Bodmacity

A short entry today. I’ve been working from home today as I usually do on a Tuesday. I heard Mia downstairs and went down to see what was going on. She was having her nappy changed on her changing station. She looked at me and said, clear as day, “Daddy!!”. Not “dadada”, or “dada” but a clear and robust “Daddy!”.

Jake has been at home today. He had a restless night with painful ears so in the morning Amy took him to the Doctors. He was prescribed some olive oil drops since he had no infection but his ears were very waxy. He has inherited my waxy ears. I had problems as a young child with hearing problems due to a build-up of wax and even had to have my ears syringed a couple of times.

Mia has started babbling. This is usually as a stream of nonsensical noises. The other day she stood on her own for a few seconds which was a great leap forward. She was very pleased about this and was beaming as she realised that she was standing on her own.

She is very cute. When you say “kisses Mia” she comes in slowly and offers either her cheek or lips. She has also been very helpful in the kitchen making Daddy’s tea. Holding her, I move towards the cupboard at which point she opens it, then selects a cup(usually the Nbr 1 Daddy mug). I then open tea bag tin and she picks one out before dropping it in the cup.

Jake also helps by squeezing the tea bag and carefully pouring in the milk. Jake makes a wonderful cuppa!
Jake and I have been playing the Dr Who adventure game which he loves although I end up doing most of the tricky parts such as creeping past red drone Daleks!

One year ago today little Mia was born during the coldest and snowiest Winters for years. She was thirteen days overdue and both of us were losing the will.

The consultant had wanted us to go to the Hospital every day to have baby’s heart rate checked. We were given an appointment on 17th to discuss having an induction. We had pored over Amy’s notes and had come to the conclusion that the initial Doctor has got the due date wrong. Some of the dates that had been written down just did not tally up.

Our appointment was at 8pm. After sitting there with Amy wired up to the machine for a couple of hours one of the nurses came to get ready for the induction. The ‘discussion’ had evidently been forgotten and we were starting to feel like just another ‘target’ to be processed through the machine that is the NHS.

We asked for a consultant to come and have a chat and after waiting another hour the consultant came and read us the riot act regarding the possible outcome of not having the induction. We told her that we believed that the dates were wrong. She didn’t even look through the notes, she just told us that she was right and we were wrong.

After this we decided to go home. There was no way Amy was going through an induction. We had decided and we were sticking to our decision. At around 10pm things started happening and through the night the contractions came strong and fast.

At 5am we called the midwife to come out. We had booked a home-birth and although we had passed the overdue limit by just one day, decided to seek her advice. She arrived and couldn’t check for dilation properly because she had not bought any lubricant with her. Typical!! Anyway she was useless, and told us Amy wasn’t in labour when an idiot could see that she was!

After she left the contractions continued to strengthen until at around 9am we headed to the hospital. Upon arrival a guardian angel came to save us. She was a volunteer, an experienced nurse training to be a midwife. She was kind and gentle and gave us the time we needed. Thanks to her the birth was lovely. Amy sailed through with just gas and air and gave birth to our little Mia a couple of hours after we arrived.

So today Mia is the grand old age of one!! Jake was very excited we he got up. We all sang Happy Birthday and gave her, her presents. Jake was surprised that she looked the same as last night and that she wasn’t walking yet. He half expected her to have changed overnight :-).

It’s been a while since updating the old blog. Christmas has come and gone and we all had a jolly good time. Jake is now the proud owner of a sonic screwdriver and a tardis. Mias has her own baby pram(thanks bales) and a lovely selection of new clothes.

Mia is now babbling away right on cue and this morning I noticed a fifth tooth poking through. This explains the recent multiple awakenings of Baby M :-). Her cruising is going well. She now pulls herself up and steps sideways to get to her goal. Her goal is usually something she shouldn’t be playing with like a controller or Jake’s school bag.

We have been teaching Mia her body parts. We’ve started with the nose. If I say “Where’s Daddy’s nose” she sometimes will point and say “Dere!”. She also pointed to a banana and said “Nana!” today. I also heard her say “Jake!” properly for the first time.

Jake has been an absolute poppet over the Christmas break. His reading is going brilliantly. I have been telling him Dr Who ‘imaginary stories’ which he loves. The latest one involved The Green Goblin, Spiderman, Dr Who, Amy Pond and of course Jake! We also have the Jakey-dalek which is a half-sized kind dalek which has the ability to change its colour at will.

Amy has got a place in Southbank University to go on her Social Work Masters which is great news. This week she did her entrance exam for the same course at the venerable Goldsmiths University. Fingers-crossed she will get an interview and ultimately a place on the course.

Illness has become a common theme. Jake has been ill, Mia too. Now last week both Amy and myself succumbed to an awful stomach bug. So that was the whole Wollny family taken out with it.

I had a call from the school on Wednesday. Amy was in London with Sheena and couldn’t be contacted. So I left work and after waiting 30 mins for a bus that never came decided to walk to the station. This took less time than I thought it would, around 20 minutes. I’ll have to remember that in future.

Anyway, Amy eventually contacted me and was able to pick poor Jake up while I manfully struggled to get home. It took me 2 1/2 hours in the end. Half an hour more than if I had cycled the whole way. Talking of cycling, the last week of extremely cold weather has taken its toll. So I decided to don my ‘civvies’ and pootle to Waterloo. I had forgotten how horrible O.K.R is. Also I dispensed with my helmet and just wore my red woollen cap. It seemed that this was a magnet for every idiotic driver in London. Just as I was cruising up Spur Road into Waterloo a van parked on the left decided to pull out in front of me without indicating. After fishtailing wildly I managed to swerve out of his way. On the way home after navigating the truly horrendous O.K.R I was almost hit by a car as I negotiated the one-way system around Goldmiths College. The driver overtook me with about 6 inches space to my left. Stupid arse that he is.

On a lighter note last week Jake had his Christmas Nativity play. All the reception children were angels this year. The play was called The Snow Queen and it was very good. They all acted and sang beautifully. I videoed the whole event from the balcony which was a great spot but alas the sound wasn’t brilliant. It was okay when everyone was singing but you cannot really hear any dialogue.

Mia is standing with confidence now although she has yet to due the classic ‘cruising shuffle’. She has started to point at things that catch her eye. The other day Jake and I were calling to each other. I was upstairs changing Baby M and Jake was downstairs. Mia started to copy us by doing little bellows and saying what sounded like ‘Jake!!’.

Mia’s week of whingeing has come to an end thank god. She went through a stage when you could not put her down for a second. Amy’s back was very sore for the whole week. The happy smiley Mia is back now and let’s hope the little lamb stays that way :-).

Cue fanfare please. Ta da da da da da DAAAAAA. I am pleased to announce that Baby M is now the proud owner of two teeth :-). The second peg came via stealth. In appeared not in the usual place in the lower jaw next to the first tooth. No, it appeared in her upper jaw and was only found by Amy accidently when she was fishing out a rather large piece of bread.
This explains the multiple waking in the night and the general miserable demeanour.

She is much happier now I am glad to say. Mia’s crawling has come along nicely. She has mastered the art of speed crawling albeit in small bursts. Yesterday I put her in the cot while I got Jake out of the bath and dried him off. We went back into Mia’s room to find her gripping her cot rail and standing proudly while beaming at the both of us.

Okay, so that’s two chores to be done a.s.a.p. 1. sort out the stair gates 2. lower the cot base