Trouble is, I don’t really know any other way of life! I grew up in Wisconsin, nicknamed America’s Dairyland. Every June was Dairy Month, and local shops often had specials on ice cream and other dairy products. If you lived in Wisconsin and didn’t like milk, or didn’t like dairy, you got funny looks from people. Not just that – some people (particularly dairy farmers) might even be offended.

And I love cheese. I would (almost) stake my life on the belief that there’s a type of cheese to go with every type of food out there. Even sweet stuff? Yes, especially sweet stuff! Cheesecake – need I say more?

So I’ll have to work out something to do with all this yogurt I just bought last week. Frozen blueberry yogurt popsicles for Caleb perhaps.

Tonight Caleb is spending the night at his nan’s house, so Darrin & I are having pizza. And then as of tomorrow, I’ll be dairy free to see if that sorts Ethan out. I hope it’s not as boring as I expect it to be!

According to www.babynames.com.au, Ethan means ‘firm and strong.’ Which is definitely what we’ve noticed since he’s been born. His neck muscles are amazingly strong for a newborn – as in, he was lifting his head the same day he was born.

And Charles? I don’t know that I’ve told the full story here yet, so here goes.

A friend introduced us to the TV show Chuck, about a computer geek who inadvertently downloads government secrets into his brain, so he has to learn how to be a real spy. We really liked it, and so over a weekend watched way too many episodes in a row. Caleb decided he really liked shouting ‘Chuck!’

So not long after this, Caleb and I were at a playground with one of the homeschool groups we catch up with. I was about 20 weeks pregnant at the time, and probably only just barely showing, so nobody in that group really knew yet. So Caleb blurts out ‘Mum’s growing a baby’ and there were congratulations and all that like you’d expect. But then he blurted out ‘Our baby’s gonna be called Chuck!’ Ah, no, I don’t think so!

But we started calling the baby Chuck anyway as an ‘in utero’ name. And you can guess what happened from there. We’ve been calling him Chuck since he was born. And last night I was searching through the baby name book, desperately trying to find a middle name to go with Ethan, and thought ‘bah, why don’t we just call him Chuck? He IS Chuck!’ Because there were a few names that sounded good, but nothing that really felt quite right. I told Darrin and he suggested Ethan Charles (as he had a few days ago, and I turned my nose up at it). So Ethan Charles he is.

But we’re still calling him Chuck. At least now the Chuck makes sense with the rest of his name.

Everyone’s happy & healthy, and the photos are here if you want to have a look at him. And I’m enjoying being able to bend in the middle again.

An official name is yet to be decided but I reckon Chuck is going to stick as a nickname for the rest of his life.

Now all we need is a baby!

For the last month or so, we’ve also had problems with Caleb kicking, hitting, yelling at us when it’s bedtime. And especially on the nights when Darrin has to get up at ungodly o’clock the next morning, it’s a real pain in the neck. Sometimes literally. And it’s not as if I can just carry him out every night, wait for him to calm down, then carry him back to bed. I’m getting to the point where it really hurts to pick him up – and not just for the minute or two that I’m holding/carrying him either, it goes on for a while after because I’ve strained my muscles.

So. Monday night we were going through our usual dance of us trying to get him to calm down and him not playing along. Finally in exasperation, I asked him ‘Do you want to go sleep in your room by yourself?’ And he surprised me by saying yes! I asked him ‘Are you sure?’ and he said yes again. So we got up, grabbed his pillow, blanket, and water bottle, and set him up in his bedroom on the little cot mattress on the floor. We’ll see how long this lasts, I told myself. And I tucked him in with his blanket and another blanket, and a hot water bottle at his feet, and his stuffed bunny, and his torch in case he needed to go to the toilet in the night, and read him a couple of stories. Then I sat on a chair next to him and he fell asleep.

Well. Okay then. I went back to our bed and tried to sleep. As I suspected all along, I had more trouble sleeping that first night than Caleb did! He slept in his room by himself all the way till about 4:30 when Darrin was getting ready for work. He said he was hungry, so I went and got him a leftover sausage from the fridge. Darrin left for work, Caleb was still half awake, I was almost falling asleep sitting with him so I went back to my bed. I think it was around 6:30 when Caleb came in to our bedroom and crawled into bed with me. And then we both slept till about 9.

Then Tuesday night, he decided to sleep on the couch in the lounge. He got himself all sorted out with a pillow & blanket, and Darrin & I both figured that hey, if he’s choosing to do this, he’s probably ready for it, and at least the lounge has a heater, so he should be fine. And he was. A few stories later he was ready for us both to go into the bedroom, and he fell asleep on his own. He did wake up a few times in the night and asked me to put his blanket back on because he’d fallen off the couch. But each time, as soon as I put the blanket on him, he was asleep in seconds. Even the time he walked into the bedroom to tell me he needed the blanket on again!

Wednesday he decided to sleep in with us. Thursday & Friday he slept on the couch again, straight through on Thursday. Last night he woke up from a dream at about 5 and decided that he HAD TO fix his block constructions on the floor that the cats or we had knocked over. So he fixed those and went back to bed with a carrot to munch on.

So this is for all of you co-sleeping naysayers – you know who you are. You’re the ones who say ‘you’ll never get him out of your bed’ and things of that nature. This didn’t take any prodding from us (I wouldn’t call my original suggestion ‘prodding’ because I was fully prepared to let him come back in the bed with us if he was going to be sensible and go to sleep). And suddenly, we don’t have the bedtime battles we used to have! It was his decision to move out of our bed, and he knows he’s always welcome again if he needs us. But I guess in a way you’re right – we didn’t get him out of our bed. HE got himself out of our bed!

However, I don’t believe in due dates. I believe babies come when they’re ready, regardless of what we’d like them to do. It’s only in very extreme cases that we need to actually DO anything about making a baby be born at a certain time (things like severe pre-eclampsia and heavy bleeding come to mind). I have a friend who gave birth, at home, at 33 weeks, and her baby is perfectly healthy. I know of another woman who had a baby at around 45 weeks, also at home, and again, her baby is perfectly healthy too.

So far I’ve been ‘lucky’ in that my babies have been born before their ‘due’ dates, so I haven’t gotten too much harassment about being ‘overdue.’ But I thought I’d write this all out in advance anyway, so that I can shove this in the face of anyone who starts harassing me when I get close to birthing. Because harassment is exactly what a soon-to-birth woman DOESN’T need, and I’m sick to death of hearing about other women going ‘over’ and getting phone calls, emails, texts, and whatever else asking them when that baby’s coming, and all it causes is stress for the poor pregnant woman who should just be allowed to relax!

If the only thing you have to say to me is something along the lines of ‘Hasn’t that baby been born yet?’ then DON’T bother contacting me. Yeah, because we’re really going to forget to tell all our friends and family that we’ve had a baby. Get real.

If you’re going to suggest that I should get induced because the stillbirth rate increases after whatever gestation, DON’T bother contacting me. Besides, you’d be wrong – the stats I’ve seen (which unfortunately I can’t find at the moment! if you have that link please comment) clearly show that the highest risk of stillbirth is BEFORE 40 weeks. So suck on that.

If you’re going to tell me horror story after horror story about big babies, long labours, dead babies, etc. – save it. I don’t think you can compare anything with the horror story I’ve already lived. And how dare you try to scare a pregnant woman anyway.

And if you even THINK of mentioning that I should go to hospital this time because of what happened last time – GET LOST. You clearly don’t understand the situation and I don’t need people like you in my life.

End of rant. For now.

Wool soaker (nappy cover) for baby

Caleb's new jumper. It's got a bit of growing room.

Caleb's Duplo bridge

Some of the Thomas characters – the wooden railway ones. Bertie the bus, James, Gordon, Toby, Harvey, Salty. And there’s a Cranky the Crane at K-Mart that he really liked the look of too.

Will add to this list when I can think of other stuff.