The little things in life

It’s sunny again and I have some more newborn baby clothes hanging on the line. Seeing washing hanging on my line in the sunshine always makes me feel happy – either I need to get out more or I’m just content with the little things in life! Here are some more ‘little’ things that make me happy:

*  Seeing the delight on my little girl’s face when I get her out of her cot in the morning

*  Sitting down with a cup of tea and a good book (a rare treat these days!)

*  Hearing my little girl saying “mum-mum”

Preparing for Pod

I’ve started preparing a little more for Pod’s arrival. The Moses basket has been brought down from the loft as have Jessica’s newborn baby clothes (the unisex ones anyway) which have now been washed and are hanging on the line to dry. I can’t believe how tiny they are, how tiny Jessica once was and that she will be two in just a week’s time. Where has that time gone? What a blessing it has been to watch her grow from that tiny baby in intensive care to a happy toddler who seems so healthy and brings so much joy.

A little walk

Jessica took her first walk into the village today – only 5 minutes’ walk away (at my speed, that is!) but still a fair walk for those little legs of hers. She loved it although did wreak havoc in the pharmacy by knocking the boxes of plasters on one of the shelves which was just at the right height for her to reach. Thankfully, the lovely ladies in the pharmacy know us quite well and were very understanding! The word ‘no’ doesn’t always work as well as I would like sometimes! But we did enjoy our leisurely walk there and back.

Social connections

I didn’t do antenatal classes when I was pregnant with Jessica – I felt I would struggle to connect with other mums-to-be because I felt my concerns would be so different. I still feel that was the right decision at the time but I do feel sometimes that I missed out socially as a result. I am in touch with other heart families, mostly online, many of whom I have met through our stays in hospital but it has taken nearly two years to really start making friends with other mums in my local area with children of a similar age.

Hunting the gold postboxes

We visited a few more gold postboxes on our journey back home, managing to tick another eight off our list. We’ve now managed to visit all the Olympic postboxes on the UK mainland – the only two left on that list are Sark and the Isle of Man. We also reached the halfway point with the Paralympic postboxes. There are only two gold postboxes left within reasonable driving distance of home so as we have no immediate plans to visit the parts of the country with unvisited postboxes, it looks like the rest may have to wait until after Pod arrives.

Another false alarm

After the fire alarm at the hotel, it seemed the day's dramas were not over as I woke in the night with tummy pains - some of which felt quite like contractions. For a while I was quite concerned that Pod was about to arrive early - and we were 275 miles from home. We called the local hospital who advised me to take paracetamol, have a hot drink and monitor the contractions over the next hour. Thankfully after an hour things were starting to ease and we didn't need to go to hospital. What a relief to be back home now!

Smoke but no fire

After spending the morning at the fun day Jessica and I headed back to the hotel for a nap while Daddy carried on working. We'd just got comfy and dozed off when the fire alarm went off and we had to evacuate the building while we waited for the fire engine to arrive. It turned out that someone had been smoking in one of the rooms and that had set off the alarm. Thankfully all was fine and we were allowed back in fairly quickly so Jessica and I were able to snuggle up together and have a little sleep. 

Trolley rides

So lovely to have hubby home again although he is spending this weekend working on another event. This particular event is part of a family fun day and Jessica and I are able to come along too so we can at least spend some of the weekend together as a family. Trying to keep Jessuca occupied whilst Daddy was setting up was somewhat challenging until she discovered that the trolley which had been used for unpacking the truck was great fun to sit and ride on or push her toys around on. It kept her happy for quite a while!

Book worms

My daughter loves books. One thing she often does in the morning is to go to her little bookcase, get out the books one by one and bring them over for me to read to her. I don’t get a lot of time to read for myself though so when I had some free time last night, I started on a new book by an author I love. Unfortunately I got a little too engrossed. It was 2.30am by the time I managed to stop myself reading and go to sleep! Which means I’ve been a very tired mummy today!

The packing puzzle

Packing the car up after spending a couple of days at my mum’s was a challenge! It reminded me of one of those puzzles with the odd shapes that you have to try and work out how to put together to make a cube shape. I thought my car boot was fairly full when I left home but somehow I managed to squeeze in several big boxes containing birthday presents for Jessica plus a few bags of clothes without having to resort to piling stuff all over the back seat. Jessica is definitely going to be spoilt on her birthday!

Family time

Another lovely day of catching up with family. Spending the morning shopping for Jessica's birthday presents with my mum, then visiting Auntie Pauline, Uncle Peter and Auntie Shirley. Back to my mum's for dinner and my sister Maxine popped in and then a lovely evening visiting my twinny, brother-in-law and two nieces. Always so lovely to spend time with my family - and having such a lovely big family means there are always lots of people to catch up with whenever I come down for a visit.  Plus Jessica loves spending time with her aunties, uncles and cousins too.

A fun few days

They say all good things must come to an end and so it was with the visit from my twinny as she and my nieces headed back home today. It has been such a lovely few days - we have enjoyed picnics in the park, a day out at the open air museum, an afternoon of baking cookies and cakes, fun in the garden playing with the ball and splashing in the paddling pool. The girls have all had such a fun time together and it has been such a joy to see how much Jessica loved being with her cousins.

A little trip

Tripped over whilst crossing the road on the way to the chiropractors today and fell flat on my face. Thankfully my hands and knees took most of the impact and I didn't fall on my bump. A very lovely lady helped me up and was quite concerned when she suddenly noticed the baby bump but I reassured her I was fine and my lovely chiropractor provided plasters and sympathy and made sure I was ok. Hands and knees are very, very sore - all grazed and bruised and moving about is painful but Pod is fine and that's what really matters.

A day at the museum

Hubby is away this week working on an event in Cologne but my twin sister and two nieces have come to stay for a few days which is just lovely. Jessica absolutely adores her cousins and is loving having them around at the moment. The three of them are so lovely together and my nieces love helping out with Jessica – they are even happy to change stinky nappies which is fine by me! We have had a great day out at Chiltern Open Air Museum today – the girls loved exploring the old buildings, making beeswax candles and seeing farm animals.

Friends of PICU family fun day

Have had such a lovely day with Jessica and her godmummy Katy at the Friends of PICU family fun day . Jessica won first prize in the fancy dress competition for her octopus costume and it was lovely to see a couple of the people who have looked after Jessica on PICU when she was a little baby. We also got to meet Erin, another heart baby whose journey we have been following, along with her parents and big brother and it was so lovely to finally meet them all in person and see how well little Erin is getting on.

A little octopus

Have been busy making Jessica an octopus costume for the Friends of PICU family fun day as there is a fancy dress competition and one of the categories is 0-2 so thought I would enter her in it. The costume consists of three pairs of coloured tights which have been cut up, stuffed and attached to a waistband (plus she is wearing another pair of co-ordinating tights, a pink top to go with the tights and a hat with eyes stuck on. She does look very sweet in it and was quite fascinated by all her extra 'legs'.

Scrapbooking

I’ve finally got around to scrapbooking the cards that we received when Jessica was born. It’s only taken me the best part of two years to do this. I’ve been meaning to do it for ages and with Pod due to arrive in just over two months’ time, I’ve realised that if I don’t do it before Pod arrives, then I probably will never get around to it. I’m about halfway through at the moment and it is so lovely looking back and remembering just how many people were so supportive and lovely during those first few weeks in hospital.

Storytime

Jessica was ‘reading’ me a story this morning which had lots of different animals in it. She was standing next to me, turning the pages of the book and pointing to each picture of an animal or object that she recognised and then signing the word to me. It was so cute. Occasionally she’d try and say the word (e.g. duck or car) or she would try and make the animal noise whilst signing. My favourite has to be her little lion roar – it is just the cutest little roar – although the elephant noise is a close second. Precious moments. 

Snack-time sharing

Like most toddlers, Jessica goes through little phases of picky eating every so often. However, as her daily calorie needs are higher than most toddlers due to her heart condition, it can be quite stressful trying to make sure she eats a reasonable amount without making a big deal about it. This afternoon, she refused to eat anything at snack-time until I started ‘feeding’ her snack to one of her toys. She loved the fact that the toy was ‘sharing’ her food and ended up eating it all. Hopefully this technique will continue to be successful for a bit longer!

A little guest in the garden

Was sitting out in the garden playing with Jessica today, when a little hedgehog popped out of the bushes and had a wander around. We had a hedgehog living in our garden a couple of years ago but haven’t seen one in the garden since Jessica was born. I’d heard rustling in the bushes a few times recently whilst putting out the washing and now I know what it was. Jessica was fascinated at seeing a hedgehog for the first time although I had to stop her making a beeline for the part of the garden where he was wandering.

Who needs the fairytale?

I once wanted a man to sweep me off my feet, to be my knight in shining armour. My husband has never quite lived up to those expectations but I have learned that real love is so much more than fairytales and romance. He once surprised me by meeting me from work during the summer holidays when I wasn't expecting him to visit. Throughout all Jessica's surgeries and hospital stays, he has been there for us providing strength and support. He tells me I am beautiful when I'm tired and feel like a beached whale. He makes me feel loved.

Trying to be organised

I thought I’d get organised today and start washing some of Jessica’s unisex newborn clothes in readiness for Pod’s arrival. Unfortunately when I started sorting through the bag of unisex clothes that hubby got down from the loft some time ago, I found it was all 3-6 month clothes or bigger. I am sure that there were definitely some newborn things that were unisex so there must be another bag up in the loft still. Now I just have to wait for hubby to get them down for me – just as well there’s still a couple of months to go!

Making history come alive

I love history and have really been enjoying the BBC drama series ‘The White Queen’ based on Philippa Gregory’s Cousins War novels. Watching a series like this or reading novels based on historical figures always makes me want to go away and do some more research to try and discover more about the facts on which the TV series/books were based. Somehow I can soak up information so much better when I can link it to a real person and be able to imagine the scenario – it makes all those dates and historical facts really come alive for me then.

On the news

Jessica has been on the news today for the second time (the first time being when she was 14 weeks old in intensive care – the local news were running a feature on children spending Christmas in hospital). This time, we were filmed at a toddler signing class which took place in a newly-created community space in a large Tesco store. The feature was about the decline of out of town shopping due to internet shopping and how this particular store is redesigning its space to attract customers. We were only onscreen briefly but we still made it onto the news!

Summer days

I am loving the weather at the moment. After the heat and humidity of July, it is nice to have sunshine, a nice breeze and daytime temperatures that are pleasantly warm - just a lovely comfortable temperature. Add a bit of overnight rain to keep the plants happy and it would be perfect. It would be lovely if it could stay that way for the rest of the summer - no doubt it won't last as long as that but I will certainly be enjoying it while it does last. And taking advantage of being able to put washing on the line!

Catching up with old friends

It is always lovely to catch up with old friends, and all the more so when it is completely unexpected. One of my housemates and closest friends from my university days dropped by this afternoon as she was passing through the area where I live. It's been quite a few months since we last managed to catch up and it was wonderful to spend a couple of hours with her. I miss my uni days sometimes - it was so great to have so many friends living within walking distance and to be able to just meet up at short notice.

Enjoying afternoon tea

We've had a lovely time having afternoon tea at cousin Meryl's to help her celebrate her 60th birthday along with lots of her friends. Jessica thoroughly enjoyed herself although Mummy got a little frazzled trying to keep up with her wanting to run about and explore everything, stopping her trying to go outside in the rain and then trying to prevent her grabbing hot teapots and cups of tea or smearing cake over the furniture! She's definitely a busy little bee these days, bless her! I couldn't persuade her to eat any sandwiches but the cake certainly went down well!

Teething troubles

Jessica is teething at the moment. We've had two teeth make an appearance in the last few days and two more look set to appear in the very near future. She always seems to do teething in bulk - her first two arrived close together then nothing for a few months and then we had ten in the space of about six weeks (that wasn't a fun time!) We've had quite a few quiet months on the teeth front - so far the latest set seem to be coming through with a bit less trouble than we had last time.

Gold post box hunting

We’ve had a successful day hunting Olympic gold post boxes and have visited four today during our travels around East London, Essex and Bedfordshire. This brings our total of Olympic post boxes to sixty so there are just four more left on the list to visit. We’re unlikely to manage two of them in the foreseeable future (the ones on Isle of Man and Sark) but we are planning to visit the other two on the list later on this month. It’s given us a great excuse to visit parts of the country that we otherwise wouldn’t have gone to.

On the low side

My blood results from Wednesday’s clinic appointment have come back and shown that I am slightly anaemic. This explains why I have felt so completely exhausted recently despite getting fairly good amounts of sleep – I had just put it down to the hot weather and reaching the third trimester (although admittedly I hadn’t remembered feeling quite this tired at this stage with Jessica but then I didn’t have an active toddler to look after!) Hopefully the iron supplements will help improve my energy levels and fingers crossed that my iron levels will be back up when they are next checked.

Comparisons

Pod has now reached the same gestation that Jessica was when she had her very first surgery in-utero. It is amazing to think that was over two years ago – what a frightening time it was and what a huge blessing it is that we now have the joy of watching Jessica grow and develop. Whilst this pregnancy has been similar physically to last time, it has been a very different experience on an emotional level and although I am very thankful for each step on the journey and where it has led us to, it is nice to experience normality!