The Hughes Zoo

21 June 2006

Jeremy’s 2 weeks old!

I can’t believe it’s been 2 weeks already Ben and I have fallen into the groove of parenting; nappy changes, burping and feeding are just part of our day. We both went to sleep (for the first time since I got home) before midnight last night… but we’re so used to only getting max of 5 hours sleep that we were wide awake by 4.30 this morning.

Jeremy’s doing well. He’s getting quite clever with his motor skills and can lift his head up and turn it from side-to-side unassisted. He smiles almost all the time (I don’t care what anyone says about babies not smiling until the magic 6 week mark) and knows what kisses are all about.

30 June 2006

Three weeks & one day old

I was born Hughes of Angela, ID number 311262. But my Mum and Dad decided to ditch that and called me Jeremy.

In 3 short weeks I’ve successfully taken over my parents lives; they do everything for ME. I recognise their job is difficult and have rewarded them with the following:

- I smile whenever they sing to me, talk to me or pull faces at me
- I hold my head up to have a good look at the world while they hold me at a very suitable (shoulder) height
- I randomly throw my head around and headbutt my Mum in the mouth to give her fat lips (Dad’s missed all my attempts so far)
- I kick them in the stomach whenever they aren’t holding me at a very suitable (shoulder) height
- I focus on objects (possibly called toys) to relieve myself of the boredom related with nappy changes
- I turn my head from side to side while practicing my tummy position for Phase 2 of my development (heard it has something to do with crawling)

And to alleviate them of any issues with boredom and I allow them to feed, change and burp me at least 6 (and sometimes 10) times a day

With just a few more weeks practice I’ll be able take over the world in my yellow jumpsuit.

5 July 2006

One month old

How can one month go so quickly? My mind is still reeling thinking about it!

Not sure whether the month occurs today (being Wednesday) or the 7th but these details don’t much matter in the scheme of things.

He experienced his first tram ride on Tuesday. Everything went well until the last 5 minutes of our return journey when Jeremy decided he wanted to be fed. Of course, breast feeding on a tram is not a typically accepted practice (nor one I’ll ever be comfortable doing) so our fellow journeymen (women and children) enjoyed the whimpering cries of our hungry baby - the crazy thing is, they really did seem to enjoy it! All the while my parenting skills were on up for scrutiny: I can’t think of a time I’ve been more worried about the thoughts of others… picture it… tram movements rocking/throwing the baby all over the place, baby prepared to do anything for food, mother trying everything possible to console and 50 or so eyes watching every move made.

That aside, Jeremy is doing really well and we are so proud of him. He talks to his toys now. We heard Jeremy make coos (for the first time) at his red elephant mobile on Sunday night - such a touching and special sound. It bought instant smiles to our very tired faces. (For our friends without children this is the stuff that makes parenting ‘rewarding’)

P.S. I also have to add in that Jeremy stuck out his bottom lip for the first time this morning. Seems kisses from both parents at once was not acceptable for our little boy!

1 August 2007

Eight weeks old and very cheeky

Jeremy’s 8 weeks old now. We are still hopelessly in love with him and fall to pieces when ever he flashes his winning grin. We’re all doing really well. Jeremy has settled us into a routine he’s happy with. He gets up and goes to sleep the same time every day. He knows when it’s bath/bed time and makes sure he’s sufficiently fed before taking a 6-8 hour nap.

Jeremy keeps me entertained throughout the day with smiles, chatter and sleepy cuddles. And somewhere in amongst all the busyness of parenting life think we’ve become best friends.

I see a different side to the J-man when Ben gets home from work. He goes nuts when he hears the front door close and Ben’s voice holler up the stairs - without fail, his legs start kicking and his face is filled with smiles and dribbles.

He’s asleep on the floor at the moment; fell asleep chatting to his red elephant - still the favourite soft toy. Arnie’s sitting next to the keyboard making sure I get this months story right.

Yesterday was quite eventful: Jeremy noticed, smiled and cooed at the cat for the first time. It was an incredible time stopping moment watching the cat and the baby make and hold eye contact. I didn’t want the moment to stop but Arnie did. I’m guessing at the rate he took off up the stairs he’d figured out his casual “under the radar” lifestyle was horribly close to ending.

He’s awake now so I’ll see how long I can get away with writing to you. Here goes…

Dead on his 6 week birthday Jeremy rolled over from his back to his belly. And he did it enough times for us to get it on video camera. I missed the first roll but Ben was there taking it all in.

Feedings are getting harder cause: 1) he’s a whopping 6k; and 2) he wants to have an in depth conversation every couple of minutes. The super-fast 10 minute feed has become an exhausting 45 minute marathon.

17 September 2006

The progress of Master Hughes

Jeremy is resting against my shoulder having a chat to a selection of cardboard boxes. He’s just woken up from deep slumber and is slowly coming to terms with the morning. This part of his personality hasn’t really changed since I was 3 months pregnant when he seemingly slept all night and more often than not woke up during my morning shower. I guess like most people, he likes time to be still and think about things before getting on with the day. But that’s about the only thing he does slowly…

As you know, he had an early start to rolling from his front to his back. Well, he now performs this party trick regularly, including during wriggly-worm nappy changes.

Wednesday last week Jeremy took it upon himself to show off his ability to make tonal variations with his voice to our community nurse. This happened at the precise moment she began talking about that very topic; needless to say it created quite a stir amongst our parent group. But still Jeremy wasn’t satisfied with doing only one special thing for the week so he also figured out he has hands that move and touch objects, including the inside of his mouth. He dribbles almost non-stop so those bibs he was given are coming in handy.

Arnie just arrived from mysterious kitten adventures upstairs. He loves Jeremy to pieces and for the most part, follows him everywhere. A major part of Arnie’s routine is to sit in sight of Jeremy’s crib each night to make sure Jeremy gets to sleep okay. Once Jeremy has safely fallen asleep Arnie lets us know by joining us for restful cuddles on the couch.

Now that Jeremy sleeps through the night the days are getting easier for all of us. We are finally in a routine which all of us (including the cat) are happy with. Jeremy and I get out every day Ben’s at work for some sort of discover-inner-Melbourne adventure. The weekends get a little more adventurous because we’re starting to extend our treks beyond the boundaries of our shire (the city of Yarra). When Jeremy eventually grows out of his 2-hourly feeds during the day we’re planning to embark on day trips to Phillip Is and various small Victorian towns.

Census day (the whole reason for our move) has been and gone. A rather uneventful night for me; Jeremy went to bed at the same time, I let out an end-of-the-day sigh before sitting down to read my book while Ben filled out our details on the net. This is when the hard work starts for Ben so I hope you all filled out your forms properly.

22 September 2006

Jeremy’s over 3 months old
Jeremy’s become such a grown-up old man! He uses his hands with the care and precision when it comes to playing with his toys. But when it comes to his face he throws those hands around madly intent on hacking anything they touch to pieces. He always makes a thorough effort on his face ensuring large welt marks that last for days and days are left behind… the greatest effort was to scratch the inside of his left ear to the point of freely dripping blood. Anyways, enough of that - onto that “development” stuff.

Jeremy has expanded his friendship circle beyond Red Elephant. He made new friends (although they’ve been hanging around him since birth) with Centipede (who is chewed and sucked on during bouncer time - very patient animal) Celeste (who jiggles around during outings in the pram - doesn’t need to be patient cause she’s out of his reach), Gen (with a G) joins him for car trips, and an object we don’t have a name for but it makes jazzy-kinda-music in the crib. He’s in the bouncer at the moment bellowing his deep voice at Centipede probably because she refuses to be eaten and keeps running away!

Tummy time is a breeze now. Jeremy just decided (as he usually does) to rest his head on his fists and lie quietly looking at the world. This has now progressed to full on yoga positions with crazy kicking legs that don’t quite know how to get up under his body. Ben and I are counting the days until his mobile whether that be commando rolls across the floor or real-live-crawling. He’s now trying to eat his whole fist - yummy! Although this effort is nothing compared to his usual 2/3rds fist in his mouth routine. Oop, he’s moved onto thumb sucking now.

What else??? Hmm, lets think…

Ben made him giggle a couple of nights ago… we heard the start of these giggles while staying in Ben’s home town but the real belly-deep giggle-laugh happened when we stayed overnight in Cann River on our way back to Melbourne. Ben was being a bit silly and decided to surprise Jeremy by popping his head round from behind me. It caught Jeremy completely off guard… the little lad laughed himself silly and it was music to our ears.

The feeds have dropped back a bit but that hasn’t stopped the little ‘un from growing… at a guess he’d be close to 8kgs now. I can hardly lift him after his bedtime feed - mostly cause my arm’s been crushed from the weight of his head resting there for over an hour! He sleeps like a log (or an angel depending on your perspective) - usually about 11 hours without waking. He is defiantly Ben’s son! Oops, he just shoved his fist in too far and hurt himself - I’m holding him and typing so be patient with my spelling etc.

He’s such a little talker (although with our DNA he didn’t really have a chance at a “normal” life - poor kid!). Talks to anyone about anything. He especially loved telling stories to his Nan and Nan-Nan (Ben’s Nan) while we were in Nowra. I just love winding up to his early morning toy chats and giant ‘hi mum’ smiles.

Ben’s made Jeremy a special crib tent - the finishing touches are being done this week and it should be hanging over his crib soon. Ben got the idea from our make-shift Jeremy room in the caravan we called home for a couple of weeks. Jeremy loved having his own space and we thought we’d spoil him a bit more.

Ben just woke up and stole the baby from me - ah, I’m a free woman! Yippee!

BTW - I can confirm that he’s 7.430kg at the weigh-in yesterday. The community health nurse was very impressed with the progress and development of our boy.

Oh and Arnie’s doing well too. While we were away he stayed in a pet motel called Cat Cosmopolitan and was the “teacher’s pet”. He was one of the two cats allowed out of their cage during trading hours to roam free and inspect the pond, Avery and anything else that took his fancy. He was given fresh fish by one of the girls (not part of the usual routine for him or the pet motel) I’m guessing daily from the tuna begging I get at breakfast time each morning. Ben had a hard time trying to find him when it was time to come back to Islington St (home) - seems he was hiding (or resting?) in the back of an empty cage at the back of the pet motel. I know his surrounds at home are nothing like this cat paradise - fingers crossed he gets used to living with us again.

30 October 2006

Jeremy’s four months old (3 weeks ago)
We’ve been singing Jeremy’s praises since he turned up over 3 months ago. He’s the happiest baby on the block - and doesn’t have anything to do with him being the only baby on the block. He’s developing his baby skills so quickly we can hardly keep up! We’ve both been spending hours and hours playing, singing and talking to him and there’ve been happy smiles and lots of laugher all the time…
In the last 2 weeks though Jeremy started to show gradual signs of being unsettled. We were sad and knew something was wrong but had no idea what to do - we tried everything we were creative enough to think of but still no signs of the real problem. He’s daytime sleeps became worse and worse until he was up and highly active from 9 am till bedtime - we both knew this was too much up time for our little ‘un but he wouldn’t sleep unless we walked him in the pram… It eventually got to the point early this week that Ben and I’d tag-team walking him around the block for hours on end - it was hot and exhausting for all of us. By the second day of doing this I’d had enough and made some calls to ask seemingly random questions. Without a moments hesitation our weary family were booked into “sleep school”.

That was an interesting day in itself! Jeremy and I stayed on the 41st floor of a 5-star hotel… I ate from a freshly prepared buffet table which was brought to the room every couple of hours and Jeremy had his own hotel suite (with amazing views of the bay!!!) to practice daytime sleeps in. We were both treated like princesses (and we loved it). All the while he and I were being taught the art of putting an alert baby to bed. According to my sleeping adviser alert babies like Jeremy are harder to put to bed cause they catch on with what’s happening and are quick to try and stop the process.

Things are still in the infancy stage (pardon the pun) but we’re seeing real progress. Jeremy’s total daytime sleep has increased from 2-3 hours to 7+ hours. I’m not so tired cause I don’t have to lug our 7.5kg baby around without a break and Ben’s able to stay at work for longer cause he doesn’t have to come home and give me some time away from Jeremy. Even so we’ve been warned that this sleep doctor magic might not work all the time and we might just have to accept we’ve got an alert one who doesn’t have time to sleep for more than 4 hours a day. Fingers crossed we don’t have that happen for a while - I’m loving this daytime sleep thing (even I have to make time each day for a nap).

22 November 2006

He was five months old, three weeks ago!
For me, hours roll into days, days into weeks and so on and so on. I’ve lost complete track of life before Jeremy! I can’t remember what I used to do with my life before he arrived… I think I’d have a pretty rough time finding the street I used to work in, let alone remembering the audit assertions and how to apply them! Oh how life (my life) has changed!

Ben’s working hard (but that hasn’t changed!). He’s on call every other weekend and now weeknights too. My days revolve around an afternoon swim with a friend, washing endless piles of laundry and baking cookies for fun.

Anyways, you want to hear about Jeremy so on with the story!

He’s 5.5 (but closer to 6!) months old now. He’s bottom teeth cut through his gums at the tender age of 3.5 months. Most other kids start getting their teeth at about 6 months old; by then they have a general ability to gnaw their way through anything they’re holding… Instead we had to teach Jeremy gnawing skills cause he just didn’t have time to practice on his own. He caught on pretty quickly but while he was leaning we had to watch him desperately want to chew stuff but frustratingly (for him) almost always miss his mouth.

Now his top teeth are coming through with no remorse (about 4 months earlier than they should)! Jeremy and I are both suffering from serious sleep deprivation from him waking up and feeding all over the place but day-by-day things are getting better.

As you know our Hughes Zoo is always full of dramas so it wouldn’t surprise you that he started “real food” 2 weeks early! Seems the top teeth bring with them the instinct to bite instead of suck. I was lucky enough to learn of this through experience and didn’t hear of such wonders till I called our Health Nurse.

He’s taken to food like a true Hughes (or Slater, not sure which). It’s only been 5 days since we started and he’s now feeding himself (with a spoon no less!).

He’s progressing along nicely with the motor skills too. He commando rolls his way across the change table, the floor, my lap and anything else to grab his toy of the minute.

Books are one of his favorite objects this week - he just can’t get enough of them… whether that be devouring them or sitting quietly while I read to him. Truth be told, I’m a little over reading the same couple of books day-in-day-out so we’re visiting the library on Thursday.

Twinkle, twinkle little star is at the top of the baby charts but only if it’s sung about 10 times a day complete with appropriate hand actions. Need i say that he gets upset if I get them wrong?

And when the 5 o’clock-itis hits the only activity that will keep him happy is dancing. Let me tell you that dancing with a (I’m guessing here!) 9kg baby for an hour - no time for breaks - is tough work. Especially when one is expected (by the prince himself) to sing at the same time!

In amongst Ben’s hectic work schedule we managed to escape the city for a family day at Brighton Beach… Jeremy was having trouble with his teeth that day but we still had fun.

7 December 2006

The world according to Jeremy

Things that go well together:

• Pumpkin and carrot
• Pumpkin and potato
• Pumpkin and sweet potato
• Pumpkin and anything Mum will put with it
• Books and mushy rusks (to entertain me before I get the pumpkin)

Things that don’t go well together:

• Jeremy’s head and walls
• Jeremy’s fingers and things with holes in them
• Jeremy’s legs and table/chair legs
• Jeremy’s hands and Arnie’s body
• Jeremy’s food and Arnie’s nose

Anyways, just wanted to give you the lowdown on Jeremy’s week

26 January 2007

Seven of Twelve

I’ve been thinking of all the wonderful things Jeremy’s been doing since my last email but it’s getting harder and harder to remember them as separate Jeremy events. Each time I think of each milestone I immediately relate it back to something or other we’ve done as a family. It seems somewhere between emails Jeremy’s changed his status of being ‘the baby’ and become just another member of the Hughes Zoo.

I have to make an apology for the six month email. That one was left for Ben to write but within 48 hours of him going on leave our lives went from ‘out of control’ to ‘no end in sight’. Ben bought home a really crappy cold he just had to share with Jeremy and I. Jeremy was waking every 10 minutes for 2 long days. I was dead tired and failing to see any end in sight but a home visit from the Dr (who didn’t really do anything but look in his ears) helped and Jeremy started to settle. Ben spent most of that time passed out in bed due to some heavy duty cough syrup.

Luckily those two beautiful boys recovered the day before our Christmas road trip. With them both happy and (almost) healthy my body gave up naturally, it was my turn to get sick… there’s no secret in telling you all I wanted for Christmas was a decent nights sleep and a box of fluffy-soft tissues!

What we actually got for Christmas was Jeremy’s front tooth! That put us in good stead for a relaxing coastal Christmas with Ben’s family.

On Christmas day Jeremy surprised us all by bee-lining the presents with almost no regard for the wrapping paper or boxes. I saw it all from the dining room table where I hovered for non-stop Christmas grazing and Ben took the time to read a book (or two or three).

Our return trip home was a non-event; that’s a good thing! Ben’s now back at work and is doing so day, night and weekends. Jeremy’s had enough time to get sick, again! This time gastro (or there abouts) with a chest cold to boot. Plus somewhere between all that mess Jeremy’s second top tooth showed up.
February 2007

• Tooth number 6 (top right eye tooth) is cutting through
• Began chattering to himself on our trip to QLD. By the time we got home it was intentional conversations with specially selected toys or us.
• Dad got a definite wave in late January; the first and last for a short while. Jeremy has been practicing with his parents and has slowly begun to give this gesture to less well-known.
• First flight outside the womb. He is not a good traveller! He wouldn’t sleep, eat, drink or sit still! He got bored easily and it took quite a while for Jeremy and I to master sainity in each other’s company. That aside, it was a wonderful experience. Although, next time I’m making Ben fly with Jeremy… I’m sitting at the front of the plane with a G&T in one hand and a book in the other.
• Got yet another fever-related cold while we were in QLD - he’d only just recovered from the two chest colds and a gastro virus mid-January
• Still not sleeping through the night consistently! Ben and I are slowly becoming more zombie like in appearance!

March 2007

• Pre-molars started growing under the gums late in the Month
• Started gaining serious momentum with the comando crawling. In one week he’d manged to go from almost no movement to running marathons up and down the hall.
• Baby gates went up that day!
• Climed up 2 steps unaided. I only found out he could do this when I came back from hanging out washing to find him stuck (didn’t know what to do) on the second stair!
• Pulls wine bottles out of the wine rack. Discovered how to pull books from the bookshelf and open the kitchen drawers and how to stick his body in the line of a closing refrigerator door. Pulls cold drinks out of the refrigerator door
• Uses the oven door as a mirror to talk to me while I’m using the bench
• Chases Arnie across the dining room floor. Arnie now hides in the stairwell or sits on the highest point of the lounge
• Arnie plays with Jeremy’s toys after he goes to bed. His favorites are the plastic coloured balls and the crawling tube.
• Can stand with almost no support and can climb stairs but refuses to crawl!
• Refuses help with drinks and toast or fruit.
• Eats 2 slices of toast with oats for breakfast; fruit muffin for morning tea, yoghurt and fruit with crusks for lunch, 2 vegetable muffins for afternoon tea and whatever we ate the night before with 3 slices of toast & OJ for dinner.
• Loves stacking blocks and moving the blocks from one container to another.
• Reads to himself while I change his nappy
• favorite time is spent playing quietly by himself
• Hates being separated from me. Insistently cries until I return - this has lasted for up to 30 minutes.
• Threw a rusk over our balcony and laughed himself silly for quite some time afterwards.
• Has fallen off something or head butted himself at least once a day for almost the whole month. If he does it and I’m not visible he goes on without bother but if I’m within a meter of his personal space he blames me even if it wasn’t my fault.
• Favorite book is still The Snowy Owl
• favorite toy is anything Mum is using or the Fridge