My Son, the Pop Star

The Boy has recently become obsessed with singing nursery rhymes. It's fabulous and he is so enthusiastic about it. We've always sung them with him but not so much of late. This is the wonders of having an older generation caring for your child and providing an input into their education; it's Nana that has taught him some of these.

There now follows a rather cute video. You will need to excuse the heavy breathing from me; I didn't realise that a) I breathed so noisily, and b) that the microphone was right under my concorde nose.

Listography: Five Things I Want To Do This Summer

Kate's a bit busy this week setting up the marvellous Parent Blogger Network on Netmums, so our apprentice Listographer extraordinaire Keith is hosting the Listography for her. Not content with running such a tight-ship as he does, he has decided to set himself five challenges for the Summer holidays with his children.

I have been counting down the days 'til the Summer holidays start since Easter. It's now only three more weeks to go (or six days in school, one on a course and one as INSET. See told you I'd been counting them down. Do you want it in minutes?) until I get to have six fantabulous weeks with my gorgeous bundle of mischief and I can't wait. We have a few necessary items to do and some fun things as well.

Here goes:

  • Potty-train The Boy.

I know! I'm a bit worried about this, and also thinking 'ewww' a lot. Guess I'm going to be getting very familiar with poo over the next few months hey?

  • Tidy the spare bedroom.

It is an abyss of detritus. I now open the door, stand in the two square foot that are clear because the door pushes the stuff out of the way, and sigh. Then I close the door and declare to hubby that we need to tidy it soon. It is horrendous. There is a computer in the corner that we don't use anymore because we have the laptop. It's only use is as a print server and storage device for some photos. There is a bed-settee covered in The Boy's outgrown clothes that need to be boxed and put in the attic. A step-machine and abdominal roll doo-dah, both pointless and serving as a clothes rail at the moment. Countless cardboard boxes that are either from The Boy's toys (keep the boxes, the toys sell for more at a nearly new sale in the original packaging!) or from review items (they might come in useful!) and jiffy bags. Plus a gigantic wooden bowl that's about three foot across which my dad made, but now I have a baby it is impractical to keep on the dining table or it gets covered in playdough, paint and Dairylea. The room needs sorting out for God's sake!

  • Make a start on losing some weight.

I'm contemplating the possibility of a sibling for The Boy at some point. I was fortunate not to gain any weight (at all!) with The Boy, but I can't be so certain next time around. I want four stone gone by November 24th (my 10th wedding anniversay). Or else!

  • Family Time

I do not want the weeks to whizz by and not have done anything in them. Weekends will be spent doing things as a family unit. Week days will hopefully be filled with socialisation (for him and me), craft activities and playing in the garden.

  • Retrain our sleep habits

We are rubbish at going to bed before midnight and our son wakes up at half past six. It is impossible to survive on that, it needs to stop now! Along with this, we need to get The Boy off the habit of being cuddled to sleep. I think I've built it up into a bigger thing than it is, but he will learn how to go down by himself. Won't he?

Oh I do Like to be Beside the Seaside…

This was the song that we had The Boy singing this morning en route to the beach for a few hours. Between the pair of us we managed to concoct the vast majority of the song to chant as we drove through the plushy, thatched villages of the deepest and richest parts of the county.

Following our revelation yesterday morning that actually if we got up and did things in the morning rather than laying-in and dossing around the house until 2pm, we managed to set off at 10.30 with a picnic, bucket and spade in hand. By 11.15 we were parked three rows back from the beach, and set up on the golden sands.

The best thing about Southerndown beach is that it has a vast expanse of sand but also lots of rock pools towards the top end. This was fantastic because it meant that we only had to trot down to the sea twice; both times were for splashing in the sea, not collecting water. Also meant that the sun heated up the little rockpool by us, and we could rinse The Boy off when we eventually packed up to come home.

We had such fun there; it's an absolutely beautiful beach which was used as the location for 'Bad Wolf Bay' in Dr. Who. Unfortunately I didn't see the Tardis or Mr. Tennant there, not sure I'd have liked to see his scrawny legs anyway.

It's amazing what you can accomplish when you don't waste the morning!

A little PEP-talk.

It's been hot today and it's made me wonder if Summer is finally going to be here for longer than two hours at a time. I'm not a huge fan of sweltering heat, but I do like feeling the sun on my skin and the warm summer breeze brushing the hairs on my arm. Two years ago, this was not the case.

Almost exactly two years ago I was coming to the end of the most horrendous side-effect of my pregnancy with The Boy. And yes, for those of you in the know, The Boy celebrated this second birthday three weeks ago. So how exactly was I still having pregnancy related health issues for nearly a month after he was born?

Once the constant morning sickness that I had suffered from for every waking moment for five months had finally left me, I thoroughly enjoyed being pregnant. My hair and skin blossomed, I put on minimal weight; in actual fact I weighed a stone and a half less within days of having The Boy, than before I'd been pregnant. I slept well, I was calm and content, nothing fazed me; I truly flourished. That was until half way through the third trimester.

I was due to start maternity leave a day after our school inspection finished, and yes I was slightly stressed but nothing to cause concern. So when my skin started getting itchy, I just put it down to stress. Suffering from an underactive thyroid, I am used to having very hot hands and feet, and with the summer heat they can get irritated easily. However this kind of itchiness was different. With it came raised bumps, more than just hives, almost like chicken pox pimples. I popped into the midwife who ruled out obstetric cholestasis thankfully, and she just put it down to the heat. I mentioned it to my consultant as well (who I was seeing because of the thyroid condition) and she also declared it was just a heat rash.

Well when a week later it had spread from my fingers to my forearms, I decided to pop and see the doctor. She gave me vaseline and said it needed moisturising. When that did nothing but make it worse, and with it now spreading completely up my arms and reaching my chest, I demanded to see one of the senior doctors in the practise. Thank goodness I did because he was amazing! Dr. L reached behind him to his battered medical book and flicked through the pages until he found the page he was after:

Polymorphic Eruption of Pregnancy

PEP is a skin condition, which is also known as Priutitic Urticarial Papules in America, that initially takes the shape of itchy wheals and small, solid elevations of the skin. However, after a little while it can develop into red, small blisters and eczema-like lesions. I was lucky that I didn't develop any lesions, but it did spread slowly throughout my body. It started on my hands, went up my arms, down my chest and stomach and to my legs. This is what it looks like:

No, that's not me. PEP is one of the reasons that I had barely any photographs of me taken during the later stages of pregnancy.

It's attractive though isn't it? And bloody painful. I spent the final weeks of being pregnant and the first part of my maternity leave in absolute agony and crying. I was exhausted from a complete lack of sleep. At night, I had to sleep under a single sheet with ice packs against the part of my body that was in contact with the mattress because the increased heat made the rash worse. I was awake every hour or two crying in pain, and my poor husband was on a relay down to the freezer getting me the next batch of ice-packs. Only when I was freezing cold could I sleep.

I was incredibly lucky that Dr. L recognised the symptoms and diagnosed me with it; from my experience and Internet investigation at the time, not many doctors like to diagnose it. My marvellous GP gave me steroid cream (Betnovate) and antihistamines which helped massively. My pharmacist was incredibly sympathetic as she had suffered with it when carrying her son, she reassured me that it magically disappeared three weeks after having delivery. I can't recall when my PEP went, I believe it was around the same time but what with him going into hospital and all, I had other things on my mind!

A very interesting point to consider about PEP is that certain studies (a few in France) reveal that this condition is more frequent in women carrying boys, apparently it is an allergic reaction to male foetal DNA, although no formal research has been conducted. Statistics cite that 70% percent of sufferers deliver boys.

And what did I have?

References 1 and 2.

Where's my bed?

I'm shattered, I really am!

For the past year, The Boy has religiously had his nap between 11 and 1pm every day. If I've tried to make him last longer, the poor sausage starts falling asleep and getting tetchy. Hand on heart, so do I! I need him to have a kip around then as well so that I can have a little break. The only problem with that recently is that he's been taking longer and longer to get to sleep then, and then he doesn't wake up 'til nearly two. By the time he's had his lunch it's half past two (which is craziness when he's having his tea at 5.30pm) and I'm beginning to go bonkers not having done anything!

And so I've had the marvellous idea to change his sleep times.

My mum has been under instruction this week to give him his lunch at 12pm on the dot and he needs to be in bed by 12.45. She's stuck to it and he's fallen asleep more easily. Of course, we have to do the same thing on the weekend don't we?

Only that now means we don't get our lie-ins anymore!

Whose clever bloody idea was that then?

However, we have been busy bees today: up, breakfast, drop hubby's car off for an MOT, go and have photos taken under a 'free' deal, play in the park, home for lunch, nap time and all by 1pm! We then both needed a little rest at the same time as The Boy, and then we rounded the day off with a quick shopping trip to buy new shoes and wellies. Because you need wellies in July when it's 24°C.

But now, now I'm knackered!

Things I Learnt From NOT Going to CyberMummy11

  1. I am rather good at painting pirates. I've found a way of making the pink butterflies not quite so pink, and that robots are quite a challenging thing to paint onto a fidgety five-year old's face. Especially when he's got snot pouring down from his grimy nose. Yes, I was stuck at my school-fayre on the face-painting stall.
  2. All these mummy-bloggers that I tweet with regularly have faces, and more importantly bodies! Apparently, some of them have voices too.
  3. The organisers of CyberMummy11 are very clever women to pull together such a massive event and draw in so many amazing brands as sponsors. The pictures of the bloggers with all their goody-bags are tantalising.
  4. As with every group situation in life there are an awful lot of lovely people out there who are genuinely interested in meeting other people. Unfortunately, just as in the 6th form common room, there are those who think they are the 'cool crew' and therefore don't need to socialise or be polite to the remainder of the social group. In reality, these people are far from cool and are actually thought of as arses.
  5. Tissues are a prerequisite, as are Starbucks in a can and additional lunch supplements.
  6. Nearly everyone had a fantastic time in one way or another (apart from me *sob*).
  7. Actually despite my bravado crap from a few months ago where I stated that it would be too like sitting in an INSET for me, I did really want to go and was just a scaredy cat about being able to find a sponsor and meeting new people.

More on Monday: 'Wanted'

Yesterday I posted this image as my Silent Sunday:

and unsurprisingly, quite a few people wanted to know what it was!

Quite a lot of people picked up that it was something to do with TorchWood and out of those a couple realised that it was something to do with a specific event. As far as I can see only one person (CaroleHeidi) was able to identify exactly who it was about.

I didn't set out to photograph this at all. On Saturday evening, the three of us went to the Pizza Express in Mermaid Quay, Cardiff. We went for a wander around the area so that The Boy could stretch his legs after sitting quietly for so long. After seeing (and running away from) the swans, we decided to go up the long ramp rather than struggle up the old harbour steps. At the end of the first run of the ramp was a stone wall with wire fencing over the top of it. And this was adorned with tributes and memorials.

To whom I may hear you ask?

Ianto Jones from TorchWood!

Yes. You're right. He's a television character. And yes, you're right. It's quite sad really. And I don't mean in an emotionally depressing manner.

However, I can kind of understand it a little bit. First of all he was a really good character in the series, and, as is the case with much regional solidarity, the locals feel proud of him. By the time Children of Earth was aired, him and Gwen were the only main Welshies left in it. So this solidarity for an icon on television I can understand. But, and here's the biggy: it's not real-life!

This photo shows the 'tribute' in full. I am reliably informed by Wikipedia (because that's never wrong) that the site of the shrine is one of the fictional entrances to 'the hub' in TorchWood and where Ianto ran his cover "Tourist Office".

I know. All a bit weird isn't it?

You did ask!

Sunny, Sandy Sunday

There's not much more relaxing after a long, hot afternoon at the beach that a cool shower to wash away the salt, sea, sand and sun-cream. Even more relaxing is knowing that your little one is dropping off happy and clean but exhausted next door on nice, fresh bedding.

It has been sweltering today, a marked contrast from a fortnight ago on The Boy's 2nd birthday when it widdled it down torrentially all day. The sky has been azure blue with a few wispy clouds here and there, accentuated by the criss-cross of the jet planes ferrying holiday makers around the world.

Of course on a day like today there is only one place to go: Barry Island (our nearest blue-flag sandy beach).

Only that's where everyone else in south-east Wales had decided to go. The road leading in and out was chockablock with cars crawling along at a snail's pace. I veto-ed the decision to go to the usual Whitmore Bay (the Island's main beach) and the alternative Jackson's Bay; instead we ventured into the unexplored Watchtower Bay and Old Harbour. At the top of the bay lay the skeletons of old boats ready for exploring by curious little boys at low tide, at the entrance to the harbour is a huge expanse of silky soft, golden sand.

Better still there were about ten families over the entire ares! Whereas around on the main Barry Island beach, we'd have had to fight the seagulls, rubbish and chavs to find a metre square to set up on! The cross is where we set up 'camp', in the protection of the harbour walls.

We had great fun! The Boy, daddy (especially his ears) and I were slathered in our new sun-cream (UltraSun Professional Protection) and built a whole load of sand-castles, trotted down to the fast-receeding water's edge and paddled away to our hearts content.

Definitely going there again as opposed to the usual beach; no chavs and no fairground noise!

David Bailey in the Making!

We went out for tea earlier to Pizza Express, using some of the fabulous Tesco Clubcard exchange vouchers. The Boy was a little trouper throughout; he was so well behaved and ate such a huge amount of his tea up, I was really proud of him. Afterwards we went for a walk and I took some photos on the iPod Touch. I've just gone to upload the photos and discovered 360 images on there! It transpires that my son knows about the camera function on it! There are an awful lots of terribly repetitive shots of very random things; 39 images of his knee in the car for example. However, there are some quite amusing ones which I wanted to share!

Pulling silly faces!

And then there is the world as seen from The Boy's vantage point. There were an awful lot of his face and of his knees!

I quite like the shadow of the lamp actually, but yes, that's his knee along the bottom of it. I might spend a little time showing him how to take a photo of something!

ShowOff ShowCase: The One That Should Have Done Better

Hopefully you know the drill by now; there's one post that we've written that we were proud of, that we put the final punctuation mark to and thought "yep, that's a good one! They're going to love it!"

And then either no bugger read it, or, like I've had this week, about 50 people read it but no-one commented!

I used to think it was the stats that counted, but I've recently realised that it's the comments; they confirm that your writing is decent and that your readers find your ramblings enjoyable.

Hence this linky to help other ShowOff the posts that were underappreciated. This weekend, I'd like you to help those post sto hold their heads up high! Brush them off, stick my badge at the bottom of the post and show them off for everyone to see. Don't be ashamed of them, help them shout at everyone: I SHOULD HAVE DONE BETTER!

ShowOff ShowCase

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...