Gastroenteritis, Spring forward and other stuff..

This post is part of Manic Mommy Monday hosted by Lori at  The gnomes Mom





Well it's been a pretty horrible few days. Benjamin, Noah and myself have had gastroenteritis:( It has been awful. Benjamin started first, I had hoped his upset tummy was down to teething, but no, the vomit then started which led to me taking him to the Dr on Friday to be told he had the stomach flu.

Friday was our wedding anniversary but we shelved plans to go out due to Benjamin being poorly, and ordered in a Chinese and watched the new Keifer Sutherland Show "Touch". (I really enjoyed the show. I love Keifer Sutherland, but I think it will take a few episodes to get Jack Bauer out of my head) had a glass of wine, went to bed. 4am and Noah starts puking. I woke on Saturday feeling headachy and nauseous. By the afternoon I too had succumbed. I went to bed at 1230pm Saturday afternoon and finally surfaced 1pm Sunday, the first time since I was a teenager I had spent that long in bed. I forced myself to take a walk to the park, and I ate an ice lolly. The fresh air seemed to really help.

So here we are, 5 days on for Ben and it's still not right. Noah is unable to go to nursery until Thursday at the earliest as he is still having an upset tummy. As am I.

But the biggest thing is the the virus seems to have killed off my milk supply:( I'm gutted! We have been breastfeeding for 10.5 months, and the thought of it stopping due to a situation that isn't a choice made by myself or Ben is killing me. I have brought Fenugreek today, I have tried pumping, but nothing is coming off. My let down is taking an age to trigger. Ben has been fussy whilst nursing the last couple of days, obviously he is getting nothing out. So I am hoping that an increase in fluid and food by myself plus extra nursing/pumping sessions will build up the supply again.

The clocks went forward on Saturday night, so we lost an hour sleep, but the weather has been amazing this weekend So I'm really gutted that we had to spend it in bed all weekend being ill. Being on my own today whilst Tim went back to work trying to deal with two poorly children plus still being ill myself has been hard. By 415 I was in a heap on the floor in tears. But we have managed to get to the park a couple of times and Tim took Noah to Clent Hills when he got in after work to give me a bit of a break.

I hope the rest of the week improves.

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Silencing my inner teacher!

This post is part of Manic Mommy Monday hosted by Lori over at The gnomes mom .


   As a Mummy there is plenty to feel guilty about; should I breastfeed? Have I let my child down if I don't? Guilt over the need either financially or for other reasons to return to work, childcare, diet blah blah blah! The list goes on.

One of the biggest things for me to feel guilty about is how I spend my days at home with the boys. I am a trained primary School teacher, working mostly these days in Early Years. This causes me immense guilt. Part of our initial teacher training deals with how to extend and challenge the kids in your class, so that their learning is taken to the next level.

I wish I could shut this part of who I am off. It follows me around constantly. As a teacher at school, this is great that I am always thinking about how to push the children on and how to keep them achieving. As a Mum to my own boys, it's a complete pain in the neck. Don't get me wrong, I have no desire to be a Mummy who doesn't give a flip about her kids education, far from it in fact. But somewhere along the way I got the lines between making sure Noah had enough to keep him entertained and spending EVERY single minute playing with him or entertaining him blurred. I am told lots that children need to learn to play by themselves, that as a parent we cannot give every single minute of the day to them. We have stuff that needs doing, cleaning, cooking, errands etc. I have no intention of staying up until 11pm to clean, so during the day it is.

When he was younger, we went to a group most days, I would set up lots of different activities; messy play, building, etc..we were always busy. These days I struggle to leave the house on days when I don't have to do the nursery run. When we stay home I hardly set up any practical activities as he has the attention span of a fly, so I spend ages getting craft stuff ready or setting up a train track with him, just for him to be bored within 5 minutes and leaving me with a big mess to clean up. On the days when he doesn't go to nursery, Noah plays with his cars or train tracks, he will happily empty the toybox on the floor, just to refuse to help tidy it up.

I feel the pressure to be an interactive Mummy. Lots of friends do lots of activities with their children, take them to lots of places. I honestly don't know when I lost the enthusiasm for this? Certainly during my pregnancy it became a struggle, physically - SPD, mentally - the crippling depression I suffered from, which you can read about here did nothing to help me motivate myself to engage on a quality level with Noah.

I emailed a friend today to ask her advice, on how she "structures" her day with her young ones. As always she made me feel totally better. She reminded me I don't have to be a perfect Mummy, that it's ok for me to not be doing stuff ALL the time. Noah attends pre-school 3 days a week, plus Little Kickers Football club after the Wednesday session at pre-school. He comes home from these consecutive days totally exhausted. So I feel Monday and Friday are days that we as a family need to take it easy, and not be rammed with crazy running around, just to make myself feel better about sitting around and watching tv or playing in the garden.

I just wish the teacher inside my head would take this on board and listen to the Mummy side of me.

How do you structure your days? Do you do lots of interactive stuff or go out lots? How do your kids cope with the physical exertion?


 

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Lottery dreams

This post is part of The Manic Mommy Monday blog hop hosted by The Gnomes Mom


  I'm sure I'm not the only one who fantasies about what I would do if I won the lottery. I used to do it a lot more when I was working full time. The last few months have seen 4 British ticket holders win over £40 million in the Euro Millions Lottery. £40m!!! That is an obscene amount of money. I often think when I hear of people winning that much a) well why wasn't it me? after all these people brought a lucky dip and that is what I did. B) Seriously, what ARE they going to do with ALL that money and finally WHY are you going public in the press to advertise that you are now a multi-millionaire? Why not just keep it to yourselves and your nearest and dearest?

This Saturday, inspired by the recent run of luck the Brits seem to be having, I splurged a whole pound and brought a lucky dip for the UK draw on Saturday night. This was an important decision I had to make, because I sacraficed my Saturday night Cadbury's for this ticket that was going to change my life;) I saw a Facebook update from a friend later that evening saying that 6 or 7 people had won, and how disappointing it would be to actually win the jackpot and to share it with 6 others, meaning you only had £600,000. I kind of agreed. Then on our way to my in-laws yesterday, Tim and I were discussing what we would do if our numbers had come up on Saturday and "only" won half a million. I declared it wasn't enough to retire on, as by the time you had paid off your mortgage and credit cards that would be half wiped out. To make £250,000 last for the rest of your natural life, without working doesn't seem doable to me. Tim disagreed, he declared he would retire.

But then I started to list the things I would want to do and I think I would run out of money pretty quickly, (for those who know me well, this should not be a surprise to you) I certainly wouldn't be able to make it last a lifetime without working. Take into account normal living costs; food shopping, petrol, running costs of house, kids needs etc..that's before you add in "luxury" stuff such as NICE holidays, that involve plane travel to far flung destinations rather than the tent in rainy Cornwall (although I do love tenting it), helping out friends/family etc..

I always imagined if I won big I would buy a chalet in my favourite ski resort so we could spend the winter seasons in the snow, I would definitely emigrate from the UK, probably to the States or Australia. I would want to help family and friends so that their lives are comfortable and that they were debt free from here out. I would want to donate to charity, there are a number of Children and baby charities I would like to help.

As predicted, I didn't even get one number. *sigh*. So my life continues as it usually does, trying to do the best by everybody in my life and a head FULL of dreams.

Do you think you could retire on £600,00? What is on your list if you won the lottery?

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Just another manic Monday

This post is part of The Gnome's Mom new Monday blog hop - Manic Mommy Monday.






As it's the first one I have ever taken part in (not actually sure how the linky thing works but I'll give it a go) I thought I would do a quick introduction about myself. I'm Aly, I live in the UK and have two boys, one currently in toddler tanturm hell, and a 9 month old in full on seperation anxeity mode. I am married to Tim, and we met when I was 18 in 1994. We originally said we wanted 3 kids, but given the current exhaustion levels, I think we will stop at two;) have I mentioned, neither boy knows how to sleep?

I started this blog as a journal to document my return to work after I had Noah. However, I got (very) sidetracked, and a year went by without me posting, and I realised after my initial return to work, that my life was the same each week, and work wise I was having nothing new to post, so decided to use it as a way to journal our life, so that the boys have something to look back on when they are older. An online baby book! I have only recently started posting on a regular basis, and I am finding I am really enjoying the opportunity to write, and to document what is happening in our lives.

So today really is a manic Monday! I have been awake since 445 am, it is currently 810am! Ben (youngest) decided sleep is for the weak and that he was ready to start his day at 445.This was followed by his older brother half an hour later. At 615 I managed to feed Ben to sleep (baaad mummy) however, I was not as lucky, and Noah's fidgeting and moaning made sure I stayed awake. So far  today I have dealt with a toddler nuclear meltdown about Peppa Pig. Noah decided to turn the DVD off, but this was followed by 10 minutes of screaming "I wanna watch peppa piiiiiiiiig". Me: "turn the DVD player back on then" "Dont want tooooooooooooo. I want to waaaaaaaatch peppppaaa pig". Sigh. When I went to clean my teeth, Benjamin had a meltdown in his cot because I had dared to leave his sight. This carried on for 10 minutes even after my return.

I made a cup of tea an hour ago, it hasn't been drunk yet. The boys and the cat have all eaten. I have not. Today I have a lot of cleaning to do. After a weekend of housework standoff; yes, the never ending battle of "who is most tired, who does the most work" entered round 1098, and nothing was done, as we were both being stubborn and refused. Added to which I have overflowing laundry bins, no milk, a phone call to a government department to make and get ready for work tomorrow, today is going to be interesting.

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