Baby, baby, baby

Posted by Caroline Elliott

The only word I can think up to sum up this week is “baby!” Because, since our scan on Tuesday, the fact that we are having another baby has suddenly become more real. Whether it is because we know “it” is in fact a “she,” or because we know that she is growing well in there I’m not sure, but she has now become a reality.

It’s suddenly dawned on me that we are in no way ready for another baby! I know we have a while to go yet and so I am not overly stressed or panicky, but I am suddenly feeling that we aren’t ready, and I so hate being unprepared for things. Complete control freak! I know I’ve been thinking about things like whether to get a new buggy, but that’s as far as we’ve got, thinking. My lovely physio (who is also pregnant, and due a week or 2 before I am) was asking me last week if we had everything and if we were ready, and I was so blasé and said we were pretty sorted, when we really aren’t!

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Adding some colour to the garden

Posted by Caroline Elliott

A big project for us this year has been our garden. Regular readers will know all about Operation Garden Renovation and the time and effort we have put into turning our garden from this:

(although at this point we had already removed the approx. 15 conifer trees that covered the perimeter of the garden) to this:

The work is still ongoing though and we have started planting the garden… and we have been looking at some other ways of adding some colour to the garden! There is a trend at the moment for using some non-traditional colours to paint fences and woodwork, and, well, both hubby and I love it! So we decided we would go for it and add some colour to the garden.

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Fun at the seaside – who’s the biggest kid?

Posted by Caroline Elliott

On our holiday last week we spent a lot of time at the seaside. At Gorleston beach to be precise. Just south of Great Yarmouth there is free parking right next to one of the loveliest beaches I have been to in a long time.

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Corton Villas, near Lowestoft

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Last week we had a very lovely holiday in Corton, near Lowestoft. We were so happy with the self-catering accommodation we booked that I thought I would write a little review to share with you all.

We found the villa through a company called Sykes Cottages, although you can also book direct at Corton Villas.

Corton Villas are a block of 6 privately owned 3 bedroom holiday homes located on the Waterside Park resort, in Corton on the outskirts of Lowestoft. The resort itself has properties owned by a whole variety of different companies and private owners, but I can only really speak about the ones we stayed in, which were of a really high standard.

Rubbish picture, didn’t think of taking one of the outside so this is the only one I have, cheesy grins and all!

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Our lovely Holiday, 2014

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Last week we had a very lovely family holiday. We didn’t go anywhere glamorous or exotic but we still had a wonderful time. We stayed in some lovely self-catering accommodation in Corton, a small village in between Lowestoft, Suffolk, and Great Yarmouth, Norfolk. It was a lovely place, and I shall write more about it in a separate post.

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We can see the sea! 24 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Just a short post from me as we are on our hols at the mo (though it’s almost over, sob :() but we have a very definite Word of the Week this week!

Quite fitting as we can see the sea from our little holiday home and have been to the beach at every sunny opportunity, but mainly this is our word of the week as it is one of the words Monkey has learnt this week.

Throughout the week he has been shouting and saying “Sea” at basically every opportunity! Now there are obviously two meanings Sea and See. Most of the time it has been very definitely directed at the Sea, but as the week has gone on he seems to have started saying ‘see’ when he wants us to look at something, which is also very cute.

Anyway, I am sure I will be sharing lots more of our holiday with you, but for now I am going to go and make the most of every minute we have left! I will just leave you with a quick piccy of Monkey enjoying the beach.

To Buy a New Buggy? Or Not?

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I’ve been debating for ages what to do about a buggy when number 2 comes along.

We have a Phil & Teds Sport buggy that I got second hand from a girl at work, liking the fact that it could be turned into a tandem pushchair when you have two. It isn’t the perfect pushchair, as it can be a bit heavy, frequently gets punctures, and the front wheel bugs me when going up and down small steps as it swings round and then is a pain to move again. But… it didn’t cost a huge amount and we’ve managed perfectly fine so far. It has a nice big storage area underneath, and is a good height, which is great for hubby who is 6’2.”

My concern with this buggy is that for some reason I thought that when you get the extender kit to turn it into a tandem pushchair, that the older toddler should sit in the bottom part, and the newborn be in the car seat attached to the top. The problem with this is that Monkey is so tall for his age (he’s already 3’2″) and I don’t think he would fit in the back bit. But I also didn’t want to spend a lot of money on a new buggy, as there is nothing really wrong with the one we have.

This has been lurking at the back of my mind for ages, hubby definitely doesn’t see the need to get a new one, and is perfectly happy with the sport. I find the sport a bit heavy and clunky at times but it’s not that bad and I know that we really cannot afford to get a brand new buggy and even a second hand one wouldn’t come cheap.

Never mind actually deciding which one to get if we did decide to get a new one! A really wide double one? Even though Monkey doesn’t need it all the time? Seems a bit pointless.

A different tandem one with a different design? But one that would also be compatible with our Maxi-cosi car seat.

Or, do we not get a new buggy at all and just get a buggy board to attach so Monkey can ride on the back? Or even persuade him to always go on a ride on toy when we are out and not have a buggy available to him.

I have thought a lot about different options, and it’s not like Monkey is in the buggy all the time, but sometimes if we walk to the park for a play, by the time it is time to go home he is whiny and tired and wants to sit down. My friend’s 3 yr old is the same so I don’t think he’s miraculously going to be happy walking all the time in 6 months when the baby is in the buggy. Sometimes for these occasions I just use our really cheap stroller as it is a lot lighter. Can’t really use that with a baby though!

So anyway I had a look around our local kiddicare a few weeks ago, at the hundreds of different buggies there.

I also looked at the Phil & Teds properly. I really should have done this before as it may have saved me a lot of thought and worry and weighing up. Because the younger baby can go in the back and the toddler in the front. Why did I not realise this before?? Honestly I’ve seen lots of other Phil & Teds users and they all seem to have the older toddler sat in the bottom bit, so I just assumed (WRONGLY) that that was how it had to be! D’oh!

So that is ok when baby can sit up a bit (or be propped up) BUT when baby is really newborn, the idea is that baby lies down in the baby carrier and this is rested on the main seat (folded down flat) with the extra seat then sort of on top of that. And that seems a bit confusing to me.

image courtesy of phil & teds

But I think I have made up my mind to stick with the Phil & Ted sport, and buy the extender kit (second hand, I don’t see the point spending £80 on it when we only paid about £70 for the buggy itself!) and try it out and see how it goes. We may get a buggy board too. We will just have to see how we get on. He got an oh so cool ride on motorbike for his birthday and it may be that he’ll prefer to ride on that when we go out, difficult to know really!

What did you do when baby number 2 came along? Was your eldest old enough to manage without a buggy, or did you go for a double?

The Liebster Award

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I have recently been nominated by the lovely Clare at the fabulous Super Mommy Club for the The Liebster Award.

What does this mean? Well I have to share 11 random facts about myself, then answer some questions posed by Clare. Then I get to tag some other lovely bloggers to do the same! So here goes, 11 random facts about me.. (sorry if you’ve read some of these things before, I’m not that interesting!)

I have 2 tattoos on my back, one I love, one I love less. I would like more, I just never get round to actually doing anything about it!
Hubby and I got engaged after 5 weeks of knowing each other – I know it sounds mental, but when you know, you know 🙂
I am not a pet person. Not sure if this was influenced by the 4 pet cats we had growing up, but I seem to be the only member of my family who doesn’t love cats. thankfully hubby isn’t a pet person either though!
I’ve been dying my hair since I was 15 and I’m not really sure what it would look like if left to go natural. Dark brown though I think!
I once ate the leg of a deep fried spider when I was in Cambodia (after a lot of wine and I could not bear the thought of eating the rest of it!).
I have a bicornuate uterus which means I am more likely than most people to have breech births as baby gets stuck in one side.
I slept in a hammock in the rainforest in Belize for 3 weeks when I was 21
I have done a skydive and a bungee jump!
I’ve been to Glastonbury Festival 3 times and would love to go again, though it is slightly less practical with a toddler.
I once spoke to Bruce Forsyth on the phone at my old job, and got incredibly star struck. (Not that he knew of course, I was the consummate professional, I just wrote a huge sign and started waving it around the office during the conversation :))
I love to read, all sorts really, but I have a particular love for fantasy and post apocalyptic stories. That and WW2, not sure why but it fascinates me.

And then here are the questions I need to answer:

1. When you were little what did you want to be when you grew up?
I wanted to be a fashion designer! I had a little A5 ringbinder FULL of drawings and designs. I also created personalities for the models and there was real stories going on between them lol. I loved that thing and wish I still had it! I was also always writing so would have loved to be a writer but was put off by disparaging comments at school. Shame really!

2. Cereal or toast?
Cereal

3. What was your favourite book as a child?
This is tricky as I’m sure there was lots. I loved George’s Marvellous Medicine so that was probably my favourite, though I also adored Olga de Polga and Melisande.

4. What movie have you watched more than three times?
Ummm, thousands! I watch movies over and over and over regularly. Not even sure which ones I’ve watched the most TBH. Fave films are Crash (though it makes me cry), The End of the Affair (ditto – the most beautiful film ever), the Sex and the City movie, Underworld (I like vampire films) annnnd my new found love is Frozen, I am a huge Disney fan!

5. Why do you blog?
Mainly to stay sane and keep my brain cells ticking over. Plus it’s nice to have a place to record my thoughts and proud mama moments without boring all of my facebook friends (lots of whom are not parents and are totally uninterested!)

6. What was the make of your first car?
A Ford Fiesta, H reg in a delightful mint/sage green colour. It was built like a tank and seriously heavy, but I loved it 🙂

7. Have you ever made a mix tape?
Oh thousands! Many a Sunday afternoon spent as a teenager recording songs from the chart show on the Radio! Then as I got older (and got a CD player in my 2nd car) I had a collection of fab CDs I made to listen to to and from uni, depending on my mood!

8. Apple or Android?
Neither, Windows Phone all the way 🙂 Preferably of the Nokia variety!

9. Twitter or Pinterest?
I’m a bit rubbish with Pinterest, it’s a fab idea but it needs to be easier to publicize on it that it is currently then I would use it more. I never liked the idea of Twitter pre-blogging but now I do like it.

10. If money was no object where would you most like to go on holiday?
Ooh sooo many places! I would love a safari in Africa though, that would probably be top of my list!

11. What was the best gift you’ve ever received?
Oh blimey I don’t know, I have so many wonderful and thoughtful gifts that it is seriously hard to choose! Though I did love it when my Mother In law bought me a dustbuster, that may sound daft but honestly it was amazing and hugely appreciated. It seriously made a positive impact on my life! That’s all I can think of right now :S

Phew glad that’s over!

Right my turn to nominate some lovely bloggers. Here goes!

Sam at Then The Fun Began

Becky at 3 Princesses 1 Dude

Katrina at Cool Bananas

Emma at BrummyMummyof2

Jane at Ethans Escapades

Lisa at The Life of Wife

And here are the questions you lovely ladies need to answer!

1. Did you always want to be a mum?
2. What is your favourite room in your house?
3.What would you tell your 20 year old self?
4. Favourite kid’s movie ever?
5. Favourite Outdoor Activity?
6. Holidays in the UK or Abroad?
7. Run or Walk?
8. What was your favourite childhood toy?
9. Why did you start blogging?
10. Which celebrity would you most like to have dinner with?
11. If you could choose any time in history to live, when would it be and why?

The rules of the competition are as follows:

1. Thank the person who nominated you, and post a link to their blog on your blog.

2.Display the award on your blog — by including it in your post and/or displaying it using a “widget” or a “gadget”. (Note that the best way to do this is to save the image to your own computer and then upload it to your blog post.)

3. Answer 11 questions about yourself, which will be provided to you by the person who nominated you.

4. Provide 11 random facts about yourself.

5. Nominate 5 – 11 blogs that you feel deserve the award, who have less than 1000 followers. (Note that you can always ask the blog owner this since not all blogs display a widget that lets the readers know this information!)

6. Create a new list of questions for the blogger to answer.

7. List these rules in your post (You can copy and paste from here.) Once you have written and published it, you then have to:

8. Inform the people/blogs that you nominated that they have been nominated for the Liebster award and provide a link for them to your post so that they can learn about it (they might not have ever heard of it!)

Self Catering Holiday Preparations..

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I could have chosen a very obvious word of the week this week and gone with “poorly” but I feel I have written more than enough on that subject already. So I decided instead to look on the more positive side, and to look forward. The rest of this week has all been about our “preparations,” because, we are going on holiday next week! Wahoo!! 🙂

As you can tell I am ever so slightly excited, and after the week we’ve just had we are very much in need of a break!

We aren’t heading to the most glamorous of destinations this year. We loved our all inclusive holiday in Majorca last year and loved the heat and the sun, but when we were planning this year’s holiday we were very much hoping that I would be pregnant and had to take a few things into consideration. While there is nothing to say you can’t go abroad when you are pregnant, because of the troubles I had with SPD in my last pregnancy (and ending up on crutches), we were wary of what was to come this time. As it is I am managing the SPD a lot better for the moment, but even then I cannot carry anything heavy, or push anything around. This would mean that at the airport it would have been up for Hubby to do everything, t0 push all the luggage and take care of Monkey. Neither of us fancied the thought of that much!

So we decided to stay in the UK, and initially I wanted to head south to Cornwall or similar. I love it down there and hubby has never been. I even thought about visiting the wonderful Coombe Mill. But, Hubby reminded me how much I suffered with car journeys in my last pregnancy, sitting for hours isn’t great with SPD either, so we eventually decided to limit the journey to only a couple of hours. I think a Cornwall trip takes over 5 hours from us and we decided that was just too far for a preggo me. A real shame but we will have to save that for another time!

After a bit of searching we found a lovely place on the east coast – I have been saying Norfolk but it is actually technically Suffolk. We are staying in between Great Yarmouth (Norfolk) and Lowestoft (Suffolk) so right on the edge of both. It’s a little 3 bedroom holiday home on a purpose built resort, so it has a heated swimming pool (under a cover so can be used in all weather), a big childrens play area, and is very close to a lovely sandy beach. We are hoping for a least a bit of sun some days, but also have a few days out planned in the areas nearby for what I feel are some guaranteed rainy days!

I had hoped to spend some of the bank holiday weekend getting organised for the holiday, but as that went well and truly out of the window I have been feeling a bit pressed for time to get organised and packed up! The good thing about taking the car is that we can load up with all sorts of bits and bobs, and lots of Monkey’s favourite things to help keep him entertained. My list for packing is a good few pages long! I will probably go overboard, I usually do, but I’d rather take things and not need them, than forget something and wish we had it with us!

Clothes are the hardest thing to plan for this holiday I am finding. As we don’t know what the weather will be we need to plan for all eventualities. Jumpers, jeans, raincoats and wellies, plus shorts, t-shirts, sandals and sunhats! We are going in hubbies go – as though it is older and slightly less reliable, it does work, and it has a MUCH bigger boot than my car :).

I’m also thinking about taking some foody bits – as it’s self catering. We will probs eat out a bit though certainly not every mealtime and I also don’t want to waste time on holiday in local shops or finding supermarkets and trying to figure out what to eat. So I may take some of the regular bits – the porridge monkey loves, a couple of tins of soup. I’ve been self catering before, we went a lot as kids, but I’ve never had to plan it all for the family and with a toddler to think about before and again I will probably end up taking too much!

If anyone has any useful tips for what to take, and what not to take, it would be very much appreciated!

Our Brave Little Monkey!

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Part 2 of the bad bank holiday weekend story!

After coming home from hospital Saturday night, thankfully hubby and I managed to get a decent night’s sleep. Sunday afternoon we had planned to have Monkey’s 2nd birthday party. As what I had been so poorly with didn’t appear to be contagious and, though I was very tired, I was feeling a lot better so we decided to go ahead as planned. We did have chats with some of the family and Monkey’s Great Grandpa decided not to risk it in case he did get poorly, but everyone else wanted to come along and celebrate the little man’s birthday, and I certainly didn’t want my being ill to put a stop to the fun!

Everything was fine throughout the day and hubby’s bro came round to give us a hand with jobs and entertaining Monkey as I was still not a lot of use to man or beast! We popped to the shops to buy a birthday cake as we hadn’t been able to make one, and Monkey desperately wanted the Peppa Pig cake and insisted on carrying it all round the shops, back to the car, and in the car on the way home! Miraculously it survived! (Sadly I didn’t get a pic of this – a clear sign I was not well and wasn’t thinking clearly lol!)

Monkey had his nap and then the family started arriving and Monkey woke around 4, which was when we had planned to start everything. It all started off really well and Monkey was thoroughly enjoying opening his presents and having his family round.

WP_20140525_16_06_50_Pro

Then, about half an hour in, things went pear shaped 🙁 …

Monkey threw up everywhere, the poor thing, and we were immediately concerned but tried to be optimistic. “He’s just over-excited” was said numerous times, albeit with frowns and doubting looks! He opened a few more presents and then threw up again, and again. There was no escaping it now, Monkey had caught whatever bug I had. Our wonderful lovely family were so great at helping tidy things away and even clearing up the puke while hubs and I looked after our little man, but we made it clear, particularly to older and more vulnerable members that they should get outta there as soon as they wanted as we really didn’t want anyone else to catch it!

What followed was our little man being really poorly and throwing up a lot over the course of the evening, but you know what? He was such a darling. He coped so well with it all and we were so proud of him as he just acted so maturely for a just turned 2 year old.

He basically wanted to be in bed, on his own. When he was throwing up or crying, of course we were there, to cuddle, clean up, change sheets and clothes, rub his back and soothe him as much as possible. But basically as soon as he had finished, and often before we had finished cleaning floors etc, he would snuggle down in bed and wave goodbye,as if to say “It’s ok Mum & Dad I want to sleep now.” One time I lingered briefly in the doorway after he’d waved me away, because honestly I didn’t want to leave my poorly boy alone. I wanted to hold him and let him sleep on me. But he lifted his head, frowned and waved at me again, like “seriously, leave me alone, mum.” Honestly he melted my heart.

Another time hubby and I were knelt at the side of his bed and he was looking up at us with his gorgeous puppy dog eyes and Daddy said “Are you ok Monkey?” Monkey shrugged his shoulders, held his hands out to either side, and said in his gorgeous way one of the few phrases he knows “I don’t know.” Then he snuggled back down and again when we hadn’t left immediately, lifted his hand and waved us away.

Sadly a few hours later hubby also succumbed to the bug and was terribly, terribly poorly. My worst point of the night was soothing a poorly little man upstairs, with puke in my ear and hair, and all down my back, while listening to hubby throwing up downstairs. Really not a very good point of the weekend, and honestly with still not feeling 100% myself, being surrounded by all that vomit was not very fun.

We survived however, as you do, with numerous loads of laundry.Thankfully ages ago we bought a spare version of Monkey’s favourite blanket and managed to keep the two blankets in rotation between wash cycles. We only have one doggy bear unfortunately (Monkey’s favourite comforter, so named because we have no idea if it is supposed to be a dog or bear!) as it was a gift and we have never been able to find it to buy a spare. Thankfully he survived the night with some damp cloths and got a good wash in the morning! If anyone has seen this dog/bear/comforter toy anywhere, please let me know so we can buy an emergency replacement for the future!

Monkey slept through from around 11pm (thank goodness) and hubby managed to sleep from about 2.30am. Around 6 am I heard Monkey knocking around and so went to give him a little water. Again, as soon as he had his drink, he gave me a wave and snuggled back down again to get some more sleep, and slept in til around 9am (VERY late for him).

Amazingly he was full of beans yesterday (Monday), and had far more energy than hubby or I, so he managed to open his remaining presents and have a good play, though a lot of Peppa Pig was watched!

Opening presents in his jammies

Poorly boys watching TV

Unfortunately though he had a poorly tummy Monday night and was not himself Tuesday morning. He threw up again and then slept a large portion of the day away, though he did later perk up (in between naps) and have a good play and a munch on some dry crackers. He was much happier after a second long nap in the afternoon and ate some soup for tea, so fingers crossed he really is through the worst this time! Hubby is also doing a lot better today thankfully though he and I are both still pretty exhausted from the whole weekend! As I type though i can hear lots of post bath time fun and singing of row, row the boat so I am confident both my boys are on the mend, if a little skinnier than a few days ago!

We are just amazed by how well Monkey coped throughout the whole thing. Obviously he cried a lot and was very upset when he was being sick etc. and obviously we would have been there to cuddle, rock and soothe all through the night if he had wanted or needed us. But he didn’t. He wanted his bed and his favourite things, and to be alone. Even today (Tuesday), he has made it clear when he wanted to go back to bed and just be on his own and it has felt so strange being without him through the day. But, I guess when you scale it up to adulthood, it’s what we want to do. To just rest and be on your own. To have a bit of a moan and receive some comfort, but then go and get some more sleep again.

So it may seem like a strange post to link up to Small Steps, Amazing Achievements, and Loud & Proud, but we are so so proud of him and can’t believe how quickly our little monkey is growing up!

N.B. We still have the Peppa Pig cake, it never made it out of the box – so as soon as the illness is well and truly gone our brave little monkey will get a lovely treat!

Oh, and thankfully, at the time of writing, none of our family have caught the nasty bug so fingers crossed none of them will either!

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

Life

Baby, baby, baby

Adding some colour to the garden

Fun at the seaside – who’s the biggest kid?

Corton Villas, near Lowestoft

Our lovely Holiday, 2014

We can see the sea! 24 months

To Buy a New Buggy? Or Not?

The Liebster Award

Self Catering Holiday Preparations..

Our Brave Little Monkey!