thumbsucker blues: sandbox parenting thead

That's how she asks for the DVD! "DDD, pease!" "Which one, sweetheart?" "Ah-ah-ah!"

My sons are currently rather obsessed with the Captain Underpants books. I'm not sure Anne likes the toilet humour (she had to have a word with David about making farts gags in front of teachers) but at least it has captured their imaginations. They have both started trying to write their own comic books and their reading has really improved.

We are also reading the Secrets of Droon fantasy series which Mark in particular seems to like and they still occasionally go back to the Mr Men series.

this scares me a little though. as long as archel had her baby still inside i could pretend labor was a long way off. now its me or meg next. yikes.

This is my last week at work... hoorah!

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Ava at 7 weeks:

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WHO WINS?

And yeah, hi! Alice is asleep on my lap as I type, can't believe she's 8 days old already. Once we got home from the hospital on Monday (though it felt like we were stuck in there much longer) i kept walking into the bedroom, seeing her in her cot and being like 'shit! who left a baby in here?' I can't believe she's ours forever. Majorly in love :)

The only hard part about this first week has been not being able to breastfeed because of Alice's cleft palate. It's just not the same plugging myself into an electric pump 6 times a day, and since I'm not producing much milk yet we have to feed her mostly formula anyway. But she seems to be thriving so it's just my own disappointment that's the problem i guess. Photos following...

Ready for her close-up:
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Best of luck with the pumping. I pumped for the 3 weeks the Alex was in the hospital when he was born; it's a lot of work. Come to think of it, Alex also did the Black Power salute a lot when he was a baby...

Very important question: are you feeling okay over there? I know how hard it can be those first weeks. If you need any support or whatever, email me stevienixed @ gmail dot com :-)

Gimme/email us your flickr account, I wanna keep seeing her! :-)

The crap thing about pumping is that I'm seeing the amount coming out and it looks so feeble, which makes me anxious, which makes the milk less likely to come... so it's a vicious circle. But I'm getting there. And most of the time I'm on a total high despite it all :)

Flickr: http://www.flickr.com/photos/20144310@N00/sets/72157594427098596/

Also, I had a problem where I was so engorged at first that it seemed like the milk didn't want to come out. What helped was applying hot rags to my breasts with disposable diapers over them (to keep them warm) before pumping. Taking a hot shower or bath would likely do the same. (I don't know if that helps at all, but I suppose it can't hurt...)

The type of tea that is supposed to increase milk production is fenugreek. LLL doesn't recommend beer anymore due to the alcohol and also it isn't a substantiated thing that it increases milk production. Frequency of nursing should increase milk production.

I hope that helps some... if I think of anything else (or she mentions anything else) I'll post.

Just heard an awful awful story... Woman being beaten, babies not really being treated well... It makes me so sad. :-(

I miss my belly too Nath! Although I still have the sad deflated football version of it... I can't believe Alice came out of there to be honest.

Thanks for all your support - it will make getting up at 4am to feed/express that bit more endurable...

Archel - hope some of those ideas help! I totally remember getting up in the middle of the night to pump; my husband used to try to get up, too, so he could wash up the equipment afterward. One time I tried to get up quietly so he would get a bit of extra sleep and he got irritated with me. I was like, "one of us should be sleeping here!!!!" I think he got my point... otherwise, that whole first year is kind of a haze...

Cutest swaddler ever:
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Did the cookie dash across SE London tonight with our homemade gifts for the neighbourhood mums, and received a few visits ourselves. What a lovely start to the holiday - especially the big, unprompted kiss from little Campbell when I dropped off their present.

Tallulah has finally dozed off, Ava has been down since her bath at 8pm.

A merry Christmas to you all!

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year Parents!!!

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Ava rolling around in gift-saturated heaven:

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Ava showing Tallulah there's no hard feelings despite the clashing outfit faux-pas:

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However she's grown fed up with the formula milk so I think we'll need to introduce a *proper* breakfast and give the milk as a *side dish*.

I spent most of yesterday firmly in the "basic zone" on the 300D but I'll start experimenting with it a bit more today having had a peek at the manual. The top two above were taken with the 300D, the bottom one with the Ixus i. It's pretty great - God bless Pam, eBay and PayPal accounts linked to credit cards...

With the Fischer Price house.

I'm very keen to get myself a SLR camera - once I have saved up enough money - cause the one we have now is sooooo fucking slow to react! If I want to take a pic NOW, that doesn't mean five minutes later cause then O is somewhere ELSE. Grrr.

RInging the doorbell!

Ah, nothing says Christmas like pacing the room with a crying baby at 3am... and yet mere hours later she looks so angelic:
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/140/334185899_22bb9309ca.jpg?v=0

Oh and I love Ophelia's skirt nathalie.

You know, ILxors make some pretty good looking kids!

The skirt is from Mexx. Personally I love it, but I prefer Gap. Sadly (or luckily financially speaking) we don't have it here. My parents do send me stuff from Japan. I have warned'em once that I'm in Japan - in february eep! - I'll be going there on a shopping spree. :-)

Yeah, O is big, I know! Noone fucking told me that she'd be no longer a baby by the end of the year. BOOOHOOO. :-( But it's so much fun having her crawl around so much. :-) We're now decided to NAME EVERYTHING. She's been pointing at things like mad so I figure I better teach her what the things are. :-)

On the way to the football yesterday we passed a horrible building that I happen to work in:

Mark (7): It's kind of dull looking isn't it Dad?
Me: Yes.
Mark: What does dull mean?
Me: Well you just used it correctly so you should know.
Mark: Dark?
Me: Yes, like the opposite of bright and colourful.
Mark: Okay... what does "YOU ARE GAY!" mean?

Nathalie, those pictures of Ophelia are great, but I keep going back and looking at your excellent shoes. Square toed loafers? Give me your shoes.