The knock on effect

Disclaimer:  This post will mention vomiting and a case of the runs, you have been warned.

Its been a rough couple of days in our house.  Most of it has to do with us (yep all of us) being poorly (I like that word, poorly, it says, sick but not long term) and how we've coped with this.  I have to admit, at times I've not done that well.  Let me explain.

On Thursday Chicken caught a gastroenteritis bug from some one, it was inevitable, its going around town at the moment.  We were about to head out to go to a party and I'd dressed Chicken up in a pretty party frock.  I was upstairs straightening my hair and she was downstairs playing in her activity centre when I heard this unusual gurgling noise.  I came down intending to put her dummy back in and head back to put on my mascara when I noticed that she was covered in vomit.  And then I looked a little closer and saw the toy was also all covered in vomit.  My poor Chicken had chucked every where, while I was upstairs getting pretty, good mum moment huh?

I changed her out of the frock and we headed out to see our friends.  Five minutes in to the party, and I had to feed Chicken, and yep you guessed it, she puked again.  This time all over me, specifically my crotch.  Needless to say we left, and luckily the pushchair was able to hide my puke stains as we scurried home.  

Throughout the rest of the afternoon Chicken vomited again a few more times, the most memorable/gross was  the bright yellow spew all over me.  And that was when we called the doctor, and took her to see someone at an after hours clinic.  He said to feed her slowly and wait it out, which meant that there was nothing seriously wrong (whew) which we did.  She threw up once more the next day and that was the end of that, or so we thought.

Friday was a very quiet day for us, we stayed at home and Chicken slept for most of the time, which for her is quite unusual.  That evening I started to feel a bit queasy and by ten pm I was hugging the toilet for dear life.  No fun, no fun at all.  I spent the rest of the night too-ing and fro-ing from the bathroom, and by the morning I was exhausted.  

I was confined to the couch on Saturday while Andrew looked after Chicken, and changed about 10 nappies since she had moved on the the second phase of her virus, the runs.  A very quiet day all in all.  By Sunday we all felt much much better and things got back to normal.  Well, as normal as you can be when you are recovering, this bug has really taken it out of us.  

I'm tired, Chicken is tired, and now on Monday Andrew also succumbed.  This has meant that for the last two evenings I've been on solo parent duty, and I have to say its been hard.  I have even more respect for single parents, being 'on' all the time is sooo hard.  Basically she has been super tired but fighting sleep even more than usual, and from around 4pm she has made this eeeeeeeee moaning noise.  It. Is. Very. Irritating.  And I have been getting very frustrated.  Which led to me feeling guilty, surely a nearly six month old baby shouldn't be getting the better of me?

Which is where I am now, Chicken went to bed an hour earlier tonight and so far, fingers crossed she is sound asleep and should stay that way.  I've been sitting here typing this and I've realised that while the both of us are better, we're not one hundred percent right.  And when you're not fighting fit, who actually is completely happy?  Not me that's for sure.  I think I need to cut her some slack, and remember that we are doing the best we can, its not as if we got sick in purpose is it?  I also need to cut myself some slack, go to bed early and repeat my new mantra, this is a phase, it too will pass.

Friday Five - Tips for flying with a baby

Today I am typing with a sick Chicken on my lap, so no photos sorry, my laptop got too full and now all the photos are on the external hard drive which is too hard to hook up, excuses I know! 

Anyway, in late April Chicken and I travelled to New Zealand for a three week visit.  That's four, eleven/twelve hour flights on large planes and two short (one hour) flights on much smaller planes.  Also, two days after we got back, we went on a family holiday to Italy which involved two short flights and one airport delay.  These eight flights, (six of which Chicken and I did by ourselves) have given me quite a lot of experience, and so here are my five tips for flying with a baby.

1.  Try and fly in super quiet times.  Chicken and I left London on Easter Sunday and our flight was very empty. This meant I got three spare seats (yes, very spoilt I know) on the way to NZ and one on the way back.  This was a godsend!  It meant that I could leave our bag of tricks (nappies, toys, spare clothes etc) out to get at whenever I needed it, which was lots!

2.  Make friends with the flight attendants.  As soon as I got on the plane Chicken and I said hello to all the flight attendants, thankfully she is a smiley baby, which made them smile back at her!  This meant that they were all very obliging, helping out whenever I needed them.  One lady, Ngaire was amazing, she held Chicken when I needed to go to the loo, came and checked on us regularly and even directed us to domestic check-in when I saw her in the terminal.  Without these lovely people our flights would have been much much harder!

3.  Pre-order food for collection.  Because I was only breastfeeding Chicken when we flew meant that this didn't apply but now since she is eating food (or if I was feeding her formula) I would definitely make an on-line order at Boots (UK Chemist) and arrange a pick-up at one of the air-side stores.  This means you don't have to open all the food and formula when going through security.  It also means that you don't have to pack as much, and have more space for other stuff, nappies, clothes etc.

4. Take a variety of new toys.  Even though Chicken was only four months old I still took two new toys for her to play with.  I chose ones that were fun but didn't make any noise, because a) I didn't want to make other passengers cross, and b) I don't like toys that make noise (grinchy mum huh?)

5.  Make sure you have all your documents in one easy access place.  I have a travel wallet and in it were our passports, tickets, my marriage license, our visa letters for the US, and a letter from Andrew approving our travel.  The reason I had a letter from Andrew was that Eilidh and I travel on different passports.  I am a New Zealander and while Eilidh will one day be one too, she currently is classed as a British Citizen.  We also have different surnames, which could have aroused suspicion.  Thankfully it didn't but having that letter made me feel much better.  I carried my travel wallet in the front of my rucksack, where I could pull it out quickly whenever it was needed.

6.  Oh I'm cheating I know, but my final tip is, have fun and go with the flow.  Babies are incredibly resilient and can cope with almost anything, its just us adults that have trouble!

Happy Father's Day

Happy Father's Day to those in England and the US.  For those Dad's in NZ we'll get to you in September.  We have had a quiet day here, and I'm pretty sure Andrew had a good first Father's Day.  I mean he got beer, a golf club and is having his favourite food for dinner!  Let me tell you how it went.

I woke up around half seven and took Chicken downstairs to let Andrew have a sleep in.  We set up a treasure hunt for Andrew so he would have to work for his presents, (sneaky huh?)  He woke up around nine and we gave him his cards and a few small gifts, some snacks from NZ, and the first clue.  I think he really enjoyed the treasure hunt, and was pretty stoked to get some beers from NZ.  We really miss special NZ treats so this was a good opportunity to spoil him.  The other gift I found Andrew was a driver, a golf club that is.  

Andrew was a pretty serious golfer when we lived in NZ, he had a handicap of 5 or 6, which meant he played a lot!  I've been trying to convince him for a while to take it up again but as he has rightly pointed out, Golf don't come cheap!  Anyway, I was at a second hand shop last week and I found a driver in reasonable condition for £5.  I thought this was a good start, if he didn't like it, it was only £5, and if he did like it, well bargain!  We went to our local driving range to have a whack (not the technical term I'm sure).  It was loads of fun, and I even got in on the act (badly, v.badly I might add)

After that we came home and spent a lazy afternoon, relaxing on the couch and just chilling.  And now tonight,  after a yummy rack of lamb dinner we are sitting down to watch The Kings Speech.  Which means I better go, hope your day has been as enjoyable as ours!

Friday Five - Random photos from 'my pictures'

I've been having trouble thinking of a category for this weeks Friday Five, and I was browsing through the random photos in the 'my pictures' folder on my laptop.  All our photos are stored on an external hard drive so these photos are a real mix, here are my five favourites:
1.  Our gorgeous God-Daughter Emma.

This photo was taken at our first engagement party.  We spent a glorious day in the garden of our favourite pub.  Emma was fifteen months old at the time and was so well behaved the whole day.  I remember she was quite taken with both of those wooden spoons.

2.  Our Engagement party invite.

I (with the help of two very good friends, and Andrew's cousin Fi) made these invites, about one hundred in total.  I love all those photos because they show us having a really good time.

3.  Us on holiday in Spain.

In May 2008 eleven of us rented a villa in Spain for weeks holiday.  The house was amazing and we had such a good time.

4.  My cousins and I circa 1985.

This photo was taken at my grandparents fortieth wedding anniversary party (I think).  We had a 'Miss Universe' competition, and I won!  I guess that was one of the perks of being the youngest there.  Can you guess which one is me?  And, can you guess which one of the 'girls' is actually a boy?

5.  Andrew's work Christmas party 2009.

Andrew's work throw really fancy Christmas parties, they are always black tie and held some where fabulous.  This one was at Madam Tussauds, it was really cool because they had all the 'celebrities' out on show.  My friend Leilia did my make-up which I really love, she is sooo good at it, love those fake lashes!

Almost wordless Wednesday

Thanks for the idea Kat, here are the pictures of Eilidh on her new favourite toy, a door bouncer.  She is really enjoying herself!

I've also got a video!

Happy Hump Day!

Friday Five - Scrapbooking layouts

I'm a scrapbooker, I started about seven years ago when I was living in NZ.  I find its a great way to display my photos, tell a story and be creative at the same time.  When we came to the UK I went on hiatus for a couple of years, but when it became obvious we weren't moving home any time soon I decided to get scrapping again.  I love patterned papers, brads, journalling using my own writing, and inking edges.  If you're not a scrapper, I'm sorry but that won't mean anything to you.  Anyway this week my Friday Five is all about my favourite layouts I've done recently.

1.  Photos from our trip to NYC Christmas 2009.  Basic Grey Indian Summer papers used.

 2.  Cesky Krumlov in the Czech Republic, from our trip in October 2009.  Basic Grey Origins papers used.

3.  More Origins papers, this time from our trip to Portugal in February 2010.

4.  Andrew and his best mate at the beach, Easter 2010.  Max and Whiskers papers from Basic Grey.

5.  More photos from our trip to NYC, this was the coldest day I've ever had - seriously -15c!  Basic Grey Offbeat.

There you go, can you tell I like Basic Grey?

An off afternoon

I am a lucky mum, I'll go ahead and say it, my Chicken is a 'good' baby.  She is mostly happy, smiley, and fun to be around.  She rarely cries, will go to strangers easily and doesn't mind when her routine (what little of it we have) is disrupted.

For example in the fifty plus flying hours we did in the last month (yep thats right, it takes 24 hours to get to NZ from here) she only really got upset once during the final two hours before we landed back in London from NZ.  She was so shattered and 'overloaded with information' that she couldn't fall asleep.  After half an hour of walking up and down the plane I gave her some baby paracetamol to help her to sleep, which she did straight away.

Basically what I'm saying is, she rarely gets upset, but today, and this afternoon in particular was a different story altogether.

I think Chicken has properly started teething.  Her symptoms include lots and lots of dribble, spotty cheeks, an insistence on sticking every thing and anything in her mouth and chewing on it (hard too, she can really gnaw on your fingers!).

The final clue was the little pale white bump on her bottom gum.  And the fact that when I rubbed my fingers over it she seemed to get some relief.  I put the teething ring in the freezer, rubbed some teething gel on the bump, and waited.  There was no relief.

My poor little Chicken continued to cry and I began to develop a deep sympathy for people whose babies have colic.  I mean its not as if Chicken has never cried.  Her fifth night alive was a low light, as were the bedtimes during weeks 8-10.  But this was different.  Her cries were different.

She actually sounded like she was in pain.  So I brought out the big guns, the paracetamol.  Now usually within five minutes of taking the Calpol, Chicken conks out fast asleep.  Not this time, no, this time the crying continued.  So we went for a walk around the house, and upstairs I found some relief by way of the mobile above her cot.  We bought this mobile ages ago when we planned to move Chicken out of our room.  Then I chickened (skuse the pun) out and she's been in her travel cot in our room so the mobile hasn't had much use. She was transfixed by the animals and the music.  The crying slowly subsided and her body began to relax, I felt hopeful!

We came downstairs as I hoped we could have a snooze on the couch, but then the crying started up again, even louder if that was possible!  By this stage I was starting to check my watch every five seconds hoping that Andrew would arrive home from work (which he didn't it was way too early).  So upstairs we went to stare at the mobile again and finally, finally, finally she fell asleep on my chest while I leaned against the wall.  She slept for about forty five minutes, which made me very (if a little uncomfortable)

Since then she's been quite subdued and definitely not her usual self.  I'm hoping that we wake up tomorrow and see that her little tooth has poked through!  Otherwise I think it will be a long day...

A list on Sunday

I have a lot of mini thoughts to write about, but none of them by themselves would be a full post, so this morning, we have a list!

1.  Its been quite nice in my part of England this week and today we are having some family over for a BBQ. Isn't it typical that I wake up and the sky is overcast.  BBC says its going to be warm all day with a chance of rain in the evening, stay away rain!

2.  I've been meaning to bake a certain cake for about two months now.  Its a pistachio, lemon and polenta cake, the recipe comes from Sainsbury's magazine about two years ago and it looks good.  Why do I keep putting off making cake?  I mean, I'm quite good at that sort of thing, must do that today, it'll be nice for the BBQ.

3.  We went swimming at the local pool last week.  Now this would normally fill a full post, but since you are not allowed to take pictures in public pools (and cause I don't want photos of me in a swim suit on the net) it wouldn't be as much fun.  We did have a great time and Chicken really loves the water and is becoming more and more confident.  She also has the cutest outfit!

4.  My father-in-law Graham (and MIL Moira) are staying with us at the moment, and we asked him to do some gardening to tidy up a bit.  There is a privet tree out the front of our house and I said he could trim it as it makes me sneeze and it was quite over grown.  This is what he did.  Effective but it will take a bit of getting used to, and anyway, plants grow back.  And I am very pleased that the privet has gone!

5.  We watched Roman Holiday last night with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.  This was the first time I've seen a Hepburn film, great eyebrows and I love the pixie hair cut, but what big ears!  I got it at the supermarket for £3, and didn't realise till I got home that it was in black and white.  I really enjoyed it, such a restrained love story, they don't make em like they used to!

6.  Because the in-laws are staying I have farmed out my child Chicken is spending quality time with them while I write this, makes things go much quicker.  Thanks guys!

7.  I made ribs yesterday, two different marinades even.  And well, they were ok, I mean ribs, if not overcooked are usually nice, but these marinades didn't quite cut it.  I like sticky ribs and they had potential but ... oh well, I'll keep trying.  Apparently my little brother makes nice ribs, maybe he'll make some when we visit him in September.

8.  Speaking of my brother, his girlfriend Amanda, who make this amazing quilt for Chicken got a kitchen aid mixer for her birthday recently.  I am seriously jealous!  I covet one, sooooooooooo much, shame the voltage is different for electrical things from the US to the UK, I'd put one in my suitcase in Sept!

9.  I am going out this Wednesday coming at night time without Chicken.  Since she now takes a bottle I am going to go scrapbooking for a couple of hours.  I chose this time cause the in-laws will be here to help Andrew if needed.  I'll let you know how it goes, a practice run for the hens party in a month!

10.  I said to my friend Jo the other day (we are new friends btw) "I don't know if you've realised but my brain things about lots of different things at once, which is why the conversation changes a lot" and she said (in a deservedly slightly sarcastic tone, "No Jess, hadn't noticed at all, not!"  She also said she likes it and it keeps her on her toes because she has to pay attention to the whole conversation.  I hope she meant it and wasn't just being nice, I don't think so, she doesn't seem like that sort of person.

So, my point being, this list of ten is really just my stream of consciousness (I think that's what its called) on a Sunday morning.  Hope you have a relaxing Sunday, wherever you are!

Oh wait!

11.  My little girl was five months old yesterday, where has the time gone?

A good day

Today has been (so far - touch wood) a very good day with Chicken, and as you can see, she looks pretty pleased with herself!

The bottle in the foreground is the main reason Chicken has had a good day.  Don't get me wrong, she's been great all day, happy and giggly and smiling at anyone who looks at her.  But that bottle means that I can go to my friends hen's night (bachelorette party) in a month and enjoy the cocktails that will be on offer.  That bottle means that I will be able to go on a girls night with the ladies in my ante-natal group.  That bottle means that I can have a good time at my friends wedding in July!  That bottle means quite a bit it seems!  Let me bring you up too speed.

I am breastfeeding Chicken.  From the time she was one month old I expressed and Andrew would give her a bottle before she went to bed.  We wanted to make sure she would take a bottle because I wanted to go be able to go out occasionally (not just drink there are other things I wanted to do too!) and for that to happen she would need to take a bottle.

Chicken having her first bottle.  February 2011

This all went well, and for the next couple of months I would occasionally express and Andrew would give her a bottle.  Then I got lazy.  Its quite a faff to express, you have to time it right, it takes just as long as a feed (sometimes even longer!) the milk only lasts a couple of days in the fridge, you have to sterilise the bottle and so on.... Basically around three months Chicken began to refuse the bottle.  We tried different times of day, different bottles and teats, different person, different times of the day etc etc.  Needless to say, it didn't go well, there were a few tantrums from a few peoples (mostly Chicken, but sometimes either one of us)

Anyway, I was talking to a friend and she said that around three/four months babies can go off their bottles if you don't keep it up.  This did not make me happy!  However, I decided to give it a rest while we went back to NZ, and stop stressing.  That is until the invite to the hen's night arrived, I knew I had to take action!  This evening I bought some ready made formula and set Andrew up to feed Chicken, she was relaxed, a little hungry but not starving so off he went... and it worked!  She drank 75mls (2.5oz) and looked pretty pleased with herself.  She loved holding the bottle and 'being in charge'.  I didn't get any photos of it this time because I was hiding in the kitchen, I didn't want her to think there was a better offer out there.  Tomorrow we'll have the rest of the carton and over the next week I'll start expressing again and we'll keep up the bottles.  I am NOT letting it slip this time.

Isn't that a great smile!