For some reason, when I try to list the music I’m listening to, it cancels the whole blog (thankfully I always write these in Word first, so I don’t lose the whole thing if the site goes funny), so I’ll just say here my music right now is Britney Spears ‘Break the Ice’ ! [br][br]Elsie, you commented it’s so good too read I’m spending that quality bonding time with Percy and things are going so well – and that inspired me to share a little something.[br][br]I’ve really got the world’s most amazing little boy.  He was climbing under his mattress in the cot and ripping up the slots on the bedframe – very odd – so we decided to try the whole moving-him-into-a-real-bed thing again (it wound up being a disaster in the end, last time; he seemed fearful of the new freedom).  This time we dismantled the whole cot and took it to the dump, so now he’s got no way of turning back to babyhood – he’s just got to grow up.[br][br]This really was a big deal for George and me, too.  What a big step – he’s really not a baby anymore; he’s a proper child now.  And we bought this shelving unit with vinyl bits at the top and plastic coloured buckets on the bottom, so you can store things in the buckets and hang books in the top bit (if you see what I mean).  I filled the whole thing up with every book he has that’s appropriate to his age, and i put fold-out posters of the numbers 1-10 on the wall above it, and oh yeah, this sharks of the world poster our friend Felix gave me some years ago that I thought was great for education (and self-indulgence – sharks are my favourite animal – I don’t know what it is about them but I think they’re simply beautiful, and the meaner and grumpier they look, the more adorable I think they are).  It turned into this perfect showroom child’s room.  I even took pictures, to mark this new stage of development.[br][br]So now he’s REALLY taken off with his love of books, which pleases me immensely.  And it’s completely opened me up to being a happy, carefree mother.  At last!!  I can’t get enough of lying down on his bed, with all that extra space in the room, everything organised and colourful, and reading him book after book after book, doing all the voices, acting it out for him, encouraging him to play with the pop-up pictures and textured or noisy pages.  We just lie in there together with the door open and the air flowing peacefully and we laugh and laugh.  And it’s the most affectionate thing; I can’t get enough of suddenly cuddling him.[br][br]I have found having a baby one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to deal with.  Really, it’s been overwhelmingly taxing on my system.  But it’s so been worth it, to make it to this point.  I’m not saying it’s easy now – even today, this morning he was stressing me to my extremes, where I had to just drop him off in his room and leave him for a bit while I slowed my breathing back down to an acceptable rate (and you know I just read today in ‘Marie Claire’ that stress produces bad skin – which apparently is common knowledge, but I never knew it before, and I’ve decided really I’ve got to get this problem under control somehow, whether it’s a biological thing I am near-powerless over or not –  not to mention I’ve developed a fear of premature heart attack some day).[br][br]So yes, it’s not what I’d call easy.  But the rewards…they’re more tangible now.  It’s easier to go on.  And what I always theorised would happen, has: he’s a much happier, better behaved little boy when I spend more time with him.  I just feel like everything else takes over and I lose the ability to focus on what really matters.  I mean, even George told me tonight he’s been more attracted to me recently than he has been for a while.  And why?  Because I’m smiling again.  Simple as that.  He just wants me to be happy.[br][br]I have so little time to myself, let alone anyone else.  This really reinforces my desire to, some day, when financialy feasible, work part-time.  I’ve got something SO special here; I want as much time to revel in it as possible.