Snow

The boy’s on record

Baggie

I have been spoiling you of late with the frequency of updates and indeed this one is at least a day late.  There is a good reason for the delay though, I have been suffering from a cold.  Not a man cold (and certainly not man ‘flu – I would be incapacitated if it was the latter) just a heavy cold but enough of an illness that the thought of sitting down to write something just didn’t enter my bunged up head.  Nevertheless I have dragged myself before the keyboard today to get you up to speed with the latest developments at Chez Bagnall.

So what has happened since last Thursday?  The most important event is surely the fact that Ezra John Bagnall is now an official member of the UK population.  With Éowyn at school and Amélie at Nanny and Granddad’s, Lucinda, Ezra and I headed to the local registry office in Weybridge to register his birth and obtain a birth certificate.  With a birth certificate we can now open a bank account for him and obtain a passport, so quite an important day.

The snow that hit large swathes of Northern UK on Saturday completely missed our corner of the land and we woke only to a slight dusting that quickly melted.  Thus Lucinda’s trip to the midwife clinic on Saturday morning wasn’t the epic journey that we were fearing when we went to bed.  This was the final check up by the midwifery team before being discharged into the realm of the local health visitors.  The midwife was very pleased with his progress.  There was nothing that concerned them regarding his physical health and indeed they were delighted with the fact that weighing in at 4.01kg (8lbs 13oz) he had returned to his birth weight.

Although the snow has missed us it doesn’t mean that it isn’t bitterly cold.  Indeed it freezing out there and so we haven’t felt like venturing out of the house preferring others to visit us.  The lack of snow disappointed both girls (and if I am honest – me!) and indeed when I told Amélie that Nanny Fran had snow, she asked if we could go to Nanny Fran’s to build a snowman.  I explained that wasn’t possible but we facetimed Nanny Fran instead and asked her to show us her snow.  That seemed to sate the girls.  While facetiming Nanny Fran, Éowyn entertained us talking to her imaginary brother Rich.  Rich is quite often the reason she is naughty (according to Éowyn) and this Saturday morning was no different.  Nanny Fran said that she didn’t like Rich and then Éowyn just turned on Rich and said that she had had enough of him.  She then called the Police (imaginary Police obviously) and asked them to put him in jail.  A little harsh.  But she wasn’t finished.  She disappeared off to the brother shop and bought another imaginary brother also called Rich.  It is more complicated than soap opera at times (with better imagination) and takes a bit to remember all the twists and turns.  Not sure what happens when original imaginary Rich gets out of imaginary jail to find his place taken by another imaginary Rich.

Apart from imaginary brothers the girls have been relatively well behaved considering the upheaval of having a new member of the family.  They both are very affectionate towards their brother (real brother) and fight over holding him.  Amélie especially holds him at least a couple of times a day.  The length of this cuddle can vary from a couple of minutes to ten minutes or more, depending on Ezra  behaviour.  If he cries she will try and comfort him for a couple of seconds before asking you to take him off her.  The funniest is when he has the hiccups.  For some reason Amélie finds this hilarious and literally laughs uncontrollably.  It is very amusing!

So maybe not the most exciting of updates but nevertheless important stages in Ezra’s life and not the most exciting of photos below I will try harder for next time.  However a small geeky thing that most of you will not of noticed but this website has reached a new milestone as it has now received 100,000 hits.  Some of you will long memories with think haven’t we been here before?  Yes we have.  But that was 100,000 hits split over two servers, my original WordPress hosted site (still available as www.afrobaggie.wordpress.com) and the new (not so new now) privately hosted site that is www.baggieandlucy.com these 100,000 hits are purely on the latter server and are in addition to the 65,000 hits on www.afrobaggie.wordpress.com.  As I have mentioned before it maybe only a small milestone that means absolutely nothing in the real world but it feels like a justification for the amount of work that I regularly put into this site.  So thank you all for your interest in the ups and downs of our family.

Peace and love

Baggie

On record
With Daddy at the Registry Office
Me and Mommy at the Registry Office
On my Nanny’s lap
With my Granddad
A kiss from my sister
Half in shadow
In the shadows
Sleeping babe
Rambo?
Here is the news
Cheeky girl

What’s in a name?

Baggie

At 05.25 (GMT) on Wednesday 13th March 2013 in the hospital of St. Peters, Chertsey, Surrey our third child, and first son was born weighing 8lb 13oz (4.01kg).  Unlike his sisters he doesn’t seem to have inherited the Badger ears but does have the Bagnall nose as so will have to learn the Bagnall nose rub.

Now usually this is where we would officially announce his name and explain any meanings (if any) behind the choice of name.  Unfortunately Lucinda and I cannot agree on a name.  Now you may think that we have had nine months (and at least 5 knowing that he was a boy!) to make this decision but the names we had on the shortlist don’t seem to suit him.  That may sound a like strange and maybe it is the sleep deprivation that we are both experiencing but we will take a few days to reflect but rest assured you will be the first to find out.

His arrival in this world was relatively straightforward.  Yesterday afternoon Lucinda started feeling some discomfort that she likened to period pains.  We were not convinced until later that evening that this was it.  Yes, he was a couple of days late but that means nothing.  However Lucinda’s parents were put on standby for baby sitting duties  I explained to Éowyn and Amélie that it was possible that Bilbo bump (the nickname that he has had in the womb – and one we are fighting against it becoming his real name) wanted to come and meet them.  If he did then Mommy and Daddy would go to hospital and when they woke up Nanny and Granddad would be here.

It was about 23:30 when we decided it was time, Nanny and Granddad came round and we drove to St Peters.  Maternity triage was full and we had to wait for over an hour before Lucinda was examined.  The midwife recognised Lucinda and so when the examination confirmed that it was action stations she took us up to the labour ward and managed to secure us a pool room for the water birth that Lucinda had craved.

So it was 0130 and we were in labour.  Although triage was full the labour ward seemed relatively empty.  Thus the student midwife (Georgina) that was accompanying the midwife was able to spend a lot of time with us.  She was very bubbly and gained our confidence which was crucial during the birth.

With a water birth it is very much hands off for the midwives and so it was with Bilbo Bump’s birth.  Lucinda was guided through the birth by Georgina, who was excellent, but it was down to Lucinda who once again went through the whole of her labour with her TENS machine and then when she was in the water: gas and air, it is not a good idea to use a TENS machine in water!  The birth was relatively quick, even without the assistance of gas and air and we were soon holding our son.  Once again Lucinda was immense and I was very proud to be her husband.

The beauty of having an early morning baby is that we were able to be discharged by early afternoon and so for the first time, Lucinda (and the baby) did not have to spend a night in the hospital and we were able to be a family straight away.  So we left St Peters in the bright sunshine of a cold March afternoon (indeed our arrival at home was greeted with a short sharp snow shower!) and headed for Nanny and Granddad’s to introduce the new addition to his sisters, his Nanny and Granddad and Nanny Fran, who had driven down from West Bromwich as soon as she heard that she had a grandson.

So Baby Bagnall was born on the 13th day of March, in the year 2013 and weighed 8lbs 13oz.  With all these thirteens flying about I don’t think that he will suffer from triskaidekaphobia.  Indeed he has been born on a rather auspicious day, not only was the comet Panstarrs visible in the Northern hemisphere but it was also the day that the Roman Catholic Cardinals chose a new Pope to lead the Roman Catholic Church.  Jorge Bergoglio the Archbishop of Buenos Aires was voted Pontiff and has chosen the name Francis I.  He is the first Pope from Latin America and with the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI it means that for the first time in nearly 600 years there are two living Popes.  A momentous time.

So Éowyn and Amélie will have to share this website with their brother and I will attempt to keep you all up to date with the growing pains of our growing family.  Lucinda and I would like to thank you all for your kind messages and look forward to introducing our son (and announcing his name) to you all in the coming weeks and months.

Peace and Love

Baggie

And here are the photos I am sure you have all been waiting for:

I can hear the sea
Yes, it is comfy
Nice and relaxed

 

A New Addition to the Family

Baggie

Sorry, I got your hopes up then didn’t I?  No we are still waiting for his arrival, the new addition to the family of which I speak is the new car.  Bertie Beast (as the girls have named it) is now a part of our family.  Nellie Bug (Lucinda’s Nissan Micra) has been replace by Bertie Beast (Lucinda’s new-ish S-Max).  It was a sad day to see Nellie Bug emptied of all personal possessions and left on a strange garage forecourt.  This was tempered by actually driving the Beast away and playing with all the gadgets that it has.  It took a while to make the decision as to which MPV (7-seater) to buy; we decided that the S-Max was the best fit.  It then has taken a while (Lucinda’s appendicitis put pay to the first attempt at buying a car) until we found the actual car with all the extras that we wanted for the price that we could afford.  We are very pleased with our new arrival.

It was the first time that the girls experienced such a change in their lives.  Lucinda and I have both had the same cars for the girls’ lives and thus it must be quite a strange experience for them to see something that has been quite a big part of their lives left at a strange place while we drive off in a new car.  Éowyn has experienced hire cars (and vans) and so leaving our car behind to drive off with a new one wasn’t a novel idea but not taking it back and picking up ‘our‘ car most certainly is.  Éowyn is obviously a little older and so we can explain the situation to her and she takes it on board, comprehending a new experience.  Amélie, on the other hand, isn’t really old enough to completely grasp the notion.  It must have been playing on her mind because a couple of days after we had picked up the Beast she said ‘Mommy, I really miss Nellie-Bug.‘  It nearly broke Lucinda’s heart.

As I mentioned in the last write up the girls are now sharing the same room, in bunk beds.  This is quite a change for both of them.  Éowyn now sleeps five feet (1.5 metres) off the ground and needs to climb a ladder to go to sleep (or descend it to go to the toilet).  Amélie has moved from a cot (with sides) to the bottom bunk of a bunk bed, a full sized bed.  They both have to adapt to sharing a room and the disturbances that this brings.  So far it has not been too bad.  Initially they kept themselves awake talking and shining their torches at each other, but since this beginning the novelty has worn off they go to bed and for the most part of it go to sleep quite quickly and stay asleep until dawn.

That is not to say they have slept through the night every night, but then neither did they do so when they had separate rooms.  Amélie, especially has woke us a number of times recently crying and visibly upset although she has been very much asleep.  This, we think, is because she has started to dream vivid dreams, her subconscious attempting to make sense of the day’s experiences.  Éowyn went through a very similar stage at about the same age and although they are very much reduced in frequency she still has them occasionally, then again so does Lucinda.

Although both girls have seemingly adapted to sharing a room quite quickly it would be nice, especially when they get older, for them to have separate rooms.  Not that three bedrooms is a bad thing but we live in a terraced house and so the communal rooms aren’t massive either and so we are on the look out for a larger house, ideally four bedrooms, but anything with more space and room to expand into.  Unfortunately, houses that fit that description in the areas we want for the price that we can afford are few and far between.  Unless one has a bottomless pit of money there is always compromise whenever you buy something.  For instance the S-Max was a compromise as it was a year older than we would have preferred (to be honest I would have preferred a new one but that was completely out of the question) and silver (not the colour that Lucinda wanted) but ticked the remainder of the boxes.  With houses there are more boxes that need ticking and although we have been to see a number of houses lately the compromises that they have are just too great at the moment.  This will probably have to be put on the back burner until junior is a little older as he will be unashamedly (and rightly) hog our attention for the next few months.

However the challenge over the next few months will be to get the balance correct and share our time with the girls.  This onus will probably fall on me more than Lucinda as she will be taking more of the bulk of baby care.  Not that I am a shy of doing my share and I am sure that regular readers of this website will testify.  Every now and then though Lucinda will throw me by changing the goal posts.  This happened at breakfast last week.  I asked the girls what they wanted for breakfast and Amélie asked for ‘Crocodile feet‘.  I laughed because I thought she was being funny.  Now that sounds precocious for a two year old but the girls play a game where they pretend to be waitresses and take a food order from all the adults in the room.  They pretend to write the order down and then return with the order a short while later.  It is a good game to test their memories and I like to push the boundaries so instead of the more usual ‘ham sandwich’ or ‘spaghetti bolognese’ I try to gross them our with items such as ‘Rhinoceros Toenails’ or ‘Camel eyelash sandwiches’ which the girls find hilariously funny. Thus when Amélie said ‘Crocodile feet’ I thought she was doing the same.  However when I opened the cupboard with the cereal boxes in I found a new cereal in the coco pops family called Croc prints which are crocodile feet shaped chocolate covered cereals.  She knew what she wanted.

Before the snow returns (yes really!) at the weekend we have had a couple of vernal days with temperatures hitting 17ºC and so I took full advantage performing the first mow of the year.  Thus the garden is ready for the next new arrival even if the house isn’t fully there yet.  At least Lucinda’s bag is packed and the S-Max is fully fuelled, let’s just hope that the snow that is forecast isn’t too deep or brings the traffic to a standstill at the wrong time!

Happy Mother’s Day to all the mums out there and let us see if the little one will appear on his due date.  So stand by for I believe that the next write up will be the one you are after until then

Peace and Love

Baggie

Not many photos but here are the girls saying goodbye to Nellie-Bug

The girls and Nellie-Bug
Lucinda and Nellie-Bug
Say goodbye