Bad Hair Day

I'm not the kinda girl who considers a haircut fits in the 'essential' column of our budget. I had my annual visit in May and any other trim has happened with the craft scissors whenever bits got too long and frustrating. I was reluctant to go to a new hairdresser this morning except we were having a family photo shoot and I wanted to have someone else take responsibility for my grooming!

He was under strict instructions to be finished by 10am and I got outa there at 10:30am looking like I'd done it myself but 80-something dollars poorer. Argh!

Two reasons I have issues with the hairdressing fraternity;
1. Products. I overheard the manager telling a customer about a new 'sea salt spray' for 20-something dollars that "makes your hair look like you've just been to the beach". You need a product for that look?

2. Listening skills. I had explained to my scissorhand friend that "I really want it to look...." and before I got to the important part of the sentence he stopped me talking with the palm of his hand in my face. "I know exactly what you're looking for. Don't worry I understand."

He thought he had finished the cut but I disagreed since I could still see my own crafty scissor work on my uneven fringe.

There's more to groan about but I'll leave you with one last picture....Michael with the craft scissors this afternoon cutting off a rats tail the professional accidently left behind.

End Of Week

What a sad, sad week in news we've had.

Twins drowning, father drowning while trying to rescue his two little sons, digger in Afghanistan killed, terrorists in Mumbai on rampage, train and truck collison, plane crashes and the list goes on. The list always goes on but this week just seems sadder than usual.

Joy to and in the World is what we all need.

Lil' Wimmer

This swimming lesson caused a little heartbeat skip for mummy but he did ... swimmingly!

Lil' Giggler

This is his very clever technique to distract us at bedtime. Sorry can't work out how to flip it vertical.

OH&S

If you've visited Gloucester Tree in Pemberton recently your initial reaction may be 'Oh Heck & Shivers' (OH&S)! Certainly we questioned how much longer the public will be invited to climb the tree. For my money, I wouldn't be scaling the 60 metre Karri assisted only by pegs tacked into the side of the tree. If you meet someone coming down while you're going up then the experience gets kinda cosy. Michael did it and I took the photos. The German tourists who did it in the wet and in thongs was kinda wacky.

We had a fab weekend away with our friends Kate & Corey who came over from Melbourne. It's nice to get away.

Cousins

The corner that we turned with AB's sleep last Friday night has changed our life. He has slept a minimum of 11 hours every night without needing attention until 7am. Last Thursday it took me 2 hours to settle him for a day sleep and this week I've simply put him in his cot and walked away...no whinging, no crying, he just rolls over and shuts his eyes within a minute.

Not to make any comparisions but "Little Baby Angus, no crying he makes" (!)

We are heading 'down south' for the weekend with mates from Sydney-town. Yipee.

Anyone Want Her Business Card??

After 6 months of our sleep being broken into segments of anything from 15 minutes to 3 hours at a time, last night AB slept soundly for 11 hours without any attention from us. We are believers!!

In one day he's dropped from eight feeds every 24 hours to four.

The instant change it brings to your demeanor is invigorating. So much so that MB chose to celebrate with a run at 6:30am this morning!

The new energy in AB's body means that he's taught himself to roll and attempted a crawling action all in the last day...as predicted by the sleep guru.

Baby Whisperer

This week our little man had his kidney stent taken out. They take it out ‘the long way round’ if you know what I mean – so no incision. With a wink, the specialists gave a lifetime guarantee so they’re pretty proud of their handiwork. Hear hear, I say.

With the medical interventions taken care of we decided it was time to teach this little one about sleep. For philosophical reasons we were not in favour of certain (popular) approaches but we think we’ve hit a winner with the Baby Whisperer that came last night.

So it was all about sleep coaching in the Barr house and this morning we are a sparklier family. Even though we might have had minimal sleep, his/our awake times were interactive, educational and successful. We really liked the approach of this sleep expert who coached us all through our roles in teaching Angus to sleep.

Why we like her advice;
 You make eye contact and verbally engage with the baby whenever they are unsettled at night. Just like any other subject we want to teach him about, we will look at him in his eyes and acknowledge his opinions. Same here.
 The coaching relies on a ‘no guilt, no anger, no frustration, no doubt’ premise. Everything is taught by the parent from a loving place of certainty.
 We interact with his communication. We listen to the crying conversation and language he uses to put himself to sleep and mimic it. Our mimicking of these noises suggests to him an idea he could try.
 Once the baby has settled himself to sleep go into his room and reward him with a kiss and praise. This completes the whole learning experience for him.

So, even 12 hours later we’ve noticed positive changes in him and we’re really satisfied with the process of making those changes. Yippee.

Other People's Lives

Last year on a Tuesday a daily (trashy) paper in Sydney ran an outrageous headline “HOW COULD SHE?” The story underneath was about a little baby that had been abandoned and left in a box on the steps of a church. The headline was referring to the mother because apparently the newborn girl was gorgeous – as if that changes anything.

I remember the headline was on a Tuesday paper because that was the day I used to read stories to lil’ kids at the café. There was outrage from the public that the newspaper would run such a headline that would compound every issue the mother must’ve been facing…should she glimpse the bold type in a newsagent. One of the mums at Story Time that day made a simple remark, “There’s not a mother alive that hasn’t felt that exasperated”. I thought that was a very bold and honest statement.

This blogspot doesn’t just exist to tell the world all the capable, groovy and got-it-together things in our lives. We are as un-together as anyone! I want to be bold and honest and say that this baby is exasperating at times. He’s also cute and gorgeous – as if that changes anything at 4am.

Desperate exasperation doesn’t just happen to other people. It’s not like there’s a sub-culture ‘out there’ of unstable mothers who can’t handle their babies. Those mothers are girls like your next door neighbour or your cousin or me! Let’s not be people with a superiority attitude who think we are not capable of doing the front page reportable acts. I don’t think there is a hierarchy of humankind where it’s just the lower levels who are in danger of doing desperate deeds. Boldness and honesty in a community is strong protection for everyone.

This post has not been written to cryptically flag my own issues. Just a deliberate act of boldness and honesty in community!!

The Hardest Thing

Most people will tell you that parenting is the hardest yet most rewarding role you’ll ever have. The older he gets the more reward I feel as I watch him explore, communicate and experience joy. Parenting has not yet trumped opening a café as the hardest thing, but one day it might. There are hard bits but they are not usually to do with lil’ AB. After nights where he wakes 8+ times he gets called a ‘little punk’ as I claw my way to a hot shower, and the pain lingers only until breakfast is digested.

The tough stuff for me is the mountains of information accessible, offered and (sometimes) forced upon you. I now realise I’m not very good at ignoring suggestions or disregarding comments that make me feel incompetent as a mummy.

So, this week the time came for me to draft up my Motherhood Manifesto. Surely six months is long enough to start publishing definitive works on mothering! Anyway, all I’ve narrowed it down to is a concept that helps me sort the important things from the ignorable. One of the things I’m choosing to ignore is a recommendation in a book saying;

‘Flat cotton cot sheets should be tumble dried so that they are slightly damp for easier ironing and a smoother finish’ and in regards to outfits ‘ensure that all labels are ironed flat’.

For us, we want to parent Angus with principles that show and teach him about things like love, trust, courage and gratefulness. There are many efficiencies in our society that can easily tempt me to cut corners in order to achieve an outcome. We’re not interested in these attractive outcomes if it means AB cops the raw end of the deal. The concept of “doing whatever works” will be something we want to avoid because we think it favours our comfort and convenience over his learning. The process is more valuable than that. The important stuff is how we all get to our desired outcome. Sure, for housework and menial tasks “doing whatever works” is a legitimate motto – but not in relationships.

I hear the sniggering of you older and wiser parents! I am content to let you snigger at my Manifesto. I already know that we will make many decisions in the future just because it gets us through the day. But we want to give more consideration to what our actions mean to a little bubba who knows nothing and will learn almost everything from us in the next few years.