my-speck

Hello Poogie,

Well, we’ve been out of action for 9-10 days now and both you and I are going slightly crazy…. To say the least.

I’m confident we’re on the home stretch, but this flu has been horrible. And so not only have we been feeling not great, but in the interests of infecting the least number of others we’ve been laying low and staying around home a lot. And you and I are both sick of the walls in the house.

Oozing from the eyes. I’d never heard of viral conjunctivitis before this week. I wish I still hadn’t. This is when it was looking about 3000% better. Think eyes stuck together with gobs of snot-like green substance. Lovely.

Yes, the garden is nice and you dad has been working on it a lot lately, now the small patch of grass at the back is good to lie on and crawl around on. But there are only so many minutes in the day you can do that. We’re missing all of our normal activities:

• playgroup / mum’s group
• swimming
• library outings for rhyme time
• rollicking at the park
• breastfeeding meetings
• just getting about doing chores, in and out of the house and around the close suburbs.

In lieu, I’ve been struggling with things to keep you occupied that require little of my energy (I’m struggling to even get enough energy to feed you three times then clean the high chair required during the day).  Things we’ve tried:

• Reading lots of books.   Your concentration in that area has improved dramatically, so that is good, but doesn’t burn any of your energy.
• Short rollicks up and down the front verandah and pramway.  For some reason because you are normally not allowed to roam out the front (due to its un-babysafe nature) you find it most exciting.  So loops of the verandah/pramway ensue each time I let you out.
• TV.  We’re trying a no TV policy for you until you’re older (when exactly we haven’t yet decided).  So on the day I was most sick, I figured giving TV a go to give myself a break would be good.  There were two full channels of ABC Kids shows going on, which is great (we don’t have pay TV), so I found a show with big faces and singing.  You were excited, and watched it.  For all of about 5 minutes.  So I turned it off and gave up on that.
• Musical instruments.  Singing with the maraccas and the m&m’s tub which we’ve converted to a baby drum.  We do this normally anyway, but have been stretching out the sessions.  I’m sure my neighbours have come to love me:   the houses are close together and you can hear everything.  This week I’m sure my hoarse, out-of-tune singing of nursery rhymes along to the beat of maracas and an m&ms drum is has been a special treat for them too.  But you love it, which is the important part.
• Oh, and of course.  Just mass destruction.  You’ve come up with this fun little activity all on your own.  Yes, I may have mentioned before that we’ve been planning to renovate our kitchen.  Well, it’s still not renovated (lots of reasons – planning required, time required, out of action kitchen for a month, and finances required to be in order), so you’ve decided that the open shelving is just like a toy cupboard but with better toys than your own.  This was yesterday’s effort.  The day before you managed to smash about 4 bowls.  (You were fine, just shocked at the big crash and noise.  And then annoyed at me when I wouldn’t let you play again and put you in the bathroom with your dad while I swept up all the shards of bowl.  We needed new ones anyway..).

Destroying the kitchen – cooking is impossible when you do this…

The past two days I’ve managed to get out of the house as my energy is returning a little.  So we’ve had a much-needed park outing.  And yesterday when you just kept crying we did a two hour walk in the pram.  You just watched the world go by.  Quietly.  A relief for me.

So.  Today we will walk again.  Hopefully.   And do some bird spotting.

Love mum

P.S.  Any suggestions on things to amuse a 10 month old from anyone reading? Please? Please?