Thursday 19 April 2012

Cycling, Foxes & School

On Easter Sunday I was determined that we'd head out as a family on our bikes. The easiest place to cycle around here in complete safety is around Dorney Lake, where the 2012 Olympics rowing events will take place, it's very near Windsor.
I fitted our new bike carrier to the spare wheel on the back of our car, and loaded Olga's new bike and my bike on to, most likely going beyond the recommended weight limit, but after gingerly driving for a few minutes it was clear that whilst the bikes were moving ever-so-slightly, they weren't going to fall off.  Lara's bike went in the boot - it'll be an interesting challenge to fit the dogs in the car when the time comes that everyone - them included - head off for a cycle ride. That's for another time, though. This trip was about getting Olga comfortable cycling with Danny strapped to her in the BabyBjorn, and using our Trail-Gator to hook Lara's bike up to mine.
Happily it all worked out really well, and despite the weather the adventure was a complete success, and I can't wait for some better weather so we can explore further afield. Eventually we will try with the dogs attached, you can buy special fittings for attaching dogs to bikes, using a spring to dampen any sudden movement they might make. We might actually get a basket for Jackson, and he can have a free ride. Mishka would be quite happy trotting alongside me, I think, though I will practise without Lara's bike attached first!
Here's some footage from the afternoon:




The other big news after Easter was that we found out Lara has got a place at our first choice school for September, Chepping View Primary School. We're assuming at the moment that we won't have sold the house by then, and that Lara will be going there. I'm excited already about buying the school uniform she'll need! We need to find out her exact start date so we can book a holiday just beforehand, making the most of the last time we can go on hols before paying the school-holidays-rip-off-premium prices!

Finally, we noticed last week that the local fox has given birth to two cubs, and they spend some time each morning playing in next-door's garden. Altogether now, awwwwwwwww:

Saturday morning heaven

 A quick post that should have been uploaded on Saturday morning....

This is what Saturday mornings should be like!

5 week report

Another 10 days fly past, everything seems to be moving so quickly at the moment, weeks just whizz by. Between the normal routine of Lara and the dogs, and work, we obviously have the extra fun invoved with Danny, I'm back working full time, and we're still trying to sell the house (we've had a couple of second viewings, some rather disrespectful offers refused, and another second viewing coming up on Saturday morning), but there are still only 24 hours in a day, just as before.
Good old Evernote to the rescue, I note down things I should blog about after they've happened, so let me go through my list, in no particular order.
OK, Danny first, of course. We had our last visit from the Health Visitor on Tuesday, and Danny is weighed in at 5.02kg at 5 weeks. This puts him firmly on the 75th percentile, and he has definitely grown into himself now; we've already retired some of his clothes that he's grown out of, and he's onto size 2 pampers. His jaundice is almost gone now, his eyes are properly white (and blue!), though he does seem to have a small hernia. His gunky left eye now seems to be almost back to normal, with very little if any yellow discharge after sleeps.
Here's a good way to compare how he's filled out, a photo from when he's four days old, and one when he's four weeks old:
Other notable Danny-related things - last Wednesday when he was just under a month old, we had our first go at me feeding him from a bottle. Olga is expressing at a rate that makes me think we'll need to buy a chest freezer to keep it all in, so it seemed sensible to have a go at using some of the resource. He took it very well, and it let me catch up on some recorded TV while Olga grabbed some well earned uninterrupted sleep. I got up on Sunday morning with him at 6am and took him downstairs to repeat the process, and it worked well then, so we've agreed to make that Sunday morning plan a regular thing, so Olga gets a lie-in, and Danny and I cann watch Match of the Day, or a Grand Prix as it was on Sunday, with a bottle of milk.
Just after his 5th week anniversary we decided we'd try him sleeping in his own room. It's right next door to us, and between a monitor and an infrared IP camera, we can see and hear him. That worked really well, so he's officially moved out of our room now. Last night, his second in his room, he slept uninterrupted for six and a half hours between feeds, a personal best by some two hours. This might be something to do with the Infacol we've started him on before feeds, to help him with his windy problems - he's been quite a grunter after feeds, straining a lot, and Infacol seems to be helping.
He continues to be erratic in his feeding patterns, he can go 3 to 4 hours during the day between feeds, but then the next day he'll feed almost hourly. We're not too bothered about it at the moment, he can feed when it suits him, though we'll start to try and get him into a routine of longer feeds with longer gaps between soon.
It must be a second child thing, but I've realised I've not taken too many new photographs of him in the past two weeks - I will resolve that before the next post about him! Here's one from this morning, but it's mainly about Olga multitasking!:

I think I'll do a new post about Lara and other things...