Off on our hols!

We're off in the morning for a three week tour of duty in the mother country. Or visiting DH's relatives in Greece if you prefer.

It's been very busy here with holiday entertainment and getting ready for the trip but we've been having a great time. Connor is growing fast and has his first tooth (he's had it for about three weeks now but I don't think I mentioned it before). Lia is extremely excited about seeing all her Greek relatives so is a little hyperactive and DH is in holiday mode which means he's not doing much, including packing...

I've got about 10 small stitching projects packed to take with me so finger's crossed I get some decent stitching time in.

Summer holidays days 11 to 16

No I didn't get bored detailing the minutae of our holiday life, I took the kids back to my hometown for a few days and, as I stayed with my sister, was away from all forms of modern communication (not only do they not have internet I forgot my mobile phone at home!)

So we had a nice few days down there chilling out and enjoying spending time with family. Now we're home we've spent the day chilling out with friends and making stuff with Hama beads (Lia made three things, her friends made one each and I made six. Really.)

DH is at a beer festival today so he'll be good for nothing tomorrow which is why I invited friends around for a BBQ. Ok, it's really because I'm trying to empty the freezer before we go away in nine days but I'm such an evil wife I'm going to enjoy him suffering a hangover whilst cooking burgers...

In other vaguely interesting news I'm no longer breast feeding. I was going to keep it up (I'd been thinking about stopping before suffering in the heat in Greece) but my body had other ideas and my milk started to dry up. I've no idea why as Connor was feeding the same as usual and I had had plenty of milk but we persevered for a week with him valiantly trying to stimulate the milk but to no avail. I gave him his last feed on Monday evening and since then he's been a bottle only boy.

Summer holidays days 9 and 10

A nice weekend here - yesterday DH and Lia had a day together painting, going to the cinema, etc whilst I looked after Connor. Today we visited friends and had a lovely day catching up with them and Lia got to play with their kids.

Summer holidays Day 8

Well a quiet day here as we stayed home and vegged out in front of the TV - we watched Nanny McPhee, lots and lots of Charlie and Lola and even more CBeebies. We did do some crafting this afternoon when Connor had a sleep but generally it was a vegging day :)

Summer holiday day 7

We went to a local farming museum which was fab and we did a 'make a farm in a box' activity which was fun - lots of colouring in and sticking.

In the afternoon we watched Toy Story as Lia's going to see number 3 on Saturday so we're building up to it LOL. Oh and we raided my bead box to make a necklace for Lia and another for Nayno (Lia's toy cat). Connor chilled out most of the day and was generally his usual happy self even though he does appear to have cut his first tooth!

Summer Holiday day 6

We spent the day at an RHS Garden with friends:

Summer Holiday day 5

Well we went out to the local library today as they had a 'play with Hama beads' session for kids. Lia made a heart and really enjoyed it - so much so that I've ordered a bunch of beads and stuff from Amazon. We've also painted her finger and toe nails and baked buns and iced them.

Connor is sleeping so I've just made lasagne for dinner with the idea that I can just stick it in the oven later and not have to worry about it when I'm feeding him.

I've also done a bit more cleaning up in the kitchen and made four pockets for the bags I'm making. Tonight will be ironing I think - hopefully it'll cool down as it's hot and sticky right now.

Oh and here's a pic of the pair of them...

Summer Holiday day 4

A quiet day at home given we were away for the weekend as chores needed to be done. Washing done, some ironing done, fridge cleaned, hob cleaned. Oh and a supermarket trip. And the guinea pigs cleaned.

Lia was a bit stir crazy by the evening but we did do some aqua beads and some maths plus I helped her finish up something she was making from one of her birthday presents. She gets dedicated Mum time when Connor sleeps so I hope we can do something she wants every day.

Connor, as usual, was a good boy and ate and slept as well as he always does.

Summer holidays Days 2 and 3

Well that was a quick weekend! We went to my hometown yesterday morning and stayed over at my sisters house coming back home this evening.

It was a lovely weekend - lots of friends for Lia to play with and lots of cuddles for Connor. Oh and a lovely BBQ today.

I am now wrestling with some homesickness - I haven't lived at home for 18 years but it is still home and all my family are there. Now my bro and my niece have littluns too it's hard to leave - Lia and her cousin Luisa adore each other and there were lots of tears when they had to say goodbye. We are going back in 10 days though so we can spend a little more time together but it's just not the same as being able to pop over whenever we want (it's a two hr drive).

Oh well, DH isn't averse to moving there so you never know, if the job situation works out we might end up there/

Summer Holidays Day 1

Lia woke at 6.45am, Connor at 8.00am

Lia has dressed as a Princess, drawn a million pictures, made a robot, done ten pages of a maths text book, played with her brother, watched Nanny McPhee and the Big Bang and the Wizard of Oz.

Connor has eaten loads, sucked his thumb a lot, rolled onto his front a million times each time eventually crying till I turn him back, pulled my hair a lot and had a nice long (4 hr) nap.

I've tidied all the DVDs and done some ironing. All in all a nice chilled day!

Blimey time flies!

I can't believe it's been so long since my last post - I guess life just has been moving on.

Connor is now 14 weeks old and sleeping through the night. Well, he has for the last three nights at least so there's time for that to change. He goes down at 7pm, has his 10pm feed and then he's been sleeping through till at least 7am - this morning it was 8.30am! He's also having a good long 2 -3 hr nap around lunchtime so I'm getting some me time back!

He's growing well - following the 50th centile pretty much which is good. He can roll over onto his left side and back as of five days ago and is almost exclusively sucking his left thumb. Going by my Mum's theory that means he'll be left handed as I am (my bro is right handed and the pair of us were opposites with thumb sucking and side favouring from this early too). Still, it's a long while yet so we'll see. I have to admit I'd like it if he is left handed - I've always been the only one in the family so it'd be nice to share that with him. And if he's not then hey, I'm still unique LOL.

As for Lia well her first year at school finishes this coming Thursday. Talk about time zooming along, that's her reception year done and come September she'll be in year 1 and officially a school girl. It's been a busy year somewhat dictated by my pregnancy and Connor's arrival but she's been fantastic and has had a great end of year report.

Today she has her first ballet exam. She's doing a little dance to the song Thumbelina and is very excited about it. She's unlikely to be a professional ballet dancer (she's over the 90th centile for height and weight!) but she absolutely loves dancing so I don't see her stopping any time soon. We're also pushing her to learn to swim - she's pretty confident in the water but just not swimming yet - there was just never enough time for proper lessons when I was working full time but I'm going to book her on some for September.

Talking of September I'm sure it's going to come around really quickly. There's three weeks of school holidays to get through and then we're off to Greece for three weeks, getting back two days before school starts again. I'm pretty much sorted with uniform and the like but we will be going shoe shopping the day before school unless I can find something while we're in Greece.

11 Weeks

So here we are at 11 weeks!

Connor is doing really well - smiling lots and lots and we had our first laugh on Sunday (just for Daddy on Father's Day). He sleeps around 8pm now which is good and is still having a 10pm feed then waking at 4am and then again around 7.30am. A pretty good routine I'd say.

The good news is that he doesn't seem to be affected by the heat at all - he must have more Greek blood than English as I'm wilting rather. We've booked to go to Greece for three weeks in August so this is cold compared to how it will be there - the only good news with that is that they have a lot more aircon that we do here.

Development wise Connor's mastered two thirds of the male life skills - sleeping, burping, farting and lying around flapping his willy in the wind. All he needs to do now is find his bits for a good scratch and wrestle the remote control from his father and he's done...

He's also got pretending to be a super hero down pat too...

As for his sister, she's doing okay too - her reading is coming on so well as is her basic maths. We've introduced a reward system for her to encourage her to keep her room tidy - every night it's clean before she gets in bed she gets 10p and if she does that all week plus being generally a good girl then she'll earn £1 pocket money a week so she can save up and buy something.

The idea is that 1) we don't have battles re room cleaning any more, 2) she learns how to add up money and 3) she learns she has to earn money to buy things she wants. This all starts properly come Monday as I'm going to blitz her bedroom this weekend so we have a blank canvas starting point.

I think that's about all the news from here - DH and I are pootling along adjusting to less sleep and a new routine. I'm trying to work out how I can fit in some exercise during the week (other than walking lots and pushing the pram). The problem is that DH isn't home at regular times - it can be anything between 6.20pm and 10.00pm - so I can't guarantee getting out on the same night every week which limits options a bit. I'm hoping to get started with swimming though as I can do that two or three times a week whenever it works for us.

Stitching wise I'm working away on my Big Round Zipper - you never know I might even manage a progress picture some time soon

Road Trip!

Connor and I are off on a road trip today. It's my annual weekend away with a group of stitchy friends and this year Connor will be joining us as I obviously cannot leave him home for four days!

We're just waiting for a friend to arrive and then we'll be off - it's a three hour drive so it'll be his longest trip so far in the car - fingers crossed he'll sleep all the way.

He'll be a very spoiled boy by the time he gets back though - all those mad women who are lining up to give him cuddles - several of them have also offered to help out with night feeds (he has bottles at night) so I might even end up with more sleep this weekend than I've been used to recently!

We're all doing okay - Connor is now nine weeks old (how time does fly) and smiling away all the time. His sleeping patterns haven't altered much but occasionally he'll sleep for two - four hours in an afternoon so I do get a bit of a treat sometimes. Lia is in her last half term of her first year at school - that time really has flown - and still enjoying it and doing well.

All in all life is pootling along nicely here.

Happy Birthday Lia!

Unbelievably my little girl is five years old today!!!

In the absence of anything interesting to write

Here's some photos!

Lia dressed up for Pirate day at school:

Connor and Daddy bonding!

Connor practising to be a Rock God

Six weeks

So here we are at six weeks already! I've been signed off officially by my Consultant so that's great news.

Connor is growing well and he now sleeps in his cot all night - he's such a noisy sleeper that we get a much better nights sleep with him just that bit further away! He has his 10pm feed from Daddy and generally wakes me between 3 and 4 am so I'm hoping it won't be too long before he's sleeping through - he just needs to get a bit bigger so he can have a bit more milk in his tummy.

He's also happier spending time in his swinging chair - not long though, five or ten mins at a time, but it makes all the difference to be able to put him down and know he won't squawk straight away. In the last couple of days he's found his fist to suck too.

Lia's still loving him, she's being great and helpful and doing well at school so I really can't ask for anything more.

We've also booked our summer holiday to Greece. Almost three weeks! We fly to Athens and stay in a hotel for three nights then fly to Kavala where we have a house to stay for two weeks then it's back to Athens for three more nights and home in time for Lia to go back to school. Before we've always staying at my inlaws but there's just not enough room for us any more hence the hotel. DH is a feeling a bit weird about the hotel thing - it'll be the first time he's been home and not stayed at home - but a friend of ours works in a hotel chain and has got us a great deal on a fantastic hotel so hopefully that'll make up for it.

While we're there FIL will be 70 and DH will have his name day so there'll be lots of celebrations. Also SIL has just had a baby girl so there'll be plenty of baby showing off. That is absolutely the last baby of our generation in both families barring accidents! We've got a ratio of four girls to three boys so it's pretty even and the age range is 5 days to 5 years so they're all pretty close.

I'm really looking forward to this holiday - we've pushed the boat out a bit spending wise but it's likely to be the last time we manage such a great holiday for a LONG time as once I'm back to work and Connor is in nursery there won't be much spare cash or spare holiday time...

Five weeks

Can it really be five weeks already?

We're doing okay here. Connor is growing well - last weigh in he was 9lb 11oz which puts him exactly on the 50th centile of the weight charts and well up on his 8lb 7oz birth weight. He's still sleeping well at night and not much during the day and feeding has slowed down a bit. Week 2 - 3 he had a complete feeding frenzy but he's slowly but surely settling down to more of a four hour routine now. He's having two bottle feeds now - the evening feed and the night feed - as breast milk was just not getting him through a decent chunk of sleep time at night, I'd feed him for an hour or so and he'd be up for more in under two hours.

Day feeds are all from me though and that's going just fine so we're now in the routine we're likely to continue with until six months when I'll slowly give up the breast feeding.

Sleep wise he goes down about 7pm and DH wakes him at 10 for a bottle then Connor wakes me around 2am for his next feed. Most mornings he's then back awake aroun 5.30 - 6am for his breakfast.

Apologies if this is a little tedious to read but I want to write it down to remember! I started this blog just before Lia was born and I was back reading the early posts today in a bid to see how things were with her compared to how Connor is. It was quite a revelation as I remember her being hard to get to sleep but I didn't remember quite how hard it was!

She also didn't sleep during the day and at around 7 weeks I started sleeping her on her stomach for day time naps which made all the difference - she instantly went from not sleeping at all to sleeping for 3 hours at a time! Admittedly for the first couple of days I was totally paranoid she was going to die as I was going against all 'official' advice but when I was a baby my Mum was advised never to put us on our backs, we should always be put on our tummies. Oh and in Greece they advise sleeping the baby on it's side so my choice is to sleep the baby however works.

The difference with Lia is that she didn't sleep much at night either so it was awful. I can cope with Connor not sleeping during the day as I'm not so tired I can't see straight. I will, however, try him on his stomach in a couple of weeks or so to see if that helps during the day. I remember that we didn't put Lia on her stomach at nights until she was four months old (we were in Greece the first time) by which time she was able to roll over anyway.

So that's about it when it comes to Connor really. He's not doing much other than eating, sleeping and crying still but he has made his place in the family totally clear:

I am still missing stitching though. I got the last part of Bent Creek's Big Round Zipper through this week and I am so keen to get started on the design (I've not even started part 1 yet) I keep picking it up and looking at it. I know that it won't be long before I can get started again but it's torture being surrounded by all my stash and not having the energy or time to dive in...

I miss stitching...

I didn't realise how much until today but I'm really having withdrawal issues! I've not had caffeine for three and a half weeks now and am coping just fine with that but not picking up a needle in that time? Really bugging me!

Obviously there's nothing I can do about it for now - having a new baby does not really leave time to do anything for myself but I'm hoping it won't be too long before I get the chance to stitch a little. I was definitely stitching by the time Lia was three months as I had some obligation stitching that I did so I can pin point the exact time I did it.

Still, we're working really well here. Connor is a hungry boy and feeds A LOT during the day but in return for that he sleeps well at night. He goes down around 7pm and then DH does a bottle feed around 10pm meaning that I get a good chunk of sleep as I'm in bed for 8.30pm and Connor wakes me around 1am, if not later. Depending on the timing of his night feed I'm then woken any time between 4 and 6am for another feed. Weekdays we're all up around 6.30am to get ready for work / school but weekends he'll often have another sleep after the morning feed.

All in all I'm averaging around 7 hrs sleep a night which is more than enough to remain human. The downside is that I have no evening time to do any stitching and as he only cat naps during the day I don't get any done then either.

But it's not forever right? And he's certainly more than cute enough to make up for the stitching deficit.

Better pics of Connor

Now his jaundice has cleared up we can take lots more pics!

Introducing Connor

Born at 9.48am 7th April by Caesarian. All is okay - I'm sore and tired but that's to be expected, he's very calm and contented and eats and sleeps really well. Lia is totally in love with him and would sit and stroke his head 24/7 if she could. More importantly she slept through every bout of his yelling last night which means we don't have a grumpy child today.