My Sister's Hen Night

This seems like ages ago now, as it was the start of June.  There was a bit of stress about me getting there, in the first place, as we didn't have anyone to babysit DDs 1&2.  My mum was invited, My dad, and FIL were both on holiday (separately), which left MIL who refused to come here on her own, as her husband was working.  DH couldn't take the day off work, because he didn't have many holidays left and the few days he did have, he had to keep spare for my upcoming hospital appointments.

In the end, this was resolved by me going on the train to MILs with the children alone, when DH was in work, staying overnight, and the next day (Friday) I would then go back to Bristol, to my grandparent's house to pick up all my stuff and get a lift with my sister's best friend up to Manchester, whilst DH goes to work on Friday and after work, he'll drive to his mum's to look after the girls.

I was also *really* nervous about taking the pushchair on the train by myself.  I had DD2 in the wrap, and DD1 is more than capable of walking, but MIL was adament that she wanted the pushchair too.  My mum said MIL should buy a cheap one (like my mum has done).  The Thursday came, and typically, DD1 (who never sleeps during the day) was asleep at 11am!  So, I had no choice, but to load her into the pushchair asleep, with DD2 attached to me, and go on the bus to the train station.  And walking to the trainstation was the next bit of stress because there were a million coaches outside, and i had no idea what I was menat to do if there was rail replacement.  Fortunately, it didn't affect our service.

We were an hour early, though, because we had to get a specified train, but to be fair, both girls were really good, even though they were bored, and didn't run off or anything.  And even though we were early, it was good that we had to catch that train - the train before was an hour late, and the train before that was delayed by 2 hours (!) so they all arrived within 15mins of each other.  Our train was still busy, but somehow I managed to get on without losing anything.  (I have a fear of losing things under the train, and between the platform edge.)

Anyway, we arrived and everything was all hunky dory.  That night, DD2 was ina room with me, in the travel cot and DD1 was in MIL's room, as usual.  Unfortunately, our room was ridiculously hot, so DD2 ended up in the single bed with me, so she could have loads of BFs.  She still woke up drenched in sweat and really hot, so I had to wet the muslin square to keep her cool and get her body temperature down.  It worked, thankfully, as I had no calpol with me - DH was bringing that with him in the car.

The next day, I left and caught the train to my grandparent's house.  It was meant to take 3 hours, but we hit traffic as soon as we got of the sliproad onto the motorway, so ended up taking 4 hours.  Nevermind, we were there at last.

The Chief Bridesmaid laid on this buffet, which was fantastic.  She's Argentinian, and there was a host of various foods and flavours.  My favourite was the chorizo (which I really should get the recipe for); it was cooked with white wine and sugar, and absolutely to die for!  And the chief bridesmaid gave everybody a Hen Party champagne flute, so we can remember the weekend, which was a lovely touch.

My sister, being a teacher, had made badges for everyone, haha, and planned the first game which was an icebreaker.  Each of us had to come up with 3 sentences of what we had done with my sister: 2 false and 1 true.  The rest of us had to guess which was true, and 'bet' our drink whether we were right or wrong.  My sentences were: Sister and I used to eat worms in the garden. Sister and I used to watch ET everynight before bed. Sister and I used to float down the stairs.  Well, sister and I used to rescue worms from the garden, and put them in the composter.  I've never seen ET all the way through, because my sister was terrified of it growing up.  But we both have the memory of floating downstairs, without touching any of the steps, in our old house - so that was the true one.

After that game, it was my turn.  In helping prepare for the night, I had done 2 things: Mr & Mrs, and also party bags for everyone, but they weren't coming out until the Saturday night.  For my Mr & Mrs game, I had already asked my sister's fiance 15 questions about them/their relationship from where did they meet, to what was my sister's fantasy - admittedly a couple of questions were TMI for my liking! haha.  I did ask "would you go on an all expenses paid naturist holiday?" to which both my sister and her fiance answered "no", so I won't be telling the family that we're naturist yet!  Finally, I ended with 5 "what am I?" questions.  Eg. a. I'm wet. b. I smell fishy. c. Men like to plunge into me.  What am I?
The sea, of course! Tut, tut, tut, all you with naughty minds. Hehe.  And as with the previous game, eveyone else had to place bets as to whether my sister would know the answer or not.  My sister, depending on whether she got the answer right or not, got a 'nice' present (eg chocolates, smellies etc) or a 'naughty' present (dressing up stuff for the saturday, and a few things for her and her fiance).  After more drinks, shots, and chat we played I have Never, though, tbh I found that a bit boring because nothing particularly juicy came up.

The next day, we had a Bridesmaid dress fitting - all because I have lost weight.  I got down to 64kg, and my sister has banned me from losing any more weight now until the wedding, as there's no time for another fitting.  We also saw my sister in her dress and she looks beautiful, of course.

The we went to the spa.  I had hot stone massage for my treatment, which was really nice, but not as long as I was expecting/hoping for, as it was only 30mins.  As I was having the same treatment as my mum, we went in together.  We had to take pull our swimsuits down to our waist, and lay front-down on the table.  My mum commented that she was glad to share a treatment room with me because she didn't mind me seeing her boobs, and she didn't mind seeing mine either.  Yep, more proof that my family are not yet in a place to know we're naturists, haha.    The other thing, is that because I still breastfeed, being away from DD2 this whole weekend, I needed to express fairly regularly, one of these times was in the spa itself.  I went to the ladies' changing room and sat on the seat, and expressed.  A lady was in there, and asked me to help with the zip of her dress, and then we had a brief conversation about expressing. She left, and my mum came in (this was just before our treatment, as I needed to empty my boobs before I could lie on my front!).  My mum basically said [I can't remember her exact words now] that should I be doing that in here?  I just said yes, but where the hell else am I meant to be.  I was in the women's changing room ffs!  Although I was tempted to express on the side of the pool (it was only our group there), #I wasn't going to because I know my mum's reaction.  And then, she went on to say what if other people had come in?  Well, one person had come in and talked about it, and a few other people came in briefly to change their clothes and either didn't notice, but didn't comment in any place, so clearly nobody - except my mum - minds. Argh.  I find my mum's attitude to me BFing so bloomin' frustrating.

Anyway, I managed to get 30 lengths of the swimming pool swum, and had a shower first, so I could get some more expressing in, before our evening.  We got the taxi back to my sister's house, and the taxi driver drove down a road that was blocked, so attempted to do a 3 point turn, but hit a bollard, showering my sister in glass!  He didn't even stop to ask if everyone was ok, but continued driving!  Needless to say, pictures went straight up on facebook! The three people in the back row, moved forward (we were in a 16seater minibus, but with only 10 of us in), which was a good thing too, because throughout the rest of the journey, glass kept splintering off, and shattering on the ground.

We got to my sister's in one piece, and got dressed quickly.  I handed out a sash for everyone (green with pandas on) and a party bag each.  The 'Hen Night Survival Pack' contained:

For a good night out:
Panda Mask
Badge
Cocktail Can
Party Poppers
Sweets
Stickers
Nail File
In case you get lucky:
Toothbrush
Clean pair of pants
Condoms
For the morning after:
Can of Full-fat Coke
Alka Seltzer
Chewing Gum
Hair bands

And everyone seemed to appreciate the time, and humour, of the bags, which was good.  (If you haven't guessed yet, my sister is obsessed with pandas, which is why there was a big panda theme throughout.)  We then went to the salsa night.  For one price, we had champagne on arrival, a salsa lesson, tapas meal, and free entry to the club all night.  And it was a proper dancing club, rather than a meat market, so people were up and dancing all night.  I had a good time, even though I stopped drinking fairly early, but I do regret not asking anyone to dance.  I do Ceroc dancing, and though the beat is slightly different, many of the moves are similar to salsa.  That said, I did get one dance and he was awful.  He couldn't dance and couldn't lead.  I know everyone has to start somewhere, but he was friends with the best dancer in the place, and I wish I had the chance to dance with him instead.  Admittedly it was not helped that I was wearing a white dress, the club had UV lights (so I was the brightest thing there, lol), and I started leaking milk.  I couldn't wear breast pads, as they showed through the dress, so from that point on, I was wary about going to the main dance floor.  Again, with hindsight, I wish I just didn't care - it's not as if I'd see any of these people again.

That's all there is really to say.  We went back for yet more drinks.  Had a good night sleep, and had breafast before getting a lift back to my grandparent's house in Bristol, where DH picked me up in the car (with DD1 and DD2, of course) and I drove home.  Very tired, but had a good weekend.

Is life coming together?

I'm sure it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that I've caught up on my sleep, had a shower this morning, the sun is shining and though cool, it's a gorgeous spring day today, and I managed to get the prescriptions to the doctors, the filled scripts to the chemists, done the shopping, bought birthday cards for relatives whose birthdays are this week, went to the library, and made a cheats giant mince pie with DD1 today.  Cheat's because I bought a sweet pastry case, filled it from a jar and stuck it into the oven for 30min.  I will make some icing to put on top in a minute, though, so there is a little work there.

DH was talking to his mum, and she (and therefore he) is starting to come round to the idea of HEing the girls.  It helps that we've been talking about joining DD1 up to a gymnastics class, as like most people she's most worried about the socialisation side of things.  Truly, that is the least of my worries.  But DH also explained some of our concerns about school, and she actually agreed with them - or at least the bits he told me about.  In particular, as my mum said about me, apparently DH was also held back and told to wait for everyone else to catch up to his academic level in primary school, so MIL can see why we'd be concerned about that.  These are really big steps forward.

And lots of little things show me that HE is the right direction, and that it doesn't have to be the big scary thing that some people make it out to be.  Today, DD1 totally out of the blue said, "Quatorze.  [pause] That's 14 in French!"  "Yes, it is" I replied.  There are kids studying for their GCSEs who can't count in French, and yet my three year old, says it casually over breakfast.  And then there's the cooking, gardening (which she wants to get more involved with. I'm thinking of maybe growing one/some sunflowers too), cycling, dancing, singing, squash etc that she wants to do.  And, as I mentioned before, gymnastics we actually are making steps towards.  And DD1 has been taking the magnetic words off the fridge, bringing them to DH or I and stating "this says xxxxxx".  90% of the time she is absolutely correct, and the rest, you can see where/why she has made the mistake.  For example, she came in the other day and said "this says 'toop'." I congratulated her, said well done, it looks like it could say 'toop' because 'to' says 'too' but this word is actually pronounced 'top'.

I've probably said before, but one of the reasons why I started this blog was to help document our HE efforts (as many other people do, and I've copied) and also so our family can see what's going on.  Of course, at the moment, none of our family (except my sister) even know I'm keeping a blog, so that would have to change if I'm expected them to keep up to date with our activities via it.  If we do HE, though, we will have to be careful, as I'm sure many other parents do who don't HE, not to compare DD1 and DD2.  Growing up in someone else's shadow, or someone else's potential shadow as an older child, isn't very nice.  But as parent's we're only human and we do the best we can do.

As I'm here, I might as well update about a couple of other things too.  I think DD1 is pretty much potty trained now.  She does have the very occasional accident (usually when she hasn't pulled her trousers down far enough, so got them wet) but that is getting rarer, and she always asks/takes herself to the toilet.  It's probably helped by having bare-bum days most of the time at home, but that's not a problem at all.  She is also waking up some nights to go to the toilet, or waking in the morning with a dry nappy.  I'm definitely not ready to risk her being nappiless at night yet, but these are all steps in the right direction.

DD2's weaning is going very well too.  She is having breakfast and lunch most days (she only doesn't when I/DH forget), having plenty of BFs during the day too.  Her hand-eye coordination is getting very good so she is much better at feeding herself now.  Soups/porridge I will still give her on a spoon, but toast and things she will happily hold herself, which means I can eat at the same time!  We've rearranged our living room, and put the high chair next to the table, and DD2 really enjoys being the same height and eating with us at the same time.

Yes, today (at least!) life is good.

Dear Diary,

I didn't have a good day on Friday.  DD1 decided to fight me over everything and even resorted to hitting me to get what she wants.  I didn't hit her, but restrained her every time she hit me, for 3 mins (a min/year of her life) and it felt like she was in time out more than she was in time in!

Then, when I wanted to complain/moan to DH he, less than sympathetically, asked if I couldn't just be happy. Cue flashbacks to my teenager years, when I was depressed and suicidal, and my dad could ask me why I was so miserable the whole time.  :-(  On the good side, though, DH did apologise later on.  But, after the day I had had, I was feeling a bit lonely.  Things did improve over the weekend though.

I've decided to dye my hair: Damson Wine  It's not the colour I initially was thinking.  I wanted to go a more vibrant purple (Mystic Violet) but DH wasn't too keen, so our compromise was this more plummy colour.  I'm hoping he'll help me tonight to put it in my hair.  In a couple of weeks, it's my university's 10 year reunion (from when we started) and so I'm looking forward to dressing up in black tie.  I've planned to get my hair cut into a new style on the friday too, I just don't know whether to dye my hair tonight, or next Sunday, in time for the following friday.

We have also rearranged our living room, so it feels more cosy, but also allows us to have our butterfly dining table open all the time, and we've moved the high chair next to the table, ready for DD2.  She's sat in there a couple of times now, and seems to enjoy being sat with us when we're eating, whilst being annoyed that she can't eat what we're eating.  The weaning is going well, but slowly for her!

And today I managed to get some time in the garden too, despite going to the pub for lunch to watch my team lose (and DH's team win :-( ).  DH and I are both football fans, but our teams are arch rivals!  Whilst his team may have won today, we are higher in the league and generally much better.  So there.  Back to the gardening, though, I managed to double-dig half the plot that I've got so far.  I would have liked to have done the whole thing, but considering I was simultaneously helping DD1 on her bike, helping her to help me, and then I had to stop for a good 30mins to BF DD2, I thought that wasn't bad going. :-)

Hope you, in your diary-world, are well.
Regards,
LBP

Poo Poo Everywhere.

Pretty much self explanatory, really.

DD1 is going really well with her potty training, and is often taking herself to the toilet without me.  So, just now, she did just that.  I heard her wash her hands, and pull the flush.  (In our bathroom we have a toilet and a 'little toilet' - a potty with a lid.)  Then I heard DD1 yell "I need another wee wee".  So, she sat back on the little toilet.

After a whilst she started calling me, saying she dropped the poo.  I shouted (as I was feeding DD2 downstairs) back asking if she dropped it in the toilet?  She replied she needed help.  (TMI: she often needs help to wipe her bum when she's pooed anyway.)  So, upstairs I go...

...to find the bathroom floor, and the mat, and DD1's legs, and the top of the lid of the potty all covered in poo. Yikes!  First step was to lift DD1 straight into the bath.  She then proceeded to make pooey footprints up and down the bath.  Then I lifted all the poo-lumps into the toilet and wiped up all the smears off the floor and potty.  I ran a shallow bath for DD1 and cleaned her up.  I disinfected the floor and the potty.  I removed the mat out of the way, put DD1's clothes with the mat, and the sponge, after she'd finished the bath.  Quick towel down, and we all came downstairs.

It emerges that DD1 didn't need another wee, but a poo.  Not a nice firm stool, but a sloppy messy one.  When she finished, she went to empty the potty into the toilet, but somehow tripped (or something), splattering everything all over the place.  Nice.

DD1 is now sat on the sofa in her dressing gown, and the dirty stuff is already being washed in the machine.  I almost feel like supermum - although supermum probably wouldn't have got into that mess in the first place. LoL.

Weaning and Potty Training

Both are coming along really well! 

DD1 hasn't had an accident for ages now (and her previous ones were only because she was distracted and too busy playing).  She will tell me, when out, when she needs the toilet, and often takes herself to the toilet when at home.  She has also started waking at night to go to the toilet (she is in a nappy at night, though), but won't yet take herself.  Instead she screams/shouts until I wake up and take her.  I have put the potty in her bedroom (it has a lid, so I'm not worried about mess) but she still refuses to go herself.  It's hard, because obviously I don't want to be encouraging her to wet in her nappy at night, and yet I'm sooooo tired, I can't wait until she can either hold herself the whole night, or take herself to the toilet/potty.

Last weekend DD2 cut her first 2 teeth, just in time for her 6month birthday!  She now has eaten broccoli, (did I mention she had soup before?), crust of a pizza, porridge (home made, not baby stuff), toast and rice cake.  The soup and porridge I fed her on a spoon.  Whilst I am BLW, I'm not averse to using a spoon.   When she gets a bit bigger, she will take control, but her hand-eye coordination isn't that great yet, but it will come in time.  I'm still just giving new tastes and textures, rather than any actual meals.  I don't know whether it's best to increase the number of 'meals' or the amount of food each time.  The latter would be easier, but I think the former is what I ought to do.  As I am being child-led, she will let me know if she wants more food.  As it is, she has only a couple of times finished what I have put before her.  She will have to learn, though, because every time I feed her, DD1 decides she wants to eat from DD2's hand!  DD1 is a good eater, and always hungry.  I think she might be going through a growth spurt, because she is fairly small but eating every couple of hours atm.  Back to DD2, though, she will happily drink cooled boild water from a freeflow beaker.  I'm only offering water with food (specifically with food that I find dries my mouth out: porridge, banana and rice cakes), but she will grab the hands and drink.  As I'm BFing, I probably shouldn't be giving any water at all, but I am please at how she is taking the beaker.  Maybe next time she has EBM or FM, we should try giving it to her from a beaker, rather than a bottle, to see if she takes it easier? Hmmmm...

Dear Diary,

Today has been one of those days.  "Laid Back Parent"? Like Hell.

DD1 has been a right little madam today, to put it incredibly nicely.  She wouldn't eat her breakfast nicely, or stay still, and dripped weetabix everywhere.  She wouldn't get dressed, and made it impossible for me to dress her.  She did keep shouting, screaming, tantrumming when she doesn't get her own way.  Of course, this morning I had a doctor's appointment, that we were already nearly late for, so we had to get moving.  As 'punishment' we usually either do time out by the front door, or I will restrain her.  As she started headbutting and hitting me, it was the latter.  Of course, holding her still (with her fighting me every step of the way) for 3min at a time was just making us later and later and she still wasn't dressed.  Yes, I did have to do that more than once. I was even talking to myself (in my head) about how I would never have got away with this when I was little.  We were smacked, and it's not something I want to do to my children, and we were scared (or at least I was) so we behaved through fear.  Of course, when my mind slipped, I lost control and am ashamed to say I gave DD1 a tap across her legs.  What a waste of time that was - I got more upset at myself, and she just laughed at me.  It wasn't painful, didn't teach her a thing, but I just lost control.  Stupid me.

Eventually I did manage to get her dressed, and said that because she has been naughty, she would have to be tied in the pushchair.  The thought of dragging her, in this mood, for a mile to the doctor's when I was already late was too much.  So, I put the wrap around me, and DD1 decided she wanted to be in the pushchair, so she tied herself in, happily.  I put DD2 in the wrap, put on my big coat, to find out that it was pi$$ing it down outside.  So, DD1 was dry and being pushed along, and me and DD2 were getting wet and I walked as fast as I could to make our 11am appt. And that's when I found out that my umbrella is no longer in the change bag, and I've no idea where it is.

We made it to the doctor's 5min late, so I said my name and that I had an appt at 11.  Meanwhile, DD1 has decided she's not naughty, wants to get out of the pushchair, and is screaming the place down.  I'm doing my best "I'm ignoring you" stance, but feel that I'm failing.  So, I'm already not in the best of moods when I get told that I don't have an appointment.  I say "yes I do, it's with the asthma nurse."  She booked it when I was in the previous appt, and wrote it down for me; but I'm not on the system anywhere, and there isn't another asthma clinic for ages.  I asked if I could be squeezed in (I felt like I would cry), and rummaged through my handbag.  Good thing I don't tidy my bag out much - I still had the piece of paper with her writing on it!  So I handed it over, and the receptionist went in to see her (she was already in an appt).  I don't know what was said, but they said they would squeeze me in.

I sat down, and waitied my turn.  I let DD1 out of the pushchair (she ran straight into the wendy house) and I took DD2 out of the wrap and put her into the pram - she fell asleep almost immediately.  Luckily DD1 was fairly well behaved whilst at the doctors.  It turns out I do have asthma, so have been prescribed a preventative inhaler to take twice a day.   The nurse was very apologetic about the mix up with the appt - she remembers making it for me - and said I need to return in a month's time, but to make the appt with front desk, in case the same mistake happens again.  So back out the front, but I can't make an appt because, according to the system, she's not working in a month's time.  Best advice is to wait a week and phone back to try again.  And to top it off, DD1 is starting to play up again and refusing to put her coat on.  It is still raining, and I need to cross the road to get my new inhaler from the chemists, so I suffer the looks of other people for 'allowing' my three year old to go out in the pouring rain without her coat on.  Before I left the doctor's I tried to forcibly put the coat on her, but she was throwing herself around in such a way, that it was really dangerous. 

In the chemists, she decided that she was hungry and so was going to scream and scream.  That's when I perfected my ignoring.  I did manage to get her coat on her, though, so I felt better about that.  We then had the walk home.  Sometimes, if DD1 has been good, I will buy "naughty lunch" aka a KFC.  We don't have chips at home (no deepfat fryer, and I'm scared of a chip pan), so only have them when visiting family, or being naughty.  KFC is the only fastfood chain (that I know of) that doesn't salt its chips.  Although it is not something to have every day, young children do need a high fat diet so the occasional portion of chips isn't that bad.  And because I never buy DD1 her own meal (I buy myself something, and she shares that) it's not as bad as it could be.  Anyway, KFC is practically next to the chemists, and DD1 decided that she wanted it.  I walked off, and DD1 eventually ran after me, when she realised I wasn't going to give in.  More sobbing and tantrumming on the way home, but gradually reducing.  I think the walk home in the rain calmed her down a bit. 

At home, she still said she was hungry, so I gave her an apple and a raw carrot.  DD2 hadn't been fed since before we left for the doctor's and was now awake again, so I had to feed her, before I could think of doing anything for lunch, as it was now 1pm.  I am an emotional eater, I know it, but I'm too stupid to do anything about it.  I ordered in a pizza for lunch (with over half saved for dinner too).  DD1 shared the sides with me, but it's not good for me trying to lose weight.

Eating did calm DD1 down, though, and this afternoon we played Monopoly Junior again.  This was a much longer game, and we had to stop so I could feed DD2 again.  Despite a fantastic comeback (at one point, I only had £3 left), DD1 won again (!) with £55 against £35.  They are both now asleep, as I should be too, because I am knackered.

Goodbye,
LBP

She went through the night!

In her own bed (cot) in DD1's room (which is now both their bedroom).  Hopefully this will continue.  Hurray!

After giving them a bath last night, I fed DD2 and tried to lay her in bed, but she woke up, and was disturbing DD1, so we decided to bring her downstairs.  Before this, she had always gone to bed with us.  Because I'm BFing, there doesn't seem much point putting her to bed without us, if I'm gonna be running up and downstairs every 5min.  So, (without another feed) she fell asleep again, and we put her upstairs at 10pm.

At 4am I woke up (TMI: leaking), so went to the loo, got myself a drink, and expressed a little.  By this point, I'm guessing DD2 could smell yummy food and it woke her up.  So I went into the room, and gave her a BF.  Note to self: find the blanket I used to keep in that room, as it's cold in the middle of the night, and put some tissues in there for when I'm sneezing, because it's cold in there.  Afterwards, I led her down and she settled almost immediately, sleeping though until DD1 woke he up at 6am!


Also, yesterday I cooked a roast dinner, and gave some of the veggies to DD2.  When I previously tried carrot, she wasn't keen, but I know that you need to try things 15-20 times, to determine whether they don't like something because it's new (after 20 times they will like it) or if they genuinely don't like something.  I love carrots, so I didn't want any wasted, so only reserved 1 stick for D2.  I also had some cubes of swede and some boiled potato.

Well, she wolfed down the carrot, like nobody's business.  I'm going to cook her some more today.  I tried her with the swede, but she wasn't fussed, and it isn't as sweet as carrot.  Again, for the potato, which she has had before, she wasn't bothered by, so DD1 finished them up.  Luckily, DD1 also loves her vegetables, and ate a big plate of roast dinner including carrots, swede, and sprouts (yuck!).

The only thing with this weaning malarkey, is that I'm not sure yet of quantities.  Clearly at the moment I'm either getting it bang-on (unlikely) or I'm not doing enough.  Today, when I cook the carrot, I will do half a carrot, just for DD2, and will let her guide me to how much she wants to eat.

Weaning

We've started weaning DD2.  She's over 5 months old now, and we're doing Baby-Led Weaning (as we did with DD1).  She likes slices of banana, but wasn't keen on a stick of cooked carrot.  She likes to suck the juice from raw red pepper (but not bothered by the yellow pepper) and will sometimes eat potato.  So, at the moment, we're sticking mainly to banana.  i have bought some butternut squash, so will try her with some of that this week.

As I'm breastfeeding (and even if I wasn't, it would be the same), milk will be her main source of nutrition until she is a year old, so there really is no rush.  The point of weaning, at the moment, is to introduce new flavours, new textures and to get her used to chewing (mashing her gums) and swallowing solids.

Weigh-in

I started this diet 3 weeks ago.  I'm following (loosely) Fat-Burner Foods by Dr Caroline Shreeve because it works.  Basically there are two meal plans: Fat Burning and Stabilising.  On the Rapid Fat Loss weeks, if you follow it strictly, you will lose weight quickly, but it is hard to follow.  On the Stabilising weeks, you are not trying to lose weight, but to keep your weight stable and learn healthy eating habits.

I've never been a thin person (or argueably, a normal sized person) and when I went to university a combination of eating out, drinking and falling in love meant I put on a stone a year for the 4 years I was there.  I tried a few times to lose weight myself, or do extra exercise, and nothing worked.  I went on Depo Provera (contraceptive jab) and it is known that whilst this won't make you gain weight, it will inhibit weightloss - and I couldn't lose weight.  I was on Depo for 5 years before DD1 came along, with no problems at all.  After she was born, I went back on Depo, but this time it didn't agree with me, so I came off it.  June 2009 I decided I was going to lose some weight and decided I would follow the Fat Burning diet (mainly because DH got the book free with a copy of Men's Health!).  I was strict, at first, and the weight really does fall off.  Over time, I followed it more and more loosely, but the weight was still coming off.  In less than 6 months I had lost 2.5stone!  Then on Christmas Eve, I found out I was pregnant so I stopped the diet immediately.  (I had Hyperemesis Gravidarum when pregnant with DD1, so as long as I could eat with this pregnancy, I would make the most of it!)  DD2 was born in August, and I hadn't put on any 'baby-weight'.  I am breastfeeding, and I wanted to enjoy my Christmas, which is why I'm restarting my diet now.  I've still got a bit to lose before I reach my target weight.  And, my deadline for this weightloss is my sister's wedding in July.

So my stats, for this week (I've been on the diet for 3 weeks so far):

Current weight: 72.5kg
Goal weight: 10st
Weight lost this week:0.5kg
Total weight loss: 5.5kg

I will [try to] weigh myself every Monday and update how I'm going.

Quote about Dummy Use

" How has our modern culture become so backward that we imagine mother to be a substitute for a plastic object than to recognize that the plastic object is a substitute for a mother comforting her child at the breast."

Signature of Laura T (150), a member of Netmums.

Introduction

I'm a happily married mum to 2 daughters: DD1 (born in 2007) and DD2 (born in 2010).

The older I've got the more 'hippy' some of my ideas have become:
I'm now a SAHM, who tutors part-time;
I tried for a home birth with DD2;
BF DD1 for 10.5months, still BFing DD2 and would like to make it to a year;
I've used both disposeable and reuseable nappies;
I'm an unintentional co-sleeper;
I'm trying (and failing) to grow my own vegetables;
I did/do Baby Led Weaning;
I'm a Christian who doesn't think you have to go to church;
and I want to home educate, to name a few of my 'funny ideas'.
Above all, I try to relax, be laid back, and enjoy my children and DH.

Why am I starting a blog?  Obviously I have some egocentric need for my voice to be out there.  I don't have much to say, but what I do say I am passionate about.  I also find writing (blogs/on forums) to be therapeutic, so yes, this is all about Me.  Yet, at the same time, I want to have some degree of anonymity, which is why I'm using the abbreviations and acronyms more commonly found on parenting forums.  I hope this doesn't put anyone off what I have to say.  Maybe one day I'll come out, as it were, but for now I'm happy being LBP (Laid Back Parent).

As yet, I also haven't decided about use of photographs.  Whilst my logical brain knows that there are soooo many pictures of children on the web, that it's incredibly unlikely for it to be a problem, the other part of my brain wants to protect me and my family, especially my daughters.  So, to that end, for now there won't be any photos of us, and a more boring blog this will be.