Dad, Daddy, Dada or Bob, Fred, George

Inevitably our 14/15 month old daughter finds Dada a much easier sound to make than Mama. She doesn't make the sound in relation to her Dad yet but I think that is because we haven't jumped on her with encouragement and reinforcement. My husband doesn't want our daughter to call him Dad, Daddy or Dada. He'd like her to use his name and although she has a lot of opinions about how many spoons she needs to be holding she has yet to form an opinion about how she refers to her father - who knows what she'll chose to call him. I just hope it is polite at least until she is a teenager. He, and his siblings, have always called their parents by their first names. I think his older sister started it and then never went back to Mum and Dad, I'm led to believe that a lot of children go through a phase of calling their parent's by their first names. My first reaction I suppose was to worry that people might not realise that he is her Dad - I really need to stop worrying about what people think.  My family although respectful of the decision don't seem to be able to get used to it. We've just spent a weekend correcting my Mum and her constant dadadadadada noises. Unfortunately his name is going to be quite a challenge for a babbling baby as it isn't as simple as dada but that is a wait he is prepared for. I'm desperate to be Mama/Mum but it appears I'm going to have to wait for that too. Friends have also found it quite difficult to get used to it. I guess common practice is that we call our own parent's Mum and Dad and therefore we become Mum and Dad when we become parents. I was interested that his sister, who allegedly started the whole thing, is called Mum by her own children.

Where do you stand? Do you call your parent's Mum and Dad or by their first names? What would you want your child to call you?

Maternity TV Watching

I had expectations of spending last January sat on the sofa with my feet up watching rubbish TV waiting for baby to arrive. The doctors, however, had other plans and induced me at 38 weeks. With Christmas and being induced early I didn't get any opportunity for sitting and doing nothing prebaby.

A new born baby sleeps a lot! It didn't feel like that at the time but looking back....... Usually during the day and not at night when the parents would like to be sleeping too. 1KB didn't like to sleep alone and preferred to be held during her naps - she still does, although we're less inclined to give into her as she is rather heavy now. This resulted in a large amount of time being spent stuck on the sofa under a sleeping baby. The more savvy will ensure that there is a TV remote, a bar of chocolate and a drink all within an arm's length. 

I therefore managed to get in quite a bit of tv watching. For some bizarre reason I decided that my usual selection of Law and Order and CSI was not appropriate and too dark for watching with a baby - even though she was sleeping. So my go to maternity tv was Gilmore Girls. I watched the whole lot almost 1.5 times as I recorded it on my PVR and 5* just kept showing it episode after episode.

Yesterday I watched the final ever episode again and feel that, that marks the end of my Gilmore Girls watching. A friend of mine watched the entirety of West Wing during her night time feeds. What are you go to TV series when you're ill or have spare time on your hands.

My sister is expecting and due her baby in January. She has yet to pick her boxset so I'm looking for recommendations. 

Any Other Woman - Stay at Home Dad

I'm over on Any Other Woman today talking about how O is now a stay at home Dad. Would love to hear your thoughts or feedback.

Thanks to the lovely ladies over there for giving me the opportunity to post on their excellent site.

Mr Right

(source)

This picture is so far from reality it made me laugh.

O is always right, I'm sometimes allowed to be slightly right, but never 100%.

Learnt and forgotten

I'm just going to randomly post this as if it hasn't been months since I last posted here. 

I was randomly emptying the dishwasher the other day and realised it would be much quicker if I could still stack five hot glasses on my hand like I used to be able to when I worked as a bar maid. That got me thinking about things I learnt through previous employments but have forgotten or can no longer do.

Lifting hay bales - when I worked as a stable girl I could lift a bale of hay or push a wheel barrow full of manure. I reckon I could probably now do these things again as carrying 1KB has given me upper body strength that I haven't had for years. I was also able to spend the day in the freezing cold without complaining because I loved being around the horses and helping children learn to ride so much.

Carrying glasses - working as a bar maid taught me a great number of skills; how to pour the perfect pint, how to total three pints of smooth without the till, how to carry glasses and how to give back as good as I got in terms of drunken abuse.

That is all I can think of at the moment. What about you?

Failing and Winnng

Failing

Friday morning I headed to baby group as usual. We're a little later than normal but nothing drastic. Park the pram at the back of the room and pull 1KB out her car seat getting an unmistakable waft as I do. So pick up the change bag and head to the facilities which happen to be in the disabled toilet. Lock the door behind me and lay 1KB down. She immediately starts crying as it is quite a noisy, hot and stuffy room. This is going to need to be quick. Lift her t-shirt and see that the contents of the nappy have exploded onto her vest. Thankfully only the vest is effected so she can go back into the leggings and t-shirt. Not going to be a quick process though. Take out the rather light packet of wipes clean her up using the very last wipe. Put a clean nappy on and start searching for a clean vest (she is still screaming). Pull everything out of the change bag - no clean vests, fine will put her in the sleep suit without a vest. Look at the size of the sleep suit and then at the screaming child on the change mat. Sleep suit is 0-3 months not going to fit a large 5 month old. Swear a lot. Put her back in the leggings and t-shirt pulling the leggings up as far as possible to try cover some of the belly rolls. Repack the 7 muslins, 5 bibs and 2 winter hats back into the change bag (clearly illustrating my child is a sicky baby oh and she is still screaming). Finally pick her up and the bag turn to the door, turn the lock and nothing happens. Turn it the other way nothing happens. Frantically turn it any which way I can nothing. We're locked in this hot loud smelly room with 1KB screaming. I pulled the disabled alarm cord. The janitor opened the door very quickly from the outside and I must only have been stuck for 2 mins but boy was I flustered. Went back to baby group and 1KB was immediately quiet.

Winning

I got invited round for lunch with a new friend from baby group. On the day that 1KB has no vest and I now have no wipes I get invited on an impromptu lunch date! Luckily though we needed to drop by the supermarket to pick up lunch so I just bought more wipes and she went without a vest for the day (was only a small shop or I'd have bought a vest). Had a lovely afternoon sitting in her garden chatting and have been invited out again next week. Then to top off a good day I went for drinks (soft) with work colleagues and when I arrived home just before 7pm O had 1KB bathed and ready for bed.

Change bag has been carefully restocked with appropriate sized clothing and some muslins have been removed.

Appetite

I lost my appetite as soon as morning sickness kicked in (really should be renamed all day sickness). I was physically sick on average once a day from week 6 to week 16ish. Throughout the rest of the pregnancy my appetite didn't return and during the early weeks with 1KB it still wasn't back to normal. I was eating what I could (one handed) when I could and often it was just easier to tend to her and forget about me. However I can safely say that my appetite has returned in earnest so I now need to be a little bit careful - I'm not trying to lose weight I'd actually just like to stay where I am now and not put any on. Unfortunately food that is easy to eat one handed and satisfies an immediate hunger (don't often get a lot of time to prepare food) seems to be unhealthy for you - or in my case that is true. Grapes, apples or bananas just never hit the spot the way chocolate, crisps or toast do.
Anyone got any simple meals or snack suggestions that will satisfy my hunger? I have on a couple of occasions made myself the equivalent of a packed lunch - although we don't go anywhere. When I have some free time in the evening I make a sandwich to keep in the fridge so that the next day if 1KB is having a particularly bad day I can just eat while she feeds or sleeps in my arms.

It takes a village

They say it takes a village to raise a child and that may well be true and useful but when everyone in the village has a different opinion it can be bewildering and overwhelming. Thankfully these opinions have not been forced upon me but with so many options it is difficult to know what is best:
Breast feed or not
Top up with formula or not
Dummy or not
Own room or our room
In her cot or our bed
She is colicky or not
Give her gripe water, colic drops, fennel tea or not
Feed her on demand
Don't over feed her
Let her nap for long periods
Keep her awake
On most of these points I don't care I will follow instructions and there in lies the problem. There are no instructions and if you take one route there are hundreds of opinions and experts to tell you why they'd do it differently. You have to do what is best for your individual child and if someone would just tell me what that is I'll get on with it.

Reflux

We think 1KB has reflux - this is what the health visitor has suggested or rather asked me if that was what I thought was wrong. We're going to the GP on Monday although I'm not really expecting much more of a diagnosis. I'm getting the impression that infants and their digestive systems are quite the mystery.
I thought all babies were sick  and perhaps she was just greedy and took too much food. However as time has gone on and we're just not able to extend the two hour period I'm getting more and more resentful. She wouldn't need fed every two hours if she kept hold of some of the food I gave her and didn't throw it all back at me. All over her clothes, soaking numerous bibs and muslins, my clothes and our new carpet. 
I'm now realising that perhaps it isn't normal to lose that much of a feed and her screaming and writhing an hour after being fed is perhaps to do with her stomach churning and not simply that she hates falling asleep.
We've been prescribed infant Gaviscon which we happily started using - after figuring out how the heck to actually give it to a breast fed baby. But she immediately became constipated and the writhing in pain from stomach acid was replaced by straining to fill her nappy. The dosage instructions say that for her weight (luckily she has no problem with her weight gain) she can have 12 sachets a day - we've reduced her dosage to 2 sachets a day and she is still bunged up. We're giving tummy massages and hot baths to try and help her along. The two sachets unfortunately don't seem to be cutting out the vomit so we need to up the dosage.
Hoping the GP might have some advice that isn't simply different medicine to help with the constipation - there is a lot of advice on what you can and can't give babies but in my experience they'll give you plenty of sugar filled medicines. Or maybe we may need to decide which is worst constipation or vomit.

Ground hog 2 hours

1KB is on a two hour cycle. From about 7am she eats, plays, screams and sleeps in a two hour cycle - sometimes on a really good day we can stretch it to two and a half hours. You could almost set your watch by her. She will appear to be sleeping soundly but bang on two hours since her last feed she will begin to stir. If we go out for a walk or in the car she will sleep for longer however I don't always want to go for a walk every two hours.

I need to do something to elongate this cycle but I've no idea how - any suggestions? I feel like I'm living in ground hog hour over and over again the same happens.

Sing a song

I'm running out of songs to sing to 1KB. Songs with small actions are good. Our current favorite is the hokey cokey however after the 25th time a day it gets a little grating even if 1KB still smiles when I start. I hope it is a smile and not a grimace. She made her feelings clear when I sang Somewhere Over the Rainbow - she started screaming when I started singing and stopped screaming when I stopped singing.
What do you sing to your little ones or what songs can you remember from your own childhood?

Alien abductions

I have a theory that a least some of the reported alien abductions are from new parents. For a few weeks there at two in the morning by the blue/white light of the night light, with huge black eyes and oversized head you could mistake 1KB for an alien. Sleep deprivation could play a factor too though.

2012

A new start should be all about looking forward but instead I thought I'd start by looking back to the year that was 2012. 

Great minds clearly think alike because Gaynor from Our day by design posted a 2012 round up a few days ago. I promise I had already started drafting my own post before I saw Gaynor's.

January - nephew turned 2

February - went to Murrayfield with #2 and her boyfriend to watch Scotland vs England 6 nations match. Work was crazy crazy busy.

March - niece was born, celebrated husband's big birthday with a weekend on the edge of the Lake District.

April - a quiet month we had a visit from the in-laws.

May - found out that we were pregnant, took a train to the South of France, spent a week in France with my parents not telling them I was pregnant, battling morning sickness and not eating cheese, pate or drinking wine (they didn't guess I was amazed).

June - Good friends got married in a field in torrential rain, we camped. I was very tired and very sick. Did Race for Life with my sisters and Mum - resisted the temptation to tell them we were pregnant (we'd agreed to wait until after our first scan).

July - Had 12 week scan and finally told family and friends that we were pregnant, told work that I was pregnant and they'd need to find cover. Went to see an Olympic football match. Celebrated our 2 year wedding anniversary.

August - My birthday. Went to London for the weekend those that could did Go Ape and those that weren't allowed watched (I sulked). Spent a week up North with the in-laws.

September - Had 20 week scan. Celebrated the arrival of a friend's baby boy.

October - Another quiet month.

November - Celebrated a big birthday for my Mum, we had a photos taken (my Mum is obsessed by getting photos of us all), went for a cookery lesson (twice baked cheese souffles yummy) and had a half day spa.

December - I spent a lot of time at the hospital being monitored due to issues with my blood pressure. I finished work for at least 9 months. After much deliberation we headed up north for Christmas.

1KB

I haven't blogged for quite some time. So long in fact that while I've been away I have managed to be pregnant and had a daughter in early January without any mention gracing these pages. The pages that kept me sane through wedding planning but felt too public for my journey to starting a family.
However I'd like to start writing again. I also find myself in need of a community to support my sanity as my world changes so dramatically.
Being how I like to be mysterious/protect some anonymity I'll refer to my daughter as 1KB within these pages.

Saying something

I started reading my blog from the beginning. It is embarrassing. I have a strong desire to delete all the posts. I'm so far resisting the temptation.

Olympic Fever

Like the majority of the UK and I expect other parts of the world (although I hear your coverage hasn’t been brilliant) O and I have been caught up with Olympic fever the last couple of weeks. Things are starting to slow down over the last couple of days simply because a lot of the sports have finished but we’re still choosing to watch the sports we know little about or turn the TV off rather than watch something that isn’t Olympics related.

There have been a couple of stand out moments for me so far in the games that have really touched on what sportsmanship/womanship is really about. (In reality there have been a huge amount of stand out moments but these have really stuck with me).

Kirani James of Grenada, the 400m runner, who won gold Grenada’s first Olympic medal however it wasn’t James’ sprinting ability that I admired most it, was his attitude and behaviour after one of the heats. Where despite winning the race he immediately turned to one of his opponents Oscar Pistorius and asked to swap name badges something I’ve never seen done at the end of an athletics race. I’m sure you’ve already heard Pistorius’ story but if not you really should look it up. The fact that he was allowed to run at the Olympics was a mammoth feat in itself. Interviewed on his victory and his journey through to the next round James was asked why he’d wanted Pistorius’ name badge and the young athlete spoke of the honour it was to race against him and that Pistorius’ was a legend in their event and he had wanted the name badge as a souvenir of the momentous day when they’d been able to race against each other.

The second moment came just last night, I’d rushed home from my Pilates class and had come sprinting up the stairs just in time to watch Bolt and Blake run the 200m final. I’d debated just sitting in the car and listening to it on the radio as I knew it would all be over in 20 seconds and I definitely can’t run that fast. However I did make it to the sofa in time and got to see the race. After the race we watched as the three Jamaicans did their laps of honour and took in the adulation of the crowd. Bolt performed his usual antics and they mucked about as team mates who have all just won medals can. It was a hot night and the windows were open to try and get air circulating through the house. Our downstairs neighbours were having a family gathering and we could hear strands of their conversation as well as the grand kids playing on the lawn. It was then I heard the young boys saying to each other – “You be Blake, I want to be Bolt” “Ok now it is my turn to be Bolt”. Inspire a generation – right there and then. Ok so they were soon back to playing with their football but for a moment they realised that football wasn’t the be all and end all and that they have been able to witness sporting legends.

There have been less pleasant standout moments but they have involved male rowers/cyclists and their incredibly tight shorts. However to go into detail would just demean the point of this post! 

Iceland V 2011

On our last full day we did our own Golden Circle tour. We headed to Thingveiller to start with and had a wander and learnt about Icelandic history. 

Then we went up to Gulfoss (waterfall) – OMG I’ve never been so cold. Could barely stand up because of the wind. It is a spectacular sight and you can feel the power. The spray coming off the waterfall had completely frozen all the ground and grass around.
Then we headed back down to Geysir – again pretty amazing. These places are the only ones where we felt pretty surrounded by tourists which was a bit of a shame.

For our last night we booked a room very close to the airport because our flight was a 7:30ish in the morning so we stayed in Keflavik. We checked in got a take away pizza and drove to Hafnir (or just past it really) to see the Intercontinental bridge where the European and American plates meet. O ran up to the bridge, I was too interested in eating the pizza before it went cold. 

Then we finished our trip at the Blue Lagoon. It is beautiful, we didn’t get to see the landscape as it was too dark when we got there but we swam about looking for the hot bits. The trip was kind of made by the fact that we could see the northern lights from in the pool. They eventually kicked us out of the lagoon and we headed back to Keflavik pulling off the road down a dark track to watch the northern lights – attracting the attention of the police, don’t know what they thought we were getting up to. But once they realised we had our faces stuck to the windscreen and the camera desperately trying to capture the lights they left us be (photos did not happen!). When we got back to the hotel we realised we could actually see the northern lights from in our hotel room but it was extremely cold and windy with the wind open.


Iceland has to be our favourite holiday and we're already desperate to go back.

photos by O or me

Iceland IV 2011

Not many of the shops are open on a Sunday unfortunately. However go to the flea market where we managed to get O a hand knitted Icelandic jumper, which he wanted. I was going to get one as well but when we realised how expensive they are even second hand we decided we’d just share the one! 

We went to the National Museum, where we had lunch and to the cathedral in the centre of town, which is stunning in its simplicity. You can get a lift to the top of the tower where you get great views out over the city. We went for another swim at Vesturbæjarlaug O’s favourite pool. We had dinner in the apartment that night and then went to try and find a dark place to spot northern lights from. We failed but mostly because it was quite cloudy, we were both tired and weren’t really in the mood.

Iceland III 2011

This guy was in the lobby of our hotel

The next morning we walked round Akureyi again waiting for the swimming pool to open. The pool complex was huge with different pots at different temperatures and a steam room. The locals seem to do their stretches and yoga in the steam room which was a little disconcerting at first. Then back to Reykjavik with me trying to take pictures of the hundreds of Icelandic ponies from the moving car. We tried to take a lot of photos from the car strangely enough they haven’t really come out or we’ve got some cracking photos of the windscreen wipers or side mirrors!

On the way back South we tried to sort of go to Glymer. Glymer is Iceland’s tallest waterfall. First you need to get along the incredibly bumpy gravel road to get to the head of the walk – this is terrifying when you’re not supposed to take your hire car on gravel roads and when you haven’t taken out the windscreen cover or chipped paint cover insurance. So we got to the start of the walk about 4:45 and expecting that it’d be dark on the way back we took a torch with us. We walked quite a way crossing a smallish stream following the marked path. I don’t do too well with too much walking and my back was quite sore. 

We then came to a huge hole in the ground which basically took us under a huge rock and down the side of a cliff – it was pitch black here! We came out the other side unscathed and kept going (should point out I’m also a huge wuss and have no sense of balance so I don’t do well with scrabbling over rocks and jumping streams. I’m the one on my bum to go down the smallest of slopes). 

Eventually we came to a rather full river with a wire across it. There were stepping stones to the centre of the river and then a log for the rest of the journey. This was my breaking point and thankfully O’s too. We were not crossing the river in the dying light to see a waterfall. Especially when we could see where the path went on the other side and that didn’t look like much fun either. I told O he could go on if he wanted to but I’d had enough and would meet him at the car. (in contrast to me being a wuss and having no sense of balance my husband is like a mountain goat and can bound up hills at the drop of a hat). However, we decided that neither of us was going to cross the river. I suggested to O that he climb the hill in front of us and see if he could see the waterfall from there at least to get a picture. He decided we should both climb the hill to have a look we might have had a small argument, I might have had a tantrum but somehow I ended up climbing the bloody hill. YOU CANNOT SEE THE WATERFALL FROM THE TOP OF THE HILL.  We stomped back to the car practically in silence. On the way back we passed a couple just setting out (they’d been in the car park when we’d set out, not sure what took them so long we assumed they’d already been to the falls). We gave them fairly honest advice – are you mental it is dark, don’t do it, you’ll never make it. They went on regardless but O saw them turn almost as soon as we were out of view. My advice is don’t try and get to Glymer falls!

a grumpy me trudging back to the car

This time we checked into an apartment for two nights. We walked from the apartment into the centre of  Reykjavik and ate at a really nice vegetarian restaurant. On the walk into town we passed a couple of red cross charity shops and some second hand shops which we planned to visit the next day however we hadn’t planned that very well and it was Sunday the next day. 

all photos by O or me

Finally getting round to finishing these posts off.

Shocking bodies

A while back I posted that I'd removed the bar from my belly button piercing. This resulted in some shocked reactions from people who didn't realise I had a piercing.
So I was wondering what bodily secrets do you have that people couldn't guess from looking at you? I'm only really talking about piercings or tattoos those things that some people think of as taboo. If so why did you do it and are you still happy with the decision you made?
My belly button piercing is the only thing I have to reveal and I've removed it. Not too much of a rebel.