19 Weeks

20 week "anomaly" scan tomorrow...

Lots of what ifs...

I think last time ignorance was bliss...

Heartburn rages on, Gaviscon is my friend...

I seem to be getting every cough and cold going...

Sleeping light...

But it's so wonderful...

Steve felt his first baby kicks last night in bed... 

I'll never forget that...

We call baby Trouble...

Trouble's growing at warp speed... Half way. HALF WAY! 

Till tomorrow then... Please all be well.

xxxx

WW Walking With My Macro

Call It Hormones...

Gosh this pregnancy is going quickly. On Tuesday we'll be half way. 20 weeks. The count up ends and the count down starts. 

As the count down looms I start to think about all those concerns I've heard from the lips of second timers... How will it be humanly possible to love another the way I love her? Will I be able to stretch myself? How do I communicate to Euna that I still love her? What will she think of the new baby?

Questions questions.

And I haven't even touched on the world of questions relating to the new baby! Boy or girl? Can I even do boys? I mean... Willies! Seriously? Easier or harder birth? Where will I give birth? And of course... Oh-bloody-hell-I-know-it's-gonna-hurt panic attack.

I think back to pre-Euna. I literally had no idea what motherhood would serve up. I had very little faith in my ability in it. To the point when I was about 36 weeks pregnant I went to get some food shopping. Whilst I waddled around Sainsburys it hit me that the baby could come any day and this could be my last opportunity to shop for food... Maybe last ever. I'd never heard of young families starving to death in their own homes due to colic-y babies or breastfeeding issues. But maybe that's because they still haven't found the bodies.

£300 later I got home with every variety of non-perishable food you can think of and about 50 toilet rolls. Despite having a reasonably generous amount of kitchen cupboard space the food wouldn't fit. Tins, jars and packets sat on the sides for weeks before they diminished slowly. 

Ironically we ended up in Sainsburys the day after Euna was born. High off baby making hormones we fumbled with the car seat straps and rocked up for that night's dinner and cakes for the hoards of visitors. 

Moral = we were fine, shopping was possible.

I am sure a more religious person that I would have a very elegant quote on faith to insert here. I have a hormonal in a supermarket story. 

It's going to be fine. We're going to be fine. Maybe even wonderful. Maybe.

18 Weeks

Heart burn... check!

Baby kicks... check!

Insatiable appetite... check!

Fruit cravings... check!

Bumpage... Double check!

Mummy-Tinted-Glasses

I've found so much about having my daughter is about getting back to basics.

Foremost I rediscovered the importance of family. I newly appreciated the roles of my parents.

Then there were occasions and celebrations, suddenly I wanted them special again. Christmas could be so much more than a day to drag yourself through with a hangover! Who knew?

I want to make. I want to make keepsakes. I want to take photos. I want to preserve and record and appreciate. 

I want to turn normal stuff in to special stuff. Euna and I have our own little breakfast ritual in the mornings, we do it every morning and I know I'm making a forever memory. 

And the weather. The seasons. Suddenly I'm really aware of them because part of me is seeing them for the first time through her... I think "Oh snow ok." Then I think "Euna's FIRST SNOW!" And it's new again. 

Only in some ways it's better because this time because I have an adult head on my shoulders. Unlike Euna, I'm not seeing my first snow then getting distracted by the bow on my shoes I haven't noticed in fifteen minutes. I can look at it for minutes and absorb it. I know the facts about snow and I know the magic that every single flake I can see is different. 

Enough with the snow... It's GLORIOUS! 

My point... Kids are cool at simplifying everything. Sometimes that's not the best thing. Like when I have to read "Stick Man" to Euna four times in a row and the mundanity of it makes me want to beat myself around the head with it. Other times that's great. Like today when we got a baking tray of water, some plastic pots and a couple of Happyland dudes in the garden and had a great time. She didn't care I'm feeling a bit fat, we didn't have to think about how we've overspent sorting the new house out and a world of other bigger and smaller brain-space-tenants were miles away. 

Just some sun and some water and all's good and new through these Mummy-tinted-glasses. 

Not a fan of the sogginess...

Nuby Step 3 No Spill Cups Review & GIVEAWAY!

A thoroughly average week plods on here. (Week 18! See my new improved Pregnancy page!) Disappointing British "summer" weather has robbed me of the sunshine induced mojo of the bank holiday weekend. We're in the throws of a round of teething and the house is in chaos from decorating. To boot my baby brain has thoroughly kicked in and I find myself completely unable to make decisions. Talk about first world problems… I have had more than one meltdown over not finding the perfect shade of grey for my lounge walls. So whilst I mentally backhand myself back into reality and work on getting a freaking grip, this seems like an excellent time for a good old fashioned review and GIVEAWAY! 

The products: Nuby Step 3 No Spill Drinking Cups

I became aware Euna seemed to need more fluids than her Step 1 & 2 cups could give her and after a few steals of her baby friends' cups I realised she was ready for… A STRAW! Cue a colourful delivery from Nuby and the opportunity to test drive the next step: Step 3.

Firstly… Pathetic sniff at how un-bottle-like these cups are. These are genuine toddler cups. For waddling toddlers. Not for babies. *Nostalgic sigh* **Second backhand** 

So! I got sent a few types of these… Some with handles, some with slide over lids and varying colours and shapes. Most importantly they all have the same rubbery straw that's flexible and soft in their mouth. The tip only opens if the straw is squeezed further down, this is what makes it "No Spill". And "No Spill" essentially for Euna means she can't pour it out all over the sofa and carpet and play splashy games in her new mini pool. It means I can leave it hanging around the lounge floor when she can pick it up and put it down when she needs without me having to supervise every sip. It also means, that despite some of them not having the slide over lids, that any of them can fall over in my nappy bag or footwell of the car and not pour out. Fab. 

The colours are nice. A range of more pastel cups as well as bright neon colour cups are available. 

Some have handles. Euna doesn't appear to have a preference between handles and no handles. On the handle ones they are removable though. I will advise that you need to make sure the handle is "clicked" into place where the thread of the screw top goes on, otherwise it does leak. 

Price? Well right now the price is EXCELLENT! Nuby UK website have huge sale on and they start at £1.50!!! A fact I had no idea about until writing this review! What luck!

In practice they've been great. We switched her over in one go. The above picture with the pastel pink cup were her first try and below is 3 days later and she totally has the hang of the straw and most importantly keeping the cup down to get the water up the straw (as opposed to tipping it up to get it to mouth piece like with the Step 1 & 2s).

 Excellent product!

Want one?!?!? 

***GIVEAWAY!!!!!!!!!!***

 I'm giving away these four cups... One lucky winner will get 2 x Step 1 cups and another will get 2 x Step 3 cups. I will email the first winner drawn to give them first refusal on which they'd like...

So here's what you do.... a Rafflecopter giveaway

17 Weeks

Here Comes the Summer Sun!

We don't get a lot of sun us Brits. The pitifully few sunny we get are rarely on a weekend and we daren't even dream of getting them on a bank holiday weekend! Oh BUT WE DID! 

And what a difference some sun makes. Literally it means you can go outside and breathe in a good mood! If my Dad was writing a guest post on here he would be inserting a paragraph here about how as natives we're physiologically built to run around naked and absorb all that vitamin D, because we wear clothes and have migrated so far north we are all vit D deficient and that that's why we feel so fabulous in the sun. If he's right it would explain a lot, because I know I feel great for some sun. 

Sun and air. 

As I'm writing this I am realising that this kind of enthused talk of sun and fresh air could only come from a pregnant woman who is finally getting her mojo back. Farewell 12 week long zombiehood and continuous nausea. Hellooooooo second trimester burst and bloom. I'm excited. I feel like I've been zapped back to life and someone lifted the veil. I want to eat fruit and get stuff done. I want to be outside and exercise. 

I feel like me again. 

So here's what we did with some sun, some energy and an few corners of the outdoors. 

Some more flower pics from our walk here...

 Cousins... She loves them. She loves the noise, the mess, the clumsiness... 

Green stuff ahoy!

 Food. It seems so much easier to eat well in the heat.

 Needs must. Won't say I wouldn't rather be soaking up this sun with a Pinot...

 My Mum reinvents rounders with a mallet, ball pool balls and teddies for stops. Euna charges the field every so often...

 "Say whaaaaaat?"