Month: January 2006

Check out all the babies together! I think Will’s found a new friend in Jude (either that or they’re squaring up for a barney…)

A wonderful weekend spent with Grandma and Grandad Houghton, Sonya and the boys, Uncle Alexander and Auntie Victoria. Lots of fresh air, tea and (thanks to Sonya’s amazing cooking) cake. William has been so good, Eddie and I even managed to have an entire evening to ourselves yesterday – Szechuan Express followed by Desperate Housewives washed down with (several) glasses of white wine. Perfect.

Oh. My. God. Mastitis strikes again. I woke up shivering all over and feverish and there was no mistaking it. I tried to do the homeopathic thing and tried stuffing cabbage leaves down my bra etc, but just felt appalling, almost unable to stand. Was eventually rescued by De and Mother bearing baby Isla and Paracetamol respectively, before Alexander finally bore me off to the Doctor for another dose of Penicillin. Crawled back to bed and spent the rest of the night there.

Fortnately William was angelic all day and slept pretty much through the day and night. I felt so much better today after just two doses it hardly seems possible I was such a wreck. I even managed to put on ‘normal’ clothes – a revelation! It’s the first time I’ve been out of fleeces and those ghastly maternity trousers in months.

AND, to add to all the excitement, Sonya rescued me from the house and we hit Waitrose with Will. It was fantastic, I spent a fortune on expensive treats, parked in ‘parent and child’ space (well, nearly, they were all full – but we could have done…) and proudly pushed Will around in his special Waitrose trolley seat. Alas all the excitement proved too much for the Little Man, who has been bawling his head off subsequently for about 6 hours now….ah well…the price we pay. Thank heavens for Eddie – nurse, chef and baby-calmer extrordinaire.

A reminder of Will being nice (after relentless screaming I’ve almost forgotten what it’s like!) With his Uncle Alexander – he’s going to miss him when he goes back to Sydney 😦

This is my favourite time of day. William is asleep upstairs after being truly angelic and waking up only once during the night (although I jerk awake every 10 minutes as if I’ve been electrocuted, convinced he’s in the bed/stopped breathing/about to explode). I’m going to give him (second) breakfast in a minute, but in the meantime am tiptoeing about the house woofing down coffee, toast and putting the fire on ready for the day.

It’s absolutely freezing outside but we’re definitely going to get out for a walk. It’s so nice to feel the fresh air, although poor William had a very red nose by the time we got back yesterday! Every day we see someone on our travels and have a natter, it’s great to be back out and about, albeit behind the wheel of a pram, rather than on horseback.

Will and I finally joined the NCT ladies for tea yesterday – the last baby of them all. Actually, I was a typical harrassed mother after the health visitor turned up half an hour late and then William started to bawl his head off and needed grub before we could go…so in the end I was only there for half an hour! It was lovely to see everyone though and hopefully now I can come back into the fold and be more of a regular fixture.

William’s doing really well, he’s up to 8lb 3ozs and everything else is fine. Apparantly we should try lying him on his front when he’s awake to help his head go back into shape. Poor little mite looks absolutely miserable on all fours leaning on his head and trying to turn his neck, but better that than dragging him off to a cranial osteopath. I feel really cruel, but we’ll try it whenever he’s calm and see if it works.

Now we just have to explain to Molly that the play mat is for the baby….

One word – OWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW.

Why anyone would continue past 6 months is absolutely beyond me. Imagine feeding a child with TEETH?! My God.

Well, we left poor Alexander with a bawling William, but he did a sterling job and everything went brilliantly. I finally got my pint of cider and bag of nuts, which went down a treat, and we saw lots of friends (even MP, who had left the house and come to the pub all on her own for the first time in 16 years, leaving the kids at home!) who all said congratulations and helped wet the baby’s head.

Managed my hour, but then got incredibly twitchy and had to come home. I’m finding that I’m becoming more and more attached to William every day, not in a neurotic sense, but as he gets bigger and we understand each other better, I find it very hard not to have him near me for any length of time. Having said that, it’s a fine line….he’s out with Eddie, Sue, Jim and Kirsten now and I have to say that I treasure this time alone to pootle about and catch up with people. But I know that if the absence gets longer than a certain time I’ll get more and more edgy until he’s back again 🙂

Had a lovely time with Liz yesterday too, catching up on news and finding out how things are working out with her little baby Maria. We had a lovely walk and stopped in at Anne’s for tea and to return her dish – I am truly a middle-aged Yummy Mummy! The thing I love about living here is that there’s always someone either walking, driving or riding by to say hello to.

Will was an angel baby all day and still settled at night. He wriggles the entire time and makes all sorts of weird and wonderful snuffles in his sleep, and then as the volume goes up ever so slightly at around 2am you know it’s time to feed/change him before he goes back to his dreams until morning. He is fantastic.

Today will be a milestone as Alexander has kindly volunteered to babysit for us while Eddie and I go to the pub for an hour! After 8 months abstinence, I am finally going to have a pint of cider and a bag of nuts. Can’t wait (that is assuming I am able to leave the baby…)

Will has been so peaceful today, Jo and Micky came to say hello with Yas which was lovely and he was as good as gold. Clearly I’m going to pay the price later, but my friend Liz is coming over in a bit and we’re taking the babies for a walk in the sunshine, so I’m hoping the fresh air will wear him out later on.

He’s fast asleep upstairs now, pulling his funny little faces with his hands up by his face waving about like little sea anemones. He dreams so much, wriggling and snuffling about in his basket. I’d love to know what dreams are going through his little baby head. Fweet.