This weekend we went to stay with my aunt in South London for a couple of days, but, well, it didn’t go quite as well as we hoped! Monkey came down with a cold the day or so before, but it didn’t seem bad enough to cancel any plans. Saturday morning we got ready to head off, although hubby had been kept awake all night by thunderstorms and was in a foul mood 🙁 so it was pretty much left to me to get everything ready to go. In some ways I like this, because at least I know what has been packed, but on other ways I hate that all the responsibility for remembering things falls on me.

Monkey was very whiny bless him, even with baby paracetamol and baby ibuprofen he clearly wasn’t feeling well. It was also pouring with rain. So you can imagine the scene, me running around like crazy trying to make sure we have everything we need, Monkey whining and crying and daddy stomping around while the rain is getting heavier and heavier outside. We get an unhappy monkey in the car and I asked hubby to put the nursery rhyme cd in the car stereo. Unfortunately as we got his car on the cheap, the front of the car stereo is loose and comes off. Instead of putting it back on to put the cd in, hubby slid it into the slot where he thought the cd goes, but actually put it in the wrong place. Grrrr

So as we set off I am digging around in the workings of the stereo trying to prise the cd out while monkey is wailing. We had to resort to the postman pat dvd, which we were hoping to save until a lot later in the journey, as once it is on, that is all monkey wants! I did manage to get the CD out but by then he was happy watching postman pat and our nerves were very frayed so we left it. We did try a couple of times on the journey to put the cd on but the wailing just started again so we gave up and went back to postman pat!

We made it to South London (a good 2 hour journey) through the rain with the help of postman pat and flapjacks and Monkey was actually in quite good spirits when we arrived. The good spirits didn’t last too long though and even though it was raining out we figured Monkey could do with some fresh air and a run around before lunch, after all he had been sat in the car for a long time. Being out actually went pretty well at first and he was so happy…. until he wasn’t. We don’t actually know what triggered it but he got really unhappy all of a sudden and it was coming up to lunch time so headed back to the house sharpish.

Unfortunately though when we were there he just got more and more unhappy. You know the kind of irrational unhappy they get when they are poorly or tired and the slightest thing is like their world is ending. That’s how it started and nothing (yup, not even Postman Pat) could calm him down, so he got so worked up that he was eventually sick all over daddy :(. He wouldn’t eat his lunch and he certainly wouldn’t cheer up or go to sleep in the travel cot.

All we can think is that he was feeling rough and didn’t know where he was. You know when you’re poorly and you just want to be at home in bed. I think that was it because if we put him down he would keep pulling us to the front door and banging on it and wailing 🙁 poor thing. I was so convinced we should take him home but hubby didn’t want to put him the car while he was that unhappy. Eventually after some singing and rocking daddy got him off to sleep on his shoulder and about an hour later we managed to manoeuvre him off of daddy and onto the middle of the bed where he slept for a good long while.

When he woke up it was like he was his old self again and was so happy, he had so much fun playing with his Great Auntie and mummy and daddy. It was a really lovely afternoon and I was very glad that we had stayed after all. He went to bed and to sleep with no fuss (Much better than we expected!) and slept all through the night, meaning hubby and I could have a lovely relaxed evening of eating and drinking with my aunt. Very lovely indeed.

The next morning he was perfectly happy for a while and then after breakfast things started to go down hill again. Unfortunately the weather was still awful too so it wasn’t even like we could take him out anywhere. Eventually we made the decision to come home a few hours early and he was pretty good for the most part. Unfortunately though we could not use the DVD player in the car on the way home. I couldn’t find the plug to charge it but thought we would be ok with the in car charger…. except apparently the socket in hubby’s car doesn’t work properly as after the journey there the DVD player died! Honestly, just so many things went wrong this weekend!

The upshot is, that because we didn’t have a DVD player in the house (my aunt doesn’t own a TV) we had to break Monkey’s TV at mealtimes habit. We wanted to do it anyway but to be honest weren’t looking forward to the fuss and effort we thought would be involved. I think he was actually ready for is though, because after a little bit of fuss at each meal he then seems to settle down and eat his food. It’s still going really well so far, ok I know it’s only Tuesday, so I hope it continues.

The main thing has been for me not to get stressed out by the situation. Before, he would kick off and not eat and I would get so stressed and I was starting to try and force feed him, which let’s face it, isn’t great! Now we just sit with him and eat our food (which is nearly always the same meal) and talk calmly and eventually he calms down and eats something. We get to the peak stress point, where I would normally go and put the TV on, and just take a deep breath and get past it calmly. I know it sounds easy, and it’s not always, it is a struggle sometimes, but I have to just take a deep breath and try and stay calm, as me getting worked up or angry really does just make things worse.

He’s still pretty fussy about what he eats – and just won’t touch pasta, whether its got a nice sauce on, is plain or anything. Hopefully that’s just a phase though! At the end of the day he is still doing really well and eating healthy food so I need to stop obsessing and stressing about it.

He’s feeling a lot better now too, though he is dribbling like crazy so maybe there is more teeth coming through, who knows. All I know is that when he’s happy, I am happy 🙂