Center Parcs has given us a festive feeling…

We have just returned from another really lovely break at Center Parcs.

This time, we wanted to experience the Winter Wonderland they do each year, as the first part of our build-up to Christmas.

We had booked plenty of lovely Christmassy activities for Lilly to do, including Christmas pottery painting, a Santa and Snowman hunt and a Frosty the Snowman art session which involved lots of glitter and Christmas stickers!

Lilly enjoying the 'Frosty the Snowman' art session

The weather at Whinfell Forest (Cumbria) was fabulous for the whole week – it only rained the day we left. The rest of the time it was crisp and sunny – perfect.

We were very excited to hear that there was going to be a fireworks display on the second night at 5.30pm – conveniently timed before the girls’ bedtimes, which is usually about 6.30pm. It is only this year that Lilly has recovered from her total and utter terror of fireworks - in fact on November 5th Lilly actually ventured out into the neightbourhood with daddy to admire the fireworks… even the really loud ones! But this was her first proper display.

We had such a tiring day on the Tuesday – starting with pottery painting in the morning. Lilly chose to paint a snowman, a stocking and a Father Christmas shaped ornament for the tree. Technically there should have been a lot of red and white involved… but I think Lilly considered white a little bit too boring to paint much of – so snowman ended up with a red face and Santa’s beard is a very attractive mix of purple and green! But they do look rather lovely all the same – and once again I was so impressed with how delicate and detailed she can be when she tries!

In the afternoon we’d gone swimming – which can be a bit of a military procedure with two little ones at the best of times. Everytime we have taken Isla swimming (on all our three previous visits to Center Parcs with her) she has hated it, where Lilly has always loved it. I think Isla has found it a bit of an overwhelming, noisy and hot experience. And at first when we took her in she was upset again and grizzly. So I sat with her in the baby pool and she sat on the edge with her feet in, playing happily with a bucket and a watering can for a while. Once she had acclimatised to the environment we tried taking her into the big pool – and this time, she actually seemed to quite like it! In fact, after a little while, she was giggling! It was a major breakthrough!

Lilly’s favourite thing about the pool as always was going round the ‘rapids’ and dodging the water sprays (she calls the big one Mr Sprayer and the little one Mrs Sprayer!) She also liked swimming outside – which was rather cold, I must say!

After the swimming we were all exhausted so decided to get a bite to eat in the village square instead of going home for tea and coming out again for the fireworks. It was a great plan (although an expensive one) – I was way too knackered to cook after all that exercise – and the timing was just perfect as the fireworks display started not long after we finished eating.

The display was brilliant - and all set to Christmas music. Watching Lilly’s face was the best thing for me - she was totally in awe of what she was seeing. Isla even tolerated the first few fireworks but once they started getting noisier she got upset and Tony took her back to the lodge. As Lilly and I walked home afterwards in the dark she was talking ten to the dozen about what she’d seen and what a “fantabulous” day she’d had. Such a wonderful thing.

Isla is chuffed after doing a slide all by herself for the very first time!

During the week we did plenty of walking and took in all the soft play areas Whinfell has to offer. Isla climbed up and slid down a slide all by herself for the very first time – and was pleased as punch with herself as a result! It then meant that she got a little bit overconfident and wanted to follow Lilly into the ‘big girls” area of the soft play – which meant that I once again found myself six months preggers and flying down numerous ‘tunnel slides’ and crawling through too-tight spaces to rescue a child who was stuck!

We also took part in the Santa and Snowman hunt which involved following a trail to find a series of Christmas related questions which we had to answer (some of them quite hard: name all of Santa’s reindeers being one of them… we *may* have had to google this…) At the end an elf gave Lilly a little prize for taking part and all the entries were entered into a draw… which we only won! We had a phonecall later on to tell us that Lilly had won a teddy making session and we took her up to the Time Out Clubhouse where she chose a tiger toy, was helped to stuff it and then picked an outfit to dress it in. Being totally mad on soft toys this couldn’t have been better for Lilly!

Lilly cuddles up with 'Amelia', the tiger she stuffed herself after winning the Santa and Snowman Hunt

There were, of course, some stressful moments – Isla is at that stage where she only wants to walk and refuses to go in her pushchair. The only problem being, she doesn’t neccessarily want to walk in the same direction as everyone else and is rather prone to falling! Lilly moaned a lot because we didn’t get her a bike, and is possibly the world’s slowest dawdler at the best of times. And Isla was a little bit scared of the jet planes and Chinook which were practicing their flying overhead… although I loved them, I must say. Hubby wasn’t very happy because the nearest place to park the car while unloading was a fair trek from our lodge. But all in all I would say this trip has to go down in my memory as our best trip to Center Parcs yet – and we’ve now been seven times (Elveden twice, Sherwood once, Whinfell four times)!

But of course the main event of the whole week was saved for the afternoon of our last full day – a trip to see Father Christmas. Wewere all really impressed with it… Father Christmas was very authentic and really lovely – it melted our hearts to see Lilly so happily chatting away to him while so obviously in awe! She asked him for a surprise – and he promised her he had “just the thing in mind” for her, before asking her what Isla would like – “erm, I think a baby toy” Lilly suggested. She was also very eager to tell Father Christmas that she had made a snowglobe with his picture in it at the art workshop. And Father Christmas asked the girls to leave out a carrot for Rudolph on Christmas Eve. Then he gave the girls a gift each – a cuddly horse for Isla and a cuddly cow for Lilly. This AMAZED Lilly as she had been asking for a cuddly cow a few weeks ago – and Isla goes crazy for horses. So it just goes to show: He knows, you know.

Meeting Santa's reindeers

Our other holiday highlights included:

• Isla saying “wack wacks” to all the ducks - first time she’s done this
• Isla’s giggling when she, Lilly and I all went down a ‘tunnel slide’ together
• Isla giggling as we went round the rapids and Lilly’s hysterics at being splashed by “mrs sprayer” as we went
• Lilly’s insistence that she kept seeing a badger “I saw a badger! He was climbing a tree!!” and later, “I saw another badger, on the roof of that house!”
• Discovering a ‘secret’ play area that we never knew was there before – it’s above Cafe Rouge, for anyone who wonders…

So yes, we’re still big Center Parcs fans. And no, this isn’t a sponsored post! And it is so strange to think the next time we visit, there will be three children… yikes! And that this could potentially be the last time we’ll be visiting in term time… ouch!!

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Isla at 14 months

Isla seems to have grown up so much in the two months since her birthday.

It seems that every few days you look at her and think: “You’ve changed since yesterday!”

Her biggest physical development since turning one is that we now have those gorgeous wibbly first steps. She has been walking for a few months now with the aid of her walker, but on our return from holiday last week she took her first proper steps completely on her own. Well, we were chuffed to bits to see them – I don’t think anything quite beats the thrill of seeing them take their first step – but Isla herself was completely over the moon!!! I think she has been frustrated lately trying to walk and talk and when she realised she’d really done it she was hysterically excited, giggling her head off and wanting to do it again again again! Her face was a complete picture of pride and amazement… just a wonderful sight.

Her enthusiasm means that now she is, quite literally, trying to run before she can walk… the more walking practice she does from me to daddy and back again, the more excited she gets, the faster she tries to go, and she completely forgets to try and get her balance in a standing position first – she just throws herself forward!

Her speech is coming along too – most exciting development lately being the word “Lilly” – she pronounces it “Law-Law” and shouts it at Lilly to get her attention, or when she can’t see Lilly and wonders where she is. “Mumma” has returned and is now definitely used in context. There are also a lot of words that we don’t understand, but which seem to mean something to her – on holiday everything was a “bish!” But we also had other words like “Bo” which meant boat. She doesn’t try to say thank you but whenever you (or Lilly) hand her something, such as food or a toy, she will accept it, then pause and give you a huge cheesey grin for a second as a way of acknowledging that she is happy you gave it, before she eats or plays with it.

Food wise she can eat almost whatever Lilly eats now (in fact, probably more as Lilly is going through a very fussy stage). But she has no intention of using a spoon herself – she never tries to grab it from you and is quite content to be fed, Queen of Sheba style. She will do finger foods though, although if you were to offer to put it in her mouth for her, she’d be quite happy with that… lazy bones!

Isla is definitely a daddy’s girl at the moment – she looks to her daddy first for comfort if she bumps herself or is hard done by in some way (usually by having a toy snatched from her by Lilly). She isn’t shy but she can be a bit sensitive around other people outside mummy, daddy and Lilly at first – even grandparents. She just needs five minutes to take in the new surroundings and new faces before she feels comfortable.

And her sense of exploration is definitely being fully exploited – she loves climbing, especially on chairs and up the stairs (which we only allow her to do under close supervision of course!) Like any 14 month old she has no sense of danger whatsoever! Recently she discovered the joys of slides and can’t get enough of them. We have a tiny one in the garden which we’ve had since Lilly was a baby and she will never get tired of whooshing down time after time.

At night she sleeps fairly well – on holiday recently it was world war 3 every bedtime with screaming and creating no matter how tired she seemed. Luckily, since we came back she has started going to sleep without a fuss, and generally sleeps through the night. However, on the occasions when she does wake up – it always takes at least an hour to settle her down again… exhausting! We have stopped giving her milk in the bedroom before putting her down – she now has it downstairs half an hour or so before bedtime with Lilly. And she doesn’t need milk the instant she wakes up either – she has water on waking then milk a little later on like her sister – so I think we can finally do away with those blessed SMA cartons that’ve been costing a small fortune but were so handy to keep by the bed!

I just love seeing Isla grow and develop – between the ages of one and two there is literally never a dull moment. (is there ever?!) Just can’t wait to see what the next couple of months will bring…

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Happy first birthday Isla!

Last week my littlest baby had her first birthday and is, as Lilly tells me, “nearly a big girl”.

We celebrated with a barbecue for family at the weekend, with pass the parcel for the girls. And on Isla’s actual birthday, we took the girls to Windmill Animal Farm in Burscough where Isla enjoyed riding on a little tractor, stroking some animals (although she wasn’t so sure about the calves once they made a noise!), a good climb on the soft play and in the ball pool, and a first taste of chocolate ice cream… with hilarious reaction as she battled to eat it despite it being oh! so cold!

Yep, Isla is a whole 12 months and (obviously) growing fast, learning new tricks and showing us more and more of her personality all the time.

At 1, she has plenty of favourite things. She loves music and will dance the instant she hears any tune, even jingles on adverts. She has a repertoire of funky moves, wiggling her hips and rotatingher shoulders to the music – a sight you could never tire of enjoying!

She likes toys with wheels and is very good at rolling Thomas the Tank engine or other suitable toys along the ground. But her absolute favourite thing at the moment is her Vtech First Steps Baby Walker – she just cannot be without it! She reminds me of Macca Pakka endlessly trekking unsteadily from one side of the room to another. Since she discovered how to turn around, a world of possibilities has opened up! She is even able to push it up and down the garden and will happily do this for quite a while!

Isla also enjoys taking things out of baskets and putting them back in again. She will sit for a very long time taking clothes out of the washing basket then putting them back in again. Hubby is hopefull this is a sign she will be a tidy person (ie not like her mum) but I think it’s a bit early to be so optimistic!

Other things she likes, but doesn’t get to enjoy often are iPhones, remote controls, Wii remotes, that kind of thing! Pressing buttons on my washing machine or oven is another great sport. She also loves to chew shoes – especially her own, which she prefers in her mouth than on her feet…

Sleeping wise – on the whole I suppose you’d say she sleeps fairly well - but we still do have at least a few nights a week where she’ll wake in the night. Sometimes she’ll have some milk and resettle, other times (like on Monday) she wakes and nothing will resettle her, so she ends up being awake for 2 hours (and usually not happy!) We are already getting to the stage when we start to wonder whether we need to think about dropping her down to one nap a day instead of her current one nap after breakfast, one nap after lunch (noooooooo!)

Because of her regular disturbed nights, Operation Shared Bedroom has gone totally on the back burner & Isla is still sleeping in our room. All things being well, we might attempt to move the sisters in together in the not too distant future.

Things Isla doesn’t like: Seeing mummy & daddy on the phone – and don’t even attempt to use the laptop in her presence! She will make her displeasure known – loudly! She also very much dislikes face wipes, nose wipes, nappy changes & the shower being on. Like her sister she has an absolute terror of handriers in public toilets.

Isla is a competent crawler, has a gold medal in pulling herself up to standing, and can walk for a long way with the aid of her walker. This morning was the first time she stood unaided for any length of time – she managed about 20 seconds, which very much impressed me! She hasn’t tried to walk independently yet – we’re gently encouraging her to walk holding our hands at the moment. She can, however, climb stairs – cue major living room reorganisation to create a barrier to block off the bottom step (our stairs are in the living room & are at the wrong angle for a stairgate). Physically, she has always been really strong. If she is pulling or pushing something, you know about it (especially if it is the wardrobe door, and you are standing behind it!)

Isla has a few words in her repertoire – “adda” – dadda; “hi-jah” – hiya; and recently she’s added: “eye-dah” which we think is “Isla”. “Mamamama” first came at about 10 months, then disappeared for a while but seems to be back now. But her current favourite word is a crystal clear “No”, accompanied by head shaking! (Oh help, it’s started already!!!)

Isla loves interacting with her sister. They can play simple games with each other which make them both laugh – splashing in the bath or copying each other nodding their heads or making the same noises, or bouncing on our bed. In the mornings, the girls are always full of smiles when they first see each other – and Isla will even give kisses to her sister when she has stopped giving them out to us adults (when we ask for a kiss, which she used to give out willingly, we now get a shaking head and a “no!”) However, Isla has started to take less kindly to Lilly snatching things off her (which she does all too often) and the other morning lashed out at her a bit with a big shout when Lilly tried pinching something out of her hands. As Tony said: “Come quick, I think they’re having their first row!”

In the last 6 weeks or so she’s taken notice of the tv for the first time. She was in raptures over the baby in the Tellytubby sunshine, and likes laughing at the funny faces the engines pull in Thomas The Tank engine. But mainly she just likes dancing to any theme music.

Food wise, Isla’s favourite things seem to be meals which contain cheese or fish, and it seems mince based dishes are a no-go. At the barbecue party for her birthday, she preferred cucumber to sausages – strange child!

Until the age of about 5 months, we would have described Isla as a very placid and easy baby. I think since then she has realised that she who shouts loudest gets heard, and she is wanting a piece of the action! When she starts going for it, you know about it! And I think the natural frustrations of not being able to talk or completely master walking come out quite often. She is not an overly giggly baby – you have to work hard to get a laugh out of her – and when it comes, it isn’t the typical baby giggle from the Cow & Gate advert – it’s a more grown up sounding laugh that sounds as if it has come out despite itself. It’s a gorgeous sound which we savour on the occasions we do hear it. That’s not to say she isn’t a happy baby – I believe she really is – but I think she is also quite curious and thoughtful. But, safe to say being placid has gone out of the window and I think we now have two feisty sisters on our hands!

Happy birthday to our darling little baby. We can’t imagine our world without you in it. And we know the next 12 months will see you grow and change so very, very much, learning so many new skills and developing into a little girl, not a little baby. We just can’t wait to enjoy every single stage along with way with you. Love you Isla xxx

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Encouraging signs?

Well, here we are at 40+6 and baby has not made her appearance yet!

Yesterday, Tony, Lilly and I went to Chester Zoo for a family outing. We thought we’d try some tempting of fate, and go as far away from the hospital as we dared! (However, as we now have the hospital bag and notes etc in the back of the car permanently, it wasn’t much of a risk I suppose!)

It was a scorching hot day, and the zoo, although busy, wasn’t too hectic. We’ve taken Lilly to the zoo about 5 times in her life so far, and each time she has been more and more enthusiastic (going from “very underwhelmed” on her first visit!!). We told her on Monday we were going to the zoo, so on Tuesday morning she was playing with her Noah’s Ark animals and telling us she wanted to see the elephants!

We did indeed see the elephants, and Lilly also enjoyed the monkeys – best of all though the chimps – we happened to be in their house when they were fed – basically the keeper throws barrels full of fruit and veg through a grill at the top – and it was brilliant watching them all getting really excited about their food and then scoffing it down… Lilly was fascinated! She also liked the giraffes but wasn’t so keen on the penguins this time – there is a viewing window where you can see them swimming underwater but I think she thought they were gigantic fish and found them a bit worrying!

Anyway, it was a very hot day and we did a fair bit of walking, which I wasn’t sure if i’d be up to but managed ok in the end.

On the way home from the zoo I started to be aware of these period pain type feelings coming every so often – not particularly close together and not particularly in any order. I didn’t say anything to Tony until later on that afternoon when we were sitting at home and I realised that these pains were still coming regularly – not hugely strongly and not very close together – but still with that contraction-like style of building up and fading slowly away.

Tony’s face was classic. “Oh my god”, he said. Then: “It’s the England game tomorrow”.

We started to make a note of how often they were coming. At first it was every 25 mins, then 30 mins, then 35. Then 10. Then 10 again. Then 8! Then 10 again. Some where definite contraction type feelings, some were less pronounced, leaving me unsure as to whether they “counted” or not.

We carried on timing them until the end of Big Brother at 11pm then we went to bed. It took me a little while to get to sleep, mainly because of my mind being too awake, rather than any pain or discomfort. Before we went to sleep I said to Tony that I thought I would more likely have a good night’s sleep and wake up tomorrow with no contractions at all…

… and that is exactly what happened!!

Today so far (it is 2pm) i’ve had a few aches and the occasional pain a little bit like last night, but not as strong. But the contractions have not started up again yet.

It could have been “false labour”, or it could be my body gearing up to do something more constructive soon. I hope it’s the latter. Last time, with Lilly, I had contractions at 10 mins apart all night, then dozed off about 6am and when I woke up they had gone. I had nothing all day and then the contractions suddenly came back, much more strongly, at 5pm that night. So hopefully the same will be true here!

Lilly’s at nursery today, so Tony and I have been for a nice lunch followed by a walk around the local area to see if that might kick-start things. If all else fails, I have a consultant appointment tomorrow morning which will include a sweep so hopefully that might get things started if they haven’t already.

And, as the England game kicks off in an hour, I’d say it’s a safe bet that Tony’s not going to miss it, after all!

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Is something happening?

After receiving a jiffy bag stuffed with raspberry leaf tea from my mum (who swears its what got my little sister shifted at 13 days overdue), I drank five cups of it yesterday and then we went out for a curry.

I couldn’t sleep at all last night… what started it was worrying about being induced and not being able to sleep the night before that! Anyway, just before 4am i felt a pain which made me look at the clock to make a note of the time. After that, these sensations which could have been contractions were coming every 10 minutes, fairly regularly, for over two hours.

At about six o’clock, they even started to be about eight or nine minutes apart. But then, after one at 6.15, the next two weren’t quite as strong, and i drifted off to sleep. I woke up an hour or so later, worried that they had disappeared, but i seem to remember feeling one and going back to sleep. I woke up again at just before 9am and woke Tony up to tell him. The feeling still seemed to be there, but nowhere near as strong as in the night.

I’m now up, had my breakfast and shower. They seem to have subsided for now. We’re going to get ourselves out and walking and see if we can kick start them.

Watch this space…

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