Up, up and awa-heyy!

Mourn for me. Patrick is no longer a baby. He IS a toddler.

On Wednesday I had just finished defrosting Meg's chicken neck for dinner (ewww! and people wonder why we are vegetarians...), popped P down (standing up) in the kebitchen and went down to the laundry to give the sodding thing to meg. As soon as she started crunch crunch crunching (-shudder-) I looked up to see Paddy staring down at me, standing up at the top of the stairs. Once he had established I was still in existence he...turned around and walked back into the kitchen. Like he had been doing it his whole life.

People had said to me that once they start walking your life is never the same. I had wondered how that could be: after all he was mobile with crawling, and could pull everything off the coffee table if he wished, why would doing it upright be any different?

Well, for a start, he's a lot quicker. After feeding Meggie we went to the park to fill in the hours before MrT came home- and Patrick toddled all over the place... broken glass, dog poo, used chewing gum... all these things I'd never noticed before now are within easy striking distance. (Don't get the wrong idea- our park is really nice, it's just that these things exist in every park, no matter how posh).

And then this morning he worked out how to get down the stairs (there are only 3, btw) to the laundry, so as I was eating my breakfast Patrick appeared at the doorway carrying a spoon, a wooden figure of the virgin mary my mum got him for christmas (ah. don't ask) and had that pursed-lipped "I've got something in my mouth" face. I swept his mouth like you were taught to do all those years ago in 1st aid to discover a partially chewed lump of "Coles Smart Buy Cat Food Casserole With Chicken and Vegetables".

(well he has to get his B12 from somewhere, I 'spose)

Wednesday was a day of full-on emotional highs and lows. First at work there was a major incident with a patient I was anaesthetising- suffice to say it's the sort of thing that makes the paper and people would say "how could that happen?!" and could have potentially ruined my career. Luckily there was absolutely no damage done, the patient was fine- even a little bemused by all the fuss. It was one of those "Oh crikey that could have been potentially disasterous" things. Everyone was cool and supportive but it left me totally shaken, and when I got home I felt like I was the most useless worthless shit. And then Paddy started walking and suddenly I was in tears with amazement and joy. And when we got home from the park, just tears. And a little bit of breathe-in-the-bag hyperventilation whilst Paddy threw his dinner off the high chair. (The funny thing about being an anaesthetist is that whilst your frontal lobe goes into hyperdrive and full-on panic-stations hits your NTS to amp up your adrenaline secretion and sympathetic all-out war, there is a tiny rational bit of your conscious that is still thinking- hmm, wonder what my PaCO2 is right now?)

I know that is totally disjointed, but, well, I'm trying to stop Paddy plugging up my USB ports with sultanas (!sultanas! Patrick's favourite food!) while I'm writing. You can imagine the sounds of chaos while you're reading- right now he's whacking his "the magic pudding" plate with my breakfast spoon and pretending to wash them up in an empty ice-cream bucket whilst banging all three on the floorboards and making a running commentary "Blee-oup, blee-oup blee-oup, shish-ack ah ahwheeah, glip showdop. Ahhh, ah-HERGGGGGGG! Waddle: wap. Arp arbdle abble. Uh. Ah- dad derr. OOOhhhh". He's doing a lot of imitating- it's adorable. On Easter monday we had a picinc in the park and at one stage he was pretending to scoop things out of a plastic glass with a teaspoon and feed it to me. Totally gorgeous but also HOLY CRAP! Monkey see, monkey do. Time to stop squeezing zits, giving 4WDrivers the bird and saying things like "yes. Brendan Nelson is a self-aggrandising fuck-hole who wouldn't know his arse from his elbow" to Patrick when we watch the news.

On a totally different note, my favorite clothes-selling ripoff merchants were having an end-of-season sale yesterday. Everyone loves a bargain and yesterday I cleaned up good. I got a chocolat top for $60- full price $407 and a Spencer and Rutherford bag (Olympia Deep Sea) for $80, full price $397. One of the 'gold label' limited editions ones. Nom nom nom...

Am I evil?

Quick poll:

every time we go to a certain shopping centre (let's just call it, ummm, Eastfield) playing on the giant plasma screen tv in the 'parents room' is Spongebob Squarepants. Patrick is entranced by it.

Should I buy him a SB SP DVD to give me some P&Q?

Ah, nuts

My wireless thingummy has broken and the computer needs to be looked at by someone cleverer than me. So no more posts from me for a while.

I've had a preview of the future...

Well it's a cliche, but don't they grow up fast? One year ago, this is what P looked like:
and this is a photo we took two days ago where P looks like a little boy.
That's probably because he is rapidly transitioning into a little boy, a toddler. He still is only taking at most two steps at a time, but he walks so well holding onto our hands it won't be long before he's off and running.

I have to admit although I wanted a baby so desperately when we were going through all that ttc and miscarriage crap that I didn't really enjoy the tiny baby stuff so much, but now my enjoyment of P- and probably therefore his of me- just is increasing at an exponential rate. He is such a joy- he snuggles, he cuddles, he laughs, he plays, he babbles incessantly, he points at the sky, at birds, at random things in the supermarket. He loves it when I do silly things- put a shoe on my head or hang a spoon off my nose- sing songs and dance. When he falls and bumps himself he holds his arms out for a cuddle. I get to kiss things better. It is all so wonderful.

But there is also an emerging toddler-personality. He screams when we take things off him that he shouldn't have. He hates it if we close the gates so he can't crawl all over the house. He is major destructo of everything and everything within reach. He will happily munch on stale bits of bread he finds in mysterious places on the floor but pushes away the healthy lunches we make and screams and bucks in his high chair until we let him out. He has started biting me to get my attention. He needs to check that his doodle is still attatched every time you change his nappy and gets upset if we clean his hands when they are subsequently covered in poo. He howls at the day-care drop-off.

But on balance, he is the most wonderful wonderful joyous creature in all of creation. He is my most amazing achievement. He is the pinnacle of my life so far. My baby boy is growing into a little boy so fast I feel if I blink he will be a surly teenager. And if it keeps going this way, I can't wait to continue the journey.