Still holding onto life by its fingernails, my blog is using its last wheezy breath to crawl to the following location:

http://babymother.wordpress.com/

where I'm trying my best to blog more than once a month. Come on over some time - anytime - let's face it, there's no rush...

Babe: Three years and eight months
Babeling: Five months

Babe: Mummy, has Jesus got a head?

Babymother: Yes, he has.

Babe: Has he got shoulders?

BM: I would have thought so.

B: And knees and toes?

BM: I think I know where this is going...

Babe: Three years and eight months
Babeling: 5 months 

If only I were as good looking as my daughters...

The babeling can stand for long periods bearing her own weight while we hold her just enough to maintain her balance. Those little legs are STRONG. She has also embarked on a teething frenzy, which is why everything goes into her mouth including bits of unattended flesh (see picture). I am duly shovelling what the babe calls 'mushy food' into her and she is duly regurgitating it onto my clothes. When she's had enough mush she twists herself round and buries her head into my chest, pawing my jumper, which is irresistable and means she would really like to be a suckling infant for a bit longer. 

The babe uses the word 'realised' but still confuses lines with lions and the other day asked me very seriously to look at a lentil she had found in our flowerbed. It was a millipede. Right next to the glovefoxes.

The babe and I found a way to summarise our various stages of development / decay at teatime today: the babeling's got no teeth, the babe's got milk teeth, Mummy's got big teeth, and Daddy's got missing teeth. (We could probably concoct a similar statement about hair, but that would be cruel.)

Babe: Three and a half

Babeling: Four and a half months

The other day I checked what Gina Ford's babies are doing at four and a half months. They are, of course, feeding four-hourly during the day and sleeping throughout the night.

Here's a sample of our nightly routine, or more specifically, last night's routine:

7pm: Babeling goes to sleep. So far, so good.

11pm: Wend my way leisurely to bed expecting a peaceful night, basing my optimism on what, I can't remember. The babeling wakes up as I walk into the bedroom.

11.15pm Babeling still awake, chatting and cooing, so decide to feed her. Maybe she'll sleep til 7am! (Maybe not.)

11.30pm Babeling back in bed. Go to sleep.

2.03am Woken from a deep sleep by wailing from the babe's room - 'MUMMEEEEE! WANT MY DUMMEEEEE!' - yes, she still has one, and that's a subject for another blog.

Stumble into her room, tell her to find it herself, stumble to loo, by which time she has found it.

2.15am Can't sleep. Need bowl of cereal.

2.30am Need a big slice of cheese.

2.36am Oops, woke the babeling. Oh well, time for a feed. Let's get this over with quickly.

2.45am Babeling throws up as I bundle her back into the cot after the feed. Luckily the bib saves her sleeping bag. Unluckily it does not save my pyjama trousers.

3.00am Babeling not settled. Ah, need to change her nappy.

3.05am Babeling throws up rest of feed. Sleeping bag not so lucky this time. Changed and back in cot.

3.15am Need some more cereal. Eat it without my pyjama bottoms on.

3.30am Go back into room, disturbing the babeling.

3.36am Oh well, I'll feed her as she threw up the last lot.

3.46am Babeling back in cot but wide awake. I really, really need to sleep.

4.00am Can't sleep. Babeling chatting.

4.30am Can't sleep. Babeling still awake. Decide world is against me and burst into tears. Hate babyfather for sleeping peacefully in spare room. Cuddle babeling while sobbing. Babeling goes to sleep (must remember this method).

4.37am Take duvet, pillow and baby monitor to sitting room and settle down on sofa.

4.45am My nose is blocked.

4.50am My legs are cold.

5.00am Sound of thunder overhead, i.e. the babe has got up and is running full pelt somewhere. Where?

5.01am Maybe just to the toilet and back.

5.02am I should ignore her and go to sleep. She'll be fine.

5.03am What if she goes into my room and I'm not there?

5.04am She'd cry if she was upset. She's not crying. I should just go to sleep.

5.05am What if she's standing staring at my empty bed in silent trauma?

5.06am Or curled up in terror in the corner?

5.07am Go upstairs. Babe has been to see babyfather after a bad dream and is trotting back to bed.

5.08am Go downstairs. Try to sleep.

5.30am Still awake

6.00am Still awake and now babeling chatting on baby monitor.

6.03am Go upstairs and feed babeling. She falls asleep on me. Transfer her steathily into cot without bothering to change nappy or remove bib. Sneak downstairs.

6.30am Go to sleep, mercifully, at last, thank you God, and dream that it's the 1970s and I have contracted a variant of smallpox.

8.30am Everyone wakes up and babyfather is late for work. Serves him right.

Babe: 3 and a half, or thereabouts

Babeling: 4 and a half months

In case anyone is still checking my blog: Here's my next excuse. It's a good one.

I have not been blogging because until last Saturday, for at least 3 weeks, babyfather and I have been creating what feels like another member of the family. This time it was mainly the husband who was in labour, but we're both exhausted because I had to do all the childcare all the time instead of just most of it.

We would like you to meet:

I blog on this site under the enigmatic pseudonym 'Clare'. You don't have to be Christian to read it, but you do have to be a woman, although I'll make an exception for Moobs. (Actually I don't know of any other men bar family who read my blog, which is possibly why I like Moobs so much.)

I'll be back sometime before the end of the summer no doubt. 

Babe: 3 and a half
Babeling: 4 months tomorrow 

I know, I know.

There is blogging in the Land of Mother of Two, you just have to wade through miles of muddy swamps to get to it.

I was going to tell you all about the babeling being 3 months but suddenly she’s 4. Anyway, after the first three months of what’s known as the last trimester of the pregnancy - just pure bodily needs - she’s suddenly turned into a proper baby. She’s a pet. She’s all eyes and soft skin and hair and huge, gormless, open-mouthed smiles. She smiles with her whole body. Every time I make eye contact with her she throws up her hands in a little solo Mexican wave. A friend of mine takes her baby to be experimented on by psychologists. They cover the baby’s scalp with wires then show her a video of a face, first looking away then looking directly at the camera. I don’t know why they need the wires because when the look is direct, the baby’s face virtually splits in half grinning and she throws herself around with joy.

I don’t know what babies find so exciting about human faces but it does make you feel rather special - even if she is completely undiscriminating about which human face. In fact, forget faces – she lavished her first smile on a cushion cover. I don’t care – I’m smitten. Sometimes she pulls away mid-feed and just gazes at me. I can feel my brain chemistry rearranging itself.

She’s definitely a completely different person to her sister – for a start, I have never heard any baby making the noises she does. She does incredibly articulate shrieks covering a whole range of opinions. My favourite noises are the slightly unhappy ones. There are whole melancholic soliloquies on whatever subject it is she’s unhappy about, and you can’t help agreeing with her. At her age, the babe just did Happy and LOUD. 

She’s small. She smiles. She sleeps a lot. Can it get better than this?

Babe: 3 and a half years

Babeling: 3 months

Bah. I was going to post the cutest ever picture of the babe holding the babeling dressed as an Easter bunny to wish you all a happy Easter.

But: bunny outfit left behind in London, both small people fractious after bathtime and all the good light gone by the time I got round to organising a photo shoot. So on a camera somewhere there is a shot of a damp and murderous babe strangling a red-faced screaming babeling, and it won't be posted on this blog.  

Might fare better tomorrow. If I ever have time I'll also fill you in on the babeling's scrape with meningitis, hospitalisation and all the other newsworthy things that happen when you're not blogging.

Happy Easter!