Monthly Archives: July 2011

by

Don’t Panic…it’s not such a big deal

Traffic lights can have several additional lig...

Image via Wikipedia

Its a good job I don’t suffer from high blood pressure (in fact I’m very much the opposite), because the last two days just seem to have been a stream of panic stricken moments. Perhaps its my state of mind or just the baby brain letting me fall into the ‘oh shit I’ve forgotten’ trap.

Yesterday promised great things, the sun was shining and I had the lady doing my maternity cover driving to my house to do handover for the day. Not that we actually got to do much handover, as we were dealing with other high priority activities

It started with work and making a silly mistake, which turned out to be nominal, but put me in nice panicked state until a realised that it was no biggy.

The trip to pregnancy yoga and active birth was also a bit fraught as I was running late and the traffic was bad. Amber traffic lights blighted me all the way, largely because of the stupid Audi driver in front who was dawdling. As long as she got through the lights, all was ok. Where as I was muttering to myself “put your foot down you selfish woman, I’ve got two hours of relaxation to fit in. This is MY time, I don’t get it often and want every drop of benefit I can squeeze out of it.” Obviously my stressy driving was not complementary to the class I was about to attend. In fact it took me a good 15 minutes to get my mind off the drive when I arrived…all very counter productive I know.

This morning I woke up lying on my back. Well you will know ordinarily this is fine, but in late pregnancy it’s not advisable because you put strain on a major artery that can prevent blood flow to the baby. So I had a silent stewing 20 minutes lying on my side waiting for baby Boyo to kick. Why I didn’t just pick up my phone to google and tweet straight away I don’t know? Because when I did, my concerns were immediately diminshed….phew. I don’t think I’d been lying like that for too long, but any time on my back gives me terrible back ache too. So today I’ve been left with that niggling reminder as I’ve struggled to get comfortable.

So roll on the weekend and finishing work for maternity leave in two weeks time!

Related articles
by

A bad case of baby brain in pregnancy

The human brain
Image via Wikipedia

My memory at the moment is diabolical and I’m putting it  down to baby brain.

It’s a scientific thing
I was proudly telling the lady who is doing my maternity cover (as a way to make myself not look so darn stupid), that baby brain is a scientific thing. As I came to write this post and do a bit more digging on the internet I found one of the latest research reports (2009) which says that you do not become less intelligent, in fact in the long run you become more intelligent – woop woop!

AND…Get this; a woman’s brain might change for the better with motherhood. Not get worse!

I also particularly liked the bit that suggested hormonal fluctuations during birth and breastfeeding increase the size of the cells in some areas of the brain, leading to dramatic improvements in mental capacity.

You can read a nice summary of this research on the Daily Mail’s website here.

Brain is remodelling in pregnancy

Turns out (according to this study) that “’While a woman may experience an apparent loss of brain function while she is pregnant, this could be because parts of her brain are being remodelled in preparation for dealing with the complicated demands of child-rearing.” Dr Kinsley of Richmond University in Virginia.

The lady who is doing my maternity cover came up with a great analogy for this, explaining that I am like a computer downloading new software ready for the arrival of my new baby, which is currently taking up all my memory.

Back to my baby brain
The most embarrassing stories of my baby brain have involved me repeatedly forgetting my bank card numbers and leaving the cards themselves in pay machines. The pressure of a meltdown in Lidl from Babe, as I nearly had to put her lolly pop moulds back on the shelf, prompted my faulting memory and I managed to retrieve the four digits from the deepest darkest reaches of my brain just in time.

Then there is just the general forgetfulness like going to the shop to buy bread and getting home with everything BUT bread.

So what is your most embarrassing case of baby brain forgetfulness?

Related articles
by

Early sentences from a toddler AKA Babe

Look Who's Talking
Image via Wikipedia

As Babe my daughter of 2.5 years develops her speech, I’ve started to realise how often I use certain phrases. Hearing these comments fired back at you not just by another, but from a little person is one of the funniest things and never fails to make me smile. That is because, as yet, we have not had any embarrassing incidents.

These are just a few that I recall within the last week that have made me smile:

“what is daddy like mummy?” Do I always say this to daddy?

“don’t throw it, do nicely” Does she hear this that often?

“back in a minute” I’ve realised I’m always saying this to fob her off – bad mummy.

“bye bye, I go shopping now” Do we shop that often? Well yes, perhaps we do.

“no, me do it, me big girl” It’s true I do keep encouraging her to be independent and be a big girl.

Then there are also those phrases which she can’t quite get right like…

“I want magner” … She wants a mini magnum ice cream. Took me a while to figure this out.

“where’s woodburer gone mummy” … that’s a wood pigeon.

So it’s all smiles and pride at the moment, but I can feel it welling up…she’s getting ready to embarrass us in a big way. Just recently I remember a comment from a lady I follow on twitter. While she was on the phone to a client of hers, her toddler walked up to her holding her bra and shouted “mummy you’ve got big boobies”. Thanks for that addition to the conversation, perfect timing.

What about you, got any funny stories to share on this topic?

Related articles
by

Guess the birthday and the weight of baby Boyo

Come on and take a guess. You can either use the polls below or comment/tweet with your precise estimations. But I’m afraid I haven’t got a winners prize to offer :-(

Just to help you make an educated guess, here are some facts to consider:

1) The official due date is 13 September
2) Before the first scan my own calculation of the due date was 16 September
3) Babe, my first-born was nine days late – but they did think that the due date must have been miscalculated and should have been later (so she was not as late as we thought)
3) Babe was 7lbs 11oz when born

Thanks for getting involved…now just to wait and see.

by

The business of being 32 weeks pregnant

Cankles, back ache, a return in the frequency to pee and sleep, kicking crazy, baby brain and being out of breath. This nonsensical sentence captures the symptoms that are blighting my life right now at 32 weeks pregnant.

But in many ways I think this is one of the most enjoyable times of being pregnant
I feel big but at least people know I’m pregnant, I also know the end is nigh and can start to get excited about ‘labour day’. The kicking is still not painful, but strong enough to make you sit up, take notice and smile. For me the kicking bit is the best thing about being pregnant; me and my little baby that I’m growing. Nothing gets more basic and close than this.

Cankles, well I mean puffy feet, are a new thing to me this time around. I can only wear flip-flops, even when it rains I wear my flip-flops. Thank goodness it’s summer. Mind you, I might not suffer if there was a winter chill, like when I had Babe in December 2008.

Back ache, that’s the lower spinal ligament discomfort. Seems that a desk job is one of the worse things for it. But at least I can keep in mind that I only have a month left…woop woop!

More pee for me, it’s started, the slippery slope of needing to pee every other minute as the bladder gets squished down to the size of a walnut (that is a guess but you get my drift). I’m often ok until I stand and then it hits me, wooha where is my mama nappy?

Kicking crazy, but it still remains fairly gentle. Although during the last day or so I have noticed that his muscle tone is building…just watch my ribs Boyo!

Over heating, but luckily as our summer has been rather limited so far, I’ve not suffered massively. But on the days it has been fairly hot, I’m finding it really hard to regulate my body temperature. If a heat wave should come, I might have to set my laptop up by a paddling pool. Trust me I’d drop it in the water, so perhaps not. I wouldn’t like to explain that one to the IT guys at work, particularly as it’s less than six months old.

Sleep, I’m getting more and more tired. It’s more of a lethargic tiredness, but also really kicks in with any physical activity.

Baby brain, thinking straight is getting harder, remembering things is getting tougher, being intelligent is impossible. I’m resigning myself to being like this for at least the next six months.

Out of breath, huff, puff, chuff…pant, stop, sigh. Walking, a flight of stairs and even lying or sitting down. I need this baby to drop, it might mean I need to pee even more but at least breathing will be easier.

Finally on an emotional level I’m getting more excited, but more fearful of the realities of coping in the first few months with a baby and toddler. I’m working on a post about that one, so tips much appreciated.

Left and head down, I’m really pleased that all the lying and leaning to my left has paid off. He has moved his back over and has his head down. Now he just has to stay that way! I don’t want any 34/35 week breach panics…non of the dangling upside down off the sofa, or burning mugwort near my toes. Curious? Find out more about moxobustion treatment - it’s got a 70% success rate and worked for me.

 

by

Camping with toddler while 31 weeks pregnant

Yes we did it! We ventured out into the not so wilderness of a delightful campsite in Devon to enjoy nearly three full days in the sun watching the rabbits a hoppin and listening to the birds a tweetin. It was fantastic but knackering for all involved, except Babe who just lapped up the whole experience.

Poor hubby is exhausted, we worked him hard. Being 31 weeks pregnant my active set up and pack down assistance is somewhat limited. My very loud pregnant snoring did not help the situation for him neither. My sleep apnea gets worse when I get fat…pregnant. It’s also worse when fatigued, as I was on the second night because Babe had woken me for a good two hours the night before upset because of her nettle stings.

Babe had the best time and we managed the trip without any arguments, despite the fatigue. Tantrums from every corner were almost non-existent, but we all joined in with Babe whining on occasions.

Toilet issues seem to be one of the most memorable aspects of the trip for me, for many reasons…

The excitement on the first day and a half meant that Babe forgot about going to the toilet until she had leaked a little. I only bought the bare essentials of underwear for her because I was behind on the washing. It soon got to a wash and wear situation, which made me particularly thankful for the good weather.

Pooing is a bit of a problem though. The rule is only to poop in the proper toilet, not our fab tent toilet. But that is easier said than done with Babe. It can take her a good couple of hours to work up to it, which usually requires many trips to the loo and dancing around in circles…the poo dance. So I spent a lot of time hiking back on forth to the toilet block for her only to get there and declare that she didn’t need to go after all. Luckily largely these trips were not wasted. Now baby Boyo is getting larger my bladder is feeling the squeeze and I would be seriously scorned upon by hubby if I were to use the tent toilet in the day, as he is the one having to do ALL the lifting and carrying at the moment, which also involves loo emptying (usually my job). I was already doing a good enough job of filling it up at night :-)

Babe’s other trick was to be heading over to the on site toilet block for a pee, but to stop part way to pull her pants down and squat. Now I was super proud of her when out on a walk on Sunday and she managed to squat and pee in the bush all on her own “like a big girl”. But in the middle of the field outside this same couple’s tent (each time the same spot), I was not so proud.

The not so big rip off day out
The MIL recently told us that Babecomb Model Village was a great place to go, hubby also had fond childhood memories, so off we trotted for the day out. Cut that, that should read, morning out. We were fleeced. Paid nearly a fiver for four hours car parking of which we only used two. Then paid nine squid per adult for entrance. I’m not saying it wasn’t enjoyable, cause it was. But not nearly a tenners worth! Babe was also a bit young for it too, and got a little bored. So if you’re holidaying in Devon, my advice is give it a miss unless you have a massive desire to see a petrol station in miniature.

The campsite
If you are thinking of coming to the South West (UK) camping, the campsite we stayed at called Dornafield is THE place to book up for. No swimming pool but two playgrounds, massive plots, great facilities (won loo of the year last year and given how much I frequent them at the moment, that’s quite an important factor), nice on site shop and fantastic onsite wildlife (rabbits and birds). It’s quite expensive for tents, but electricity is included and it’s worth the extra.

So who else is off camping this summer?

by

31 Weeks Pregnant & Going Camping

We can’t resist, despite cancelling our big two week summer camping trip a month ago, we’re going to give in. Even if it’s just for a few days.

As the summer progresses and I hear about all my friends off camping, I can no longer fight the inner outdoors girl within me. We’ve got another week off and while our last staycation was fab, we just don’t have our hearts in it this time.

Then as soon as hubby and I started talking about it we realised how much it meant to Babe. She is sooo excited and it’s proved a great bargaining tool. So there is no turning back.

I’ve checked that I can get myself into my sleeping bag and will take lots of extra cushions, so let’s see how we get on.

by

Pregnant, busy week and then food shopping – err why?

Portrait of a Shopping Trolley

Image by Thristian via Flickr

Tell me everyone does this now and again, makes a bad judgement call and bites off more than they chew. The result is that you’re coughing and spluttering up your failed attempts at what ever you’d planned to achieve.

As the pregnancy progresses well into the third trimester I risk this scenario more and more.

Last night was a classic example. I’ve had a busy week at work, up early everyday, plus a trip into the office some 80 miles away. Add a hubby who is dying from man flu and a toddler snotted up with the leftovers of the cold she had so delightfully shared with us all = one tired Mama. My body was fooling me though, at 5/6pm I was going strong. Tea time had gone smoothly, Babe had eaten a plate full of food (ok well plain pasta but it was a full belly), so I set out to do a half supermarket shop.

I say half a shop, because I can’t manage a trolley full of the full stash of food…and I’m eating a lot at the moment as a nursing pregnant mummy.

We got to the supermarket and all was going well…ish. I’d had the debate with Babe in the baby aisle over the dummies, new sippy cups, new cutlery etc. I’d placated her by putting the cutlery in the trolley to later hide on another shelf, which worked. Then I went to the deli counter, fed Babe up on cheese samples, relieved that she was having an opportunity to get her daily protein intake. At the point of ordering the sliced turkey, she asked to come up and see what was going on. I obliged by explaining that she could sit in the trolley. While conversing with the deli man, I reached down grabbed Babe and went to place her in the trolley. As I was resting her down into it the man asked if these particular four slices were ok. I didn’t give a damn but looked round to check, as I did that while lowering Babe, her foot must have moved the trolley and she fell on the floor and burst out into tears. I felt like a terrible mother, and almost sobbed with her. The deli man looked on and asked if £2.08 for the turkey was ok. Oh course it was, I didn’t give a flying fig….he could have said a fiver and I would have taken it. I was feeling guilt ridden and stood hugging Babe whispering how sorry I was. Turned out two minutes later she was fine, but I still felt nasty pangs of guilt.

The rest of the supermarket shop proceeded to be positively hard work, running too and from the toilets, sweetie aisle, while I attempted half heartedly to get just the basics.

By the time I got home my back was killing me, I was exhausted and in a foul mood. I was so tired I went to bed without cleaning my teeth and having not put all the shopping away.

All I can say now is, roll on the weekend!

Related articles
by

Choosing your toddler battles

Marine Week Boston, 2010: M1A1 Main Battle Tan...

Image by Chris Devers via Flickr

I’m a strong believer that you choose your battles with a toddler carefully. This is for many reasons…

Your sanity
Surely you would drive yourself and your toddler mad, have a totally unfulfilled parenting experience if you pick them up on every misdemeanour. If someone dare mutters to me again “mummy should make you do as your told” they will get a mouthful. I can’t restrain my self on that a second time.

Letting toddlers learn
At some point I think you need to learn to let go and give toddlers the freedom to learn. Sometimes this does involve doing things that makes mess, makes you cringe or seems a little odd. But why not let toddlers be toddlers? We don’t need to rush them to be all grown up. Now is their chance, now is their moment to relish in the simple things. If something were to symbolise us letting go as parents, then check out our house…once pretty immaculate, fairly minimalist…now almost always cluttered with toddler items, or things of ours that Babe has misplaced around the property. My hand bags are a prime example – she thinks all of them are hers except my big Radley one which is a no go, more because she finds it too heavy to drag around. Then there are the contents of my kitchen cupboards, in the bathroom, the bedrooms, the living room – everywhere but the kitchen.

Before I had kids and the rise of gentle discipline
This is a familiar saying for me, and no doubt many other parents. My view of child discipline was so much different. I was more of the opinion that children should be seen and not heard – how antiquated is that? I was naive in the wilfulness of the little people and had little knowledge of child development and what helps the little people thrive. I’ve made an effort since to do a little reading, enough to make me consider the idea of gentle discipline and more creative ways of avoiding toddler battles through diversion and affection. Now the naughty step still does have a place in our house, but it’s a rarely visited location.

Choosing your battles
There are some things that I am not willing to give in on, and they are usually related to safety or downright inappropriateness. This morning I had a prime example, Babe did not want to eat all her porridge so dustbin Mama ate it, so she then got toast. While the toast was toasting she found a Kit Kat and was adamant that she eat this instead of her toast. She persisted for a whole 30 minutes and I won. Chocolate for breakfast is one of my boundaries…a no go.

Do you agree with me on this? If you have no go’s, what are they? No chocolate for breakfast like me?

by

Active Birth and Yoga Classes for Pregnant Mamas

I’ve been meaning for many weeks to return to the active birth classes I participated in during my first pregnancy. But with Babe around its been a struggle to find the time and make it a priority. As labor draws ever closer, it’s gone up on the priority list.

Image from birthwise.net

All week we had planned our schedule to accommodate my evening out and it worked a treat. Tea was cooked and eaten early and despite Babe crying when I left the house at 6pm, she and daddy had a great time without me for the next three hours.

Class starts
Despite running in (after the two flights of stairs) thinking I was late somewhat breathless, it turned out I was in good time. So I didn’t need to nearly run those teenagers over on my way, but never mind, hopefully it taught them a lesson.

For the first time in a good few weeks I didn’t feel huge, surrounded by other pregnant mama’s, some who were up to 35 and 37 weeks gone. I felt an idiot for wearing my jeans though, everyone else was in yoga pants or leggings. What had I been thinking? At least my bare feet didn’t look too bad, the red nail varnish I’d applied rather badly the other day was looking surprisingly OK from a distance. Luckily my top was not lasagna splattered or toddler snot smeared, so it turned out apart from looking a little unsuitably dressed, I didn’t look a total scruff.

What’s involved in this two-hour session?
Obviously there is some yoga. I’m not usually a yoga goer/doer, but its great in pregnancy.

They also cover breathing exercises - in through the nose for 1,2,3 and out through the mouth (like breathing through a straw) for 1,2,3,4,5,6. Those of you who haven’t been through labor or childbirth might think this kind of stuff is time-wasting and just designed to make you look stupid. It’s not, trust me, its important. If you want to stay in control and not melt down into a frenzied state of pain ridden panic, for many its a god send. This is not the only breathing excercise we did, I don’t recall the other stuff too well.

Quite a bit of time is also focused on relaxation and visualisation. Which included some chanting…oooo….aaaaaa……eeeee (I’m going for doe…. ray…. me….). When I first went to these classes almost three years ago, this stuff cracked me up big time. I really struggled to stifle my giggles and sniggers, peeping with one eye open to see how the others were reacting. This time I was conditioned and prepared, and it all seemed very normal to me – I wasn’t going to be brandished the immature newbie today.

Finally we also talk about active birth were the teacher educates us on the natural  physiological process of birth, and teaches us how to promote the production of key hormones that will enhance own body’s natural coping  mechanisms in labour and birth. Sounds like hippy fluffy stuff, but this is the real business – and it works. I couldn’t have done my natural birth last time around without this knowledge. It was so nice to be reminded of all the things I’d forgotten and to learn lots of new techniques.

If you want to know more, check out the Birthwise website. I’m afraid they only do classes in Devon, but it’s still a great resource for learning more about the concept.

Related articles