The all night milk bar closed prematurely due to bad behaviour...

The milk bar closed in the small hours of this morning (6.45am) due to the proprietor being abused. After being repeatedly kicked in the stomach and upper legs, the client then took up the level of abuse by scratching & pinching small handfuls of flesh which she found underneath the proprietors clothes. As if this wasn't enough, she then took it upon herself to gum down on the milk receptacle whilst simultaneously looking behind herself, causing the proprietor quite a bit of pain.

The final straw was when the client decided to blow raspberries over the milk receptacle when she was fed up of binging on milk.

The client spent large proportions of the night awake, drunk on milk binges, having bouts of sicky hiccups, she was unable to handle her binging and was repeatedly sick.

The proprietor has already opened the milk bar again (8am) for the day, ready for some more abuse 

Arthur's expanding repertoire

Well, Arthur turned 16 months yesterday, and in the last couple of days he's started trying to say proper words. He's been jabbering on all day everyday for weeks, talking complete nonsense. To him, what he's been saying has been really important, but to us, we haven't a clue!

After taking him for a walk around Eden yesterday, he's trying to say 'flower', it comes out 'fower'. He's started to say 'night night' at bedtime, which comes out like 'naght naght' (as if he's a northerner!). He says 'ook' for book, and 'bu' for bus. He says 'tractor' and 'digger' as clear as day, but 'tractor' can mean anything moving that isn't a car or a bus or a digger! He says 'brm, brm, brm' very enthusiastically for motorbikes. His first word was 'duck', closely followed by 'dog', both said very distinctly! Now, anything that flies is a 'duckda', and especially Pingu on the telly! 'Dog' has turned into 'dog dog, oof oof' for woof woof. And since seeing a program on telly about a cat & kittens, he's trying to do a meow sound too. The funniest one of all though, is 'boobies' which comes out like 'bubah' and frantic pointing to his own nipples or more often my boobs! I wonder when he'll try to say 'milk', or 'drink', or 'eat', all of which he does baby signing for. He says 'Dada' quite a lot now, and gets excited when he comes home from work. When he's upset or angling for attention from me, I get 'mimmy, mimmy' over and over. He has said 'baba' for baby on a few occasions too. If you say to him 'oo oo, ah ah ah' (for monkey) he copies and gets his toy monkey and gives it a hug!

He can now point to his (or anyone elses) nose, ears and mouth and we're trying to teach him eyes, chin & cheeks. He points to his head or his foot when asked and he knows where his toes are. When I suggest we go out and he wants to do this, he'll get his shoes and socks and either put them on top of his feet, or hand them to me and present a foot for me to put them on!

He's proficient at taking his own bib off, and has been known to take his own trousers off! It's a little more tricky trying to get them back on himself though!

He hates having his nappy changed, and it's becoming a real battle now. He hates sitting on his potty even more though, so the battles will have to continue for the time being :(

He's breastfeeding when he gets up and when he goes to bed, and if we're at home during the day, he'll feed after a nap. If we're out and about, he's far too busy for drinking milk! He's self-weaned really well, and at times I thought he'd stop altogether, much to my dismay, but he's sticking with it for the time-being, and yesterday, had two feeds in the day??!!

He has never had a drop of formula or cows milk, which isn't going to change in the near future. He's coming on better with cooked dairy now, and can mostly handle a small amount of cheese or butter in sandwiches, but cream cheese still makes him sick or very poopy, I dread to think what cream or milk would do to him.

My little baby is growing up so quickly!

The chubby mans first bump

Arthur learnt to crawl last Sunday afternoon. He was 1 day short of 10 months old.

I thought he would have been fully mobile by now. But I think his cold has set him back a bit. He will move for incentive, ie my iPhone, the remote or the telephone, but he won't follow me when I leave the room, instead he prefers to sit still and cry until I return.

Since last Sunday however, he's decided he'd like to learn to pull himself up to standing! So we've had less than a week of crawling, and already he wants to walk... cheeky chubba.

Anyway, to get to the point.

Today, we went to the breastfeeding clinic to lend a peer supporting hand to some new mummies & babies. It's a big room and they have a toy box for older babies/toddlers. Arthur spotted this quite early on, and lo and behold, crawled quite quickly over to the box. He was happy amusing himself for a while, he pulled himself up to his knees to get himself into the box to see what toys he could find. I was merrily chatting away to the mummies, when all of a sudden, there was a burst of tears, and my poor lovely chubba was folding up into the floor in floods of tears. He had a dent in his forehead where he'd clobbered the corner of the box. It turns out, he'd pulled himself up onto his feet and then slipped, and cracked his head.

My poor baby, he's got a great big red bump on his head, which I suspect will be a cracking bruise tomorrow morning. His first bump, and I'm sure, the first of many!

Shocked Response

So we were out last night with a group of friends.

It meant leaving my babe with the mother in law. This should be fine, he sleeps in the evenings, undisturbed normally. But the opportunity to go out hasn't happened very often, and I have issues leaving him. I feel lost without him. I feel like I'm missing something when he's not with me, which is silly in the evenings because he sleeps in a room by himself and I wouldn't normally see him anyway. So of course, he woke 5 minutes after she arrived, and I had to go down and soothe him back to sleep. He slept well all evening after this, so I needn't have worried!

We were out with four other couples, all of whom have children, three of them currently pregnant again. Most of them breastfed for a little while.

We got chatting to one couple who are pregnant with twins. Talking about my babe, how he's just started crawling, how he's been poorly, how he doesn't really eat solids and just mainly has milk feeds. The husband said to me 'You're not still feeding him yourself are you?' in a disbelieving tone, and when I replied sheepishly, 'Well, yes, of course' the look of shock on their faces! It kind of made me laugh a little, 1 at me feeling sheepish in my answer, and 2 why would I feed him any other way? He's 10 months old.

I've recently completed my breastfeeding Peer Support training, and I'm eager to help other new mummies out. And yet, a friend asking me if I'm still feeding made me feel sheepish, and kind of like I'm being a bit weird to still be feeding? I know it's thoroughly against the norm to still be breastfeeding at this age, and even more so that my babe has never ever had a drop of formula milk. It shouldn't be this way though.

My husband and I were raised soley on breastmilk, and I wouldn't have it any other way for my babe. Just think of all the money we've saved!