Well, it’s been a little while since I last blogged. There just doesn’t seem to have been any spare time anywhere the past few weeks to just spend half an hour with the computer… whenever there might have been a chance I’ve been so tired i’ve just been napping instead!
So, just to bring things up to date… We have, of course, been getting ready for Christmas the last few weeks. We had our Christmas tree up in the last weekend of November as we’re all really excited about this year and couldn’t wait! Lilly really understands everything this year, as she is nearly 3, and knows all about Father Christmas coming and what to expect. She isn’t frightened of Father Christmas anymore, and even spoke to him when she bumped into him at the local garden centre with her Nanna the other week. She has watched Peppa Pig’s Christmas more times than you can imagine, and now has a fixation with the fact that she wants a yoyo for Christmas – which is what Peppa Pig asks for. When she met Father Christmas, she told him she wanted “a yoyo, some scissors, and a baby toy for Isla”, and all from the top of her own head!
Winter arriving has also seemed to bring with it slightly better sleeping from Lilly. For the last two weeks or more, she has been trying very hard to sleep through the night, even managing it on a couple of occasions (Hallelujah!) We’re not quite sure where it’s come from, but I suspect it is partly motivated by Father Christmas watching and partly by a morning cup of hot chocolate, which she only gets if she’s been good the night before. At bedtime, she quite often tells me: “I sleep all night mummy, and then I have chocolate milk to keep my tummy warm, and for a special treat!” I don’t care what’s done it, I just hope it is a permanent improvement! She has still had the occasional night where she’s had to have somebody sleep in with her – the other night it was the wind whistling at the windows which woke her up and scared her – but at other times, even when she wakes, she is determined to go back to sleep and “sleep all night”.
It’s funny because the start of her better sleeping coincided with her being poorly. A couple of Friday nights ago, she was sick in the night a couple of times. Later in the week she had a bad chest infection complete with vicious cough, which needed antibiotics.
Unfortunately, whatever made her sick didn’t want to stop there, and a few days later, Isla was also being sick. The first time was at the end of her morning nap – when we went up to see her, her face was covered in it… she was crying like she was terrified, poor thing… awful. It seemed to only last a day and she remained in really good spirits throughout, but then, 6 days later, it came back – this time it seemed more like full blown gastroenteritis… and although she was over the worst of it in a day, two days later – you guessed it – Tony and I also had it. Urgh. All I can say is, if the girls felt anywhere near as awful as we did when we had it, they were very much braver than we were!!
Illness has also had a knock on effect on weaning, which really seems to have stalled. Since being poorly, Isla hasn’t been too keen on food and even the ones she had previously tried and seemed to quite like – carrot & banana – she doesn’t seem keen on anymore. Carrot got a full blown “yeuck!” face and banana didn’t fare much better. Parsnip has fared slightly better, but if there is even so much as the teeniest tiny-est lump (by which I mean a very soft piece, less than quarter the size of a pea), so much retching ensues I’m terrified she’s choking to death. In the last few days I haven’t given her any solids at all, and yesterday it was back to just one serving of porridge at breakfast. But I wouldn’t say her eating is particularly enthusiastic. She likes sitting in the highchair and getting plenty of one-on-one attention, but I get the impression she likes chewing on the spoon more than she likes eating the stuff on the spoon. We will just have to take things slowly and see if her enthusiasm builds I suppose.
And of course, it is only a matter of weeks now until the world is jumbled up all over again when I go back to work – I have now formally applied to do reduced hours, which will mean I will get two afternoons a week at home with the girls. And it is not so much the actual going back to work which worries me – I have done it before and know it won’t be too bad – it’s the logistics of how on earth I actually leave this house early enough in the morning to get there on time!! Doing the reduced hours means that, at least on two of the days, I need to be at work by 8am. It is 45mins drive away, plus ice scraping time. I am already imagining in my head the amount of military precision and night-before planning that will have to be done if I am to achieve this goal!
I’m also nervous about how Isla will take to nursery – generally I am sure all will be fine, Lilly was the same age when she started and never batted an eyelid. Isla is very laid back and accepting, so should be ok, but she also seems quite sensitive. I took the girls to a soft play place last week and had them both in the baby area where Lilly was enjoying the slide while Isla was looking at the other babies and toys. All of a sudden it all seemed to get a bit much for her and she started crying. I took her out for a while but when we went back in later, the same thing happened again. So I hope she will be ok with the bright and busy surroundings of nursery. Fingers crossed.
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I’m back completely in the swing of things at work, and on the two afternoons I have off a week I am trying to make sure that the girls and I are doing something nice – Storytime at the library, Messy Monsters, Soft Play, the park, or just some at home painting or cake making.
