West Bromwich Albion

We have a kitchen!

Monday 16th May 2011Tuesday 17th May 2011Baggie

Again it has taken me longer to update you than I had hoped that it would. This is nothing to do with the fact that I have hit the 100 mark and given up but as you can imagine it has been a busy time with a variety of demands on my time and so updating this website suffers. The demands on my time are coming from all angles. It is a busy time at work (when isn’t it?) with the end of the majority (apart from the Russian Premier League) of the football seasons (and hence much of my work – for a couple of months until it all starts again!) including the last day of the English Premier League (with the unusual feeling for a West Bromwich Albion fan of knowing that we have been safe for a couple of games and heading for a mid-table finish!). It has been quite manic with the kitchen build which has effectively turned the whole house upside down and now that it is complete, it is taking longer than expected to put it all back together again. Juggling this with the usual family commitments has not left a lot of time for dallying on the computer. In theory, therefore, this should be a fun-filled update jam-packed with interesting ancedotes. Please don’t be too disappointed.

The end of April has seen much of the country take nearly two weeks off work. This has been due to two four day weekends in succession. The first was the belated Easter weekend, the second was courtesy of the second-in-line to the British throne’s marriage to Catherine Middleton and the May Day bank holiday. I had to work the Easter weekend (football does not stop for Jesus or the Easter bunny) but managed to retain the second weekend off. Hence I could sit and watch with billions (more strictly milliards) of others around the world the first major royal wedding in a quarter of a century. We sat down as a family and tried to get Éowyn interested in this major historic event. However we were greeted with ‘This is boring. Can I have my programmes on, please!‘ We tried to explain that it was a wedding of a prince and one day they will be King and Queen. ‘No Daddy, I want Toy Story 3 on.‘ I maybe thankful of this one day. As soon as the television schedules began to return to some semblance of normality (none of your normalcy nonsense) we headed to the Stanwell Moor street party. Unfortunately it wasn’t in the street and it wasn’t much of a party, so we made our excuses and headed to Lucinda’s parents for a cup of tea and a cake. Bit of a shame really, we were hoping that it would have been a good excuse for a party. They just don’t do street parties how they used to!

The next day we headed up to West Bromwich to wish Nanny Fran a belated birthday. Éowyn was so excited to see her Nanny Fran (and Auntie Liz) and kept everyone entertained (and on our toes) for the whole weekend. Nanny Fran saw a big jump in Amélie too, for since she has been taking her solids she has really begun to fill out. She is thoroughly enjoying her food and will demolish her meals with consummate ease, even calling for seconds! She has even begun to grab the spoon and start feeding herself if she thinks you are not feeding her quick enough. She is still a little bit of a lazy minx though. She still has not begun to crawl, although with the power in her legs maybe she has decided that crawling is a waste of time and will just wait until her legs are strong enough and begin to walk. It is still wonderful to see how much Éowyn loves her little sister and will often lie next to Amélie or sit next to her or ask to hold her. To think that we feared that she might be extremely jealous and in all fairness to say that there is no hint of jealousy would be a lie but apart from always stealing Amélie’s things (‘I am sharing with her!‘), Éowyn has the makings of a very good big sister.

Éowyn thoroughly enjoyed herself at Nanny Fran’s, especially when Auntie Liz put her face-painting skills to good use and turned Éowyn into a tiger. Tigers are definitely Éowyn’s favourite animals and she will quite often pretend that she is one. With the added bonus of a stripy face we all had to endure being on the tiger’s menu. Although with her mop of hair she looks more like a lion with a rather impressive mane. One of the things to do while at Nanny Fran’s was to get Éowyn’s hair trimmed, unfortunately with the bank holidays it seemed that everyone had the same idea and with no available appointments it was left to Lucinda to hack away at Éowyn’s fringe so that at least she can now see without constantly brushing her hair out of her eyes.

The weather that had been so kind to us throughout April has continued into May. It has been a little cooler, but apart from the odd shower has been relatively dry. This has been a blessing while the kitchen has been done. It has meant they we could get out of the house and not worry about where we were going. However the good weather seems to have bought the insect life out of their winter hiding places. Wasps, and mosquitoes seem to gravitate to our house. Éowyn is not too keen on either (much like her parents) but strangely seems to detest mosquitoes more. She calls them midgiebugs and fears that they are going to eat her. Not sure where she has got that one from. However, all this glorious weather this early into the year is bound to mean that the height of summer will be a wash out.

Éowyn is now back to school and seemingly very happy there. Although before she went to school on Friday she said, ‘Mommy, I don’t want to go to school it is yucky!‘ Lucinda told her that she had to go to school and off they went. They walked into school and Lucinda took Éowyn’s coat off to hang it on her coathook, when she turned around Éowyn wasn’t there. She had wandered off into the classroom. Lucinda asked her if she was going to say goodbye to Mommy. She just turned waved and that was it. We are glad that she is happier at school and has seemingly made at least three friends. Hopefully the skills she will learn at pre-school will be easier when she moves up to school proper.

I think I have stolen enough time today so I am off to dandle Amélie while accepting pretend choclate cake and a nice cup of tea from Éowyn as I sit in her hairdressing salon.

Peace and Love

Baggie

The speed of the sponge

Pleased with the result

ROAR!

Contemplating

This is how to eat an Easter Egg

I’m hungry…

Smiler

Pat-a-cake

Cheeky!

Posing

Maddie and Amélie

Lauren, Maddie and Éowyn

I have to feed myself!

Zonked

The new kitchen

Back in the routine

Sunday 20th February 2011Friday 11th May 2012Baggie

When I first begun this website with the birth of Éowyn I promised myself that I would attempt to update this website once a fortnight. Sometimes those updates are easy, so much has happened and I find it difficult to fit everything in. And then there are updates such as this. That is not to say that we haven’t done anything, it is just that there has not been much of note. So I apologise in advance for any ennui induced by what follows.

The cold and the snows of December seem so far away considering the mild start to 2011 (in the South East of the UK anyway), but not only did it close Heathrow airport for 4 days but also put pay to our NCT group’s Christmas party. We had booked the soft play area of Egham Leisure centre but due to the snowfall decided it would be better not to risk it that day and fortunately Egham Leisure centre were accommodating enough to re-arrange the date for us. That date was last Sunday, so we had our final Christmas party on the 6th February! It was good to see the other dads (the mums get together once a week) but was difficult to strike up any conversation since we always had one eye on what they were doing, or were climbing around the soft play area with them. For those of you unfamiliar with soft play areas, they are basically 3-dimensional mazes with rope bridges, slides, and slopes all padded for extra safety. Excellent fun!

Éowyn has been settling into playbox a little better. Still a little clingy when she is dropped off but has been more chatty and joining in more while she is there. However overall her behaviour has changed since the start of the year. Now whether it is the terrible twos kicking in, influences from playbox, jealous over Amélie, the fact that I am back at work or a combination of all four it is impossible to say. Don’t get me wrong she is not an overly naughty child but she is definitely pushing boundaries. It is ‘I want’ with no manners, she seemingly has forgotten how to say ‘Please’ and ‘Thank-You’. She even got told off at school for not saying ‘Please’! Therefore we are employing tough love at the moment and she is not getting anything without asking for it properly. This has resulting is a number of tantrums and even telling Lucinda: ‘Mommy, I don’t want you anymore, go and put yourself in the bin.’ We thought it was quite an amusing phrase but not that we let her know that!

Amélie has begun to take to eating solid food. We have begun weaning her early on the dietician’s advice and at first she was struggling to take her baby rice but not any more. She gobbles her baby rice down but it hasn’t diminished her appetite for her neocate and she is still on her 3 hour cycle. Baby rice may be a favourite but she isn’t taking to new flavours with the enthusiasm that Éowyn did, but then if you had chronic reflux then maybe you would be wary when trying new foods. Her weight (6.3kgs (13lb 14oz)) has seemingly settled onto the 25th centile, so our concern over weight loss has lessened but her reflux is still quite bad. Hopefully after the ultrasound at the beginning of March they will be able to determine what is causing it. We will keep you updated.

Before I leave you to look at the photos just a quick note about the other love of my life: West Bromwich Albion. Roberto Di Matteo has been put on gardening leave and Roy Hodgson has been bought in as Head Coach. For one game (a disappointing 3-3 draw with West Ham United – we were 3-0 up at half time!) in between appointments an ex-player Michael Appleton was in charge and at 34 became the youngest person to be in charge of a Premier League team, remember that for your pub quiz team. I had nothing against RDM (we haven’t been in the relegation zone all season) but if Roy can tighten our defence and keep us up he may have a chance to put his tenure at Liverpool behind him. Come on you Baggies!

Peace and Love

Baggie

Wistful look into the distance

Yawn!

I’ve had a hard day

It’s my party!

Anyone for tea?

Concentrating!

The land of Nod

Extreme close up

That’s my Nanny!

Let me tell you a story…

Mommy’s shoes!

In disguise

The turn of another year

Tuesday 4th January 2011Friday 11th May 2012Baggie

And so we are here at the turn of another year (that has a certain poetic quality – I like it). It is just over a fortnight since the last update (the Christmas message notwithstanding) and it seems like an eternity since then. Obviously there has been the snow, Amélie’s continued feeding issues and the little matter of Christmas.

This update is a little belated and becomes the first in 2011 rather than the last in 2010 due to the fact that I have been struck down with ‘flu. Now a lot of people say that they have a touch of ‘flu but from my experience over the last couple of days there is no such thing as a touch of ‘flu. I basically haven’t managed to get out of bed for days, I haven’t eaten a meal for 5 days, every single part of my body has ached. If the house had been on fire I do not think I would have had the inclination to have got out the house, I have been that lethargic. Even the sound of Lucinda playing with the girls wasn’t enough to make me want to get out of bed. My fear has been passing it on to the girls and Lucinda. Lucinda did develop a heavy cold but managed to shake it before it turned into whatever I had, and so far the girls have colds but again relatively mild. Let us hope it stays that way.

Back to the update: The Saturday after the last update the UK got hit by another deluge of snow (we should be getting used to this by now). About 4 inches or so fell in about an hour in our little corner of the country, far more in other parts. Due to the speed of the deluge Heathrow airport struggled to cope with the de-icing of the planes and the clearing of the runway. This was unfortunate for the people trying to catch a flight and the people that work at the airport as someone that lives not that far from the south runway the fact that there were no flights for the best part of 4 days was bliss.

We took full advantage of the snow on that Saturday and introduced Éowyn to the joys of building snowmen and having a snowball fight. She seemed to thoroughly enjoy herself, which is in stark contrast to the snows at the beginning of the year when she was perhaps a little too young to appreciate it and just complained that it was cold. Unfortunately the snow prevented two pre-Christmas meet ups that weekend due to the icy roads and the weather stayed below freezing for over a week, which meant that the snow that fell on the 18th was still about on the 25th. For the most part it was ice which meant that it was quite often safer to drive than try and take your life in your hands on the pavements, especially around the village.

This meant we spent more of the time in the house in that week leading up to Christmas which meant that Éowyn spent a little more time watching DVDs. One day she sat a watched Toy Story, followed by Toy Story 2 and Toy Story 3, then said “Toy Story 4 please, Mommy.” Lucinda explained that there wasn’t a Toy Story 4. “Then go to the shops and get one!” So Mr Disney and Mr Pixar if you are listening there is a little girl who wants another Toy Story film.

Éowyn has also developed a penchant for opening the front door to visitors. In fact she can get quite upset if she is not allowed to open the door. Obviously we have to watch her to make sure that she is not just inviting any Tom, Dick or Harry in but most of the time we let her do so. I assume that is it some kind of control, that she is controlling her environment and I have no problems with her being our little gatekeeper. She also likes to open the door when we are leaving the house. So one frosty morning before Christmas it was not unusual for Éowyn to insist on opening the door for me. As I stepped outside, she shut the door. As I was halfway down the path I heard her little voice say ‘Bye, Bye Daddy.’ I turned round to return the farewell but also to tell her to shut the door as it was bitingly cold but the door was shut. However the letterbox was open and a pair of blue eyes were looking at me through the gap. I waved goodbye and went to work with a smile in my step.

Amélie is still causing us worry. She seemed a lot happier on her artificial milk and we thought that all was going well however when Kate (the Health Visitor) came to weigh her, she still had not put on the correct amount of weight and was still concerned about the amount of reflux that she has. So Kate got us a prescription for another artificial milk, Neocate (as opposed to the Nutramigen that she has been on) and suggested that we see our GP to obtain a referral to a Paediatrician as it is possibly more that just Cow’s Milk Protein Intolerance.

So Christmas Eve we saw our GP who has prescribed a dual concoction of Domperidone and Ranitidine as this would be the first point of call for the Paediatrician it would save us a couple of weeks of treatment. So that is where we are at the moment. Domperidone is given help keep the entrance to the stomach closed to prevent reflux, it also promotes emptying of the stomach contents quicker. Ranitidine is used to inhibit stomach acid production. We are yet to see if this is the winning formula.

Despite her obvious discomfort Amélie is still a happy baby. She is very alert and enjoys sitting on your lap looking around at what is going on. She will hold your hand and coo and gurgle at you. Nothing is a heart-warming as when you little one first smiles, and although Amélie has been doing that for a while now when she returns your smile the feeling is not diminished. Let’s hope we can sort this reflux out so that we can see a lot more of them.

Now to the big event. Éowyn woke on Christmas morning to a stocking full of pressies hanging at the side of her bed and two piles on the floor. Obviously Santa thought that she had been a very good girl over the past year. Although she is beginning to understand the notion of Christmas the good thing was that she still doesn’t have the excitement factor and so was still asleep at 0900 Christmas morning. How many more years is that going to happen?

Christmas lunch was around Lucinda’s parents with Lucinda’s brothers and their families, so all the Grandchildren were together on Christmas day, which is lovely to see because they all get on so well together, even if Éowyn is a little bit bossy with them. It was a nice Christmas present from Lucinda’s parents, too: cooking Christmas dinner for us, so we could concentrate on the kids without having to juggle kitchen duties!

Boxing day I was back at work, so the festive break for me were a little short, but then we are used to that as a family, working in two of the industries that don’t stop for holidays.

Then it was Christmas number 2. Up to Nanny’s Fran’s for a more presents and more Christmas dinner. Nanny Fran gave us a nice Christmas present too, which was a night off as she looked after Amélie (and Éowyn) overnight. Both my sisters were at Mom’s so it was the Bagnalls together for a couple of days. Éowyn loves her Nanny Fran and aunties and kept them entertained (and busy) even though it was such a short visit.

As I have mentioned in an earlier update. My sister Mary has broken her elbow. During the first bout of cold weather at the end of November she slipped on ice and landed on her elbow. This means that, among other things, she is unable to drive. So she hitched a lift back home with us. Now although I have a mid-sized car, with two car seats in the back it doesn’t leave a lot of room for passengers. Luckily we squeezed her in and headed home as my body started to succumb to the symptoms of ‘flu.

Considering my deteriorating condition and the patches of fog we made it home safe and in good time only to find a theft had occurred. OK, perhaps that it is a little over-dramatic but when we left there was a covering of snow on the grass and at the edges of the paths when people had cleared cars and tracks through the snow, yet when we got back you would have never have know that it had snowed at all. The snow had been taken and replaced by mucky rain. Makes it all look a little dirty and dreary as opposed to the snow that tends to make everywhere look bright and pretty. Turn your back for five minutes…

The remainder of the year saw me in bed ill, and on New Year’s Eve myself and Lucinda Lemsiped up and went to bed at 2100. Fortunately the few fireworks that were in the area were not enough to rouse Éowyn and we had a relatively peaceful night.

So maybe a little belated but an epic so apologies and all there is left for me to do is to wish you all a very Happy 2011