Troublesome

The best word to describe this week is troublesome. It hasn’t been a bad week and some parts of it have been really quite good, and lovely, but the children at least have definitely been a bit troublesome at times.

Monkey’s behaviour has certainly kept us on our toes this week. I’m not sure exactly why but since starting playgroup (which is going really well, more on that next week as I don’t want to tempt fate at the moment!) his behaviour had home has gone a little downhill. Whether it is because he is more tired as now twice a week he has busy afternoons, whereas before he nearly always had quiet, restful afternoons, whether it is because he is seeing other children’s behaviour at playgroup, or whether he is just acting up because we have started taking him to playgrup and because his baby sister is taking up a lot of my attention, I am really not sure.

Or it could just he growing into the terrible twos which we have been lucky with up until this point. Either way, the tantrums have stepped up a notch as has the yelling of no and don’t want to at every opportunity. It is taking threats to get him to eat even his favourite foods. That sounds worse than it is, I basically just threaten to throw it away (and he knows we are serious as we have done it in the past) which makes him suddenly realise he does want to eat it after all when he likes the food anyway, if he doesn’t want to eat it at all he just says ok, so I have to follow through!). He has been on the naughty spot after daddy lost it with him on a car journey when he was trying to get out of his car seat. He is threatened with going straight to bed with no stories every night  in order to get him to have a bath, which is getting old. We then have another tantrum when it is time to get out of the bath,. He doesn’t want to get in but then loves it so much he doesn’t want to get out.

Sometimes in addition to the threats his toys “talk” to him and they are often much more successful at persuading him to eat something or do something than Mummy and Daddy are! His postman pat toy (and this morning LM’s squeaky crocodile) helps at mealtimes and Herbie the hedgehog (a hand puppet) helps persuade him to do things in the evenings. In some ways I really don’t like doing this, but also I just can’t handle the stress of having stand-offs when trying to get him to do the simplest things. As at the moment there is about a hundred stand-offs a day and I don’t have the energy!

I do feel for him though as I know a lot of it is just attention seeking. His baby sister is also being troublesome this week which is taking a lot of my attention. I am trying really hard to focus on him too but it’s not easy when she won’t stay asleep for more than half an hour at a time and is also fussy when she is awake. Not entirely sure why this is,but she is starting to teethe and is dribbling loads and chewing her teeth constantly. Monkey got his 1st tooth at 4 mths so I guess it is not a complete surprise but she is definitely more restless too.

It’s difficult to know if this is because of the teething or something else but I do feel like it is potentially giving her tummy aches, (apparently this is due to the properties in their drool, which when swallowed creates gas in their intestines(?)) so am on the hunt for teething remedies. We used ashton and parsons powders with Monkey but they contain lactose and while she is fussy anyway it doesn’t seem the right time to re-introduce lactose to her diet. Thanks to all the twitter peeps for their help with suggestions, fingers crossed we find something that works. I am intrigued by amber necklaces and anklets but not convinced yet, we have some teethers from Dr Brown’s on the way and have just started using Chamomilla by Weleda, so I am sure I will keep you posted!

The Reading Residence

From rain to shine

Last week I had arranged to meet up with one of my lovely mummy friends on her day off work. WIth LM’s lack of routine it is sometimes difficult to plan outings but we decided to go for it and arranged to meet at a local country park where the kids could run around. Unfortunately on the day of the meet up, despite previously sunny forecasts… we woke up to a very grey very wet morning.

We talked about going somewhere else but I had promised Monkey we would go and feed the ducks, so I decided to bundle him up in waterproofs and head off to the country park anyway. My friend decided to join us too, though she definitely thought I was bonkers for still wanting to go (and I suspected she was right, actually). We got there and it really was very  wet. Monkey was loving jumping in the puddles, and so were her kiddies so it didn’t start off terribly.

enjoying the wet

Then we headed to one of the playparks, which, being wet, was incredibly slippy and both our little boys fell off. My friend’s eldest, N, desperately wanted Monkey to play with her and tried to chase him but he was having none of it. He got really stroppy and I got cross. My friend’s little girl then got really upset with him and was sulking. By this point the thought of “what are we doing here?” ver much crossed my mind and we nearly went home.

Instead though we popped to a little cafe for lunch and the kids cheered up immensely. I had taken a postman pat sticker book and the 3 kiddos very much enjoyed paying with them together.

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By the time we had eaten lunch, somehow the sun had miraculously broken through the clouds, and we headed to another playpark, which is predominantly sand.

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The kids cheered up no end and had a whale of a time playing. Monkey is so independent he mainly played in the sand by himself, but they ended up all on the slide together which is where they had the most fun. Because it was just a cold miserable day we were pretty much the only people there so the kids had free run and were going up and down the slide again and again.

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It was just an ordinary outing that got off to a really wet and miserable start, but it ended up being brilliant. LM slept the whole time miraculously, and my friend and I got to have a good catch up while our kids had loads of fun. Lovely day 🙂

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Super Busy Mum

Escaping the screaming

Things in our house have improved quite a lot lately. LM is sleeping so much better which means we are sleeping so better. But that doesn’t mean it’s all plain sailing, ooh no. Our little girl still likes to stretch her lungs randomly with mammoth crying sessions. Crying sessions that feel like they are designed to make me feel like a useless parent. Changed, fed, burped, refusing to sleep and basically miserable whatever I do (or don’t do, no matter how hard I try to remain calm, after a while the tendrils of stress just start nibbling away at me. My patience level reaches zero and I get increasingly snappy with Monkey when he really is just being a chatty little toddler, getting himself in a mess but not being naughty.

All I can think of to do is get them both out of the house. And hope it calms her down even temporarily! If not then at least we are all getting some fresh air and a change of scene.

Wednesday we did just that and miraculously the fresh air did pause the crying, if only for half an hour or so. It was a bitterly cold and windy day but it is hard not to smile and be infected by Monkey’s pure glee at just being able to run about. To race to a lamppost – especially when he stops every 5 seconds to shout “Ready, steady, go!” I’m not sure he really gets the idea of racing bless him!

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Ready, Steady, Go!

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Red-Faced Little Girl

It wasn’t the longest of outings as it started to drizzle and I didn’t have a rain cover for LM but it did us all good and by the time we got home LM was ready to feed and then had a lovely long sleep. Getting out of the house can work wonders on a tough day, and so can the smiles of my little boy, when I take a moment to lift my head and really see them!

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Country Kids from Coombe Mill Family Farm Holidays Cornwall

MaternityMondays

Getting Christmassy!

This week has been one of those weeks. After a lovely time at the wedding on Sunday we both still felt really poorly and hubs spent all of Monday in bed, which just isn’t like him. Then just lots of things have gone wrong, there’s been spilled drinks, the light bulb in the downstairs loo went & its a funny halogen one and of course we don’t have spares. Then when some lovely friends paid me a surprise visit to cheer me up, one of them hung up her coat and the shelf with all the coathooks on fell off the wall on top of her, sending coats, bags, etc. flying across the hall. Just what we needed! As she rightly said thugh, thank goodness I wasn’t underneath it carrying the baby, as I had been seconds before!

LM has been poorly too meaning sleepless nights for hubs and I (though I have tried to take the lion’s share so he can actually get better!) and it has just felt like one thing after another so if I’m honest I have been pretty mopey. One thing I really haven’t felt, is particularly Christmassy.

But things seem to be looking up. Hubs is on the mend. We’ve changed the bulb in the bathroom loo (though yet to tackle repairing the shelf :() and even LM seems to be getting better so this has all improved my mood no end. With less than a week until Christmas I decided today it was time to get Christmassy. We’ve had the tree up for a while but didn’t have any other decorations up so today I got out some tinsel and with Monkey’s help (?) hung it around the house.

Monkey and I also did some simple Christmas crafting  today, he is sooo excited about Christmas bless him and after watching a Christmas episode of Mister Maker he was desperate to get his Christmas Craft on. I first got the idea for the snowman picture from the lovely Tarana at Sand in my Toes. With Monkey’s own twist because of course the snowman has to have hands (?). Monkey is obsessed with Snowmen, we bought the Raymond Briggs duo fo The Snowman and Father Christmas and they have basically been on on repeat for over a week, he loves them! So if anything I have “Another Blooming Christmas” going round in my head, not particularly cheerful for someone who actually loves Christmas!

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The Christmas tree is as simple as it looks, I cut out a tree shape and invited Monkey to stick a variety of sparkly shiny bits on! And of course the obligatory glitter, which of course ended up in his hair and all over the place, but he loved it :).

I’ve finished the meal plan and shopping order for Christmas week and even started on wrapping the humungous pile of presents that I have been avoiding. I normally love wrapping presents but have struggled to find the enthusiasm for it this year so far. Time for that to change. Though I have barely touched the surface yet have managed to go through 3 rolls of wrapping paper already… that can’t be good!  Anyway, with less than a week to go now until the big day, I am determined to stop moping and embrace the Christmas Spirit!!

Are you feeling Christmassy yet? What is your word of the week?

The Reading Residence

A wintery family walk

Friday night was a particularly rough night with Little Miss so on Saturday morning both Daddy and I were feeling shattered. But the thing is that when you also have a toddler to look after, life must go on. We still had to be up at a normal time and find ways to entertain Monkey.

Tired Daddy

Tired Daddy

So after a bit of back and forth about what we should do, we decided to wrap up and go for a little walk to deliver some thank you cards locally to some of the people who had generously given gifts on the birth of Little Miss.

Little Miss wasn’t keen on the idea of being in her buggy so after a false start Daddy popped her in the carrier and we headed out. It was seriously cold and wet and misty but we had a lovely walk and it did us the power of good. That’s the thing about getting out of the house sometimes, just a change of scene and some fresh air can really improve your mood. Especially when you have a toddler who is thrilled to be out for a walk and who takes pleasure in the simplest of things.
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Little Miss at 4 weeks old

WP_20141118_09_38_01_ProLittle Miss is 4 weeks old today. The last 4 weeks seem to have both flown by and lasted forever, isn’t that just the way of it with newborn babies?

Colic has well and truly taken over too unfortunately. After spending a lot of time fretting about whether there was anything I could do to help or prevent the colic, at the weekend we reached a level of acceptance I think. We have to accept that our evenings and a lot of night times are spent trying to soothe a baby in pain. Horrible as it is, it is only for the next couple of months and then we know it gets better. We have been through it once with Monkey and we can get through it again.

Having said that, the last few days have been really tough. She is definitely worse when I have eaten dairy as on Monday night we had a really cheesy dinner. I didn’t even think about it as it was a meal made and frozen before she was born but it is made largely from milk and cheese. And well since then she has been really rough. That night was awful and Tuesday morning she did a weird jelly poo (sorry if TMI) and spent  lot of the day in quite a lot of pain and therefore very unhappy.

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Making the most of the baby days

Little Miss is quite possibly, in fact, most probably the last baby we will have. I will never say never and I am sure many people will say that now is not the time to make the decision about having more children, but I want to be realistic about it. Both hubs and I are the middle of 3 children, so we both carry a certain nostalgia with us about our families, and we are both very close to all of our brothers and couldn’t imagine our families any other way. So I guess it is inevitable that we have been quite undecided about the number of children we would have.
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Reality

WP_20141105_17_44_27_ProMy word of the week this week is “reality” because we are very much getting used to the reality of life with a 2 week old baby.

After a very smooth first week, this week has definitely been trickier (I knew I was jinxing myself blogging about it lol!). It hasn’t been terrible bit it is very true when they say that the first days of a baby’s life are not a good indication of how well they will sleep later on!
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Stopping swimming & Monkey’s First Fairground Ride

Saturday was one of those days where things just didn’t quite work out the way we wanted them to. Lots happened but also lots of things went wrong. We had an early morning scooter session then Monkey and Daddy went for a walk to splash in puddles, only to discover that one of Monkey’s wellies had a hole in – cue one soggy foot and unhappy Monkey! Then I went off for a hair cut and Daddy and Monkey went to their swimming class. I haven’t really blogged about it before but Daddy and Monkey have been going to swimming lessons… and they haven’t been going that well.

Monkey is apparently very upset for most of the class and though he always says he has enjoyed it when he comes home, the look on Daddy’s face and Monkey’s red and puffy eyes tell a different story. After an 8 week term of unhappy Saturdays (Daddy finds it very tiring and frustrating and is in a pretty miserable mood for the rest of the day) we have decided not to carry on the lessons for now. Hubby wants to try and take Monkey swimming just the two of them with less structure, and then try the classes again maybe next year. Continue reading