Shutdown Day made me realise three things :
1. I obviously don’t use the computer as much as I thought, as I still had no free time!
2. But if I didn’t have the Internet I would feel very cut off from the world (it’s my main source of news) and from other people (I do get out, but less than before Simon was born).
3. Giving up the computer for a day means I have lots to read (and respond to) when I get back to it again!
So it wasn’t a bad exercise, but I think it convinced me that overall, computers and the Internet are Good Things for me at the moment!
Anyway, on to…
Simon’s news: Simon is becoming more and more aware that his hands belong to him and have their uses. Everything that he can clutch makes its way to his mouth, if possible. So when he lifts his T-shirt up, this has nothing to do with wanting the world to see his vest, and everything to do with the fact that he’d like to see what it’s like to have his T-shirt in his mouth. Unfortunately for him, it usually doesn’t stretch that far! But he makes up for it by putting other things in his mouth, like the pineapple’s feet (see 5th March), his softie, Mummy’s clothes or, if nothing else presents itself, his fists.
He is as smiley as ever, which is a delight, but as uncuddly as he has been ever since he could hold his head up. In fact as soon as he could hold his head up he seemed to feel that he ought to hold his head up, so cuddling just doesn’t work, and if I try it I usually feel two hands pushing hard against me. (Of course, for the moment I’m stronger so I can always insist!) If I want a real cuddle then I have to wait until 11pm after his last feed, when he’s so sleepy he will sleep in my arms with his head on my shoulder … and by then I’m usually feeling as tired as that myself, so don’t make the most of it.
The downside of his growing awareness of the world around him is that when it is unfamiliar, he gets scared! We noticed this last weekend. On Saturday Marc had Open Day at work, so I took Simon along so that Marc’s colleagues and students could see Simon. (And not at all because I wanted to see the chocolate fountain!) However, as soon as he was out of his car seat and coat, and Marc carried him into the noisy main corridor, Simon opened his eyes and his mouth wide and screamed! He carried on crying for ten minutes even after we had retreated into a smaller, empty, side room. So I decided I had better take him home!
It had been extremely noisy at Marc’s work, but Simon reacted the same way when we took him to (his godfather) Pascal’s yesterday for lunch with Pascal and his girlfriend Hélène. I think one of Marc’s colleagues, Françoise, got it right when she said early on that Simon wouldn’t like loud voices because Marc and I are both fairly softly-spoken and rarely raise our voices. At Pascal’s it wasn’t so much loud voices as several voices at once, in a flat with lower ceilings than ours. Poor baby! It’s difficult as a parent to see him looking so upset and out of his element, but I know he has to learn that there are other places apart from home, and that he can still be safe and happy there.
1. I obviously don’t use the computer as much as I thought, as I still had no free time!
2. But if I didn’t have the Internet I would feel very cut off from the world (it’s my main source of news) and from other people (I do get out, but less than before Simon was born).
3. Giving up the computer for a day means I have lots to read (and respond to) when I get back to it again!
So it wasn’t a bad exercise, but I think it convinced me that overall, computers and the Internet are Good Things for me at the moment!
Anyway, on to…
Simon’s news: Simon is becoming more and more aware that his hands belong to him and have their uses. Everything that he can clutch makes its way to his mouth, if possible. So when he lifts his T-shirt up, this has nothing to do with wanting the world to see his vest, and everything to do with the fact that he’d like to see what it’s like to have his T-shirt in his mouth. Unfortunately for him, it usually doesn’t stretch that far! But he makes up for it by putting other things in his mouth, like the pineapple’s feet (see 5th March), his softie, Mummy’s clothes or, if nothing else presents itself, his fists.
He is as smiley as ever, which is a delight, but as uncuddly as he has been ever since he could hold his head up. In fact as soon as he could hold his head up he seemed to feel that he ought to hold his head up, so cuddling just doesn’t work, and if I try it I usually feel two hands pushing hard against me. (Of course, for the moment I’m stronger so I can always insist!) If I want a real cuddle then I have to wait until 11pm after his last feed, when he’s so sleepy he will sleep in my arms with his head on my shoulder … and by then I’m usually feeling as tired as that myself, so don’t make the most of it.
The downside of his growing awareness of the world around him is that when it is unfamiliar, he gets scared! We noticed this last weekend. On Saturday Marc had Open Day at work, so I took Simon along so that Marc’s colleagues and students could see Simon. (And not at all because I wanted to see the chocolate fountain!) However, as soon as he was out of his car seat and coat, and Marc carried him into the noisy main corridor, Simon opened his eyes and his mouth wide and screamed! He carried on crying for ten minutes even after we had retreated into a smaller, empty, side room. So I decided I had better take him home!
It had been extremely noisy at Marc’s work, but Simon reacted the same way when we took him to (his godfather) Pascal’s yesterday for lunch with Pascal and his girlfriend Hélène. I think one of Marc’s colleagues, Françoise, got it right when she said early on that Simon wouldn’t like loud voices because Marc and I are both fairly softly-spoken and rarely raise our voices. At Pascal’s it wasn’t so much loud voices as several voices at once, in a flat with lower ceilings than ours. Poor baby! It’s difficult as a parent to see him looking so upset and out of his element, but I know he has to learn that there are other places apart from home, and that he can still be safe and happy there.
1 comment:
Poor Simon! The world is a big, scary place. Gabriel, on the other hand, will never have a problem going to sleep against a loudspeaker pumping out Wagner as his grandfather did many years ago...his sisters see to that fact!
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