Crap-tastic. A welcome blend of crap and fantastic.

Well we went over to our friends’ house last night and I had a really fabulous time.

I do really like them both and they’re good fun to be with. A (the boyfriend) is an hilarious drunk and gets amusingly and frustratingly argumentative in a ‘jolly good old debate’ way when pissed which appeals to my infinite need to be right… combine this with my desire to make every person bend to my will, BN’s incapability to leave anything alone and A’s capability to turn any conversation into a heated debate and you always have a fun evening….

The fact that S will inevitability side with us as A is usually completely too drunk and talking bollocks and it is not unusual for the evenings to involve copious amounts of red wine, whisky and staying up till 5am.

I gave up at 3.30 this morning and went to bed. Not because I wanted to, but more because I was aware of how shite I would feel today if I didn’t.

I decided to be sensible.

Smug

Because although I do feel like crap…. I’m the only one that isn’t feeling like crap that someone else stood on. The other three are far worse.

A cooked a lovely meal - rack of lamb with dauphinoise potatoes and tomato courgette side dish with a Gu chocolate pudding and whipped cream for dessert.

It was gorgeous and delicious and yummy. And the only thing I’m sorry about is that I don’t have it again tonight!

Then took our time this morning to get back to the folks - loved seeing the girls and they were so excited to see us. They had a great time with G&G and the only down side was Ella has a bad cough again and woke herself and everyone else up at 5am.

Feel pretty bad about that…. … … …. almost.

But then the other half of me is just happy that I wasn’t there

I had amazing gorgeous & fantastic Mother’s day and got lovely treats. Some Body Shop Goodies (which I love) and Sweet Darling Perfume from Kylie’s range and two DVDs. One of Stardust which I’m really looking forward to watching and one of Pride & Prejudice (Colin Firth version) which I absolutely adore.

Tonight - the plan is…. get girls to bed, have bath, get to bed with Colin Firth

Stuff

I didn’t blog last night - instead I took the advice of my other half and went to bed early.

Monday night I fell asleep on him on the sofa while we were watching the Kingdom. I can’t think if that’s the actual name of it but it’s that one where Jennifer Garner and Jamie Foxx are somewhere in the East investigating a bomb or something - to be honest - I don’t really know anything about the film because I was asleep

I went to bed at 10ish and then slept through till 7.30. Glorious.

As glorious as it gets when you are woken up by Ella screaming mummy mummy mummy.

Not for any particular reason other than she just wants to get out of the cot and Rowan was taunting her with bricks on the floor…

The last night - I watched … ummmm what did I watch…? Um. Oh yeah Skinny versus Supersize thingy with Gillian Devil McKeith. It was good - but then I like that sort of thing…

I had a lovely bath at 9 and then went to bed again at 10 o’clock….

And yet… I feel more shit today than I did two days ago.

Why is it that when you get more sleep - you feel like a bank of crap??

Dog tired.

I am shattered. So not much tonight.

Ella is waking in the night at the moment - she’s had a chest infection and cold over Christmas and she’s taken a long time to get over the night time cough and snotty nose… we’ve been helping her with Medised and so on and now 4 teeth are cutting…. her last 4 thank goodness… this bit nearly over for her.

She always gets snotty and coldy with teeth - in the same way that Rowan always got ear infections and we’ve been medicating her every night at bedtime because that always seems to be the time they suffer doesn’t it?

Then suddenly she’s waking in the night.

Two nights running she’s woken at almost midnight and last night she was awake till 1am.

I was off to Leeds this morning for a meeting and had to be up at 6am. Not that early I grant you but slightly early when you’re still up at 1am!

BN was excellent and attended to her knowing I had to get up early - the only trouble is that when you’re awake and you know they’re awake… it is hard to settle back down again. It was that horrible thing where I fell asleep at midnight, got woken up 20 minutes later, fell back to sleep when BN was dealing with her and then got woken up again 20 minutes later… happened for a third time and then couldn’t get back to sleep for half an hour…. bit annoying.

So. Have dozed for half an hour on BN’s lap (through Jamie’s leeks) … if you watch it - you’ll know what I mean… and then thought - quick blog and then off to bed.

Instead watch Never Mind the Buzzcocks with Simon Amstell - which - quite frankly - is hilarious - and NOW I’m doing a quick blog and then off to bed.

A quick blog does go on a bit doesn’t it?

Sore eyes… v tired….. still typing……

zzz

I am poooorly..

blurgh.

I am ill. I feel yukky. I have a virus I think. Sore throat, sore armpits and swollen glands on my neck so bad that they actually hurt to touch from the outside.

Boo!

So. I came home from work at 4.15pm today. I can’t remember the last time I came home from work ill…. I think it might have been 2002?

Suffice to say it’s pretty unusual for me to come home when they’re is work to be done.

That doesn’t apply to everything in my life unfortunately… I have no compulsion to do DIY, washing up or tidy my house particularly (apart from clean my bathroom) … but I do work hard at my job.

So.

I am going to enjoy my new favourite pass time. I am taking a movie up to bed and I’m going to snuggle up and enjoy ‘The Notebook’.

Is it any good? I’ve heard it’s a bit dreary..?

The good news, well, no… the absolutely stunning news is that I earned commission this month! That means that I can pay off my credit card and not have to worry about how wer’re paying the bills this month.

Not that I’m in control of the finances anymore anyway.. but you know me.. never really let go control of anything….

So right.. I’m off to bed and hopefully will be happily asleep within the next forty minutes

bub-bah!!

Girly Catch up

It’s been about a week since we talked about the girls. Not much has happened in that week except that it took until Friday night for us to get a full night’s sleep from the night that we moved Ella into Rowan’s bedroom.

First Rowan got her ear and chest infection she spent a week throwing up in the night and coughing until she was sick… took her to the doctors as soon as she was sick the first time. Mainly because she has been prone to ear infections since she was about 10 months old and they are always accompanied with vomiting.

Rowan vomits? We presume ear infection.

And we would be right. So - she was on the azithromycin stuff but vomited up the first two doses within an hour and a half. By Friday she was still bad so we decided that we wouldn’t risk the weekend and having to make a casualty trip and BN took her back. The doctor said that her ear infection had progressed from mild to painful and told us this interesting fact: Azithromycin has to be in your system for 2 hours minimum. This is because it’s absorbed by the small intestine. It takes that amount of time for it to get to the small intestine and therefore being sick before the 2 hours is up means that it won’t get a chance to work.

I think that’s fairly important information.

So, he prescribed a further 3 doses of it (one dose per day) and we changed the time of day we gave it to her and by Saturday afternoon she was markedly better.

SO.

Ella starts showing signs of feeling a little under the weather. By this time we have been up at least once a night for a week. Sorting out vomiting, changing beds, changing pajamas, getting drinks, giving cuddles.. all the while trying desperately not to disturb the baby that you have just moved into the same room.

Ella started to cough and we came to the obvious conclusion that she had caught the chest infection. Not hard to do. They play together all day obviously and cuddle and give each other snot kisses.

Oh yes… let me digress a little… Rowan’s favourite pass time yesterday morning was to ask Ella for a kiss (she has snot trail nose now she’s clearing this infection) and let Ella’s snot get on her face and then theatrically wipe it off with a swish of an arm and a sleeve and pronounce it ‘yukky and disgusting’….

Somehow never so yukky and disgusting that you shouldn’t do it again. Within 5 minutes.

But anyway.

So, she caught the cough and we went through about 4 or 5 nights wishing that she would get over it. She obviously wasn’t well and I did start to get a little concerned when she started being sick because that’s just not her MO as a child.

Ella isn’t sicky. Never has been.. whereas Rowan spewed up at the slightest suggestion of too much food in her mouth, Ella would just open her mouth and gesture for more…

She was kind of coughing but getting stuck at the end of the cough where you would normally breathe in and either cough again or recover.. and she was kind of wheezing and seeming unable to pull a breath in. She was whingy all day and the coughing was resulting in this pukiness.

Eventually after a particularly rough night on Thursday and thinking that really she wasn’t showing any signs of getting better, actually she was appearing to get worse.. we decided that she should go to the doctor.

She got straight in on Friday morning. Again we though it best to get in there and avoid the late night casualty trips… The doc confirmed that she had an ear, throat and chest infection. Apparently her throat was swollen and looked painful. That’ll be why she wouldn’t eat anything for a week then … and that’ll be why she was being sick for three days. Oh yes.. and that’ll be why she was whinging for the whole week unless completely doped up on painkillers.. continuously.

Poor girl. I felt so bad. She’s has three days of antibiotics now and is very much better. We actually got a full nights sleep on Friday night after only 2 doses.. she was sick earlier in the evening but nothing compared to what it has been. Last night was the same… so hopefully tonight we should be getting back to something nearing normal….

Or did I speak too soon…….?

Rowan.

Finally she’s broken the fever and seems to be on the mend. BN took her back to the doctor yesterday morning and he confirmed that the ear infection was a lot worse than it was on Wednesday morning.

I took her to bed with me half way through the night on Thursday. She just still had the temperature of 103. She wasn’t right. Absolutely boiling up and still being sick. I just didn’t feel right not being with her.

She held my hand as she slept and at one point when she woke she said ‘you’re looking after me mummy aren’t you’… she clasped my face and kissed me lightly.

Our doctor is great … he said that the antibiotics have to stay down for a minimum of two hours to have a chance of working. She’d thrown up both doses so far within 90 minutes of taking them and they just weren’t getting the chance to kick in. She’s not on the amoxycillin but a stronger one. Zithromycin? Or something like that. You have one dose a day for 3 days. So she has another course of that and kept the first dose down yesterday. The difference in her is amazing.

Still not really eating but she’s had plain biscuits and cereal. She’s happy in herself and only complaining slightly of pain near her back teeth.

So… I had a lovely lie in this morning to catch up. I sleep so badly when they’re not well. Every noise I hear, I’m instantly awake. Listening intently to see if I’m needed. I worry so much that I’ll be sleeping deeply and won’t hear them that I think this has the extreme effect of depriving me of any sort of normal sleeping pattern.

Wednesday morning I was up at 5.30 for that meeting anyway and the Thursday night, having Rowan with me in bed just meant that I had the unenviable delight of Rowan’s snoring and coughing first hand !!

But hey. It’s all worth it. Glad to see that she’s better and hopefully tonight will be the start of normal sleeping…

oh… did I mention that Ella has picked up the chest infection and is barking like a dog? 

Oh it’s all gone a bit Pete Tong

Rowan is ill.

Another ear infection. This darn child just procures infection as if from nowhere and then spends a week vomiting.

We are just up and down the stairs dealing with vomit and my wardrobe is steadily congregating in the laundry bin with ‘vomit shoulder’

She is very prone to ear infections and unfortunately she just gets sick to her stomach with everything.

It has been an eventful few days. Made all the more interesting by the fact that I haven’t slept properly or deeply in any way shape or form since Rowan became ill a couple of days ago.

Wednesday I had a minor car accident. Kind of shit me up though. I ordered a cab for work as I had a meeting at 6.45am. I didn’t fancy walking cos it’s cold! The cab arrived at twenty past six and I kept it waiting for ten minutes. I was desperately trying to get ready quietly so as not to wake the girls and I just find that makes you all the more slower.

Also - it could just be me but I think I get ready slower, when it’s colder? It’s like the winter sets in, it’s chillier in the morning - it’s unpleasant to be naked and getting out of the warm shower is enough to make you not want to… and for some reason it seems to take me an extra ten minutes to do the exact same things that have taken me ten minutes less all through the summer!? Why is that? It’s cold! Get ready quicker!

Anyway. I digress.

I kept the cab waiting and finally crept out of the door at 6.30am. Got into the taxi and put my hands under my legs to warm up. (We don’t have central heating. I guess that’s a fairly important point when I’m complaining relentlessly about the cold). The taxi was one of those big minibus type things and as we got to the bottom of our street I decided that I felt quite high up and reached round and buckled in. Literally 10 or 15 seconds later we were in a crash. A car smacked into us at about 30, we were doing about 10mph.

I got thrown forward and bashed my knees against the dashboard. I’ve jarred my hip and I have a stiff neck. But that’s it.

It does certainly make you think though. It just shows you how easily your day could take a turn for the worse.

Anyway. I had a doctors appointment for yesterday evening to have my Mirena removed and basically that didn’t happen. When I got there ‘the correct appointment hadn’t been made’ and he couldn’t do it because there was no nurse available etc etc blah blah blah.

Anyway… Dr was clearly an advocate of the Mirena and basically tried to talk me out of any reason I had for having it removed. It’s impossible for it to be causing the spots/weight issue/cyclical period feelings. He was quite disparaging and generally poo pooed my objections pretty much making out that it’s all in my head.

He also dared to suggest that the reason I wasn’t losing any more weight was because I was convincing myself that I was dieting but that really I wasn’t doing what I thought I was doing.

He said ‘ there’s only two ways to lose weight, eat less or exercise more and you may think you’re doing that but if you’re not losing weight then you can’t be doing either’

How very dare you!!

It may have touched a nerve.

It’s quite easy to convince yourself that you’re trying your hardest just because I lost 20lbs 4 months 6 months ago but emabrrassingly he’s totally right.

I have completely gone off the boil with this weight loss and I’ve lost my willpower and my purpose.

I could do with some tips or advice from people. I need my motivation back - not even the wedding dress not fitting has given me the impetus to be motivated …. I need some help…

DOES anyone have any good ideas to get me back on track?

Productive weekend..

We had an amazingly productive weekend. We brought the schedule forward and Ella spent her first night in Rowan’s room… actually her third night.. because we tried this once before and then ended up taking her back because she started teething and it ruined the whole thing

So… we had a few jobs on the list and the end target of the finished jobs was going to be buying the bunks for the girls’ room and then moving Ella out of our room and *in* to that one.

We started working at about 10am yesterday.. and we didn’t finish until about 5pm!

Knackering.

We cleared out the wardrobe in Rowan’s room… when we finished her bedroom BN made a walk-in cupboardy type extensiony bit to her bedroom as there is no storage in there. Plus, there’s a corner taken up with the airing cupboard too. The trouble is with this cupboard? It’s massive.

That’s great you say! But no… no it’s not if you are the kind of family that accumulates crap quicker than something that accumulates crap dead quick. (*note.. I paused for like 30 seconds then trying to think of something that accumulates crap quickly… suggestions on a postcard comment please)… The point is… that the cupboard was full of crap. It took us about 2 hours alone just clearing out that cupboard. Old toys, clothes that are too small for either of them (sniff…) and nappies that got grown out of… just tons of stuff. I hate stuff.

2 massive bin bags of stuh..uh..uff. to stuff.

So we then emptied their chest of drawers (we bought from Ikea when I was preggers with Rowan). Such a nice piece of furniture I think. The plan was that this was coming into our room so that we could get the white chest of drawers in our room emptied.. and then moved into the bathroom.

Paul, BN’s brother moved to NZ about the same time that BN and I got our first house. They very generously offloaded loads of their crap gave us a few bits and pieces. AN old dining room table (that fell apart in the end) an old chest freezer and a little 3 piece set of wooden, painted cuteness. A chest of drawers, a matching chair and cabinet.

We’ve had the chair and the cabinet in the bathroom for a while but the drawers kind of got stuck in our room. (Needed for the TV to sit on top of… ahem)

The picture of our lovely bathroom…

The picture from the other angle…. is it bad to have pictures of your toilet in your blog?

Anyway.. blah blah.. the 3 piece set is now in the bathroom and the armchair is in the girls room… the Ella is now in the girl’s room… and the parents..? The parents are free of the crap AND the baby!

Our lovely empty bedroom…

YAY!!!

The funniest thing was throwing loads of toys down the stairs from the crap cupboard (that’s its new name) and the girls sitting in this array of cuddlies and books and stuff at the bottom. They thought they were all presents…      and were gratefully quiet for the whole day playing and mooching about with things they haven’t seen for a couple of months
And the best news? This morning they both slept till 7.15 (bless the mornings drawing in) and the even better news? Yesterday they both slept in until 7.50! On a Sunday!

Bliss.

How *do* we cope with newborn babies?

We’ve been spoiled lately. Ella and Rowan have both been sleeping reasonably well. Rowan always sleeps well to be honest, unless she’s ill ….. and Ella has certainly settled down considerably.

The last remaining, annoying hobby she has left is loud moaning early in the morning around 5.30am. She tends to be quite vocal as she enters her lighter sleep and that usually disturbs me.

We have made the decision that next month when Rowan turns three, Ella will move into her room and that will be it for good. It’s been really nice having her in with us and she *has* been a really good baby. She has taken a lot longer to settle than Rowan ever did though and wakes a lot earlier than Rowan ever did at this age.

Obviously having three people sleeping in a room - there will be times when we disturb each other’s sleep. I have started to wonder whether it is *us* that is disturbing her rather than the other way around.

There’s been substantial benefits to having her sleep with us. She’s been more wakeful than Rowan in general and much more prone to night-waking and issues with teething… so not having to get up and trudge along the landing in the middle of the night has been welcome….. I was pretty grateful last night that she was still in with us as I tended to her every 15 minutes between 2.30 and 4am.

I.am.exhausted. 2.30 and 4am!!!! And… AND it’s Saturday. I didn’t even have to get up and be anywhere this morning. I am knackered!

How did I ever do this? Newborn babies ?? How do we survive?

I cannot understand how I was ever able to be conscious the next day.. let alone the days when I was already back at work and she was waking all through the night with teething. Do you remember that? Was I particularly cranky? Or did I just nod and smile at everyone blankly whilst they talked to me…..? I can’t quite recollect?

The only down side to moving Ella out of the parental room is that BN has made it known how much he is looking forward to having Ella leave us finally.

He is a … well … he is an emphatic sleeper. Vocally and physically. He can’t just *turn* over.. he bounces over and takes a while to settle each time he moves……. I wake up… normally right at the end of the marathon ’settle down’ when my unconscious brain decides that the disturbance has been going on slightly too long and really my ‘actual self’ ought to take a look.. just in time to watch BN stop moving and start…… nasally appreciating sleep… …..

I have cursed him in the night for the entire 7 and a half years we have been together

Well.. make that for 6 of the 7 and a half years we have been together.

For the 6 months that Rowan was with us and the 13 months that Ella has… BN is so conscious of the baby in the room.. that he barely moves the whole night….. and it.has.been.bliss….

So …. am I looking forward to Ella finally moving out of the parental room?

I don’t know what’s worse.. early morning moaning… or midnight bouncing and vocal rustlings. And not in a good way

hmmm…

Stuff to say today.

More developments in the House of Vomit.

Ella sat up in bed at 1am and vomited everywhere.

So… it seems that the vomit has not left us as I thought it had. She seems better today.. not really sure why they’re ill… must be a bug I guess.

Would be nice if we could get through a week here without vomit, cold, diarrhoea and more things that I can’t think of in order to write a truly impressive list

Further update to the weekend’s vomit is that Ella then pooed on the carpet. I was in the shower and heard thump thump thump up the stairs.. the door was kicked open and BN walked in holding a rather odourous Ella at arms length with… what can only be described as a warm explosion of shite up her back and over her pajamas.

Nice.

Not.

So I then proceeded to clean off a brown baby in the shower (all the while contemplating what to do with my bath tub afterwards in order to make sure that it was all gone) and actually had to get my hands in there to clean it all off.

All the while, being naked .. and actually *in* the bath with her.

I was not a very happy bunny.

So … ( do you think So is my often used word?) things have hardly moved on here.

I look forward to tonight and to what lays in store for me in the region of sleep, or lack thereof.

Hmmm.. maybe sleep *is* my most often used word….

Internet schminternet!

The internet at our house has got tummy ache

So a quick post to tell you a couple of things that have happened over the last couple of days…

I had the long weekend which Rowan and Ella finished off nicely by getting some sort of 48hour tummy virus which Rowan spent puking up all over our carpets. They really do not resemble the colour they were when they were bought (the carpets not the children).

We watched The Crocodiles of Banana with Rowan (which she loved). The talking teddy bears (the beavers) were a particular hit.

Then… yesterday afternoon I had to go back to work… which was a bit bizarre but has made me realise how much I would like to be part time eventually. It was odd going into work halfway through the day though and oddly stressful too.. because basically I just had to try and fit a whole day’s work into 4 and a half hours.

So then … um… back to work properly today.. that was all kind of boring. Nothing particularly exciting happened apart from an update on the work problem. I am managing the factory this week which makes everything a bit more hectic but not exactly hard.. just a bit busier.

Rowan is getting hilarious and has learned the concept of insult. Oh yes!

My child cannot only play us up now .. but she can play up and be mean as well

Her first ever one was (said with the giggles) ‘DADDY!! You smell like poo!’

Her second ever one was ‘Daddy - you smell like mummy!’ (Followed by much giggling & hilarity from both her and BN)

Charming!

*places hands on hips and flounces off*

Terrible blogger

I have turned sporadic!

Not being doing daily catch ups … it’s been pretty busy and I slightly lost the will to post this week. Things have been happening though..

Ella is practically ready to walk any day now. She is getting braver and braver as the days go past. A few tentative steps every now and then throughout the day and pretty soon she’s just gonna get up and walk across the room.

End of the babydom!

I’m not sad though… I love to see them move on. I noticed with Rowan that she was especially stroppy and frustrated in the days before a big change, like crawling, walking, learning to communicate… they get pent up with ‘almost’ and I really feel that you can see their mood relax and their little bodies wind down when they finally grasp the thing they have been striving for.

I’m looking forward to seeing her take that first walk with confidence so that she can chase and annoy that big sister as she was born to do

Rowan has already grasped that this is a milestone we’re waiting for and cheers every time Ella takes a step… unfortunately, this only serves to remind Ella that cheering means clapping and she sits down to clap as well… so funny

Ella can clap and stand at the same time but I think the shock of the cheering forces her to her backside

Rowan is practising her drawing and getting better and better each day. She can (with effort) actually make an intended lady look like a lady and apparently this is a good milestone too… so it’s all good

Rowan’s drawing of a man and a lady!!

Bad parenting: got up this morning (after being up and down with Ella since 3.45am I’d like to add!!) giving in to the whinging Ella and decided that I’d dump her in Rowan’s room and let them play for a bit whilst we stayed in bed and er.. had a cuddle . I had been to the bathroom to fetch neurofen for Ella and Rowan had called out to me. I told her that it was still night time (at 6.30am this could be construed as misleading…) and that she needed to rest some more.

So eventually giving in to Ella’s whinging, I took her to Rowan’s room for them to play.. the stench of vomit was really pretty apparent as I opened the door. Rowan has clearly slept in vomit all night. It’s mostly dry but somewhat sticky… matted hair, sticky sheets… yuk yuk yuk.

Poor child.

She called me before and I told her to lie down and rest.

She slept in vomit. For goodness knows how long. I made her sleep in vomit. Not only that I asked her to lie back down in it and rest when she was trying to tell me it was there.

So here I am blogging yet another story of my pathetic parenting… surprisingly upbeat as I have had about 3 hours sleep.

A year today I am getting married and tomorrow my little baby is 1 year old.

Time is flying… but I am having fun …. flying by the seat of my pants

 

Edit*

Update: Ella walked into the lounge from the dining room this afternoon and just walked right across the room to the window… about 8 or 9ft, maybe more… the day before her birthday…

What day is it again..?

Can’t even think what I have or haven’t written about.. things have been busy…

Hang on… I’m off to see…

*******

Ok.. I’m back..

Well… Rowan had her first bad dream on Sunday night I think it was. She woke up crying at 2am about a dog in her room…!

I thought we were lucky to have made it this far tbh as I’ve read and heard in more than one place that bad dreams are quite common from 2yrs onwards.

She was hard to convince and we had to resettle her about 3 times I think. There was light turning on, duvet shaking, cuddly toy reordering, discussions about where the dog could be and whether or not he could be in her room.

She’s not had the bets experiences with dogs I suppose.

She’s never been bitten or anything like that but there has been a few occasion where perhaps she hasn’t met a dog in the bets of circumstances.. once in a field at a golf club where the owner flatly refused to control it and was allowing it to jump up at me whilst I was holding her.. she was nervous and frightened and the rah rah woman was like ‘he’s only trying to be friendly’ and ‘well she needs to get used to dogs’ and an added side dish of ‘it’s good for her to get used to it’

errrr… YAWN!!!

Actually, no… she doesn’t have to get used to it because

a) we don’t have a dog

b) she’s (was) 10 months old &

c) because I said so

Then there was the MIL’s two dogs or insisted on approaching her when she was v poorly with an ear infection at about 16 months old and they - bless them - were over interested in her when she was clearly unsure… MIL had much the same attitude as above.

V. annoying.

V V V.. annoying.

*****

So ….. she’s not ever so sure of dogs… we’ve mentioned before that we should try and find someone with a really friendly one that she could see up close but we don’t really know anyone with dogs apart from MIL and she lives a way away from us.

So… the nightmare… there was much convincing to be done and in the end I knocked her out aided restful sleep with Medised and told her in no uncertain terms that enough was enough. Ella was asleep and that she needed to go to sleep as everyone was very tired. I felt terrible as I heard her crying quietly in her room but she drifted off eventually and I fell back to sleep about 4am.

Oh, the Joy. Not.

Monday at work went… well … blurrily!

Monday evening I was absolutely shattered and went to bed about 10.30.. Rowan woke up at 11.15 with the dog dream and BN had to settle her back down as I was just swaying at the side of the bed. Unfortunately she also woke Ella up this time and I had to go and settle her too…

All over very quickly though and then didn’t hear from them until 6am..

Today…? Feeling mmmmmmuch better !!

No dog nightmares last night. No night waking from the shorter one and they slept till 7.05!! You know it’s good when even that extra 5 minutes is worth mentioning!!

The idea I had was to introduce a character of a friendly dog…

Who did I think of? Well Spot the Dog of course.. everyone knows Spot.. easy to get hold of, well known, lots of little stories to get and lots of toys to buy that she can get familiar with and hopefully get the idea that dogs can be friendly…

Sorry… did I say easy to get hold of?

Er… no. That would be a big. fat. no.

The deal was that Rowan understood we would go and buy her a friendly dog that she could cuddle in bed and then he could help her with dreams etc. Sje was very taken with this idea and got very excited about her new friendly dog.

However.

Spot the dog is now a rare find apparently. Only available on ebay. BN had to trawl the streets of Lincoln and visit every single shop that sells toys in order to find out that Spot is just not something you can get anymore.

Rowan became increasingly confused as to why he kept leaving shops without one apparently. That made me laugh. ‘Daddy where is the friendly dog?’

So.. I have purchased from ebay one rare vintage Spot the Dog Plush Toy for £2.99 and it’s winging its merry little way to me as we speak.. let’s hope it’s actually worth it

Birthday treats… and … a question..

Have just had a late night shower ready for the onslaught of pressure, stress and staffing issues and crap work tomorrow and used my Benefit Balm moisturising thingamy that my lovely friend Sam bought for me for my birthday and contemplating going upstairs to bed to read Harry P. by the light of my mobile phone……

Oh the insanity of babies in the bedroom…. when is safe to move a one year old into the room of a(n) (ever so nearly) 3yr old …?

I am awaiting your genius advice and response…

Please…

No Seriously… I am..!

Way too early.

My kids keep waking up at 6am.

What is this about?

Rowan never woke up before 7.30am and most days in fact she woke up somewhere around  8.30… some days we even had to wake her up.

I appreciate that we were spoilt.

I appreciate that we seemed to have an easier baby in Rowan (although ~I would like to point out for the first 3 months of her life this child seemed to survive on the barest minimum of sleep… unless we were awake.. in which case she could sleep the day away. No problem.

But this new baby, this Ella.

I think she was sent from another place to teach human beings about early rising.

The child needs so little sleep that I could quite cheerfully throttle her.

Last night she didn’t fall asleep at 8pm (usual time) she was sick and she pooed and finally ~ after we sorted everything out  ~she fell to sleep about 9pm.

~~~~~

6am. She’s awake.

She still wakes through the night and she wakes up earlier than either of us. I’m wondering if now’s the time to put her in Rowan’s room and just let them entertain each other at 6am until I feel like rolling out of bed…?

What you think?

Plus. Side note. My week off on holiday from work….. I would appreciate at least one lie in. Just one. It would be great if that could happen.

Thanks.