Chair and a half

This rocking cradle chair looks incredibly. Via ParentDish.

I do like Saturday mornings

Right now I’m at a bit of a loose end and it’s very strange. Saturday mornings are now the time in the week when I get a bit of time to myself, apart from needing to feed Ifor every few hours. Most of the morning is spent in a steaming hot bath. The bath is currently the only place I get to read and so books are taking a while. I’ve spent most of the past couple of months reading Life After Birth by Kate Figes and finding it really interesting.

This particular Saturday morning is especially lovely as I’m rather well rested. Ifor slept through the night for the first time. I’m sure we’ve still got plenty of broken nights to come but just one full nights sleep is OK for me for now.

More fresh air needed

I have been getting out to our local park everyday, and yesterday even managed two parks in a day with a visit to wonderful Greenwich Park in the afternoon. However, as someone who used to get a lot of walking in before baby, this just isn’t enough greenery for me. There are plans to get a baby backpack, but he’s a little too little at the moment so we need walks that the pushchair can cope with. It’s actually really tricky to find information on good walks in green places that are accessible.

Pushchair walks is a lovely site with the walks listed being of quite a reasonable distance, lots of added extras in addition to the walks, product reviews, shop and more.

Walks with buggies is a great idea but the site is sadly very empty of walks at the moment.

A book of pushchair accessible walks in Kent is also rumoured to have been recently published but I’m struggling to track it down. I think we’ll end up planning our own routes along paths and bridleways and keeping our fingers crossed that we don’t get stuck with stiles.

Ouch

First immunisations today. I was a bit shocked by the size of the needles, I’d have been worried if it was for me but for a baby it looked quite scary. However Ifor took it all in his stride and I’m sure has forgotten it all by now. One mother in the waiting room was there with her mother in tow. The grandma was there to take the baby in to see the nurse as the mum was too frightened of needles to be in there, that’s quite a phobia.

The other ouch of parenthood is the constant expense. I read something the other day that said that babies cost £8000 in their first year. We’re trying to not spend anywhere near that much, which I love ebay and freecycle so much.  There are some silly baby products out there to spend your cash on, the tummy tub is a case in point. Babies do look cute sat in the tub, but at the end of the day it is still £20 for a bucket.

The new pace of life

Before your baby is born everyone always tells you how your life will never be the same again. Of course it won’t be. I expected the mayhem that comes with a baby, but I hadn’t really understood how much life would be governed by such a relentless routine, based around Ifor’s need to feed every three or so hours. It makes it quite tricky getting things done, although getting him into a proper timed routine has been fantastic; we both know what is supposed to happen when, although it does have a certain degree of flexibility to it - we’re not doing a Gina Ford type system here.

I’m currently exhaused and ready for bed but I need to wait up for another 3/4 hour to get a final feed into the little chap tonight - it’s the best way to ensure I only get woken up once in the night and thus keep a grip on reality.

This article from G2 was the talk of our NCT get together on Saturday. Apparently we get three hours less sleep than our mothers because we spend so much time stressing about our babies. Elsewhere in the Guardian Leo Hickman transcribed the dramatic arrival of his baby, it’s worth a read if you like hearing other people’s birth stories (although I think the world is split into two distinct camps on this one).

Ifor

 

Mama Snowdrift

I’m back from the abyss and with a baby in tow. I’ve now got much less time for blogging but much more of a desire to write stuff down than I have had for months. As a warning though things are likely to be a bit more baby focussed here from now on.

I don’t feel like recounting my birth story as I’ve told it enough times in the past 6 weeks - enough to work through my feelings about it but also so many that I actually feel quite detached from the event when I tell the tale of my 2 day labour that ended in a crash c section.

So the focus of my life now is a little bundle of baby boy, who currently tucked up in his baby bjorn (the best £3.20 I’ve ever spent on ebay) asleep on my chest, which gives me free hands for typing, drinking cups of tea etc.

Suddenly December

Life has been a bit tumultuous, hence the quite time here. Christmas officially starts for me this week, with my first Christmas party of the year.

One paltry link but it is the saddest dog story of the year - Poor blind puppy.

Watching

I’ve sen red kites in the Chilterns before but today, when we were out walking around Henley, we saw four different groups of kites. The first group were actually on the outskirts of the town, hovering over suburban gardens. Then, as we walked further into the country we came across more groups, circling over trees and hovering over fields. G spotted this one, on the top of a tree in a churchyard, just watching.

It’s the first time I’ve had the chance to have a close look at a red kite, not flying around. If only I’d had some binoculars with me.

umdenken umm

The lovely photo newletter photojojo is fairly new to me but I’m coming to rely on it a source of interesting and amusing little photo related thingys.  The latest issue has the 10 second tealight photo holder, which is a cunning little creation.

The tealight photo holder is one of a number of bizarre creations at umdenken. Some are pure genius, some pure comedy and some quite unfathomable, like bauchschmucker, which babel fish translated as ‘more belly-neatly’.