It's been a hectic week here this week, I've been busy at work, and Lara's been keeping us on our toes at home. She's not had a great week for sleeping, but I think much of that is to do with the temperature and humidity at night, it has been hard to know what to dress her in while she's sleeping. I even took her for a drive on Wednesday night to get her off to sleep, which worked for an hour or two, but she still ended up coming to bed with us. We worked out last night that if we put her musical mobile on when we put her to bed, it calms her down, as she normally starts to cry as soon as we put her to bed; then once she's calm we put her on her side and sshh her, and that worked last night, as we often see her sleeping on her side, so figure it's OK.
Next week will be interesting, as I've been ordered to Houston at short notice, so I'm flying out on Monday morning and planning to return on Friday morning. I'd hoped to arrange a dog-walker to help Olga with Mishka, but as I write I'm waiting for a call-back. Olga of course insists she'll cope with Lara and Mishka!
Well, it's the end of the week, Pietersen has just got himself out in the 3rd test when he was going on perfectly well, so OLga, Lara & I are going to retire to the pub for a drink!
Friday, 1 August 2008
Monday, 28 July 2008
Weekend Report
We made the most of the weather this weekend; Olga made the summerhouse presentable on Saturday while I built some steps into the lower slopes of the back garden, making it possible to get up into the garden without worrying about sliding back down again - important when you've got a baby in one arm and a pram under the other!
I'd spent the morning getting car MOT'd in Bicester, I'd left it till the last minute as usual to sort it out, and it would expire on Saturday. I'd booked the appointment online for 9am, I got there right on time, but the MOT tester was stuck in traffic, and still hadn't appeared by 10.15. After a rather threatening call from his manager, he turned up at 10.30 for my appointment. The car failed on the two front tyres, which wasn't a surprise at all, they wouldn't look out of place in the pits at the British Grand Prix, they were that bald. Anyway, by the time we'd put the spare on one side & I'd bought a new tyre for the other side, I left at 12.30. This was a pain as I'd planned to get a lot done at home that day.
Happy 70th Birthday to dad yesterday! It was a lovely day, and I waited until the sensible hour of 10am before annoying the neighbours by turning on the jet washer we've borrowed from Chris Rose and pointed it at the lower decking. This took two hours, and was possibly the dullest two hours of my life! The only consolation was you could see the impovement straight away, and there were times of excitement when I disturbed a family of frogs and they gave me a heart attack.
We'd just about finished tidying up (me outside, Olga inside while Lucy looked after Lara) when Simon and Arong arrived, then Ant'n'Bec and Eve came and we all spent a nice afternoon on the top decking with a few drinks and the BBQ. I'd set the hammock up and Anton and Eve tried it out for size:
After everyone had left we made the effort to tidy up and just about got ourselves relaxed and sat down in time for Midsomer Murders.
I'd spent the morning getting car MOT'd in Bicester, I'd left it till the last minute as usual to sort it out, and it would expire on Saturday. I'd booked the appointment online for 9am, I got there right on time, but the MOT tester was stuck in traffic, and still hadn't appeared by 10.15. After a rather threatening call from his manager, he turned up at 10.30 for my appointment. The car failed on the two front tyres, which wasn't a surprise at all, they wouldn't look out of place in the pits at the British Grand Prix, they were that bald. Anyway, by the time we'd put the spare on one side & I'd bought a new tyre for the other side, I left at 12.30. This was a pain as I'd planned to get a lot done at home that day.
Happy 70th Birthday to dad yesterday! It was a lovely day, and I waited until the sensible hour of 10am before annoying the neighbours by turning on the jet washer we've borrowed from Chris Rose and pointed it at the lower decking. This took two hours, and was possibly the dullest two hours of my life! The only consolation was you could see the impovement straight away, and there were times of excitement when I disturbed a family of frogs and they gave me a heart attack.
We'd just about finished tidying up (me outside, Olga inside while Lucy looked after Lara) when Simon and Arong arrived, then Ant'n'Bec and Eve came and we all spent a nice afternoon on the top decking with a few drinks and the BBQ. I'd set the hammock up and Anton and Eve tried it out for size:
After everyone had left we made the effort to tidy up and just about got ourselves relaxed and sat down in time for Midsomer Murders.
Thursday, 24 July 2008
Lara's watching her figure
Olga took Lara to be weighed today, and as we suspected, she's "only" 17lbs 4oz. This has put her down from the 75th percentile, where she's always been, to the 50th. This is still perfectly OK, and isn't a surprise, Lara's not been eating as much as we'd hoped when we've been feeding her. It's certainly not been enough to maintain her rate of weight gain that she had when she was only on Mumjuice, but it's necessary that we persevere with the jars and the carrots, strawberries, raspberries, kiwi, courgette, peach and whatever else we've been feeding her for the past 6 weeks or so, topped up with Mumjuice. I fed her yesterday afternoon while Olga was having her hair done, and Lara chugged down a little pot of yoghurt in no time, although the half-jar of fish mornay was more of a struggle.
The nurse also suggested that Lara's burning more calories now that she's more active than she's been before, which would certainly contribute to the slower weight gain.
I reckon she's just caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and has gone on a diet.... ;-)
The nurse also suggested that Lara's burning more calories now that she's more active than she's been before, which would certainly contribute to the slower weight gain.
I reckon she's just caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and has gone on a diet.... ;-)
School? Waste of time!
I got an early bus yesterday morning (pretty much on time!) and there were quite a few kids on their way to school in Marlow on it. There was one seat available for me, but a girl had her school bag on it, I politely asked her if I could sit down and she reluctantly relented. Her friends were trying to find out how she was, as she seemed very quiet and sad, despite this being the last day of term. Anyway, once she'd gotten off in Marlow, two lads behind me started talking about her; their chat was something like this:
Boy one: "Anna looks sad, what's up with her?"
Boy two: "Oh, she got dumped."
BO: "Uh, right, OK."
BT: "Yeah, he was from Swindon or summit."
BO: "Where is that?"
BT: "I don't know. Miles away. It's on the coast I think."
These lads were 13 or 14! What are they teaching at school?! It made me wonder if I knew where Swindon was when I was that age, and I probably didn't, but then again I lived oop north, and I knew where Halifax was, or Preston, or Chester, all of which are about the same distance from Bury as Swindon is from Marlow or High Wycombe. Honestly, kids!!
I'm going to make sure Lara always knows where Swindon is - although I might not encourage her ever to go there ;-)
Boy one: "Anna looks sad, what's up with her?"
Boy two: "Oh, she got dumped."
BO: "Uh, right, OK."
BT: "Yeah, he was from Swindon or summit."
BO: "Where is that?"
BT: "I don't know. Miles away. It's on the coast I think."
These lads were 13 or 14! What are they teaching at school?! It made me wonder if I knew where Swindon was when I was that age, and I probably didn't, but then again I lived oop north, and I knew where Halifax was, or Preston, or Chester, all of which are about the same distance from Bury as Swindon is from Marlow or High Wycombe. Honestly, kids!!
I'm going to make sure Lara always knows where Swindon is - although I might not encourage her ever to go there ;-)
Tuesday, 22 July 2008
Weekend with the grandparents
We went up to Radcliffe this weekend to see my mum and dad. The weather did its best to keep us indoors, doing its usual thing of windy and / or wet on Saturday and Sunday, then lovely on Monday, just as we were coming home.
Lara showed off her eating ability, she's definitely eating more than before from jars. Being (almost) in Lancashire, she had to have Lancashire Hot Pot, and that went down well, but not as quickly as her Mango Surprise dessert, which seems to be Number One Jar at the moment. She does also polish off the odd boiled carrot stick, courgette, strawberry and raspberries for good measure.
I've put some photos in the New Photos bit on the left of the blog, and here's a little video of her enjoying Hot Pot - I know she seems to pull a face after the first mouthful, but see how she comes back for more!
We had some fun and games on the way home - we stopped off at a retail park in Bury, Lara was asleep, so we went in turns to have a look round the shops, with one of us staying with the Lara in the car. I'd left the aircon on (the weather had perked up) and this drained the battery totally flat during the hour or so we were there. A quick call to Mum revealed they had two - yes, two - sets of jump leads, so after checking though the Honda's and Mum's Toyota handbooks, we took deep breaths and connected the plugs in the right order, and the car started first time. The handbooks both warned of "dangers of explosions" so Olga had taken Lara for a stroll to a safe distance from the cars!
Other than that we had an easy drive back, just under 3 and a half hours, and had the BBQ at our house that the weather hadn't let us have at Mum's.
Lara showed off her eating ability, she's definitely eating more than before from jars. Being (almost) in Lancashire, she had to have Lancashire Hot Pot, and that went down well, but not as quickly as her Mango Surprise dessert, which seems to be Number One Jar at the moment. She does also polish off the odd boiled carrot stick, courgette, strawberry and raspberries for good measure.
I've put some photos in the New Photos bit on the left of the blog, and here's a little video of her enjoying Hot Pot - I know she seems to pull a face after the first mouthful, but see how she comes back for more!
We had some fun and games on the way home - we stopped off at a retail park in Bury, Lara was asleep, so we went in turns to have a look round the shops, with one of us staying with the Lara in the car. I'd left the aircon on (the weather had perked up) and this drained the battery totally flat during the hour or so we were there. A quick call to Mum revealed they had two - yes, two - sets of jump leads, so after checking though the Honda's and Mum's Toyota handbooks, we took deep breaths and connected the plugs in the right order, and the car started first time. The handbooks both warned of "dangers of explosions" so Olga had taken Lara for a stroll to a safe distance from the cars!
Other than that we had an easy drive back, just under 3 and a half hours, and had the BBQ at our house that the weather hadn't let us have at Mum's.
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