They told me it would come... naturally I didn't really believe them... naturally I was wrong.
Ah those "blissful", newborn days. Functioning (barely) on minimal to no sleep, getting to grips with keeping someone who is not yourself, alive: fed, watered, clean, dry, warm, cool... the list goes on.
One thing that really helped me get through those days was cafe time. Cafes on our own (Bb and I), cafes with family and friends, cafes with new mum friends, hell, even cafe time with random strangers who love to talk to you if you have a baby (much like if you have a dog- especially when they're pups). During this time Bb would often have a snooze, after too much stimulation from all of the sounds, lights and faces. And that was it... ...that was the time! The me time. The cake time. The ridiculous hot chocolate with all of the toppings time. It was delicious. It was calorific (I'm still paying for that). It was majestic. As Bb grew it became a fail safe distraction from teething and general baby grizzles, to visit the cafe, together.
As Bb grew more still, he started sitting un-aided and eating solid foods... this is where the difficulties began. No longer content sitting in his pushchair or breastfeeding for hours on end (I, for one, literally never thought I'd actually MISS cluster feeding!) He then wanted to try a lick and a nibble of the cake purchase, or the sandwich, or the banana (*food lies*), any food or drink that went in my mouth basically, he wanted it too, like a tiny bird. Now pushing 3/4 of a whole year old (HOW?) he's getting pretty mobile. At 7.5 months he finally rolled over (and hasn't stopped since). Recently he's showing signs of the bum shuffle, and a parachuting splay, which seems like it may turn into crawling one day soon. He's constantly working his core, during tummy time/floor time, and is getting damn strong. Obvs the car seat and buggy are now his biggest foes and he'll do everything in his power to straighten up like a board, to resist being strapped in. Needless to say, there's masses of physical development occurring right now. Which brings us to today...
After a rough night of randomly-timed, pooey nappies, the lack of sleep meant definitely not staying at home to be just close enough to my bed to feel huge pangs of sleep desperation. So we headed to the cafe. We lasted 10. minutes. A leisurely, toast-sharing exercise, resulted in a shouting, miserable, grumplestiltskin, with a continuation of the 1am nappies to boot. Then came the total lack of desire to sit up. Then came the stiffening up and juddering of the whole body to reach the edge of the sofa to attempt an escape to the hard, tiled, floor. Little toast was consumed, many tears were shed and a deep longing for caffeine washed over me. Naturally things escalated from bad to worse in a matter of seconds as we hit up the baby change to resolve the bum issues. Literally, the nappy change was enough to reach full-blown hysterics. And no amount of placating boob on offer was going to fix things. Then we got out in to the fresh air (usually a total winner) when we noticed it was raining. And the buggy's rain cover came out... Bb hates this. 'Don't trap me in any more mum!' said his eyes as I unfurled the plastic prison bars. We write this on a walk in the rain. I miss our cafe days already.
Maybe time for another baby?