As one recovers, the other falters

Emsy woke up bright and sparky today, which was great, but Isabel came slumping into the bedroom this morning with a very runny nose. Hopefully she'll follow her sister's example and it'll just be a 24 hour bug. Despite the nose, and general whingy-ness, we still decided to take her trick or treating because she'd have been just gutted not to have gone.

We dressed the two of them up in their Hallowe'en outfits and went over to a neighbour's house - the kids played a few games and then all went out trick or treating in a big group (eleven of them, must have been a bit of a shock as people opened their doors!). She had a great time and got a lovely haul of sweets, and I haven't even snaffled any of them yet. I'm enjoying the remains of the bucket that we bought though, since we only had two groups call at the house so there's plenty left! A US colleague of mine once said that his sons go out on Hallowe'en with pillow cases and have to come home to empty them half way through since the pillow cases are full. How scary is that?!

Sickness and disease....

Oh dear. Emsy woke up this morning with a bright red face, and has felt hot all day, even though it's not registered on the thermometer. I think it's just a feverish cold since her nose streamed all day, and she could barely keep her eyes open. When she was awake, all she wanted to do was sit on me and gaze into the middle distance. However, she takes after her mother and still managed to eat quite well, so she can't be that ill!

We therefore had an 'at home' day today to mark the end of half term - made a birthday card, did some colouring, and even got creative in the kitchen. Isabel watched I Can Cook on CBeebies in the morning and decided she wanted to make Chocolate and Mandarin Pudding - I'm never one to turn down pudding, so we bought some mandarins and she made quite a nice little chocolatey/orangey trifle thing. Yummy! Might try some more of their recipes another day - I like the idea of her making my dinner for a change.

Having popped Emily down for the night at 7pm, Isabel then had a bubble bath and, during the bath, began to sniff. Looks like she's got the bug too. So, having dosed one up with antibiotics and Calpol and the other with Medised, I'm now settling down with a cup of tea and some Daim bar cake. That counts as an exciting evening round these parts.

It was a day....

....during which my mind and my body seemed to become somehow disconnected. Everything I touched turned to poo - for example:

1. I knocked a hot iron off the ironing board and onto the carpet, where it immediately melted said carpet and tried to glue itself on. I managed to separate the two and cleaned the iron up, but there's a lovely iron-shaped crunchy section in the middle of our living room floor now.
2. I tipped Emily's bottle of antibiotics over at lunchtime and managed to splash noxious-smelling virulent yellow liquid over my trousers (new trousers at that!), t-shirt and cardigan. Wouldn't have been so bad had I not been in IKEA, and was therefore forced to walk around the whole shop looking like some kind of scummy bag lady. Washed all clothes as soon as I got home and I think the stain's come out, thank goodness.
   
3. Bugger - writing that last point has just made me realise I forgot to give Emily her antibiotics before she went to bed. Bugger.
4. To top the day off, Emily did a big poo in the bath, causing Isabel to scream and leap out, and meaning that I then had to extract a soggy pooey baby and clean the bath before either of them could get back in.

I quite fancy a hot drink but I don't dare, I'd probably pour it in my lap. On the plus side, Isabel came out with a classic line after I'd dropped the iron, and ranted and raved a bit. She said "Mummy, be sanguine" - which is what I'd told her to be when something doesn't go her way but it's not in her power to fix it. These phrases always come back and bite you on the arse one day. But she was right, and I felt better. Still got a crunchy carpet though, and a baby with only two out of three doses of antibiotics. Damn it.

I may need to eat my words

About 10 days ago I took Emily to the doctor's to try to get some insight as to why she's just a pipsqueak - 12lb 8.5oz at six months is pretty small, and at one point she fell off the bottom of the growth curve. I'd booked an appointment with the GP who is meant to be the baby specialist at the practice, but wasn't terribly impressed with him. He barely looked at her, and simply said that we needed to do a urine test since she might have a urine infection.

I went away scoffing at this patently ridiculous suggestion, since she had no symptoms to suggest that this might be the case, and cursing that I had to sit there trying to catch wee in a pot. But catch it I did, and today the results came back. Guess what? She's got a urine infection. Shows what I know then.

Having done some Googling I'm still a bit confused. The doctor said that a urine infection in a baby was quite rare and that there may be an anatomical reason for it (oh great....just drop that bombshell and leave me to wait for Monday's appointment for more details). But the internet seems to suggest it's reasonably common in young children and that, if not dealt with, could be serious e.g. by causing kidney problems, possibly even permanent ones if left for a long time.

So, all in all I'm glad I took her in - she's now on antibiotics so it should all clear up. Hopefully once it's gone her appetite and her weight will improve - that'd be nice! On the downside, I may need to do another urine test with her to make sure it's cleared up, oh hooray.

Sleep

Emily's been sleeeping through for a couple of weeks now, and I thought that this would mean I'd be able to reclaim my ability to sleep like a log for a good eight hours at a stretch. Not so, unfortunately. Problems which have been interfering with my sleep have been many and various, including:

1. Over-sensitivity to any slight noise coming through the baby monitor. She occasionally does a little mini screech and then goes straight back to sleep, leaving me poised for flight for at least half an hour.
2. Falling deeply asleep on the couch and then going to bed and not being able to get back to sleep for ages.
3. Eldest child waking me up because she has a sore bottom (no kidding, this kept her up for nearly two hours until we sat her in a warm bath. At 2am. Sheesh.) or has had a nightmare.
4. Waking up early in preparation for being woken, which is just ridiculous. My alarm's been set for 6.50am but I've been up before it every day for a week. I daren't not set it though!

Having the clocks change today didn't help - Emsy woke up at 5am, so I left her chattering hoping she'd fall back to sleep, which she did at about 5.30am. But I didn't. By about 6.15am I gave it up as a bad lot and decided to turn my light on to read my book - and she woke up again after I'd read a page and a half. She's clearly hard-wired to my actions! So, off to bed now to try to get a good few hours in, wish me luck!

Walk to school week - pah

It's Walk To School week at Isabel's school this week, and as far as I'm concerned it is a complete waste of time. In fact, it's a pain in the bum. Since the school she attends is in a small village, most of the kids come from a fair distance away - we live about 1.5 miles away, but some kids live up to five miles away from the school. Walk to School week is therefore a misnomer - it's actually "Park in the pub car park and walk to school from there" week. We have walked all the way in the past (well, I've walked and Isabel has scooted) but she's knackered when she arrives and, since I'm now trying to give two small people and myself some breakfast before we leave, trying to get out of the house by 8.10am would be well nigh impossible.

But, I appreciate the sentiment of giving them some exercise, and therefore we always park in the pub car park and walk from there whether it's walk to school week or not. However, now everyone's trying to park there and we couldn't get a space on Monday, which really got my goat. I ended up parking almost on top of a big pile of kindling (well, it's a 4x4, I figure it can handle this kind of thing). All Walk to School week has done is to make everyone park a few hundred yards further down the road, moving what is not really a great deal of congestion into another location. And getting in my way!

Ooh, rant over, that's better....!

My stubborn-ness knows no bounds

I've just finished reading a book which I've been struggling through for months. At least two months, and that's unusual for me since I'm normally a pretty fast reader. However, this book was 900+ pages, and I didn't really enjoy it. And reading 900+ pages of a book you're not enjoying takes some time.

For the record the book was Shantaram by Gregory David Roberts. Many people have apparently loved it, if the reviews on the weRead FB application and on Amazon are anything to go by. And a few, like me, have hated it. I didn't enjoy it for several reasons - for one, a wince-inducing writing style with ridiculous descriptions. How's this for sheer annoying-ness: "She walked into Leopold's at the usual time, and when she stopped a table near me to talk with friends, I tried once more to find the words for the foliant blaze of her green eyes. I thought of leaves and opals and the warm shallows of island seas. But the living emerald in Karla's eyes , made luminous by the sunflowers of gold light that surrounded the pupils, was softer, far softer". Give me strength...

The other thing was made it a struggle was that I just hated the lead character. It's meant to be a sort of fictionalised autobiography, and I couldn't drum up any real empathy for a smack addict who escaped from prison, abandoned his daughter and family, and lived an essentially selfish existence for years on end. I did enjoy the bits of the book in which he suffered, but I don't think that was the point. And I'm not just being a prude because he was a criminal. I loved Papillon, for example, which was also about a prison break. The problem with Shantaram was that the lead character is essentially unlikeable - kind of Paulo Coelho meets the mafia. I don't like Paulo Coelho either, before you ask.

Perhaps it would have been more bearable with a decent editor. That would have got rid of the worst of the flowery prose and perhaps reduced its length by a good third. It felt like every little detail of the story was laid out, and a lot of that was just unnecessary. Every character, whether minor or major, was described in great depth, which made it very difficult to work out who was important and who wasn't.

So, why did I bother to finish it? Two reasons really: it was the book suggested by someone in a book group I've recently joined so I needed to finish it for the next meeting in November. Plus, I hate to give up on a book. I've only ever given up on one book and that was Vanity Fair - a bookmark still is in my copy, about half way through, so perhaps I can claim I've just paused, even though that was about 20 years ago. Next - a new Stephen King which I got for my birthday and still haven't managed to start. In fact, I'm off to bed and to start it now, in an effort to wash the taste of Shantaram out of my mouth!

Feet

Feet are not a topic I thought I'd ever be writing about, but here I am. I like feet, not in a dubious way, but I'm not one of those people who hate other people's feet. I've always been careful with my own feet, regular pumicing and moisturising, and have never really worn heels or tried to crush my feet into shoes which don't fit. My idea of a nightmare is to have worn new shoes to work and to then have to limp around all day.

As a result of this, I've always been careful with Isabel's feet - no tight socks when she was a baby, and only properly fitted shoes from Clarks or Start-Rite. But today I did something I didn't think I'd ever do - bought unfitted shoes (boots, actually) from a non-shoe shop. Worse than that, they look like Uggs. I did this for several reasons - first of all, they look comfy and certainly won't pinch. And they'll keep her feet warm. She probably won't wear them much since they're not suitable for school (they're purple...!) but they'll see her through the winter. And they were cheap. But I still feel slightly guilty....I promise to take her back to Clark's for new school shoes though!

Education, Education, Education

There have been lots of stories in the UK papers today about a new review of early years education which has concluded that children should not start formal education until they are six years old. I've read quite a bit about this recently and am starting to come round to the idea, although of course it's too late for Isabel now since she's already been sucked into the system. And the rate at which changes in education are made is so slow that it's probably too late to affect Emily too.

The problem, as with many other issues, is that you could argue both sides pretty effectively, and I think that in many cases it depends on the attitude and aptitude of the child. And even for one child you could argue the case either way. In Isabel's case, she's been quite enjoying the formal learning aspect - her reading is excellent and I love to see her enjoying reading simple books to herself. Her maths is pretty good too - she often challenges us to minor maths quizzes and was delighted the other day to have counted to 300. Husbandio and I were less delighted since it took about half an hour, and I felt like my brain had been sucked out slowly through my ears by the time she'd finished. But I kept on smiling! She's even quite enjoyed doing her maths homework once a week, although revising for a weekly spelling test is less fun (for all of us!).

Ironically, for Isabel at least, it's been less the formal learning and more the social aspect that she's struggled with. She's the youngest in the year and before she started school was always much more comfortable with adults than with children. At her nursery she always seemed to spend much more time on her own or interacting with the staff than with the kids, and while she has made friends at school, she's probably behind most of the other kids in this aspect of social skills. She's now in a position of having made one very good friend, but recently this friend has been trying to play with other children as well (quite understandably!) and Isabel is struggling to understand this. I told her she should play with some of the other kids too, and she occasionally does, but has recently been saying "but I don't want to play with anyone else". This is the stuff that just rips at your heart as a parent, because it's so difficult to help them with issues like this, other than offering advice and providing a shoulder to cry on.

So, if starting formal education later provides more time to help children develop social skills then I'm all for it. But learning to read provides so much enjoyment too - should we be delaying this for kids who are ready to read? Tricky. Whatever happened to personalised learning anyway? Shouldn't today's multimedia classroom be able to manage this?!

Tucking in like a champ

The most exciting thing that's been going on this week is undoubtedly starting Emily on proper food. I'm enjoying feeding her so much more than I did with Isabel, for a number of reasons:

1. I'm not nervous this time round. Child #1 is a good eater therefore the chances are Child #2 will be as well. And the first one now eats a good range of food, so we must have done something right last time!
2. Emily's's going great guns, and gulping down as much food as I'll give her. I'm being cautious since I don't want her little digestive system to explode, but we're already on three (small!) meals a day and we only started seven days ago.
3. She looks like she's really enjoying it, and it's always a pleasure to feed someone who's clearly relishing what they're eating.

I'm sure there will be some foods we'll come across that she won't like. Thus far we've only had pears, carrot, baby rice and creamy porridge. She's loved it all, barring the baby rice, which she tolerated but didn't look very enthusiastic about. Hardly surprising really, since it does taste like cardboard. Having said that, I mixed baby rice in with the pears this evening, to give it a bit of bulk, and that went down a treat.

It's so interesting watching her learn how to eat - I was too concerned with getting the food into Isabel to be able to really pay attention to how her eating developed. At first Emily didn't realise she needed to open her mouth quite wide, and tried to treat the spoon as a teat - she seemed to think that if she sucked the spoon more food would magically appear. However, now she's opening her mouth and sitting up straighter which is a relief - during meal 1 she plunged her face into the bowl in an effort to get the food in quicker! I guess that when they're only on milk they're used to a continuous stream of food, and having gaps in supply when they move on to solid food comes as a nasty shock!

Later this week she has the excitement of parsnip and then apple, and maybe even, if she's very good, butternut squash. Doesn't get much better than that - but I am going to make a resolution, in case things go wrong as we progress, which I am determined to stick to. And it's this: "I'm not going to take it personally when she spits lovingly-prepared food back in my face. This is not a sign that she doesn't love me. She's saying she doesn't like spinach, or whetever it is, not that she rejects me as a mother!". Now that I've written it down that looks silly - but I took it so personally when Isabel wouldn't eat what I'd cooked. I'm happy to spare myself the angst this time!

Labels are for idiots

No, I don't mean labels as in labelling someone, but in labels in kids clothes and on food. While I was feeding Emily this evening I glanced at her bib and, in big red letters, it said "KEEP AWAY FROM FIRE". No shit Sherlock, it's a child's bib. If you're the kind of person who plans to let a small baby play with fire, then perhaps child-rearing isn't going to be your thing.

Stating the obvious always gets my goat, but some labels make me chuckle rather than get cross, like the bib one did. I saw a great label on a bottle of chocolate milk the other day, and it said "Once opened, treat as ordinary milk". So I did. Makes a cup of Earl Grey taste really odd though.

Chapter 171: In which my heart almost leaps out of my chest.

It looked like being an uneventful day. I took Isabel to ballet in the morning while Husbandio put Emsy down for a nap at home, and after lunch we prepared for a trip to Sainsbury's. Oh, the excitement. We dropped Husbandio at the gym and we girls headed off for some supermarket fun and games.

Unusually, I decided to put Emsy in one of the baby seats in the supermarket trolley. I usually pick one of the trolleys with a space to put a car seat on top, but didn't this time since (a) she was awake and (b) those one with the car seat holder are dead annoying because you can't see where you're going and (c) I don't like her to spend too much time in the car seat if it can be avoided. So, off we went, and loaded everything in. Isabel still wishes she was smaller and could either ride in the trolley's seat or in the body of the beast with all the shopping, but there wasn't room so she kept jumping on the side and riding along that way. Made the trolley very heavy and difficult to maneouvre, but we successfully got to the checkout.

At this point it all went wrong. After all the shopping had been scanned and I was entering my PIN number I heard a crash, and turned to see the trolley on its side, Isabel crying and shouting about how it was an accident, and Emily still strapped in the baby seat but now only inches from the floor, and screaming her little lungs out. I dashed over, unstrapped her, grabbed Isabel, and tried to figure out if either of them were hurt. Fortunately Isabel had sidestepped quick smart as the trolley went over, and Emsy had been strapped in nice and tight and was only screaming because she'd got a nasty fright. As had Isabel and I, and most of the rest of the supermarket. Ems actually stopped crying before Isabel did (I think part of Isabel's tears were less to do with pain or shock and more to do with concern that I'd blame her for trying to kill her little sister).

The fact that neither of them was hurt was well nigh miraculous. We finished up and limped out to the car, and found when unpacking that the only damage done was two slightly cracked eggs. Which we used later that afternoon to make a carrot cake. Well, we felt we deserved a little comfort food....oh, and if anyone reading this knows my mother, please don't tell her this little tale. She'd have nightmares for the next 20 years (as may I!).

Back, after a short break, and it's all change!

I've been silent, blog-wise, for a few days (OK, nearly a week, sorry...) because life has just been hectic. Firstly, Husbandio, Emily and I went to Ireland for a few days so that I could go to a work conference, and since we got back on Tuesday night I feel I've been chasing my tail trying to catch back up with my life.

The trip itself was really good. Husbandio flew over on the Friday to spend a couple of days with his best friend, and Emsy and I then followed on the Sunday morning. This means that I flew alone with a five month old baby. At 7am. On a Sunday. It seemed a good idea when I booked it....! Actually it went fine - she woke up at 5am when we got to the airport, having had a bit of a doze in the car, and was then awake until the flight. That meant, luckily, that she was pooped by the time we took off, and slept all the way there, leaving me free to read my book, marvellous! The trip from the airport to the hotel was fine since I was met by a chauffeur, although rather than the baby car seat I'd requested I got a car seat suitable for a one year old, so it was far too big for her. And then we had the same seat on the return journey, despite complaining - most irritating!

The conference itself was really good. The event opened (after Emsy and I had taken a dip in the spa swimming pool, lit by Swarovski crystal lights!) with dinner in the Gordon Ramsay Signature restaurant and a motivational speech from an astronaut and climber of Everest. Emsy was by this point in her cot which fortunately fitted into the wardrobe area of the bedroom, and we hired a babysitter. The next day was conference sessions until 4pm, then a walk round the Powerscourt Gardens near the hotel, in beautiful sunshine. Yes, sunny in Ireland, whodathunkit? On the final day the conference finished after lunch, and we then met up with our friends in Dublin to meet their little girl, which was lovely, and then off to the airport and home. A speedy trip, but nice to be away from cooking and washing etc, and the room was beautiful. We warned Emsy not to get too used to it, but I fear she may now have high expectations of future hotel visits...!

Chillin' out in the style to which I intend to become accustomed

I was worried that she might be all shaken out of her routine by the time we got home, but she fared very well. So well, in fact, that the night after we got home she slept through for the first time, which was a great relief. She's done it two nights in a row now, fingers crossed that it continues. Course, I was awake from 4.30am waiting for her to wake up, but that'll soon end. That made it a red letter day in its own regard, but we went even further and started weaning, and have now done two days. She's eaten two ice cubes worth of pureed pear each day, with great gusto, so that's going brilliantly so far.

Pears, yummy!

And, as if that weren't enough, today she rolled for the first time. Not just from back to front, oh no, but also once from front to back. Isabel and I both saw the last roll, and just stared at each other open-mouthed! While it's all been very exciting, I think I need a quiet weekend to recover, possibly with the help of a take-away. And perhaps a G&T to wash it down.

Some things make it all worthwhile

Kids are fun most days, but sometimes they do something that goes beyond the norm. This isn't always a good thing - last week Isabel, my perfect and beloved child, stepped way out of character and drew on the couch with a biro (&^"%£&"^£*&^!!!!), but tonight she went the other way and just charmed me completely.

Isabel had her best friend home from school today, but she could only stay until 5.30pm since she had to go off for her Arabic lesson (just the thought of which makes me feel tired, that sounds hard....). I gave them their tea (fish fingers, waffles, peas, and strawberries and cream for pud) just before 5pm, whereas Isabel's used to eating at 6.30pm, so by the time I'd put Emily to bed and read Isabel her stories it was 8.20pm and rather than being tired, she was hungry. Not good! However, I tried to ignore her, read two stories, tucked her in and came downstairs. When she was still chatting away to herself half an hour later I went up and found her looking through her books with the light on. So I took up two plates with bread and butter and we had a "midnight feast" (OK, an 8.45pm feast!). She was thrilled! She chuckled through both pieces of bread and butter, couldn't stop giggling with glee, and then said "My first midnight feast! My cheeks hurt from smiling too much!" You can't buy that...