'kay so I don't have much to say right now but I have to put something here to move that Caganer's bottom down my page!! I tried to make the picture smaller to no avail. That'll teach me for being juvenile. I feel like I've been caught passing a note by the teacher

Magnus Caganers Explorer

I was just thinking about Christmas and had a little chuckle when I remembered about the "Christmas crapper". We lived in Barcelona for a while (waaaaaay before the kids) and were much amused by this little figure the Catalans take great pleasure in hiding in their Nativity scenes. So I thought I'd put one here, though it's not very well hidden! It's a bit infantile I know, but it still makes me giggle ;)

Anyway, I found it doubly funny when I searched to remind myself of the proper name: Caganer . I have no idea why but Esme has been using this for Magnus for the last few months! Magnus Caganers Explorer. Bonkers.....

Missing

Gosh look how long it is since I've written here!....how time flies. I've been missing writing here but I've been struggling to channel my energy in lots of different directions! 

Been finding Motherhood gruelling of late, I never seem to have "enough" to meet everyone's needs. I am struggling to find the balance at the moment, I don't want anyone to miss out but sooner or later we are going to hit a real problem when I conk out from exhaustion....

Anyhow, all's more or less well in our world. EC has been going well. Magnus has learned to hang on for quite a while for a wee, and is being very communicative about it, in different ways than before. If he's on my hip he'll squeeze me with his legs and jiggle around. He also makes it quite clear if he doesn't want to go and will arch up his back. You have to be careful though, as this also means a poo is on it's way when he's needing to go. And BOY does my little guy produce some whopping poos. Not that suprising since he ate breakfast solidly for about an hour this morning! 

My theory that all babies hang on is growing firmer in my mind. I've seen friends babies who do a poo in each nappy, or small poos frequently throughout the day. I'm sure if they had chance to "get it all out" in one go they would do. Having seen some of the offerings Mags has done lately I can understand why a child wouldn't want to "let go" of all that into their pants. Poor wee things.

That said, I have missed more poos in the last month or so than I ever did with Esme. I think this is largely due to lack of attention: in the mornings I have been responding to Esme's urgent demands for pancakes (spoilt little brat she is at the moment...) and have missed Magnus' signals. Each time I feel a sense of dismay. I also missed a poo due to a soapbox rant one morning: I was so enraged by stories of inept breastfeeding support in the LLL magazine that I wasn't tuned in. Anyway, I have still only ever missed the very first bits of his enormous turds, and I can still count these occasions on one hand. All in all at nearly 9 months old Magnus is a lucky, clean bottomed boy. (He's going to hate me for this isn't he?!!)

Night times have been pretty good too- sleep periods lengthened considerably when I put M down on a sheepskin. I think he had been feeling chilly and waking up more. Now I know he will pee each time he wakes. We have had quite a few dry nights, which is nice. This is quite tiring though and on some (very cold) nights I have been too lazy to sit up and pee him. This backfires as he doesn't sleep well with a cold soggy cloth nappy on him so really I should just haul myself up each time. Not that easy when it's snug under the duvet and it's the 3rd time he's woken up that night....ah for an unbroken night's sleep.....

Apart from missing poos and sleep, I am missing my friends a lot ;( 

We've all been blighted by illness for a while so hoping for a healthy month ahead so we can do lots of cosy crafting and seasonal bonding together. 

Bye bye sweet baby poo

The last couple of weeks have seen big changes in Magnus. He's now blowing raspberries, gurgling away, sighing, yelping, sitting up, rolling, sort of getting onto all fours, commando crawling and eating! Pretty much all these things seemed to start happening at the last full moon. Bonkers.

He was sucking away on the odd bit of pepper, cucumber, steamed carrot etc... but not really getting anything, for a few weeks. Then on said full moon day he demolished an entire banana. With very little mess ;/ Since then he has enthusiastically put away just about everything I've offered him, the one exception being fig! The sad realisation that my baby is getting big fast is dawning ever more rapidly on me. Baby led weaning is great fun though, how come I never knew about this with Esme?!

The big downside to eating "proper" food is that I have to say goodbye to the yummy buttermilky-popcorny breastmilky poos he's been doing and hello to.....well, you can imagine. That's probably waaaaaaaaaay too much information for most people but I'm not at all squeamish, else I wouldn't be so happy to chat about EC'n. Thankfully we are still 100% clean and pretty much dry too so the change of input doesn't seem to have affected output!

I found the potty-bowl I thought I left in the pub. It was in the car, full of stale urine. Which is preferable to in the Peel Arms full of stale urine, in my opinion ;) I hope Granny didn't get around to asking them for it! I've just ordered a portable dog bowl to use as a potty so we'll see how that works when it arrives from Australia.

I've also taken the plunge and ordered a nice babywearing fleece. Contrary to DH's opinion a warm jacket is an essential item for the UK in Autumn/Winter and not a frivolous purchase at all ;) The merino wool elephant hood I plan to buy for Magnus could possibly come into that category.... However, I've saved a packet this week by turning a £5 IKEA tablecloth into a new wrap! So I can cross the Didymos off the most wanted list for now, and, more importantly wash my beautiful Lana wrap (that has become a stinky rag of late)

I've lost the pot.....

I've been having a very successful time with ECing Magnus lately, including quite a few 100% dry and clean days. I don't remember having this with Esme 'til she was much older, he is only just six months old.

I've been feeling pretty upbeat about pottying and my confidence must be rubbing off on him: I've been doing it out and about (on Levenshulme High St waiting for the bus, in public loos, Whitworth Art Gallery!...) and even managed to keep him totally dry throughout the day on Saturday at a family wedding where he was passed about the relatives like a happy little parcel ;) Often when he's not close I lose my sense of when he wants to go but he was holding on for ages and telling me very clearly.

I''ve found my ideal travel potty, in the form of a small IKEA mixing bowl with a lid, part of a set I already owned and hadn't thought to adopt for this purpose. Unfortunately, I seem to have misplaced it. After re-tracing my steps, the last place I can think of using it is the Peel Arms in Padfield, where we had pub grub on Sunday before we went to Padfield Plum Festival. Magnus weed in it, impressing his family and raising the eyebrows of a couple of baffled looking locals. I put the bowl (lid on) under the "banquette" thing.... and forgot it. ]

If the pub people have found it they must wonder what sort of strange "not-local" folks have been visiting for their festival. Who on earth would leave a small bowl of urine under a bench in the pub?!! Granny wonders if she should try to retrieve it but how would one go about asking for this back?

As I mention confidence above, I would like to say how easy it is for this to be sapped by others' negative vibes. With EC (and most other things parenting related) I am usually pretty thick skinned. But the same local lady who sneered at Magnus weeing in his bowl in the Peel Arms was staring at me as I santa-tossed him over my shoulder to wrap him on: I had a real wobble, nearly dropped him and couldn't do it. A total physical/mental block on babywearing. Perhaps she was a witch! Or maybe I just felt her thoughts: "how dangerous....." ;(
Must work on strengthening my protective bubble when up in the windy wilds of the peaks!

There are no shortcuts in Bushcraft

The wise words of Ray Mears also ring true with nighttime EC, as I found to my dismay the other night. 

Night time is perhaps the easiest and most difficult time to EC for me. A (concentrated!) pee is pretty much guaranteed after hours of sleep. If Magnus does wet his nappy he's difficult to settle properly and he stirs more, so it makes sense to catch it instead of doing a nappy change. I then get him back a deep sleep as soon as possible. To facilitate this I have a bucket by the bed and I just sit up and sit Magnus on it (sometimes whilst nursing to keep him nice and quiet) in the dark. It's a faff getting the nappy back on but we manage ok. 

The other night I caught a particularly large wee at the time of our dream feed when I go up to bed. Then in the early hours at his next awakening, in a sleepy haze, i decided to put the bucket on the bed for pee time instead of sitting up. How lazy am I??! Well it backfired, oh yes, the enormous, strong wee from earlier drenched my bed, blanket, pillow, the lot ;( 

My daughter woke suddenly proclaiming "IT'S WET!". Bed stripped, 2 more potty trips for us girls and a very full load of washing for the morning. 

Ah well. I won't try to cut that corner again! 

For Liz

I am having a blast with wordle here ;)
This one's for you Liz M....