Out and about

On Saturday, my mum took me and my daughter down to visit my sister in Reading. It was an absolutely fabulous day of "doing lunch" and shopping. None of us are particularly girly, but it was lovely for the three of us to get out and gossip like we used to when my sister and I both lived at home.

It was great for us to have some "fun" time - and for my mum to relax a bit - as things with my grandparents have not been great. My grandfather has had a pacemaker fitted - which is good, as he now seems to be incredibly well, but he only had it fitted because he collapsed at home, which was scary. My grandmother has had a fit (we feared that it may be another stroke) and is even more confused than before. It is hard work for my mum and aunt looking after them on top of it being very upsetting to see my once fiercely independent gran reduced to needing help with washing, dressing, using the toilet and so on. However, things there seem to be stabilising for now, so we all keep our fingers crossed and pray daily for small miracles on their behalf.

It was also incredibly liberating for me to be able to go out with my daughter for a whole day without having to dash back home to feed her. Although I ended up giving her her lunch on a bench outside M&S, we were still able to be out for the best part of 5 hours without too many problems. Suddenly I can see me getting out a lot more once N goes back to work.

Sadly for me, N will be back at work in 3 weeks. I'm really going to miss him. It's great that he's got himself a job, and I know he'll really enjoy his job there, but I have absolutely loved the last 6 months of the two of us being at home together with our daughter, and I'm really sad to be giving that up.

It's only because we were both made redundant before our daughter was born (me voluntarily, N compulsorily) that we could afford to be at home together, but I am so glad that we could. Apart from the fact that N has kept me sane and we have helped each other through the difficult patches, it has given us a chance to spend the quality time together that I thought we would have lost due to the unexpected pregnancy. We had originally planned to be married for a year before starting a family (but our daughter had other ideas!) and one of my biggest fears was that we would lose part of our relationship because we didn't have the year to enjoy being married that we had planned to have. Having this time off though, N and I are now closer than ever and I'm suddenly very conscious of just how much we have going for us.

I'm aware that we're extremely lucky to have even been able to have this time, and that it will be good for us to get back to what will be long-term normality, but it is going to be a major change and I will miss it, and N, hugely.

Feeling Icky

I've not been feeling 100% over the last week. On Wednesday I started to feel a bit bunged up and fluey, and my armpit felt like someone had been snapping elastic bands in it. I ignored it for most of the morning, but as I began to feel worse towards lunchtime, I thought I'd better make an appointment with the doctor.

I remembered reading about mastitis when I was pregnant, and it sounded like that was a possibility, as my daughter has just started reducing her feeds as she takes more solids. If it was mastitis, then I knew I needed to make sure that I tried to clear any blocked ducts. The advice given in all the NHS booklets is along the lines of "keep feeding your child, whilst gently massaging". Easier said than done.

To be on the safe side, I carried on feeding my daughter from the sore side (not amusing, I can assure you - imagine having a very large, very painful bruise, and at regular intervals someone tugs on it, whilst you prod it in every other direction). It felt a little better, so I hoped that maybe I'd caught it soon enough, but when I woke the next morning I felt absolutely dreadful. I felt as though I had a full-on case of flu. I have not felt so ill since I had glandular fever at university. Never have I been so grateful for N still being at home as I was in no state to look after our daughter.

N took me up to the doctors, where he confirmed that I did indeed have mastitis, and prescribed a course of antibiotics to help the infection. We went straight to the pharmacist to fill the prescription and I've essentially been sleeping since. I still can't believe how exhausted I am; I've got a young baby for goodness sake, you think I'd be used to being tired. At the moment though, I just can't do more than a couple of hours before being shattered and needing another sleep.

What I was really shocked about (perhaps naively) was the huge list of contraindications on the antibiotics. Aside from the fact that these things look like horse pills, there are horrific side effects that I may not notice until "several weeks after the course of medication is complete" and that it is possible to pass some of these side effects on to my daughter as I'm still breastfeeding. I'm assuming that these are suitable tablets as I talked to the doctor about breastfeeding, but it does seem slightly contrary to common sense that the medication for an illness commonly found in breastfeeding mothers is potentially harmful to a young baby being breastfed. Luckily our daughter seems to be ok so far (touch wood) so that's ok.

The other problem is that my eating and sleeping is now heavily regimented. These tablets are so strong they have to be spaced evenly apart (where other tablets say "you should try to take them spaced evenly" these say "you MUST take them at regular intervals") and I can't eat for 2 hours before or 1 hour after each tablet. This means that I can only eat in 3 hour slots, and by the time we've put our daughter to bed and had dinner it's so close to the next tablet that it's not worth me going to bed, only to get up to take a tablet, so I've ended up staying up until midnight, when all I've wanted to do is to crawl into bed as soon as possible.

Luckily N has been an absolute star. He has been entertaining our daughter, taking her out and about so that I can sleep, and generally looking after me in the best possible way. I'm very lucky to have him, and even luckier that we've both been in the position to be at home for the first 5 months of our daughter's life.

___________

In other illness-related news, my grandfather has had another funny turn and is back in hospital, this time needing a pacemaker. Although it probably seems a little callous of me to just mention this as an addendum, it is not really a major thing; firstly because the operation is simple; secondly because it will improve his quality of life onehundredfold; and thirdly because everyone is so un-bothered by it that my mum told me of his latest wobble via email. Not exactly rushing the news through!

A Basic Glossary

While writing my last post, I mentioned one of my daughter's favourite toys and it made me realise just how much of N & my terminology is quite possibly meaningless for those outside our family and friends circle.

In order that I don't have to post huge explanations each time, I thought I'd write a glossary, and I can update it each time I think of a new family word or phrase. Here are a few to be getting along with:

Blart:
Baby sick. Would be used in a sentence such as "Oh no, she's just blarted all over the sofa"
Blart Rag:
Cloth or tissue used to mop up blart (varies, depending on proximity to offending blart patch). Would be used in sentence such as "Ewww, it's all over me - pass a blart rag, will you?"
Heffalump:
A much-beloved red, green, blue and yellow creature that rattles, squeaks and has two interesting bell noises in it and has a trunk that is perfect for stuffing in one's mouth.
Keys:
A handily-grabbable item with 3 strange interpretations of animals. Designed to be both a rattle and a teething ring, this item's most frequent use is to inflict bruises on any nearby skin (including child's own).
Kicky Chair:
A reclining baby bouncer/rocker that has footpads that can be kicked, thus setting off a variety of lights and tunes. Also comes with 'calming vibrations' option that can rattle the eyeballs out of the skull of a newborn. Would be used in a sentence such as "Oh God, the kicky chair's going out of tune - whatever you do, buy more batteries!"
Naked Baby Song:
The tune that is sung to signal the arrival of the bedtime routine, which begins with aforementioned baby being completely stripped for bathing.
Snail:
Favourite book, in which we follow the thrilling tale of Stan the snail looking for his friend Sam. As we follow the trail through the garden, we encounter fabulous scenery, especially the scrunchy leaves that are perfect for grabbing and stuffing into the mouth. Companion publications include "Hen", "Frog", "Fish" and "Mouse".
Spinny Thing:
Ceiling fan in bedroom that is completely fascinating to small babies. Would be used in a sentence such as "Don't cry sweetie - oh look, is that your spinny thing up there? Ooh, look at that!"



I do hope that this weird alternative language isn't going to have too many long term negative implications for our daughter - we can't be the only ones doing this... can we?

Feeding Frenzy!

Our daughter started on solids just over a week ago. She went to see the health visitor at the clinic, and I explained how feeding times had deteriorated into a tug of war - she was NOT interested in feeding, it was boring, and she wanted to be doing something else thank you very much! Also, everytime N or I sat down to eat, all activity would cease, and she would stare at us with rapt attention. Never has such a shouty baby been so silent!

I had planned to breastfeed for at least 6 months, but apparently my daughter had other ideas! The health visitor recommend we start with baby rice at lunchtimes and then gradually build the meals up from there. Now, I had never heard of baby rice (clearly I am already a failed parent) so got some from the shop - well, actually, I added it to the next home delivery; let them search the aisles for it!

So we were armed with baby rice, and managed to find some bibs, a suitable container and a soft spoon. We were all set.

Then we hit hurdle one. No high-chair. As we hadn't planned to start solids for at least another 2 months, we hadn't worked out which set of grandparents was going to cough up help with the chair. No problems - we had 2 options. A weird bath seat thing which our daughter can't really sit in as she can't sit up yet, or her beloved kicky chair (like a baby bouncer, but interactive), without the bit that has the light and sound show. We opted for the former, as it has higher sides and is a lot easier to wipe clean.

Then came hurdle two. How the hell do you make up the baby rice? I mean really, I have no idea! The health visitor had said one thing, the box another, but neither actually gave me a useful comparative measure, such as "mix until the consistency of runny porridge" or "until there are no lumps at all" or whatever. So I mixed it up until N & I thought it looked ok and we went for the first feed.

There I was, baby rice at the ready. The look on our daughter's face was priceless - we even managed to capture it on photo (yes, we are already planning her humiliation when she brings her first boy/girlfriend home to meet us - is that wrong?). She looked at us as if to say "What on earth is THAT?" swiftly followed by "OK, I'll try it, but I'm not making any promises".

Her first meal was, how shall I put this, not successful. Apart from the fact that she had to get used to the fact that this food wasn't all runny, and she had to keep waiting for it while Mummy refilled the spoon, it tasted horrible and she let us know about it! Now I know why I had never heard of baby rice. It's like eating soggy cardboard but with none of the excitement. She ate about 3 teaspooonsful and then refused to eat any more.

We knew we had to persevere however, and so the next day we tried again. This time we used the adapted kicky chair as we could strap her in more securely so she couldn't fling herself out (probably trying to escape the vile rice). I mixed the rice, this time with formula milk to see if that was better, and we tried again.

Well, if anything, this was worse. She knew what was coming, and wasn't having a bit of it. Each spoonful started out with huge promise, and each one let her down, by still being filled with that yucky gunk. We gave up the baby rice for that day, but just out of curiosity I decided to try a jar of mushed veg baby food that I had in preparation in the cupboard (no, I haven't mashed my own - obviously I am aware this will contribute to her delinquency later in life).

The difference in the reactions had to be seen to be believed! She shovelled that orange goo down her throat like it was nectar from the gods. It was almost as if she was saying "Finally! I knew that this eating thing was more fun than that!" So we abandoned the baby rice and have moved to varying selections of vegetables - not least the more *ahem* interesting jars brought back from France by my mother (she's doing the nappies after the pulverised artichoke - I kid you not).

10 days on, and she's happily on 2 meals a day, and she hardly even covers herself in the stuff anymore. Mainly, I think, because that would be a waste of good food and if she's anything like N or me she'll be able to eat for Britain. The really fun bit is when she tries to help with the spoon and sticks her own fingers in goop, and in her mouth, and then, in a devastatingly cute display of affection blows parsnip-flavoured raspberries at us. Damn, that kid is gorgeous!