Cat's in the Cradle

I love music, but what I love more than music is the lyrics. The story they tell swallows me up and spits me out either smiling or in tears or sometimes leaves me determined, powerful, ready to make a stand. 

I have an amazing ability to store lyrics in my head. If only I realised when I did my exams that if I'd put my revision in to music I would've remembered the lot! 

I come from a musical family and I have had exposure to a wide range of tastes and flavours which has left me with my own eclectic music taste across many genres and generations. 

Seriously, anything from Neil Diamond, The Carpenters, to Brian Adams, to BonJovi, The Killers, Green Day, Paolo Nutini, Adele, to Trance, Psytrance, Hard House, Techno to....er...Gene Pitney! Yeah! I know but it reminds me of my mum and happy memories. That's what music does, evoke memories.

Then every once in a while, I realise I've been listening to a song, I know I like it and I've more than likely (anyone who knows me knows what I'm like) sung along but haven't actually 'listened' to the words. 

Well, this has been a long intro to say today I did just that. The song was 'Cats in the Cradle' by many artists, the original being Harry Chapin.

If you haven't heard it, first, make sure you go and listen now, and if you need persuading, this is what it is about.

A man has a baby but is so caught up with being busy with life and work he misses his son growing up. Not stopping to spend time and play with his son but his son doesn't mind or know any different and idolises his dad wanting to be like his dad when he grows up. Then, before the man knows it, his son has grown up and gone to college and has no time for his dad because he has his own life then when the dad has time and wants to spend it with his son, his son is too busy with his own family and own life. Life has come full circle and indeed the boy who wanted to grow up to be just like his dad has done just that.

This song really touched me today. 

How many times have the parents amongst us dismissed their child who wants to play this, read that, do whatever, just wants to spend time with us and yet we are too busy doing probably something that is nowhere near as important as we think it is at the time. All we do is complain about time going so fast and before we know it our little ones will be grown up and moving away and gone. 

My own Dad and I recently shared a conversation about what I do for a job. He said it was the first time he had had a proper conversation with me about what I actually do for a living and finally an opportunity to get to know me. I'm 34 and my Dad feels he has only just stopped to have that conversation. 

"I'm gonna be like him, yeah, You know I'm gonna be like him"

At One!

Just where did the last 12 months go? It’s Millie’s 1st Birthday tomorrow and I can’t quite believe it. I’m not really one to get too sentimental and emotional about such things but I must admit it has hit me more than it did Callum and makes me go ‘gulp’!

With Callum, I hurried his baby days along always pushing him towards the next milestone & looking forward to the next phase of Callum. I wasn’t a fan of the baby phase and longed for more interactive stages. Looking back I was more stressed about doing things correctly and not getting into bad habits. I guess so many people are with the first child.

However, this time with Millie, I’ve relaxed into it and gone with Millie’s lead. Because my attitude has been different, I’ve enjoyed the baby stage so much more. Although I can’t wait to see what Millie is going to learn to do next I still look back with nostalgia.

But enough of that, lets look at the now!

Millie is still very quick to dish out the smiles at all & sundry and most of the time she is quite easy going but she is beginning to get a bit more of a spirited personality. She has always known what she wants but now she can get stroppy if she doesn’t get her way. This is especially true when it comes to walking around while holding our hands. Should we dare to ignore her desperate grabs for our hands as they pass by because we are busy with something else, or we tire of activity after the 14th cycle of the downstairs of the house, while rubbing our sore backs, she will cry like you’ve just taken her bottle away after the first taste of milk! Like I say above, she knows what she wants and while walking her around….I say walking her around but what I really mean is while she is walking you around because you really don’t get much say of where she goes.

We’ve tried persuading her the walker is a good independent way to practice her walking skills. She has use of a few. One which she sits in which she likes at first but gets frustrated with its size as she gets stuck occasionally and prefers to run me or the cats over with it! We also have one of those VTech walkers, the ones where you have lots of buttons to press & a phone on the front then a handle at the back which they can use to push it around. Similar to this, we have Callum’s old wooden blocks trolley walker. If we try to get Millie to walk with either of these latter types she freezes and cries.

Millie loves to dance and I think she is going to be the more musical out our two children.

She can clap and she can wave and just within the last week she can pretend to talk on the phone. Not that she says any recognisable words as yet but she holds it to her ear and babbles into it.

Millie now has 4 definite teeth and a 5th one has just broken through the gum and I believe there are a couple more that will be close behind.

She is rather speedy at the bum shuffling now and can be guaranteed to make a beeline for the top of the stairs giving Stuart and I many a heart attack as we don’t have a stairgate and she refuses to go down backwards! Think it is time to accept we need a stairgate with this one!

Mille still loves lights like many young babies do – we have several lights with dangly things on (crystals on the downstairs ones, stars on Callum’s light and butterflies on hers) and she looks up at them and makes a herrrr noise (like when you breathe on a window) to indicate she wants you to blow them to make them move and she’ll smile and giggle when you do.

Like Callum was at this age, it feels like she is on the verge of learning so many new things.

It’s hard to imagine that over the next year she’ll be walking and talking and moving from baby to becoming a proper toddling little girl.

Here’s a little montage of her past year:

		Millie's First Year VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

I think I must’ve blinked…could we do that again? Ha! Nah! No chance! Trot onwards please! Eyes forward!

My Babies–General Update

 

Callum

I’m going to start with Callum as I’m just so excited to tell you about his swimming. I’m so very proud of him. He is moving up from Pre-School Level 2 swimming to Pre-School Level 3. He has got a certificate and his very first swimming badge!

To achieve this award, Callum had to be able to do the following:

• Jump unaided but supervised into the water
• Submerge completely
• Rotate through 360 degrees either horizontally or vertically
• Show a mushroom or star float
• Travel 10 meters on the front or back without assistance
• Climb out of the water with assistance if needed
• Buoyancy aids may have been used during the completion of this award

To many this may not be anything special but to me it’s amazing.

My own memories of swimming lessons at school (age 7-11) were messing around playing ‘don’t touch the floor or the crocodiles will get you’; dodgy pink flowery (granny) swimming hats if you made the mistake of forgetting yours; and cheating for my 50 meter badge by walking on the bottom of the pool then splashing my leg up every once in a while. There was also the occasional visit to our local leisure centre on a Sunday with my parents where my dad tried to teach me to dive, starting with the pixie dive. I regret not putting more into my swimming as I’m really not a very strong swimmer and I don’t have a great deal of confidence. I can hold my own in the pool but my front crawl resembles a shark attack and the most lengths of a pool (which was about half the size of an olympic pool) I’ve managed is 24 and I was extremely proud of myself!!!

To put it into context as to what this certificate actually means to Callum’s swimming ability – he is a long way off being able to swim confidently without buoyancy aids, though he can do about 2-3 meters on his own but he has so much confidence in the water and I hope that in turn will be a benefit to his confidence overall when he starts school, being as he is usually show shy and intimidated in big groups of people.

Millie

Now for Millie’s turn!

Basically, she is still gorgeous! She hasn’t rolled much more, from front to back (finding the right time when she isn’t going to puke just after a bottle but still has enough energy before naptime is a challenge!) and she hasn’t mastered back to front yet but she is often really close. She loves her feet which hold her attention much longer than any toy. Her grab & hold is also improving.

But better than all of this is that we have had a couple of sleep throughs – well from about 10.30pm until 7am or 11.30pm until 7am or 6.30pm until 4.30am (although there was a dummy replacement). Its all definitely moving back in the right direction. We actually had about 4 consecutive nights of what I would call a sleep through (admittedly not 7-7 but where I got some good solid sleep) then she went back to waking every 4 hours again which was a killer. Having given me a taste of what she could do, she then took it away. But I put this down to her experimenting with how much milk she needed during the day to get through the night. At the same time as she was sleeping through, she naturally started going 4 hours between feeds during the day and started consuming more milk at each feed but then she reverted back to feeding every 3 hours. Then, the 2 previous nights (excluding last night) she had much better nights again with the 11.30pm to 7am being the night before last. Unfortunately, last night we were at a family party and stayed at a hotel so her sleep was all over the place but that’s the first time away from home since she has been out of the moses basket. She had to spend a large part of the night in her buggy in the corner of a room where there was (loudish) live singing taking place – in fact she was awake for 2 hours just staring around the inside of her buggy but she didn’t complain and didn’t want milk. Eventually when she just wasn’t going to sleep, I took her out for a little dance and for the relatives to all coo over her before putting her back in the pushchair at the end of the night just before we were leaving when she went straight back off to sleep! When we got back to the hotel, she didn’t settle well straight away and then woke after 4 hours. Hopefully, though, this was all down to the new environment and tonight will be much better again.

Its beginning to look a lot like Christmas!

Its getting to that time of year again. Christmas! I blogged about my thoughts on Christmas over on t’other blog which is here if you want to read it.

Like the majority of children that celebrate this time of year, I loved Christmas growing up. When my siblings and I were kids the excitement started on Christmas Eves when we would have a bath and get dressed in our brand new Christmas ‘jimjams’, eat our chocolate money in front of the Christmas tree while my Mum took her annual catalogue of photos for the Christmas album.

Then we used to go to bed nice and early (had to be before midnight or Father Christmas wouldn’t come) and lay there willing ourselves to sleep so he wouldn’t pass our house by but the excitement being all too much.

On Christmas morning, it would be a competition to see which of my brother, sister or I could wake up first and whoever it was would run into the others’ bedrooms shouting “he’s been, he’s been” wielding our stockings. It used to really annoy me that I could never wake up first and my brother or sister always used to win until the year, I finally woke up first…but because my brother and sister are 7.5 and 8.5 years older than me, respectively, by this stage they were well into their teenage years and used to start the ‘cheer’ on Christmas eve and lay in as long as possible on Christmas morning. So there’s me running in to wake them up and they weren’t bothered any more and shooed me away!

Then, as we all grew up and moved away from home, Christmas lost a bit of its magic for me. Instead of sharing it with my family I chose to share it with my friends and/or my boyfriend for a few years.

But now that magic is back – now that we have our own children. Especially this year, as Callum will be 4. Christmas meant something to Callum last year, he got the excitement and Father Christmas but this year is even better because he remembers last year and knows what is about to happen again. On top of that, he has a baby sister to share it with – not that Millie will have a clue what is going on or will remember for next year.

We have already taken Callum to see Father Christmas. We took him to see him at Stewarts Garden Centre in Somerford, Christchurch, yesterday. It was the first year that Callum hasn’t been scared of him. He was a little shy but he stood there on his own in front of Father Christmas (we were about 2 ft away in the room with him) and nodded to all of his questions. He happily went to sit next to him for a photo and said “and then you’ll come to my house” as we were leaving. He voluntarily spoke to Father Christmas! This is huge! Callum was absolutely thrilled with his helicopter present too!

Aside from the bar humbugness of the Christmas shopping (which I’ve very nearly finished thankfully) and the fear of whether I am going to survive cooking Christmas dinner for 11 (6 adults, 2 older children and 3 younger children), I can’t wait for Christmas day and seeing Callum’s excited eyes once he has seen Father Christmas has been, eaten his mince pie and drunk his Baileys (yes, Baileys in this house!!) and filled his and Millie’s stocking full!