Thoughts at 2 months

Blimey where has the time gone!? Our baby isn't such a baby anymore. When I said how big he is to someone the other day there was a hint that we might be over feeding him as he does guzzle a lot before bed time. However, he guzzles so much so that he sleeps for longer and in that we are blessed! He is also thin and long in fact I took out the tape measure last week and he is measuring well over the 100th percentile. I'm not sure if I'm measuring Albie wrong or whether we have a giant on our hands!

With all the growing we are saying goodbye to some very recent purchases: size 0-3 month clothes, the inner lining for the car seat, his moses basket and cloth nappies size tiny and small. I say goodbye, it's going in the loft for "next time" ha!! I'm disappointed most with putting away the cloth nappies because we bought a starter pack from gnappies and loads of cloth inserts and never used them! It was really hard at first and we agreed to use them when he's older so that we can adjust to being parents first before adjusting to extra things like the cloth nappy system! The problem is the size small nappies are too small after 13lbs and Albie was measuring 13lb 7 a couple of weeks ago...too late!! I'm not sure whether to put the nappies away and buy some medium sized nappies so that we use the cloth inserts or just sell the lot and be done with it. If anyone wants to make me an offer for a whole load of tiny gpants, small ones and some cloth inserts please do!

The cot issue has been tormenting me the last couple of weeks. Albie has been having problems getting to sleep at night and we tried everything even Ewan the sheep couldn't help us! The only solution was picking up the moses basket and rocking him to sleep. With Albie growing so much I knew we had to stop the rocking, put the moses basket in his cot and get him used to the new home.  When you're so sleep deprived though and knowing that rocking the basket would help you get some much needed sleep we kept giving in. Likewise, practising putting Albie down in the day in his cot just wouldn't work his hands would dash out and he wouldn't have his usual security and so the waterworks began. This weekend we just had to do it, I saw Albie sleeping with his neck bent and knew we had to transfer him asap. It had a shaky start but we're almost there. We can't quite leave him to fall asleep on his own at night he needs to fall asleep on us but in the day he's able to coo and tire himself out for a nap and for that I'm a very happy mummy!

There is something else that gets me down a bit and that is the babywearing journey I so want to be on. I love going for walks and really want to be able to wear Albie to do this but I'm really struggling.  I found the carrier that a friend gave us quite hard on the back and so I thought a wrap would be better but Albie is again so long his head pops out and since he can't support it yet I have to walk holding it, not the hands free experience I wanted!

While I love blogging and looking through old blog posts I really want to look through photo albums of Albie so I printed a heap of photos at the weekend and made keepsakes for Albie's grandparents.  We visited Mark's parents too and they were overjoyed to have photos. I guess you can digitalise everything but it's still nice to hold a photo rather than look on an email or on facebook.  It's why I love and really need to get back to taking photos with film cameras it's far more romantic.

I bought a stash of clothes for next to nothing second hand recently and there was a really cute t-shirt that made me smile. I realised I had been to most of the places illustrated and visited them in a different way to how we will visit places from now on. Mark and I tend to sit in coffee shops and bars to watch the world go by and try new food or just walk miles seeing what we come across. We're not big on sight seeing and while I'm not saying we will suddenly take Albie to see big sights when we go to new places with him I love the little captions on each landmark that suggest we will be putting a child like slant on everything from now on.  Speaking of travelling, I have a big obsession with buying new york maps and have a few in our house that we couldn't resist buying one for Albie's room.  I hope we can return and see New York through the eyes of a child one day.

In between evil growth spurts our days are filled with smiles and laughter. Well, I say laughter more like smiles with a funny cough behind them they certainly make us laugh loads and he just carries on it's brilliant! I didn't think we would be entertained this early on, I'm so glad we are though there is only so much feeding and sleeping I could handle I was desperate to interact with the little one.

Subject to change

We're moving again....!! Because we have to though and to be honest Albie has outgrown our house already his stuff is everywhere we can barely move.  The landlord wants to sell the house and so we have to go the question is where do we go?

First we came up with Manchester.  We fell in love with the place when we moved away from there, we didn't realise how good we had it until we were gone. My Mum's home and it's where her family is apart from three things, her children and her grandchild. It's just too far for us to return to for now.

So what about Dorset/Devon we love it so. Mark and I love to go there for holidays and of course visiting my parents couldn't be easier. We had visions of us strolling to the beach with Albie, teaching him to swim in the sea and having BBQs (or breakfast!). It was so romantic and the house prices are amazing you get a lot of house for each £ but there's a reason for that...there are no jobs it would be too risky.  The other thing that put us off would be the insane traffic in the summer.

And so we have settled on going back to Wiltshire, Salisbury in particular. It's a place that holds lots of memories for Mark and I as children. Mark says every time we've driven past the hospital it's the place where he was born and nearly died (minutes to live when his appendix exploded, thought he had food poisoning and didn't want to bother the doctors stubborn bugger he is!!).  I lived in Salisbury twice I think, it's hard to keep up I was very small and we travelled a lot while my Dad was in the army. Eventually we moved to Trowbridge but Salisbury was somewhere my Mum and I visited on the train a lot so I have very recent memories and the place suits us well.  It's big enough to have lots to do but since it's Wiltshire there will be plenty of countryside to run around with Albie and the New Forest is a stones throw away.  The best part it's in the middle of all of Albie's grandparents so win win!

We just need a house to live in now and 3 beds are pretty scarce so fingers crossed the right one will come along soon.  At the weekend we took a look around Salisbury and we got so excited that Albie will have memories of the place just like his parents.

 

A life changing day

Once I got to 40 weeks pregnant I got extremely impatient and the days got longer and longer. Therefore, when the weekend arrived I made Mark get me out of the house and we actually had a great time plodding about anticipating what the next couple of weeks would bring. Because I was so determined to have a nice day out we went to Hungerford where you're guaranteed pretty florists to admire, quirky antique shops and cafes. 

Who would have thought looking at these pictures that I would go to bed that night with an incredibly dull pain surging through my body and my waters breaking just a couple of hours later!

(Apologies for the unseasonable photos it was Christmas time!)

Snap happy

Where have the last 7 weeks gone?! We have a smiley interactive baby on our hands and I know it's just going to get more and more interactive I can't wait! I don't think I'll miss the early newborn days there were so many tears all around, these days Albie is fairly chilled out and so smiley.  However, if anyone would like to volunteer to come over between half 4 and half 6 in the morning when he cries for milk but spits it out and screams the house down to then fall asleep half an hour later you're more than welcome! He was such a nightmare this morning that Mark asked me if I had put some tranquillisers in his milk he went from screams of the highest volume to a sleeping beauty in a crazy short amount of time. 

Here are some shots of our happy baby after he's fed, not quite smiling at his Mummy yet he just looks around and babbles away we love it and could watch it all day long.

I love his cheeks you will mostly find me nuzzled up to them that's happiness there.