Category: Spawn

There’s so much more to it than I ever thought possible.

8.8kg!

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A test shoot for a calendar competition I am considering entering.  Not happy with any of the shots, but this one shows the singlet beautifully.  Thanks Bex!

For the last three weeks, Inigo’s weight gains have been only 40-60grams.  It’s on the low side of normal for his age, but it takes him further away from the 50th percentile – that he had been sneaking closer and closer to.

Today, he weighed 8.80kg, up 250gm from last week (8.55kg).  That is a pretty massive gain from last week, and fantastic in the light of the past three weeks mediocre gains.

This number takes him closer to the magic 50th – of course in real terms it means nothing, but the number is significant to the paed, as it ‘s in line with his length.  And, of course, it means that I can stop worrying that the minimal gains of the past weeks mean that I have to worry about another infection.

My neck feels bruised after a visit to the chiro on tuesday, but my range of movement is much improved.  And Inigo had his first unsupervised play date with Charlie, a kid from our playgroup.  Charlie’s mum, Liz is great, I liked her as soon as I met her, and she volunteered to take Inigo while I was a the chiro.  He also stayed at Adam & Sarah’s for a few hours last Friday while I took Josephine and Owen to the hospital. 

My Mr Greenjeans is coming along – after a false start and a trip to the frog pond.  I’m now past the armholes and heading for the ribbing, which starts just under the boobs.  I might be knitting for some time!

About the bum

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This saturday the Macquarie Centre has an “Environment Expo”, and the Australian Nappy Network has a stall there.  I volunteered to spend a couple of hours talking to people about the benefits of real nappies over single use nappies, and I thought I’d better brush up on my knowledge.

I came across this page, which claims (and links to a scientific journal article to support) that the rise of scrotal temperature in disposable nappies may be party responsible for slower testicular development and reduced sperm counts. Far out! 

When I was a kid, mum used terry cotton nappies, with plastic over pants on me.  Nappies were soaked in bleach, washed in a twin tub washing machine, and hung on the hills hoist to dry.  And there really wasn’t any other way of doing it.  Then slowly, disposables were introduced, became more affordable, and eventually became ubiquitous, and quotidian.

They also point to a link between airborne emissions from single use (disposable) nappies to an marked increase in childhood asthma. 

– The gels used in nappies were banned from tampon use because of the link to Toxic Shock Syndrome

– Chlorine bleaching is still used in many disposables, adding dioxins to the nappy.

– Polypropylene covers and liners and made with the use of PCB’s.

– Most people don’t bother scraping solids from a disposable nappy into the toilet, meaning that it’s going into unstable landfill, and leaching into the water table.

Add to this the fact that each single use nappy uses about a cup of crude oil in its manufacture, and I’m feeling even better about using only minimal disposables.

I’ve been feeling like I am challenging the dominant paradigm by choosing cloth over disposables.  I have felt a couple of times like I am pissing people off, they seem to take our choice to be a personal challenge.  But I think it’s really interesting to take something as mundane as nappies, and really examine the issues involved.  And as I am notoriously crap at not coming over like a bulldozer, I’m wondering if this is the right line of volunteering for me to get into…

Anyway, I’ve agreed to do it, and to back out now would leave them in the lurch.  Wish me luck!

*Note that the bum in this picture is quite a bit plumper than the one in this picture.

Wrapped with Love

A few weeks ago, I dragged the boy out in the cold so that we could knit for charity at the ABC studios in Ultimo.

Here‘s a link to the ABC site with pictures.  And there is a pic of Inigo and I here.  Which I found out about today, Lyndal from R+L told me!

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Inigo inspects the specifications before embarking on the project.

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Bex and Miss Fe workshop the finer details

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Excitement reaches fever pitch

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Cecilia is voted “Girl Most Likely”

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It was early – it really was that blurry!



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And then Miss Fe took us down to the dungeon where she works



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Bex meets Big Ted

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Cecilia meets Little Ted

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Emily is concerned that Aussie Humpty is a poor copy of the English original



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Big Ted thrills yet another generation (I think he was around when I was a little tacker!)



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Inigo tells Henny Penny about her cousins in the wilds of Granville

Congratulations Emma and Roger

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We spent last week travelling, and on friday (08.08.08), Emma and Roger got hitched. I did my second wedding, and despite a hiccup (or two), the wedding went off swimmingly, and a whale of a time was had by all.

Here Inigo sports wedding outfit number two, the formal one. Jacket courtesy of Miriam, pants, bib and ribbon trimmed shoes by me.

I’m a bit wobbly at the moment, not posting much because I don’t really know what to say.

All Better

Sitting in Cardi
Cardi by Donna

Last week, I went to a picnic with some other cloth nappy mums. They were all discussing sleep problems, and how each kid is worse than the last. I felt pretty left out – my child sleeps!

He’s been so amazingly, marvellously, wondrously calm, and happy to sleep (in his cot) when he gets tired. He sleeps in the car, he even sleeps in my arms when there isn’t a cot available. It’s been great for both of us (and Mark too!), and I feel like I deserve it. We’ve had enough grief.

I explained to the other mums about his new sleep habits, and about my magic solution. Antibiotics! It won’t work for everyone, but after all we’ve been through, I feel like having a baby without sleep issues is perfectly just and fair.

Then on Friday last week he stopped. We left him with mum and dad while we went out for dinner. I wanted to get him to sleep before we left, but after two hours of full body thrashing, screaming, fighting and kicking, I was at a loss. At first I thought it was just because he was in unfamiliar territory, but when he was still out of sorts the next day, I began to suspect that something else was going on.

He refused to sleep in his cot all weekend, and on Sunday he screamed all day. I was so wound up, when Daisy crapped in my bathroom, I lost it, and smacked him. I can’t really explain how bad this makes me feel, poor old Daisy is a bit senile, and I understand that he doesn’t know what he’s doing. And hitting an animal is never defensible. So you can tell that I was at a pretty low ebb when I hit out like that. Sleep deprivation destroys rational thought, and I think that having slept well for two months (since the antibiotics), going back to the bad old days was a bit of a shock to the system.

By monday, he was not sleeping until he screamed himself to exhaustion. I started to think we might be dealing with another infection. On sunday I refilled his antibiotic script. The last lot of antibiotics didn’t have a “Discard on” date sticker on them, and I just forgot. We got almost to the end of the bottle before Mark pointed out that they were probably out of date. So now he’s had the new lot of drugs for a few days, and last night he slept in his cot for the first time in almost a week. And all of us slept well. In fact, some of us slept so well, we were late for work 🙂

And now a little something for the afro fans out there…

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Thanks to Chris for the great pic!

Farewell Kerry

On friday night, we went to a party to farewell Kerry. Inigo was a trouper, and hardly whinged all night, despite the loud band and people everywhere. He even had a little nap, in his pram which was parked right beside the band.

I got to meet Bob Brown, and asked him for a picture with Inigo. There was no baby kissing – but I think this will make a great picture for Inigo’s baby book!

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The t-shirt reads “I have issues”

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Inigo sits on the table and devours a flyer advertising a rally outside Peter Garrett’s office

There has been rather a lot on in the last few weeks, and I have a cold, so it’s been hard to keep up the blog. I hope to add another post soon with pictures of Owen Edward, who arrived on Sunday. Hopefully his mum is starting to feel better after his birth – he was more than 10 pounds!