Bilby has strange tastes!

It's 4:30 in the morning, and here I am, suddenly woken up with a desperate need to eat a bowl of fresh pawpaw, dried fig and icecream... no - it's not a flavour combination I would particularly recommend! but it does give me an excuse to sit here and write an entry.

I consider myself very lucky that I don't really get morning sickness. I feel nauseous most of the time, but I don't go that extra step and vomit. When I was pregnant with Wombat, it only ever happened when I brushed my teeth. This time, it has only happened once... but Wombat is making it up for it.

Ever since I weaned him, my routine has been to give him a bottle of milk, lying in bed with him, to settle him to sleep. This happens after both lunch and dinner. Lately, he has been climbing into bed very happily, guzzling his milk as normal (I keep him sitting up until it's finished), then giving a couple of little coughs and WHAMMO... up it all comes again, bringing most of his food with it. It distresses him a little - especially if blanky gets caught in the melee - but once I've taken his ukky pyjamas off, he is perfectly happy to bounce around cheerfully with Yeti while I clean up and change his sheets... again....

This started to become regular - every other day after either lunch or dinner, and on rare occasions, after both! I was beginning to think I shouldn't feel so complacent about my own strong stomach :P

At first I blamed teething, then a stomach bug, because we both came down with a good case of the flu which kept us feeling rotten for two weeks (Yeti got sick as soon as Wombat and I started to feel better). Now I have decided - who cares what's causing it! It HAS to stop, immediately! The last thing a pregnant woman wants is to spend her naptimes scraping off curdled milk and doing (even more) loads of washing. So I sat down and had a talk with Wombat, just as I did before weaning him, and we have changed the routine.

Now, he has his warm milk cuddled up in Mummy's bed before he goes potty, so he has plenty of time to sit and let it digest properly - and an excuse to make Mummy read to him for an extra hour before bedtime (which he loves). When we finally get into his bed and he realises there is not going to be any more bottle, we are still having a bit of a whinge and a cry, but by that stage he is so tired that he generally zonks out mid-complaint. Fingers crossed, it is working so far!

Christmas is sneaking up very fast now. I bought Wombat a fantastic advent calendar - it is like a metal tray with a wooden frame, and the frame is made of little boxes. The tray has the stable painted on it with Bethlehem in the distance, and the 24 boxes contain all the characters - as little magnets! There are sheep, cows, donkeys, camels, stars, angels, wise men, Mary, Joseph and of course, baby Jesus. Wombat really adores it! In the beginning it was a bit of a battle to stop him trying to bring out all the pieces at once, but he has really gotten the idea of just opening one box every night. If he wants to play with it during the day, he can rearrange the scene (using the characters he has so far) in endless recombinations, telling little stories about them. The sheep have a tendency to want to fly with the stars, the cows like looking out the windows of the stable, and the wise men have to ride ON their camels instead of standing beside them... it's great fun watching his imagination emerge - I just can't wait until I can understand all of the narrative that accompanies it!

Today we finally put up our Christmas tree. It's not exactly a work of art :P We still like having a fresh tree, but we didn't feel like paying for a cut one and we couldn't finda good potted one this year. We have several from previous years growing out in the garden, and Yeti had plans for drilling holes in a post and inserting branches to 'make' one. Meanwhile, Wombat decided he wanted to walk the paths of my sadly neglected and overgrown garden, which necessitated me trimming back the Juniper tree. I looked at the pile of branches in the wheelbarrow, filled a bucket with rocks and soil, stuck in the branches and voila - instant Christmas tree. It leaves a little to be desired, but Wombat had a brilliant time telling me where all the decorations should hang, and that matters more than having a magnificent display!

Speaking of magnificent displays (or not), I spent today's (vomit-free) naptime baking my first ever gingerbread house. In tomorrow's naptime - though I guess it's today now - I get to build and decorate the house! Wish me luck! I only just had enough dough to make the house so the roof might be a bit thin, but so far it's been lots of fun! I'll post pics when it's finished.

Now it is quarter past five, and I can hear Wombat starting to toss and turn. He often crawls into bed with me at this time of morning, so I had better sneak back in and get some sleep while I can...

PS. The weather has been absolutely incredible - the wettest December we have ever had - it's raining almost every day. We have had about 5 days of sun this whole summer, and I have to tell you, a Wombat gets a bit stir-crazy when you keep him inside too much! I will write more on the ominous silences, and even worse, the "Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dear, Oh dears" some other day... In the meantime, here is a preview to stir your imagination (and this was one of the easier ones to clean up!)