Month: January 2006

Categories
Eve

What A Difference Two Weeks Makes

supernanny

We just put Eve down for her afternoon nap. Yes, that’s right, we didn’t have to wait for her to collapse from exhaustion in front of The Wiggles as we used to do, we simply walked upstairs with her, placed her in her cot and she went to sleep all by herself. Not only does she perform this miracle during the day, she also does it at night!

You have to understand that I didn’t think this was ever going to happen. Even when we decided to try the Supernanny method it was with gritted teeth and a sense of fatalism. It may have worked for millions of other children but not Eve, no way was she going to go for such a simple idea. We thought that at the very least we were in for weeks, maybe months of crying and screaming and hours of sitting on her bedroom floor while she stretched her arms through the bars of her cot whimpering “Meeeeem!”

Turned out the whole process took a couple of days. The first night she cried for about 15 minutes when she was first put into her cot. Matt had to get up to her twice that night and the next. But by that time she was going to sleep with very little protestation. By the third night she didn’t even cry. When Matt stood quietly to leave the room she looked up as if to say “Oh, are you still here?” and then put her head back down. Since that night she has slept right the way through from 8:30pm to 8:30am and I have become reacquainted with normal sleep. The kind that lasts a whopping 8 hours or more. No more do I dread going to bed even though I’m exhausted to the bone because I know that in 2 or 3 hours I’ll be up again. Also no more late night feedings which means we are down to just two feeds a day and well on the way to Eve being weaned. I’ll actually have my body back!

One, two, three…what am I counting? Oh, just my chickens, but I don’t care…I’m going to enjoy this for as long as it lasts.

Categories
Tutorials and Reviews

Stephen King & Zombies

Cell

I have been a fan of Stephen King since I was about 13 years old and picked up a copy of “Misery” at my local secondhand bookstore. I remember reading it curled up in the corner of my top bunk that summer and completely losing track of my days and nights until it was finished. Many other books have had that effect on me since then but really “Misery” was the first so it’s kind of special. My favourite of his novels has to be “The Shining” simply because I love horror, I love to be scared and the part where the kid is crawling through the tunnel in the snowy playground all alone and something grabs his ankle is the only time I’ve ever jumped while reading a book.

Now, I know he’s not posh literature, he has no allusions to that, and I know many people wouldn’t even pick up one of his novels for that reason. I don’t mind though, I will read anything with a story and a set of characters that grabs my imagination and transports me somewhere else. Whether it’s Jane Austen or Karin Slaughter, I’m not fussed, as long as they entertain me.

Sadly I’ve been disappointed with King of late. Not always, sometimes a gem will come through, mostly with the non-horror stuff like “The Green Mile”. He just hasn’t scared me lately which is a pity since horror isn’t around much in fiction writing these days. Then last year he claimed he was retiring but I didn’t believe he’d be able to.

Well, he has a new book out in the States…it’s not out here for another few weeks but it’s about the one thing that always terrifies me and that’s zombies. Something about the fact that they’re rotting and they’re coming and you can’t stop them has always freaked me out. It does sound like these zombies are the new and trendy rabid kind we’ve seen in movies like “28 days.” As far as I’m concerned if they’re not dragging a mouldy leg behind them they’re not zombies, but I will reserve judgment.

This is from King’s website:

On October 1, God is in His heaven , the stock market stands at 10,140, most of the planes are on time, and Clayton Riddell, an artist from Maine, is almost bouncing up Boylston Street in Boston. He’s just landed a comic book deal that might finally enable him to support his family by making art instead of teaching it. He’s already picked up a small (but inexpensive!) gift for his long-suffering wife, and he knows just what he’ll get for his boy Johnny. Why not a little treat for himself? Clay’s feeling good about the future.

That changes in a hurry. The cause of the devastation is a phenomenon that will come to be known as The Pulse, and the delivery method is a cell phone. Everyone’s cell phone. Clay and the few desperate survivors who join him suddenly find themselves in the pitch-black night of civilization’s darkest age, surrounded by chaos, carnage, and a human horde that has been reduced to its basest nature…and then begins to evolve.

Writer/creative-type protagonist stuck in a job he hates…check. Strained relationship with wife…check. Young son…check. Hmm, sounds like all of his hallmarks are in place. Also sounds a bit like “The Stand” but that’s no bad thing. Oh, and is it just me or are American book covers much cheesier than the ones over here?

Categories
Blogging Tutorials and Reviews

Better Than TV

The father of Art Lad (whose art blog I have linked to for awhile now), also has a blog that I enjoy reading called Somewhere on the Masthead. Magazine Man (as he calls himself) has a way of making the ordinary life stuff very funny. At the moment he is embroiled in a dispute with his neighbour (who he calls Mrs Belfry) because she is accusing him of allowing his dog to do its business in her garden without cleaning it up.

It started with a doorstep confrontation, then “Crazy Lady” used her car to try to intimidate MM’s wife and 4-year-old daughter while they were out for a walk and finally an unpleasant “gift” was deposited at their door. It makes for very funny reading even though what this woman is doing is pretty scary.

But Magazine Man has a plan and I for one can’t wait to read how it all turns out.

Categories
Personal

Desperately Seeking Grown Ups

As I get older I find it harder and harder to make new friends. I was never the most outgoing person in the world but in school and in college I made some great friends, the kind that I’m still in touch with and whenever we meet up it’s like no time has gone by. Then I went travelling and again I was blessed with meeting some of the coolest people and forming the kind of friendships where you stay up all night talking, or watching Gone With The Wind followed by the whole of the (dreadful) Scarlet mini-series and laughing at the terrible acting.

But then three things happened…I turned thirty, I moved back to Ireland and I had a baby and all of a sudden I have no social life; the friends I had when I lived here are all now living in other parts of the world. Poor, poor me, I know…I don’t mean this to be a pity party; I want to be proactive about it and start making some friends but how do you do that?

Strictly speaking I’m not a Stay At Home Mum because although I’m at home I’m working pretty close to office hours. This pretty much rules out Mother and Toddler groups (if I could find them). So I’m working but I don’t have colleagues I can hang around with; the neighbours are all older people who are very pleasant but we have nothing in common.

So what do people do when they find themselves with a baby, work and no natural situation to make friends? I’m close to putting an ad in the paper.

“Desperately Seeking Grown Ups for Laughs and Late Night Chats (babysitter permitting).”

…maybe not.

Categories
Eve

On Sleep Training

A few months ago I blogged that Eve had finally started sleeping through the night. Sadly this wasn’t to last and, although it is not as bad as it used to be, she still wakes me at least twice a night, often more, and yes, I am weak, I give in to the little despot and breastfeed her to sleep on each of these occasions. Oh the shame. It’s just that if I don’t feed her it becomes a pitched battle to get her to calm down and go back to sleep and her will at 3 in the morning is a hell of a lot stronger than mine. Especially since I haven’t felt rested since she was born and I crave my sleep like a heroin addict craves their fix….and the dog ate my homework Miss.

It’s not that I’m short on advice for methods to train her to sleep, oh no, I’ve read them all and the studies that debunk them. I’ve been preached at by those that tell me if I do anything other than wear Eve 25 hours a day, never taking my eyes from her and never allowing her to shed a single tear I am damaging her for life. I have also read those that say unless a child is regimented down to the number of minutes taken to consume each meal followed by bowel movement and then to bed they will become a demon child that overruns the house and is destined for a life of crime and delinquency.

Well, this week we’ve been having a new kitchen put into our tiny house and so we have been staying at my parent’s house. Eve hasn’t taken the change of scenary very well so she has been waking me every couple of hours and has fought me tooth and nail in my efforts to get her to go back to sleep. I’m operating on a cocktail of sugar and caffeine and so once this kitchen is in and we’re back on home turf there’s going to be some changes happening around here. For one thing the milk machine is going to be unavailable between bedtime and morning (soon to be shut down for good), bedtime will be set and not just whenever she stops in mid play, twitches and collapses in a snoring heap on the living room floor, and now Daddy will be taking part in the proceedings too so it’s two against one.

We have decided to employ the Supernanny technique because it seems to be a good middle ground method and I can see us both being able to handle it. It involves:

  • 1. Setting up a consistent routine…bath, pjs, story, bed.
  • 2. Once she’s in bed Mum or Dad sits on the floor by the cot and bows their head so she can see us but we make no eye contact.
  • 3. Stay like this until she finally gives up and goes to sleep.
  • 4. Repeat each night gradually moving further from the cot and finally out the door.

    • Boy, she’s going to be soooo pissed.