William's First Year

The latest cure-all for ezcema as prescribed by Grandpa Judge! We”ll try ANYTHING.

In other news, Eddie is home at last and Will is thrilled (as is his Mum!). We’ve spent a lovely day with Richard, Sonya and the tribe having lunch at the Watership Down before Eddie and Richard, fortified by 3 pints of Youngs a piece, headed off on their bikes across country. A very over-tired Will and I went home for a much-needed snooze before everyone reconvened in East End for cake and tea. Lovely.

It’s a simple love/hate relationship; Molly hates Will and Will loves Molly.

…and Eddie only left for Johannesburg an hour ago. I’ve got a week full of trips and adventures to keep Will and I busy, but it’s the evenings when I miss him terribly.

On a happier note Will is back to his usual self at last and we had a lovely time in Norfolk with John and Helen. It’s the small things like not having to cook for a couple of days that make such a difference. You forget how tired you are sometimes and it’s only when you stop and someone helps you that you realise you were exhausted.

I’m feeling a bit melancholy all round actually, I’ve started worrying about work as well. November sounds like a long way off, but it’s not at all. Once we come back from France I need to start thinking about going back. I know in my heart of hearts that I’m not the stay-at-home-Mum type, but with most of my friends having left and the added trauma of leaving William at nursery, I can see myself finding it very hard indeed.

We’re gradually returning to a more even keel, after a week in quarantine. Will now has two teeth coming through, you can just see them both as tiny dots of white. He’s still very snuffly, but his fever has dropped now and hopefully he should be back to his usual happy self in time for our trip up to Norfollk this weekend.

Today’s mission is to try to write a list of all things we need to take. Scott of the Antartic had it easy compared to all the paraphernalia we have to pack for Will. How we actually fit the baby in after all our luggage I sometimes wonder.

Will is far from better, still very snuffly with quite a high fever. Eddie and I are getting very little sleep because he wakes up in the night just crying and crying, it’s heartbreaking. The teeth continue apace and actually this morning although he’s still bunged up, he seems alot more himself than he has over the past three days. Let’s hope he’s finally on the mend.

In the meantime I feel pretty grotty myself, and my back is absolutely murdering me. Must try to find a way of changing Will that doesn’t involve trapping a new nerve everytime I bend over.

Poor Will has felt awful for 3 days now with a stinking cold and a temperature as much as 38.8 degrees at one point. You feel so helpless for him because unfortunately all he can really do is survive it, sleep as much as possible and surface the other side feeling better.

Yesterday his right cheek was burning up and I was so worried about him, until Eddie had a rootle around in his mouth (searching for rusk remains) and found a tooth! As you can imagine, he was absolutely ecstatic – about the tooth of course, but also the fact he’d found it 🙂 It’s like a little piece of glass, a tiny glimmer of white at the bottom right. VERY exciting. It certainly explains the fever etc.

Even better – I can now spend yet more money on a baby toothbrush and paste for Will. Huzzah!

I am beginning to dread mealtimes with Will….breakfast I can just about cope with because it only requires a single course (porridge) and it’s over, but lunch and supper are a different story.

For starters we have to argue over who gets to hold the spoon – if I do it, I know the meal will be over quickly, but I have to cope with a bellyaching Will, desperate to do it himself. However the flip side is that William hasn’t mastered the art of manoeuvering the food from the spoon to his mouth, with the result that it ends up either down his bib, on the chair or in front of him (in which case he must then put both hands into the mush and swirl it around until it’s gone everywhere).

God Help Me if I dare remove a rusk before he’s finished, the shrieks are deafening, but unfortunately my ‘choking neurosis’ is so advanced I’m unable to cope with watching him eat the last tiny bit for fear it’ll get stuck. Rusks therefore, are a serious sticking point.

The final straw came yesterday, when William managed not only to get food everywhere, but then proceeded to poo copiously down his trousers and out onto the chair, much to the delight of the flies currently swarming around our kitchen in the continuing hot weather.

I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. In the end I think it was a bit of both.

I don’t know what happened yesterday, but I woke up feeling as if I’d drunk 10 pints – ropey, exhausted, grumpy, fed up, tired and sick. God knows why as we’d only had some wine with dinner and an early night. I think it’s just tiredness taking it’s toll and by the end of yesterday I was in bits.

Luckily for me, Eddie took Will this morning and let me have a lie-in until a whopping 9.00! I feel like a new person! It’s the longest sleep I’ve had in 7 months and it felt wonderful. We must get into the habit of doing this every weekend so we get a chance to regenerate. Both the boys are now fast asleep in their respective beds/cots, they’ve obviously worn each other out!

It’s the Summer I always dreamed of; Will is here and he’s an angel. I finally got my figure back and made it to my pre-pregancy weight. Life is on an even keel – busy but I still have time for myself. We can’t go to the gym classes together anymore because they fall right in the middle of lunchtime, and Waterbabies is on a break until early September. At first I was actually worried about being bored (as opposed to permanently galloping around like a blue-arsed fly), but now I see this month as a chance just to relax and spend time with Will. It’s wonderful.