Bumbo weening masterclass

Not only did I steam some carrot and pear to mush and freeze today but I had Leah and Sarah round for lunch, Leon has had three days of banana and milk and is loving it. I let him try the carrot, not keen (I will persevere) and pear; seemed interested but not hungry enough to get enthusiastic. His poo stays in the liner now and can be flushed away instead of soaking through into the nappy. Oh and he slept through from 7 to 7 with an 11pm feed last night for the first time since the new year. The extra solid food in his tum is making aaawlll the difference. He's now had his last lot of jabs until he's one and after a couple of days of not being quite himself, he's back to normal again.
Sarah and I walked up to the hospital and had him weighed, he's holding his line like a trooper.
This 1st stage weening is a transformation in progress, it's really quite exciting and involves alot more hard work than just breast feeding. This is the first time I'm consulting all my baby books and magazines since we got the sleep routine sorted in the new year. I like to do the reading, ask all my friends then do my own thing. I haven't stopped all day, what with housework, washing, cooking, feeding etc etc if this carries on, I can see why the two Sarah's are so slim!

Grumps gave Leon his breakfast

I was too busy eating my cold porrige to take a picture but here I've captured the after breakfast conversation with Leon about breakfast in the 16th Century.

Jabs, G cups and a garden full of pushchairs

Quite a full day, I hear you say. Not half. 9am this morning was Leon's 3rd Jab, this one is 3 injections, he took it well, a bit of a moan but fine pretty quickly afterwards and was in a good mood until midday. I fed him banana mixed with milk today, for the 2nd time - yesterday being the first time, he loves it. He ate 3/4 of a banana and wanted more but I decided to stop as his eyes are probably bigger than his belly. I've been asking the other mums how they gradually added foods and I will be doing some cooking and freezing later this week. By midday the jabs kicked in and he was all hot and moany, clingy wasn't the word. I gave him some Calpol and fed him what he would have and eventually he fell into a deep deep sleep about 2pm.
Beautiful weather by the way, fabulous. My bra arrived today from lessbounce.com - this one is a super Brunel construction as my nursing bras seem unable to contain Leon's food source. I came to the conclusion it was probably that I've gone up a couple of cup sizes. I guessed at a G cup (I was DD before I got pregnant) and to my horror, when it arrived thismorning, it fitted perfectly. They are also 3x the price of the ones I've had up to now so I will be making do with a much more limited selection - they don't come in pretty designs really anyway.
I'd invited the mums round before baby massage for lunch. This involved me bunging 10 spuds in the oven and them providing the fillings and dessert. When they arrived just after midday, the house spotless, it was glorious weather so we all stayed in the Garden and enjoyed the weather. The house is still spotless.
Baby massage involved massaging a model baby as Leon was fast asleep.

donut doze

Leon is asleep in his donut, I put him there for a play while I uploaded the pictures from the weekend onto Toby's PC, turned round and he'd fallen asleep, rattle in hand (I hope he doesn't wake himself up with it if he moves :) - maybe I should prize it from his fingers?)

The weekend

They always seem to go so quickly, I value them for different reasons now, the main one being that we get to operate as a family unit. I don't care if we are having breakfast in bed, shopping on the market or entertaining guests, I look forward to them.
In the wirlwind which was the delightful visit from Rudi and Melissa on Sunday with Amelia and Phillipa, I managed to take a couple of shots. We had a fabulous lunch; curry prepared by Toby and a fruit crumble brought by Melissa and then we took the kids to the super snazzy playground up by the hospital paid for by the USAF base there.

Budget. No, not Gordon's, ours!

Over the last couple of days, I've been panicking about how we'll cope when Christine's income dries up in May. Eventaully I realised it was all to do with the future being unknown. To combat this, and have a plan, I wrote down a 'statement of account', detailing our income and outgoings then Christine and I sat down and pinpointed where we can save. It's going to be tight but:

* My parents are going to give us a contribution, which is great :)
* We can set a tighter food budget, making sure we still eat well (we'll keep the organic veg box), but cutting out the more expensive meals
* We can also reduce our personal allowance (which is for weekday lunches, clothes, mobile phone bill etc)

Also, last night, I got a letter from BT detailing how they're about to start charging people to leave them. That kick-started me into doing some research. Using www.uswitch.com I found a phone company (Euphony) that offers free calls to UK and Holland for £6pm. We were spending more on this on calls with BT, so that'll reduce our bills somewhat.

We can do it!

Number 9 bus to Cambridge

I decided it was high time I visited my work with Leon again, have lunch with Rosanna and Becs and take Leon on a real day trip involving public transport. I thought, wisely to do a practice run by taking the pram on the bus as from round the corner just into town so as to spot any thing to make life easier for the journey into Cambridge. But it ended up being a simple case of the buses don't have anyway of getting a pram on other than by folding. Prams (as in a carrycot on wheels) don't fold, more like disassemble, so that put pay to that. No problem, that's what the papoose is for! I combined my handbag and the changing bag without too much problem so as only to have one bag with me. All the old ladies loved Leon on the bus, he got loads of attention and flashed smiles at anyone who looked his way. They all got off in Ely town centre so from Ely to Cambridge, he fed a bit and snoozed most of the way. The bus stopped on Milton road in Chesterton so it was about a half mile walk to Sepura. Kate had a right old fuss pot with Leon and he was all smiles, even chuckling for Fiona who is well into her 3rd trimester. We went to lunch with Rosanna and Becs which was Leon's first trip to the Green Dragon, again, pretty good apart from a minor tantrum when he had to put his coat back on.
Then we walked across to the Grafton Centre, I hoped there was a Halifax there but no luck. I did manage to feed Leon in the feeding lounge at Mothercare which was lovely but busy so to let Leon snooze, we went to Starbucks. That didn't work as he sat there and shouted at every passing woman like a tramp on a park bench so having not found a Halifax and asked Tob to find out where there was one, he found one in the Centre so we took the bus to the centre. Leon fell asleep in the papoose in the queue in the Halifax and snoozed upright while I pottered round a couple of shops. I found the bus stop back to Ely only to discover, I'd missed the hourly bus by 2 minutes. So we went back into town, for a quick feed and change before returning for the bus back to Ely. Again, the old ladies got the Leon treatment, he went from smiley to leery to asleep by the time we approached Ely, shattered not wanting to miss anything that flew past outside or in the bus. He was very good though, I was dreading him having a hissy fit on the bus down to hunger or tiredness or both.
Both Leon and I got back knakkered out, he took a while to settle and I think I will too!
Pictures are Leon, shouting at passers by in Starbucks and him on the bus on the way back all wide eyed and bushy tailed.

Sleeping Leon

OK, so I take lots of pictures of him asleep, he is cute though.

Roll over Leon!

Another first for Leon this morning - I was lucky enough to catch his first roll before I left for work. He started on his back and rolled onto his side :)

My first Mothers Day

Well, it was very nice thankyou. Tob brought Leon into our bed with a card and a present, he even put the pen in Leon's hand so he could sign it himself. We had hot cross buns and coffee in bed for breakfast, then I had a nice long bath. Leon joined me briefly, but Tob got him dressed etc.

I constructed Ellen's bouquet - Tob usually sends his mum an enormouse impressive bouquet, but money being tight, it was getting a bit small and boring so I suggested getting lots of nice flowers off the market and some ribbon etc and coming up with our own. I did a good job, Ellen liked it, it was good fun being let loose with some ribbon etc.

Tob cooked a Lamb roast - his first ever, he was a bit nervous (to put it mildly) but it all turned out perfectly. I did 2 deserts - a wheat free bread and butter pud and a normal bread and butter pud.

Leon fell asleep in his pram in the hall and Tob and Ellen fell asleep on the sofa while Dan and I nattered about life the universe and everything (well, King Charles the II and children's stories anyway) I took this nice picture of Tob and Ellen .

I took the picture of Leon sleeping thismorning. He had a nice long sleep; long enough for me to put some washing away, get dressed, do the sterilising and change his bedding anyway.

baby feet

Natasha from the Postnatal group gathered all the feet together and scanned them in for posterity.

Today was real nappy day at Ely Library, Leon and I went along. I want to get involved with the group locally to help out giving help and advice about using real nappies. The photographer from the Ely Standard turned up while we were there and got Leon to flash his nappy so we will be in next weeks Ely Standard.

Welcome to my hot tub

Introduction to weaning

Well the high chair and spoon anyway. It will be about a month before I start him weaning with food but I thought I'd start getting him used to the high chair and a spoon. The high chair is dead handy (freecycle special) it fits just under the table so he can sit up at the table with us.

baby massage, bunny suicides and sitting up

Baby massage was good fun today, Leon wanted to spend most of the session either sitting or standing, but he did get a reasonable massage out of it in the end. He's definitely teething and taking it out on his miffys, thus the bunny suicide reference. As for the sitting up, he was sitting there unaided long enough for me to realise he was doing it, find my camera and take the picture. after about a minute or so, he launched himself backwards onto my crossed legs so no injuries were done.

For me, this morning was a very sociable one, I got called by Phill Jupitus, of whom I am a huge fan - big funny 6music DJ. I felt very special. He explained he was leaving 6music to write a play and do the Edinburgh Festival, which is understandably impossible if you have a breakfast show to present. It was going to come eventually but I have really enjoyed having Phill on my bedside table the past 5 years.

Then, the postman came with a thank you card from Jan and Maaike so I rang Jan for a chat. I rang Dad to invite him to a Blondie concert in July, not only did he say yes but has offered to pay which for us at the moment is a real blessing. Uncle Peter rang up for a chat too which was a nice surprise, it was really to update us on Grandma, and to ask how Leon was doing. Oh, then Kari rang and I spent a good long time on the phone catching up with Kari. The universe definitely wanted people to contact me today!

Bear eating and formula first.

Leon had his first formula feed yesterday - just the one. And another one today. I can just about express enough for Toby's bottle feed last thing which is about 7oz, which is quite alot to express and usually takes 2-3 goes throughout the day so if Ellen and Dan have him I can't give her a feed to give him while he's out. So we have started getting the ready made up cartons. I give Ellen a carton and a sterile bottle and if he gets hungry, they are sorted. He's taken it fine (still seems to prefer mine luckily) and I noticed his poo was a slightly thicker consistency today. It is just the one feed in any day so I don't expect much of a difference. They cost about 50p each, so it is just for the odd feed and it gives us the degree of flexibility required to give me the odd afternoon off.

Little Downham with the Mums

Our Post Natal group is turning out to be a really good bunch of people, we are currently meeting up at least once a week if not more if you count the Library on Wednesdays and Baby Massage. It was a real laugh today, we do mostly orbit around babies but we did talk about other stuff too. I know now that I'm the eldest mum, most of the other mums are 29 - 34 with a couple of the mums 35 so at 36 I'm definatley the vet. Pictures today involve me and 3 other mums walking the 3 miles from Ely to Little Downham, lunch and a good natter before walking back. Fabulous exercise. Good fun too.

out and about

Every Wednesday now, we head down to Ely Library for a get together with the mums and Rhyme Time in the children's section. This involves singing nursery rhymes and a story read by one of the librarians. It's funny how there are lots of mums there but all the mums are clearly over 30. You do see the young mums around Ely but they are usually accompanied by a gaggle of other chain smoking chavs, on of which is probably the father standing outside the chip shop or woolies in the market place. It's a shame that you have to be over 30 to appreciate the literacy of your child.
Mr Man here didn't sleep much today and having walked right round the Cathedral and grounds just to get him to sleep without success, god knows, I tried.
I'm feeling much more myself again now, last week was a hormonal chocolate binge punctuated with feelings of inadequacy and woe.

Foot painting with the post natal group

One of the post natal group mums offered to do a foot painting thingy to day - we put poster paint on a foot and printed a card plus one card with all the babies prints on which will be scanned and copied for all the mums.

There's Julliette and Leon next to each other, then a mass baby shot, then a picture of Leon trying very hard to be funny so I didn't make a fuss of George (it was really funny - I started making faces at George and Leon started being really cute and funny!). And finally, Leon and Davis having a chat.

Leon on yet another website!

More fame here!

4 months today

Strange pictures, well yes I suppose they are. Toby is in Copenhagen until Friday so have to occupy ourselves and this morning on 6 music, Phill Jupitus announced a competition to win some CDs. You had to write 'I am Phill Jupitus' on a bit of paper and take a picture of your self. Apparently most of the pictures they received involved babies, which may say something about their listenership.

Its actually about 10 to 5pm and I've managed to do the washing, clean the bathroom and living room AND have Sarah and Leah round for a coffee today. We are entering the grumpy zone and I'm typing with a grumpy baby on my lap. He's been pretty good most of today though.