Rejoice!

Rejoice! The sun shine is here, and goodness knows how long it will stay (we aren't famed for our long, hot summers here in Northern Ireland!) In honour of the suns new presence I duly went out and got sun burnt. Yes, silly me. Yesterday I didn't have time to sit outside and enjoy the sun, so I sat outside and folded laundry, and fed the baby, and cuddled my sick little boy, and hung out washing. I did the best I could out there! We filled up a paddling pool for Tarja and her friend to play in. Barney would have played too but hes not at all well. An emergency trip to the out-of-hours doctor yesterday meant that we missed baby yoga. But Barney was diagnosed with some sort of viral illness, possibly 'slap-cheek'. After a night of vomiting and high temperature he is now covered from his head to his knees in a bright red rash. Poor lad. He looks a sight. And he has no energy whatsoever. I'm hoping the other kids don't catch it too. Especially the baby - sick babies are a misery.

We had a nice BBQ outside to make the most of the nice weather. Rosie was quite amused at the whole 'sitting outside' malarky. She's only really had brief trips out in the pram, but never sat out just for the joy of it. Today looks like another fine one. I wonder how many more jobs I can take outside?

Luke gives Emily a bottle

Mmmm, fingers. Almost as nice as Mums home cooking.

I spent the afternoon making a big batch of baby foods. It's about all I accomplished today, apart from giving Rosie a bath.

I've run out of sleeping tablets and the doctors have been so busy that they haven't got my prescription ready. So last night I slept not a wink, and tonight will probably be the same. Not sleeping sucks! I am a zombie now. After 8 hours of nothing I eventually managed a 2 hour doze, where I was dreaming that I was on an operating table waiting to be put to sleep for some surgery. But they kept delaying the start of the operation and I had to just lay there waiting. I wasn't really asleep. It was more like a sleep deprived trance. When will I start to sleep again? This is getting blooming annoying!

Hope

I'm wondering if I've done the right thing or not. The thought of more stress is more than I can imagine. Hoping it doesn't all blow up in my face. Hoping, but expecting nothing.

I'm lacking inspiration for blog writing. But I guess it doesn't matter, for as soon as I sit down to write this Rosie is bound to wake up from her nap and I won't have time to write it anyway!

Having a bit of a dilemma at the moment about something. I keep changing my mind about what to do. What is right to do? And what should or should not be bothered with. How many chances should you give someone?

It's hard to believe that Rosie is almost half a year old. Here she is having her first ever go in the swing in our back garden. Barney, the ever doting big brother, was so excited to see her in his old swing.

Ahh, typically Rosie has just woken up from her nap!

I'm really trying this week to start organising her naming ceremony for the summer. I haven't been in the right frame of mind for dealing with it, and the absence of a special friend kind of made me lose my excitement for organising anything. But I have been talking with my Mum about doing something and really must start making some actual plans. It will be in August, and probably held outside in my Mums garden (which is more of a field really). I want to make it a really special day. Any ideas on what we could do to make it a wonderful memory?

Do you like my new dress?

Rosie, age 5 months

I'm so pretty!

Don't you think Rosie is just the cutest thing in her new dress? She's gorgeous alright. Adorable. Today she went to 'rhyme time' at the local library and met some other babies her own age. She seemed rather cool and collected about the whole thing. I think she prefers the more intimate setting at baby yoga.

Talking of Yoga, I'm quite looking forward to going to awful yoga tonight. Last week Julz and I started a yoga class here in Banbridge. It was awful. Terrible, in fact. But we are going again tonight and hoping that there is some improvement. I'm looking forward to getting a bit of exercise tonight. I missed bellydance on Monday as I was just feeling yuck.

What better way to start a blog post than with a photo of two of the four most gorgeous children in the world? Isn't it just an adorable pic? I don't know how us two ugly old farts managed to produce such beautiful children though! I seem to have a lot more photos of the younger two than the older two. But I put that down to the fact that the older two never leave their bedrooms. So unless I barge in with a camera I'm not likely to catch many good pics.

I've been a bit slow on the blogging. I guess there just hasn't been time. My social life has been hectic the last month or so. I tell you, it's either a feast or a famine! My lovely Mum babysat for us on Saturday night so that we could go to Julz birthday party, which was a great night. Good food, good company, good craic, good friends. Unfortunately for my Mum the littlun's weren't feeling too well, so she had quite a hard night looking after them. That with the girlie nights we've had lately, the bellydance classes, yoga, baby yoga, parents evenings, shopping spree's with friends, it's been so busy. Every spare moment has been spent doing laundry and tidying the house!

Rosie is learning to eat solid foods. She loves food much more than bottles. She drinks her baby milk very unenthusiastically, just enough to survive on (although you wouldn't think it to look at her!) But she LOVES real food. She would easily eat three square meals a day and forget about milk if I let her. But her little tummy is not coping as well with the food as her appetite is, so I'm limiting her to one small meal of fruit puree a day. She gobbles it down and shouts at me for more if I don't get the next mouthful in quick enough!

I had my second appointment with the Osteopath, and he did some more work on my neck, head and lower back. It felt good at the time but I was in agony for days after. Today is the first day that I've not been in too much pain. I'm not sure if the pain is due to stress, the aftermath of pregnancy and surgery, or a side effect of all the medication I'm on at the moment. I hope whatever it is that it passes soon. Poor Marty is getting fed up of having to massage the knots in my shoulders every night. His thumbs get sore!

Click me better

Yesterday was a first experience for me. I paid a small fortune to see an Osteopath. I've been in so much pain for so long. But recently it got unbearable. Especially in the right side of my neck and shoulder area. So I booked an appointment with an Osteopath who came highly recommended. I've never been to one before so wasn't sure what to expect. After chatting about my medical history for 15 minutes he decided that I should see him twice; once for treatment on my bones, and once on my muscles - a week apart. I need so much doing that he said it would be too much for my body to do it all in one session!

After looking at my posture he seemed rather shocked that I wasn't in even more pain than I actually was. He said that my hip joints were both out of alignment, so badly so that I had one leg an inch shorter than the other! When he realigned them he told me I might fall over when I stood up as I'd be used to walking with different length legs! Both hips joints were twisted, but in the opposite direction to each other, which I guess is why my back and shoulders were in so much pain. My back was probably compensating for my wonky hips. After discussion we decided that it had probably happened 18 months before when I'd fallen down the stairs and broke my toe. I landed on my butt so hard that night that my hip joints were in pain for weeks.

Anyway, my pelvis was also out of alignment due to the SPD I'd had during pregnancy so he clicked that back into shape, then he realigned all the vertebrae up my spine with a lot of clicking and crunching sounds! He twisted my body into all sorts of shapes to shift everything back into line. A big crack from my chest area made him exclaim 'oh my goodness, it looks like one of your ribs was out of line'. Eeewwwww. But he did the most work on my neck and head. Usually every time I turn my head I can hear crunching sounds in the base of my spine. Those sound have gone now, thank goodness. He clicked my neck and head this way and that, then I felt a tingling warm rush go up the side of my head, which he said was the blood flowing more freely as it had been trapped. Lastly he manipulated the back of my skull in an attempt to relieve me of the migraines I've been suffering with for years.

So I had a big old overhaul and felt very stretchy and limber afterwards. I'm going back next week for my muscle treatment. No idea what that involves, but I'm sure it will be just as interesting.

Nothing like Mum's home cooking

Don't we all love our Mum's home cooking? (It's true that my Mum is an exceptional cook - I'm not sure my own kids would say the same about their Mum!) Anyway, today I spent the morning cooking up Rosie's first batch of baby food. She's only just started having her first few tastes of real food; banana being her favourite so far. She's not having very much every day, just a spoonful or two, but I think it's important that what she does eat is healthy and good for her. And helps her poop! (That's always important - remember your five a day folks!)

So I cooked up various vegetables and fruits and made her some main courses and some desserts. The main courses are all a base of potato, carrot and parsnip, and then I have added cauliflower to some, broccoli to others, courgettes to some more, and asparagus to the other. I made two types of fruit desserts. The first is steamed apple, pear, and strawberry mixed with banana. And the other is banana and raspberry puree. And I must say, they all taste yummy! Let's hope Rosie agrees!

Baby Yoga, Osteopaths and drongo's

So what's new? Life has been so busy that I've not had time to post anything here really. Everything is ticking along. Rosie is getting absolutely huge! I started her on one solid feed a day this week. Yesterday she tried mashed banana and really seemed to love it. So I am taking her to the supermarket in a while to buy various mashable fruits and veg to make her some meals with. Maybe some strawberries, mashed carrots and parsnips, mashed berries and bananas. I don't like these packet baby foods made of dried flakes. It seems like giving the baby a microwave dinner to me.

I'm going to see an osteopath tomorrow - to the tune of £50! I hope it's worth it. That's far more money than I can afford, but I am in so much pain that I'd almost pay anything to get some help with it. I have some huge muscle knots in my upper back and neck, all on the right hand side of my body. They are agony. The neck strain is causing me migraines, and the knots in my shoulders are so huge you can sort of pop them around. I can barely move my arms sometimes. I've been getting Marty to massage them every evening, which is agony. So hopefully this osteopath will be able to relieve some of the pain. I know that after the C section I could not stand up straight for weeks and I had a lot of shoulder pain then. I think that, coupled with stress, is what is causing it all.

I took Rosie to her first 'baby yoga' session on Saturday, and boy did she enjoy it! There were 6 babies there, all in the 4 - 5 month age group, and she was delighted to be making new friends! She chattered, laughed, squealed and sang for the entire hour, smiling at all the other babies. The babies lay on their own yoga mats while we moved their little legs and arms into stretches and yoga positions, whilst singing nursery rhymes to them. But we also did some Mummy Yoga ourselves, with our babies in our arms. Needless to say I was shattered after doing yoga with the equivalent of a 16lb medicine ball baby! Can't wait to take her again next week though. She really enjoyed the whole experience.

I attended Tarja's parents evening at the college last week. It was interesting to talk to all her subject teachers but I have decided that science teachers are drongo's! Badgers science teacher had told me at his interview to tie a card round his neck with a list of things he should remember each day! (Yeah, why not just give him a bell and call out leper as he walks by!) But Tarja's science teacher obviously had no idea who she was talking about. I sat down at her desk and said 'Hi, I'm Tarja's Mum' (except I obviously didn't use her blog name!) and the teacher looked panicked, ruffled through some papers, then proceeded to talk about my daughter as a boy! 'He is doing ok, he this... he that'. I sat in amazement until she said 'do you have any concerns about him?' at which point I got the giggles from embarrassment for the poor woman who obviously had no idea who she was talking about. She ended by saying 'if anything he's a bit chatty in class'. Well, then I knew she wasn't talking about my daughter, as every other teacher had said how quiet she is! I'm sure she felt embarrassment when she realised her mistake.

Rosie's first feed