Who's Santa?

Twangy is Santa! Ah. 

I have more to say about Jay, of course, and what a says is true: I should write it down now before I forget it all. Even now, certain things have been lost in time - like when did we stop burping him? When did he stop making the dinosaur noises? File not found. Our letters to his birth mother do document some of this, it's true. We have those, and we've started his Life Book, with all the photos and mementoes from the hospital. These will always have the power to make me teary; I can't imagine a day when I get blasé about this one, for instance, which was stuck over his cot, (put there by a volunteer, I think):

The physio gave him a glowing report this week, according to which he is doing very well. He's creeping, he's grasping, he's rolling over: all things desirable in a nine-month old. (A creeping, grasping adult being a different matter.) He's following people's gazes, he's "talking". He's lively and responsive. The creeping mostly works in a backwards direction, mind you. The other day I turned back to him to find he'd backed his lower half under the bed, and was looking up at me in confusion. Putting his sleeves is like birthing a breech chihuahua pup, trying to straighten his thumb out and pull it through while he complains loudly, arg. When his hand emerges, he rotates it carefully in front of his face, as if to check it's all still there. 

We said goodbye to Beautiful Tony, our social worker, by the way. He's gone to work in the Probation Office. [Twangy briefly considers turning to crime as her best bet of seeing BT again.] Fare thee well, Beautiful Tony! I sincerely hope you never read this. (I would be deeply morto.) We believed it would be our last social worker visit, but as it turned out, our final final court date to finalise our final adoption of Jay finally slipped until mid-February, which means we must have another visit in January. Of course the very last bit of the process had to be loooong and draaaawwwn out, of course, but hey ho. I was waiting for the official date to announce Jay's existence to the old friends we don't see often, (due to jinxy feelings) but I think I'll start emailing people.

There's more of course but it's Christmas Day and there's no time. We are off to see my family later and breakfast has to be thrown around the kitchen first. I hope you're all well, everyone reading this, and have a lovely holiday (or 25th December, whatever that means to you).
Be good to yourselves.
Love from Ireland
T

How how

How do single parents do it? HOW, HOW, and often with multiple kids? [Twangy faints from sheer amazement]. The JB has been away for THREE nights eating bonbons in a bubble bath (academic conference, my eye, he's not fooling me) and I am an empty husk with a muscle in my eyelid jumping away like a jumping bean, and an unexplained burn on my hand. Also, I've become very stupid with tiredness. Last night, I stood in the hallway for minutes wondering how I could leave the front door locked and still allow him to enter with his keys. If I left the key in the lock, his key wouldn't be able to enter and turn, I reasoned, very, very slowly. If I unlocked the lock with my key however and removed my key, I would leave myself open to thieves, robbers and highwaymen. More time passed while my brain groped agonisingly toward its conclusion. REMOVE THE KEY LEAVING THE DOOR LOCKED, it shrieked in eureka-like style, in slow motion. Ahh.

The physical strength component to parenting is another thing I didn't know to expect. I have better upper body strength than in my whole life (probably not saying much), actual muscle definition. He is 24 or so pounds and likes to be held so this is a simple physics formula. I go through calories like a barn on fire, too. 

Uhhhhh. I've been very busy, apart from that. There was a funding deadline, a work deadline, anther work thing, a whole lot of hoo-ha about finding people to stand in for me at the two work gigs I missed because of the bonbons, a Betty head which lasted a week, the world is on fire, I got overwhelmed and demoralised, like everyone, (everyone normal that is, there are those who are making this happen, after all) and I dunno, the rest is lost in the mists of time. 

We are now deep into the time of tossing food on the floor with force and peering after it with interest, a time of rolling over in the cot into up dog, and saying EYE for hi, and even knowing that the sheep says baa and the duck says ACK. He's at peak baby. He's great company. He giggles in a half-horrified half-thrilled way when I offer him new food as if to say: Okay, Ma, I'll go along with your mad caper, but then we're going back to the proper food, right? He takes little squares of toast very carefully in his fingers, as if they might be booby-trapped, and sucks off the butter. He'll eat most things, and about half the time he'll sleep what they call through the night, from 1 to 6 or but is actually merely through the wee small hours. He has an upper tooth now, an incisor (I think) which he uses to make appalling gnashing noises with his lower ones. Ahhh! It's awful. I took him on the train to see my mother and he enjoyed looking out the window enormously. He was thrilled. We were moving! He can see so much further, his life is expanding. It's much easier to relate to him; he's less mysterious. He goes swimming now and to baby yoga and enjoys these as long as no strangers look at him too closely. He is not fond of strangers, mostly, except when he is and then they are favoured with a broad smile. 

It is frosty out today in Eastern Ireland, in case you were interested. I must hit the road in an effort to get some presents for the Christmas, so this will have to do for now. Better done than perfect, will be written on my tombstone. More soon, friends.
I hope you're well.

T