when Jake met Millie ...

Before Jake joined us there was Daggles, myself and Millicent Jane - Millie the Manx.
Millie joined our family a few months after we lost our pusser of 86 cat years Chino. He was old and slow and .... basically a catankerous old geriatric! I was in my early pregnancy and really missed his company.


So we went on line to the RSPCA web site to look at the cats and see what was available. Initially I wanted to adopt another old cat because sadly these are usually the last ones to find a home. Then I saw Miss Frowny Face and fell in love. Daggles thought she was ugly and strange (because she had no tail). So we kept looking through - although "Stumpy" (her kennel name) stayed in the back of my mind - and decided to "wait and see" when we got to the shelter.

Well needless to say Daggles fell in love with the petite sweet little cat that looked at him with her big eyes and gave a pitiful little squeak. Then she got home! We were used to being owned by an old cat with a bung hip and now we had an olympic athlete! Millie chose her sleeping place - my head, pillow or on my face - and started to make herself at home.


When we started setting up the nursery Millie decided to start "testing" it out. The change table got her tick of approval - as long as she could look out of the window and recline on a cot blanket.


The cot also got tested and was found extremely comfortable!
Needless to say I was in big trouble when Daggles saw the pics I had taken, but she looked sooooo comfortable I couldn't bear to move her!




Poor Millie had her nose put out a little when I was in hospital because she was at home on her own (after having me home for 8 weeks) AND she was not allowed outside unsupervised. Every time Darren came home from the hospital there would be a sad little face looking out the window waiting for someone to come and play.



Daggles and Millie love to play in the tunnel together!





So Jake came home and Millie, Jake and I had a lovely afternoon nap together. At the beginning he was just a noisy smelly thing that occupied Millie's daytime playtime. She basically tolerated him in her space.... but now....





....well Jake is crawling and Millie is a tease - she walks past just out of his reach so he tries to lunge for her and she runs away! So he tries to follow her and she jumps into the nappy box or tunnel and then they both play with the box! They are becoming good friends - luckily Millie has no tail to pull, but she does need to have regular manicures in case of claws!

daddy's little man.....

So we have hit 3 months and are heading to 4, Jake is on his Losec for the reflux and is sleeping well again. The afternoons sometimes get a bit hairy as he reaches the end of his tether and we stretch the day so Daddy could bath or shower him when he gets home. This became the special time for them both!


New Years we spent with my best friend at her family's unit on the Sunshine Coast. Unfortunately we had a very unhappy little man who cried all afternoon on our first day, New Years Eve, and by the time he got to sleep and we all relaxed and had dinner we were exhausted! We played Pictionary in an attempt to stay awake but it wasn't very successful and we were all snug in bed by 11pm! I however got to see the new year in bcos Jake decided he wanted a feed at 11.45pm! Happy New Year mum! The next day he had his first swim in a big pool and loved it!


Jake really is Daddy's boy!! When they are together it is just amazing watching them interact. Darren is a wonderfully gentle man and when he and his son are together there is another element of gentleness that emerges and is so sweet. It's like the layers of the superficiality of everyday life is stripped away and all you can see is pure joy of being a dad!


It was about now, 3-4months, that I put my foot down and became cranky mummy regarding weekend naps. I love a nanna nap during the day and when Jake is asleep I try to have a lie down too - but always when he is asleep. On the weekends Darren loves a nap but always managed to have them when Jake was awake and I got stuck with him on my "day off". I love him to bits but the weekends are when I can have my time off. So the rule was introduced that we can only nap on the weekend if it was a family nap and everyone could benefit from the sleep... so far it is working well!


Poor Jake has a mother who dragged him to 4 photo shoots in his first 4 months of life - they were all "free" and I was sucked in by the marketing! There was one shoot in particular that produced some beautiful photos and we bought a package - as you do - but these were actually affordable! The photographer was awesome and Jake as in his finest cranky pants mood - I still can't get over the lack of tears in the photos! This feather shot is my favourite!

Four months brought several milestones - teeth, night waking and solids. Jake's teeth started moving with a vengeance but didn't erupt for another 6 weeks! He also started waking at night and feeding 2-3 times through the night as he went through yet another growth spurt!

Jake grew taller and taller and stayed above the 95th percentile in height, however his weight was not catching up. By our 4 month check up he had slid from the 95th percentile to below the 50th. Off to the GP we went worried that my happy boy was "failing to thrive". No worries about that! He was just ready to eat something heavier than breastmilk! So off we went on the solids journey at 4 1/2 months.....

Our first "meal" of Farex rice cereal and breastmilk was inhaled! He was starving! Within a week he was scoffing breakfast, by the end of the second week he was having cereal for dinner too! By 5 months he was into pureed fruits and veges and loving his greens!

Jake had been sitting up with Daddy since about 3 1/2 months - they had sitting classes every weekend - but now his back was so strong and he had perfected his balance by putting his hands in front of him if he started to fall forward. He laughs and sings in lovely operatic tones - testing his volume and range - and sings all day! He still hates that tummy time and would much prefer to be sitting up rather than on his tummy - but he needs to get into it... I look at my girlfriends babies and they are loving their tummies! Not my little man he'd rather sit up! He is just so beautiful!

... and then we took him home.....

Everyone says how limited a commodity sleep is when you have a baby, yet you don't realise just how debilitating sleep deprivation is until you have a baby!

When we got Jake home we really weren't sure what to do once we got him there - so we put him to bed in his brand new HUGE cot! He looked so tiny and sweet!

He took to the cot really well and we never had to have him in our room or in a bassinet. Swaddling was our first method of "securing" him in his cot but after a while he decided that he preferred to have his arms out and SSSTTTRRRRRREEEETTCH!

Jake was a gorgeous baby although very hard to settle and there were many a day, and night, spent pacing the back deck singing "Baa Baa Black Sheep" and "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" whilst patting his little bottom.

Apparently he had Colic. Colic is a shit. You have a baby screaming and crying for no reason and you have no idea what to do except for pat and rock, rock and pat!

Well this unsettledness and lack of daytime sleep continued, although his nights were ok, and we graduated from just unsettled in the afternoon to crying in feeds, crying after feeds, only sleeping on people and generally not being happy.

Jake now had silent reflux. Silent reflux is not vomiting like "normal" reflux, Some babies reflux without it coming out of their mouths (termed silent reflux) which can cause more damage, but be more difficult to diagnose. The term ‘Silent Reflux’ can be confusing, because silence is generally not one of the signs they exhibit. Reflux is the spontaneous passage of part or all of the stomach contents (comprising food and stomach acid) into the oesophagus. The child may experience symptoms such as regurgitation, posseting and projectile vomiting. Sometimes it doesn’t come all the way out of their mouths, and the child may not vomit at all.(RISA www.reflux.org.au) He had to be medicated and held upright after every feed. Breastfeeding was a challenge with him pulling off in the middle of every feed screaming, and having to swap sides halfway through and back again... his little face was red raw and burnt by his acidic saliva and the poor little sausage had terrible wind because it caused him excruciating pain just to burp. I have never had heartburn but I am told it is hell - and this is what Jake was constantly plagued by.

By the time we reached 8 weeks I needed a holiday! I was plagued by feelings of inadequacy and I really craved my mothers advice and support - sadly she died several years ago. However I had a wonderful son and an incredible husband who pulled me through the really hairy times! I can understand the pressure a new baby puts on relationships and I am happy to say that this pressure has only brought us closer together and made us even stronger.

Well his weight was packing on and he was growing great guns - still sitting above the 97th percentile for height! Christmas came and went in a flash and Jake slept all day! When Jake was 10 weeks old we took him to Sydney to meet his Aunty Dee, Uncle Sean, Cousin Oscar the Rex (who recently went to the big cat tower in the sky) and all the relatives in Sydney. Jake was a hit and needless to say charmed everyone he met and he even managed to sleep though Yum Cha.

Once we hit 12 weeks life seemed to settle down... breastfeeding suddenly became easier and Jake seemed to settle into more of a routine. I fell in love with him a little more everyday as he charmed me with his smiles, giggles and sweet personality. By this stage Jake had been betrothed to about 5 other little baby girls and he was in high demand, already learning to charm the chicky babes!

3 months down and only 6 to catch up on.......

better late than never.....

Hooray! Jake is nine months old today and it has only taken me this long to set up a blog for him! And what a nine months it has been.... and I thought the pregnancy was hard work!

The pregnancy itself was great once I got past the fear of another miscarriage, another partial mole and the morning sickness... yeah ... the pregnancy was great.

In fact it is probably the healthiest I had been in my adult life. I ate well, I exercised and I felt like an earth mother!

It's funny how when you have "permission" to be curvy (ie it's ok to be curvy bcos you're pregnant) how much more confident and beautiful I felt. I loved my shape and the changes happening inside of me and I was for once not wishing my bum was smaller, my belly flat etc etc etc. I was round and I was gorgeous!

Well enough of the narcissism....


What a change these little people bring to your life - in so many ways that you only start to comprehend the extent of it when the little things happen. Going to the shops is no longer a quick, or leisurely, task and grocery shopping takes on such mammoth project management proportions if it includes a little person!

And sleep!

... what's that again?

Well let me bring you up to speed....

Jake Mitchell Fuller was born on 8th November 2006 at 7.07pm via c - section weighing a healthy 9lb 5oz (4324g) 55cm long with a head circumference of 37cm. He was a beautiful, long skinny baby with a squished head and a long skinny body with spindly arms and legs. Unfortunately he wasn't interested in joining us on the outside and never descended into my pelvis - hence the Caesarean.


He was a very hungry boy from the start and although my breasts doubled in size when my milk came in, there was no engorgement because Jake emptied them as quickly as I could fill them! He was a Daddy's boy from the start - when he was born and once he was cleaned up he was straight to Daddy and I didn't get a look in until I got to recovery! The nights on the ward it was Darren pacing the halls with an unsettled boy while I had a few snatched moments of sleep and it was Daddy who was the chief burper, pillow, carrier, babysitter....




And then we came home....