Daddy time

This is just a quick post as I really need to head to bed, but I’ve been meaning to share these little stories for awhile.

Alby and Mark are becoming best-buddies.  Despite Mark’s manic schedule he’s been able to factor in quite a bit of quality time with Alby over the past few months.  From “tent time” (burying Alby under a duvet), to rugby practice, games of tennis (almost as lethal as Alby golf), football in the garden, singing together (Alby’s rendition of Jingle Bells will appear as a video shortly) and plenty of train and game cars the two are becoming their own little double act.

Whilst this all sounds very warming and admirable please don’t be fooled.  Mark allowing me my first lie in for months led to me coming downstairs to their new verse for “Wheels on the bus”: the mummies on the bus go nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag, nag… Two months on and he is still singing this verse around the house complete with wagging finger action. 

The love continues with ages.  As Alby’s understanding of numbers is slowly growing we’ve been able to teach him “Alby is two” and “Percy is three”.  Mark has added to this with “Mummy is old girl”.  Thankfully there is some justice in the world – Daddy is “old boy” too.

Finally, Mark was teaching Alby about different names the other day.  Sadly he hadn’t appreciated that whilst Alby is generally an average child, as his nursery report informed us he is bordering on the 30-50 month age range when it comes to self-awareness.  Mark’s lesson has backfired with Alby now routinely shouting for “Mark” or asking ”Mummy-erranda” to do something for him.  Apparently we are meant to be very impressed that he understands that his parents have an identity beyond “mum” and “dad” and for the most part we are, but that’s not to say it isn’t a little unnerving to hear him call us by our first names.  I know there are a lot of very liberal parents who go for that from day one but we aren’t like that!

Ah well, as I will be telling all of my relatives over the Christmas period – be careful what you say to him.  Trouble Monkey is sharper than he lets on and has a memory like you wouldn’t believe!  What’s worse he’s got his daddy’s smile and butter-wouldn’t melt dimples.  Like I’ve always said: Trouble Monkey.

Ear ear Alby

At 8:15 this morning Alby and I were both dressed, fed and in the car heading off to the hospital in Richmond (a snappy 40 minute drive away) for a hearing test.

As a newborn Alby failed his hearing test. Glue ear in the right ear ensured regular trips to the otology department where he was plugged into a range of devices so they could test how sound travelled to and from ear to brain, where the congestion was occurring and how severe it was.  I won’t pretend I hit it off with the otology bunch to begin with – the first two sessions saw me leaving the hospital near tears (firstly due to a mean lady whose incompetent testing and uncompassionate approach made baby Albert the Bear cry like he had never done before and then later simply because I wasn’t prepared to hear my Trouble Monkey was anything but perfect) but they do a good job.

Over Alby’s first year we attended around 6 different check ups.  The first were the hardest – as they requested a baby deep in sleep and I found such pretty much impossible to produce.  Inevitably the more I would try to jostle Alby to sleep the more agitated he became and the harder the sessions were.  By the time he was a year old though the testing involved toys and dancing monkeys.  Alby’s glue ear prevailed but the sessions were no longer a battle and with each test the lovely ear doctors of North Yorkshire not only learnt more but were able to reassure me that the congestion was very limited and unlikely to have any real impact.

A failure on my side of book in for one appointment caused us to be kicked off the books and, to my shame, it has taken me a year to book in a follow up appointment.  And so, on this cold and windy morning Alby and I, both still half asleep, hit the motorway for another testing session. 

Alby’s age presents a few challenges to testing, obviously.  The baby focused games would go right over his head causing him to get bored and disengage, making the testing inconclusive whereas there is a fear that the older games would be too hard. 

To start with they game him a board with pegs and he had to slot different shapes over the pegs every time he heard a sound.  Later the game changed to dropping a shape into a bucket every time the sound was played.   He was very cute with both games; he would hold the shape really close to the ear they were testing whilst he waited for the sound and only moved it from the ear when the sound appeared.  As we couldn’t hear any of the noises we had no idea if he was getting it right or not but we’d cheer and clap hoping our encouragement was promoting him the right way. They tested the right ear then the left ear and then the right ear again.  When he didn’t have ear plugs in, they were looking into his ears with a range of contraptions.  Bless him, it went on for an exhausting 45 minutes.  Half way through he announced “Hard work mummy” – poor sod.  It’s no wonder he fell asleep in the car on the way home.  He was fried.

In conclusion, there is still very minor glue ear in the right but it is so minor that it isn’t having any impact on his development or day to day hearing.  The congestion is so small that they have discharged him.  Well done Albs. 

Shatteredmummy.com

In the past twenty minutes there are about fifty things that I have thought would make a good blog post.  Top of the list is Alby’s polite but naughty nature.  It is 9:34pm as I type, Alby is playing the piano thumping down on the keys and shouting “that one’s loud mummy”.  Every so often I ask if he is tired or if he would like to go to bed.  He looks down in a slightly bashful way and says “No thank you mummy”.  Polite, yes.  Troublesome, absolutely.

The second thing I feel compelled to write about it Alby’s unlimited supply of energy.  He hasn’t had a nap today.  He has been up since 7am.  He has played with his cars, his train, his playdough and his toy groceries.  He has been on a 90 minute walk across the Moors with Percy.  Yes, he was in the backcarrier for part of it but he also ran a fair share of it in addition to chasing a few sheep, stomping on several mole hills and throwing stones into the reservoir.  He has been in the garden with Mark, walking his plastic £10 lawnmower up and down whilst he declares that he is “cutting the leaves”.  He has done all of his puzzles, played the drum, the piano and sung Christmas carols with Mark (more on that later). He has splashed about in the bath, scribbled on my Christmas cards and bashed away on the keyboard of my computer as I endeavoured to finish up a piece of work and yet he is still not tired. 

It is now 9:42pm.  Me: Alby are you tired?  Alby: No thank you.  Alby play hammer. He is now walking around the study bashing everything he comes along with my pen. 

I’ve been trying to work out over recent days why I haven’t been blogging that much recently.  It’s because every minute of every day is spent trying to exhaust my son.  And yet no matter how much caffeine I drink or how much sugar there is in my food I simply don’t have the stamina to keep up with him.

Mark went away a couple of weeks ago and I was a broken woman.  Not because of how much I missed my husband (though obviously I did, a huge amount).  It is because for the two weeks that Mark was gone Alby expected me to provide the entertainment level of not just one parent, but two.  As I say, I was a broken woman.  Mark is heading off again at 9am tomorrow morning and won’t be back until Friday.  I’m terrified! I wonder how much bribery it will take for a nurse at the local hospital to hook me up to adrenalin by drip? 

I don’t know why I’m surprised.  Yesterday he played rugby in the morning, visited the Knaresborough Christmas market and then charged around Northallerton with me for two hours and still didn’t wasn’t interested in a day time nap.  The saving grace yesterday was that he went to bed at 8pm.  Hurrah I thought, I’m more than happy to give up day time naps if it means an earlier bedtime.  Stupid me.  It’s now 10pm and the game of hammers continues…

There is more to write.  And one day it will come but for now my brain is dead, my eyes are heavy and I need to conserve my energy or I am sure to pass out where I sit whilst Alby plays hammers on my head.

Wish me luck