the reasons to the carer this morning. In the ensuring conversation the career remarked that Jack was really gentle and friendly, and that the other kids liked him. We just need to work out how to turn him into a more durable nice guy.

I was in the office today for my once a fortnight visit. I had the place to myself again – which is a somewhat surreal experience. I picked up Jack from childcare on the way home. Walking into the house Grace saw Jack, got a huge beaming smile, and let out several loud squeals of delight. She then looked at me with a big smile, then back again to Jack with another squeal. It was really lovely to see.

Posted by Doug at 10:27 PM

I forgot to say – but I think Jack got his first kiss from a female admirer. Last week Mia again made a point of siding up next to Jack at every opportunity, patted him, gave him a hug, and at one point seemed to plant a kiss on his check. I asked Jack about it later, but he just frowned and told me she hadn’t.

I also forgot about an interesting situation at swimming. Jack hasn’t progressed out of his current swimming group for some time. He still struggles finding the confidence to jump in from the edge, and he has little confidence treading water – soon panicking and floundering if he feels an instructor is not very close.

Last lesson there was only one instructor, and when the call was made to move away from the wall and tread water the other students ended up between the teacher and Jack. So he ended up treading water close to the edge of the pool. He did the best job he had ever done – simply because he knew he could grab the edge if he needed it. At one point the action of treading water moved him into the wall, and he just pushed himself off and kept going.

It was just such a stark example about how much his fear and lack of confidence holds him back. He is entirely capable, but just won’t (or can’t) push himself through the panic without having a security blanket being very close at hand.

Posted by Doug at 10:44 PM

The last couple days have been odd. We all have colds – Grace’s being the first one of any real note she has had, and she is not happy. As Grace isn’t sleeping well, Al is suffering the effects of sleep deprivation. Jack has been on edge, and even wet himself yesterday in the car (although after a bizarre chain of events that makes it understandable). Scheduled activities have fallen through, or turned out to be not scheduled after all, and finally I put my back out yesterday and couldn’t do anything that required me to bend, stand up, sit down, or lift anything.

Today we have Gymbaroo, a Doctor’s appointment for Grace and a second Physio appointment for me, so Grandma Q is coming down to hopefully help make things go smoothly.

At least we still have our humor. Each time I moaned loudly or struggling to move yesterday Al would laugh uproariously. She assured me it was just her stressed / nervous laughter…

Posted by Doug at 9:21 AM

My parents visited this weekend. Jack was pretty demanding on having his Grandma C’s undivided attention, but it all seemed to work out in the end.

Grace, Jack and Al continue to be impacted by their respective colds. My back is still very sore, and if I don’t keep up with the anti-inflammatories, heat pack, extra showers and rest I soon find myself suffering the consequences.

The oddity has also continued, this time finding a large screw in one of Al’s tyres yesterday, and having to get my Dad to put the spare on this morning because I am still not allowed to lift anything.

Things do not seem to be going quite to plan at the moment.

Posted by Doug at 10:11 PM

Jack wet his bed this morning – apparently deliberately. He had been sent back to his room several times for being up too early, and seems to have done it to punish us. We were rather suspicious given we knew he was awake, the position and size of the wee patch (which took out his pillow), and his explanations. It just adds to the bizarreness of the last few days.

I forgot to mention that over the last week Grace seems to have gotten the knack of rolling too and off her stomach. This morning she managed to navigate a small obstacle course of toys and play equipment with rolls, twists and squirms to reach a particular toy she was focused on. When she arrived she let out some loud yells which appeared to be congratulating herself on her success.

It does mean we can no longer leave her unattended on the floor, and must be extra diligent on which toys Jack leaves laying around.

The back remains very uncomfortable. Al scolds me if I even look sideways at a task which might aggrevate things further.

Posted by Doug at 7:49 AM

I had my third physio appointment yesterday. The physio is a sadist, who gleefully pushed, prodded and kneaded every painful spot she could find, and then said with delight that we would really start on the painful stuff next session. I’m still in a quite a lot of discomfort and needing to be very careful about how I move, but there does seem to have been an improvement since the visit.

We have noticed Grace now seems to call for us – when she has been left alone for a while, or after she wakes up. If you call back you can have a short conversation of noise with her - until she gets fed up waiting for you to appear anyway.

Posted by Doug at 1:03 PM

Jack wet himself again – this time while out at a one year old birthday party. We asked him multiple times at the party if he needed to go to the toilet, and he firmly said no. Somewhere in amongst all that he quietly wet himself anyway, and didn’t say anything until we got home and found his shoes sopping wet.

I think it was the fourth time he deliberately wet himself in the last couple weeks, and it left both Al and I rather angry. This behaviour has coincided with Jack being extra rude and naughty around home again. His lying has also been particularly bad. We have been sending him to the naughty corner and his room far more often than usual, and he has thrown several full on, over the top screaming tantrums.

It gets really frustrating.

Basically Jack spent almost all of the party in quiet corners playing by himself with a sad look on his face. He refused to join in the organised activities, I don’t think he ate or drank anything, and he said no to every offer or question put to him. He must also have been very uncomfortable once he had wet himself.

I know we are meant to keep exposing him to these types of experiences to help him with his anxieties, and I know we can’t force him to eat or be involved while there, but frankly experiences like today would only be making things worse.

Posted by Doug at 5:35 PM

Jack had a few minor tantrums, but otherwise had an excellent day. Where possible we try to make Sunday a relaxed home day, and Jack seems to have taken to this idea. He is often calmer and happier, and more ready to play by himself.

Posted by Doug at 10:31 PM