HELP HELP HELP!!!!!

Now before you panic we are all fine :0)



I havent been around as poor Libby Lou as i have found myself calling her has been suffering with colic and with Imogen as well.....you can imagine lol not a lot of sleep going on over here!

I will update soon but in the meantime i need your help!

I really want to buy this:

http://www.fisher-price.com/au/babygear/step_n_play/

for Libby but i cant find it either for sale in the Uk or for sale elswhere that is prepared to ship it!

I have found it on ebay and it would cost me $200.00 including shipping but i have no idea if this is overpriced as i cant find it elsewhere and with it being ebay there are no guarantees it will still be there when i can afford to buy it!

Please help!!!!

Introducing...

Libby Jane Hall, born 26/08/10 weighing 6lbs

All that worry....

for nothing!

So the midwife scared us to death, we went for a scan this morning and everything is perfectly normal, even down to the fact that yesterday she said the baby was bum breech like Imogen was and the scan showed she is actually head down......

Lucky??

So I’m driving home last night from work when this idiot decides to slam into the driver’s door and almost shunted me into another lane.

I cannot believe how lucky I was, not only am I absolutely fine but the car doesn’t have a scratch on it!

This morning I had an appointment with the midwife, the baby is measuring 6 inches short for dates so I have to go for a growth scan tomorrow morning, let’s hope my luck holds out!

Just a lil update...

So what’s been happening….

Well I’ve obviously been getting closer to my due date all the time, only 6 weeks to go now and I must admit I’m starting to feel it now!

I don’t think I have put on as much weight as last time as everyone up until about a week ago kept looking surprised when I said how many weeks I am, this is not down to any attempt from me but just luck ha ha

As usual we have left all the things we need to do before baby comes till the last minute but we have finally started to get organised. This coming weekend there is a carpet being fitted in the cellar which will become our bedroom, we can then move Imogen into our room and into a big girls bed which considering she managed to climb out of her cot a few days ago cant come soon enough, and then of course baby Libby can go straight into the nursery as it is.

I am desperate to finish work now, partly just because I know I am and partly because I’m starting to find it harder just getting there now, I finish 30^th July unless my manager miraculously comes back to me about some holidays I am owed that she seems to be studiously ignoring in which case it may be slightly earlier. Either way no more than11 days to go…..WooHoo!!!

We have been telling Imogen that her sister is in my tummy and all the usual things that pregnant mums tell their toddlers, I don’t think she understands at all and think it will be a shock for her, I’m convinced she isn’t going to react well since she was so awful with her cousin when her auntie was looking after her but who knows, she will be around 8 months older and may surprise us, keep your fingers crossed for me lol

She is a delight most of the time, she is talking a lot now showing greater understanding all the time, its quite strange that we can actually have a conversation with her now!

This isnt always good though as she is now throwing lots of tantrums, saying no a lot and generally doing things she knows she's not allowed to do and winding me up immensley lol

She is impossible to punish, nothing bothers her, if we take toys away because she has thrown them or done something naughty she doesnt really react, i will say to her that she will go to bed if she is naughty and she just gabbles "bedtime" and runs to the stairs.

It is so frustrating!

The only thing that i have managed to do to make her understand she has been naughty is withold yoghurt which while in a way it was a breakthrough to find something i can punish her with was also a pain as i actually want her to eat it grrrr

Anyway i am sure this will only get worse as she gets older, i just felt like a whinge!!!

Imogen's First Holiday Pics :0)

I don't usually do a Thursday Thirteen but here are...

Thirteen questions about having baby No 2

1. Should we have left a bigger age gap? Imogen is at the hitting, pinching and even biting stage, admittedly not all the time and it could be worse but I’m not sure it’s what we need with a newborn around!

2. Should we go for No 3? Now we know No 2 is another girl should we risk 3 girls in an attempt to get the boy?? I would really really like a son but I’m not sure I would really really like 3 kids lol

3. Will having 2 kids put us off having 3 or make us think 1 more wont kill us

4. Will Libby look / be like Imogen?

5. Will we be ready? For some reason we seem to have much less urgency to get things ready for Libby, maybe because we have done it before, the odd thing is that we actually have more to get ready this time as we are moving bedrooms into the cellar, Imogen is moving bedrooms to our room and Libby will get the ready made nursery, we haven’t finished painting the cellar yet and we need to get carpet laid, only 11 weeks to go……

6. How will Imogen react to a sister? How will she react to not being the centre of our universe??? Personally I don’t think it’s gonna be a bed of roses!

7. Will we be able to cope with 2??? Everyone kept telling us how our lives would be turned upside down with one and to be honest we were really lucky, she slept through from 6 weeks and that has never changed and I think being older we were more prepared so it wasn’t as much of a shock as it could have been but 2, that’s a whole different ballgame lol

8. How will we manage financially? This month our new government will hold its emergency budget and could quite literally ruin everything for us.

9. Will the washing pile ever go down again??

10. Will the ironing pile ever go down again?

11. Will Chris and I ever have a life again??

12. Is it possible to find babysitters who are willing to look after more than one child??

13. Will we have the energy to go anywhere if babysitters can be found??

Cute! Cute! Cute!

Even if i do say so myself :0)

What do you think??

Of Libby Jane Hall for our new baby girl???

Another Girl!!

A good day!

It started like this...

And finished like this...

Phew!

My job is safe :0)

Happy Birthday!

To my wonderful husband Chris, happy birthday babes love you loads x

Not a good week....

Last week was not good.

Poor Imogen came down with a gastro bug on the Friday night before, poor little mite couldn’t keep anything down and was running a temperature.

A visit to the emergency doctors on Sunday confirmed I was going to have to take the week off work to look after her.

Thankfully she did get steadily better as the week went on, finally eating properly by the following Friday and culminating in a typical toddler who has been stuck in the house all week tantrum, I’m sure you’ve all been there…

Also on the Friday she developed the bug my SIL decided enough was enough and she just couldn’t manage three kids, cant say I blame her and it is a bit of a relief that I now wont have to return the favour when I’m on maternity and be stuck with four kids but we could definitely do without the extra expense of more childcare.

And just too really stick the boot in (we actually thought this was gonna be our year, who were we kidding???) on Wednesday I was informed my job was at risk of redundancy. I had already planned to look for something closer to home after the baby is born but really can’t afford to lose the maternity package I will currently receive. Keep your fingers crossed for me guys that I manage to hang on till then!

Kids & Medication

So kids and medication, not something we’ve had an issue with until now, we were both happy for her to have the standard injections and luckily apart from a bout of hand foot and mouth which wasn’t too pleasant she hasn’t really had any health problems.

Before Christmas she got a cough, I took her to the doctors worried it might be on her chest but they said it wasn’t and to give her “calpol & cuddles” it would sort itself out.

Christmas came and went, the cough didn’t, she then started being sick when she coughed a lot and constantly had a runny nose, I took her back to the doctors and was told……”calpol & cuddles”

A week later she still has a cough, still being sick, still got a runny nose, now affecting her sleep and eating habits. We go back to the doctors, he says its Asthma which we find a bit odd as she is not having any trouble breathing at all, he gives her a ventalin inhalor, some antibiotics and tried to give us Piriton for her itching (what itching?? Well her discomfort then is the response!!)

Not happy with this I take her to the doctors again a couple of days later this time making sure we see our own GP who we trust, she agrees with us that it isnt asthma but to continue with the antibiotics as she does have a throat infection now from all the coughing and vomiting.

We finish the antibiotics, she still has the cough.

I take her back again to be told its not on her chest blah blah blah.

I say I feel I’m being fobbed off, it has been too long and too many visits and im not happy, they refer her to a peadiatrician.

We go to see the paediatrician, he says it IS asthma but not the usual kind that makes it hard to breathe, that she has white blood cells in her airway which when they get irritated make her cough, that the runny nose is also part of it and the tiny patches of eczema, they are all related as are asthma, eczema and hayfever.

He gives her an inhaler but not ventalin, one that will attack these white blood cells, he gives her a nasal spray to help with the runny nose and is happy with the cream we are already using on her skin, he says we wont notice a difference immediately, to use the medication for three months and then see him again, we come away happy, we are not being ignored, what we are told makes sense.

Imogen HATES the inhaler, or more precisely the plastic tube you put over her mouth to spray the inhaler into. We have had to fight her twice a day to use the inhaler.

Last night Chris tries the inhaler without the plastic tube just in her mouth the way an adult would use it. She is fine with it. I do the same this morning she is fine with it.

I come to work and mention it to a colleague who says maybe I should check as she has two inhalers one of which she has been told she has to use through a plastic tube as it is too strong to use directly and can burn.

I phone my sister whose 4yr old has the same inhaler, she says she cant see how it will work direct into her mouth and then says they have been told a specific way to use it with the tube but that originally they were told an incorrect way and were doing it wrong.

We werent told any of this we were just given the medication and told twice a day, no other advice given.

So now what do we do?? I feel we need further advice but who do we ask, our own GP?? The paediatrician who we probably would be able to see until we are due to see him in three months anyway!

I’m very grateful we have the NHS over here, I cant imagine life without it but sometimes I just wish they would explain things better…

Good and Bad (as usual)

The Good
Imogen is back at SIL’s today and it seems to be going well *phew*
She sent me these photo’s earlier and I think she looks happy enough lol

The Bad
This is Tortoiseshell Cat (yes that’s her name) also known as Baby Cat.
I have to take her to the vets tomorrow and she won’t be coming home with me.
We are devastated.

Happy Birthday!

To my neice Claire who is 22 today :0)

Finally something goes our way :0)

Well it has taken me 7 months but we have finally found a childminder for Imogen WOOHOO!

Since last July she has been in the nursery where I work and to be honest it’s been great, she’s really settled in and seems to like it.

The problem? Well I work an hour away from home which isn’t much of a commute for me but I start at 8am so poor Imogen is being woken at 6.30am, dressed and put into a car to sit for an hour strapped into a chair she doesn’t really want to be in and that’s on a good day! When the traffic is bad or there is an accident…..well you can imagine!

It also means should she be ill or need to be collected early for some reason there is only me available and I would have to leave work to collect her (probably the one thing I don’t mind about the arrangement!)

Also the days I have her with me I have to work later hours because of the opening times of the nursery so I can go back to finishing earlier again :0)

AND…..its slightly cheaper :0)

So we now have a local childminder for the two days she is normally in nursery which means Chris can drop her off on his way to work and I can collect on my way home, far easier for everyone including Imogen.

A months notice has been given to the nursery this morning.

I just hope she settles in ok…..

Suggestions please!

My sister in law as some of you will know had a baby boy 8 weeks before we had Imogen and we have been attempting to share the childcare.

She had a baby girl a month ago and yester day was the first time Imogen has gone to her Aunties since a few weeks before the baby was born, the plan being for everyone to try and get back into routine and back to normal.

The first day didn’t go great; Imogen was more than happy playing with Jack as usual but every time my sister in law picked up baby Chloe to either change or feed her Imogen became hysterical. This continued until my brother in law came home from work, once there was another adult in the house Imogen didn’t seem to mind anyone picking the baby up.

Today is day two and unfortunately has been worse than the first, for the morning Imogen has been more hysterical than yesterday and for longer periods.

At one point my poor sister in law had Jack and Imogen in highchairs for their lunch, she picked Chloe up, Imogen started screaming and Jack threw his lunch up everywhere….

My mother in law has collected Imogen this afternoon to give my sister in law a break and has taken her out shopping, apparently she is back to her normal happy self.

The problem is that she is now going to think if she kicks off enough Grandma will take her out but she is too young for us to either talk to her about it properly or punish her for being “naughty”

I’m really worried that my sister in law is going to decide she doesn’t want to look after Imogen anymore, I mean who would blame her, her children are both behaving lol

How do you teach a 15 month old to chill the f**k out?????

12 Week Scan

Everything is fine :0)

God i love my daughter :0)

Just a quick update...

We are pregnant again :0)

Due in September Woohoo!

More to come soon x