So. Apocalypse anyone?! Seriously, this weather is crazy, we had a week of pure sunshine and high temperatures and clear skies and then it all went a bit grey and dismal, and we had some rain...nothing unusual about that, i mean there's even a song about "April Showers" so nothing to get excited over- but then the rain turned to sleet, which turned to snow and the wind picked up and the next thing i am stood in the back garden in my pyjamas and pumps in a veritable blizzard trying to collect up random bits of plastic shite, such as children's chairs and mop buckets and cat-transporter-boxes lest they be blown away into a main road and cause some kind of terrible RTA.
Within the space of a fortnight the boys have literally gone from wearing wooly hats to sun hats back to wooly hats again!
It's nuts! As is, it turns out, life with two very small children. Chris is meant to be on his Easter break now but has filled the first week of it with PMVA training and lots of shifts at the Apollo so neither of us is really feeling the "break" part of Easter Break yet. Unless you mean "break" as in "nervous breakdown" that is. Toby hasn't been well since Monday, at first it just seemed to be a cold, then he got a fever, then he vomited...(groan) He has been much brighter today though and more like his usual-self so hopefully it was a short lived virus. We've had a few really restless nights with him crying and both Chris and i have spent a few hours sleeping, well, lying in his bed with him. Lying rather than sleeping because it's nigh impossible to sleep in there, not only is it a tiny single bed, and he sprawls out and takes up most of the space, but it's also the world's most uncomfortable mattress for a fully grown adult, he has the world's flattest pillow and he's under the attic so on windy nights (which they have been) it's incredibly draughty to be a big lumpy grown-up person sticking out of the covers!
Rudy has also been something of a sleep barrier. Tuesday night, i swear to you, he fed ALL night. I say all night because i mean ALL night. I think there may have been possibly 10-15 minutes of the night where he wasn't latched on, otherwise he was feeding all night. I fully expected to wake up in the morning to find he had grown into a 6 foot, 12 stone baby! As it was i woke up feeling physically sick at my level of tiredness and just general "drained-ness" (definitely not a word, i know!) I didn't even need to go for a morning wee. It was like i'd gone into acute renal failure due to a lack of fluids on board due to my baby sucking my very life force from me!
Last night was better. In fact, i went through to settle Toby down at around 3am this morning and by some miracle must have dozed off in there because Chris had to come through and collect me at 6am to feed Rudy so he must have gone at least 3.5 maybe even 4 hours between two feeds?!?
As you can see, there appears to be no patterns to his feeding behaviour, and for the most part i don't even pretend to try to make sense of it as it eludes me.
Aside from not sleeping ever, i suppose i should summarise what else we have been up to!
Well, we all went to Experitots this month. As we didn't make last month's session i'd assumed Toby would be really excited and i also hoped Rudy might enjoy it as he's a little older and wanting to interact with things/people more now. It wasn't quite as good as i'd hoped this month, it seemed very busy as there were school trips there, and i don't think Toby was in quite the right mood. To be honest, with the lack of sleeping going on, i'm not sure any of us were! Rudy had some time out of the sling having a look around and a chew on some things (nice!) but got very tired and grumbly and then ended up vomiting all over himself, me and the sling as i tried to wrestle him back into it (D'oh!)
Toby and i had fun making a rocket picture though:
We had to go to The Trafford Centre afterwards to go outfit shopping for a wedding we were going to and that was like Hell on Toast. It wasn't actually busy as it was a weekday lunch time, but let's face it, The Trafford Centre with a bored toddler and over-tired baby was always going to be a...ahem...challenge! We had a yummy dinner in La Tasca first
We were serenaded by the sound of Rudy shrieking/grizzling because he wanted to sleep but also wanted to stay awake to check he wasn't missing out on anything. Then we hit the shops and the Toby tantrums started. They were mainly shoe related. First up he wanted flip flops not sandals, then he agreed to the sandals but wanted to try a random pair of canvas shoes 2 sizes too big on and get those instead. Then after a major meltdown, tears and lots of staring from strangers, when we'd all had some cuddles on a bench outside, we went into the ladies shoe section to find me some footwear, cue more tantrums because i didn't want to try on/buy the ones he pointed out, and when i couldn't find any i liked and we went through to the menswear department, he had another major meltdown in the middle of the floor as he wanted to stay with the shoes instead. I think he may have a shoe addiction!
Rudy meanwhile had a power nap and then spent the rest of the afternoon kidding me that he wanted to feed, waiting for me to get my boobs out in public and then acting like it was a ludicrous suggestion and why on earth would i think he wanted milk?! So basically we were tantrumming/flashing our way around the Trafford Centre, gradually accumulating clothing and footwear and haemorraging money.
The wedding was nice anyway, what with the nutty weather i was a little worried that we'd end up needing to wear big anoraks over our clothes anyway but it was actually a lovely spring day. Toby loved the venue, in fact i think if he could have picked he'd have stayed in the grounds at Plas Newydd (where the ceremony was held) rather than move on to the reception as lets face it, sit down meals must be pretty dull when you're a toddler whereas big open spaces and shrubs you can hide in?!= Awesome!
The happy couple were Chris's oldest/best friend Tom and his new wife Jessica (who we met for the first time at the wedding!) The boys were very good during the ceremony (i was so nervous that Rudy would do his trademark glass-shattering shrieking) but got fed-up/tired during the meal. We tried various stalling tactics to stay as long as we possibly could, like walking around the block with Rudy to try to get him to sleep, and making Toby's place-card into a Pirate's Telescope (?!) but to no avail. We ended up leaving immediately after the dessert course and before the cake was cut. No late-night dancing and drinking for us!
And since then, like i say Chris has been busy learning wrestling moves (aka, managing violence and aggression) and working shows at the apollo and i've had my hands full with Toby and Rudy. We made it out to sling meet briefly on Wednesday morning but Toby really wasn't well bless him, so we didn't stay long. Which is a shame because it has a new venue at Longsight Sure Start Centre, which is fab, and also because i am really struggling with my wrap so could have done with a couple of demos i think! I've been using it a lot recently (as you can see from the pics) and for the most part Rudy feels fairly secure but i don't think i am getting it tight enough as he is able to lean quite far in it (which i don't think he should be able to) and it also gets uncomfortable/diggy if i wear it for any length of time, so i know i am going wrong somewhere. There's another meet in a fortnight anyway so will get some advice then.
I also this week baked my first ever batch of brownies!
Chocolate and beetroot brownies! Sounds disgusting i know, but they're honestly not! Toby isn't a fan, although he enjoyed making them and licking the wooden spoon at the end?! But not the actual finished product. He prefers cooking chocolate it would seem (bad Mummy!) Chris tried one when he got home from work and said "Hmm, they're actually not bad" Not exactly gushing with compliments there but better than Toby's reaction which was to eat half of one then hand me the rest of it saying "No like it"
They are a bit too gooey though so next time (if i make them again) i would bake them for longer.
Anyway...duty calls...Rudy is waking for the first of what may possibly be many many night feeds...so will have to end it there!
Sorry I can't resist saying
ReplyDelete"Longshhhiiiiiiite" and I've just realised how that looks written down, but that's how we always used to say it, in daft Gallagher Mancunian voices. "Awww we goin' daaan Longshhhiiittte our kid" and so on. Aaah I miss being a Northerner.
That aside *ahem*, your wrap is very pretty, you wear it well (as Rod Stewart?? would say). And I hear you on the random no-pattern feed joys, but thankfully not to the extent Rudy is going to!