9/11/09, 11.40pm, at home in the bath, 8lbs 14andahalfozs.
Fed straight away, both of us totally fine :)
Only One Way
2 hours ago
Tuesday, 10 November 2009
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!
It takes a fair bit to make me speechless. This managed it quite nicely. Please read.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmchilsch/memo/elehomed/me5702.htm
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200809/cmselect/cmchilsch/memo/elehomed/me5702.htm
Monday, 2 November 2009
Friday, 30 October 2009
Happy Hallowe'en!
I can't get used to calling it Samhain. It will always be Hallow e'en to me... My absolute favourite celebration of the year... I've always loved Autumn - the smells and the light and the gathering gloom... The colours and the textures and the sounds of the leaves, the nuts and the fruits and the battening down for winter - which we still all do, if somewhat less urgently. We always dressed up, and tried to frighten each other with peeled grapes (eyeballs) and the like :D
My thoughts do turn to people who've died, but not my father and three friends - I tend to think of them on the anniversaries of their deaths. Rather to ancestors in general...
My parents were older when they had me, my mother was in her late forties and my dad in his sixties when I came along, so I never knew my grandparents from either side, and only ever met one other member of my dad's family - one of his sisters.
My dad was born in 1912, so the odd pictures of his family that have survived show Victorian corseted types... One of his sisters died young from TB, his father had run away from the family farm to go sea... The whole thing is shrouded in Dickens-esque mystique in my mind!
It's a good time of year to wheel out the little anecdotes and facts and bits and pieces again that my dad is no longer around to tell - his dutch great grandmother, his mother always sitting up straight and never resting against the chair back, no matter how tired (hardly surprising in the corsets she must have been wearing), singing all the wrong words in the church choir...
There's plenty too from my mother's side of course - her grandparents came over from Dublin for a start.
Now of course, there are also things to keep in remembrance from my husband's side of the family - and there are some pretty fascinating ones! His mother grew up in the east end of London and her (now long dead) brother drank with the Krays. His father comes from Yorkshire where they were all quite literally down the mines - he escaped to the army - and thereby hang many other tales!
So we take some time in this season, as well as for the usual dressing up and sweets and spooky movies, to talk about family, and those long dead people we never knew but without which we couldn't be here - people who had very similar hopes and fears and ambitions and struggles...
My thoughts do turn to people who've died, but not my father and three friends - I tend to think of them on the anniversaries of their deaths. Rather to ancestors in general...
My parents were older when they had me, my mother was in her late forties and my dad in his sixties when I came along, so I never knew my grandparents from either side, and only ever met one other member of my dad's family - one of his sisters.
My dad was born in 1912, so the odd pictures of his family that have survived show Victorian corseted types... One of his sisters died young from TB, his father had run away from the family farm to go sea... The whole thing is shrouded in Dickens-esque mystique in my mind!
It's a good time of year to wheel out the little anecdotes and facts and bits and pieces again that my dad is no longer around to tell - his dutch great grandmother, his mother always sitting up straight and never resting against the chair back, no matter how tired (hardly surprising in the corsets she must have been wearing), singing all the wrong words in the church choir...
There's plenty too from my mother's side of course - her grandparents came over from Dublin for a start.
Now of course, there are also things to keep in remembrance from my husband's side of the family - and there are some pretty fascinating ones! His mother grew up in the east end of London and her (now long dead) brother drank with the Krays. His father comes from Yorkshire where they were all quite literally down the mines - he escaped to the army - and thereby hang many other tales!
So we take some time in this season, as well as for the usual dressing up and sweets and spooky movies, to talk about family, and those long dead people we never knew but without which we couldn't be here - people who had very similar hopes and fears and ambitions and struggles...
Nappy Update
Thank you SO MUCH for all the fab comments - the most I've ever got on one post I think!
There was loads of great information and links - Twinkle on the Web was particularly helpful, thanks Jenny.
I deliberated for a while - being all new to it, and having a LOT else going on, I was thinking all in ones one size would probably be the most sensible and economical (in the long term) option, and even found a fab deal on ebay. Then for some reason, I went back my local Council's web site - although their discount starter pack range was, I thought, pretty poor, I then discovered that they have a TRULY AWESOME loan scheme - the contents and support looked excellent, and the costs truly unbeatable.
So I've applied to that - fingers crossed!
Thanks again for all the help and advice.
There was loads of great information and links - Twinkle on the Web was particularly helpful, thanks Jenny.
I deliberated for a while - being all new to it, and having a LOT else going on, I was thinking all in ones one size would probably be the most sensible and economical (in the long term) option, and even found a fab deal on ebay. Then for some reason, I went back my local Council's web site - although their discount starter pack range was, I thought, pretty poor, I then discovered that they have a TRULY AWESOME loan scheme - the contents and support looked excellent, and the costs truly unbeatable.
So I've applied to that - fingers crossed!
Thanks again for all the help and advice.
Monday, 26 October 2009
Calling all REAL nappy users!
Ok, first of all I have a bit of a confession to make - yes, I have five children, I'm two and bit weeks away from the arrival of a sixth, and I have NEVER USED REAL NAPPIES!
For various reasons - drying issues, and time issues, and worrying about having them soaking in a nappy bin, and most of all - not being the full time carer. So it felt rather unfair to go back after maternity leave, leaving Papacrow not only holding the baby extra work and washing etc...
Now however, that has changed, and I'm the one at home (yippee!) and I've been wondering and wondering if I want to try real nappies...
I've found myself floundering in a myriad of choices, but no real information - or not information that answers the questions I want!
For example, there are nappies for different sizes, or nappies that grow with your child. There are shaped nappies - and presumably ones that aren't shaped. There are bamboo nappies, muslin nappies, towling nappies, fleece nappies. There are plastic outer pants - or not - inserts - or not - and, most bewildering of all, disposable liners that are flushed.
Disposable liners?! Surely the whole thing about washable nappies is that you DON'T dispose them?! Besides, we can't flush anything down our toilet but toilet paper. The drain downstairs blocks really easily and then the poor family downstairs gets... Well, raw sewage, to be honest, backed up all over the garden when it rains :-O
Also I have NO garden, NO outside drying and little space for indoor drying plus various past lung issues (broncolitus and instances of asthma for example) which means I CAN'T dry a lot of stuff on racks all the time. The few things that don't go in the dryer - fine.
I also CAN NOT afford one of those services which do a pick up and drop off every week, and the whole idea sounds somewhat revolting anyway!
SO - what I need is - advice on what really works? What do I need and what don't I need? Do I really need to soak things in a nappy bin or can I just chuck straight in the washing machine? How do get what I need cheaply? I'm hoping ebay or freegle or something... How does the whole process work?! Is it worth it?
Basically - HELP!
For various reasons - drying issues, and time issues, and worrying about having them soaking in a nappy bin, and most of all - not being the full time carer. So it felt rather unfair to go back after maternity leave, leaving Papacrow not only holding the baby extra work and washing etc...
Now however, that has changed, and I'm the one at home (yippee!) and I've been wondering and wondering if I want to try real nappies...
I've found myself floundering in a myriad of choices, but no real information - or not information that answers the questions I want!
For example, there are nappies for different sizes, or nappies that grow with your child. There are shaped nappies - and presumably ones that aren't shaped. There are bamboo nappies, muslin nappies, towling nappies, fleece nappies. There are plastic outer pants - or not - inserts - or not - and, most bewildering of all, disposable liners that are flushed.
Disposable liners?! Surely the whole thing about washable nappies is that you DON'T dispose them?! Besides, we can't flush anything down our toilet but toilet paper. The drain downstairs blocks really easily and then the poor family downstairs gets... Well, raw sewage, to be honest, backed up all over the garden when it rains :-O
Also I have NO garden, NO outside drying and little space for indoor drying plus various past lung issues (broncolitus and instances of asthma for example) which means I CAN'T dry a lot of stuff on racks all the time. The few things that don't go in the dryer - fine.
I also CAN NOT afford one of those services which do a pick up and drop off every week, and the whole idea sounds somewhat revolting anyway!
SO - what I need is - advice on what really works? What do I need and what don't I need? Do I really need to soak things in a nappy bin or can I just chuck straight in the washing machine? How do get what I need cheaply? I'm hoping ebay or freegle or something... How does the whole process work?! Is it worth it?
Basically - HELP!
Book Sharing Monday
Got this out randomly from the library, and for whatever reason, Fluff fell completely and utterly in love with it. I'm going to have to get our own copy! The pictures are funny, the rhymes cool, it's just fun :)
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