Archives: jude

No typing yesterday as I was too wet – I was dripping & the keyboard is not waterproof. Was dipping today as well – but I seem to have stopped dripping now.
Back into the attic last night – hopefully the start of a better routine. Paint stripping again – the nasty layers of white gloss off the beams – but there are a few jobs that need doing. I have to concentrate & focus better. Louise said last night that she feels I’m more positive at the moment – hinting that I might have been in a rut of recent… Perhaps I have? Jack did not sleep so well – kept calling out when he roused for someone to visit him. Staggered off a couple of times in a very sleepy fashion, but did not get in his bed – which is what I suspect he wanted. I blame this for my grogginess this morning.
Interestingly on Wednesday night he was in the bath on his own for a good while – I was reading to Eve while Louise fed Jude, & then Louise & I were chatting… Jack was chuntering away to himself & I eventually investigated. He was acting out a little tableau with lego brick & cars as characters (they are imported unofficial bath toys). He was telling tales of woe – a sombre voice describing how ‘they all died – there was no food, only drink’ & things like that – then a few sobs & so forth. The sobs are what might have got my attention in the 1st place as I checked on him – he smiled sweetly & said that he was not really sad. When he came to get out of the bath & Louise had gone downstairs he burst into despairing tears. Louise came up & we had quite a performance – although it was pretty obvious he was ‘enlarging’ his emotions… hmmm….

A feeling there’s much to say & a brain that still can’t get past the rudimentary. I guess this is what all parents are like… Too tired to think too hard.
Louise thought the 1st day of the summer holidays went quite well. The kids played well & the day went surprisingly quick. Jack was starting to act up a bit by the time I got home – an accumulation of petty things & ‘that look’ (I know it all – I’m better than you). Not something that sits well with your 5 year old.
Louise went off to the shops & Jack & I stayed a home. Eve is very willing to go with Louise & the pushchair – essentially as we now have a buggy board. We went off on a great trek on Saturday to John Lewis in Manchester. It’s in Cheadle; we needed a train, tram, train & 20 minute walk to get there. All for a retail outlet with a buggy board. It was not something that was really planned. Jude woke us early on Saturday (as mentioned) & Louise piped up that she thought it might be a good idea to try to get there… Heck – why not! The train etc went well to get us to Cheadle Hulme, but it was a little odd when we got there as we had no idea where we were & where Lewis’ might be. Got direction & started the hike. Jack coped well, but got truculent because he kept missing the planes that were coming into land, & blamed us for not pointing them out to him well enough… He was not actually listening when we were trying to point them out. This made the journey there more difficult. When we finally arrived, it was a tad busy… We do not get along that well with busy shops… but never mind. We managed to stay together for the most part & get the new buggy & buggy board. We had arrived there with no buggy/pushchair. The stock collection computers were down, so rather than have our crazy kids running back & forth through automatic doors to the ‘collection point’ outside, we opted to try to get some food. Cafes crazy busy. Supermarket sandwhiches, then. Jude does a poo, Louise goes off to change him while the kids nearly sit down to eat. Eventually we get back to the store & still have to wait an age for the buggy & board. Assembled & homeward bound. There may well be mac computers in this store for me to drool over & Rowan wool for Louise to muse over, but we cannot get out of there soon enough.

Just woke from a snooze on the train. Closed my eyes on the platform & found that I continued as I got on the train. Feel a bit better for that, actually…
Jude was up early again this morning. Saturday & Sunday he woke at 05:00 & started burbling on happily as he does. This morning he awoke at similar time, but this time it was caused by Eve waking up & crying for a cuddle. It probably doesn’t take much for him to wake up at that time anyway. So, Louise is going to be jiggered today.
Jude is sitting up. Sunday morning I had him sat down & he was holding himself very well, & by the afternoon when Louise sat him down, he was almost confident about it. It doesn’t seem like it’s going to take him long before he’s figured out crawling now. He gets himself onto his tum & shuffles about at the moment, & he’s getting to the point where he’s lifting himself very strongly.

Eve woke up in a good mood on Sunday; chirpy, smiling. What a difference it makes! She’s been teething of recent, & has been in a sod of a mood; always whingeing & carrying on. It wears you down, grating at the nerves so much it makes you physically tired. Louise copes extraordinarily well with it all. One main tactic was to just get her out of the house, really so that she has distraction other than complaining. She’s got our sense of humour though… Louise says that she was on her shoulders on her way to playgroup when she did a massive burp, “Pardon me” she said. Louise must have chuckled as she repeated with fake burp all the way through the park. Louise burped yesterday as she was relaxing in the house & apparently Eve jumped on her & wanted “Again, again” – thus the game continues.
Sunday was not all good. We had a run in with Jack, or should that be Jack had a run in with us? We were just in the Co Op car park, after doing some shopping. We were going to go back to the park & see what was happening. There looked to be the music event for the end of the Hebden Bridge Arts Festival with a fair attached. This is what it looked & sounded like from the playground anyway. Not too loud… Could be fun. In the car park, Jack noticed a small light bulb. He picked it up, much to my concern – it being rubbish & glass rubbish. I told him to put it down, he did. Whether I remonstrated for lack of care, or whether he just got the idea, he picked it up again & threw it down… He wasn’t successful in breaking it – so he did it again – by which time I was nearly shouting at him. He did break it – to which I exclaimed “JACK!” very loud. Louise had cottoned on to what he was doing & made the swift ‘right – that’s it!’ decision. We were going home NOW! Jack immediately burst into tears. How could it be fair? Well – if he had listened to us & not messed about… He cried & denied that it was his fault most of the way home on the bus. Only getting into town did he calm down. He later even conceded it was his fault for being naughty… but that was only after another smaller incidence (stone kicking, “don’t kick that stone Jack… No… Stop that Jack …JACK!) & punishment (not going to the bike shop for a bike stand) & another flood of tears. It’s hateful to see him so upset & to have caused it, but… but he really does need to listen & have more respect for things. Having said all that – he has been very good since then. He’s come back to more his normal self.
Jude was a ball of energy yesterday evening. Louise says that he hadn’t really had a proper sleep all day. He was asleep when I got home, but I probably disturbed him. He was kicking his legs & waving arms like mad – not in a frustrated way, he was happy & burbling most of the time. Just energetic & happy. He wants to be off & crawling I’m sure… I’m also sure he’ll probably be doing it sooner that we imagine. Not immediate – but soon.

Jude has started baby talk. Well – he was last week, to be honest. “La, la na ya ya na aya ya ya” . He’s 6 months old now & you wonder where the time goes… where the days & weeks go – is it Thursday already? Louise had a hectic day yesterday – Jack off to school, then off to playgroup with Jack & Eve, then home, (11:00) then off to ‘college’ for Eve’s afternoon playgroup there. Eve is starting to be left there on her own. The off to Supermarket, then drop shopping at home, then off to see Jack at his sports day, then off to pick up Eve. That’s where I met up as I was making sure that I got there in time in case Louise was held up at sports day.
Jack won the race where you have to run to a point, run back run to the next point, run back etc & then to the finish line. Louise says he got boxed in, in another race & could not win that (memories of losing the sprint when I was young there). He was upset at not being able to do the skipping race. All in all he did well & got a few 2nd’s & 3rd’s – but he did sound a little disappointed. He might be competitive… I’m not sure. I’m not really sure I want to find if I’m competitive by proxy – the last thing I’d want to do is become pushy. I’ll have to keep a check on me just in case.

Another one-day weekend. Hurumph – it never seems enough… well, to be honest, I don’t think 2 days are enough; I’d prefer to have the whole week at home, but then, I never could get my head round the concept of the necessity of work? Still – there is that problem with money & where to get it?
Jack said in the bath last night, that he likes Sundays best… Basically it boiled down to the fact that I was at home. Saturdays, I’m sometimes not home, but he does like it when Louise’s mum & auntie Alice come over to visit (which happens when I have to go to work).
My cough seems to have dug itself in deeper this morning. I thought I was getting better, but I spent my 1st half hour awake coughing. Jude seems the same. We were sure he was getting better – his breathing seemed a lot less wheezy. He had a rash, that has cleared up as well & he was a lot happier in general. He was still happy this morning, come to that, but he’s just a wheezy as ever. The weather seems ‘croup weather’ (warm & damp) – so we worry that this cough might get worse.
Eve was barmy yesterday we put that down to her teething. She was not paying good attention to what she was doing & she certainly wasn’t listing to what we were telling her to do. We had to resort to carrying her yesterday as she ran to cross a road without waiting for us. Very foolish & not really like her at all.
She’s quite cautious of traffic, even if she doesn’t seem to understand the idea of roads & ‘cars are dangerous’ & all that. Louise told her off for going too close the edge of the pavement the other day ‘because of the lorries’ – so consequently she does not like lorries. If there’s a big lorry coming down the road she runs to be picked up now – a little bit of an over-reaction. That made yesterday’s behavior even more out of character at the moment. Louise is worried how the walk to school this will go this morning, as she was not able to get a wrist band for her. Still, we still have her ‘reigns’ if she’s proving barmy again. Louise is also going round to another mum’s house to see how their ‘buggy board’ attaches to their pushchair, to see if it might be possible to get one to it ours. There are doubts that it would fit on ours, but it would make life a lot easier at the moment if we could find one that did.

To work on a Saturday again… Would normally be working next Saturday, but there’s a train strike then, so I would not make it – so swapped shifts.
Jack was not for settling to sleep last night. It was all a bit hectic. Eve & Jude had their bath while Jack was still out playing at Jessie’s house (after a bit of initial resistance Jack Hamish & Jessie seem to have settled to playing well – there was a bit of unevenness in the dynamic for a bit there, but it seems to have worked out). I went to get Jack, & it was deemed a bit late for a bath, so he was straight to bed, which was probably a mistake as although he was jolly tired he was not keen to settle down. I read to him for a bit in which time a very flakey Eve succumbed to sleep. Jack was in the mood for more. Tried to put the sleeping Jude into his cot & only succeeded in waking him, much to Louise’s annoyance. So we had Jude & Jack awake, & Louise needed to be getting on. As we were both flakey we were in poor decision making mode. Jack was grabbing books to look at rather than sitting in bed. If he was I could have coaxed him to sleep. Still, rather than risk waking Eve with loud Jude Louise took him out of the room. As Jack was refusing to settle I went as well, with the advice that we had things to be a doing & to go to sleep when he had finished with the books. I thought he would soon come downstairs again… He didn’t – he actually settled down & went to sleep! Now this may seem foolish of us, but that was the 1st time the he went to sleep on his own – with no one else there to guide him to slumber… I was annoyed that he wouldn’t settle down, but so immeasurably pleased that he managed to do that on his own.

I seem to have written very little about Jack’s party…. perhaps because it was all rather a blur. I think that the meal must have started a little late as it was all over quite quickly in the end. Suddenly there are a lot of parents & we have to cut the cake & slice it up for putting in the party bags. Louise said that was the time that she nearly panicked as it all seemed a bit of a ‘How the hell do we do this?’ moment. We did though… & the children left. Louise’s mum & Eve got a lift home with Jill leaving just Louise, Jack, Jude & myself. Found various bits that got left behind (but you wonder how regularly clear the ball pool of old socks – a few were lost that day).
Eve has been reported as having had a growing spurt recently. A few people have commented that she’s grown, & Louise has noticed some of her clothes do not quite fit as well as they should. It’s hard to notice such things when she changes so little, really.
Jude has burbling yesterday (Jack said he’s nearly talking) – bya bya bya bna bya bya

Jack’s birthday tomorrow. I have the day off as well – yeay! Did a stomp around town yesterday & was quite put out at how abysmal the toy selection is in the centre of town, until I remembered the toy shop (duuuuh) – which is only a little way off centre. Got him a few things & got told off by Louise for it later, as that was not really the plan… Still, could you resist? I didn’t spend too much honest!
It’ll all work out though.
Went looking on the Internet for a buggy board last night. I can find them OK, but can I understand them OK? It seems you have to know how they might attach to your pushchair before you can order, & as there’s scant information about that, it’s somewhat difficult know what your supposed to be getting & whether it will work with your pushchair. We feel do need one although we know it will cause arguments as Jack & Eve battle for it. Eve, on the whole is much more willing to walk than Jack ever was, but even she gets tired. Jack still angles for getting a ‘pick up’, whereas Eve would rather be put down. Hmm – that may be indicative of their characters though – Jack is very tactile, whereas Eve is only tactile on her terms.
Odd thing last night – went to bed & only woke up when my alarm went off – I was not disturbed in the night… weird.