How has that ended up in my mouth?

So over the last couple of weeks I have said this a fair few times.

I also had the conversation with my brother about words you shouldn't put on your blog for fear of attracting the wrong kind of traffic. Guessing the above title might fit into that category?

Anyhow, thought I would share...

1. Sat in Granny's flat with Mabel eating raisins. Despite having just fed Wilf his little chubby hand reached out for one. About 5 minutes later (he tends to suck raisins until they grow to about three times their original size) I notice that he has spat it out right onto Granny's lovely teal sofa cushion. Without thinking and in trying to avoid Granny noticing said wet raisin I pick it up and pop it in my mouth. That would be rancid if it was indeed just a raisin. But whilst starting to heave slightly at the taste I glanced at Wilf to see slightly curdled, custard like, boob milk around his mouth. Yes that's right, I ate a reconstituted sick covered raisin. 

I could not get the taste out of my mouth. Nothing would get rid of it. In fact just writing this I can taste it all over again.

2. Mabel has developed a habit of putting her fingers in her mouth all the time. Not great for trying to avoid picking up bugs / having to wear a bib again / the ipad touch screen (the latter mainly, lets be honest). Anyway, funnily enough telling her to not to just isn't working (I asked her if she wanted cake tonight just to see if she would respond with her standard firm "no" without even listening to the question, unfortunately she wasn't that stupid. Dam it). 

We needed a different tactic.



I went for, 'Stop n Grow'. I told her it was 'special nail varnish for big girls'. She bought right into the idea. Before she could change her mind I covered as many fingers as I could. Unfortunately in my haste I spilt it all over my own hand. I washed it, I scrubbed it but could not get it off.

And so over the course of the day I was then blessed with an ongoing reminder of 
a) where she has got the habit from
b) why it works...who knew it tasted so bad
c) perhaps why it said it wasn't suitable for under 3's on the bottle

I went to get her from nursery (do you like how I chose a nursery day to test this solution) expecting for them to say she had completely stopped the habit but feeling slightly guilty about the whole affair.

Nope. Not bothered. Not even a bit. She laughed in the face of my special nail varnish. Serves me right.

3. Today I had a lovely cuddle in our bed with our wee girl as she was going for her (o.k 'our') afternoon nap. Now she is very good at sharing generally but there is one thing that she is not willing to let Wilf or anyone have for even a moment and that is her grey rabbit.

It stinks, depsite being washed all the time (or rather they stick, there are three of them). When it has been next to her clothes i can smell it. Really not nice. It is the ears that she sucks when going to sleep and they are often really wet.

Anyway today she snuggled in, smiled and pushed the ear into my mouth in an act of true kindness and affection.
It was really sweet. But it was rancid. I couldn't do it. Damp, soggy, smelly rabbit ear.

Blurgh.

6 months plus

I would do a blog post today about our absolutely gorgeous bank holiday weekend away in Wales but fortunately (for us that is) I have a sister who takes far nicer photos than I ever could. We did have the nicest time and Mabes LOVED the time with her cousins who she absolutely adores, as do we. We are very lucky, something I say a lot but don't think can be underestimated. We really can't get enough time together and miss them the minute we are apart again! 

So instead I will do my monthly post for Wilf / Mabes. 

Last month has been a busy one for our boy. He has started sitting up on his own. Admittedly it is not long before he sees something and launches himself forward or forgets he is sat up / gets giddy and topples (as below, G Kisby got his arm there just in time) 

He can bang two bricks or toys together and is sooo pleased with the noise it makes. Now fully interested in his treasure basket I love watching the amazement on his face as he finds new textures and sounds. You can't read him a book however - all he wants to do is eat it and if you try and get it out of his reach he just gets stroppy. I am putting this down to more of a thinker than a reader (do not replace thinker with troffer).

Last week he also started to eat real food. No surprises that he has taken to it like a fat boy to a burger. I have never seen a baby on his first attempt with a bread stick demolish it in about 30 seconds. I remember with Mabel wondering when she was going to eat more than about 2 spoon fulls. I asked G Kisby when I should stop him eating the other day as he gobbled a pear.

We are kind of doing a combination of baby led weaning and normal. Which is pretty similar to our approach with Mabel, though with perhaps more emphasis on self feeding and being a little more ambitious on finger foods (hence less purees). It is much easier not to have to make separate portions of pureed food, instead giving him mostly what Mabel eats from the beginning. Though when out in public I think we will stick to feeding him an Ella's Kitchen on a spoon! As much as anything I think he loves the sensory experience of playing with his food and  the social side of sitting around the table. And I love that he is now properly with us over mealtimes too (rather than in his bouncer, we haven't been leaving him in the other room or anything). 

He hates getting dressed, always has done and it doesn't get easier. No idea why.. And he continues to enjoy nothing more than watching his sister.

Which is good since Mabel likes to be watched. This week I have been told to, "er laugh Mummy" and "you say I gorgeous". Not sure what is worse, the demand or the fact that I agree to it. 

Oh and he loves swimming - literally grins through the whole lesson, especially any singing.

Talking of swimming G Kisby had a poo in the pool incident with Mabel a few weeks ago. She came running in when they got home and shouted,
"I did a massive poo in the pool"
I swung round in horror to look at G Kisby who indeed confirmed that this was true.

Apparently she had been jumping in off the edge and did a bum drop onto the side which resulted in a squelch of poo landing on the poolside. G Kisby asked her to stand up and his worst fears were realised as the water dripping from her swimmers was indeed brown. 

Even retelling this story I can feel the panic I would have had should this have happened to me. Would I have just scarpered? Possibly. Would I have ensured that Mabel was scarred for life? Almost definitely. 

What did G Kisby do? Calmly walk round to tell the attendant before leaving swiftly to the showers. Though I think even he was slightly flustered by the job of having to remove the by now sodden poo and swimmers and clean her up. 

Notably at the weekend when asked if I fancied taking her for a swim I chose to look after Wilf instead. I am traumatised and I wasn't even there...

And on a final note talking of our 2.4 year old. Whilst feeding Wilf in our bed tonight I was happily listening to G Kisby reading her stories and both generally wittering on whilst getting ready for bed in the other room. 

As always, Mabel tries to negotiate more stories than have been agreed. As always, G Kisby is far firmer than I would be. However tonight he got more than he bargained for as she completely took the p** out of him. Literally to the word, mimicking him,
"I will take this off you, you are being silly now Daddy" (grabbing the towel)
"Come on now"

Chuckled to myself as he tried, and failed, to retain his normal composure and resolve.

The glorious Lakes

So we are very lucky to have good friends that own a house in the Lake District, which we visited last week for a short break.

The weather was indeed very kind so we spent loads of time outdoors, which is great since I feel we have been stuck in too much so far this year and I want our children to love playing outside.
On the first day there we went to Booths (hmm, nice supermarket) to stock up on local food and nice wine / ales (for the boys). We ate some fab meals - aubergines stuffed with lamb, steak night and seabass on a prawn risotto. We also drank. Lots. In fact more than I remember for a very long time.

What was lovely (and novel) was that come 7pm, rather than the usual feelings of tiredness mixed with trying to be sociable (our friends have a 10 month old so share these feelings) we were all really perky. 

Wilf did get up one night but he was so cute we  let him off

In fact on the third night at 10pm we embarked on a game of Monopoly (what the hell?) G Kisby loves Monopoly and has been asking to play it for months. So this was the night. We decided to play by the real rules (so no major cash win for landing on 'Free Parking' or other such anomolies) which made it a bit more interesting (worth doing I think). Basically 2 hours later G Kisby owned about one property, £20 and was sat in jail trying to avoid another trip around the board. I felt bad for him. I had lost interest (I wasn't winning - such a bad personality flaw of mine) and our friend Paul was demonstrating just why both in the game, as with life, he owns lots of property. Having run out of alcohol (again what the hell? Normally we buy two bottles and it is too much) he opened a bottle of champagne to celebrate about his 5th hotel purchase (bet he regretted that in the morning). Being the only one due to breastfeed early next morning, therefore having drunk the least, I finally persuaded the others to come to bed at about 1am.

Paul was then sick numerous times in the night, claiming he must have 'caught Mabel's sickness virus'. Very funny. It was really good to actually feel like we had a social life again. Not that we haven't been out at all since having children but inevitably you do have to fight tiredness and often I would swap conversation for sleep in an instant, which kind of makes it hard to enjoy the former without secretly counting how many minutes of sleep you are losing with every word that is uttered.  

Other highlights were visiting Tarn Hows, a man made lake (AMAZING views, pram friendly walking and lots of lovely picnic spots. Would highly recommend) and Mabel finally seeming to get over her dog phobia (friends own quite a lively and large dog which previously she has feared).

All in all a great trip captured by Ceri who took most of the photos...