Great news, Rory! Sounds exactly like what you needed for your mojo
Just had old friends over and it was ace to have people around again (Bath, we're emerging from CHAOS!), especially people I'm really fond of and haven't seen for ages. It was great to have them see Oscar, too - weird that people who mean so much to me have seen Oscar twice since he was born...it means I'm too busy! Time to scale back on some things and to do some hard pruning.
I took Oscar today to a riding club rally and he was delighted, saying 'horse' all the time and pointing them out. He's been such a beautiful little scallywag lately - stripping down to nothing, playing with playdoh, playing with the dogs, in his sandpit, in the utensil drawers. He's missing MIL, too - keeps asking for her...Tasmania is just not a concept he gets right now!
Soon enough my exam for the semester will be over and it can be me and him again, just enjoying each other. Some days he'll have a feed every couple of hours, some he'll go almost all day without one, but overnight he'll snack two or three times, so he's not self-weaning any time soon Man, I just love him, he's awesome.
Mel - how does it feel to be back in Melb?! We've got the heater on (solid fuel heater for those who didn't know that's our only source of heating!), aromatherapy throughout the house (as in, air fresheners, linen spray, dishwashing liquid, surface cleaner, electric burner) and I've been baking and cooking a few things from my Edmonds Cookery Book (a famous NZ cook book) and my Tupperware Cook Some More, so I'm loving this cool weather! And I'm loving looking out my window to see rain falling. I just need to finish this assignment and life will be peachy again!
Hope all mummies are well and that Mothers Day was nice. DP took us to the beach for a walk, near Hastings, cos that's what I wanted - fish and chips by the jetty, yum!
Oscar has really turned a corner with childcare - he waves me goodbye, says the kids' names at home, goes to sleep for them sometimes (!!) and doesn't throw himself to the ground when I collect him. They love him there. They're having a staffing change soon, which means the one lady who is there on both of his days (she works 3 days a week) won't be there on either of the days he's there She's the only one who's name he'll say!
He's also coming along in his Spanish - he understands a lot more than he can say. He says nouns here and there and he'll respond to instructions given to him in Spanish. I was reading a couple of great papers about bilinguilism and I've decided to extend my Spanish speaking beyond the 'home contract' and speak in public places, and even with non-Spanish speaking friends as much as I can. I'm doing this mainly because I'm the only regular Spanish speaker in his life. My mum doesn't even get to see him weekly and we have childcare on the day that a Spanish speaking playgroup is run in Mitcham. So, hearing it at home only is not going to be enough. My Spanish has improved heaps the more I use it, too - it's like all the language I absorbed from my mum and family friends while growing up is coming out of the vault in my brain that it was stored in!
Ok, better get some other things done before the kid wakes - he's having an increasingly rare day sleep.