The One with the Nice Words

The boy is 6 months old today. Quite a milestone! So to mark his coming into the world we are having a Naming Day for him next weekend.

Naming Days or Ceremonies are quite a recent phenomenon and an alternative to Christenings. Both Christenings and Naming Days have their place and I think it's great you can now choose what you want and what's suitable for your family. If the lad wants to choose a religion later in life then he can make a, hopefully, informed decision then, but for now we just want to celebrate his being here.

I'm all for having options! But with options comes choice!

The first choice was whether to have a Christening (too traditional and restrictive for our needs and beliefs) or a Naming Ceremony with a humanist celebrant (more up my street but a little too alternative for hubby's tastes)? So in the end we opted for a Naming Day that we plan, write and conduct ourselves.

Then there's choosing the "Godparents" or "Fairy Godparents" as my friend has aptly and charmingly "christened" (pun intended) them.

Most people choose family but for me I don't see the point. Family are already there for the baby. Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents all have recognised titles and roles already but as an only child, I have no blood aunts or uncles to bring into the lads life so by nominating dear friends as godparents it's a way of extending my limited family and enriching his circle of significant adults.

My friends are very important to me. They have become my surrogate brothers and sisters. They are my extended family of my own choosing. I have known the four people we have chosen between 12 and 19 years which is a significant time (and hubby has known one of them since secondary school) so these people are very much in our lives and mean a great deal to us.

So I wanted to say a little bit about what each of them means to us and therefore hopefully what they will come to mean to the boy.

And here's another choice! 

How "emotional" do I get with this? After all it's a joyous, fun filled occasion with tea, cake, wine and balloons not a soap opera weepy. I've made a start on writing it but it's all gone a bit Hallmark Cards on me (you know the ones - padded on the front, in white boxes instead of envelopes, usually with cartoon elephants holding roses in their trunks on the front and "nice" words inside).

Do I cut the crap, just raise my glass to them all and say "Cheers all the best" in my best Peter Kay voice or do I go for the all out blub fest?

I'll let you know how the speech turns out but I'm beginning to think I should have put "the wearing of waterproof mascara is advisable" on the invitations......

The One with the Night Out!

Friday night was, as I believe the youngsters say nowadays, large!

Well it was certainly a big event for a group of new mums who haven't been out on the town for ages, if at all, since the little ones were born.

We all met through the NCT (National Childbirth Trust), we were pregnant together, learnt about childbirth together and then gave birth within a few weeks of each other. We have shared birthing stories, tears, triumphs and teething. I love each one of them very dearly and we are held together with motherhood, friendship and laughter.

We meet up at least once a week with our babies for support, advice and each other's company. Of course the conversation is always about the babies and while we have them with us it's hard to really concentrate on anything else, so we planned a girls night out. Just for us.

Since we all met it has been a bonding experience but on Friday night we bonded some more! (no not like that!!)

With no baby talk allowed the G&T's flowed then quickly turned to shots, the drinking games started and the confessions and secrets started to fly.

Now to quote one of our number "What happens on tour stays on tour" but lets just say any night that involves someone making false eyelashes out of Rizla papers has to be a great night.

So roll on November when we plan to do it again.

Should just be enough time for my liver and head to recover......

The One with Every Tom, Dick and Harry

Next doors cat thinks he lives at our house!

The little ginger rascal keeps nipping through Oscar's cat flap and nicking his food. This has been going on for a few weeks now despite our best efforts to thwart him! We've tried moving the food and changing the times we feed but to no avail.

We have one of those four way cat flaps that can be set to in, out or in only or out only so we try setting it to out only so Osc can make a dash for it if nature calls and then we have to physically open the back door to let him back in. Ok if we've around but no good for days out!  I swear Ging has set up surveillance equipment to track our movements and swoops when he sees the car move!

He also appears to have a mobile phone or Facebook or Twitter or whatever  the cat friendly social network of choice is because yesterday he was advertising and come one come all!

Ging's mate, a little tabby he lives with came and helped himself and then a thin all black cat crept in for lunch too!

And it's not confined to the daytime either. I came downstairs to use the bathroom at 4 am this morning and discovered the thin black one doing a dawn raid on the biscuits!

It's partially Oscars fault. He's getting more and more fussy in his old age and whereas he used to wolf down all his food in the morning the moment we gave it to him he now leaves it to graze on throughout the day!

Or for others to graze on!

Also we do have it on good authority that he's been in Ginger's house after his food so it's tit for tat.

Or should that be kit for cat!

The One with the Baby Rice

Well we've done it!

Earlier the boy had his first taste of actual food. If you can call baby rice food that is!

I tasted it. I don't think you can!

He, on the other hand, lapped it up. Literally. I think I might have made it too runny but trial and error hey. He had several spoonfuls, grabbing the spoon from me on occasions to ram it into his mouth.

Something tells me he was ready to explore the culinary world. Once he'd mastered the gentle but bland delights of baby rice he downed the rest of his bottle and started eyeing up my hummus and pitta bread.

I was so pleased he took to it. I was, for some reason, incredibly nervous about starting the whole weaning process but with two weeks to go until he is six months I didn't want to put it off any longer. These things can be tricky and given my apprehension I wanted to give us both time to experiment.

So soon we turn to the world of fruit and veg that is baby puree. Sweet potato, carrot and butternut squash all await and something else struck me, apart from relief, as the boy tucked in. They are all the same colour, and a wonderfully clothes staining colour at that.

But the lad likes his grub so the future's bright.

The future's orange!

The One with BuggyFit!

I'm carrying too much weight. Some of it baby weight. Some of it pre-baby weight I should've shifted before I got pregnant. I'm back into my pre-pregnancy clothes but either way I feel too heavy so something has to be done.

So last week I had a go at BuggyFit!

It's a simple idea. You get lots of mums with their babies and buggies together in the local park for a work out. No need for childcare, lots of fresh air for you and baby, feel fit and healthy and energised. I go for walks most days with the buggy and that's my nearest park, it'll be fine. Piece of cake! (ah, cake, maybe that's where I've been going wrong?). Easy!

It was anything but easy!

We were running, jogging, sprinting, pushing buggies up hills and down dips, stopping for push-ups and sit-ups and crunches and god alone knows what.

Me, the boy and my buggy didn't know what had hit it!

So what did I think of it?

It was fantastic. I'm going again next week.

What did the boy think of it?

He gave me a bemused "What are you doing Mummy? I don't see you do this very often" look at me.

The same look he gives me when he sees me ironing!

The One with the Unusual Activity on My Account

August is a busy month for birthdays. I have my Dad's, quickly followed by one of my brothers-in-law then hubby and at the end of the month is a close family friend. All guys. And guys are hard to buy for.

So this morning, while the boy stirred and the kettle boiled, I did a bit of internet birthday boy present research and subsequent shopping.

Later today I receive an e-mail to say one of my Amazon payments hasn't gone through closely followed by a phone call from my credit card provider.

Credit Card Lady "There's been some unusual activity on your account so we've stopped it"

Me "I'm looking at my account online I can't see any unusual activity. Unless it's not showing up yet. I have made quite a few purchases today both online and in town. I have a lot of birthdays to buy for this month you see."

CCL " It's the internet activity. Several payments were made in quick succession to the same store."

Me " Yes that's Amazon. Some things are from outside sellers through Amazon so they show as separate payments"

CCL " It was also the hour that alerted us. We didn't think you'd be shopping in the early hours of the morning."

Me " It wasn't the early hours it was just when I got up (looks at Amazon e-mail confirmation)..ah... oh yes... it's was 5.50am.  I was up making my son's feed."

CCL " We've never known you shop at that time before"

Me " To be honest before I had a baby I never knew that time existed before"

CCL "Well as long as they are your transactions then that's fine."

Maybe when you have a baby you should let the credit card company know?

After all, once you've got children all your activity is unusual......

The One with the Mini Muzzy

Now you know how much we love a muzz in this house (even the word muzzy cracks me up) and the boy in particular does love to carry this piece of material around with him like Linus from Charlie Brown.

The boy never took to a dummy. I used to think I'd never want a child of mine having one, then I was shown the benefits (peace, quiet, no screaming and you can take a dummy away when he's older you can't take a thumb away - also less chance of braces on the teeth as opposed to the thumb) and I changed my mind. The lad, however, had other ideas and would spit it across the room no matter how hard I tried to ram it back into his mouth (hello? Social services?).

He has however taken to a muzz. And herein lies the problem.

The boy is such a roly poly I'm thinking of getting some Bird's custard in to go with him. So as he's got the hang of the rolling now I can't leave him with a muzzy as it could get wrapped around his neck.Yet he likes it for comfort as he goes off to sleep. What to do?

Enter the mini muzz!

The facial cleanser that I use, Liz Earle Cleanse and Polish, comes with small muslin cloths to wipe the cream off with once you've cleaned your face. They are smaller than a standard sized hankie and perfect for him to suck the corner of without the mass of material to potentially wrap around him.

Job done!

I always knew my obsession with beauty products would be useful one day.....

The One with the Night Feeds

We've been having random 4 am feeds thrown into the mix! When I say we I of course mean the boy but anything he needs obviously involves us all getting up to attend. When I say obviously that's not strictly true. I'm sure there are plenty of households with small babies where either mum or dad get up without disturbing the other but in this house we just don't seem to be able to do that. I for one am thankful for the support. At 4 am it can feel like you are the only person awake.

I think it stems from getting up to let Oscar out, or shift up when he needed more bed (believe me before the boy arrived Oscar was our life - and if you're reading this Osc you still are!) or was miaowing at 3 am for no reason! Once I woke up so did hubby and vice versa.

So, with the return of the dreaded night feed, me, hubby and Oscar are all up and about!

As I predicted in a previous blog (please refer to The One with the Big Decisions) solids would not be far away and I think now is the time. He's 23 weeks on Saturday and I don't think experimenting with textures and flavours 3 weeks earlier than standard Government advice (I wonder if David Cameron is letting Nick Clegg have Farleys Rusks yet or do you think he's still breast feeding him?) is going to cause lasting damage (contrary to the scare mongering "you'll give him digestive disorders later in life" warning the health visitor gave me at the lads last weigh in)!

So the high chair is on order, the baby rice, bowls and spoons are purchased and Annabel Karmel has been consulted (in book form not personally)...

Let battle, or should that be food fight, commence.....