Merry Christmas!!

So here it is, Merry Christmas!

We'll be heading off for the holidays soon so I guess this will be my last post of 2009. Time for a little look back I think.

About this point last December I’d had a very strange couple of days. A dash from my work Christmas lunch to the emergency gynae department was followed by an anxious wait for a scan the next day. Fred was away with work and rushed back to be with me in the morning, arriving just in time. I felt numb going into that room and so sad to think that after only seven weeks this pregnancy could be in trouble. But then a little flicker appeared on the screen and there was Smidgets heart! She didn’t even have arms or legs yet and was just a few millimetres long, but her heart was there, beating strongly. It was utterly amazing.

The rest of that Christmas was wonderful, we shared the secret with close family but I had to spend much of the party season trying to convince everyone else that I was either on antibiotics for a suspiciously long period of time or that I had invented a new form of health kick – the "Pre-tox" (not drinking in the run up to Christmas so you don’t feel rubbish and have to De-tox afterwards). I still can’t quite believe how many people went for that, apparently some were actually quite disappointed when they discovered it was a fake and not a great act of willpower on my part!

Most of what has happened since is already in this blog, either in my posts or, after Evelyn arrived and I got a bit rubbish, in Fred's pictures and videos, but wow, what a year! It's been exciting, exhausting and enchanting in about equal measures and I can't wait to top it off with Evelyn's first Christmas, not that she has any idea what is going on! She is getting into the festive spirit tho and this weekend had her first Christmas party with some of her NCT buddies. The parents had mince pies and compared notes on sleep patterns, the babies mostly screamed or sucked each others sleeves!

Evelyn and her chums, Harry, Juliette and Mia.

Harry makes a move for Evelyn and the other girls get Jealous.

Before I go I just want to say thank you so much to all those who have helped us out this year, especially in the first few days and weeks after Evelyn was born, I try to keep this blog positive, but to be honest I felt like I'd been hit by a train, thank heavens our parents and other family and friends were there to offer help, advice, home cooked meals, cards, gifts and facebook chats! I'm really not sure how I'd have coped without you all and I've been so touched by the kindness of so many people. I'm just sorry that in all the chaos I didn't manage to say thank you properly to everyone.

I also need to say the biggest thank you to Fred, he has always been a top notch husband, and really proved that during the birth. Now he has become a fantastic father too and it's clear Evelyn adores him, I doubt there is a more heart-warming sight in all the world than your husband and your baby grinning at each other!

So Merry Christmas! and I hope 2010 is as exciting for you as I'm sure it will be for us.

Kxxx

Return to Nausea. part two

If you have just read the last post and are now thinking I'm a terrible mother, here is my defence. There are times when a girl needs a cocktail with her curry and staring down the barrel of a house move is most definitely one of those times.

We currently live in a two bed flat in central London, it's pretty much ideal for a young couple enjoying big city life, but it's slowly being infested with small, brightly coloured creatures that play slightly annoying tunes and hurt when you tread on them. So we have resolved to move to a proper grown up house. We started this process by viewing three houses on Friday and another two on Saturday:

Friday:

1: Good price, tiny house- LED underlighting in the kitchen - what on earth is that about???

2: Nice house, ok price but would need masses of work - pink corner bath and avocado toilet anyone???

3: Lovely lovely house, good price, traffic nightmare road,

Saturday:

4: Nice big house, ok price, too much work - Downstairs loo put in the wrong way round so you have to get into it via the garden. What????

5: Great house, perfect condition, brilliant price!!!

(Curry and stiff drink)

So yay to house 5. But here's the snag, the current housing market isn't nearly so slow as you may think, it's been doing it's (credit) crunches and lost a lot of weight. So it can move quicker, and a great house at a great price is not going to hang around long. It went on the Market on Thursday, and on the major property websites on Friday. On Saturday they had 8 viewings and by the time I called to book a second viewing on Monday they had an offer, by lunch time that was three offers, two at the asking price!

This would seem to count us out as the reason for the good price is that they want to move quick and we're not even officially on the market yet. However, the asking price was actually a reasonable amount below our maximum budget, so in a moment of bravery or perhaps madness we called back and made a higher offer.

Hence my second dose of feeling rather nauseous. This could well be our perfect family home, we'd never need to move again, all the space we need, no work to do, great area with great schools... or we could just have said we'd spend a huge amount of money we don't actually have yet on something we've only seen once!!!

ARGHHH! Well after a day of feeling excited, worried and a little bit sick we've heard that the vendors have accepted another offer. I need a long sit down and a stiff drink, tho perhaps on second thoughts I'll skip the drink.

And Evelyn's reaction to all of this? Well she dribbled on a couple of estate agents and screamed at a couple more, so that makes me feel kind of warm inside ;o)

Kxxx

19 weeks

PS. anyone want to buy a flat?

Return to Nausea. part one

No - I'm NOT pregnant again! But two things have happened this weekend that have me remembering those first trimester days.

Sunday saw my first hangover in more than a year. Round about now it's pretty common to utter those well intentioned words:

"That's it! I'm never drinking that much again".

Before accidentally going out on the lash the following night. Well lately I've been thinking that having a baby is what finally makes you stick to that resolution. The thought of the morning after starting at 6am with a screaming infant, however much you may adore her, is just too awful to contemplate.

Ahhh smug parent, how wrong you were.

What I hadn't factored in was just how much of a lightweight I now am! So on Saturday night I headed out for a Christmas curry with some old school friends and had a cocktail. All very exciting, and feeling fine I moved on to a GnT before deciding I'd better stop. Now you have to bear in mind that back in the good/bad old days I could put away about 8 pints of Guinness on a night out with the rugby team (Mum - if you are reading this, that is a total exaggeration and not true at all, honest), so two little drinks didn't seem like an excessive amount and I felt fine. Until the next morning that is. Oh dear, oh dear. Thank heavens for heavily salted crisps, diet coke and Fred being at home!

That's it, I'm never drinking that much again.

hmmm

Kxxx

18+6

BTW, anyone worrying, no I didn't feed Evelyn while tipsy, Fred gave her some I prepared earlier.

Evelyn on video

Here are some videos of Evelyn that we took over the last month or so. (Sorry, it took me a while to get round to editing them.)

First here's Evelyn meeting her second cousins Mia and Ella in Gloucester about 5 weeks ago.

About two weeks ago we visited a nearby Children's Centre, where there is a multi-sensory room you can hire out to play in!

And finally here is a video of us demonstrating responsible parenting with the help of some friends...

Evelyn at Breakfast

Evelyn is usually in her best mood in the morning. She can be quite smiley when she wakes up and once she has had a feed, she is very happy. This can make me very reluctant to go to work in the morning. That's what happened yesterday: I went in about an hour later than normal (well I'd done some extra earlier in the week), and spent some time with her instead.

Evelyn in her cot, just after she woke up.



An hour later, sitting on mummy's knee just after her feed.


I printed this one straight away and took it to work for the photo frame on my desk. It was amazing to compare it with the old photo that I took out of the frame, which was taken when she was just under 3 weeks old (see the fifth photo in this post)

Evelyn in her Hallowe'en costume

We bought Evelyn a little witch costume for Hallowe'en. We thought it was very cute. Evelyn like the dress, but wasn't convinced about the hat!

Here she is getting dressed... or is she casting a spell?


Ok, you can't really see the costume in this one, but it's cute!


Evelyn does her Dr Evil impression


Evelyn is plotting (and demonstrating her new skill of putting her hands together)

Indian summer at Yew Tree Cottage

Continuing our week off work, we went to Yew Tree Cottage for the day to see Granny Craze. The weather was glorious for the middle of October, so we were able to sit out in the garden with Evelyn in the morning. This set also includes what is probably the first photo of both of us togehter with Evelyn, without one of us behind the camera!