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!

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 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!

A list of ten things on Monday

1.  My house was a mess at the start of the day, it is now much (but not completely) cleaner.

2.  I have my ante-natal group coming over for lunch tomorrow, hence number one, I'll do the hoovering tomorrow.

3.  Chicken and I had a huge nap this afternoon, from 5pm till 6:30pm, good thing we're not too big on routine!

4.  I have pin-wheel scones and a cake to make tomorrow before the people arrive.

5.  I'm probably only going to manage the scones, and I might squeeze in some biscuits (much quicker than cake!)

6.    Andrew mowed the lawn tonight so we can sit outside if its nice.  I should have found out how to put up the gazebo to make shade for the babies.

7.  Now I've said there might be sun, it will probably be cloudy!

8.  I have a £4.55 worth of fines to pay at the library, I hate library fines!

9.  We are going to go for a walk on the moor tomorrow, hopefully my shoes don't get too muddy cause I'll have to get them washed in customs in New Zealand!

10.  Thats right, I'm going to New Zealand.  On Easter Sunday Chicken and I are going home for three weeks.  My wonderful Mum and super Dad have missed their little Possum so much they had to see her again, I have the best parents ever, thanks G, and Pops!

And now for a few cute photos taken at Kew Gardens last week, Chicken enjoying the warm sunny weather!

Shrove Tuesday on Ash Wednesday

Todays photos have nothing to do with pancakes, Chicken has just been particularly cute the last couple of days!

I've just finished the most amazing plate of blueberry buttermilk pancakes.  I was supposed to make them yesterday for Shrove Tuesday, or as it is known in the UK, Pancake Day.  I was in the supermarket yesterday around 5pm and they had completely sold out of flour - that is commitment to the pancake!  Anyway, I didn't get to make them because Chicken threw a hissy fit last night and we went to bed early. 

A week ago I wrote about our attempts to a night time routine, and well, it hasn't been going well, in fact the score was Chicken 6, Parents 0.  She'd have a bath, a feed and fall asleep but the second we put her down, she was wide awake.  We decided that we'd persevere with putting her down (she's a very stubborn Chicken, much like her parents) until it was time for dinner.  Tonight however (fingers crossed and touch wood!) it worked!  She's been asleep for nearly two hours now!!

This has meant that I could make the pancakes, and write my blog, happy days!  I do know however, that this might be a one off special, but it shows us that she can fall asleep and stay that way for a long period of time.  My little Chicken is growing up!