Me on Monday

The physically and mentally exhausted edition

Well, what a difference a week makes!  Baby Rosie arrived as planned on Wednesday and we are all of the same opinion that she is absolutely gorgeous (we may be a little biased). 👶

They were discharged from hospital on Friday afternoon and are now at home getting used to the dynamics of their new little family.  I've found myself uttering comments that are the kind of thing my mum would have said, and the sentences start with 'when I had you, they kept me in for five days' and I do honestly feel that after a caesarean, 48 hours in hospital is a little too short a stay.    

Leo was definitely missing his mum and dad and was so excited to see them again.  We ended up having him to stay for four days and after dropping him back off at his home, we just collapsed in armchairs - toddler watching is hard work!  I've been doing various bits of shopping for them so they don't have to venture out and dropped off a full roast dinner at lunchtime so that they didn't have to worry about cooking.  R's husband has this week off work and will be doing all the running around - he has the delights of pre-school today and will be taking part in his first 'wiggle wiggle' class on Friday.  I think he's just beginning to realise that staying home looking after a small child is harder work than he thought!

Little Rosie arrived weighing just 5lb 4oz so is only just filling out the 'tiny baby' sized clothes but hopefully she will catch up - let's not forget, she shouldn't really be born for another 3 weeks!  Today while Leo and his dad are at pre-school I am going to keep Rachel company as Rosie was born with 'tongue tie' (so was Leo, so it wasn't a big surprise) and a midwife is coming to snip it to help her feed better.  

People have mentioned sharing a photo but I'm a bit nervous about sharing something on my blog as anyone could see it but I have shared a picture this morning on Instagram.  My account there is private but if you would like to see it, send me a friend request and I'll add you to my list.  I'm there with the name debs14 - it'd be nice to be friends with you over there as well as here!

🎄🎄🎄

Meanwhile it is now just a month until Christmas and I'm realising that, like Father Christmas, I need to start making lists.  Please tell me that I'm not the only one who hasn't really done much shopping at all yet!  I have one friend who'd bought all her presents by the end of October!  We have a family tradition that we don't put our tree up until the weekend nearest my husband's birthday so I have 2 weeks to start thinking about that - when do you decorate your house?

She's here!

I meant to come and pass on the good news earlier but a certain young man has been staying here and there hasn't been a spare moment!

Our little Grandaughter, Rosie, was born on Wednesday, weighing a tiny 5lb 4oz and already the image of her big brother.  

Let me tell you, Wednesday morning seemed to go on forever; I couldn't settle to anything and must have checked my phone a million times.  There was a slight hitch to start with, the hospital had not ordered in a match for R's blood (she has an unusual antibody so they had to be prepared in case she needed a transfusion) so instead of being first on the list she had to wait.  But it was worth waiting for and at 11.31 she was holding her baby daughter for the first time!  

Mum and baby came home yesterday afternoon and we reunited Leo with his family once they had settled in.  I think he was really missing them, although it's nice to be with nanny and grandad, it's not the same as being with mummy and daddy! Not to mention your little baby sister.

I will wait until I have been given the ok to share some photos, but can assure you that she is gorgeous.  Yes, I am biased but when I asked Leo what he thought of his sister after we took him to visit them, he proudly announced 'She's gorgeous nanny, gorgeous' so it must be true!

Me on Monday

The 'Feeling kind of anxious' edition.

I don't think I've been this anxious on a Monday for many a month.  By the end of this week, our 2nd grandchild will be born.  

It feels like this has been the longest pregnancy on record - it certainly hasn't been straightforward.  A couple of months ago my daughter developed a condition called cholestasis which means her bile acids have risen and that can be very dangerous to the baby especially towards the end of pregnancy.  They deliver baby between 37 and 38 weeks ideally and she has known for a while it would be by caesarean.  She has a date booked but if she goes into natural labour or if baby shows signs of distress, it could be any day before that.  

All very stressful especially for someone who is of an anxious disposition at the best of times!  I am living on tenterhooks and every time I see her name flash up on my phone I think 'this is it!' and I am ready for my little house guest to arrive for his sleep over.  

So please keep us in your thoughts this week and I'll leave you with a photo of the only person in the house who is remaining cool, calm and collected.

Tasty Tuesday

It is a universal truth that when you have a lot on your mind and dozens of things to do, the best form of therapy is to take half an hour off and do some baking.

Can I interest anyone in a slice of chocolate cake with jam and buttercream filling?

Me on Monday

These Mondays are coming round really quickly at the moment!  

Hopefully this Monday night will be less stressful for poor old Coco than last Monday was.  As it was Guy Fawkes Night there were still fireworks going on somewhere close to us.  We were downstairs and she was just pacing up and down and staring at me with a really sad expression on her face, so even though it was only 8pm we headed upstairs to the bedroom to watch tv there and she spent the whole time laying on the top of the bed on my lap.

So apart from the embarrassment of the car park fiasco I mentioned in my last post 😳 what else did last week hold?  A couple of get togethers with people I used to work with.  One at the local pub with the group of girls who I worked with in the office and one morning coffee with two people I worked with about 4 years ago.  Both get togethers were fun, and showed me how quickly life can move on.  I caught up with all the news and office gossip in the pub but it was very different not being part of that scene on a daily basis.  It made me realise that I do miss the people but not the work and office politics!  The other get together was very different as they had left years ago and so we didn't discuss the school at all, but caught up on the news of what we are all doing now.

Last night we went to see Bohemian Rhapsody at our local cinema - it was SO good!  Of course it meant that I had the song 'Don't stop me now' in my brain all the way home but that's not such a bad thing!  If you like the music of Queen you really should go and see it.  

That's my advice for the day and now I need to tackle todays boring job - shredding what feels like 10 year's worth of old receipts and invoices - that's the trouble with 'tidying up the study' you find all manner of stuff that you don't need but daren't just put in the bin.  Are we overcautious do you think or are you a 'shredder' too?  I'm giving myself incentive by saying that after 5 mins of shredding I can do 5 mins of blog reading, that's a reasonable challenge isn't it?

Midweek madness

I am officially losing the plot.  Seriously.  Midlife madness maybe? 

The week started off well.  Popped over to Chelmsford on Monday to look for ideas for birthday gifts for my husband - had a successful trip and was home in time to look after Leo while his mummy went for her monitoring at the hospital.

Tuesday I agreed to go with Leo and his mummy to the hospital as Leo had an appointment at the allergy clinic.  Parking is a nightmare at the hospital, and worse at the moment as they have building works going on which are taking up some spaces there.  So the plan was that I would drive and if we couldn't find anywhere on site to park I would drop them off and then drive into town to park in the shopping centre car park.  No parking places at the hospital so we implemented Plan B.  I parked the car and rushed back to the hospital to meet up with them.  We ended up being there quite a while as the consultant ran some skin prick tests which needed 15 minutes to develop and then a second consultation.  We left the hospital and walked to the shopping centre.

We got back to the car and I realised that the parking exit fee machine was on a different level to that which I was parked on.  I left Rachel to strap Leo in the car seat and put the buggy in the boot of the car while I went up to the next level to pay the exit fee.  So far so good.

The machine rejected the ticket that was issued when I arrived.  I thought maybe I'd put it in upside down so turned it over and tried again.  Still got an error message and the machine returned the ticket.  Tried inserting it again - machine rejected it.  How frustrating.  So I pressed the intercom button to speak to someone somewhere in the depths of the car park and the guy asked me what time I arrived.  I looked at the ticket and said 09.32.  He told me to insert £1 payment and then he did something that made the machine issue me an exit ticket and all was well.  

But something was niggling at the back of my mind.  The ticket I had been issued on arrival didn't look quite like the one on the instruction details on the machine, it had no black strip down the back of it.  Obviously it had been misprinted when it was issued.  

We got home and still something was puzzling me.  And then I realised what an idiotic thing I had done.  Oh the embarrassment.  You see, I couldn't have arrived at 09.32 because Leo's appointment was at 10.20 and we didn't leave home until about 9.35. And the reason I had parked on my own was because by 10.15 we were still looking for a space in the hospital car park.  I couldn't have been issued a ticket at 09.32.  No, the reason the machine rejected my ticket was because ...

... it was the one that was issued by the car park in Chelmsford the day before.

We've all heard of baby brain haven't we?  Well, let me tell you that it would appear that Nanny brain is a thing too!

Me on Monday

The 'where did that weekend go?' edition.

I feel I've been chasing my tail this weekend and am off for a bit of retail therapy in Chelmsford once I've pressed the 'publish' button today.

I had relaxed plans for Saturday, we were having friends over for a casual supper in the evening so I had made the lasagne on Friday night ready to reheat, a simple red onion and tomato salad to go with it, and a selection of breads.  All I had to do was make a lemon meringue pie for dessert in the morning.  

My husband was out in the morning - he does volunteer work over the Country Park that is behind where we live and it had been chosen to be part of the Queens Commonwealth Canopy campaign.  It was quite a big deal for the park to be acknowledged so the great and the good of the local area went for the official tree planting and the 'Friends' volunteers were also invited to be involved in the ceremony.  When he got back I had a text from my son to say he was popping over in an hour.  Then my daughter rang to say that as this was probably the last time she'd be able to see her brother before the new baby arrived, they would pop in too.  Then a text to say 'do you have anything we can have for lunch'. It was obvious this wasn't going to be a quick visit and I was thankful I was so organised in advance.  Everyone arrived and then my son in law got a message to say his dad had been taken ill while on a short break in Suffolk.  It sounded serious so he quickly left to go up to be with his mum.  This obviously meant that my daughter was now without a car.  Which inevitably resulted in her staying all afternoon, having a quick dinner, getting Leo bathed and ready for bed here and then me driving her back home an hour before our friends arrived.  So my nice relaxed, organised day went totally off script and I was only just showered and changed in time to put dinner in the oven to heat before our friends arrived.  I am never going to think I have everything under control again - fate will always conspire against me! 

So - my daughter has the date for her baby now and I'm not going to share that date anywhere for exactly the same reasons mentioned in that last sentence!  However, I can say that it is within the next three weeks - watch this space.  

We had a very scared Coco here on Friday night - I've never seen her like that before.  We have a cricket field almost next to our house and they were having their annual Fireworks Night.  Only this year they had moved where they were letting the fireworks off and it was right near the boundary rather than on the opposite side near the park.  It honestly sounded like it was happening in our front garden.  Poor old Coco ran upstairs and was cowering under the desk in the study.  Hopefully there will be nothing that loud or prolonged on the actual Guy Fawkes Night tonight.

Anyone else feeling like this at the moment ?

Many thanks to Snapchat for reading my mind.  I feel like I'm spending too much time thinking about all the things I want to get done and not enough time actually ticking anything off the list.  One thing I've been talking about doing for ages and constantly finding a reason not to do it is to defrost the chest freezer in the utility room.  There.  I've put it out into cyberspace now.  You all know it's got to be done.  So now I can't get away with not doing it this week.  But I don't think there'll be time today ... 

October - One sentence at a time

October - it's the month where you have to admit that autumn is here.  Frost on the grass in the mornings, central heating kicking in, snuggling under a quilt to watch the tv in the evenings and cooking lots of comfort food.  

🍁🍂🍃

Day 1  A trip to Hobbycraft for a small length of fabric ended up with a bit of early Christmas shopping in a totally different shop.

Day 2 A neighbour came round for a cup of tea and we had a crafting afternoon - great fun.

Day 3 Met up with a couple of old school friends in the evening for a fantastic Indian meal - time flies when the three of us get together!

Day 4 Our little munchkin was here again today

Day 5 Finished the blanket I've been making for Leo out of an off cut of fabric that my neighbour gave to me.

Day 6 Decorating a few more doors - it seems never ending but the end is in sight.

Day 7 Everyone here for Sunday lunch

Day 8 Made the soup that I'm going to be sharing in Leslie's blog hop

Day 9 Went to The Pantaloon's production of As You Like It - I never knew Shakespeare could be so funny, this theatre company are amazing, I had tears of laughter running down my face at times.

Day 10 Hair cut day - always feels so nice to be neat and tidy again!

Day 11 Looking after Leo today

Day 12 Decided to treat myself to a luxury manicure - boy have I been neglecting my nails

Day 13 Evening at our friends sharing an Indian takeaway and maybe a little too much wine.

Day 14 Invited out for Sunday lunch (this never normally happens, I'm usually the one in the kitchen!)

Day 15 As my daughter had a growth scan this morning I was given the pleasure of accompanying Leo to his pre-school group - needless to say I was the oldest person in the room!

Day 16 After an exhausting hour of Zumba the tiniest bit of decorating was done

Day 17 Went to the funeral of my Auntie Brenda.

Day 18 Went into town with Leo, did my weekly shop, (plus a bit of unexpected sales shopping)  then an afternoon in the park feeding the ducks.

Day 19 Very happy to discover that the green in the top that I bought yesterday perfectly matches the green of the trousers I bought recently

Day 20 Cracking on with the decorating, all neutral walls painted and now onto the end wall which we are painting a much darker colour.  (excuse patchiness, this was the first coat and I'm thinking it may need three to get a good finish)

Day 21 Sunday routine resumes with 91 year old mother in law, daughter and family here.

Day 22 Took Leo to pre school as they were going on a nature walk and his 33 week pregnant mummy did not feel up to chasing him around the woods while picking up leaves and sticks.

Day 23 Our very scruffy looking dog went for her 6 weekly groom and came home looking pristinely white and tidy - that won't last long!

Day 24 Last bit of decorating done, new lampshades in place and I can't tell you how pleased I am to have this finished.

Day 25 Day started at 1am when I woke feeling awful, everything hurt, I was hot then cold, mind galloping along at 100 mph; not the best way to feel on the day I am looking after Leo.

Day 26 Woke feeling much better, must have been a 24 hour virus - or something I picked up from those little darlings at pre-school!

Day 27 Met up with friends in the evening for a meal in a traditional old countryside pub - made a nice change from eating in a restaurant, a wood fire burning in the bar and a friendly relaxed atmosphere (my husband would also add 'unusual local ales on tap' but I was happy with my Hendricks Gin & Tonic)

Day 28 Clocks went back an hour so in theory we had an extra hour's sleep - only no-one told Coco and she appeared in our room at her normal time - I guess it isn't just parents of small children that don't get to appreciate the extra hour!

Day 29 A catching up on housework day 

Day 30 Halloween themed Zumba today, ended up with a mix of looks - Skeleton legs, cat eye mask and witches hat - must put more thought into it next year!

Day 31 And so another month bites the dust - happy halloween!

This month I am following the rules (didn't realise I was posting on a different day to everyone else, nor was I adding the link - doh!) so please join in or check out the blogs of the others who are jotting down their daily diaries this way!

An InLinkz Link-up