A new baby

It's 8.15pm and 27 degrees here - which is very warm for the UK! My best friend had a baby today! A little boy called Luca, 8lb 1 oz born a few days early at home. We are going to visit him on wednesday and it is already making me feel broody again - or maybe it's the weather?! I'm hoping that I will be able to conceive again soon, however, my baby is still feeding a lot. Although he is 9 months he does not eat many solids. He has never liked being spoon fed so he is a baby-led weaner - which basically means he only eats finger food/food that he can feed himself. This is great in terms of independence - he will skip the whole being fed stage - but not so good in the sense that he isn't filled up by food and still needs a fair bit of milk from me. However, the last week or so he has been going down in his cot around the same time his brother goes to bed about 8pm and staying there anytime from 2am til 4am. The ONLY thing that makes him sleep mind you in his cot on his own is the Radiohead album "In Rainbows" particularly the track Wierd Fishes/Arpeggio seems to soothe him. He has been so used to sleeping next to me that he always cries when he is left alone, we just discovered his love for Radiohead in Cornwall when I was too busy trying to get his brother off to sleep so his dad had to try and get him to sleep! So he is going longer without milk, but not long enough for me to be able to conceive again yet :( ! And maybe not as long as this hot weather lasts - it's too warm for him to sleep this evening and at the moment he is currently sitting on the floor by my feet giggling and chatting "mummas" and trying to get on the move while trying to chew on my big toe - happy days!

Potty Training

Potty training seems like such a big thing when you first start. Just the anticipation of it was stressing me out and after the first week I was really wondering how anyone became toilet-trained! We started with tot in January when he wa just under 2 and a 1/2. I had originally thought we would wait until he was around 3 but he started telling us when he had done a poo and we just felt that he was probably ready. Well, we started off with pull-up nappies and I just kept putting him on the potty every hour. This did not go too well as he just thought the pull-up was a nappy so he would sit on the potty then as soon as the pull-up was back up he would have his wee/poo. So we decided to bite the bullet and had a few days at home running aound bare-bottomed! It was exhausting. I was cleaning up pools of wee and mounds of poo and none was making it to the potty.

Around this time baby who was only 4 months got pneumonia. He needed a lot of attention and so potty training for tot was put on hold and he went into pull-ups.

In March we started again and ditched the pull-ups and got proper boys cotton pants. We had a few days where the pants and trousers were having to be changed 4-5 times a day with maybe only one success in the potty. During this time I would put him in a pull-up or cotton training pants (like reusable nappies - they are padded cotton to help absorb small accidents) whenever we went out to save the stress! After a few weeks we began to have more successes so that there was more going in the potty than in the pants and when we went out we would just take the potty everywhere (even in the bottom of the push chair and would be just removed and put on a pavement if a wee was needed!). We would still use pull-ups for nap times and nappies for bedtime. The only problem was that he wasn't telling us when he needed to go so it was up to us to remember to put him on the potty every hour or so - if we didn't remember then he would have an accident. So he had started to hold onto it until we put him on - which was good that he was showing control, but not good that he wasn't getting on the potty himself. For weeks and weeks it went on like this and although the accidents were down to once or twice a day - this was all dependent on us remembering to put him on the potty. This was beggining to stress me out as I could not always remember or I would be busy doing something like feeding baby. I would keep on at tot asking him if he needed the potty and telling him to sit on it at home and asking him to tell me if he needed it when we were out. I started to worry if he would ever become independent and do it for himself. It wasn't until June time that he started going and sitting on the potty at home without me prompting him. Then when we went out he started to tell us that he needed a "wee wee". I would keep asking him every now and then but gradually he started doing it more and more for himself. Then we went on holiday second week of June and stopped taking the potty out with us. He then got used to using a proper toilet (we would just hold him over public toilets so that he wasn't sitting on dirty seats), then he started having a few wees standing up outside (i.e. in bushes when a toilet was not available) and so progressed to using a toliet in the standing up position (I just hold him up as he is too short for most toilets!).

So now, after around 4 months of potty training I finally feel we are virtually there! With number twos he will trot around and sometimes sit on potty for himself but sometimes still wait for me to put him on - and very occassionally will still have accidents. He no longer has a pull-up on for his naps and more often than not his nappies are dry in the morning and he sometimes wakes up saying he needs a wee in the night so I think that before long we will have a fully toilet-trained tot.

I am very proud of him as there were times in the first few weeks that hubbie questioned if he was ready and thought we should put him back in nappies for a bit longer - don't know if it was my determined/stubborn nature that refused to admit defeat or my faith in my clever boy but I wasn't going to give up and I'm glad we didn't because finally we have done it - great teamwork as Bob the Builder would say!!

I wonder how interesting this post actually is but I think when you are a parent in this position you are looking for as much help and advice as you can get. I also think that it will be a good record for me as I imagine you forget very quickly and I'll be having to do it all over again in a year or so with the baby! My sister-in-law is planning on using a 3-day training technique - which I have never heard of and think that quite frankly sounds ridiculous. To expect a tot to be potty trained after three days is way too ambitious: day three we were lucky if we got a wee or two in the potty! I think you are just setting yourself up for failure and adding more stress to your plate. You need to try and relax about it - having strict targets is not a good idea, I think as long as you are seeing progress from one week to the next then in time they will get to grips with it - just be prepared and organised: be patient and have the disinfectant at hand!

Porthcurno Beach, Nr Land's End, Cornwall

We spent the Friday afternoon of our holiday here and ever since then I have been wishing we could be back there! It even prompted me into looking on fish 4 and right move for jobs and houses down there.

Conclusion: house - possibility ; job for Dave - nothing in the QS line, would have to re-train as a farmer or such like. I can dream though :)

School or Home-School?

On Tuesday we went to an open day at one of the local primary schools. I told tot that it was "big playgroup"! He seemed to like it and was intrigued by all the girls and boys dressed in uniform. I was quite impressed with the school, although it is the only one we have looked at so far so I have nothing to compare it against. The pupils were all very well behaved, everything was very organised and they have excellent resourses and lovely teachers.

The thing is I've had this idea for a while now that I want to home-school my children. However, I have a few doubts about this. Namely the social side of it and also worrying that I would not be teaching them properly. I have to get over the self-doubt though. I have a degree at the end of the day so surely with a bit of research I think I would be capable of teaching them to a high standard. Being at home would mean they get more one-to-one time and therfore have the potential to excel more than they would at school. I just don't want to feel lie they are "missing out" on anything though by not going to school. The tot's friends are now at pre-school and I already feel pressure to put him in and feel like he is missing out by not going. This school has excellent Ofsted reports and I was impressed with it, so I think that if I do send him to school this is likely to be the one - although there is another one that I need to see too. He would not start until 2011 so we have a while to decide, I'm just so unsure???

Not healthy bunnies

Well, it's Friday again and I seem to have spent the last week trying to recover from last weeks holiday! It doesn't help that I have come down with a nasty cold that I'm paranoid is swine flu (I'm sure it isn't). My 9-month old spent the weeks holiday with a tummy bug and this week with a temperature and cold. He has been the ultimate velcro baby, sleeping loads but wanting to be stuck to me otherwise. Meanwhile the tot is full of beans as usual, every day an adventure...so all in all I feel absolutely shattered!

The weather has been lovely (which makes the cold symptoms more of a mystery) and yesterday morning we went out to tot's favourite outdoor playground. We built sandcastles and pretended we were back on Porthcurno beach, then we had tea and cream cheese and cucumber sandwiches on the decking area of the cafe. By the afternoon it was sweltering so out came the paddling pool and I looked forward to a nice relaxing afternoon. However, as I was changing baby's nappy I noticed how dark his urine looked and how it may be infected so I rang the doctors who said to go and pick up a urine sample bag. So off we set to the doctors at 5pm when I was meant to be getting started on dinner. After a stop off at the shop we got home and did pizza and chips for tea with strawberries and strawberry cheescake Haagen Daz for dessert (which I stupidly put in the fridge instead of the freezer I realised this morning :( ) Anyway, managed to get some urine in the sample bag and dropped it back off at the doctors today. I'm a bit frustrated that it is a friday though and so will have to wait until monday for the results :(

Meanwhile I'm soldiering on with my usual cold treatments : nettle tea with manuka honey and lemon; effervescent vitamin C and some coffee to keep me awake! I hate feeling like this because I can't do as much with the tot. Normally I will take him out as well as reading books, drawing, painting etc. at home but at the moment I'm just encouraging him to sit in front of the TV when he's fed up of amusing himself in the garden. He is very good at occupying himself bless him, but it makes me feel so guilty :(

Cornwall, strange coincidences and the poor cat

I often wonder if you can have too much of a good thing. I also wonder if our holidays to Cornwall are jinxed in some way.

We had a lovely week away. Cornwall never disappoints me. The wonderful rugged coast land, the amazing beaches, the lush countryside and landscaped gardens, the little fishing villages as well as all the fun parks, farms, museums, art galleries and high standard restaurants and pubs: there is something for everyone.

However, my poor little one had a tummy bug for the whole of the week. Last year my other son had a bug for half the week we were there. I know that it is just a coincidence as my eldest caught it from his cousin who came with us last year and this year the little one came down with it the day after we got there so it was obviously something that he picked up before we went away. However, I can't help wondering why these things have happened at the same time. Then the monday we get back our neighbour's cat gets run over in the close. This is another strange coincidence as it was the monday that we got back from cornwall two years ago that our little girl cat got run over in the close. On monday the neighbour opposite was driving past our lounge window and braked suddenly. A minute later she was at our door and I could hear her asking my husband if we had a tabby cat. We have one tabby cat now (the little girl's brother, Thomas) and I just stood in the lounge frozen, my heart beating so fast - I thought that was it, we had lost our little boy too. I ran out the back door to try and compose myself and there was Thomas lounging on the patio table. I picked him up and gave him such a big hug he must have thought it was his birthday! Then my thoughts turned to my poor neighbour whose cat it was likely to be. His name was Max and he was only just over a year old. Yesterday morning they were out scrubbing the road, blood is such a difficult stain to remove. The mark on the road is a constant reminder, it keeps it fresh in your mind, until it fades and you hope the bad memories fade with it.

National Trust - Glendurgan Gardens, Cornwall

Amazing expanse of gardens and plants. There is a wonderful laurel maze that my 2-year old enjoyed getting lost in! You could walk around all day in this place! You can also gain access to the coastland - Durgan beach which presents a lovely view. There is a nice cafe next to the gardens (not NT) that serves all locally-produced food and drink and lovely Roskilly's organic ice cream (strawberries and cream is my tots favourite!).

National Trust - Trelissick Gardens, Cornwall

Lovely gardens, unfortunately the rain came down and we had to retreat to the tea room, which was delightful and it was worth the visit just to have lunch there!

National Trust - Stowe Gardens, Buckinghamshire

Lovely expanse of land dotted with monuments of interest. Good for walks and picnics.

National Trust - Wimpole Hall, Cambridgeshire

Wimpole Hall is on the Wimpole Estate that comprises of the hall, gardens and a working farm. My 2-year old loved the farm and we flew his kite on the lawn outside the hall (see pic). Plenty of park land for walking and tea room and shop. There is also a cafe at the farm along with an outdoor children's play area with toy tractors.

National Trust - Felbrigg Hall, Norfolk

The park and gardens were lovely although no children's play area. The courtyard which houses the cafe, restaurant and shop is lovely. We never made it into the hall itself as our boys were asleep in the buggy (which cannot be taken through the buildings).

National Trust - Canon's Ashby, Northamptonshire

Lovely house and church (not suitable for buggys). Picturesque landscaped gardens, but not much for children, a great tea room selling cream teas though.

National Trust - Calke Abbey, Derbyshire

Lovely house with a bizarre collection of stuffed animals. My two-year old loved exploring the house - especially the cellar tunnels which you are lead through at the end of the tour. Plenty of opportunity for walking in the lovely gardens, and also a welcome edition of an outdoor play area as well as a courtyard tea room and shop.

National Trust sites we've visited so far...Lyveden New Bield, Northants

Lyveden New Bield, Nr Oundle, Northamptonshire.

My sister-in-law was kind enough to give us a yearly membership to the National Trust as a Christmas present this year. We are really enjoying the tranquility of the gardens and feel the house tours are quite educational too! Am also loving the second hand bookshops some of the sites have and the tea rooms where a cream tea is always in order after a good walk, and of course I am enjoying lots of photo opportunities!

One sleep to go...

One sleep to go...until our holiday to Cornwall! We are staying in the same cottage that we went to last year and I sometimes day dream that we actually live there. It is a converted barn, so it retains original features such as beams yet has a gorgeous modern kitchen and wonderful layout. It has 4 bedrooms, two with en-suite, large kitchen with farmhouse-style table and separate utility area and secluded back garden as well as a spacious lounge. My brother and his girlfriend are coming with us so there will be plent of room and toddler gets to have his own room.

For hubby the holiday cannot come soon enough. He has been snowed under at work recently, often leaving for the office at 6.30am these past few weeks (which is ealy when it is only a 5-minute walk down the road!). He is hoping we will be able to nip off to the pub a few evenings a week and leave uncle and aunty on baby sitting duty (to get them some practice in as they are expecting a baby in December)! It is very rare for us to get any time out together without the boys. The last time we went out for a drink alone was over a year ago. I sometimes go swimming for an hour at the weekend on my own and that is the only time away I usually have from the boys.

Just the very act of getting ready for the holiday is making me feel as though I need one! So far I have packed the boys' clothes and mine; boys' toilettries (i.e bubble bath, shampoo, nappy cream and medicines just in case); stuff for swimming and beach (everything from wetsuits to bucket and spade and sun tent and beach ball); a big box of toys; box of groceries; and towels and bed linen for the cot (in the vain hope that baby will sleep in a cot and give us a bit of time-out!). Still to pack is hubbies clothes and our toliettries plus other last minute bits like a packed lunch for the boys and multi vitamins. Yesterday I cleaned the house (something my mum taught me - always leave the house clean when you go away) and got the cat's bowls and food ready (hubby's work mate is coming in to feed him). Then the final thing I need to do is to print off our itinerary for the week!

A typical day...

The day normally begins around 7am. Hubbie goes off to work so I have to get up as the toddler is roaming free downstairs and cannot be trusted for too long on his own. So I get up and shower and dress and go downstairs (normally leaving the 8-month old still sleeping soundly in the bed after a 6am feed). I say good morning to toddler and give him a hug and kiss I make coffee and fix a big bowl of cereal for me and a small bowl for him (usually cheerios or rice krispes or weetabix). Sometimes I bring him to the big table in the kitchen, sometimes we sit on the sofa and watch Nick Jnr or C-Beebies and until I have eaten and had some caffeine I am really not very chatty.


After that I have to decide whether to tackle tidying the dishes in the kitchen or taking toddler up to get washed and dressed. I normally opt for the latter and carry him up the stairs (although he is getting more and more independent by the day and likes to walk up the stairs himself - all be it a slow pace). As we get upstairs toddler runs around the landing screaming "I want to see Jakey" and jumps on the bed so baby is now awake and crying. I get baby up and top and tail and dress him, then dress toddler and carry them both downstairs. Baby then sits in his high chair and has his breakfast. He is a self-led weaner - which makes eating weetabix very messy. When he is done I pick him up at arms length and back upstairs he goes for a wash-down before returning downstairs to the lounge to play with toys with his brother. I then tackle the kitchen - breakfast mess and sometimes dishes from the day before; empty dishwasher, re-fill it with everything that can go in it (which is virtually everything except the chopping boards and unfortunately the high-chair!). Put on some washing and I try and get organised before the toddler starts upsetting the baby. I know he just wants to play but doesn't realise how careful he has to be with a baby i.e. rugby tackle style cuddles are not good for an 8-month old! By this time baby is getting fretful for some milk so I sit down and feed him and remind toddler to sit on his potty for a wee wee (we have been potty training for 3 months now and this week he has actually started to do it without any prompting and no accidents).


By now it is around 10am and baby is tired so we either go out in the car to the shops or out in the buggy down to the high street so that toddler can let off steam and baby can nap. Today was supermarket shopping so when we got back it was unpacking bags and putting away before a nappy change and time for lunch. Hubby arrives home for lunch and I manage to sit down for half an hour and eat a sandwich, normally while giving baby a quick feed. After lunch we go out for a walk while hubby goes back to work. Toddler needs a nap but keeps nagging to go to the park. We stop at the park and I push him on the swing for about 10 mins and then he goes down the slide about half a dozen times before I say we have to go. I walk round the long way home hoping that he will go off to sleep in the buggy - normally he does if he is tired enough (and he normally is as he gets up around 6am). I walk home and they are both asleep - bliss! However, baby is a very light sleeper and as soon as I try to start doing some housework he wakes up and so I have to sit and give him a quick feed. This then makes vacuuming more difficult as the sound upsets him and so that is then put on hold for another day. If I have the energy then the battleground of toys in the lounge are tidyed up a bit while the toddler sleeps and then it's time for a coffee and a sit down to check e-mails. Then it's time to get the load of washing out and hung up (either in the garden or upsairs depending on the weather) another nappy change and decide what to do for dinner, by which time toddler is waking up. When he wakes I get him a drink and a snack and sit and read some books to him.


By 5pm I have to make a start on dinner so I hope that the boys play nicely in the lounge. Sometimes I have to put the baby in his bumbo or high chair in the kitchen so that I can keep an eye on him and he will chew on a biscuit until it is time for dinner. Hubby arrives home just before 6 and will play with toddler for a while - normally with the train track or cars. About 6.30pm we all sit down to eat. I still have to feed toddler a lot of the time, while baby will not be spoon-fed so all his food gets put straight onto his high chair table and he picks it up and eats it himself. After dinner hubby takes toddler up for his bath and I sit with baby while he finishes his dinner. When he is finished I take him upstairs to join his brother in the bath and they both get their pyjamas on ready for bed. We all come downstairs and watch TV or read books for a short while. Around 7.30/8pm I take toddler up to bed. He has a real routine that he does not like to waiver from. He sits on his potty for his final wee wee (or poo poo) and then I put a nappy on him. He has a solar night light ladybird so he has to put him on the radiator and put his cup of water down by his bed; he then goes and closes the stair gate that is at the top of the stairs (he doesn't realise that I will be opening it again to get down the stairs once he is asleep!); he then closes his bedroom door and gets into bed; I always say "night night sweetpea, we've had a busy day, love you very much" and if I don't say the busy day bit then he will say it instead; I then have to give him some milk for 15 mins, then I pull him off and tell him I have to go and see his brother and I blow kisses to him from the door and he blows them back and then he turns to the wall and goes to sleep. I then go back downstairs by which time baby is hungry and very tired. I sit and feed him and he falls asleep in my arms. Hubby carries him up to his cot where he will sometimes sleep for a few hours. More often than not though he will sleep for an hour and then cry and sit with us in the lounge until we go to bed around 10.30pm where he sleeps with hubby and I in our bed. This is a typical day for me.

My time

I have been keeping a blog for my son who is nearly 3 and have recently added his 8-month-old brother's name onto the blog so that they can 'share' it! Of course it is me who is composing the posts for them at them moment but I'd like to think that perhaps in years to come they will enjoy looking back on it and maybe start posting themselves! I wanted to have my own blog so that I can note down my feelings or thoughts on everything that is going on in my life. Most of my life does revolve around my two boys, but I think it is nice for me to be able to have this blog as MY blog to do with as I wish! One of my friends who is due to give birth any day now to her second has been saying how we have to go for a girly night out of drinking and letting our hair down soon. For the last 3 years now we have both been taking it in turns to be pregnant and therefore haven't been able to go out and both get drunk together! She said how she still thinks it is so important that she does this, to have some "me" time, to remember what her needs and likes are instead of always thinking of what is best for everyone else. I agree, but that is easier said than done when there are constant demands made on you. There is always something that needs to be done whether it be a nappy change, feed, tidy-up of the kitchen, washing, cooking, more cleaning, bathing, shopping, organising toys, reading/activities with the boys...every day the routine runs so that there is very little time left in the day for me to do anything else. As for going out drinking for an evening - that is difficult when you have a breastfed baby who will not sleep in his cot and is demand fed every 2 hours on average in the evenings; combine that with a 32-month old who will only go to bed if his mummy lies down with him for approximately 20 minutes. By the time I have done all that in a day I just want my cup of tea and chocolate and some soaps on TV!