Since getting the hang of walking the Tiny Human has from time to time taken his nappy to the bin. This has now progressed to almost every nappy change, all I have to do is open the kitchen gate and he gives himself a clap when he completes his task. It's all a bit cute. The Tiny Human is definitely growing up and it's really noticeable since he turned into Mummy's Little Helper late last week. Aside from taking his nappy to the rubbish bin, the Tiny Human has been carrying his spoons to the table in the morning for breakfast. It may not sounds like a bit deal, but for the Tiny Human it is and he walks those spoons to his high chair with purpose. This morning he wanted to upgrade to carrying his bowl to the table, however I don't think he is quite ready to carry a bowl of Weet-Bix without spilling the contents of the bowl or dropping it. I have had a couple of "Proud Mumma Moments" since this helping phase has started, like insisting that he carry his bowl or plate to the kitchen after a meal. However one of my proudest moments was when I was unloading the dishwasher and I turned around to see the Tiny Human grabbing plates from the dishwasher to put away. I was equally proud when the Tiny Human brought dirty mugs to me while I was packing the dishwasher (the mugs were on the bench). It's great to see the Tiny Human getting involved around the house, seeing how much enjoyment he gets from being helpful and becoming more independent. Such a proud mum. "Mothers like to spell son, S - L - A - V - E" - The Bearded One
It is no secret that we here in the Tiny Human household love pudding/dessert and we're definitely not taking part in Junk Free June. The usual suspects are ice cream, custard or chocolate self saucing pudding, with ice cream the front runner 90% of the time. Now we don't have pudding every night, maybe once a week or even once a fortnight, sometimes twice a week, but you know we're adults and could have pudding for breakfast if we chose to (I had a chocolate mug brownie for breakfast the other day, because the Tiny Human had me up at 5am). Occasionally the Bearded One and I like to divert from the usual pudding route and gamble on something from the frozen dessert aisle at the supermarket. That is how we ended up trying a Edmonds Lemon Meringue Pie - Family Size. I didn't expect much from a store bought Lemon Meringue Pie, but if anybody could get it right it would be Edmonds and they definitely delivered. I find most store bought desserts to be on the sweet side and there was no doubt in my mind that a lemon meringue would be on the sickly sweet side. Much to my surprise the Edmonds Lemon Meringue Pie isn't sickly sweet, it is actually really well balanced and is pretty close to a lemon meringue pie that you would make yourself, with the perfect base to filling and meringue ratio. The great thing about the Edmonds Lemon Meringue Pie is that they are perfect for when you have guests over, as they can be served hot or cold, so you don't even need to turn on the oven if you can't be bothered. The recommended serving size of a Edmond Lemon Meringue Pie - Family Size is 6, however the Bearded One and I are big eaters and eat half a pie each. We've had a couple of pies where you could see the filling due to gaps in the meringue and the base was broken, but it didn't change how good the pie was and I actually contacted Edmonds to let them know about it (companies don't know these things unless you tell them). This is absolutely one of my top three favorite puddings at the moment and you should try it if you're a dessert fan. Find out more information about the Edmonds Lemon Meringue Pie - Family Size, here. It's 2am and the earliest I'm going to get to bed is 4am.
I have Graves Disease and I need to wait 2 to 3 hours after taking my medication to breastfeed the Tiny Human. I take my medication twice a day, morning & night, taking pills when I wake up in the morning is the easy part. The difficult part comes with the evening pills, the Tiny Human has a late "schedule", is feed to sleep and due to being a lazy parent we co-sleep. For a while I was taking my evening pills by 9pm at the latest to be in bed by midnight, however this went out the window probably around the same time I decided to create an entry for WOW (World of WearableArt). These days I am taking my pills once I get the Tiny Human to sleep, which happens some time between 9pm and 1am. Thankfully I don't have an early riser and we generally don't fall out of bed till 11am, but I am still up most of the night till as late as 5am. Some nights the only reason why I go to bed is because "I should" and if I stay up longer I the Bearded One will be getting up to go to work and then I won't go to bed. The easy solution would be to start taking my medication earlier again, but my sleeping pattern is all out of whack and I think I could have a touch of insomnia. Besides the company of the Tiny Human, I spent the majority of my day/awake time alone. During the week the Bearded One and I will see each other for roughly 3 or 4 hours each day (6 or 7 hours on a Wednesday, when he's not doing pizza delivery), I don't mind being alone but writing this has made me suddenly aware of how isolated my world is. Being diagnosed with Graves Disease is described as a lonely road and it is. Unless you have it then the likelihood that you know what it is or anything about it, is slim to none; that was apparent when I posted on my Facebook account that I had Graves Disease. I know that people mean well and generally people just don't know what to say in these situations, but you would have thought I had told people I was dying with all the deathrow comments "If anybody can beat this you can" or "I'm so sorry for you hun. Hugs". I suppose with a name like graves people expect your life to have a grim outlook. What I think makes Graves Disease a lonely road is that it is one of those amazing illnesses that nobody can see, so you must be okay, and unlike more popular autoimmune disorders like Type 1 Diabetes, Rheumatoid Arthritis and Celiac Disease, your friends and family probably aren't going to know anything about it There are many symptoms that come with Graves Disease, including anxiety, depression, fatigue, insomnia, grave rage/anger, joint pain, bulging eyes, hair loss, dry skin, white hair, a racing heart, the list goes on and on. One thing that I have noticed with the colder weather is that once I get cold during the day, I find it impossible to warm back up (it seems to take all day to warm up) and like a lizard I just shut down for the day and nothing gets done. But it's not only the cold that prevents things from being achieved, For the past month I have been saying I will fold the pile of washing. I still have a pile of washing to fold and now have a pile of washing to do as well. I simply get too overwhelmed by the pile of things that I need to do, it all piles up and creates stress and then we get pissy because we're stressed and we wouldn't be here if there was more of me to go around, but most days I can only focus on one thing at a time. It's now 4am, I took my medication two hours ago and it took me two hours to write this. I'm not going to wrap this up nicely in a bow with a question or something thought provoking, I'm just going to end it here, pick the Tiny Human and go to bed, otherwise it will be 5am again. I am pleased to report that thus far my repairs on the Batwing Safety Harness have been successful and the Tiny Human & I managed a walk to our local cafe without any escapes for freedom; to my surprise the Tiny Human even held my hand for some of our walk. As discovered on Friday evening, one of the problem areas of the safety harness was that the Tiny Human could under the domes for the chest strap and take off the backpack, rendering the safety aspect of the harness useless. I solved this issue quicker than it takes to make a cup of tea, by simply stitching next to the domes. The Tiny Human is still be able to undo the domes, but the stitching prevents him from being able to remove the pack. The scariest problem with the harness was that due to only being held by a single line of stitching the leash attachment tore from the backpack; I am thankful this didn't happen while out walking as lots of trucks use the road past our house. I have hopefully stopped this from happening, by not only stitching the tag for the D-ring in two places but by also stitching around the area and joining the two sides of the backpack at this point together. Does that make sense? So far this method looks like it is going to do the trick swimmingly and it seems to be preventing some of the pull that was being created by the D-ring only being attached to one layer of the pack. I can't imagine how great it must feel for the Tiny Human to be able to walk places and to have a sense of freedom, rather than being strapped into a pushchair. As a parent it is of great relief to know that the Tiny Human is safe and isn't going to bolt onto the road or into harm's way. Sure there will be plenty of comments to come from parents who never used a safety harness and from people who think they never will, but until you have an explorer of your own you can't understand the why and it will just look like I have a "pet human" (I got that comment on Friday night). Last night I got tired and went to bed at around 2am, at around the same time the Tiny Human woke. However, rather than staying up and settling him back to sleep I took him off to bed with me hoping he would go back to sleep once we were in bed. Obviously I was dreaming. Actually I wish I was dreaming, because I've spent most of the night awake/not properly asleep due to the Tiny Human being awake and babbling to himself. At 5am the Tiny Human was becoming a bit too noisy and I dragged myself out of bed, so Bearded One wouldn't be woken. It is now almost 7.30am, the Bearded One has left for work and the Tiny One is asleep on my lap. This is going to be a long day. On Friday evening the Bearded One, the Tiny Human and I went to the exhibition opening of Behemoth: The Heavy Metal Art Of Nick Keller Part II, White Cloud Worlds Academy Exhibition and GKR Heavy Hitlers. What better place to test out the batwing safety harness than an event indoors. The Tiny Human looked super cute with his batwings and the harness was going well for the first hour & a half, then the Tiny Human figured out that there are domes which he could unclip and take the backpack off. FREEDOM! Well that's nothing too major and I can fix that happening by sewing it together, easy. Clip the harness back on and let the Tiny Human go again. In the next 30mins the Tiny Human unclipped to make a break for freedom, two more times. After the second time we clipped him back in and set him "free", next thing he pulled like a German Shephard and ping, the leash broke from the backpack. The Tiny Human spent the remainder of the evening wearing his batwings while riding on the shoulders of the Bearded One or being carried. Now I need to pull out the sewing machine and attempt to fix and reinforce the batwing safety harness. Results of batwing safety harness 2.0 will be posted once tested. Behemoth: The Heavy Metal Art Of Nick Keller Part II, White Cloud Worlds Academy Exhibition and GKR Heavy Hitlers are on at New Zealand Academy of Fine Arts till June 12th 2016.
With the colder weather up and down the country, we are definitely into puffy jacket weather and we all want to make sure our children are nice & toasty, but we also want them to be safe. The video below popped up in my newsfeed and after watching the video I knew I had to share it. So please watch it and make sure you are keeping your children safe this winter. "I'll never use a leash on my child", famous last words before having toddler. Recently the Tiny Human and I have been on a couple of adventures where he has wanted to walk. This is excellent news as soon enough we won't need the pram, however the Tiny Human isn't a fan of holding hands and is an explorer; not the safest combo on a fairly heavy use road. On our adventures to the park the Tiny Human has worn a hoodie, so we can hold on to his hood, but we can't do this forever and it probably isn't a great look. Instead we are going to be those parents who have their child on a "leash". After a quick look on TradeMe I found many a child harness, from basic strapped versions to Hungry Caterpillar and Elmo backpack styles. The price of a child safety harness varies as much as the styles, but one could set you back as much as $50. Thankfully the design that caught my eye was nowhere near that price, but as soon as I saw it I knew I needed to get it for the Tiny Human. Could you walk past a bat wing backpack? We haven't had an outing using the harness yet as we only picked it up last night, but if it doesn't get used today it will definitely be used tomorrow night at the opening of Behemoth: The Heavy Metal Art of Nick Keller Part II and I will blog about the experience. A the end of the day you have to do what works best for your family and child. If you have a child who holds your hand and prefers to stroll along at their own pace, then a harness probably isn't what you need. There are probably other options out there for little explorers, but I think this will work best for the Tiny Human and us. We will have to wait and see, for a final conclusion. |