Evidence that having kids could cost you a lot in petrol ...
Me: Hiya. Where are you?
Son: Just getting out of the car and going back into the house.
Me: Oh, where have you been?
Son: For a long drive.
Me: Oh, that's nice. What a lovely, spontaneous thing to do on a Saturday.
Son: It wasn't the plan. But we went to the shops, and Elijah fell asleep in the car on the way back. And when Elijah falls asleep in the car, you keep driving. We carried on for an hour.
I can't think of a better story to illustrate what it's like with tiny children. Elijah hasn't exactly won any awards so far for Learning How to Nap in the Daytime.
I remember it well - all the different ways of getting them to sleep/keeping them asleep, including going out for walks at three in the morning, envying everyone whose curtains are shut and whose lights are out; putting the vacuum cleaner right next to the cot, and being very tempted to insert one of the tubes into their ears; and walking up and down the stairs while carrying them to simulate the motion of a bumpy car ride on sand dunes.
Before the kids come along, all of this is foreign and weird. You can say to a pregnant woman, 'Ah, well, this time next year, you'll be sitting your baby in his pram next to the men drilling the road!' but she won't believe you. Yet.
Here's another picture of Elijah - I've been very disciplined about not putting too many on the blog, don't you think? It's been hard. Look at him!
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| A moment in history: his first ever spoonful of proper food (well, baby rice ....) |
I think you have some good tips for a book there! Called what they don't tell you when you have tiny children. Great post
ReplyDeleteIt would be such a massive book, because even what they DO tell you, you don't believe until you see it ... just imagine what would happen to the population otherwise ...
DeleteYes, I remember all that walking them about at 3 in the morning to try and get them to sleep! You could get your son one of these for Elijah - http://www.babycity.co.uk/bouncers-rockers-swings-seats-bouncers-and-rockers/fisher-price/fisher-price-cruisin-motion-soother-pd-4267.html ? "First baby seat to give baby that soothing ride in the car without having to go anywhere!" Elijah's a fine chap, by the way!
ReplyDeleteEither that, or they could site his cot on top of the washing machine and have it on full spin all day ...
DeleteOh, he is gorgeous! You know, my husband was a genius. In the middle of the night, he was sick of going for long walks with #3, so he threw slippers, shoes, sandals etc on the floor in the hall, and wheeled the pram up and down over them. The cherub thought he was bumping along in the street, and slept. Of course, when I got up in the morning and tripped over all the debris on the floor, I was not a ray of sunshine, but I slept. And so did the babe. The husband, not so much!
ReplyDeleteThat is brilliant! True genius. What did you tell people who wondered why there were mini tyre-marks all over your shoes ...?
DeleteWhat a gorgeous baby! And how well I remember looooonging for sleep....
ReplyDeleteI was saying to someone the other day how you think you'd never be able to manage on 2 hours a night, but somehow you do, and you live. But, no, at the time, it's hell on earth.
DeleteThat brings back memories. My wife and used to engineer drives out just to get the kids to fall asleep. Then we discovered zolpidem.
ReplyDeleteAnd I guess with a dollop of that in their baby rice, they slept pretty well ... for a few weeks ...
DeleteAaah he is cute.......and those days are long gone for me now...I'm waiting for grandchildren!!
ReplyDeleteBeing a Grandma is pretty cool. Even at 50. I felt a little young for it, but I'm well into it now!
DeleteMy brother used to park the buggy next to the vacuum cleaner while it was running - it worked most of the time. Elijah is soooo cute!
ReplyDeleteIt's funny isn't it? When you've got tiny children, just about the only thing you have time to use the vacuum cleaner for is to get the baby to sleep. Cleaning with it? Pffff!
DeleteHe's very cute. Favorite Young Man wasn't a good sleeper. The he became a teenager and I thought he'd never wake up again. He made up for all those years of not sleeping when we needed him to awaken.
ReplyDeleteLove,
Janie
Ha ha! That's exactly the way it always happens! First you shakey-shake them to get them to sleep, then you have to shakey-shake them to get them to come down for the evening meal!
DeleteDon't parents use swing up swings anymore. When our son wouldn't sleep we'd put him in his swing and away he'd go to La la land. Of course those swings require winding all too frequently.
ReplyDeleteEr .... swing up swing? Send a picture ....
DeleteAh, he's lovely, though!
ReplyDeleteOur daughter and her husband don't have a car to soothe the baby to sleep. Come to that, we didn't have one when our daughters were babies. I spent long times bouncing the pram... .
Yep. Remember that, too. Keeping it going with my foot while reading a book to the older one ... or two ...
DeleteThis is very familiar territory, Fran. Our three grandchildren have put a few miles on the clock. And I'm not just talking about the car!
ReplyDeleteWe don't have a car so we trek up and down the Chiltern Railways line to London and back on trains!
DeleteOh yes , I remember it well . Smitonius slept for about a total of four hours out of any twenty-four till she was about five .
ReplyDeletePoor child , it must have been awful to have been born into a family of dormice .
( Elijah looks just like you ! )
He looks like me? You mean, with a spoon in his gob?! I won't tell my daughter-in-law about the 'until she was about five' bit ....
DeleteDone the vacuum thing ! Husband used to put Jess on his shoulder & move from side to side with a bit of a jig - with him being a sailor mum & I nicknamed it the hornpipe !
ReplyDeleteI tried this stomping up and down thing to get Elijah to sleep and it seemed to work, so they now call me Stompy Grandma.
DeleteAdorable! My blog would be filled with his pictures...well, my blog is filled with pictures of my adorable granddaughters. As much as I enjoy all the things we can do with a 5 and 7 year old, I miss the baby days. Enjoy this brief time.
ReplyDeleteYes, it will go very quickly. Even now he changes so much even over a couple of weeks.
DeleteMt eldest wouldn't sleep for more than a few hours each night and fought sleep like it was an enemy. Then I found a way to get him to sleep. I'd sit in front of the computer and type my essay for Uni and he watched the letters come up on the screen and fall asleep.
ReplyDeleteHa ha! I am just the same when reading essays!
DeleteI can't imagine how I managed because I love sleep and my first took months to do more than catnap. Odd, I must have coped but I can't remember how!
ReplyDeleteI just hate it when blogger does this. I came by this afternoon, spent a while on a comment ( clearly intelligent, sympathetic yet amusing) and the damn thing has gone. Lovely baby though.
ReplyDeleteNo, I think it came through fine, Elizabeth. I'm having to screen comments at the moment, so it won't appear until I've 'moderated' it. I kept getting hundreds of spam visits a week and anonymous comments so had to do something about it. Sorry! Your comment is very much appreciated. I know what you mean - at the time, the sleepless nights seem as though they'll go on for ever, and then later on, we can't even remember the details. That's what I keep telling my d-in-law!
DeleteElijah is one gorgeous baby! My son slept non stop as a newborn. The first time he cried in the night he was 7 months old and we actually called out our GP who arrived in his pj's at 4am and was very cross when he realised we had panicked and wasted his time. He told us to take the baby for a drive to try and shut him up.
ReplyDeleteAnna May x
That's very funny. It reminds me of that old joke about the little boy who was completely mute until the age of five. His parents did everything to get him to talk: took him to therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, the lot. Then, one day, his mum had just served up his chips and he said, 'Could you pass the salt, please, Mother? These chips are somewhat bland.' His parents were shocked and said, 'But you can't talk! Why have you just talked after all this time?!' The little boy said, casually shaking ketchup onto his plate, 'No need. Everything's been all right until now.'
DeleteI well remember a plan we had with ours which was to do everything possible to keep him awake during the day to ensure he would sleep at night. The attempt exhausted us and made no difference to him. Happy times.
ReplyDeleteThis is often the way. The little beggars.
DeleteSuch an adorable baby! My trick was putting the baby in the carseat and setting it on the clothes dryer. Warm, noisy and vibrating a little bit would do the trick.
ReplyDeleteYes! I forgot this one!
DeleteAw Elijah is a lovely looking lad! Love all these tips. Will send your blog to the many parents I know with little ones!
ReplyDelete(I had to put comment moderation on my blog as well. Was also getting a huge amount of spam comments, so annoying!)
I just have this funny vision of all your friends switching on vacuum cleaners and tumble driers and all the electricity drying up in that area!
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