G's first solid food is...

carrot!! :) OMG, we've started to wean. Very slowly, mind... but he's had his first taste of carrot (which was over-steamed I think so it broke into pieces... note to self: will steam for 10 min as opposed to 15/20 min!)... Not sure what he thought about it, but am very sure he was very happy when we gave him pear today! :) He had his carrot yesterday, 20th July 2008, when he was 21+6 weeks. Today, at 22 weeks, he had pear.

And he liked it.

A lot.

D had the pear in his hand, and the instructions were for him to eat the skin, and give G-man the pear whole and see if he'll take it. G man was watching him intently eating the pear, and when he was given the chance to hold the pear, took it in his hand and immediately (and I mean, immediately) started knawing at it!! Like a little hamster! It was too cute!! :)

And he wouldn't let go, getting upset when we removed the plate and so we gave it back to him... and he started back onto the pear.. When he took a break, he sucked on his fingers and made a complete mess of his t-shirt... but it was fine. hehe.

This, apparently, is called 'baby-led weaning' - where you let the baby hold his own food and stick it in his mouth (they recommend sticks of carrot, brocolli, apple, pear, sweet potato). Because babies get their most if not all of their nutrition from milk till at least 7 months or so, I'm not too worried that he's not getting enough using this method. I'm slightly concerned though when I see the other babies wolfing down purees of carrot, veg etc with baby rice, and G's only having sucks of pear! But we'll see. If he's super hungry (which he isn't), we'll start on purees. If he's losing weight or not putting weight on, we'll puree.

Reason why we started giving him tastes of food is because he seems very intent on chewing his fingers and toys, and I figured rather than eating plastic, he might as well have a chew on food.

Stay tuned!

p x

G-man goes swimming...

in Emily's pool!! :) So, we got invited by Amanda to her house for a nice Wednesday afternoon hang-out. Turns out, she has a pool...and a humongous house (which we didn't get to see, because we were too busy hanging out at the pool and her loungers).

G's never been swimming before, and it was rather embarrassing seeing that it was a last minute thing that we turned up without any swimming equipment and only a towel. I had no real intentions of letting him go into the pool (I wanted him to have his first dip with D around) but got persuaded... G got given one of Emily's swim pants, and I didn't even bring my swimwear, and had to use one of Amanda's, together with a spare towel, and a bathrobe! Oh well, we made a good first impression then!

He absolutely loved it. I am so pleased that he's a natural water baby! Yay! We knew he enjoyed his bath times (as D calls it, 'splish splash'!!) and he's even learnt to go up to the end of the bath tub and push himself off it. But this time in a big person's pool it was different.

He had one of the baby floaters and so his bottom half of his body got wet but his top half was fine. I had to put his sun hat on just to protect his scalp from sun rays, and he was off. Didn't cry once (think he was in there for about half an hour or so!)... only time he cried was when I was trying to put on his clothes after the swim!!

He had a feed after that, fell asleep, had a poo (thank God not in the pool!!), and then we went home. He's now zonked out on the sofa having had a pretty good feed of 2 boobs and 180ml Aptamil. Success. We have to get him kitted out in swim clothes this weekend! Yay!!

P x

My Big Three-Five Birthday Weekend!!

So, I turned 35 on Saturday... I can't blooming believe this. Friday, I was still in my early-thirties, and by Saturday night, I was in my mid-thirties. hmmm... but D (and the G-man, of course!!) did a really good job helping me celebrate it! :)

On Friday, there was a delivery of a bunch of beautiful flowers (roses, lilies, some other flowers I can't identify but think they are really beautiful anyway!) from the G-man, with a message "Dear Mummy, thank you for everyday!!"... Thank you George, and Thank you Daddy!

Friday night, my cousin arrived from Manchester, and we had a chinese take-away dinner...Yums!

Saturday morning, D arranged for a surprise manicure at my local salon, which was great, coz the last time I had a manicure done was in September last year, in Portugal whilst on holiday! It was all a very cloak-and-dagger operation as I had no clue what was going on.

The manicures were completed at about 1245 (D bought Jill one too) and I thought we were going straight home, but Jill rang D and was told to stall me till he rang us! Jill came up with a story about how the 'transportation' for the next part of the birthday surprise was not ready and I didn't know what was going on again! Didn't quite understand why we needed 'transportation' since we had a car! Anyways, the phone rings at about 1pm, and Jill reports that we need to go home coz G wasn't co-operating and needed his mummy. Whilst that was going on, my dad rang to wish me a happy birthday and I think was slightly disappointed that baby wasn't with me!

Anyway, we returned home,.....to a surprise birthday party!! Couldn't believe it. D had invited Lorraine, Chris and Euan, Chris and Nat, Rob, Jenny and Phoebe! There were others who were invited but couldn't make it for various reasons - I totally did not expect this (thank you D!)... It was fun - the last time I had a party was probably...my 21st..? (Jay, if you're reading this - you remember it, don't you?!). We even had a cake! (that looked like it was on fire....thanks alot!).

Following day on Sunday, Dan had organised a spa day for me at Rowhill Grange (http://www.rowhillgrange.co.uk/) - where I'd my hen weekend. It was lush! I had a back massage, and a facial. Totally relaxed.

Today, it's back to the grind with baby, but it's ok - I feel like I've been given a 2nd lease of life! Oh, forgot to mention that G must have realised it was my birthday coz he was very very good the whole day, and even laid quietly in his cot for 1.5 hours when he woke up on saturday (at 7am) ! Was very impressed.

Thank you hubs for a lovely lovely birthday. :) Mwah!!

xx

G's latest weigh in...

At his 20 week visit to the Health Visitor's, he weighed in at 15.8 pounds (7.04kg) and somehow managed to 'shrink' to 66cm!!!?! OMG. The weight's still about the 50th percentile (slightly below) and he'd not gained as much weight as I expected him to (as compared to other weigh ins). Kathryn didn't seem too bothered about it, so I guess I shan't worry either. He's looking well, and is still turning onto his belly at every opportunity! We'd just come home from our First-time Parents group and all the mummies (and daddies) were really impressed with G's amazing feat!! haha... felt so proud! Apparently all the other babies (even those who are his age or slightly older) aren't going on their bellies yet... (the proud parent syndrome's creeping in!!!)...

he's still thankfully sleeping through the night too - well, waking up for a feed at about 4 or 5am's fine...!

Still haven't gotten my head round the whole weaning thing but we did buy some organic pears and carrots on the weekend. I might start to make some purees!! Egad! My baby's growing up! having said that, I'm very tempted by the notion of baby-led weaning (http://babyledweaning.blogware.com/) as there's no need for purees and mush! Have to think about it more. The Department of Health doesn't promote this, and it's seen as a faddish thing. I think it does make some sense!

p x

Our solo trip to Bluewater...

G and I went to Bluewater last Friday to meet Em, puppy and ratty. It was such an achievement for me as Bluewater's about 40 miles away (takes about 45min-1hr to drive there) and I did it all by myself. I'm usually quite reluctant to drive distances by myself as I'm worried that I'll fall asleep. Factor in the G-man who's unpredictable at best, and you can understand why I was not keen to do this trip. About a month ago, the NCT girls wanted to go to Bluewater, and last minute, I copped out as G wasn't too good in the car (he'd cry everytime he got into the car), and I didn't want him crying all the way there and back!!

Fast forward, G at nearly 20 weeks and I decided that we could possibly risk it. He was very very good on the way there, slept all the way. We had sushi (which was a bit of a rip off!) and then spent a significant amount of time in the changing rooms, feeding and changing and feeding again! But it was good. G didn't do too well on our way back, crying for 30 minutes of the way. I had to steel my nerves and get home as by then it was rather late and I didn't want to sit by a layby feeding him!!

All in all, a good trip anyway, and hey I might do it again too!

P x

The car that crashed...

into our car was driven by a 76 year old man who I think, fell asleep at the wheel. Our stationary car which was parked right outside our house, was crashed into 2 thursdays ago (26th June), the day before C&N got married. It happened at about 12.30pm, on a thursday. Most other thursdays, I am at M&S having tea and biscuits with the other mummies and their babies. But this particular thursday, I decided NOT to meet up with the other mummies as we had a long day ahead of us that day (we were supposed to go pick up N's dress from Jodie's house, and then go for a dinner at the Fordwich Arms as a pre-wedding meal with the family!) and G doesn't do very well if we have a very packed day (I have to admit, I don't either!).

So, I was in the living room, sitting on the sofa with G, when I saw and heard the car move and crash. It was surreal. I jumped up, and saw this black car's front end in the back of my Honda Civic. And an articulated ASDA truck opposite my car. Fantastic...

It was a good job we weren't in the car - I had just thought 5 minutes before to nip to the shops as I wanted to get some shopping done before the long weekend! I could have been loading G into the car when that car ploughed into ours!!

Anyway, to cut the long story short, after calling the police, ambulance and insurance company, getting a replacement car organised (which apparently D had not included into our policy!), the wedding dress was delivered to N by Jodie, and we drove to the Fordwich Arms in our Honda, which was deemed driveable on Thursday afternoon and then deemed un-roadworthy on Friday morning. We got given a VW Passat as a replacement car. Although my first impression of it was 'huge car, how will I park it?!', I've decided that I quite like it now. It's got a fabulously huge boot (the buggy fits really really well in it) and it drives beautifully on the motorway. Granted, I only did the motorway run on Friday when we went to Bluewater (just me and G! that's another blog entry), but that run was really brilliant. It's a diesel car which given the current price hike in petrol/diesel means that it's costing us £1.31 per litre, but it's great.

We'll apparently get our Honda back next week... oh well, it's good whilst it lasted.

love
34 years 361 day old p x

BCG...

G was BCG-ed this morning at 9am, and it went well. Having said that, as usual, I was paranoid mummy, and daddy did really well by remembering to calpol baby (baby paracetomol) so that the pain may be lessened. Not sure if it does work but it does make us as parents feel better! G was ever so brave again, didn't cry. In fact, he cried alittle only because of the way he was being held (his left arm had to be still as the needle was going in).

There's a tiny little red mark where the needle went in and they say a scab should form and fall off over the course of a month or so. Let's hope he'll be fine by the time we fly!

The TB nurse was going on about how it was actually ok if we had his vaccinations in the same week as his BCG as all the other injections are inactive. I was thinking, sure that might be the case, but surely his little body won't take too kindly towards 5 major infections and 1 live one?!

oh well. Ok, G's turned himself again and is stuck.

Gotta go!

p x