New Skills

Perhaps it needs new batteries

Tuesday 15th March 2011Friday 11th May 2012Baggie

I know it has only been just over a week but it has been a little eventful and so I thought I had better do a little update as the following weekend (my Birthday) maybe also be a little eventful (hopefully!)

As I mentioned in the previous write up, Amélie, although not rolling has begun to move herself around. We are not used to this just yet and it is something that we need to be across and quickly. Friday, Lucinda was getting ready to go round to see her parents. She put Amélie on the sofa and popped into the hall to fetch her coat like she has done dozens of times before. In the seconds that she was out of the room, Amélie had flipped herself off the sofa onto an open tub of Sudacrem. Lucinda rushed into to the scream to see her face down with blood pouring from her eye and her right arm blue. Obviously she panicked and called me at work. I told her to take Amélie to the walk-in clinic (because all the A&E departments around here have been closed down). So Lucinda dropped Éowyn off at her parents and rushed to the walk-in clinic at Ashford hospital. Meanwhile I rushed out of work and battled with Friday night, rush hour traffic and met them at Ashford.

By the time I got to Ashford, they still had not been seen by the doctor but Amélie was quite content on Lucinda’s knee and gave me a big smile as I walked into the waiting room. Presently the doctor examined her and was not too concerned. It appears she has been lucky, the Sudacrem tub broke under the impact and so dissipated the energy saving her from serious injury but she was cut on the broken shard. The cut starts at the top of her nose and runs along the underside of her right eye. It should heal fine although she will have a bit of a shiner for the next week or so. (See photos below). Her arm going blue was possibly due to her pinching her brachial artery, a temporary effect. She was very lucky and a lesson learnt!

Amélie has been such a good girl lately. She is still enjoying her solids, however she is still refluxing but possibly less than before (or that might just be our acceptance of the situation) and most importantly she is still sleeping through the night. Her last feed tends to be about 2300 and she then lasts until at least 0600 the next morning. Seven hours of sleep! Bliss!

Éowyn too has been on her best behaviour lately. Although she occassionally forgets, ‘Please‘ and ‘Thank-you‘ have definitely found their way back into her vocabulary. It looks like I will have to buy that Gruffalo! She tried upping the ante last week. ‘I said ‘Please’ so I have a Gruffalo.‘ I replied in the affirmative, ‘And a mouse.‘ I like her style. Nevertheless we thought that this reward system might be useful so we decided to agree to a mouse if she began to use her potty.

So toilet training has begun. We let Éowyn choose her own potty (a Froggie Potty) and asked her how many times she would have to use it before she earnt a mouse. ‘Ten‘ she answered (I don’t think she fully got the question and may have got away with a smaller number) so we agreed. At the rate she is going I think she will earn her mouse by the middle of next week.

Reward seems to be a good way of encouraging Éowyn she definitely responses to praise (and chocolate). Lucinda’s mum asked Éowyn how many chocolate buttons she wanted after eating her tea. ‘Ten‘ came the answer. Lucinda asked her so say it in Spanish ‘Uno, Dos, Tres, Cuatro, Cinco, Seis, Siete, Ocho, Nueve, Diez.‘ she duly replied. Stunned she got her buttons. It is amazing what can be done for chocolate!

Éowyn’s has a couple of new sayings, the first is more of a fanfare sound (you know the D-Daa) when she does something that she is particularly proud of and the other is a sad indictment of modern Western children’s toys. When something is not doing what she thinks it should, whether it is made for the purpose or not, she will declare: ‘It’s not working, perhaps it needs new batteries.‘ This can be applied to anything, including her old potty, irrespective of whether it actually takes batteries or not.

She has also taken to bouncing a lot. When you ask her why she keeps bouncing she replies ‘I love bouncing‘. What can you say to that? She is also incredibly loving towards Amélie and quite often you will find her holding Amélie’s hand or stroking her head. We are hoping that it will continue as they grow older together. We are also hoping that Amélie will develop Éowyn’s love of reading and books in general. Amélie will listen attentively when I read to Éowyn, which if Éowyn had her way would be 8 hours a day! Éowyn’s favourite book changes regularly though, which is good. The current favourite is the Norwegian fairy tale The Three Billy Goats Gruff, which has pushed out recent favourites Zog and Duck Soup. I really enjoy reading to her and always ensure that I am home to tuck her into bed and read 3 stories of her choice. (That may have to change when the stories become longer!)

As you can see from the photos below it is Red-Nose Day on Friday. My friend Lee (Georgia’s dad) is attempting to raise money by posting a joke a day (joke can be a loose term for some of them) on his facebook page, so please pop by and have a look and if you feel like donating and you don’t have a facebook account (I know there are a few of you out there) then you can donate here. If you want a taster of his stand-up show and you have about 6 minutes to spare then click here.

One final thing before I leave you. My old uni pal Fabian became a father for the first time. Kenan Palmyre was born on 4th March so welcome to the world little Kenan and congratulations to Fabian and Carol. Welcome to the wonderful world of parenthood.

Peace and Love

Baggie

Close up (before)

The eye-injury

Close up (after the injury)

In the land of Nod

I can see you!

Extreme close up

Let me read you a story

Shiner

Chocolate fountain

D-Daaa!

And again!

A kiss for Nanny

A week off goes so fast!

Sunday 21st November 2010Sunday 1st January 2017Baggie

I’m sure that someone has got my life on fast forward at the moment, I barely seem to have 5 minutes to myself these days. However when you try to analyse what exactly I have been doing, it doesn’t sound a lot. Although you have to say that I am doing well with this updating lark!

So what have we done with my week off? The weekend saw us pop up to West Bromwich to visit Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz. I woke up Saturday morning with a sore left eye that took at least half an hour before it felt 100%. No reason, seemingly just one of those things. So, after loading the car we were about an hour behind the time we were aiming to leave (isn’t that always the case with children anyhow?). However, as I was lifting Éowyn into her car seat, she was transferring her book from one hand to the other and managed to drag the edge of one of the pages across my eyeball. Effectively giving me a papercut on the eyeball. It did hurt! I was unable to open the eye or stem the streaming tears for about 3 hours, so Lucinda had to drive my car up the M40 (OK for accuracy: the M25, M40, M42, M5) to the Black Country.

We arrived safely and spent a couple of days relaxing with Nanny Fran. Well, relaxing for Lucinda and me but perhaps not so much for Nanny Fran and Auntie Liz. We also took Éowyn for her first ‘proper’ haircut. Lucinda and I have trimmed her hair on a number of occasions but only to keep the fringe out of her eyes. Her hair looks quite good as it is, with her long loose curls so we didn’t want too much taken off, only to give her a decent fringe so that her hair wasn’t in her eyes. Nanny Fran was already booked to have her hair done at her friend’s salon so it was a good excuse to take Éowyn. Considering it was Éowyn’s first time in a hairdressers and the first time she had met Janet she was remarkably good and Janet managed to trim her fringe nicely. It did take a bit of time to coax her into the chair (on daddy’s lap) but as the place was quiet Janet had the time to win her trust so hopefully next time it will not be so difficult. The rest of the afternoon was spent relaxing and a good night’s sleep sorted my eye out and I was fine to drive home on Sunday evening.

Amélie seems much more settled of late, so perhaps the bottle thing is working. Which is allowing us, but Lucinda especially, to feel somewhat normal. However we are far from being a 100% there and a couple of days she has been unsettled and then Thursday night (first night after going back to work) she did not settle until 0500. I think she knew that I had to work the next day and therefore could really annoy mommy!

We have been feeling a little guilty over Amélie. I think as a parent, the midwife hands you the baby and a whole bucketload of guilt. Being raised a Catholic I am used to carrying guilt about but that of a parent is something different. Everything you do, or don’t do you have half a thought in your head that you are doing your child harm. So it is with Amélie. With Éowyn we had time to devote to her; she was the entire focus of our attention and everything was new. With Amélie we do not have the luxury of devoting our entire attention to her because we have to balance that attention with that we give Éowyn. So at the moment we are going through the guilt that we are not doing as much with Amélie as we did with Éowyn at the same stage.

Nevertheless Amélie is doing well. The bottle feeding seems to be helping and although not entirely a contented baby is significantly more settled than before and we are getting more sleep. Although the first day back to work was met with a disturbed night until she finally succumbed to sleep at 0500.

Amélie has also begun to smile. You are never sure at first whether it is wind or whether a genuine smile, b ut now she responds to your smile with one of her own, definitive proof that she is smiling. She also has very strong legs and will push herself off you. She also moves herself around a little. It is all coming back to us.

Éowyn has been very good with her and always wants to be involved, however when Amélie is feeding, Éowyn becomes jealous. This tends to happen when it is just Lucinda in with the girls, as when I am about Éowyn is obviously getting attention from me (or Lucinda – for now we are on bottles I can do some of the feeding). The jealousy manifests itself as hitting and hair-pulling, which is very strange as Éowyn is so loving at all other times. It is a well recognised phase that they go through and something we have to deal with, without making a deal out of it.

Granddad’s 71st birthday was spent at the local Harvester, the first time that Lucinda and I had been there since June. We avoided the scampi this time. Amélie slept through the majority of the meal while Éowyn kept us all entertained, and a number of the fellow diners, too!

The week has also been noticeable for the Freezing fog that has been affecting us for the last week and the fact that we have tried Purple Majesty. A variety of purple potato with its ancestry in the high reaches of the Andes (see photo of mash below). To be honest, nice to look at but the taste is nothing special and we concluded that we much more prefer Sweet Potato mash. We still have some left so we might try some purple jacket wedges. What next? Red Brussels Sprouts?

Just as an aside. Amélie is beginning to understand what it is like to be a West Bromwich Albion fan. The euphoria of the first couple of months of this Premier League campaign is gradually being replaced by the feeling of been there, done that. The only bright news is that Wolverhampton Wanderers are only not bottom because West Ham United are so bad! Let’s hope they can put an end to this dip in form and remember the highs from The Emirates and Old Trafford.

Peace and love

Baggie

Asleep on Nanny Fran

Sleeping beauty

Asleep on Auntie Liz

Me and big Sis!

Night Fever!

Give me a cuddle!

Nanny Fran and her Grand-daughters

Nanny Fran wears me out

Looking at photos with Auntie Liz

Nice and Comfy

Mommy and Éowyn in Windsor

A cold and foggy day

Give your mommy a kiss

In thought

Purple Majesty

The clocks go back

Tuesday 2nd November 2010Wednesday 3rd November 2010Baggie

The last Sunday of October always heralds the advent of winter, the annual flip back to Greenwich Mean Time and darker nights. It can be no later than it was this year, Halloween, but it still doesn’t sweeten the fact that end of another year is hurtling into view. The end of British Summer Time usually means an extra hour in bed, but as anyone with small children will confirm the juvenile circadian rhythm is oblivious to the precepts of the human construct of hours, minutes and seconds, especially for anyone under the age of 13!.

Quite possibly, some of you may have noticed that October 2010 contained 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays and you may have received an e-mail or a well-meaning associate may have informed you that this combination only occurs once in 823 years. If you still have it, take a peek at your 2004 calendar or indeed wait until you receive your 2021 calendar you will find that the Octobers of those years also have 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays and 5 Sundays. Indeed any month that has 31 days has three consecutive days that occur five times that month. Don’t believe me? Check your calendar out. ‘Ah!’ I hear you cry, ‘But not Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays!’ Look at January 2010 I cry back! It is not as rare as you think. Coincidentally October 2004 was the month that Lucinda and I met, but enough of these temporal tidbits and horometrical hypothesizing and back to the matter in hand.

I have now been back at work for a fortnight and although it is difficult spending all day at work then coming back home and helping look after the kids and the house, I think that Lucinda has had the harder task. Looking after two small children on your own is not easy and work, though manic, is not in the same league as looking after two small children. At least I get to have adult conversations (most of the time) and don’t have think and do everything for others, OK at least I don’t have to feed them!

Michaelmas half term, is traditionally the time of the great Puncknowle family holiday and this year was no different, except that the Bagnalls were not there. Unfortunately as I have only just returned to work and the latest addition is not a month old we decided not to go (at least there would be another bedroom available for others). However this meant that there was no close family support for Lucinda, something that did concern me.

A solution did present itself though. My sister had already taken the week of half term off as holiday and with my mom still not back at work a trip to Nanny Fran for my girls beckoned. This meant that Lucinda had some support, my mom and sister got to spend some time with the kids and I could spend a week concentrating on work trying to catch up with thousands of e-mails I had received whilst off on paternity leave. I think that it all helped and by both of us recharging our batteries (in different ways) it makes the challenge of raising two children seem a little easier.

It helps too that Amélie, is increasingly sleeping between feeds, especially at night. Not every feed and not every night but enough for us (and by that I mainly mean Lucinda) to be able to grab 2 to 3 hours of sleep between feeds. Hopefully this can only get better.

As I mentioned in the opening paragraph, this last weekend was Halloween. Éowyn, being the popular child that she is, was invited to two Halloween parties. Hence she needed an outfit, please see below for her Pumpkin outfit! Amélie had to have one too, but I think she is a little young to appreciate it!

Éowyn’s speech is extremely well-developed, she strings quite complex sentences together and apes whatever she hears. You have to be conscious of this, especially if cursing but with any colloquialisms, because Éowyn will repeat it a couple of days later, much to your horror. She is also very adept at reading. OK, I say reading she recognises some words (17 on her flash cards – and a number in books) but she will pick up books and point to the words and read them out. Whether this is reading, or just excellent recall is debatable but nevertheless she will pick books up, point at the words she knows and read them aloud. She will turn the pages, and either recall the story that you have previously read to her, or make one up using the pictures. Sometimes the story that she retells is completely different to that in the book, but they always make sense and with regards to some of the ‘In the Night Garden’ books her stories are quite often far better.

OK, it has been a while so I will stop there and let you enjoy the photos.

Peace and love

Baggie