*~*~* August 2010 *~*~* where does the time go?

[CherryPie3]

Only 5 spaces left on the old thread - wonder how long it'll take us to fill ths one up?

Happy chatting :)

CazandBelle I don't know whether I'll get chance to get online tomorrow, so I wanted to be one of the first to wish beautiful Anabelle, our first August baby a happy first birthday. I'm sure she'll be looking down on her mummy and daddy and baby Xander and sending them a message in her own special way to let them know she's fine and watching them excitedly as they prepare for the arrival of her little brother.

It struck me that Tuesday is the summer solstice, the one day of the year when it reaches the highest point in the sky, how apt that the sun will be shining for the longest and and reach its peak on Belle's birthday, she truly is a ray of sunshine. Much love from me and Felicity Violet.

Happy 1st Birthday Anabelle, cazandbelle I hope you manage to make this day special and positive in some way and that all's going well with Xander! Thinking of you lots today.

Thinking of you and your family today CazandBelle x

Thinking of you CazandBelle, wishing you lots of happiness.

Happy 1st birthday Anabelle! I too am thinking you you 4! (your blog still makes me cry everytime I read it)

Last night the lanterns didn't go to plan. It was just to windy, and when we gave up it started raining too. We got one lit and it shone brightly for Belle the moment she was born, but we couldn't get it to heaven. We sent a pink star balloon to her this afternoon though.

Today has been such a mixture of emotion, as usual the build up has been far worse than the actual day. I've felt remarkably calm for most of the day today where as last Thursday (remember day) I was a complete state. We've cried for the birthday we wish Belle could have but have celebrated her and her 1st birthday with lots of pink, flowers, garden decoration, balloons and candles. I'm glad I did the mess bit last week so I could celebrate her life today.

We've experienced such generosity from everyone today. Lots of messages, cards, flowers, gifts and gestures. Belle's justgiving page has gone nuts today for her birthday. The lovely Mme started a thread in AIBU for her birthday to rally support for her justgiving page too and lots of people have donated. It really was the perfect day to reach our target and go beyond. I think we're going to be gobsmacked at the final figure when I've counted out what we have in cash offline donations too. My friends work have collected almost £500 today, ontop of the walk and the justgiving page and the raffle and everything we'll collect on Saturday. I'm already amazed.

I cannot believe a whole year has passed. Going to finish the day by lighting the lanterns hung outside our house for her. We've decorated the outside of the house today with new flowers and garden ornaments for her. We bought Belle the pink heart one for her birthday and a friend has given us an identical white heart one for her today. They look beautiful together.

Thank you for all your thoughts and wishes xxx

Was thinking of you last night too Caz, but didn't get round to posting due to internet issues. Glad you had a good day and that you were able to make it a celebration, it sounds lovely. And lovely to have Belle's little brother doing so well too.

Where is everyone???? COuld it be that your LOs are now up and about so much that they are taking up all of your time. T is wnating to be up and on his feet all the time and gets upset if we sit him down. He needs one of our hands to balacne him so that he can walk, but that is hard work to do all the time. He still has no interest in crawling, just walking .

His appetite is now huge, not sure if he should be eating as much as he is. Don't want to give him bad eating habits, i.e. large portion sizes, but he soon lets me know that he wants more, if I don't give him enough. Anyone else got a food devouring LO?

Hope everyone is well. Take care xx

dogwalker at this age they don't overeat, they can't. You cannot give them more then they need, if he's asking for it and it's still going down, he needs it. Just be sure you're not giving him pasties/sausage rolls and he'll be fine I've got the opposite problem in that S doesn't eat much at all. Have you got a toddle truck/walker he can use?

I'm still here, it's all just very quiet at the moment!

Thankfully no pasties or sausage rolls in sight, I've gone completely organic and homemade for everything since T born. Quite expensive and time consuming but with bf for 8 month and eating this healthy I am now 8 lbs lighter than before I had him.

He also has a walker, but he gets lazy when in it , is that the boy in him, me wonders....

I honestly don't know what I'd do if he didn't eat his solids as he is so hungry. Not found many foods he wont't eat, so far doesn't like broccoli or spinach, but everything else he gobbles down, he especially loves peas and I love watching him pick them up one by one and placing them in his mouth, he looks so cute whilst doing it, as he likes to inspect each and every one first.

What does S like? Is there anything you can use to tempt?

He likes pears and porridge and that's pretty much it at the moment. He gets given loads of stuff but not much goes in.
I meant on of those push-along walkers, he might be past the sit in ones!

Very belated birthday wishes for Belle. I cannot believe it has been a year. Caz that is fantastic news about her Justgiving page - how amazing. You must be so proud.

We had a wonderful Father's Day - lots of silly hijinks and a lovely BBQ. The glamping weekend was lovely. Weather not too bad at all (aside from the hairy drive down - properly scary). Eli always has such fun surrounded by loads of people/babies. Makes me feel like we should have 10! Ha. He was definitely bummed out on Tuesday when it was just me and him kicking around the front room. I'm really trying to get out and about every day now and make the rest of my maternity leave as fun as possible.

I know what you mean Dogwalker about too much food - some days Eli will guzzle amounts that I would be proud to eat! Then other days (like today) he eats like a bird. It drives me crazy, but I try and ooze calm about it. Who am I kidding? The boy knows when I'm fractious about his eating - he blows raspberries with his unwanted food, covering me in lentils or whathaveyou! Heh. I have no idea how big the portions should be right now though - and soon I'm going to be responsible for making lunch for Eli and the boy he's going to share a nanny with. Any thoughts? Should I just make loads and they can leave what they don't want?

Interesting to hear about the milk feeds too... Since Eli decided to chug another babies bottle of formula last week, I got (stupidly) paranoid that maybe I don't have enough milk anymore. Or that maybe Eli needs supplementing at this point. So I bit the bullet and gave Eli a bottle of formula for his afternoon feed yesterday. I figure I probably won't be able to express enough for his mid-morning and afternoon feeds when I'm back at work, so I might as well drop one boob feed now Anyway, he went for it, and chugged 130 mls before he got bored, then had a bit of boob. Seemed pretty good. Then I tried to give him some today and he barely had 5 mls and then just sort of blew into the teat like it was a trumpet! I gave him boob instead. I'm just well confused at the moment as to what I should be doing. Gonna bury my head in the sand for another four weeks :)

Hi everyone firstly a big hello to Caz happy birthday to belle - continue to admire your amazing strength and courage in the face of adversity.
And congratulating you on your boy news too!

Answers to the survey- Tilly will be 11 months on Saturday

5 teeth two bottom three top
One nap around 2/3 hours if in the cot shorter if out
3 meals a day loves her food!
Two ish bottles a day
Says dada nana and Lola - her biggest sisters name
No mama tho :-(
Can clap wave & point tho doesn't bother much!
Crawling very fast but in a death drag type horror film way not a conventional crawl..
Pulls up to stand only in the bath the awkward child.

And - don't hate me- sleeps 7-7/8 every night pretty much without waking.

I had my 16 wk midwife check today and heard babys heartbeat for the first time. Lovely.

Anyway hope all is well.

Chulita, all I can think is, he obviously doesn't need it yet. He must be getting all he needs from the milk. Doesn't help you with the weaning though does it, wish you luck in finding some other foods. Have you tried home made rice pudding, I normally use a bit of cinnamon or honey to sweeten it, instead of heaps of sugar. My T loves it.

Nat, I think its lovely that Eli still wants boob, I wish T did, I miss bf.

GYA lol at the death drag type crawl, made me laugh. T still has no inclination to crawl, not interested one bit, he just wants to be on his feet.

Have got a walker and a push along walker, one of those v-tech thingies, will have to see if he is strong enough to support himself on that, good idea Chulita

Well I hope you all have a good weekend, I'm baking lots this evening, got my village fete tomorrow, oh how mumsy. Never thought in a million years I'd be the baking type, always the job first and now I love everything about being mumsy, take care xx

Oooh, we have another crawler - F is 11 months next weekend, so has been pretty slow on the uptake, but she's done most things slowly, she likes to consider things, judge if they will benefit her in anyway, then think about it about it a bit more before deciding whether it's worth the effort! She didn't roll over(either way) until she was 9 months. She's been doing a weird going on all fours lifting opposite legs and arms (looks like one of those lizards in the desert trying to keep its feet from burning), for a few weeks, but last night she saw her dummy on the floor across the room and went for it full pelt, after a full assessment of the pros and cons and looking at me with puppy dog eyes to see if I would get it for her first

She now has 8 teeth, with the latest being a (pre)molar on the bottom left hand side, ouch, that one had us pacing the floor at ungodly hours I can tell you. She's now on her 2nd tube of baby toothpaste, though the "brushing" is a bit hit and miss, I have resorted to swaddling her with a towel on her changing mat to give them a proper going over on a couple of occasions (that went down well, not!) Fortunately she only drinks water during the day and hates any kind of juice (despite my mum's best efforts to get her addicted to "high juice")

Re the napping, Nat have a look at this thread, had me going, YES! YES! YES! to a lot of it daytime naps those who say "a baby will just fall asleep if it's tired" just don't get what it's like to have a baby who is easily over stimulated, but if you've never had one of those babies I guess it's easy to judge that the mother is just becoming a mentalist about the napping - I would have done it as well prior to F

On a positive note I have managed to get F to sleep 3 times in the last 2 days with no pram pushing or feeding to sleep. Small achievements, but I nearly cried with relief, knowing that she could do it, especially as she is starting nursery at the end of July when I go back to work. My KIT days have been fab, fortunately I love my job, the money has come in very handy and F has enjoyed her days with GP's who spoil her rotten (I have to forgive them giving her the odd choccy digestive biscuit as they are doing me a huge favour having her one day a week).

F loves finger food (see aforementioned chocolate digestives), much prefers it to being spoonfed anything (she wants to do it all herself), got a fab book (in charity shop) Finger Food for For Babies and Toddlers which I found much more "me" than Annabelle Karmel, although I'd love to be fashioning a leaning tower of Pisa from mashed potato, complete with Michael Angelo fresco around the bottom for decoration, I just can't be arsed haven't got the time.

Hope the sun shines for you all this weekend.

Poppy took 5 steps today and has leant to stand! I am going back to work next week :( still nearly the summer holidays :)

learnt to stand from sitting I meant to add

wow well done Poppy! They look so cute when they take their first steps, I'm looking forward to that with J (though he gets into enough mischief without being able to walk so no rush).

That sounds like great progress with the naps Maiden - hopefully it's a sign of greater things to come.

We've been away for a long weekend in Kent (my bro got married on saturday). It was really nice to see loads of family and friends, and we had a gorgeous outfit for J, but the travelling and nights were pretty rubbish. We had to do quite a bit of the journey down with him screaming in the back and the drive back today (to Yorkshire) was soooooo hot! Am very glad we are back in our own beds tonight.

Hope everyone's well :)

Congrats to all the new crawlers and walkers! Not too much to report here, other than that the amount I'm expressing at work seems to diminish all the time which is a bit rubbish. Two ounces today. If it carries on this way I may end up dropping the middle of the day feed earlier than I intended.

We were away at the weekend too to a friend's 30th and my darling daughter, although she woke for a very sleepy feed at 5.15am, she then slept until 8.45am - the longest lie-in I've had in aaaages.

Good to hear all is well gya, remember how much I loved getting that first sound of the heartbeat.

And at the risk of sounding like a major worrier and pain in the ass thedogwalker (feel free to ignore this) but I'm fairly sure honey is the one thing they advise not giving to babies under one because of a risk of botulism. It's very rare but pretty nasty.

Hey everyone! How is everyone doing?

Just wanted to pop over and say that between the just giving page, sponsored walk, fete and other donations we've raised over £5000 for Sands! and still counting because I haven't collected all the money for the walk yet! Now we're waiting on Santander organising their (part)matched donation.... the final final figure is going to be out of this world and far more than I ever dreamed we'd be able to raise! My baby Belle did all of this. I will let you know the final figure when it is all arranged!

21 weeks pregnant now, 16 weeks until they will induce me. Please keep praying Xander stays safe until then. Getting more and more anxious as we approach 3rd tri.

Caz, that's brilliant, what a lovely legacy for your daughter. Think of you, Jon, Belle and Xander often and praying for you all.

That's great caz, well done for all your efforts and hard work! Definitely praying for you all :)

bellygazing S sometimes is too tired for his lunch feed so I don't bother. Tbh I don't feel like I've got much anyway and even if he goes all day without a feed I'm not massively engorged at the end of it. But then he's 11 months now so I was hoping to have stopped by 12.

We had a weekend of fun down in Herts for a wedding and true to form my two slept very badly so we're all tired and run down at the mo. S is still waking up ridiculously early, 4.20am yesterday and 5.20 today. I can't work out what I need to do to get him to sleep later, I've tried dropping one nap/feeding later/dreamfeed/later bedtime but he's always up at the same time

chulita will he go back to sleep if you feed him or is that it, he's up for the day? E quite often wakes dispiritingly early (4.45am yesterday) but if I feed her she'll - mostly - go back down til 7ish. Although she woke this morning at about 5.30am, I put her back down and then at 6ish decided she wasn't sleeping and went in to find she had pooed EVERYWHERE - had to change the bedding, her clothes, the waterproof sheet etc. Think she may have eaten something that disagreed with her as she did another 'interesting' poo at about 8.30am. And has been a bit clingy.

Oh, did I say tooth number 2 has finally arrived? And top 2 look like they're on the verge of coming (mind you, I was saying that about her 2nd tooth for about 6 weeks)

Ouch belly that doesn't sound good, hope E feels better soon, not good when they have upset tummies. Tooth number 2, great news, more of them to keep clean. I found that when T is teething his poo is terrible, so it might be a sign that more are on the move. On the honey thing, well T has been eating small quantities for 2 months now and it never occurred to me not to give it him, I will still give him some in his rice pudding, but I do alternate between that and cinnamon so he doens't get it that often.

T has 6 teeth and he uses them to great effect now, tearing through his food. He also likes to try and bite my hand, little monkey.

CazandBelle, so glad the fund raising is going so well, you have done a wonderful thing and I agree with belly what a lovely legacy for Belle.

Cazzy, go poppy go, congrats on the walking.

T is now using his v-tech walker thing to walk with but he gets scared really easily and then sits back down. Trouble is he cannot get himself up yet, so its left to me and my mum to keep standing him up so that he can walk about, wish he would learn to pull himself up or to crawl for that fact .

Hope everyone is having a good week, take care x

Forgot to mention, my Hungarian au pair arrived on Monday. My Mum is staying the rest of the week to handover to her, but then it's just me and the au pair next week. I am a bit worried that my T won't be looked after as well as he should be. Its just that my Mum obviously loves T as she is his Grandma but the au pair has only just met him and there is no bond of love there. Hope I'm doing the right thing {worry emoticon}