I am very impressed by PRSC (The People's Republic of Stokes Croft)'s work. It has been set up to turn what is otherwise an area of deprivation in Bristol, into a recognised area of culture. Stokes Croft is right on the edge of St Paul's in Bristol, an area, for those who aren't familiar with Bristol, which has a long history of social problems peaking in some big riots in the early eighties. Stokes Croft is also right at the start of one of the cities major transport arteries northbound from the centre, so it has quite a substantial percentage of Bristol's populous passing through it each day.
With this in mind The People's Republic ... Have set up returning the area to its' former glorious state of colourful, tasteful advertising, with signage and Billboards. the idea is if they can get all the parts of the area which are neglected or tagged, and get proper graffiti artists and other murals and artwork up to beautify the area, then how nice would that look?
On Tuesday 15th, they organised a whole load of people to turn up and paint the boards outside of the homeless persons hostel which I live. I had forgotten all about it until I walked passed, with Amon strapped to my chest in a Baby Bjorn carrier. Then I rushed home and got this photo, which I stuck up and varnished with interior varnish in an attempt to keep the weather off.
I'm so glad to have got involved in doing something to improve where I live and to take part in something so unique and apt to the area.
So everything is still going amazingly. Baby Amon is in great health, and somehow, we know not how, Rosa and I are struggling through. As if he wasn't blessing enough already, he's started sleeping for longer at nights after only two weeks (touch plyboard desk he sticks or improves on this), so we (as in Rosa) get woken up twice in the night for feeds, burps and changes which is bearable.
Little Amon still doesn't do a great deal, holds fingers in his hand, stares at interesting patterns of light and dark on the wall, especially when you're trying to show him so cool mobile or over-priced toy. His favourite game, and it's a cool little trick, is to wait until you've just changed him and then do a big one, or alternatively, wait until he's naked and then do a "fountain". It's a classic and we have a whole load of fun, cleaning up and washing things constantly. We're not even on the washable nappies yet (I know, there go my eco-credentials, although are disposables are largely biodegradable).
Boys fart Boys fart more because it is more likely their father's burped and winded them as a baby, therefore they learned it is good to fart around men.
Jiggles = wiggles Babies wriggle around a lot, as their digestive systems don't do much, and this shifts the food in the right direction for them and gets them going
Perfect little poos Obsesive Compulsive parents seem to be fascinated by baby poos. I first thought this was just because midwives ask you to keep a check on how often baby poos to make sure he's all working alright, but now I'm starting to think, that little babies don't have a lot of expressions, and one of their major functions is poo production, so maybe that parents just like to see the bbay expressing themselves someway. I'm tired. I don't really know what I'm getting at here, please ignore me.
Not the prettiest photo in the world, but at least his eyes are open in this one.
We have finally come to an opinion on our little baby's name.
The decision was a tricky one. Jasper, Harry and Finn or Finlay were all names we were considering recently. We wanted a name with 2 syllables for the forename, we like Biblical names or old names, but nothing too popular.
I got Amon from Amon Tobin, a musician I like. I met him when he played the Thekla in Bristol at a gig John Stevens put on and he was a thoroughly nice chap.
Rosa favourite has always been Zac, mostly, I think, because she fancies Zach Braff, the actor (from Scrubs) and Zac Goldsmith the environmentalist (from The Ecologist). She will probably claim she just likes the name, but ...
Amon is very happy right now because his mother's milk has come in and his no longer having stinky yellow colostrum on a drip-by-drip basis. Please let me know if you want a blow by blow detail on his poo, I believe it's something all parents are weirdly fascinated by and we are developing a chart of his progress to date - kerwow!
Rosa had a long labour that started when I got back from a poker night. She had been having period pains about every fifteen minutes for a few hours, but they got a lot stronger and regular when I got home.
We turned the lights down low and tried to settle down for the night, although Rosa didn't like to lie down as she had to get up when the contractions began and moan whilst on all fours, with her arms up on her gym ball (large inflatable silver ball).
From midnight until seven she had contractions every five minutes, we phoned the midwives at one am, when we =sure this was "it" and at four they came to check how we were doing. At seven Rosa's sister, Beth, joined us to help out. Beth was fantastic, she sat calmly by Rosa, rubbed her back stroked her hair and held the glass as she had water through a straw. The labour carried on and on and by about midday tRosa's waters still hadn't broken and she was dying to get into the birth pool (a large pool-in-a-box which is brilliant. It's an enormous paddling pool with wide, heigh sides and room for two people comfortable, or four intimate 'friends').
Unfortunately her temperature was quite high and the midwife was worried that if she got in the pool her labour might reverse a bit (stop having such regular strong contractions). By about 2pm, she was allowed into the pool, took the TENS machine off (a little device which does magic - can't be arsed to explain, sorry.) and got in. It was probably about 3pm, when she was still labouring away, we allowed the midwife another internal inspection to see how we were doing. and as most her cervix had dilated and the baby's head was coming right down, the midwife said she would burst the waters. She got a little plastic stick with a hook on the end, inserted into Rosa's vagina and with an enormous splash all this water and muck came out. Rosa couldn't see at the time, but I was crestfallen to see that it had lots of brown and green bits in it. This doesn't mean that the baby's disintegrated thankfully, but it did mean that the amniotic fluid (waters) had myconeum (baby poo) in them, which was dangerous for the baby, if he had inhaled any of them. From here on the baby would have to be closely monitored and specialised equipment would need to be on hand if there were any problems. Gone were our hopes of a relatively relaxing birth at home.
The ambulance came at half three. I feel as I write this that I'm going on a bit, so if you're still with me, this about the same feeling we were having at the time, your average labour would be finishing up by now, whereas Rosa had been crying out to push for about an hour and hadn't yet been allowed that privilege. In fact for the next hour and a half all of her remaining energies were used up just straining against her muscle's urges to push.
Eventually, though she was exhausted and despairing she lay on the bed on her side and as she pushed I could see a baby's head starting to appear. At five o'clock a shit-covered little baby boy stuck his head out from between her legs, facing her bum and blinked. Two pushes later he was out and started crying like you would not believe. He was wrapped up warm and had a little hat put on him, and that is as you see in the video at the top of this post.
Rosa had to stay over at the hospital in case there were any problems with his breathing or anything else. But so far, he has been perfect. Hallelujah! Here are some pictures from my visit today:
I came back to get some rest myself before the baby came home and all I've done is laundry, emptying the birth pool and this post. I can't help it I'm too excited.
After a long and exhausting 17 hour labour, Rosa gave birth yesterday to our son. There are some photos below, but I'm not going to say much more because visiting hours are about to begin and I'm going to run off and see him again. He weighs nine pounds, five and a half ounces.
My mate Dave has got an animation he's been preparing for ages. I remember going around and seeing this as a kind of computerised flipbook of images in flash, it was very impressive. I really don't know what the full thing will be like and can't wait to find out.
With this in mind The People's Republic ...
