A week in my life - Thursday

Chicken woke me up at 6am, she'd spent the whole night in her cot and was getting restless so I brought her in for a cuddle and she slept till seven, woo hoo!  I fed her and we came downstairs for toast (vegemite for both of us) and I started making our coffee.  Andrew spent twenty minutes on the phone to Sky TV trying to sort out our problem, it didn't work and I'm staying in tomorrow to wait for the repair man.

About 8am I took Chicken upstairs to get clean and the both of us dressed while Andrew showered.  I finished our coffee for takeaway because today E and I had to go to into London so we had to drop Andrew at work.  Normally it takes him 45 minutes to get to work but since it is school holidays we sailed there!  We headed home and Chicken slept and I listened to Radio 2.  When we got home I sat in the car and waited for E to wake up which happened about ten minutes later, half an hour is about normal for her first nap.

We came in and I did half an hour of my exercise DVD until Chicken got grumpy and I fed her.  I showered and got dressed and organised to go and meet my friend Alice.  We were on the road around ten to eleven.

The drive into West London took us around forty minutes, and Chicken slept and I sang along loudly to 1980's ballads on the radio.  When I left home it was tipping it down and the car temperature said 12.5c, thankfully in London there was no sign of rain and was 18c.  Alice and I work together and her baby is ten days older than Eilidh.  While we've been on maternity leave we've been meeting up regularly and last month we got to go to her wedding!  So so much fun!  We went for a short walk around a park and then headed to the cafe for lunch.  Lunch was in two stages, first stage for babies and second stage for adults, it took a while.  I had the most yummy ham and cheese toasted sandwich, and of course a coffee (can you tell I'm obsessed about coffee!?)  Al's husband Tom joined us and we had a good catch up.

About 2pm it started to rain, really rain, which meant we had to wait a while to get back to the car, we finally made it, which I was quite pleased about because Chicken had become that annoying shouty baby in the cafe, not good times!  Chicken slept on the way back home and was still sound asleep when we pulled into the carpark at our local(ish) baby store.  I again decided to wait until she woke up but this time it took over an hour, so I spent time on the internet on my phone.

Finally around 4:15 we headed into the shop to buy a few new toys, some stacking cups and noise makers, we haven't broken out the noisy ones yet but so far so good.  I ran into a friend and we discussed portable highchairs and stacking cups, highbrow conversation huh?

We then headed to the supermarket and I zipped around with the noisiest shoutiest baby ever!  She loves sitting in the seat in the trolley, but today it wasn't working, not even cheese snack things could distract her, so it was a quick zip around.  We left the supermarket about 6pm after having to run to the car in the pouring rain, Chicken did not enjoy that and went to pick Andrew up.  Chicken squawked for five minutes or so and then slept all the way home.

We got home to find out that because it had rained almost all day our cul-de-sac had flooded and we couldn't get to our house without getting her feet wet.  Apparently this happens regularly but thankfully a man had come to clear the drains.

Andrew and Eilidh played with her new stacking cups and had dinner while I got our dinner sorted.  She made such a mess that we took the whole high chair upstairs and gave that a bath too.  After a feed and cuddle from Mum Chicken was off to the land of nod.

 

We at dinner around 7:45 and we're now watching How I met your Mother and The big bang theory with a glass of wine.  And that was our Thursday.

PS All the photos were taken using the instagram app.

A week in my life - Wednesday

Well we've made it to hump day - hurrah!  Today was a bit hectic in some ways, and not in others, but it did mean that I haven't taken many photos so you'll just have to read my ramblings instead.

We all woke up around quarter to eight this morning and came downstairs for our usual breakfast, toast and yoghurt for Chicken, and toast and coffee for me, today I had iced vanilla, man I love our coffee machine!

After Chicken had finished eating I left her in her high chair for five minutes while I tried to tidy up the mess she'd made, but she wasn't having any of it.  She shouted and shouted until I conceded defeat and picked up the squirmy peanut butter mess that was my daughter.  Turns out she'd done a huge poo-losion and well, who'd be happy if that was in their pants?  I began cleaning her up, and then realised that there was just too much yoghurt and peanut butter and toast all over her to be able to do a proper job with just a flannel, so we had a shower together, not ideal, but man that peanut butter is sticky!

We had to be out of the house at 9:45 again so everything was a bit of a mess, but I did manage to put a load of washing on and load the dishwasher.  We power walked for half an hour (well I walked, Chicken slept) to a Children's centre, where a friend of mine (who works for the NHS) was running a breast feeding class for pregnant women.  After I'd changed out of my walking shoes and stopped looking so red faced we joined the group.  My job was to offer the perspective of a new mum who is breastfeeding and encourage these mums to do the same.  I also fed Eilidh there, and if the ladies wanted to watch (most don't, I think they're not quite comfortable watching someone in real life do it yet) they could.

Around 1pm we left with plans to go to the park for a swing, but my hay-fever was driving me round the bend so we headed into town to get some tablets.  I walked and Chicken slept, if you didn't know, we only have one car which Andrew takes to work, so I go most places on foot.  I bought a few things, photo frame for a portrait of Chicken, clothes storage bags for all the clothes shes grown out of, food magazine for me to read and of course the essential hay-fever tablets and tissues.

We went to my favourite cafe for lunch, I had a coffee and a goats cheese and caramelized onion panini and Eilidh had meat mush and fruit mush.  She is very good at eating and wolfed it down with occasional squeals to remind her mum to hurry up.  After lunch we went to a few Charity shops to look at baby clothes,  since they get worn for such a short time I have no problem buying second hand.

I also tried on some clothes for our trip to Vermont next month and decided not to buy anything and do my shopping there.  This is Chicken playing with my sunnies in the changing room.

It was about 3pm now so we headed to the supermarket and I got the stuff for our dinner.  By now Chicken was being very shouty and the dummy just wasn't cutting it, so out came the snacks, which she is getting very good at eating.  We left the supermarket and it had started to spit, and of course I had not brought the rain cover for the pushchair.  In fact, I had left it at home on purpose!  We got half way before the rain got too heavy to ignore and I had to improvise a cover.

Got home around 4pm and I thought I'd feed Chicken and she'd have her last sleep of the day.  I picked her up and found out what all the moaning was about, she was wet!  Obviously the nappy I'd put on around 1pm had moved (she's a real wriggler now) or I'd not put in on properly and she had was sitting on wet leggings, poor baby girl!  I stripped her off and she had a play (not interested in milk) while I unpacked the groceries and finished my tidying up.  Around 5pm we both had a nap, couldn't sleep last night so justified in my book.  Then again, who needs to justify a nap!  Chicken slept much later than normal - 6:40 and woke up quite cranky, thats what you get when you don't drink your milk on time.

I was half way through giving her dinner, lunch left overs and peach custard when Andrew came home.  He took over the feeding and I put some washing out - don't you just love baby clothes all lined up.

Andrew took Chicken up for her bath and I cooked dinner, Gnocchi puttanesca bake, mmmm!

I went up and feed Chicken while dinner finished cooking.  It's not often we eat vegetarian but this was yum, the spice from the chilli and the plentiful portion of gnocchi meant I was really full!
I'm now blogging and since our TV refuses to receive a signal Andrew has gone to bed to read, which is where I'm headed now with my magazine, night all!

A week in my life - Tuesday

So today is the second day of my week long blog about our daily life.

Today Eilidh woke up at 7am and we came downstairs and had toast and yoghurt for breakfast.

 I had a Flat White (courtesy of the coffee machine we got ourselves for Christmas, its taken me eight months to master it but now I make a mean coffee!)

We had an early start this morning and had to be out of the house at 9:45, Eilidh is watching some TV while I ran around like a headless chook finding the baby wipes.

 My 10am appointment was my Weight Watchers meeting, and I lost two pounds, eleven in total now (5kg in other measurements)  in three weeks, I am so pleased!  After WW I went to my weekly ante-natal group catch up.  Eilidh is playing with P who was born on the same day, in the same hospital as her.  Incidentally P now has three teeth and E is a toothless wonder....

 Usually there are six to eight mums and their babies at our weekly catch up, but for some reason this week we only had three of us, this meant that I could make soup - leek and sweet potato, mmmmmm!

 E spent the afternoon playing with her mini-friends and snoozing in her pushchair, thankfully I have a very easy going baby who sleeps anywhere!

 While E slept I hung out with Miss Molly, my friend Jo's super cute dog, and don't you just love that jug on her hearth!

 This is us just after E woke up, hence the confused face!

 We hung out at Jo's for most of the day and came home around five when Eilidh and I played for a while and then she had a snooze till her Dad came home.  I am always amazed at how she gets so excited when the key turns in the lock!

 Just after Andrew got home we had a conversation about dinner, and it turns out that when you're having fun all day you don't necessarily think about cooking for your husband, ooops!  So we did what all couples with a seven and half month old baby do, go to the bowling alley!

 Tuesdays is half price night at our bowling alley so we played some games and ate some wings.  E is such a good baby when it comes to altering her (non-existent) schedule, she had a great time watching the other bowlers and eating her tea.  She is such a people person.

 I got one strike and a few spares, not as many as I used to (we had lessons a few years back, sad but cool!)

Oops, how did that get in here!

 Not the most healthy of dinners I know, but hey I've got another seven days till WW, bring on my exercise DVD!

 

 We got home about 10:15 and Chicken slept in the tank AKA the fully reclining pushchair till Andrew took her to bed half an hour ago, which is where I'm headed now, night all!

A week in my life - Monday

I got the idea to blog everyday for a week about what I get up to from Kat and Jenifer who did this in the last couple of weeks, it takes a lot of dedication and I can only hope I'm organised enough!  All of these photos are taken on my iPhone, which explains why most of them are portrait.

So here we go, at 6:30 this smile woke me up.  Eilidh and I were sleeping in the spare room because she woke up about six times during the night and this was the best way for the both of us to get some real sleep.  As 6:30 is far too early I fed her and we went back to sleep till 7:45, result!

This was the view from our window, a promising day!

 We came downstairs and Eilidh played in her playpen while I made a strawberry and banana smoothie for breckie, nom nom.

 Chicken had peanut butter on toast, she really loves her food and so far she's eaten anything we're given her.

 And this is the mess on the floor after she's finished her toast.  The stones are on a shower curtain that I put under the high chair to catch the mess, an essential piece of kit!

 After toast she has yoghurt, she's dropping her milk feeds quite quickly so I want to make sure she gets enough calcium in her diet.  Somewhere in all of this, Andrew got up, had breakfast, made his lunch and left for work.

 Now normally around two hours after she wakes up Chicken needs a sleep but today at 9:15 she looked like she was going to conk out in the playpen so instead of starting my exercise DVD (which she loves to watch me do, apparently I'm hilarious!) we went upstairs for a drink and a snooze.  However despite being in a grump, rubbing her eyes and making 'I'm tired' noises nothing seemed to convince her to snooze.  After an hour of getting quite frustrated (on both sides) I gave up on the DVD and we headed out for a power walk.

 Five minutes from our house is a public footpath through some farms, and for an hour I walked through the fields while Chicken got her sleep.

 She woke up about five minutes from home and spent the time looking up at me, no body around to make smiles at I guess.

 It was about 11:30 by the time I got home so I fixed our lunch, Cauliflower and broccoli cheese to start and then pear and blueberry puree for pudding.

 And for me, ham and cheese on a homemade roll.  Andrew fancies himself as a bit of a bread baker on the weekends.

 Again, one happy customer!

 I had a shower after this (this is not normal for me, I'm usually dressed by 9:30 most mornings) and we sat down to play until 2pm, when the baby weigh clinic started.  However, once again our plans didn't quite work out.  Eilidh decided about 1:30 that she wanted a nap so we snuggled on the couch for what I would have expected to be 45 mins or so, but not today.  Today she slept till 4:15!! I couldn't believe it, this is not like her at all. On the plus side, I got to blob and watch a Kardashian marathon on E!  When she woke I gave her a feed and we headed out to the shops, having missed the weigh in.

 Eilidh loves going out and seeing people, she flashes them her big smile and I get stopped at least twice every time we got out, but not today, today she was making funny noises and becoming agitated so I did what any mum would do, I bribed her with a snack!

When we got home Chicken played in her playpen aka the cage while I got her dinner ready.  At the moment her favourite thing is for me to fill the pot with toys and then she goes through them all one by one, easily pleased huh! 

 At 6:15 I fed Chicken her dinnner, homemade spaghetti bolognese and peach rice pudding, and a pre-dinner G&T for me!  Andrew arrived home half way through dinner and did his best to distract her, lol!  I

And thats where the photos stop I'm afraid, I cleaned up Eilidh and got started with dinner while her and Andrew played for a while.  At 7pm Andrew took her up for a bath and I went up to give her her last fed and by 7:30 it was lights out for our wee girl.  I finished cooking, chicken and artichoke casserole that was supposed to have cabbage in it but someone (not me) didn't buy any at the Farmers market yesterday, despite being asked, hehe.  We ate and then settled down on the couch for internet, blogging, and sky TV, good times!  Blogger was being super slow so its taken an hour an a half to upload photos and write this post, so at 10:30 I am off to bed, night night!