A typical day in our lifes…..

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Some unpredictable time between 6.00 and 7.30am – We are woken by a squawking baby and/or a way too energetic small person trying to jump on our heads
7am – Milk distribution ensures momentary calm
7.20am – We all watch postman pat SDS in bed – i question whether we should allow our children to watch such tripe and how Postman Pat is able to maintain his employment despite his persistence incompetence
7.40am – Chaos is resumed – it becomes of the utmost importance that we proceed immediately downstairs to play with cars
8am – An attempt at breakfast is made and rejected
8.10am – Breakfast is enforced
8.20am – J leaves for work, i begin the arduous task or extracting weetabix from various orifices
8.30am – The baby is placed in the jumperoo
9am – The baby sleeps and i try and make a cup of coffee but am intercepted by the boy who wants me to get down on my hands and knees to race cars with him
9.30am – A trip to the park is suggested and met with approval
9.35am – The boy is unhappy that we are not already at the park
10am – After 30 minutes of packing the various paraphernalia needed for brief trip out with a small child/baby we finally make it to the park
11am – Suggestion to leave the park met with disapproval
11.15am – Suggestion to leave the park met with disapproval
11.30am – Suggestion to leave the park met with disapproval
11.45 – Suggestion to leave the park met with disapproval
12pm – The baby and I are bored and hungry and a decision to leave the park is taken. Despite being at the park for 2 hours the boy feels incredibly hard done by and proceeds to wail all the way home and insist i carry him, and his scooter, whilst also pushing the buggy
12.15pm – Lunch – whatever i offer is not good enough unless it’s chicken nuggets. If it is chicken nuggets then the cooking time is not acceptable. The baby throws food around the kitchen and is sick. He rubs his hands in the sick and then rubs it in his hair Continue reading →

To bite or to be bitten?

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Ok what’s worse – being a mum to a kid who goes around trying to take chunks out of others kids faces or being the mum of the one who is always on the receiving end?

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It seems to be happening with increasing occurrence that F is either being whacked around the head with a big stick or receiving a flying kick to the stomach. In the case of the photo (taken the day after the event!) he was pinned down and bitten hard on the face. I think you will agree he has fairly decent ‘proof marks’ (as we used to call them in my day).

Now i don’t blame the kids – in most cases they are just going through a stage (some are just a bit bitey, others not so much). I don’t usually blame the parents either, i doubt very much they want to have a bitey kid.

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3am is the loneliest time – Insomnia

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3am is the loneliest time.

Too late to pretend you could be still up watching TV, too soon for even the earliest risers to be getting ready for work. The late night cabs dropping people home from their nights out have stopped and the distant din from milk floats or post vans is yet to break the silence.

At 3am it feels like you are the only one awake.

When my older son was about 3 months old and starting to occasionally sleep through the night I was hit in the face with a brick. The brick would strike in the middle of the night shocking me awake and into a blind panic.

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How to get your baby to sleep through the night?

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I was in the healthy child drop in clinic the other day and as i was waiting to get baby S weighed i was ear-wigging on the conversation another mum was having with the Health Visitor about her 6 month old daughter. It went something like this: –

Flustered Mum “So i leave the room and she just starts crying, so i wait 15 minutes before going back in but she won’t stop crying – should i wait even longer?”

HV “No you can’t leave a baby that young to cry for 15 minutes”

Flustered Mum “But the last Health Visitor i saw told me to leave her for 15 minutes? What do you think i should do then?”

HV “Well to me it sounds like she could be overtired – Have you tried bringing her bedtime forwards?”

Increasingly flustered Mum “No – i was told to try putting her to bed later as perhaps she isn’t tired enough”

HV “Well maybe it’s a hunger thing, maybe you need to up her solids in the day”

Very Irate and flustered Mum  “She’s eating loads – everyone keeps telling me different stuff! How am i meant to know who is right?”

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A letter to my baby girl that never was…

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Today is 4 years since we said goodbye to you.

I still think about you, although not many people would realise that or understand. I still wonder what if? Every time I read in the paper of a baby who defied the odds and survived I wonder if the doctors may have got it wrong in our case.

Should we have given you a chance – didn’t you at least deserve a chance?

You looked perfect to me on the scan. I breathed a deep sigh of relief to see your little heart beating away. Your perfect little hands and feet waving around and your face, so beautiful, with a little button nose.

But they saw what we could not – we needed more tests, more scans. We spent weeks in limbo, not knowing, it was the worst kind of hell.

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On Foreseeing Death And Danger Everywhere

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We’re waiting on the platform and your hand slips from mine as the train rolls into the station

We’re playing chicken by the edge of the sea and a huge wave appears and sweeps you away from me

We’re waiting for traffic lights to change and the buggy suddenly rolls from my grip out into the road

We’re having a picnic and a frigging huge pterodactyl swoops down from the sky and snatches you back to her hungry babies

Ok maybe not the last one but does anyone else constantly play out these types of scenario’s in their head? I’ll be like happily going about my day when suddenly horrific events start unfolding in my mind and my grip will tighten and I’ll pull you a little closer. Sometimes they are down right ridiculous and I’ll have to have a quiet word with myself.

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Gender Disappointment – Can you be happy with two of the same sex?

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This is some thing that is close to my heart. As much as i try and take an objective view when i hear about people talk about being disappointed when they find out the sex of their baby at a scan, i can’t help but feel the anger start to bubble a little bit.

I can’t imagine going to scan and being told you are carrying a healthy boy or girl and feeling disappointment. Its heartbreaking to think that when some parents see their perfect baby, for one of the first times, the overriding emotion is sadness.

It seems to be that for some reason a lot of women are desperate to have a girl. In the majority of cases i read or hear about it’s often that the women in question is pregnant with a boy. I have two boys myself and here are some of the questions/comments i have had…

‘Oh i bet your hoping for a little girl this time round’ – nope

‘Would you have another so you could try for a girl next time?’ – nope i would only ever have a child because i wanted ‘a child’.

‘two boys – oh’ ?!?!?!?

It’s as if people expect me to be disappointed with my boys. That somehow my family is substandard as i don’t have the perfect set up of one of each.

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how could i be disappointed?!

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Drug free vs. epiduraled up. My two different birth experiences.

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I’ve been thinking about my two different labour and birth experiences lately as a few of my friends are pregnant or have recently given birth and naturally they have asked questions about how things went for me.

With Felix i had an epidural, read magazines to pass the time and was almost falling asleep between the pushes.

With Seth it was drug free, i punched the walls to pass the time and i almost wanted to die between the pushes.

Of my second birth people tell me i should be so proud and although i understand where they are coming from in actual fact i am much prouder for coming through my first experience.

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Date day with my no.1

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Date day is something I have been meaning to introduce for a while as a way of spending some quality time with my eldest son. I’ve posted before about the jealousy issues we have experienced since his little bro was born and now I’m not feeding 24/7 it’s great that we can get some 1:1 time together again.

So the plan is that every few weeks my husband stays with the littlest allowing me and F to get out together. We may go to the park or swimming but on this occasion we decided to take a trip into town on the bus.

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