Conrad's great grandmothers

There are a lot of firsts with having a baby. First smile, first time they say mama, first faltering steps. First time you sit casually at a friend's place with one tit hanging out. First time in your life you ever left the house in tracksuit pants. First purchase of ugg boots. And, first time you are overjoyed to have an impromptu visit from your mother on a Sunday morning.

Your mother, bearing groceries and compassion, materialising on your doorstep while you, lonely and distraught, have been up since before dawn holding a baby you have absolutely no idea what to do with. The mamas who did it before you KNOW that what is needed in a newborn babe's household is patience, housework, meals, and a break for the shellshocked mother. 

I am so thankful for both Conrad's grandmas. During those first hellish eight weeks my mother often sat unmoving on the couch for hours on end, holding the baby while I went off to bed, allowing me the ONLY sleep of longer than an hour that I would get in that 24 hour period. My partner T's mother fed us dozens of curries, bakes and stews, plus her famous apple crumbles and anzac biscuits. And, of course, they both did dishes, scrubbed rubbish bins and sorted laundry without a word.

As grateful as I am, and I am REALLY grateful, it has been a shock to the system to, in my mid-thirties, have that much maternal facetime - and all the unsolicited advice and opinions that come with it. I didn't know that starting a family would mean seeing so much of my OWN family! Sitting in the loungeroom one afternoon, T and I made silent screaming faces at each other when we overheard, from the kitchen, grandmother 1 say to grandmother 2, "Now, what's your phone number, so we can stay in contact?".

Thankfully those ghastly early weeks are behind us, and we now have our independence back, but we still rely on both grandmas for babysitting, sometimes at the drop of a hat. They both absolutely love it , as they can immerse themselves in baby cuteness and take pride in their own flesh and blood (once removed), but they get to hand him back before exhaustion sets in. My mum is so smitten that she only has eyes for the baby - the other day I hadn't even got the screen door open before she was exclaiming through it, "Oh heLLO Conrad, aren't you BEAUtiful?!" Er, hi mum.

some people don't drink out of boobs.

Conrad has just noticed a particular thing his parents do: the drinking of liquids out of receptacles. Happily, this occurs many times a day around our place, so he has a lot of opportunities to s-t-a-r-e as we repeatedly lift a cylindrical object to our lips. His little head and wide wide eyes move slowly up and down in time with the teacup or coffee mug, over and over. 

He is especially transfixed by my drinking glasses of water, and no wonder - I had never noticed just how pretty they are, with their tiny bubbles spread over the inside of the glass, and beams of sunlight wavering through them. Sometimes I take teeny sips just to prolong the drink, and Conrad's fascination.

time!

Almost a week since I've found time to make an entry here, despite every day writing in my head. There really is so little spare time now, which shouldn't be new information, I know. Newsflash: babies make life busy!

Actually, I'm surprised to find that the actual baby care takes LESS time than I thought it would. Breastfeeding takes a quarter of an hour. Burping done in ten mins, changing a nappy in another ten minutes (except in case of pooplosion). Multiply that all by about six per day.

How much time I then choose to invest in actively communicating or playing with Conrad is up to me - and, I might add, the subject of earnest debate out there (philosophies include: shake toys in his face every waking moment lest his development suffer/ leave your child alone on his playmat so he can discover the world himself/ strap your baby to you and carry him everywhere so he learns about the world through your everyday actions while you wreck your back/ etc).

I think what makes the day pass so quickly, with so few opportunities to get much else done, is the interruptible nature of life now. Luckily I've always been a multitasker. As I have been writing this in the last ten minutes, I also have been making a risotto, tidying the kitchen, drinking a glass of wine, talking to my mum on the phone about babysitting tomorrow, and keeping an ear out for Conrad to wake up. So forgive me if my train of thought seems fractured. 

Perfect timing: Conrad just cried out and the risotto is done, so I now can dandle him on my lap while I eat with one hand and press "publish post" with the other!

one day, two firsts

Today I made the orange horse with the wobbly legs go galloping towards Conrad…. and for the first time he deliberately reached out with both hands and took it! Then, when I gave him his bath, I got the first ever real laugh out of him. What a day! I'm just tickled that the tiny blob we brought home from the birth centre is so quickly becoming this engaged, charming, purposeful little person.

Gothic terrors

Since my baby was born I've become terrified of the paranormal. I've always had a slight fear of the dark, of being alone in the house at night, of weird creaks, of doors that open themselves on windy evenings. At those times Sensible Caroline usually tells Wussy Caroline not to be so illogical, and finds a rational explanation for everything. But Sensible Caroline has lost her nerve lately, giving me chills as I sit breastfeeding in the cold, quiet dark of the house at two in the morning.

Sleep deprivation, cruelly combined with the anxiety of insomnia, allows my strained mind to run off on eerie tangents. My exhausted eyes hallucinate. 

It is a new thing for me even to be awake in the wee hours, let alone sitting topless and trapped in a loungechair, holding a helpless baby, the dearest thing to me in the whole world. I feel vulnerable, yet horribly aware that I am the protector.

I've never really liked the feel of this house, but now wild fantasies run through my mind of how exactly I would respond to the appearance of a phantasm (I plan a tough, "this is MY realm, not yours" type response) and I take the stairs with agonising slowness, in case I get an invisible shove in the back.

Changing Conrad is awful because it is the bathroom I hate most of all: it is icy cold, and there is something nasty going on with our plumbing, so that fetid smells come out of nowhere. My partner T accidentally locked me in there the other night and I nearly lost my mind during the five minutes it took for him to come back and let me out.

Madness, claustrophobia, darkness and foreboding - having a baby can be like living in a Gothic Novel.

soooo cuuuuute

Oh dear, I am like every other parent in history: I think my baby is way cuter than the average baby. No wonder that Johnson's baby competition had like fifty thousand entries or whatever it was - EVERYone thinks their baby is the cutest. 

I see other babies and I'm like, yeah, you're a bit funny looking really, then I look at Conrad, with his round blue eyes and his big pink lips and his 1950s advertising executive hairstyle, and, for the 20th time that day my heart does a leap and I gasp, "Oh my god! You are SOOO cute!" and plant a series of kisses on those juicy cheeks, which all makes him writhe and wince in a way that portends the scorn he will deliver upon me in a dozen years' time whenever I attempt to do something really embarrassing, such as speak to him.

Conrad finds a use for the things attached to his torso

Conrad has limbs! Who knew? Not Conrad. But now he is discovering them with glee. Since he was a few weeks old he has liked to stand up, bearing all his weight on his legs while I steadied him under his armpits. Apparently most babies don't do this until three or four months so I was happy about that. He likes to 'walk' too, putting one foot out in front of the other…. but he hasn't worked out that the feet need to alternate, so the same foot will get stepped out three times in a row, leaving the other one stuck way behind him, which puts me in stitches.

He's always loved kicking too, like any baby. But now his kicking has intensified, becoming really robust and, I think, deliberate. When he's lying on the change table he now kicks upwards, using his tummy muscles to hold both legs straight up in the air. He's also started kicking backwards, so that he propels himself a few centimetres up the table with his heels.

His legs are not the only limbs he's finding - in the last few weeks he's started holding on to objects with his hands. Mostly it's not deliberate: I just wrap his fingers around something and they stay there, so that he aimlessly waves whatever it is in the air without realising he's holding it. But deliberate is only a few days away. While out walking on Friday I looked in the pram to see he'd grabbed his dummy out of his mouth and was holding it with both hands, mouthing the hard part of it.

His fists are permanently in his mouth, and now other things are going in there too - my thumb that he was grasping, mobile phone, you name it. We have to start being careful that whatever he holds, we're happy with it ending up in his digestive system!