Where the wild things are.

Let the rumpus start!

Natural childhood.

I haven't taken any more pics this week. However I have just been reading Waldorf Mama's latest post about building fairy houses. This is something my children do from time to time and so I have dug out a few pics from last summer of the fairy houses they made in the garden. This is a great activity that can be done anywhere; woods, beach, anywhere. I bought them a DVD (after seeing it mentioned on Salt and Chocolate) called Kristen's Fairy House. In it, the girl goes with her artist auntie to an island and builds little houses for the fairies from natural materials in the environment. It got the children's imaginations going and also came with a few do's and don'ts, common sense stuff really to protect the environment. I think there is a book too. But it is simple, free fun and I enjoyed troubleshooting with Honor, trying to build the roof on hers. Proof, also, that you don't need Nintendo's and wiis or whatever to keep them entertained.

Pretty, isn't it. Waldorf Mama (link in sidebar) has some lovely ideas, too.

I'm also blogging tonight about bedtime stories. Last night we read the Ugly Duckling by Hans Christian Andersen. It always brings back memories of the wonderful film starring Danny Kaye that I watched when I was little so, with Henry, I looked up the song on youtube. And here it is..

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMKxnYRhk6I&feature=related

We then watched the Thumbelina clip. Henry was delighted with the little character created by drawing a face on a thumb and draping it in a little cloth. Magic!

The night before, we had a story called Beryl's Box. We have read this many times but haven't had it out in a while. I love this book because it is about two girls. The first has every toy you can imagine and is bored. Her friend has nothing but a cardboard box and is not bored. Together, they have fabulous and exciting adventures courtesy of this cardboard box (and their imaginations - of course).

I have noticed, as I write this post, that I have been thinking very much about the simplicities of childhood and I suppose these are things I consciously and subconsciously try to preserve for my children.

Finally. Everything seems to be fine now with baby Hope. Poor Hubby has been hovering over her all week. We had a lovely day today, though. Henry had a school trip to Blue Reef sealife centre in Hastings. I went along as a helper and Hubby went too with the baby, separately. I didn't see much of them but when we got home he said he's had one of the best days ever.

I did promise cousin Eve that I'd send some pics, but, sorry, I forgot to take my camera. Hubby does have a little video clip, though, so when he digs it out, I'll send it to you.

CIAO!

999 Emergency.

Well. Our mellow Sunday afternoon came to a dramatic end yesterday when later on, as I was hearing Henry read, little Hope became fussy and wanted some attention. After a quick cuddle, I sat her back down on the floor. She started to cry, And as the cry built up bigger and bigger, she stopped breathing, toppled over and turned blue. It was a terrifying ordeal. I screamed for Hubby and by the time I handed her over to him, she was unconscious and not breathing at all. Actually, we feared the worst. But as I was on the phone to the emergency services, Hubby had been massaging her back and chest and she started to breathe again. In fact she recovered very well, very quickly.

The ambulance arrived quickly, too and we were taken to the hospital. At the time, I thought she was choking on something but as we went over the details with the medics, they eventually concluded that she may have stopped breathing as a result of crying. This is more common in 3 year olds but not unheard of with babies. (Hyperventilation syndrome). Anyway, baby and I stayed the night in hospital which she seemed to really enjoy! The medics gave her a thorough checking over including an ECG and we finally got home late this afternoon. We are all exhausted. And Hubby and I are pretty upset at the moment. But our little baby seems fine now and the docs have told us not to worry.....

Standing on her own two feet.

Just thought I'd post these two photos of Hope who is now pulling herself up to standing.

The poor little mite has sticky eyes at the moment so I'll probaby have to take her to the docs tomorrow for some drops.

My cold still has a good grip. I can hardly breathe.

My old friend.

Whoa! Look at these 80's chicks! I mentioned before that I was looking forward to my old school friend, Michelle, coming to visit. She thinks this was the last time we saw each other. It was her 18th birthday. We are now 38. I don't know why we lost touch.

She told me that she had teenage children. I was a bit surprised to see them come with her. From what I often hear from others with teens and what you see on the telly, I assumed they'd be off skulking somewhere. How wrong I was. They did not fit the stereotype you see and hear about. They were perfectly normal, actually they were lovely. I thought they must be so bored listening to us two going on about old times. They probably were, but they didn't show it and often joined in with the conversation. I suppose I've got used to little ones constantly interrupting and trying to hold the thread of a conversation with another adult so it was refreshing to keep the chat on an even keel. If our kids turn out anything like hers, I'll look forward to the teen years, not dread it!

I really enjoyed our afternoon, catching up. We won't leave it so long next time.

Cot update:

Hope slept well in her cot last night. As well as has been usual, anyway. I had to feed her at 3.30am and 6.30am. When I got her up at 6.30, she felt very cold. I think the hammock kept in more warmth and because it was much smaller, her blankets were folded a few times over. So I need to get the bedding right to keep her warm.

The cot!

Oh, and I'd better post, for the record that Hope has just gone into a cot. Hubby put it together this afternoon and I put her in it a few hours ago. She cried for a bit, but when I went back in she was asleep and still under the covers. I wonder how it will go....

Little Hope is 10 months old today so I thought I'd do a little update on what she is doing.

Her first tooth has just broken throught the surface of the gum but isn't really visible yet.

We are still breastfeeding. Since Christmas she has not been sleeping throught the night. She was ill at the beginning of January and woke every 2 hours for nursing. She is still doing this but now just once or twice a night. She has 3 'solid' meal per day, mostly roughly pureed, and seems not to mind what it is apart from avocado. She's only liked this when mixed with banana.

She is sitting up, unaided, crawling and trying to pull herself up. She doesn't babble as much as the other two did, but likes to make animal/lion noises, hums and 'sings' and attempts to make signs for milk and waves. I think she said the word 'dog' yesterday when we were looking at a book together.

She is generally a very happy, easy going child and only seems to cry when she has a good reason ie tired, hungry or wants her nappy changed which I sometimes miss because I can't smell it! She does hate being dressed and undressed though and gets very angry, then!

I had a sort out of the toys this afternoon. Here I have assembled some collections of toys and 'real' things based on the treasure baskets you get in heuristic play and put them in these floral boxes and wicker baskets. For more information on heuristic play, follow this link: http://www.littleacornstomightyoaks.co.uk/Articles/Treasure%20basket.php

Here are a few of the things I have included.

And so to bed... (sigh!)

Awwwwww. Hope looks really cute in this leopard top. (Thanks, Auntie Vicky!) Henry is playing with her. She loves the lion puppet he is holding. She doesn't talk much yet, alittle bit of babbling, but seems to prefer to make lion noises!

This picture was taken after school. I always give them a little snack when they get in as it seems to help keep moods stable! After this we all went off to Mothercare to get Hope a cotbed as she is outgrowing her Ambynest (baby hammock). It will be such a shame to see it go -it's lovely. Hubby's colleagues gave us some Mothercare vouchers when the little one was born so they pretty much covered the cost of a nice, white, wooden cotbed. We have decided to keep her in our room for the time being and get a nice comfortable futon sofa bed for downstairs if we need to sleep away from distraction.

This picture was taken after tea. I made chicken soup again as I have a cold starting. Henry and HM are ready for bed in their pyjamas, reading the Argos catalogue (groan) while they wait for me to prepare hot chocolate for Beatrix Potter night - it's the tale of Tom Kitten!

So here we have a little cup of instant Hot Chocolate topped with a spoonful of vanilla ice-cream, squirty cream and marshmallows and a couple of little sweeties on the side.

This might seem like a lot of fuss and bother to some but I find it's worth it. It's only on Friday night and they get ready for bed in record time.

After tea on Friday, HM and I popped over to Grandma's with some of the hot 'n sour soup I made. Grandma was just getting home from work and was making her own dinner. HM managed to invite herself to join her for the meal (she had just had her dinner!).

But she does love tagliatelli with cheese. So while they tucked in, I popped down to Tesco's.

Here is Hope. She enjoys sitting in her highchair, joining us for meals now.

She's such a character.

Sick, sick, sick of snow!

I haven't had much time for blogging the last few days. The snow has been steadily piling up outside and while (as I see occasionally from pictures on facebook) everyone else is outside having fun on sledges, making huge snowmen, building igloos or making perilous trips to Tescos, we've been stuck indoors for days with a nasty flu-like infection. Hubby has been very ill and will have to go to the doctors tomorrow. Henry is quite poorly and the baby has been very ill too. We rang Candoc late last night just for some advice on keeping the fever down. I wanted to know if we could alternate between Calpol and Neurofen. I got a bit confused with the info on the internet. So, a nurse on the helpdesk said we could do that and told me to give her a warm bath and then lay her naked on a towel to air dry. She also told me to reduce the layers of clothing and blankets. This advice surprised me as it's so cold and I've been having chills and sweats too but have been wanting to wrap myself up in loads of layers and duvets. But anyway, I did as I was told and although I still had to attend to her a few times in the night, she slept a bit more than the previous night and didn't seem so hot. Her temperature today has still been high though she seems happier under the effects of the medicines. She has, especially yesterday, been extremely clingy and I've really had to just hold her and let her nurse all the time. I watched 3 episodes of LOST (season 5 which we had to get on dvd cos we don't have sky) yesterday afternoon while she dozed and nursed on me.

Here is a scene from the bottom of our garden. The kids really want to go out and play but can't incase they get something worse and Hubby is so disappointed - he loves snow. So tempers in the house are getting frayed and we're all feeling pretty low. I can really appreciate what it is like in the Big Brother House!!! We've spent this afternoon watching loads of Little House episodes.

Just to finish off..

While on holiday we watched the film Miss Potter and thoroughly enjoyed it. Even Henry 'cos it had Obi wan Kenobi in it! (That's Ewan McGregor as Mr Warne). The kids had hot chocolate with squirty cream, marshmallows and white chocolate mice and jelly worms on the side. As we already have a bedtime routine that is centered around a story and 'the bedtime tray' we decided to make Friday night Beatrix Potter night, with one of her stories and these yummy drinks. So here is Honor-May with hers, waiting for the story of Jemima Puddleduck.

Hope playing with her toys.

Monday, Monday.

Just chilling out with the babe here watching Christmas at River Cottage. My back is very sore after spending the morning scrubbing the bathroom and then scrubbing the dining table and chairs, trying to remove all the paint splodges, before giving them a coat of varnish. Hope is becoming quite the explorer now but she really needs watching as I keep finding things in her mouth that shouldn't be there. She seems to find magazines particularly delicious!

Yum!

I'm just cooking some steak and chips for tea. Yummy, but not as yummy as the fabulous Indian meal Jancy cooked for us last night. We went to Glenn and Jancy's house for dinner last night. It was a lovely evening, catching up with my old teaching friends. I like to dabble in a bit of flower arranging now and then so this was an excuse for me to make a little something for the table. I got the gold and black mosaic vase from TK MAX and used that as inspiration. The kids went for sleepovers with Grandparents except for Hope. We picked her up on the way home. Although we left the in-laws with her moses basket and sleeping bag, she didn't sleep and kept them pretty busy that evening. She was desperate for a feed too. Actually, earlier that day, we had a bit of a scare. We went to the school xmas fair and while there I had a burger. She kept trying to grab it so I thought she'd be ok to eat a piece of bread. Unfortunately, she choked on it and Hubby had to give her a bit of a whack on the back to bring it up. Very scary. No-one else batted an eyelid, though!

And one of our chickens died. Hubby found her huddled up by the pond yesterday.

Christmas pretty.

It is the first day of Advent today (ok, it was Sunday) and Hope is almost 8 months old (tomorrow). So today I put up the advent display, changed the nature table to a winter theme and decorated the fire place. I'm not sure if there'll be anymore decorating for Christmas as I was thinking of keeping it fairly simple this year (no tree!!!). But the kids want me to turn the study into a fun grotto like I did last year, so I'll probably do that again nearer the weekend.

Hope's progress, for the record is... she has 4-5 breastfeeds per day, plus 3 meals of mashed food and doesn't seem to mind at all what goes into her mouth! (She can feed herself with rice cakes).She is not quite sitting up yet (maybe for a few seconds but can't hold herself for long) and is crawling about. In fact today was the first day she made it into another room! She waves when you wave to her and seems to understand the verbal command for wave too. She is completely fascinated with her brother and sister (well, who isn't?) and responds particularly well to Honor. She sleeps very well, 2 long naps (2-3hrs) per day and sleeps through the night most nights. She does not have any teeth but loves to blow raspberries ans makes babababa and dadadada sounds (but not mamamama!). I don't know how much she weighs as I've not been to the clinic since August. She like TV (sorry) and her favourite programmes are Waybuloo and Loose Women!

I'm nearly done with my Christmas Shopping. I went out and did some today, hoping to get it finished, but it's so time consuming and bloomin' busy. So I've still a few more bits to get.