Francis Gets An Upgrade

Today we went to Mothercare World in Aintree to buy Francis some new vests and sleepsuits. We were changing him into a clean outfit at some ungodly hour on Sunday morning after one of his regular post-feeding-puke-fests, when we noticed that his vest was a bit snug. Actually, it was a LOT snug - his shoulders were popping out of the neck. We also noticed that his feet now come all the way to the end of his 7 1/2lb sleepsuits. He doesn't weigh anywhere near 7 1/2lb, but he is quite a long baby - I have the feeling he's going to be tall!

On Sunday morning I dug out the 0-3 months clothes I had stockpiled long before he was born when I had foolishly believed I wouldn't need anything smaller. (You can guarantee if I'd stocked up on newborn clothes, Francis would have been 2 weeks overdue and weighed 10lb.) They were clearly still far too big for him. I realised it was time to spend yet more money - at nearly 3 months old, Francis is now ready for newborn-sized sleepsuits.

As luck would have it, Mothercare had a special offer on packs of sleepsuits and vests - buy one get one half price - so we stocked up. We also ventured into the toy department to get Francis a rattle. We bought a lovely giraffe-shaped one that straps on to his wrist (you can see it in the above photo). After spending the best part of £40 and negotiating the barrage of annoying older kids racing round on tricycles meant for toddlers, we made good our escape before I got my eye on anything else to add to Francis' ever-growing wardrobe. This kid has more clothes than I do, and that's saying something.

We got home and, after tea, put Francis in the bath, which he seemed to enjoy for a change. As you can see from the photo on the left, he wasn't overly impressed with his new Piglet vest. However, he calmed down once we put him in one of his new sleepsuits, which he dribbled on almost instantly and was sick on about an hour later. Money well spent then.

Lisa xxx

Lisa's Spider-Man 3 Experience

Today I finally went to see Spider-Man 3. After stashing a supply of expressed breastmilk in the fridge, I left Graeme to look after Francis and went to my first solo cinematic experience.

I'd prepared myself in advance for the possibility that Spider-Man's latest installment would be crap. Graeme went to see it a couple of weeks ago courtesy of his employers Sony and some of his colleagues had expressed their disappointment with it. I'd heard it was cheesy and cliched and a review on Rob's website was positively scathing. However, I'm not one to be easily disappointed when it comes to films about Superheroes - it would take a pretty serious piece of detritus to make me want my money back. (Think Batman & Robin - that was one dreadful film.)

In the end, Spider-man 3 turned out to be nowhere near as bad as I'd feared. I actually found it pretty good fun; the £5.50 I'd shelled out for a small popcorn and regular Pepsi almost seemed worth it. Yes, it was cheesy and cliched, but then superhero films generally are, and I thought this had significantly less cheese than the recent Superman Returns, which I really loved. Spider-Man 3 was surprisingly dark in parts, even on the verge of being depressing, and the level of violence allowed in 12A films will never cease to amaze me. The story was not as strong as in the previous films, but there were great villains (I actually found The Sandman quite scary), fantastic special effects and plenty of humour. My one criticism would be that they tried too cram too much into one film, but everything they did cram in was good stuff so I shall forgive Sam Raimi for that. All in all, it may not have been Ocsar-worthy, but it was certainly entertaining and will no doubt be a nice addition to my DVD collection in a few months time. Heck, I might even splash out and buy the Blu-Ray.

Lisa xxx

Happy Birthday Becky!

Paul's girlfriend Becky is 27 today! Have a great day Becky and I hope you liked the presents! (If you don't, fear not - I will gladly take them off your hands!)


lots of love,
Lisa, Graeme & Francis xxx

Sling When You're Winning

Francis has turned into a needy little fusspot in the past couple of weeks. It's been quite hard work looking after him on my own. He constantly wants to be held and screams the place down when I put him down. It's not unusual for me to go without a wash or a meal because as soon as I leave him he starts crying. And I'm not talking a couple of whimpers here - I'm talking full-on lung exercise. I'm finding it impossible to get anything done around the house. I've tried to let him cry, but it doesn't work (Gina Ford, take note) and just makes me feel like an evil old crone and crap mum. By the time Graeme gets in from work, I'm exhausted, irritable, starving and desperate for a moment to myself. Obviously things cannot carry on like this or I will end up going crazy.

In the end, I decided that it might be worth investing in a sling to carry Francis around while I'm in the house. Francis can have the comfort he craves from me and I can have both my hands and my sanity back. Kate, my breastfeeding advisor, once recommended the Kari Me sling and said that the nurses used them in the SCBU before stricter rules on cross-infection came in to practice. After doing a bit of research into the numerous types of sling available, I decided that I liked the look of the Kari Me the best and ordered one on Wednesday from Little Possums. It wasn't cheap, but I thought £41 was a small price to pay to preserve my mental well-being!

It arrived this morning and I wasted no time in putting it to the test. The sling is basically an enormous piece of stretchy fabric that you wrap around yourself in different ways, depending on the position in which you want to carry the baby. Following the extremely simple instructions I'd tied it in the "Huggy" position within minutes and Francis was snuggled up to my chest. At first he really wasn't sure what to make of it, fussing terribly for about 10 minutes or so, but he eventually realised it wasn't something awful and drifted off to sleep. Result!

It feels a bit weird walking around carrying Francis "hands free", but it's definitely preferable to wolfing down a Muller Rice while Francis has a severe case of the screaming abdabs in the next room.

Lisa xxx

... Long Live The Gallery

After much faffing and messing, the gallery has been resurrected. Unfortunately, I managed to completely wreck the previous installation, so we're having to start from scratch with a new one. I'm not sure if you can import content from one gallery into another, so we're just uploading all the photos again. This is kind-of good as it means we can reorganise a few things, and make sure that all the photos are uploaded with consistent sizes and stuff like that.

So at the minute, the gallery is a lot sparser than it once was, but we'll hopefully get all the pictures back up in the next few days/weeks.

The URL has also changed, so if you have bookmarked it, you'll need to change it match the URL.

The Gallery Is Dead...

I've just used my advanced computing skills to completely knobble our gallery. Yes sir, 3 years of a Computer Science degree to efficiently destroy the installation on the server.

I'm in the process of trying to fix it, so check back later!

Francis Breaks the Pound Barrier

I attended the Breastfeeding Workshop at Liverpool Women's Hospital this morning so Francis could have his weight and feeding checked. He's put on 3oz since Monday taking him to a beefy 5lb 1oz! If he carries on at this rate he might just make it to the size of a newborn by the time he's 3 months old!

Lisa xxx

A Busy Week

It's been a busy week and I've got lots to tell! I'll try my best to be brief, but if you've read any of my other posts, you'll realise I find this next to impossible.

Last weekend was the first momentous visit to our home town of South Shields to show Francis off to family and friends. (Photo's of the trip can be found in Francis' album in the gallery.) On the way, we had a brief stop-off in Leeds to see Graeme's Uncle Harry and Auntie Val; their grandson Aston (apologies if I've spelt it wrong) was there too. While Graeme and I refuelled on cheese and tomato sandwiches (Thanks Val!) Harry treated Francis to a rendition of "When the Boat Comes In" and there was the first of many debates about Francis' hair colour - is it ginger ot not?! Aston seemed quite fascinated that a person could be so tiny and wasn't quite quite sure if his Grandad was telling the truth when he said he was going to swap Aston for Francis!

Our first port of call in South Shields was my Mam and Dad's house. My Mam came bounding across the road as soon as she saw us pull up and promptly whisked Francis away to fuss over. I have the feeling she'd have kept him to herself all weekend if I'd let her! After reacquainting himself with Auntie Rachel and his Granda, he had a visit from Great-auntie Yvonne, who insisted that Francis was not ginger, despite my Mam's insistance that he was. ("Ginger or not" was a theme that persisted for the entire weekend). This was also the first time we had seen Sweep since his leg amputation and he was looking remarkably well despite everything. He's lost a bit of weight because he can't be bothered to go down the stairs to mooch for food and getting around takes a bit more effort now. He looks quite funny hopping along on his three legs so I took some footage with our video camera to amuse myself at a later date :)

We were staying with Graeme's parents for a change and on the Saturday the first wave of visitors descended upon us. The stream of visitors continued on Sunday and was followed by a trip to my Granda's flat so he could meet his first great-grandchild. On Monday Francis even met the staff of South Tyneside's Community Mental Health Team! (Before you raise any eyebrows, it's where Graeme's Mam Sandra works!) Although I was happy that everybody got to meet Francis I found the whole experience more than a little tiring. I had no idea that we knew so many people! We set off on our return journey later than we'd planned and, after stopping at Paul and Becky's flat to pick up Max and Xena, didn't get home until 10pm on the Monday night. We were absolutely exhausted, which for me took some doing as I'd hardly moved from the sofa all weekend!

I'd arrived home to find a letter from my GP informing me that my 6-week check and Francis' first jabs were due, so on Wednesday morning I made my way to the surgery. I'd been waiting about 5 minutes when a lady came and took Francis to the health visitor to check him over, while I was ushered into my GP's office. It felt good to tell a health professional how overwhelmed I am by motherhood and how it's not doing my anxiety levels any good. She assured me I'm perfectly normal and that I'm doing extremely well given what I went through. Apparently, as long as the Francis and I are both looked after, it doesn't matter if we're living in squalor :o)

After my chat with the doctor she led me into the room where the health visitor was waiting with Francis. The doctor gave Francis a clean bill of health and it was time for his injections. Oh my God - the GUILT! I could already feel tears welling up in my eyes and couldn't bring myself to hold Francis while he was prodded with sharp implements. I left him in the capable hands of the health visitors and watched the whole thing out of the corner of my eye from across the room. Naturally he screamed the place down which made me feel even worse. Then I felt really crap for not holding him. Francis, Mummy will be a bit braver next time - I promise.

On Thursday I had yet another trip to the Women's hospital to have Francis checked out. Due to having no time to update you on recent events I should explain that there has been some concern over Francis' weight gain. Not from me, but the powers that be at the hospital have decided that he's just not gaining fast enough so he's being monitored regularly by the Infant Feeding Team (who have all been fantastic and very supportive). I've had a lot of one-to-one sessions with feeding advisor Kate who is satisfied that Francis is feeding well, but suggested I top him up with expressed breastmilk just to give him that little bit extra. After Kate chatted with the consultant, it was decided that his first baby clinic check-up be brough forward and that I should continue meeting with the feeding team to have him weighed and to monitor his progress. I'm not best pleased about this - I'm sick of the sight of that bloody hospital and it's quite an effort for me to get there. I don't drive and getting 2 buses there and back while pushing a pram is not the most calming of experiences.

On Saturday we went to a BBQ at Rob and Fliss' house. Being vegetarian we took our own food as it didn't seem fair that they should buy "special" stuff just for us. Fliss seemed a bit worried about the veggie fayre we'd brought, but Graeme assured her that you really couldn't ruin a veggie hotdog. Fliss proved him wrong in spectacular fashion when, called away to check how the BBQ was progressing, she forgot about the hotdogs and microwaved them to within an inch of edibility. Rob provided much amusement by managing to injure himself during every activity he tried that afternoon, which included skipping, swingball and skateboarding. (Hopefully we captured at least one of the incidents on our camcorder so we can send it to You've Been Framed.) Graeme and Fliss snapped Rob's new (and I mean new - he'd bought it that morning!) swingball pole by playing waaaaaaaay too aggressively. Rob and Fliss' toddler Elisha had an absolute whale of a time running around in the nude. I managed to get a big dollop of jam on Francis' head and his new John Lewis hat after being unable to resist the lure of a bag of ASDA jam donuts (I should have seen that one coming really). Fliss kindly lent Francis a lovely pink hat to wear for the rest of the day :o) We had a lovely afternoon and it made me think we really should do things like this more often - we don't see enough of our friends. Photos of the BBQ can be found in the gallery under "Days Out".

And this brings us up to today (well done for making it this far!) and a bit of good news! At Francis' latest weigh-in this morning he had put on 120g since last Thursday! He now weighs a whopping 4lb 14oz! We see the consultant tomorrow afternoon and hopefully he will be pleased with Francis' progress and I can put an end to my treks to the hospital. I'll let you know how it goes.

Sorry that was so long, but like I said, there was a lot of news! I'll try to update more regularly in future to avoid any more epic postings!

Lisa xxx