I feel the need to spend some time on me, some time to think about last year and onwards into the New Year so I have decided to take part in reverb10.
I may be asking too much of myself, but I feel disconnected from my blog and from myself, perhaps because of this pregnancy, or the time of year so perhaps this is the way to have some 'me' time and rediscover my love of this blog. And my life. And myself.
Initial thoughts: We were sent a Tommee Tippee Tip It Up cup to review. It looked like every other cup we had been trying but apparently the 'lip touch technology' makes it easier to drink from. I had a try myself and it was easier to drink out of than Piran's Tommee Tippee Explora Easy Drink Cup that we use the most.
We liked: Piran seemed to love this cup, it was the one he kept asking for (well pointing to!). He seemed to drink a lot from it and I liked that it was easy to see how much liquid was inside. The handles made it very easy for him to use.
We didn't like: Piran quickly worked out that if he inserted his finger into the spout he could get the water out. And sprinkle it all over the room. And himself. And soak his trousers. Fun for him, not so great for me. Also, it seemed that the flow of water went back from his mouth into the cup as I kept having to change the water as bits of food would be floating in it. This never happened with the Explora cup. Also, the lid was separate and I wasn't happy to rely on it when out and about in my bag so we only used it at home.
Overall: As sippy cups go this is okay. I did find it imiting that I would only use it at home and I wouldn't want to give him his milk in it as sprinking a bit of water doesn't matter but milk is a different matter. I think we will stick with out Explora cup for now.
Further information:
Please see the Tommee Tippee website for further information.
Disclosure: We were provided with a free Tip Up Cup for the purpose of this review.
This morning was the worst by far since I have returned to work. Piran has a terrible cough and I spent all night cuddling and rubbing his back and willing him to cough. We all got some sleep squished in our bed together, he wailed every time I tried to get him back into his cot.
This morning I got up and showered and cried and cried. I wanted to stay home and hold him. I wanted to wrap him up and take him to the doctors and give him a treat for being a good boy. I wanted to keep him home from nursery and make sure he had a good nap, even if it meant sitting with him on my lap for hours.
What I had to do was wrap my sad, quiet boy up in jumpers and coats and hats and gloves and pries his hands from the banisters and strap him crying into the car. I had to drop him off at his Nan's house and after one last cuddle and kiss ignore those eyes that just said 'why?' and leave him there. I had to go to work and spent 40 minutes calling to get a doctors appointment. I then had to wait until my MIL had taken him and called me to update me. I had to listen as she told me he would only sleep for 5 minutes in her arms and that he was definitely lost without me today. I had to worry all afternoon that he wouldn't sleep at nursery. I left work early and went to pick him up, desperate to just get today over with.
He is okay, his glands are swollen and the doctor says that his cough just sounds a lot worse than it actually is. I have propped up one end of his cot slightly, given him some calpol and loads of cuddles and he has slept for the last two hours. We will see how the rest of the night goes.
A short while ago Heather at Young and Younger came clean about an addiction of hers. You can see her vlog here.
Now, when I first saw this I was quite pleased. I finally realised that I was not alone, as I too have an addiction to buying different types of sippy cups and beakers trying to find the one that works for Piran (and for me).
Then it dawned on me. She has TWO babies. A quick count confirmed my suspicions. Although there are 14 cups in the video, there are only 8 different types.
I did make a vlog but was shocked by my appearance after two weeks of colds and sinus infections so I ended up taking the easier option of a photograph. So I give you my current cup collection:
12 different types. It's sad I know. We use 1-4 regularly, the others are going to be packed away for the next baby! We use number 4 the most - the Tommee Tippee Easy Drink Cup. Piran will drink his milk from this, he also has water from it during the day. I love it because it never leaks, no matter how hard he tries.
There will be a review of number 1 tomorrow so watch this space!
I feel this blog is all pictures at the moment, no words, no substance.
I have been on a roller coaster of highs and lows recently. There was the low of being sick at the same time as Piran when Mr C was away for a whole week on business. That was hard, some of the hardest days and nights since I became a mum. Then there was a high at the end of last week where I rode the wave of productivity making and baking and creating and sewing and sorting out Christmas and getting organised. Then there was the crashing low of this week, the sinus infection that has me flat on my back on painkillers that make me feel like I am being smothered by an invisible cloud. It was made so much harder by the juxtaposition of feeling better than I had in weeks followed swiftly by the pain and frustration of being ill yet again.
I feel the baby though, the last few days. I feel it dance upon my bladder. I feel it in the rare quiet moments of my day. As I slip into sleep at night, as I slowly come round in the morning. I feel it now, down near the edge of the laptop. It is real. It is there. Even when I am alone I am not.
Being pregnant the second time is the same but different. There is very little time to daydream and imagine our new baby. But in snatched moments I am able to imagine better this time too. So I can wonder if this baby will be like the one I already know, how will they differ, will it be better or worse. Will it be a girl or a boy. I hate people asking me what I want. I want two children obviously.
There was a wonderful moment of clarity a week or so ago though that cut through the difficulty and hardship. I received a delivery of a carry cot to go on my Xplory and couldn't resist putting it together straight away. As I set it down on the floor and tucked the soft, small blanket into it I felt that rush of excitement and happiness that filled my weeks and days before Piran arrived. I am going to have a baby. A soft and beautiful individual child who will want and need and love me. And I get to want and need and love them back.
This post was written for Josie's Writing Workshop this week. I absolutely loved the pictures of 'Found Words' as prompts this week. I chose to imagine. If you haven't already please click on the box below and go and find out more.
I have been terrible at joining in with The Gallery recently. I blame being pregnant. I am just so tired all the time and entire weeks go past without me even noticing. I love the theme this week, before and after. There are so many photos that I have that I would have loved to use but I'm too disorganised and unable to scan in photos so I have gone for these.
The first smile ever captured on camera, September 2009
The last smile captured on camera, November 2010
Only 13 months later but so much has changed. It makes me so amazed to look at those baby photos. I can hardly remember what that time was like. We were lucky to get the second photo. He was trapped in the washing basket and unable to get away. All other photos of him recently have just been a blur!
When I received an email asking me if I would like to receive a cupcake making kit from Tesco Real Food I jumped at the chance. I love cupcakes and mine are a firm favourite with the people that I work with. I think that could be the main reason they were happy that I came back after maternity leave!
So that is exactly what I did. My effort is below. I do make a tasty cupcake (I amended the recipe for vanilla cupcakes slightly and gave them a more festive twist with some mixed spice. They are delicious) but sadly, decorating is not my strong point. Still, perhaps I will get some marks for effort and artistic interpretation. I was trying to recreate a dusting of light snow over the fields with frosty sparkles. Hmm, perhaps not but really, who has time to admire how a cupcake looks, it's the eating that is the fun part!
Why not have a go at entering yourself? Get baking and then simply go to http://www.tesco.com/food/cupcakes and upload a photo of your cupcake. There will be 2 winners and they will be judged on the attractiveness of their cupcake. The lucky 2 winners can bring a friend and enjoy an afternoon of baking with a chef on Friday 10th December 2010 in London. 10 runner ups will receive a cupcake kit. The last day for entries is Monday 29th November.
On Tuesday evening Piran slept badly. After a restless night he woke at around 3am and wouldn't go back to sleep. I finally got him to nod off in my bed at 6am, the time I usually get up for work on a Wednesday morning. I had to wake him at 7.15 which broke my heart and his little face was less than impressed (I don't think he quite got what I was on about when I tried to explain that is how I feel when he wakes me up in the middle of the night!)
Last night I popped him into bed at 7 and he was up again before 8. We had short fits of sleep up until 11 when he woke for good. I finally got him to sleep at 3am, 24 HOURS AFTER I LAST WOKE UP. So, it turns out we both have colds and I like to deal with this by sleeping a lot. He deals with it by being awake a lot. These two things do not go together.
Today has been a marathon of calpol, sneezing, nose blowing, and the occasional cuddle. Each of those cuddles I have relished resting my head onto of his warm brow, tucking him in close and warm. I'm no fool, I know how rare they are! After a rocky start we had a 2 hour nap this morning which helped and I got an hour of fresh air and a change of scene when I popped out for my appointment with the midwife. My MIL came and played with Piran and I went and listened to the new baby's heartbeat. Was a lovely moment, ruined slightly by the fact all I could think of as I lay on the table in the midwife's office that if I didn't concentrate I might just fall asleep then and there!
God, I can't even write a coherent post and I can hear Piran waking upstairs again, he only went to bed 45 minutes ago. I need to eat some food so I can get through tonight. Last night I had to have porridge at 2am to deal with the empty cold / sick feeling.
I need my Mr C back. I have 29 hours (fingers crossed) until he walks back through that door. I have already warned him that he is on duty from the moment he is back. I plan on sleeping through the ENTIRE weekend.
I popped into the kitchen earlier this evening to make Piran's milk before taking him for his bath. I could hear him playing with the lounge door but thought nothing of it. When I came to get him the door was closed. I pressed on the handle and slowly opened the door, just in case he was behind it. It opened half an inch and stopped dead. As did my heart. It was suddenly very clear what had happened. Piran had pulled out one of the boxes in his toy storage and it was blocking the door. Disaster! *Insert Zingzilla's singing birds here* I could feel myself starting to panic. A million scenarios buzzed through my brain in seconds. There is no other way into our lounge (short of smashing or removing a window!) I could see myself stood out in the garden all night watching Piran playing in the warm. After a couple of minutes I heard a noise and tried the door and it opened. He had pushed the box back in. Big sigh of relief, rummage in the cupboard and I have now added a door jammer that I had.
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Whilst Piran's bath was running I removed his clothes and nappy while he stood staring into the bath pointing and saying "What's dat?" "Water" "What's dat?" "Just water" "What's dat?" "Still water". I had taken off all his clothes and his nappy, dropping them to the floor, and while I stirred the bath water round he decided it would be fun to throw the items on the floor into the water. Lovely.
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My mum telephoned to change her order for Christmas the present suggestion she had made for Christmas. During the conversation it transpired that neither of us had done the dishes yet. At the end of the call she decided that we would make a pact to both go and do the dishes. Just as I finished doing my piles of washing up I remembered she has a dishwasher.
I wrote this post on the day I found out I was pregnant, Sunday 22nd August. A couple weeks before Huggies had kindly invited me to the Little Bundle of Laughs comedy event in London which was great fun. They asked us back then to share our funny pregnancy stories and I have been holding out until I could come clean about the new baby. If you are in need of a laugh please check out their You Tube Channel where there are clips of the night - all the comedians were great but I thought Kerry Godliman was particularly funny. If you feel like sharing an amusing story I would love to hear them!
I think I am pregnant. My period was due yesterday but has not appeared, and there have been a couple of familiar signs. But I'm only a day late so trying not to get my hopes up. But while I was at Waitrose this morning I picked up a couple of pregnancy tests just in case. Of course being Waitrose they only had the all singing all dancing variety which cost a fortune, but nowhere else was open on a Sunday.
It's lunchtime and we are due round the inlaws for dinner in an hour but Mr C suggests I do the test now, to put my mind at rest. The pressure of peeing on a stick is too much so I go to find a suitable receptacle. All I can find is a plastic pint glass. A little excessive perhaps, but it will do. I'm keeing an eye on Piran but plonk myself on the loo with the door open, hands between my legs holding the plastic glass in place and start to wee. Wow, that's a lot of wee. Suddenly I realise Piran is advancing towards me. I try to fend him off by attempting to wave a leg in his was but all that does is make me pee on my hand. Great. Oh god, he has reached the toilet and is now putting his hand between my leg trying to steal what I am holding. I'm hollering for Mr C and trying to clamp my knees together to stop him. Not my finest moment.
Finally Mr C has grabbed Piran and I am done. After a quick peruse of the instructions I'm away. Dip for 20 seconds, put the cap on, result in three minutes. Strange, the cheap one I used when we found out I was pregnant last time only took one minute. Whatever, I rest it on the top of the bannister and go into Piran's room to put some stuff away. Mr C looks at the test and says something. I come out, look at the test, read the word Pregnant and say the word "FUCK". It's good to know I'm consistent, I'm 2 for 2 on inappropriate swear words on finding out I'm having a baby.
Turns out you get the result in a minute, it is just the how many weeks that takes three. This is all too much for Mr C who is convinced that it is wrong, that the word Pregnant comes up at the beginning, then the word Not if it is negative. Can you imagine? There would be some confused people out there who thought they were pregnant, went off and celebrated and didn't see the Not! He made me do the second test, and prove to him that the screen was blank first. I think it was wishful thinking on his part!
Anyway, much happiness and hugging and panicked 'What the bloody hell have we done' came next. Another baby in early May next year. Totally mind-blowing.
Then we have to forget all about it and go be normal at Mr C's parents. I have double helpings of pudding, no more diet for me! We get home later and realise that in all the excitement we left half a pint of urine on the windowsill in the bathroom. Two kids is going to be chaos!
I hardly know where to start with this letter. Your first birthday seems like an age ago and here we are, another three months down the line. A quarter of a year is a lot at your age!
When you turned one you had just learned how to crawl. These days you are a super speedy crawler, you just zoom off! You love to be chased and stick your head down and just crawl as fast as you can. Sometimes you end up hitting the door or the wall. You really should try and look where you are going.
Over the past three months you have slowly progressed from us holding you standing to you holding onto the furniture and pulling yourself up, then cruising too. Early one Sunday morning, as your Dad was watching TV and you were playing you suddenly just walked past pushing your brick trolley! He was so shocked. Now you like to use anything you can to help you walk and you like to hold our hands and get about. You can stand on your own for quite a long time but you just aren't ready to let go and try and do this walking lark on your own. Take as much time as you like my love, we will be here to cheer you on and lend a helping hand I promise.
You have been to your first fancy dress party and you loved your Superman costume almost as much as I loved making it for you. It felt so good to make something special for you, I can imagine making many more for you over the years. You hate to get dressed in any clothes and changing your nappy is usually a battle. You flip yourself over and try and run off. You are fast too and one time ended up off the end of the bed before I could catch you. You are strong and fearless. You can climb the stairs and we have taught you how to get off the sofa or chair by turning round and sliding off.
You are loud. You never stop chatting away, talking to yourself or to us. I always know when you are up to mischief, it is the only time other than when you are asleep that it is quiet. Unfortunately you love the word "No" and you mimic the way I say it and my tone of voice perfectly. Occasionally you add in a wagging finger. We shouldn't laugh but we do. You are a little comedian really, you have the best expressions and can be very silly. You say "Oh No" when you drop things or fall over. You point and say "What's Sat" which is very cute but sometimes I run out of things to name.
Occasionally you have the briefest moments of intense concentration when you are trying to work something out or something fascinates you. In this picture above you were watching the seals swim underwater. You are gorgeous (I may be biased) but tend to be a bit bruised too, from all the running about and crawling and climbing.
You are cheeky and happy and we are so very lucky. You love us very much and sometimes you will come over and lay your head on my lap which makes me melt. You even give us kisses, making a mmmmmm noise then when we come close finishing with a big mwah! God I love that.
I love to see you with your Dad. You worship him, as all little boys should do with their Dad. If he ever dares to come home and not spend enough time saying hello there is hell to pay with tears and shouting from you! The picture above gets me every time. You were not feeling too well and you were inconsolable until you got all snuggled up with your Dad. He does give the best cuddles.
You have sixteen teeth. Your hair is long at the back and short on top. Some people tell me I should cut it but I don't want to. You used to hate sleeping in our bed but you have not been sleeping so well over the past few weeks and you like to drop off as I cuddle you in my bed now. You are a wriggler but I wouldn't give it up for anything.
In a while things are going to change around here. I am growing you a little baby brother or sister. I worry how you will react but I am thrilled that you will have a friend, someone to play with, someone to love, someone to squabble with, someone on your side. But remember this. I love you. I will always love you. I didn't know I could have feelings this big about someone so small and it will always be you that taught me that. Nothing will ever change that.
All my love,
Mum x
P.S. I couldn't resist including this video from earlier today, you thought your Dad's trick was hilarious (until you were distracted my the TV!)
Last week, in half term, Piran and I went on a little adventure. We spent the week in Devon in a cottage (well 2 actually) with my family. We had a lovely time but in the chaos I packed my camera battery charger but not my camera or even my Flip. All I had was my iPhone.
As Mr C was at home I was sending picture messages to him to let him know what we were up to. I missed having the camera but feel that I had a better week because of it, I was more present and was enjoying things as they happened instead of viewing everything through a camera lens. Here are some of the snaps I did take:
I think Piran is napping. Finally. Okay, I know it is only twenty past ten but it has been a testing four hours so far this morning. Poor old Piran, last week he had his cousins on hand to play with all day every day and now he is back here with just me to cope with. It is like he has forgotten how to play by himself. Which is a shame as he was always very good at that and we used to muddle along just fine for a couple hours. I am sure he will settle back but right now he is more about trying to do everything that I don't want him to do. How do you get through to a 15 month old? He keeps pressing all the buttons on the Sky box. Every time I tell him know and move him away but he just goes straight back and does it again or decides to have a screaming fit instead. Is this just what it is like and I should get used to it, or is there something we can do?
It is mornings like this that make me fear for how we will manage when the new baby comes. Today baby number two (no nickname as yet) is doing a number on me, with terrible sickness. Piran's poo is interesting and these two things together make me a bit of a wreck! I don't want to complain, I know this is only the beginning if my last pregnancy is anything to go by but I am beginning to worry. Other people's reactions have not helped, I think everyone thinks we have done this too soon, but I didn't want to be 35 when I had baby number two. Mr C is five years older than me and we just felt that there is never a perfect time to have a second baby so we would do it now. I think I am just hormonal and worrying too much at the moment. I am just so tired and take everything a bit personally. My MIL made a comment about the age difference between Piran and the new baby on Saturday and since then I have been all tied up inside. I need to just try and forget about it.
God I am tired though. Sick and tired and really unable to function very well at all. There is so much to think about, so many jobs to get done and things to sort out but all I want to do is sleep, sleep, sleep. But then I get that panicked feeling that nothing will ever get done and things will get worse and worse and the world will end. Or something like that.
I don't know. I neglect my blog for weeks and then when I do get five minutes to write a post it is all whinging and moaning. Sorry about that. Any words of wisdom or advice and reassurance gratefully received today I think. Help me pick myself up, dust myself off and get on with life.
I am a contradiction. Fiesty but I hate conflict. Happy and smiley but constant worrying. Loud and silly with friends but painfully shy around strangers. I love the summer but can't cope with the sun. My favourite things in the whole world are my husband, my toddler boy, my baby girl, my friends, my family, penguins, singing loudly alone in the car, and Cornwall. I don't like people who think the world owes them something, my fears and celery.
You are cheeky and happy and we are so very lucky. You love us very much and sometimes you will come over and lay your head on my lap which makes me melt. You even give us kisses, making a mmmmmm noise then when we come close finishing with a big mwah! God I love that.
I love to see you with your Dad. You worship him, as all little boys should do with their Dad. If he ever dares to come home and not spend enough time saying hello there is hell to pay with tears and shouting from you! The picture above gets me every time. You were not feeling too well and you were inconsolable until you got all snuggled up with your Dad. He does give the best cuddles. 
