Yes, I’m a fan of Apple’s products and have been ever since I bought my first iPod back in, I think, 2003 (although I might have been on my way to becoming a fan when I bought Tegan an iBook (which in those days was a laptop – not an ebook) in December 2002). But at the end of the day they’re just tools and gadgets that enable the things I want to do or make them easier. I don’t think I have a particular emotional attachment to my Apple gadgets. When an iPod or laptop has died (usually after extensive service) I’ve been disappointed because it meant I needed to spend money to buy a new one, but that was it. And my fondness for Apple gadgets isn’t intrinsically linked to the CEO and founder of the company that made them. In fact, I was never very impressed with what I heard about Steve Jobs as a person – based on the old stories about how he had for years denied the paternity of his first daughter or how he had scammed his friend out of what should have been his rightful share of the proceeds from creating a game for Atari. Basically, I had the impression that he wasn’t a particularly nice person.

The sense of sadness and loss I feel confuses me. One could put it down to the old John Donne line – ‘any man’s death diminishes me because I am involved in mankind’, but I don’t think that’s it either – plenty of people die about whom I don’t feel sad. Maybe I’m just tired and feeling a bit fragile – and there is some truth to that, although it doesn’t explain the full thing either. I think what it is, for good or ill, is that I’ve developed a significant respect for Steve Jobs over the last few years and that the sense of loss is because I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about his views and actions. There is an attachment for me because he is someone I have engaged with, albeit vicariously.

At one level, this is because of my attachment to Apple’s products. I have started typing this on an iPad, which is connected to the Internet via a personal hotspot on my iPhone, and I will include an image I edited and stored on my iMac. Later today I will watch a video that will be streamed from my iMac and displayed on my tv via an AppleTV. I will do more work typing this up using Tegan’s Macbook Pro while sitting on my couch watching the Rugby World Cup. The more I have read about Apple, the clearer it has become that the connectedness of all these gadgets – the way they work together almost effortlessly and the way they enable me to do all these things – the beauty of their design in both looks and usability – it was Steve Jobs that drove this. He was the visionary who saw the possibilities and pushed people to make them happen, not to mention structuring a business and manufacturing supply chains to put them in my hands at prices I can afford (albeit, that I can afford only because of my comfortable middle class job and lifestyle).

I’m also very interested in the reports about what Steve Jobs was like as a manager. Having worked for detail-obsessed micro-managers, it’s typically a frustrating experience, yet that was something that Steve Jobs was lauded for. Perhaps there’s message there that it’s good to micro-manage details, as long as you pick the right ones to manage and as long as you can actually contribute and make your product or whatever better by doing so. Personally, looking at the possibilities of being a senior manager in my field in the not too, too distant future there are obviously useful lessons to be learned from watching one of the stand out entrpreneurs and managers of my lifetime.

The other aspect of the sadness, I’m sure, is because I’m a Christian and Steve Jobs wasn’t. Since his death, his commencement address at Stanford University in 2005 has been quoted many times. It included the following line:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

I find this so sad – it’s close to the truth, but wrong enough to be very, very sad and disappointing. Death is not the greatest invention of life. Death is wrong. As he said, despite eagerly awaiting eternal life I don’t seek death now and I do enjoy my life. But in contrast I think that Jesus’ victory over death is the greatest thing ever and I more eagerly look forward to a day where there will be no more death and no more suffering:

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God. 4 ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” Revelation 21:2-4

But in the meantime, I appreciate Steve Jobs as visionary and I can internally mourn for someone who had such big, good and intelligent ideas and who appreciated the bigger picture, but just had it so tragically wrong.

We had a particularly good day on a Wednesday a couple of weeks ago – the best day we have had for so long. Isaac had next to no colic, we relaxed, Anastasia had fun with animals, we ate delicious seafood, everybody slept well, we got to watch a whole movie in one go. It made us feel fantastic. In fact, despite a number of significant crying episodes since it felt as though we turned a bit of a corner on that day. Wednesday, 18 May 2011. It’s a date for us to remember in perpetuity.

What made this day so great?

1. Bateman’s Bay

To begin, we were staying at Bateman’s Bay in a very nice little holiday apartment at a place called Parker By The Sea. I would heartily recommend this place – the apartments were gorgeous, modern and well kitted out. The kitchen was fantastic. The bedrooms were nice and large. The whole place just had a great feel to it. Our apartment had the master bedroom downstairs, where we slept with Isaac, and two bedrooms upstairs – one with a queen bed and one with twin singles. We let Anastasia choose which one she would sleep in and she chose the queen bed. She looked so small sleeping in the middle of this enormous bed but she loved it. She slept more soundly there even than she would normally at home.

2. Birdland Animal Park

Not the famous jazz club, or I might have gone as well. As it was, I stayed home and read books while the girls went to the animal park, which is part wildlife vet, part tourist attraction.

Anastasia had a ball – she patted wombats, looked at wallabies and even had a snake draped around her. In fact, she enjoyed the snake so much she went back to it and had it placed on her several times.




At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay



At Birdland Animal Park, Bateman's Bay

3. No colic
   Aside from one session of crying for about half an hour or less when they were arriving at the animal park, Isaac had basically no colic all day. In fact, during the afternoon he was particularly delightful – smiling and gurgling at us.

4. Excellent seafood

Thanks to a most excellent tip received from our friend Bianca the last time we were in Bateman’s Bay, we returned to the 3 Fish Cafe in the main street of Bateman’s Bay. An absolutely delicious mixed seafood grill consumed while sitting in a little park looking out over the water. A pretty much perfect lunch.

5. Anastasia slept for at least 3.5 hours during the day

That pretty much explains itself.

6. Free time and good sleep

Because Anastasia slept so well during the day and because Isaac had a good day, Tegan and I had lots of free time. We got to read books, watch Masterchef and even watch a movie (Mao’s Last Dancer – we liked it) after Anastasia went to bed. And then everyone, including us, slept well overnight. It was glorious.

7. Did I mention, no colic

It was just so good.

Of course, the next day Isaac had a couple of pretty major colic episodes, including one in the car just as we were leaving Bateman’s Bay, which necessitated a stop at a little park in Nelligen where Tegan and Isaac got out and let Isaac’s screaming annoy all the surrounding workmen, a boat-load full of people out for a river cruise and other people enjoying an otherwise pleasant picnic in the park. A couple of elderly ladies were lovely and came to help Tegan while she was trying to change Isaac’s nappy and get her changing gear sorted out on a picnic bench without it all blowing away and plenty of passing people made the usual sort of comments we get, along the lines of, “there’s nothing wrong with his lungs” and “gee, what’s wrong with him?”

And a couple of days later, on the Saturday, we had a particularly bad end to an otherwise great week. The full set of events feels a bit too long to recount here, but involved it taking us 2.5 hours to get home from Braddon due to Isaac crying, bike tyres punctured and deflating three times in quick succession, each only minutes after the previous one had been fixed, and very dirty nappies with no change facilities in proximity. All this while we were trying to get home quickly in order to look after Tegan’s niece so that Tegan’s sister could get down to Canberra Hospital to relieve Tegan’s Mum, who had been waiting there in emergency with Tegan’s Nan for more than a day and a half while they waited for a bed to be found for her. We should have known it would be a hard day when it started with not enough sleep and Anastasia head-butting Tegan (on purpose? accidentally? we’re not sure) very hard in the nose, to the extent that Tegan at first thought her nose might be broken. I saw it happen – it reminded me of Vinne Jones in an early Guy Ritchie movie.

Since then
In the last two or three weeks since then, things might have been improving. We think. There have been some complicating factors so it is hard to tell.

Isaac seems to have less colic, which is very good. We had some friends around for pizza and movies one night, and a couple of people mentioned that Isaac was, unusually compared with their previous visits to us, not screaming. However, we have all, including Isaac, had annoying colds so he has been grumpy and upset for different reasons. And he still does get colic episodes, but far less of them. We now have more good days than bad days, which is a complete reversal from a few weeks ago.

Over the last couple of days, I thought that Isaac’s colic was back with a vengeance – there were seriously significant amounts of crying starting from early in the morning – and today he wasn’t even eating properly. However, it turns out that it’s an ear infection instead and he’s on antibiotics, which seems to be helping. While he’s following in his sister’s footsteps with the ear infection (Anastasia has had a number per year since she was about 10 months old) he has started with them a lot earlier than she has. I don’t think this is a good sign.

Isaac at 17 weeks old

Isaac is now about 17 weeks old. Some observations:

• He smiles a lot. He really, really loves smiling at people, particularly Tegan and I. He’s much more smiley than was Anastasia at that age. He also laughs, or as close as a baby can actually come to laughing. It’s really very, very cute – we love it and so does everyone who sees it. On a couple of occasions Isaac has charmed random people in cafes just by looking up and smiling intently at them. I wonder if it’s because at other times he has been in such pain and been so unhappy that when he’s happy, he’s very happy indeed.
• He has developed quite odd sleeping patterns in the evening, but they’re still helpful. He tends to fall asleep now around 5:30pm or so, often but not always waking up for a feed around 8:30pm, then takes a dream feed at around 11pm before Tegan goes to bed. He then wakes up again sometime between 4 and 5:30 to feed. He was then going back to sleep until after 7am, but for the last few days has stayed awake after 5:30 – just wanting to play.
• He’s always been pretty alert, but is getting more so. He is also developing his dexterity. He started reaching out and holding on to things a few weeks ago and is getting better at it. The other day (actually when Tegan was trying to settle him at about 4 in the morning) he reached out and turned pages in a book that she was reading to him. He also enjoys playing with some of the baby toys around his cot or on various baby playmats we have.

Anastasia

See Tegan’s post. That’s a pretty good summary.

Us

I’m into my last week of leave. More updates on us when I post a summary of my four months off before I go back next Tuesday.

Dickson wetlands planting day panorama

Freshly planted plants at Dickson weltands

Anastasia and Tegan planting plants at the Dickson wetlands

Anastasia at DIckson wetlands planting day

Anastasia inspecting water bugs

Fitting plant protectors

Construction has been going on for a number of months and seems to have almost finished. Hopefully this means that soon our house and car will stop being coated in red dust on a daily basis and that the smell of fertiliser and manure will fade. More seriously, it looks like it will be a great and fun place for Anastasia (and eventually Isaac) to explore and the concrete paths look like a perfect surface for trikes and small bikes.

See more info about the Wetlands on their official page here or on their Facebook page here.

A few of her favourite things…

• People

Anastasia is a gregarious little soul who loves her people!  Anastasia loves going to creche at church on Sunday and during ladies Bible study, often asking to go during the week. The carers at childcare have told us that Anastasia is a happy, confident little girl who is very affectionate. She does seem to enjoy her time there, particularly ‘Music with Miss Jess’ on Mondays, and is invariably in a wonderful mood when we pick her up. She has formed consistent friendships with several of her classmates at childcare but she remains most closely attached to her family.  Anastasia loves seeing, playing with, talking to and praying for her family.  When looking at the family portraits taken over the years, Anastasia will excitedly announce, “That’s my family!”

• Baby dolls

These have been a constant favourite since she was about 10 months old.  Where other toys have featured as favourites for a while and then been returned to the toy box, Anastasia has retained her delight in baby dolls.  She plays with them at home, at crèche and at childcare.  Isaac’s arrival has prompted an even greater range of activities, with baby dolls being tucked into bed, rocked to sleep and patted to calm their crying.

• Acorns

After going through a phase of picking up sticks and rocks everywhere we went, Anastasia wholeheartedly transferred her affections to acorns.  The lovely oak trees across the road have provided a ready supply but familiarity in this instance has not bred contempt!  We find collections of acorns in the base of the pram, in Anastasia’s handbags, her pockets and jewellery box, in her toy sink and under the couch in her room.  We must have thrown out kilos of them!  Thank goodness the season won’t last for too much longer…

• Toy trains

Tim was diligent in expanding Anastasia’s toy train collection in the months leading up to Isaac’s arrival and she now has quite an impressive collection.  Tim and Anastasia have spent a wonderful time creating an amazing variety of track designs and sending the trains around them – I’m not sure which of them has more fun!


• Music

This has always been a favourite with her, only now she is much more vocal about what she’d like to listen to.  In the car we often hear comments on the music being played from the rear seat: “What’s this music called?”, “I don’t like this music.”, “I like this music – this song is cool!”.  The Peter, Paul and Mary we used to play for Anastasia has largely faded in popularity, although she is still intrigued by identifying songs that we played for her “when I was a baby”. Dora the Explorer songs are always popular, but the surprising favourite is Bjork’s ‘It’s oh so quiet’.  ‘Lah-Lah’s Big Live Band’ has been a recent and very popular addition to her collection and we have very much enjoyed dancing along in the living room with percussion instruments in hand! Yo-Yo Ma still provides the soundtrack for each evening’s descent into sleep with Bach’s Cello Suites; Anastasia described this to us the other day as ‘quiet’ music.

• Books

Anastasia has always loved books and her love of them has only increased.  She loves looking at books and being read to and has recently begun pretending to read herself.  She delights in ‘reading’ to us by reciting one of her favourite books – “The Big Night-night Book” by Georgie Birkett – from memory.  Lately she has started ‘reading’ to Isaac, sitting next to his bouncer and telling familiar stories from her own books. She is starting to recognise numbers and letters and often gets frustrated when she cannot read for herself.

Imagination

Anastasia has a very active imagination, keeping us entertained with her flights of fancy and role-playing.  Everyday activities feature heavily – making coffee, cooking, going to the shops.  She also loves the idea of going to school: she will dress up and put on hat and backpack and asks you to play along.  Grandma Johnson once indulged her by actually walking with her to North Ainslie Primary School, which delighted Anastasia!

We have been surprised at the directions that Anastasia’s imagination has taken her.  A few months ago, Anastasia seemed preoccupied with her apparent sensitivity to tomatoes.  We have often told her that she should not eat tomatoes as they make her feel sick.  For some time she engaged in imaginative play about her various toys being ill and Anastasia feeding them tomatoes to make them feel better.

Independence

Anastasia is continuing to develop her own personality and will.  This is sometimes frustrating for her parents and entirely expected for her age!  Anastasia has become more and more definite about her opinions on various topics and is keen to make decisions on her own.

With such definite ideas about how things are (or should be), conversations with her can be entertaining at times:

Anastasia: What are you doing, Mummy?
Tegan: I’m looking at my beautiful baby girl.
Anastasia: I’m not a baby anymore, Mummy, I’m a little girl.  And I’m getting bigger and bigger every day.

She has also startled us by her early attempts at lying, mostly around whether she needs a nappy change! A couple of months ago she took us aback us by her first attempts at manipulation:

Anastasia: Mummy, can I please have a glass of juice?
Tegan: Okay darling, we can get you a glass of juice.
Anastasia: That’s good, ‘cause Daddy said no!

I’m afraid that my initial response was to laugh!!  Sometimes it is really hard not to laugh, even though I know it isn’t helpful for guiding her longer term behaviour.  She has a beautiful smile and readily flashes it when attempting to get her own way! Anastasia has also become an expert on extending her bedtime, with an impressive repertoire of delaying tactics.

For those who are interested, here is a sample conversation between Tim and Anastasia last week, along with a transcribed version for those not used to listening to her every day.

• Recording of Anastasia Chatting
• Transcript of conversation between Tim and Anastasia – May 2011

As the conversation indicates, Anastasia has a current preoccupation with growing up and has developed a long list of things she would like to do when she ‘gets bigger’. A few times recently, when we have remarked that she has grown, Anastasia has then asked, “So can I drive the car yet?”

Anastasia and Isaac

Isaac has been a joy to have but his crying has been difficult on the whole family.  Anastasia has been coping remarkably well under the circumstances.  Despite the inevitable irritation with him on bad days, she shows a remarkable amount of compassion and care for him – “Poor Isaac. Is he settled now, Mummy?”  She also appears to have accepted his presence in our family, often asking to see him when they have been separated and wanting to kiss him good night each evening.

We have been delighted to watch Anastasia taking on her role as a ‘great big sister’.  It is something she takes seriously and she can’t wait to teach Isaac lots of things.  When Isaac was only a few weeks old, I came downstairs to see Anastasia gently clasping Isaac’s hand around a little bouncing ball.  “I’m teaching him to throw a ball, Mummy!  He has to use a little ball because he’s only little.”  Each time we remark that Isaac has grown, she eagerly asked whether he can do new things such as sit up or walk. We are so looking forward to seeing them grow up together!

All in all, we are delighted to watch Anastasia grow and develop and look forward to the changes that the months and years will bring.

1. Cheated Hearts – Yeah Yeah Yeahs
2. Bear – Grace Woodroofe
3. Black Sheep – Metric
4. Hey Now Now – The Cloud Room
5. Streets of Your Town – The Go-Betweens
6. Shop Vac – Jonathan Coulton
7. On The Table – A.C. Newman
8. Boom Boom – John Lee Hooker
9. Why Don’t You Do Right – Jessica Rabbit (from the movie, Who Framed Roger Rabbit)
10. The Middle – Jimmy Eat World
11. Jungle – Emma Louise
12. The Night Last Night – Mark Ronson & The Business Intl.
13. Tender As a Rose – Abbey Lincoln (best listened to late at night with the lights off)
14. Two Against One (feat. Jack White) – Danger Mouse & Daniele Luppi
15. I Will Possess Your Heart – Death Cab for Cutie
16. Lovesong – Súnas
17. Darkness Descends – Laura Marling
18. The Perfect Drug – Nine Inch Nails
19. Those Were The Days – Leningrad Cowboys and the Red Army Chorus and Dance Ensemble

The last two tracks don’t fit quite as well and should probably be rethought, but overall it’s a good, fun 75 odd minutes of music.

Since late last year we have had a number of crucial household appliances break or otherwise cease functioning effectively, including our vacuum cleaner, lawnmower, whipper snipper, fridge and old freezer (was kept in the garage for bulk frozen goods storage).

Some of these were easier to deal with than others. The vacuum cleaner, which was a relatively cheap but pretty good one from Aldi was replaced with a new, pretty good, relatively cheap one from Aldi. The whipper snipper was replaced with a $10 pair of garden shears of the type that my Dad has always used, which look like old-fashioned sheep shears. These also work very well and are actually quite therapeutic to use. The mower can probably be repaired and I just need to get myself organised and take it to a lawnmower mechanic.

The fridge is in a different order of magnitude though. Almost all of the shelves broke in the middle and temporary repairs involving super-glue, wood for bracing and/or duct tape only go so far. It was also tending to freeze the vegetables and salad things while not cooling some other foods adequately. Unfortunately it is also rather expensive to replace. Exceptionally kindly, my parents came to the rescue and offered to buy us a new fridge.

About a month ago Tegan noticed a David Jones catalogue advertising 20% off all white goods. The same night she checked the Choice website and found a very recent article reviewing and comparing fridges. There was only one fridge in their survey that exactly fit the dimensions of the fridge space in our kitchen and it was one of the top five fridges as reviewed by Choice. The next day it was in to DJs and with the 20% discount the fridge we wanted was cheaper than anywhere else we could find it, including discount appliance stores like The Good Guys and Clive Anthony’s. Three weeks later our new fridge arrived.

Anastasia was prepared for it and was asking about the new fridge on her way home from child care. The first thing she did when she got home was rush into the kitchen to see it, followed immediately be decorating it with her magnets. Very cute.

In case you want to know the gory details, it’s a Fisher and Paykel 442BRX. While slightly smaller than our old fridge it seems to fit a bit more. The shelves are adjustable to a number of different positions and they’re glass, so shouldn’t crack down the middle like our old ones.

Because it’s an upside down fridge it also means that Anastasia can reach the freezer door and the very first time she did the first thing she noticed was one of her favourite foods – ice cream. Fortunately, she has learned very quickly that she has to ask first before she is allowed to open the freezer door.


Not all new things need be boring household appliances though. I also bought a new bike. I haven’t ridden for a few years but when I was commuting to work a few years ago, I was riding my Dad’s old bike, which he bought in the mid-1980s. While it was generally quite fine, being an old bike the brakes didn’t have great stopping power, particularly not in Canberra’s fog, the gears weren’t moving smoothly and the chain would come off from time to time while I was changing gears, and all that even after I had it professionally serviced.

I got a good deal on a new Giant Cross City 3, fitted with a great little kids seat for Anastasia to ride in. They even fitted a drink bottle holder attached to Anastasia’s seat. Anastasia was very proud heading into the bike shop with her Dora the Explorer helmet, which she got to wear while we rode home together.

Anastasia and I have been riding quite a bit – mostly just commuting into town to our (well, my) favourite coffee shop or Anastasia’s child care, though we have been for at least one really good ride down to the lake and back. Less exciting though, I’m also getting better at fixing flat tyres.


Unfortunately, it also looks as though the coffee machine will be the next thing to die: oh, the horror! That may be the worst one yet.

Isaac screams. Lots.

This is what most days entail for a substantial portion of the day:

These times are terrible and trying. Tegan and I get quite stressed by it after a while, which is compounded because it makes Anastasia quite upset too. She now often says things such as, “Isaac, stop crying!” or simply comes up to us and says “I want Isaac to stop crying”. She often asks to go out, for example to her little park, but wants the other parent to stay at home with Isaac. While she does love her little brother he obviously wears on her. Unfortunately, on the days that Isaac cries and screams the most and upsets Anastasia, her behaviour is also at its worst, characterised by whinging, crying tantrums over the most minor things and general naughtiness. Of course, this also makes things worse for Tegan and I because we then have two upset and trying children to manage. I’d say that over the past few weeks we have felt stressed and exhausted much more often than not.

As an example of the kind of days we’ve been having, on Easter Sunday I posted the following update to Facebook:

Egg hunt completed successfully = very happy two year old. Adults had scrambled eggs and bacon for breakfast = very yummy. But Isaac has been screaming almost non-stop since 6:45, to the extent that Tegan was trying to feed him his bottle and eat her bacon at the same time while in the shower. Poor little mite – really not having a good time.

Isaac also screamed through most of the church service that morning, settled for the first part of our trip on the car to Goulburn for a family lunch, screamed for the last 45 minutes of the trip and also for about half of the afternoon, before finally sleeping the whole way home. Fortunately on that day we had lots of family who were happy to help and hold him (although we may have scared some of the younger ones out of ever having their own kids), but such assistance is rare. Mostly it is just us, which really means mostly Tegan, who has to handle the screaming and try whatever we can to settle him and cope ourselves.

Fortunately, there are some good moments though. About one day per week we have a stellar day. Today is one of those, as was last Wednesday. Today, both Isaac and Anastasia woke up in a great mood and they have been happy, chatting and just generally lovely. On such days we get wonderful smiles from Isaac and he gurgles at us and seems like the kind of happy, cute baby that everybody loves.
Last Wednesday was a particularly good day – we felt so relieved to have a peaceful, happy day after a number of very bad days immediately prior. Tegan and I were in fine spirits and not stressed and, particularly in the afternoon and evening, Anastasia was happy, cheerful and delightful in the way she was playing with us and Isaac. 

At the time I said:

7pm and no colic episodes today. Thank God!

…although this was followed the next morning by:

‎… and the screaming has returned.

Fortunately Isaac does sleep pretty well, particularly at night. He generally feeds at about 10:30 or 11pm and then again sometime between 2:30 and 4:30am and then around 3 hours or so after that middle of the night feed, which means that we are getting a some decent blocks of sleep during the night. And during the day he can often sleep fairly well, as long as he’s not screaming too much. More often though, this means that he falls asleep either in Tegan’s arms or in her baby sling as he would wake up and scream as soon as she tried to put him down in a cot. There’s something about human contact and being carried around that really seems to settle him when he’s having a colic episode.

It’s interesting the way there are different kinds of crying from babies. Isaac has different kind of cries when he is hungry, tired and uncomfortable, although the colic cry is different again and it is more intense, louder and more anguishing. He also writhes around and arches his back strongly when he is in pain with the colic. It actually makes it somewhat difficult to carry and hold him at those times – it feels as though he is trying to get away from you, although he doesn’t really know what he is doing.

Tegan has continued to seek advice from local doctors and midwives but the answer is always much the same: as hard as it sounds, his crying comes within the bounds of what is considered normal and there’s probably nothing we can do about it. We just have to wait it out. Apparently it typically stops sometime between when they’re about 3 months and 9 months old, so we might have only another six and a half months of this to go…

Tegan did take Isaac to see an osteopath on Saturday morning which did yield positive results, even if they seem temporary so far. The decision to take Isaac to an osteopath was prompted for two reasons. Firstly, one of the other mothers in Tegan’s mothers group from when Anastasia was born took their baby to an osteopath back then and it worked wonders to ‘solve’ their extensive crying. Secondly, Tegan had noted that Isaac seemed to have a bit of a crick in his neck, or something like that, as he always turned his neck in the same direction when she was carrying him and he seemed to be uncomfortable if she tried to turn his head in the other direction.

Isaac was already having a bit of a colic episode on Saturday when the osteopath saw him, but after a bit of a massage while slung over his shoulder Isaac calmed down and relaxed immensely – perhaps the most relaxed he has ever been. He also slept much better than usual for the next couple of hours. The osteopath said that he would like to try to see Isaac weekly, schedule permitting, for at least the next few weeks and that with a bit more attention he should be able to lessen Isaac’s colic. This seems our most promising lead so far and we hope it will work, although getting an appointment with the osteo is a bit difficult.

Self-reflection time

As is obvious from everything above, Isaac’s colic dominates our lives at the moment. While we’re generally surviving (or perhaps coping well compared to others in similar situation, as some people tell us) it does affect the totality of our lives. Our emotional state on any given day or time is highly dependent on how Isaac is going. Whether we can get out of the house and go somewhere varies depending on how much we think other people we will meet can handle loud screaming. How stressed we are and therefore, unfortunately, our patience with each other varies with Isaac’s state. It’s terrible that when Isaac is not doing well Anastasia gets more frustrated, ill-behaved and emotionally unstable, which results in her getting into trouble more often and us getting more upset and frustrated with her. It’s a terrible vicious circle.

The other hard part is that although it is Isaac who is in pain, it’s hard to always feel sorry for him – instead we, or at least I, often feel as though he is just an imposition. When one is walking around Dickson at 9pm at night, listening to seriously loud screaming that has probably been going for over an hour, with a baby who it feels is pushing away from you – it’s actually hard to feel sorry for them, even though I know that is the proper response. That reflects a bad degree of selfishness on my part, unfortunately. Tegan does display more patience, in fact an amazing degree, but we all have our moments where the frustration is overwhelming. I think the frustration comes from helplessness as much as anything. If the crying was for an apparent reason, such as hunger, tiredness, loneliness, being uncomfortable, then it could be fixed. Because we can’t do anything to fix it we feel not only worn down by the noise but also because as parents we’re meant to be able to fix things, but in this case we can’t.

Isaac’s Development

More positively, Isaac is growing and developing really well. Here are some things he has learned to do over the last three weeks:

• Smile

He is now capable of giving very gorgeous smiles and it is quite fun to sit with him for perhaps five minutes or more just smiling and chatting at each other.

• He found his hands

He’s now conscious that his hands are his own and he kind of knows what to do with them. He can grab onto things and doesn’t whack himself in the face or accidentally yank his own hair any more.

• Play

There are several toys and things that Isaac really loves. He loves sitting in his baby bouncer, which has a motorised base (‘Calming vibrations’, and they are – even when he is screaming) and lights and sounds. He also likes sitting on a playmat and playing with the various toys that hang down – he pushes them around so they swing and make sounds and he can often grab onto them. He also seems to have discovered that he can push things around with his feet.

• General strength

Ever since he was born we’ve noticed that he had quite good neck strength, but he really is quite strong for his age in being able to push his head up and look around etc.

• Speed

Anastasia has always been a bit of a speed demon. On the swing she always wants to go higher and faster and in the car often wants to go faster too. I suspect it’s genetic passed on from Tegan. Isaac is turning out to be much the same – driving i the car, particularly aggressive driving with lots of sharp movements seems to make him very happy. Definitely takes after us.

Other good things, or, what we’ve been up to

We have actually managed to do a few more things over the last three weeks – it’s not (quite) as if our entire life is dominated by Isaac and nothing else. Here’s some of the good things we’ve been up to:

• Sydney – including B.B. King, Graham Freudenberg, friends and family

We spent about a week in Sydney in mid-April, staying with my parents. We had a wonderful time catching up with friends and family, including some friends that we haven’t seen for over a year or more. Anastasia also had a ball as she loves staying with my parents – mostly because she loves them and their company, partly for the toys she plays with there, and partly because she often gets to go on a train when we go to Sydney. Grandma and Grandpa were particularly and marvellously helpful to Tegan and I for all the time they spent helping in looking after Isaac and Anastasia and giving us some much needed breaks. We even got to go out on our own one night, without children! Tegan and I had tickets to see B.B. King in concert and we had a great night out there while my parents looked after Isaac and Anastasia [I've been planning to write a review of the concert and still will, but in brief: Tegan thought it was amazing; I enjoyed it but my praise is somewhat qualified]. We did feel a bit guilty when we got home around 11:30pm and found my Mum still sitting in a couch holding Isaac – it had obviously not been a great night.

The following night Dad and I went to see a conversation with Graham Freudenberg, who was Gough Whitlam’s speechwriter. The event was very interesting – the conversation covered the process of speechwriting and some reflections on politics and the media. The most interesting observations that Freudenberg had were his obvious frustration with politicians pandering to the daily media cycle and trying to win in the media every day, rather than building good policy and elucidating, explaining and testing it over the long term with key speeches, particularly made in Parliament. Following the speech Dad bought copies of Freudenberg’s books for both him and me and we had them signed and in exchange I bought dinner, which was unfortunately quite mediocre Spanish food at a restaurant on Glebe Point Road.

• Footrot Pratts

Less than two days after returning home we were off again to our friends’ holiday property, out in the middle of nowhere scrubland past Tarago. We had a really wonderful time there over a few days and again appreciated the help in settling Isaac and keeping Anastasia entertained. Anastasia also stayed true to form as a little speed demon – she loved going fast on the quad bike and even got to beep the horn.

Note to Greg and Ruth: thanks again. Always a great time out there with you guys.




• Portal 2

On returning from Footrot, I found that Portal 2 had been released. This kept me occupied and happy for a while.

• Easter

Over the Easter weekend my sister, Larissa, and her husband, Matt, came to stay. We had a great time with them as well, just generally chilling out at home. Matt and I played quite a bit of Portal in the evenings while Larissa and Tegan tried to watch TV, but really just fell asleep early. Easter Sunday started with a cooked breakfast immediately followed by an egg hunt for Anastasia. I had prepped Anastasia for it the night before, explaining that she would get to search for eggs outside the next morning. Unfortunately, this image stayed with her and she woke up early asking to go and look for eggs. Fortunately she is still vulnerable to suggestion, such as me stating that I would go downstairs and just check to see if the eggs were indeed there – thus allowing time for them to actually be planted. She really had a ball hunting for eggs and has been wanting us to hide more for her ever since.

Following church we headed up to Goulburn for our traditional family Easter lunch, complete with mountains of food (and thus hills of leftovers) including, as an easter treat, bulochki and paskha. Mmmmm. The ones we got to take home with us didn’t last long.


• Coffee

We discovered the Lonsdale St Roasters in Braddon. Best coffee in Canberra – it has supplanted Silo as my favourite place to go for coffee and it’s also much closer- only a few minutes drive or 35min walk from our house. Tegan and I are going there most days at the moment and it’s very hard to limit myself to just two double espressos per visit. The sandwiches and muesli they serve are also fantastic, albeit a little pricey to have every day.

Concluding thoughts

I’ve only got three more weeks before I’m due to go back to work. Tegan is particularly unsure how she is going to cope with both children after I go back and I am currently in the process of seeing whether I can extend my leave by another couple of weeks (I still have enough leave accrued to do this). On the Isaac front, we hope we have turned a bit of a corner. Since seeing the osteopath the colic hasn’t been quite as bad – we feel like we’ve had less bad times anyway – and hopefully with a few more visits the good times will increase and the bad times will decrease all the more. In the meantime, please keep praying for us – that we survive and, more positively, that we manage to be good parents, etc while doing so.

Week 1

Tegan recovered really well from her caesarean. In fact, she recovered so well and so quickly she somewhat shocked the midwives and the obstetrician and received some renown for being able to get out of bed and walk only about 12 hours after the operation and then move out of her surgical bed and into a normal room the next morning. Personally, this didn’t surprise me as she recovered quite quickly from her caesarean after Anastasia was born and this time around she wasn’t in labour for over 30 hours first.

The only complication, if it can be called that, in the first few days was that we had to start feeding Isaac formula in addition to breast milk on his second night. As was the case with Anastasia, Tegan couldn’t produce enough breast milk and Isaac needed additional formula to supplement what Tegan could give him. This came to a head on the second night when Tegan was looking at the colostrum she had been expressing and realised that she wasn’t expressing 3mL in the 40 minutes after a feed, but just 0.3mL. At least this time we were prepared and picked it up while we were still in hospital rather than several weeks later, as we did with Anastasia. Consequently, Isaac lost only about 200g by the end of our stay in hospital, in contrast with Anastasia who lost about 700g in her first week and who didn’t make back her birth weight until she was four weeks old.

While it looked like Tegan and Isaac were on track to leave hospital on the Friday (after Isaac was born on the Monday), one other issue arose. As Tegan and Isaac were of different blood groups, Tegan had a series of Anti-D injections during pregnancy and after Isaac’s birth to prevent any disease or rejection issues associated with one being rhesus positive and the other rhesus negative. However, Tegan’s blood test after birth showed no sign that the medication had taken effect in her system – it was as if she had never had any of the injections. Further blood tests revealed that there had been a bleed from Isaac into Tegan in utero (a feto-maternal bleed, as we discovered it is called) and this had used up all the efficacy of the injections Tegan had been given. More surprisingly, we discovered that the medical staff treat it as a cause for some concern if there has been a bleed of more than 6mL, however the blood tests showed that there had been a 60mL bleed. This caused Tegan to become even more of a medical celebrity among the midwives and obstetricians – the midwives had never seen a feto-maternal bleed that used up the efficacy of the anti-D injections before and the obstetricians were stunned that there could be such a large bleed while both Tegan and Isaac were both healthy and there had been no emergency. One of the obstetricians who came in on the weekend said that a bleed of that magnitude would normally be associated with a serious issue at birth or a detached placenta or something like that and that it would be a medical emergency and the whole hospital would have known about it. Both the obstetricians and the paediatricians we spoke to thought the blood test results about the quantum of the bleed must have been wrong as both Tegan and Isaac were completely fine (although Tegan’s regular obstetrician now thinks it might have been correct and reflected a slow bleed, perhaps from the umbilical cord, throughout the pregnancy).

Nevertheless, Tegan required a top-up of the anti-D medication, but because of the feto-maternal bleed they needed to give her a special one that was delivered via an IV drip and, because the bleed was so significant, they needed to give her a larger dose of this medication than was available in Canberra and the hospital had to fly additional supplies down from Sydney. And when it finally arrived, Tegan had a bad reaction to it, experiencing bad pain and extreme cold shivers, resulting in the midwives delaying subsequent doses. The end result: while it all worked out, we didn’t get out of hospital on the Friday, but on the Saturday afternoon instead. Not too bad, but Tegan was very much ready to go home at that point.

On Tegan’s first night back home, we put on a great antipasto spread for her filled with lots of things that she hadn’t been able to eat during the pregnancy, including brie, blue and other soft cheeses, salami, prosciutto, smoked salmon, a good red wine – and of course other things he could eat but that were yummy anyway, such as olives and good sourdough bread from Silo. My Dad and I had been to the markets on Saturday morning and really went overboard with the range of delicacies we picked for dinner.

Anastasia coped very well having her little brother arrive home. She certainly delighted in the concept of being a big sister, although sometimes didn’t seem all that keen on Isaac being there. During week one in hospital she once asked us where Isaac’s mummy and daddy were and was at first slightly confused that her Mummy and Daddy were also Isaac’s mummy and daddy. On a couple of occasions she also said that she wanted him to go back, or asked us to put him down and pick her up. However, there really wasn’t too much of this or other attention-seeking behaviour and she was lovely to Isaac and delighted in giving him little kisses and cuddles.

On night one that Isaac was home, when settling Anastasia in bed ready for sleep I explained that Isaac was going to wake up during the night and he would probably cry and that if he woke her up she should just go back to sleep. She agreed to this and, quite surprisingly, she also did it. Even till now, Anastasia has never once gotten up during the night when Isaac has woken up crying and she has reported in the mornings on a few occasions that he did wake her up during the night. However, I soon had to amend those instructions. For a couple of mornings, when Anastasia woke up she sat on her bed bawling her eyes out until I came to see her. This was very unusual as she normally gets out of bed on her own and comes into our room to see us. It took me a couple of days to realise that when I had told her that she should go back to sleep if Isaac woke her up, she thought she was also being instructed to simply go back to sleep in the morning as well. Once I explained that she could get up in the morning as normal and that it was only during the night when it was dark that she needed to go back to sleep on her own she was fine and her night-time sleeping and morning waking routine returned completely to normal.

Week 2

On the Tuesday of our first week at home, Anastasia and I drove up to Sydney to pick up Larissa and Matt and bring them back to Canberra for a visit. This was an opportunity to give Tegan and Isaac a quiet day at home together and also to do some more kilometres in the car, which perversely we needed to do in order to avoid a significant additional tax bill (linked to the salary sacrifice lease arrangements for the car). We had a lovely couple of days with Larissa and Matt before Anastasia and I drove them back to Sydney again on the Thursday. Anastasia did so well travelling in the car – I really wasn’t sure how she would go travelling in the car for five hours per trip to Sydney and back, but she handled it really well and seemed to have a good time. Of course, brief stops at the playground at McDonalds at Sutton Forest plus spending a couple of hours on each trip at Grandma’s house didn’t hurt either.

Unfortunately, just as Anastasia and I were leaving Sydney to drive home, Tegan called to say that she was in extreme pain and shortly afterwards her siblings took her to hospital, where she was admitted via the Emergency department and later that night ended up back in the maternity ward. It turns out that Tegan had endometritis – an infection – associated with the caesarean operation. As one of my friends who is a doctor put it to me, there is always the risk of such things following any invasive operation as we can sterilise equipment just fine, but we can’t take someone’s skin off and heat it up to several hundred degrees celsius in order to kill all bacteria, etc. So, Tegan and Isaac ended up staying in hospital again for about another day and a half, being discharged again on the Saturday morning.

Week 3

At two and a half weeks old, Isaac weighed 4.25kg (350g more than at birth) and was 56cm long (3cm longer than at birth). In short: he was growing beautifully. After recovering from her infection, Tegan was also doing quite well and we really felt like we were getting back on top of life this week. Isaac started getting into a bit more of a pattern, feeding about every three to four hours and allowing Tegan and I to get a bit more sleep – if you can call 5 hours sleep in no more than two hour blocks enough. At each feed Tegan was breast-feeding, then giving a bottle and then expressing breast milk. This made each feed quite time consuming, but at least Isaac slept lots and was generally quit easy to manage.

We still had people visiting us, or we went out to visit people, pretty much every day. This was lovely, but a little draining in some ways too. We came to quite relish our Mondays and Fridays when Anastasia was in child care, which gave Tegan and I a bit more chance to rest and recover and to focus on Isaac.

While Anastasia has been delightful and has coped so well in having a new little baby in the house, at the end of the day she is still a hyperactive and somewhat attention-seeking (in other words, completely normal) two year old and days spent with her can be quite draining. Over these few weeks though Anastasia and I have bonded particularly well, as it effectively became my job to look after Anastasia while Tegan looked after Isaac. This typically started at about 7am (give or take half an hour) when Anastasia woke up. We’d go downstairs to have breakfast and try to allow Tegan to get an extra hour or two of sleep. Anastasia and I also did plenty of other things together, such as going to ‘her little park’ across the road from our house, playing with her trains, watching her jump on the trampoline, going to reading time at the local library, an odd trip to Monkey Mania and the like. In addition, Anastasia came with me on basically every occasion that I left the house, whether that was going to the supermarket, taking a trip to buy coffee or occasionally stopping at a cafe for an espresso and a hot chocolate (I’m sure you can guess who had which one).

Week 4

Bess (Tegan’s cousin), Steve and Cameron came to stay for 4-5 days and we had a lovely time catching up with them and introducing them to Isaac.

Sometime around week 3-4 we also hit a bit of a turning point, with Isaac sleeping less and spending much more time awake and crying. Around this time we felt that every second day was a good one, but every other day was marked by several hours of crying. Not fun. We remarked on this to the mother and child health nurse that we saw at the local clinic in Dickson and while she sympathised, she effectively said that if the issue was baby colic that there was not much we could do other than wait it out. So we did. Tegan took Isaac for walks up and down the street or around the block to settle him and I discovered that he seemed to settle a bit better when we walked up the stairs with him, so we started doing that also. Tegan commented on Facebook at the time:

“My new fitness regime: ‘baby settling’, conducted with 5kg weight & audio motivation. First, swaying to warm up, then lunges from side to side. Next, light lunging walk with optional singing. Follow with indoor stair climb, with audio motivation to ensure adequate pace and repetitions, then progress to outdoor distance walk. Finally, once audio motivation has ceased, cool down gently in the rocking chair.”

Fortunately, Isaac was still sleeping quite well at nights – often going 4 to 5 hours between feeds after about 10 or 11pm. At least this gave us the chance for some good sleep.

Weeks 5 and 6

Isaac cried. Lots. The leaders at Anastasia’s child care told me that when they ask her what Isaac does, she tells them that he sleeps and cries all the time. Nevertheless, she is still a lovely big sister to him, delighting in giving him cuddles, kisses, patting him, putting a dummy in his mouth if it has fallen out and just generally being lovely.

Around this time Tegan first stopped breast feeding, but still expressed breast milk after every feed, as Isaac just wasn’t coping in attaching to the breast. It was as if he knew that irrespective of how much he worked at sucking on the breast that another, easier source of food would soon be arriving, so just wasn’t prepared to work at breast feeding. Feeding him just formula and expressed breast milk did make feed times a bit easier, as there was one less thing to do. However, within a week or two of this, Tegan’s milk supply completely dried up. There hadn’t been much there to start with and it dried up more quickly than it did after Anastasia was born (with much difficulty and effort, Tegan kept breast feeding to a small degree for about 13 weeks last time). While this was upsetting to Tegan it wasn’t unexpected and there are upsides: Tegan can have a glass of wine whenever she like and can eat whatever she likes without worrying about possible reactions that Isaac might have, for example, to spicy food obtained second hand via breast milk.

By week six things were becoming quite tough overall – rather than every second day being a good one, it felt that every evening was a bad one. In the previous weeks Tegan had taken Isaac for a walk at night in order to get him to settle – popping him in the baby sling and walking around the block (a good way to get some exercise and meet more neighbours, Tegan discovered). However, while previously Isaac had often settled before Tegan got to the corner, by this week he was taking longer and longer each night to settle – getting to the point where Tegan was walking almost completely around two blocks before he even stopped screaming. Week six was also tough because we all became sick – Tegan, Anastasia and I all had a nasty cold which quite knocked us around.

Isaac, despite the crying, continued to grow like a champion. At five and a half weeks old, he weighed 4.9kg and was 58cm long.

Week 7

Yet more crying. At this point we were all quite sick with colds and Anastasia, Tegan and I all ended up on antibiotics to treat chest infections. With severely reduced operating capacity and two cranky children this was the point at which we felt that things were really getting away from us. The Thursday of this week was a particular low point: Isaac had his six week immunisation injections at 3:15pm and cried constantly from then (in fact, from before they were even given) until sometime around 9pm. Tegan’s Mum had been around that day and in the evening they went out together to the Chemist to get some anti-colic medication, which at that point didn’t overly help, but they also brought back some Vietnamese takeaway for dinner, which was very helpful. By 8:15 when Isaac just wasn’t at all settling no matter what we did, Tegan’s sister, Bec, bless her heart, went out to the chemist for us and bought some Baby Panadol (we think he may have had a headache as a side effect of the immunisation injections). This did help and within half an hour Isaac had settled and soon after went to sleep and slept decently well that night.

Nevertheless, while Isaac has been a bit better since that night, we’re all tired and weary and the very frequent crying is exhausting and emotionally draining, particularly for Tegan. People have been very lovely to us though – people from church have bought us meals and my parents helped out quite a bit in the time they were here on the weekend.

More positively, Isaac is becoming more alert and interested in what is going on around him. Over the past couple of weeks he has demonstrated that he is able to track faces and will often turn around to watch whoever is speaking to him, or just to look at one of us as we move around. Anastasia loves this – she has a couple of times played it as a game moving from Isaac’s left to right and calling to him until he turned to look at her.

Isaac also went back to the paediatrician today, who pronounced a very clean bill of health and commented several times about how big Isaac is. And he really is growing well – he is up to 5.42kg, is 60cm long and doesn’t have any of the hip issues that Anastasia had from birth. He has also been eating more than usual over the past few days – growth spurt coming, perhaps? The paediatrician also said that the crying sounded to be within the bounds of normal, which I guess is some comfort – but as one of our friends said to us, that’s easy for him to say as he doesn’t have to live with it.

General observations

• Overall, Isaac is doing quite well. He’s feeding well and growing well. He’s alert and interested. But he does have a set of lungs on him – he is so much louder than was Anastasia or any other baby in the family. Despite the difficulty, we are still thankful to God for giving him to us, even if we pray every day that he won’t cry so much.
• The hardest thing about the crying is that it keeps going and we don’t know what is causing it or how to fix it. When Anastasia was a baby she did cry, obviously, but it always seemed to be for a reason – either she was hungry, cold, hot, tired or needed a clean nappy. Once we figured out what was wrong and fixed it, the crying stopped. What’s hard about Isaac’s crying is that it goes on for so long without there being anything obviously wrong and none of our attempts to fix things seem to help. For Isaac’s sake it is fortunate that Anastasia wasn’t like this, as we think that if Anastasia had cried like Isaac that there never would have been an Isaac.
• That said, we actually find the crying easier to deal with than we did when Anastasia was little. When she cried we would immediately jump to action stations and it became our overwhelming imperative to stop the crying as quickly as possible. With Isaac, the imperative is still there but much less strong. We can cope with crying lasting for much longer before it becomes stressful.
• When I say above that Isaac cries continually for hours it’s not quite true. He actually never cries for more than about 30 or 40 minutes before settling. It’s just that on occasions like last Thursday he only settles for a few minutes or less before commencing crying again for another extended period.
• Tegan and I are both so glad and so fortunate that I’m on leave from work. 7 weeks down and seven weeks to go. I still have more leave to go than I have ever had in a single block of leave ever in the past. I think it will be quite difficult going back to leave in late May, but hopefully home life will have settled down quite a bit by then. In the meantime, I also hope to make a bit more use of my time off to accomplish some projects that I’ve been aiming to do but have not had time, including some woodworking, gardening and photography projects. But this all depends on health, energy levels and how well everything goes in the next few weeks.
• We’re up to Sydney for a week next week, which will involve at least one night off and away from both children (as we have tickets to see BB King perform at the State Theatre) and we’re hoping that this will be a good chance for Tegan and I to unwind and recover a bit.