The 8 Month Check

Yesterday Graeme and I took Francis to the Health Visitor for his 8 month check up. He may be nine months old now, but his corrected age is only seven months and I was a bit worried that perhaps the HV would expect too much of him.

However, the HV was very pleased with Francis's progress and could barely believe that he was a premature baby. He has reached most of the 8 month milestones and I don't think it will be long before we can tick them all off the list. His weight is now 16lb 13oz and is in perfect proportion to his length, so at least I know I'm not overfeeding him!

It seems my worries were for nothing. Francis is doing everything he should be and the HV said that Francis is better developmentally than many of the full-term babies she sees!


Lisa xxx

Jumperoond!

After seeing a video of a friend's baby having a whale of a time in a Rainforest Jumperoo, I really wanted to get one for Francis. I was horrified at the £80 pricetag, so decided to have a look on eBay to see if I could get a secondhand one for a reasonable price. After seeing that the Rainforest Jumperoos still go for up to £50 secondhand in the auctions, I gave up on the idea. Then I saw that the slightly older model Jumperoos were much cheaper and I snapped one up for £25.

After some initial communication problems with the seller, due to both of us losing our internet connections last weekend, I was finally able to collect the Jumperoo this morning. Francis was a bit apprehensive at first, but soon got the hang of bouncing about in his new toy as you can see in this video. Now I'm just faced with the problem of where I'm going to keep it... It's much bigger than it looked in the eBay photo!

Lisa xxx

Words of Wisdom (Teeth)

A couple of months ago I managed to crack a tooth (eating a slice of bread, of all things...) and needed emergency dental treatment. The broken pieces of tooth were removed and I had a temporary filling put in place. The dentist then warned me that the tooth really did need sorting out within the next couple of months.

Thanks to our friend Julie, who works at Liverpool Dental School, I was able to get an appointment with a 5th year student to finally have my tooth looked at. Before addressing the issue of the dodgy tooth, the student did a full check of my teeth and gums and it seems that some of my teeth are in a pretty sorry state. I was appalled to discover that several of them have decay. The student also expressed concern about my wisdom teeth which have grown in perpendicular to my other teeth meaning they are nigh on impossible to keep clean so are also starting to decay; this could have dire consequences for the adjacent teeth. Because of the weird angle of my wisdom teeth, fillings are out of the question so the teeth may need to be removed. After having x-rays to check the extent of the decay and to get a closer look at the wisdom teeth, it was decided that I need further appointments to have fillings in the decaying teeth and that I should be referred to the Oral Surgeons regarding my wisdom teeth. Oh joy of joys.

So, I've gone from needing a filling replaced to the possibility of extraction under a general anasthetic - this was certainly more than I bargained for when I arranged the appointment!

Lisa xxx