week 130 / week 2

Another week where Dad is on parental leave, and so a lot of extra father-son time.

We’ve had a variety of breakfasts together – some mornings we had boiled eggs with Vegemite soldiers, and other mornings, we’ve gone out for breakfast. Here he had raisin toast with a babycino.

Another morning we went a different way to the shops, and stopped at the park. We ended up on the see-saw, where he counted the bounces, from 1 to 100. We did this 4 times, and then finally he was prepared to get off the see-saw.

Thursday was a big day – it was time for Mum to head out of the house for an adventure. We all (with Aunty S) walked up to the shops to have lunch together. Puff was so well-behaved that he was given an extra juice box to go with his lunch, and the waitress didn’t know Huff was there either (although as you can tell by the sling, it’s pretty hard to see her).
 

On Friday night we went out to get some Indian takeaway. They were very busy, but Puff did a great job waiting (45 minutes) in the stroller, putting up very little fuss, and staying cheerful despite the lateness of the hour.

The book from last week – Mrs. McTats and Her Houseful of Cats – has now been largely committed to memory, and he’s had a lot of enthusiasm for cats. As a result, we saw him use the stickers in a slightly different way.

 
Walking around another suburb in search of cafes on Saturday, Puff decided to play a game of hide and seek with the stroller. Here too, Dad had the awkward experience of seeing Puff go from calm and happy to throwing a tantrum with no apparent warning. More practice is needed, it seems, to spot the warning signs: surely there are warning signs, right?

 
We haven’t said much about Huff here yet: we’re still looking for patterns in her routine to see if we can predict when she will sleep longer or shorter. The high-point with a newborn is having her sleep.

 
Yesterday we went to IKEA: he was very well behaved, and then ran around in the play area at Rhodes afterward. It was a good day out.

 
He’s still enjoying being a big brother, although he’s not able to have much other interaction with her than rubbing her head.

 
He has a tendency to lose himself in his thoughts sometimes (when he’s not quoting one of his favourite books).

Here’s an update on what Huff looks like.

Oh, one random thing – one morning he was really excitedly running in to check the time on a few different clocks, and then spelling it out with his floor numbers.
 

 
The biggest difference between looking after one child and two is the loss of sleep: with a newborn, you don’t get to sleep in big blocks, but when the newborn sleeps, you can try and sleep. Add a toddler into the mix and you can’t sleep unless both of them are asleep. So far, with the parental leave, Dad has been taking care of Puff, and Mum of Huff, but it’s hard to see what life will be like once Dad goes back to work!

Time will tell.