BABYWEARING NEWBIE

One of the things I had always wanted to do when I had a baby was to babywear so when I found out I was carrying twins first time around I was quite gutted about having to abandon the idea.  I am sure seasoned babywearers will tell me it is possible, but at the time I didn't have a clue where to start and I just wouldn't have been confident enough.

This time around I knew from the outset that it was something that I really wanted to do.  My go to on this subject has therefore been this post of Beth's and the Natural Mamas Forum.  Natural Mamas is a fabulous resource for babywearing and all things attachment parenting so I got some really useful information from some in the know mamas.  I also found out that there are a couple of local sling meets so am hoping to get along to one soon, although I feel like a bit of a fraud as I really am a babywearing virgin.

For those of you in the know you will see that we have started with a stretchy, specifically a Moby in our case, which I bought pre-loved from a mama at Natural Mamas and I plan to move on to a woven when Teeny is bigger and I feel a bit more accomplished in the babywearing stakes. 

Whilst I am very new to babywearing I do have to say that I absolutely love wearing Teeny and it feels very natural to me.  I am trying to do it whenever I can so that I become more confident about it, not to mention that it makes walking with two three year olds or just popping into the shop for something much easier than having to think about a pushchair. 

My husband made all of the right noises about babywearing whilst I was pregnant, although I have to say I wasn't all that convinced that he would give it a go once Teeny arrived.  I must now hold my hands up and say that I was very wrong.  No sooner had I worn Teeny on his first babywearing adventure to have him registered than my husband that very same afternoon insisted on wearing Teeny for his very first trip around Ikea!

I really hope that our love for babywearing continues and that this is just the start of the journey.  My only real concern at this stage is that the purchasing of babywearing paraphernalia could, like the purchasing of cloth nappy paraphernalia, become quite addictive if I allow it to so I imagine that I will have to exercise some willpower and reign myself in at times!

TEENY IS ALL OFFICIAL

So today we went to register Teeny while A&D were at preschool and he is now all official.

We had to make an appointment to register Teeny (which we didn't need to do with A&D) and this meant that we were in and out pretty quickly and had an hour or so to kill before having to head back to pick up A&D from pre-school.  Being the party animals that we are we decided to go for hot chocolate and a cake at Carluccio's (purely because it was the nearest place we could think of) which was lovely as we don't get an hour out on our own very often (ok so I know we weren't strictly on our own, but Teeny slept so it felt like we were).  However what was even more lovely was that because we had mentioned that we had been to register Teeny the waitress brought us over a couple of raspberry tarts in a bag to take home with us ON THE HOUSE!  I may seem overly excited by this, but I rarely win anything or get bargains or anything for free so I was overly enthusiastic about this.

On the subject of making children official I thought it would be fitting to post a picture of A&D on the day they became official (18.12.2008)

BROTHERLY LOVE

D is going to be the best big brother ever.  

From the moment he found out I was pregnant he always wanted Teeny to be a boy so he was beside himself when he arrived.  As soon as Nanny Dot brought him home to meet his baby brother a couple of hours after he was born he went upstairs and brought down Teddy Weddy (I have no idea how he acquired that name) for his brother and that bear has been sat at the top of Teeny's cot ever since.

MINI MOMMY

A absolutely adores her new baby brother and will take every opportunity she can to kiss and cuddle him, sometimes a little too enthusiastically.  However she is less than impressed when she is trying to concentrate on something like a book or a jigsaw and he starts to cry; it is at this point that she promptly tells me "Mommy, he needs booby."  Even at almost three and a half years old it seems that she knows how magic that stuff is.

TEENY'S FIRST BATH

Here is my little squidge during and after his first proper bath at 1 week old .  Yum yum! 

Posting these pictures of Teeny prompted me to go away and find photographs of A&D's first bath only to realise that I don't have the first bath as they had them in hospital,

I did, however, find these pictures of them post bath on Christmas Day 2008, age 3 weeks; A is to the left and D is to the right.

HERO WORSHIP

TEENY AS YOU HAVE NEVER SEEN HIM BEFORE AT 39+4

Brand spanking new!

Just a quick post to say that Teeny was born at home in water on Sunday 29 April 2012 at 13.52 weighing 7lb 6oz. 

He is absolutely delicious and I want him to stay squidgy forever.

TEENY'S BUMP SHOOT AT 37+0

My sister in law not only has a knack for making and raising beautiful children, but also for taking beautiful photographs and, being the lovely person that she is, she spent the day with us a few weeks ago taking some photographs of A, D and Teeny.  Oh and of course of me!

I had already seen a few of them, but today she gave me a disc of her favourites and I am absolutely blown away by the end result so I just HAD to share a few.

Looking at these photographs now and seeing how lovely they are (I don't often say that about photographs of myself) I can't believe  that I almost didn't have them taken.  Yes, believe it or not in typical pregnant and PCOS woman style I was feeling so hormonal and horrible the night before I actually almost cancelled and was then gently persuaded otherwise.

So Karen thank you so much for being so patient with me and for making such wonderful memories for us all to cherish not only of my pregnancy, but also of A & D's love for me because they have been such hard work lately that sometimes I forget!

CHILDREN ARE WONDERFUL JUDGES OF CHARACTER

Today, we (the children and I) went to invited ourselves to my in laws to have lunch and whilst there my lovely nephew dropped my father in law back after playing golf with him. 

Despite Will being 22 A&D have always loved him and D absolutely worships the ground he walks on which I am more than happy about; he is a wonderful example of how I would like my son to grow up.  I think that part of D's hero worship stems from the fact that he seems to be constantly surrounded by girls or women; the majority of A&D's little friends seem to be girls and my husband and I have seven sisters between us so whenever there are men or boys present he gravitates towards them.  

A&D haven't seen as much of Will recently as they normally would have because he has moved into his own place and has been working very hard, but boy did they make up for today and to their (and my) sheer delight he was more than happy to oblige.  He is genuinely good with them and happy to spend time with them.  It is never forced or put on and he has the patience of a saint when it comes to my children.  I think I was sat there with a permanent smile on my face the whole time.  (Apart from when I was cursing myself for not having a camera with me, however I did subsequently manage to find these pictures of hero worship that my sister in law took in September 2010). 

In those moments, as I watched them play today, I felt so blessed that despite the 19 year age gap they will always love him and he them and I have no doubt that he will always look out for them.

Will, thank you for being the wonderful man that you are and for always finding time for us and to my beautiful sister in law thank you for raising children with such beautiful morals and values. 

Love you all.

TEENY AT 36+3 READY TO PARTY WITH THEIR BROTHER AND SISTER

We were going to the 60th birthday party of the father of a friend of mine here.  A&D rarely get to go to "grown up parties" because they are used to being in bed and asleep by 7.30 and so just get too tired, but I had really wanted to celebrate Andrew's birthday with him and we didn't have a babysitter so I relented given that we would be taking the car and I wouldn't be drinking anyway.

I am really proud to report that A&D behaved beautifully and had a ball.  You couldn't get A off the dance floor and she was very pleased to be the only one there so you can imagine her disgust when we came back from the bathroom to find it full and she was having to lurk at the edge.  To say that she was put out was an understatement!

BABY GIRL LOVES HER DADDY TOO

I love to watch my husband with our children; the love that they have for each other makes my heart melt.

MY BEAUTIFUL BOYS

Seriously, how did I get so damn lucky?  I am truly blessed.

(A LITTLE BIT NAKEY) TEENY AT 34+5

Apologies for the exposure of flesh, but I do love my bump and it won't be here for much longer.

Oh and as an aside my little lady looks so grown up.  Where has my baby girl gone?  Time is just going too quickly.

FEELING DESPONDENT

I will post properly when I can see through the tears, but basically after fairly smooth sailing regarding my request for a home birth we seem to have hit a bit of a brick wall due to staffing shortages at the local midwife led unit which means they get the on call midwives and I am expected to go there if there isn't a midwife for me. 

I can't just sit on my hands and wait and hope for the best once the time arrives because that isn't good for my stress levels so it seems that my only option is to fight which is really not what I should have to do at all and is definitely not what I need or want to be doing with six weeks to go!

TEENY AT 31+3

So here is Teeny at 31+3 (with much needed haircut at long last). 

Seriously though where is the time going?  It is funny how different a second pregnancy is to a first.  As excited as I am and as much as I love being pregnant there is definitely no time to romanticise about it like you can the first time round.  Two pre-schoolers just do not allow for that.  Although they more than make up for it with their heart melting requests to kiss the baby or cuddle it and their little tales of what they are going to show or teach the baby when it comes. 

Long may the love continue.

LIEBSTER BLOG AWARD - LIKE I GOT AN AWARD!

My little ol' blog was set up originally just for my kids and for little ol' me really so I feel very excited that the lovely Helen at Raindrops 'n Roses has given me this award.  For all things domestic goddess like you should definitely check out her blog.  I just do not know where she finds the time!

I do have to say though that I did laugh at her reference to me being calm.  That is the swan effect my lovely (calm and serene on the surface, paddling like mad underneath to stay afloat).

So back to my lovely shiny award. 

 The Liebster Award is given to bloggers who have up to 200 followers in the hope it will bring them new followers and friends. The tradition is that it is then passed on to five other bloggers to help them too.  This is where I am going to struggle as I just don't follow enough people, not really sure why that is to be honest.  Mental note to self to find some more lovely blogs to follow.  I am sure that there are plenty of them on here.

I am told that to accept the award, you need to:

1. Link back to the person's blog who gave you the award and thank them.

2. Post the award on your blog.

3. Give the award to five fellow bloggers who inspire you.  

4. Leave a comment on their blogs to let them know.

So onto the important bit and selecting five blogs to give the award to.  I think I am going to reserve judgement on this for now and go away and find myself  some more blogs to indulge in as there aren't many that I follow and most of the ones that I do have lots of followers anyway.  I should, however, say that if Helen hadn't given the award to me she would clearly be one of them.  I just adore all of her crafting, but also all of the lovely things she seems to find time to do with her girls.  She really inspires me to delve into my depths and search out that little bit of domestic goddessness.

On a final note I must just give Beth @ My Name is Beth this award because hers was the blog that got me  thinking about blogging.  I really enjoy finding out what she has been up to with her little man and we are similar in some ways with our approach to parenting, except that she seems more comfortable in her own parenting skin than me so I seek out inspiration from her blog.  I bet you didn't know that did you lovely so thank you.

I'll get back to this in a few days with the rest of my awards.

TEENY AT 28+2

Ok so still in need of that haircut mentioned in the last picture, but here is an updated bump picture taken last Friday.

I am so pleased to say that, despite having to go in for a trace last Tuesday as Teeny was being unusually lazy, Teeny is doing really well and yes you guessed it as soon as I arrived at the hospital for said trace they were dancing around like there was no tomorrow.  Although I did feel very reassured having had what the midwife referred to as "a beautiful trace".

I also had my 28 week check last week and everything was as perfect as it can be at this stage.  Nothing showing in my urine, bloods came back lovely, bump measuring 28.5, heard a lovely heartbeat and Teeny is head down (for now).  I had nobody to have A&D so had to take them with me which I wasn't looking forward to, but I was really glad that it happened that way.  They do have their moments and I tend to focus on those a lot, but I was so proud of them when we went to see the midwife; they behaved beautifully and were really interested in everything that was going on.  They loved hearing Teeny's heartbeat and stood with their heads peering over the bed while the midwife found it and measured my fundal height.  I even had to explain to my inquisitive daughter the reason why I had to give the midwife a urine sample which was interesting.

Now I just hope that all stays well and uncomplicated because, as much as I am trying to stay level headed and sensible about it all, I am finding myself getting extremely excited at the prospect of a home birth and I can see me being quite heartbroken if it doesn't go according to plan.  Yes I know that in the grand scheme of things all that really matters is that Teeny gets here safe and sound, but a home birth is so important to us as a family especially as we really want A&D to be involved too.  On that note what really surprises me is that they are not in the least bit freaked out by watching women in labour on the TV, but then again why would they be I suppose?  They are innocent children and I guess that because I haven't made a fuss and have answered whatever questions they have had honestly (but in simple terms) it is just normal to them.  We also have a beautifully illustrated children's story book called Hello Baby told from the perspective of a little boy whose mommy is having a home birth and they really like it.  We are just going to play it by ear with them though and if at any point it doesn't feel right for us or them that they are there then they will go to Nanny's for a while. 

Whatever the outcome though we are all so excited about the impending arrival of our new addition and we feel incredibly blessed.

SISTER UKHANA - A SHAMELESS PLUG

A bit off topic for my blog, but I need to give Sister Ukhana a mention as I have been meaning to do so for a while.

Sister Ukhana is a Community Interest Company set up by a friend of mine.  Back in 2005, I think it was, my very very good friend Jade went to volunteer in an orphanage in Ghana for around six months or so.  I missed her lots during that time, but she came back in 2006 with a plan to set up a business to sell fair trade cocoa butter products made by women in Ghana and packaged by women here.  If you want to know more you can find out more about the ins and outs of the business on her website. 

Now I have every faith in Jade that she will accomplish whatever she will set out to do, but I have to say that a teeny part of me thought this might be a bit of a tall order, even for Jade, but I needn't have worried.  In the midst of training for a new job, working more than full time, buying a house, learning French, being a heavily involved director of another Community Interest Company and a good few other things thrown in for good measure including the selfless acts of being my bridesmaid and organising my baby shower ;) Jade is well on the way to having Sister Ukhana as a fully functioning and trading business.  She has worked to complete application after application for funding grants, worked with pharmacists (or the like so don't quote me on the exact qualification) on formulations, website designers, graphic designers, friends and associates in the UK and Ghana to sourcing ingredients and a team etc, etc.  The list goes on!

Sister Ukhana CIC was registered in 2010, but there's been huge progress this January what with the website being launched so I thought this was the perfect time to show Jade and her hard work some love and tell her how extremely proud I am of her for her achievements and also how much I love her for being my friend.

Jade and I on a night out pre-motherhood

Oh and given that I like to talk a bit about my photography interest in this blog I am very selfishly going to give myself a little mention for doing some of the product shots for the website like the one on  the top right hand side of the website's homepage.  I was really chuffed that Jade asked me to do this, even if it did take me an age to get them sorted,  and am so pleased with how they look on the website, can't believe that I actually took them.  Thanks so much for the opportunity my lovely.

So finally if you would like to find out more about Sister Ukhana have a look at the website, like her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.

SAY HELLO TO HERMAN

Almost a fortnight ago my lovely friend Jess (or The Baking Queen as I like to label her, just ask A&D who makes the best cake and they will always tell you Auntie Jess) gave me a starter mix for a Herman Cake along with some instructions on how to take care of Herman.  This was "day one".

As I understand it Herman Cake is a German friendship cake and is basically the cake version of a chain letter.  They are super easy to make into a lush cake and even baking novices like my little ones and I can make a delicious cake with very little effort.

So basically the starter mix is a sour dough base I think, in fact I don't actually know the exact content.

...goes away to look it up...

Ok so the starter mix consists of active dry yeast, sugar, flour, milk and warm water, but I didn't need to worry about that. 

On day one you transfer Herman from the container he came in to a new home that gives him plenty of room to grow.  In our house the new house was actually a big bowl and the roof a tea towel.  Like me, Herman likes to be nice and warm so there is no putting him in the fridge.  We just left him on the side in the kitchen.

On days two and three you simply uncover Herman, give him a good stir and cover him back up.  Not exactly complicated even for a baking novice like me.

Day four does require a little more effort as Herman is hungry.  I personally can't believe that it takes him a whole four days to get hungry.  It barely takes me four minutes.  Ha ha!  Anyway back to Herman.  On day four you add one cup of plain flour, one cup of sugar and one cup of milk and stir well.  Yes that's it, not exactly brain surgery.  I am sure that these quantities will vary between individual recipes, but I think that as long as you are consistent with whichever recipe you use it doesn't really matter.

All Herman needs on days six, seven and eight is to be stirred well on each day.  Yes it really is that simple.

This time it takes Herman until day nine to get hungry again and at this point you simply add the same as you did on day four and stir well except at this point you divide the mixture into four equal parts.  You then keep one part to cook on day ten and pass the other three on to friends with a copy of the instructions.  If you are greedy like me you just give two away and keep two for yourself; one to cook on day ten and one to start the cycle all over again. 

Day ten is the day that requires the most effort, but even so it is not exactly rocket science.  This is because Herman is very hungry by day ten so you need to add the following:-                          

1 cup sugar 

1 cup plain flour                                              

2 eggs                                                             

Two thirds of a cup of cooking oil (not olive oil though)

2 teaspoons baking powder

Half a teaspoon of salt

2 teaspoons vanilla essence

2 heaped teaspoons cinnamon

2 chopped apples (optional)

1 cup raisins (optional)

Half cup walnuts (optional)

I have to admit though that we did away with the raisins, walnuts and apples and instead added dried cranberries, broken mandarins and dark chocolate chips.  All you have to do is literally mix everything together with a wooden spoon.  There is no beating or creaming or any of that nonsense.  Great for the kids, especially my son who likes to bake, but whose concentration span is just not long enough to do a whole recipe from scratch so Herman was especially perfect for him as he got to do a bit each day and they both loved the fact that they had to take care of Herman and mix him every day.

Once everything is mixed together you just pour it into a large, well greased tin or, if you are me, the wonder that is the silicone alternative and pop in the oven at between 170 and 180 degrees for between 45 minutes and an hour and voila.

The lovely Jess tells me that you can sprinkle with equal parts brown sugar and melted butter, but I just went for the brown sugar option.

I should admit that I think that my combo of orange, cranberry and choc was too heavy as it seemed to sink  to the bottom when cooked even though I coated it in flour as suggested by my baking guru.  To be honest though we didn't really care about that minor mishap as it still tasted lush and we don't often have home baked cake in our house so it is being devoured very quickly.

I am an absolute beginner when it comes to baking, but even I managed this and I definitely recommend it for something to do with the tiddlers as they really enjoyed the fact that they got to do something everyday and were really excited for day ten.  They also got to go to the supermarket with me purely to chose what we were going to feed Herman on day ten. 

Go on give it a go, you know you want to!

TEENY AT 24+4

It really is about time that Teeny made another appearance on this blog as I seem to be lacking in bump pictures so here they are yesterday on our trip to the park.  Granted it really is not the most flattering picture of me and I look huge as well as needing a good haircut, but hey ho Teeny is doing well so who am I to complain?