The wake up call part 2

So while I currently write this story, I thought I was suffering with pink eye. I actually feel guilty now for assuming my little human let one of on my pillow. Unfortunately it was something a little worse and painful. A trip down to the eye hospital and I have Scleritis. (A serious inflammatory disease) Eye drops and antibiotics later (as I also developed tonsillitis) I can finally say I don’t look like that freaky chick from the exorcist anymore. Think my partner is relieved too, he thought I was going to start levitating my freaky arse to the ceiling. I was one tongue twisting moment away from a priest knocking at my door and doing an exorcism on me. Luckily after the dramatic scenario I am on the road to recovery.

Going back to last year, when we rolled in to month 4, Roman was also learning to roll too. I found myself looking at milestone developments. Now I know every baby is different and they do learn at their own pace, but I couldn’t help think is Roman behind or where he needs to be. With him being induced 3 weeks early they did say he would be 3 weeks behind. He was so determined to move though he was learning at a good pace.

Roman was also beginning to laugh which is just music to any parent’s ears, and luckily enough for us, you don’t have to be a comedian to bring laughter to a child. Just dance around like an idiot or hide behind your hands and pop out with a “boo” usually does the trick. No judgement here.

After the struggles of breastfeeding and after exhaustingly going back and forth to a specialist, I made the decision to go to formula, which became 10X easier for Roman; he actually had a full belly and would just sink into a milk coma. I tried and the decision didn’t come lightly, but I did find a lot of stress was lifted off my shoulders.

There was still a lot of learning involved,

• My high blood pressure still wasn’t settled, I assumed after the pregnancy it would return to normal but it can take months before adjusting back.

• I was suffering with palpitations which started late in pregnancy and the only way to reduce it was by physical exercise.

• Romans facial expressions were becoming more prominent

• We experienced an explosive nappy, which if you don’t blurt out “fuck” you obviously haven’t experience a head to toe poop yet. At this stage you either throw away the child or try to resolve the situations by hosing them down. Fortunately for Roman we chose the second option.

• My relationship started to feel the strain; we were now bickering a LOT.

• Jumperoo was my new best friend.

• All our ideas of raising Roman were out the window. We didn’t intend on sticking Roman in front of the TV and we didn’t plan to use a pacifier, and never wanted use bad language. Shit happens, we are only human, and if it gives you 3 minutes of peace, I would say you bloody deserve it.

• Okay unpopular opinion and if it has never happened to you than you are obviously the queen of motherhood but it’s about a baby falling. Now the first time Roman fell, was when he was a few months old, and I hate to say it but he fell off the bed. He must have wiggled or just bungeed jumped but he fell. I cried and cried. I felt like the worst person in the world. I held him tight and apologised, I think I was actually shaking (probably over the top) but after speaking to a number of mums, I now know I am not the only knob around here. Accidents happen, babies fall and as long as they generally haven’t hurt themselves, don’t be so hard on yourself. Trust me it’s not the only time. Roman now purposely dives off the bed and you have to leap in to ninja mode or the idiot lands on his noggin.

Month 5 for us was Baby shark month! That agonising song, that with one lyric it had sunk its crappy words in to your brain and then all of a sudden… Baby shark doo doo doo doo… Stop it! The one advantage, it did keep Roman surprising happy, he could be screaming the house down and as soon as he heard Alexa say those shivering words ‘Baby shark by Pinkfong’ he had stopped what he was doing and started listening contently. The bad news for the rest of us it was a huge success everywhere else too. People would post videos of themselves dancing to it while someone else filmed and slowly drove at the same time? It was also playing in clubs and brands were putting it on their merchandise, the world had officially lost the plot. I once heard a grown man have it as his ringtone; one would only assume he must have been a dad. I am not proud to say I would also sing and dance to it, to keep Roman happy but that was purely for Romans enjoyment not mine.

• Roman was beginning to be curious about food, looking at what you’re eating, moving his jaw up and down.

• Roman could sit independently but now was leaning forward to move but would just fall head first but the effort was there

•His hair was starting to grow back finally.

•Roman was finding his voice and wow he liked to randomly scream.

•He finally had colour to his eye and they were a beautiful blue.

• We tried him on fruit porridge; I thought he was going to swollen the spoon hole.

When it came closer to weaning Roman, I was always told that you will know when a child is ready for food. I worried myself thinking but how? They can’t speak to tell you? With Roman he started to refuse his milk, and he would get himself in such a state until it clicked, as soon as he seen that spoon with that mushing watered down porridge he was soon munching that down. We started swapping a bottle for a meal.

Half way point. Okay let’s just stop here, how has 6 months just gone like that. It feels like yesterday I was 6 months pregnant getting ready to go to my Christmas party… yes I actually had time to get ready, l could put make up on and straighten my hair, what does that feel like again? Now a whole year has passed and I now have this bubbling little ball of chaos. The one person that can make you slam you head in to door but a flash of their adorable smile and you forget what you doing. If I’m honest I was actually quite excited about the 6 month mark because I couldn’t wait to start Roman on solids. I felt like this was a new stepping stone and I wanted to give it a go. I was excited to try him on all these wonderful healthy recipes and even though I did enjoy it, with your day already fully booked it can be time consuming but I found making batches up and freezing was the way forward. Especially when you’re out and about or cannot be arsed to cook, blend, clean, feed and then do all over again at the next meal time. The first month is fairly simple, you give them blended carrots or mushed bananas. The difficulty started when I had to experiment with his meals, adding ingredients or checking salt and sugar content. Contemplating what meals to feed Roman, I know I didn’t want to keep giving the same thing over and over. Even though I did have a couple of different weaning recipe books I did still get stuck for choices. I was lucky Roman isn’t a fussy child so did make it easy to try him on variety of foods.

• The process of weaning was quicker than I thought, one meal once a day for a couple of days, then by week 2 we was already on 3 meals a day plus snacks.

• Food shopping became even more expensive.

• Nappies changed, they became a lot thicker and they bloody stunk even more.

• Beware of Weetabix, this made Roman’s poop really bitty, which was a nightmare when you just want to change quickly.

• With the change in foods and Roman teething, he started getting quite a bad bottom, it was very sore and red, and even though we was applying Sudacrem on a daily bases what helped clear the redness up in a matter of days was Canestan cream.

• Realised Roman was ticklish, laughed when you would tickle his tummy.

• Realising that most of my Videos of Roman had Jeremy Kyle fighting it out in the back ground. Guilty.

•The start of Roman crawling, but at this stage it was him slowly dragging his body across the floor. The amount of effort he was putting in, I was so proud yet he looked like one of them zombies that didn’t have any legs.

• I experienced celebrating a first holiday with Roman… Halloween. I was so excited to dress him up as a small Dracula and give out sweets.