On Monday Joshua started crawling. Well, that is to say, he is mobile. Just. Whilst he is not yet quite able to get his substantial torso completely airborne, he can thrust himself gently forwards. So it is now time to start padding the bottom corners of the furniture, I guess. I have suggested, as an alternative, that we pad Joshua instead, like with a mini bicycle helmet. Needless to say, that idea has already been vetoed :-(). Mothers can be so precious.
At 16 weeks of age it was time for Joshua to see some of his relatives in QLD, so we booked seats on a flight up to the Gold Coast for a long weekend. Taking some natural refreshments on the way up and on the way down, he was by far the best-behaved child on the flight. I think he even slept for a while – and no screaming. With the ‘rehearsal flight’ under his belt, we are quietly confident that he will be able to handle a longer flight – but there are obviously no guarantees that he will be a dream on a long-haul flight. He was gold non-the-less. A very happy start to the holiday!
He enjoyed meeting his grandmother and on meeting her, proceeded to ‘chat’ with her for what seemed like 2 minutes. He had not done that with us. She was very pleased that he was so excited to meet her. They enjoyed early morning walks together and gave us a chance to catch up on some sleep.
Young Master Smith even attended his great-grandmothers’ 90th birthday and was handed around the rellies. He was so well behaved (not at all like his ‘it’s-only-mum-and-dad-around’ persona). He made good eye-contact and again, there were no histrionics. Below is a photo of him and Uncle Ed.
Joshua has gradually started to become his own person. Last week he laughed for the first time :-);
Dad’s perspective: What do you expect (before the birth)? Post-birth, and nearly 4 months on, I don’t think you can have too much appreciation of what it is really going to be like. Spending an hour (or more) trying (desperately) to get your bundle of joy to sleep is one thing. Enduring an hour of screams and wails at full volume is quite something else. Then to do that under the strain of ongoing sleep deprivation is almost akin to what you would expect to find in a spy novel.
Ignoring all that, though, you do get to experience their growing, developing, day by day.
Mum’s perspective: Now I know why they call it ‘Labour’. Josh is almost 4 months old and only now can I revisit that day. In hindsight I should have realised that this was a procedure associated with a mandatory hospital stay. You’re admitted to hospital to allow you access to health professionals 24/7. Given the shock to your system, I’m not surprised. But, I was unprepared – I was so caught up being pregnant, I found it hard to comprehend labour or the birth (pregnant women will understand this!). Of course, it was always going to be painful. And it was – the don’t call it LABOUR for nothing.
But… I’m getting ahead of myself. My memory of the events are getting hazy so here goes:
1. My ‘waters’ broke at about 2am on 4th July 2007 and after a phone call to the Royal Women’s Hospital, Carlton, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, I presented at the Emergency department. They confirmed that the membrane had ruptured and that little one’s B/day was imminent.
2. I was sent home to experience the joy of first stage labour, which is traditionally long and as I had no complications did not require any medical intervention. The contractions became progressively more intense coupled with shorter rest periods. When we reached the mandatory > 1 minute contraction/pain in less than 5 minutes we knew things were getting serious, so we were off to the hospital again.
3. According to my report first stage labour lasted just more than 4 hours, but they only record your progress from the time you present at the hospital. I think it was more like 8 hours. I started with ‘gas’ (Nitrous Oxide) and had a shot of Pethidine. For those of you who don’t know Pethidine is the only remaining ‘legal’ narcotic…. and it made no difference.
4. Second stage labour lasted 46 minutes too long. Joshua Robert Riley Smith was born at 00:21am on 5th July 2007. Dad cut the cord. Little one was placed on my chest straight away. Since I had no expectations of what the birth would be like, I just felt exhausted and a bit numb. I had a shower and was given something to eat before being transferred to the ward. Little one was placed on my breast and I assume he had a feed but I’m not sure.
5. Amazingly, they let us take him home.
Ok, you’ve got to start somewhere, sometime. It is Sunday night. Josh has finally gone to sleep (in our bed as usual).
He very rarely falls asleep on Dad’s shoulder, so we just had to take this photo (below). A surefire way to wake him up is to place him in his cot. He prefers the middle of our bed. We’ve decided to capitulate now and ‘camp out’ on the floor for the next few years. Why you ask would we do this???? The answer – Peace, peace, peace at last :-).
And we love him, so he has us wrapped around his very little finger(s). There is always something happening and he is changing (and developing) every week, every day even. When we look at ‘old’ photos, we can already see how much he has changed. He has now been on the outside 15 weeks now!