House changes

There have been a few major changes in the Lee Vale house of dreams. When we moved in in February there were 3 of us, Dan, Percy and me, and the house was entirely magnolia. Now we have 2 extra people and 3 rooms less magnolia. Hooray. The first edition to the household was Baby Eric born in May, then we took in our semi-homeless friend Rachel for a bit but now we have our more permanent lodger My littlest sister Sarah.

I found these lovely photos to welcome sarah

Last time we lived together she was 10 and I was 19. This is the story of how she came into the world which I will take 90% of the credit for. When I was 8 I had 1 younger sister Jo, and I was desperate for a puppy. I asked all the time and, although Dad could have been persuaded, Mum could not. Around this time I realised that the amount of children you had was not entirey up to chance. That's when I stopped asking for a puppy and started asking for a baby sister. To my surpise it worked! One Saturday morning me and Jo were watching cartoons and mum and dad called us upstairs and said "we've got a surprise, guess what it is?" Jo said "are we having croissants for breakfast?" Dad then dropped a big hint "the surprise is in mummy's tummy" Then I went mental with "its a baby! it's a baby!" and Jo said "anyway what are we having for breakfast?"

Later on in the pregnancy me and Jo told dad we were praying for a girl and Dad said 'too late we've already prayed that its a boy'. But look who God loves best!

Me and Sarah back in the day

I was a lovely sister for 2 or 3 years: I played with Sarah, I dressed her up, I took her into school for my speaking and listening talk on babies. Then I was a moody teenager for a bit and then I left home and then she was a moody teenager....but now we're good friends and have a lot in common. except that everything I can do Sarah can do better and a lot more naturally, she's one of those really annoying people who's academic, musical, athletic and creative. I was really only good at art and I wasn't even that good at that, I got a 'B' at GCSE and an A at A-level. Whereas Sarah got an A* at GCSE but didn't do it at A-level as 'it won't lead to a job' but still continues to make money out of being an artist. I did however discover recently her one downfall. She can't do magic eye books! I know right, what a loser. That's literally my only comeback to her massive catalog of achievements.

Jokes aside it's been lovely having Sarah in the house...so far.

The other big house change is the death of the shower cupboard, R.I.P, a ridiculous shower that forced you to get naked on the landing. Goodbye wall that turned out to be a supporting wall, hello a toilet with a sink next to it. And a thing that makes it ok that you removed a supporting wall. I was in B&Q looking at paint for the new toilet I thought I'd go for pale blue, that seems safe, but with an impatient toddler and an baby I didn't have a lot of time to pick the exact shade I was imagining so I ended up with electric blue. It's sooo blue. I had to put extra yellow things in to distract from the blue, I like it now though. Every colour is superior to magnolia.

view from the loo

We've also had a major addition to our garden.

Tada!

When the boys were born they were each given £100 from their great grandpa. We could have opened up a savings account but seeing as there's Trump, brexit, global warming etc. £200 in 18 years time seems a bit pointless. So we blew it all on this. And yes I do have the same attitude towards a pension. Dan has one though and when we got married he vowed to share everything with me. It's only fair because most of his power tools are actually mine.

3 months

Eric is 3 months... it's flown by.

And looking more and more like his big brother every day.

Percy at 3 months

Percy got a bit jealous of the attention Eric was getting and tried to get in on his photo shoot

3 months is a pretty easy stage, comparatively. In general Eric sleeps well from about 10:30pm till 8am, normally with one get up at 3am, occasionally he sleeps through. He can't yet roll so he stays were he's put. He sleeps for about 1/3 of the daytime too, he's actually a lot simpler to look after than Percy. Which is why I was over the moon when Dan's sister and her husband offered to take Percy to the safari park on Monday. Great, I thought, most of the day just me and Eric. I'll get some quality time with him, when he's feeding I can watch Netflix instead of reading Percy stories and when he sleeps I will be free!! So they came at 10am and Percy was really excited, the first hour and a half me and Eric just hung out in a way that it's hard to do when you have a demanding toddler. Then I thought he might be ready for a sleep now if I took him for a walk in the pram. So I took a little walk down to the shopping centre to buy some brackets (exciting I know). Eric fell asleep easily, but when I got home I couldn't get the pram into the house without waking him up. So I had lunch we did a bit more hanging out and feeding and then he started to get really cranky because he was so tired. I managed to feed him to sleep and carefully laid him down in the cot where he slept peacefully for just long enough for me to get in my studio and get my paints out before he woke up. 

The problem was, I couldn't leave the house because I was waiting for a delivery which was coming between 12:20 and 2:20. I tried pushing the pram round and round the back garden but that didn't send him off. I tried carrying him in various different positions and feeding him. He was getting super cranky and nothing would make him chill out. At 2:53 the delivery came and then I did a last resort sleeping method, going for a drive. 1 minute later he was asleep and I carried him in in the car seat. That very second I got a text from Dan's sister Beth "just on the way back be there in 10 minutes" Noooooo! The crying emoji did not fully express my emotions.

Thankfully Percy had fallen asleep in the car too and I managed to carry him in and lay him down on the sofa and have a wonderful hour off.

Today I remembered the book we read to Percy to prepare him for having a little brother. 

I think they meant to say "When the baby sleeps mummy puts Paw Patrol on so she can have some flipping time to herself!!"

If you're on twitter and don't mind hearing more about my child, I sometimes tweet stuff Percy says 

Here's a few examples:

Thanks for reading, next time I'll be writing about our new lodger and what happens when you get distracted in B & Q while buying paint. Bye xx

The shower challenge

We've recently had our bathroom done. When we moved into our house we had this shower made out of an airing cupboard. We thought was a bit weird but no big deal, until day one of living in the house, when we realised there wasn't enough space to get changed inside the shower so we had to get naked on the landing, which is fine except for when you have visitors. And then when you have two kids the shower challenge gets even more challenging.

Dan leaves the house around 7:30 and seeing as I'm now on maternity leave and I don't really have anywhere to be, it make sense that I shower after that. I have developed various methods of containing small children while I shower, from newborn the bouncy chair worked well. Then about 5-10 months the door bouncer was a winner. Then there was a stage where I couldn't contain them and I had to just shower when Dan was in, until about 20 months when they become more interested in watching something on Netflix on a laptop, than smashing your laptop on the floor. Till eventually they can, in theory, cope with playing by themselves and knocking on the door if they need you.

Then comes the multi-child-shower-lodger challenge. At the moment we're at the one child playing and one bouncy chair child stage. If that's all going well then you just have to worry about not flashing your lodger (because you have to leave the door open to see the bouncy chair child). Add potty training in to the equation and showering becomes a military operation, which if preformed successfully is the achievement of your day.

To try and make the situation easier (and the house less weird), we just had our bathroom done. So the shower cupboard and toilet room next door became one bigger room with a toilet and sink, and the bath (which is the other side of the landing) gained a shower above it. We had this done while we were on holiday. It was nice to be out of the way and the added bonus was we asked the plumber to feed our rabbit. Unfortunately we got a call half way through the holiday to say "that wall we took down ended up being a supporting wall so it's gonna cost you extra".

the shower cupboard with added duck tape so that I can watch Eric while not flashing Rachel

The new sink, where the shower used to be, which is now next to a toilet

Here is an example of a typical shower routine from this week.

7:30am Percy is playing quietly and Eric is asleep, I seize my opportunity and tell Percy I am going for a quick shower, he seems fine. I ask Rachel, our lodger, to knock on if Eric wakes up and I begin getting undressed.

7:35am I hear Percy asking Rachel (who is trying to get ready for work) to play jigsaws with him. I put my clothes back on and do a jigsaw with Percy, then I suggest he watches a bit of TV. That way he will stay still and not bother Rachel. I put on a DVD for him and make my second attempt at the shower.

7:40am Eric wakes up, he won't be able to sit happily in the bouncy chair now because he needs a feed. I reluctantly go downstairs and sit with Percy and feed Eric. I normally only let Percy watch tv once a day, so it's annoying to have used up the TV card this early on... and to not have got a shower out of it. Theres no point switching it off now as he'll kick off because I've only just put it on, and it's not like I can really do anything fun with him as I'm feeding Eric.

8am Eric finishes the feed and it's time to switch the TV off, cue massive meltdown.

8:15 after multiple time outs Percy finally calms down enough for me to contemplate another shower attempt. I get Eric set up in the bouncy chair, now that he's full of milk he's pretty chilled out. That is until I accidentally spray him with water, because we don't have a shower curtain yet.

8:20 my shower comes to an end when I hear Percy shouting me. He's done a wee, half on the potty and half in his pants. In my towel I go downstairs and get him fresh pants.

8:25 I attempt to get dressed. I eventually manage after several more interruptions from both the boys.

8:45 I am dressed! only an hour and 15 mins after I stared trying.

It's been a difficult week. Dan called me from work at lunch time to ask how I was doing, it wasn't going well and he asked if there was anything he could do. "Book yourself in for a vasectomy right now" was my response.

If anyone reading this has a morning routine where they jump in the shower and get dressed within 20 mins with no distractions count yourself lucky.

Although I don't want to fall into a grass in greener trap. Some people have to walk miles to wash in a dirty river and some people have to deal with all this, and turn up for work on time looking professional. The nice thing about being on maternity leave is my head is prrety clear of stuff.

My to do list looks like this:
1) keep family alive.

So far I have a 100% success rate.

I will end with an unrelated thought, which could be a competition. Today I was at Dan's parents church and the preacher was talking about "original sin". It made me wonder, What is the most original sin? e.g common Sin might be things like lying or coveting but what sin is unlikely to have been done before? I thought of "lusting after a slug" but I'd love to hear your ideas, leave me a comment. I might pick the best one and write a poem about it.

Our A & E, Potty Training Holiday

We have just returned from a lovely family holiday to Anglesey. It was lovely apart from the bits that were not lovely (mainly a giant two year old's poo and a tiny baby having a big bump on the head) but lets start with the lovely stuff. We stayed in a very nice cottage with parents, my two sisters and my bother in law. We've been on holiday to Anglesey before when Percy was a baby. That was the holiday when Percy was sometimes up for the day before 5AM! That time the weather was a bit too cold for sitting on the beach and there wasn't much to do other than that. The highlight of the trip was going to Wilkos to buy pick and mix and eating it while playing monopoly and rocking a baby.
This holiday was loads better, a beautiful cottage with a hot tub and several other adults to hold/entertain our boys.

The holiday began with at least an hour and a half of driving just to get to Runcorn, (which should take about 20 mins) so we had to make two stops. We promised Percy an ice cream for being good on the ridiculously long car journey. He said he wanted a blue one. We eventually found a blue bubblegum flavoured ice cream- yuk.

Weeks ago we started joking about about starting Percy's potty training on holiday just so that everyone else would have to endure it too. But then we thought, actually that's not a bad idea. Lots of other people around to help and carpets we never have to see again-bonus! It sounded preferable to me attempting to pull Percy's pants down while breastfeeding Eric. We bought him exciting "big boy pants" (one pack with dinosaurs on and one with pepper pig on).

On the first day we went to the beach and Percy was wearing his tigger swimsuit (without a nappy). I was enjoying a nice swim in the sea when Dad (aka Grandad) came over and said that Dan was doing something really heroic. Then he described how the tail of his tigger swimming costume filled up in the shape of a tail.

Our nappy training strategy was to put him in pants when we were in the house (not when we were in public or in the car) and when he did a wee or poo on the potty go mental with praise for him. Unfortunately he found this very difficult, he seems to only realise he's weeing or pooing when he's actually doing it. We had to abandon the original plan and give him stickers just for a good try at sitting on the potty. If you spend enough time sitting on a potty it is likely that at some point some wee will come out. So, when a tiny dribble of wee did come out we decided it was time to go mental with the praise, even though in my head I was thinking 'this is just a statistical probability given the amount of time you were "trying" for'. Unfortunately he then kicked off about having to be wiped so we had to withdraw the praise and stickers.

One time he claimed he did a wee on the potty and to be fair, technically he did wee on the potty, but I think when you make no effort to pull your pants down and you just wee through them this makes your attempt invalid.

On the morning we left we sensed a wee was near, and the bribe of TV was enough to make him actually do a wee on the potty. It was high 5s all round, stickers and an episode of Paw Patrol. I wish people celebrated that much every time I did a wee!

On the Friday, which was our last proper day, we went out for galettes at a cafe. We were sitting outside on a table that had a bench on one side, I had been feeding Eric, but when the food came I wanted to enjoy it properly (not one handed while jiggling a baby) so I fetched the car seat put it on the bench and popped him in it. I was halfway through my meal when there was a loud crash and I looked down to see the car seat upside-down and Eric facedown on the floor next to it!

I reacted a bit hysterically, which I was later glad of because I must have that crazy mum instinct that mums should have. I scooped him up and cuddled him, it was so horrible to see him scream. But he didn't look badly hurt and the crying was a good thing really. We put ice on his head and the other customers tried to pretend that everything was normal. I could see that he was probably fine but I just wanted to get him checked so we drove off to the Holyhead hospital while my parents took Percy for a walk. Unfortunately Holyhead hospital doesn't have an A & E, just a minor injuries nurse who isn't allowed to give advice about children under 3 months. So we set off to Bangor hospital where we waited a really long time to be told what we probably already knew... he was fine. Phew! We might have had to stay in for observations but thanks to terrible NHS waiting times the 4 hour post accident observation time was coming to an end anyway.

While waiting I reflected on how unlike the programme Casualty, casualty actually was. You never see a kid wait 3 hours and then have a bead removed from their nose.

 I'll end with a highlight from a family game of articulate that I tweeted to the games company that makes articulate.

I got two replies and a retweet...it's practically gone viral.

P.S Since I began writing this on Saturday Percy has done 7 successful wees on the potty!

8 weeks in

Today marks 8 weeks since Eric squeezed himself out of my bits. But great news, they're all recovered now. And we have a cute smiling little boy. He's not smiled for a photo yet though. He does very cute smiles and then we get out the camera and he's like "no mummy I'm not going to smile just for your twitter followers ,I refuse to be sucked into this superficial online world I've been born into. However I will do a sad face for you."

He bears an uncanny resemblance to his auntie Lydia don't you think?

So what have we been up to? To be honest I spend the majority of the time sitting on the sofa feeding Eric while Percy plays with his duplo. It's not that thrilling. But I'm getting to know all about the duplo characters and what they want from life. Turtle likes to wear a canon.

Polar bear likes to eat his fish fingers upside down, apparently.

And Granny (who is actually meant to be a farmer but Percy has always called Granny) likes to have sleepovers with the digger man. I know, my poor dad, he was gutted when I told him.

So thats the duplo gossip.

What else have I done other than duplo? Oh yeah we've been to a wedding... Remember that cod faced aunty, she scrubs up well. Sorry I breast feed as you were walking down the aisle Lydia, I hope thats not in the photos. I thought it was preferable to the sound of crying though.

We've got a new lodger. My good, potentially best friend, Rachel (she's deffo in the top 5) has been made homeless by all her housemates deciding to leave her house. And then the landlord decided, as everyone had left, it was a good time to do some building work. She is with us off and on till my sister moves in in August. Me and Rachel have been reliving our student days when we were house mates, when I get up at midnight to feed Eric and Rach is still watching tv in the lounge and I go and join her, it feels almost like the student days again. If only the mornings were so easy.

wide games in Delamere forest as students 2007ish

Rachel gate crashes the family holiday in France 2016

10 years ago:
Imagine getting up around 9, getting some breakfast, watching a bit of TV, hanging out with your house mates, having a shower then cycling into uni for about 11:30. Hanging out in the studio (I did fine art) doing a bit of painting, maybe popping in to town, doing a bit more painting and then heading home for around 6, for some pasta with cheese sauce, and then staying up for deep chats and episodes of Americas Next Top model till 1 or 2AM. Worth every penny of that 15 grand loan that I'm never gonna pay back.

Compare that with this week: after a terrible night sleep where you're up to feed to baby about 3 times (which can take up to an hour) your 2 year old wakes up around 6 or 6:30AM in a bad mood for no reason, or a ridiculous reason like, he's just noticed you've painted your nails blue, but he liked them better when they were red. You take him down to breakfast and he asks "what are you doing daddy?" you reply "he's taking the bins out". Cue meltdown because he was asking Daddy not you.

You need to feed the baby so you get into bed with a big pile of toddler books so that you can read to Percy while breastfeeding. But Percy doesn't want any of the books you've chosen, or any of the ones he can reach on his floor. He wants the ones on top of his chest of drawers that he can't reach but will dangerously try to climb to anyway. At this point I texted my friend Jenny who had offered to have Percy some time. I'd told her I'll wait till I'm desperate, and this was the time.

So today, Jenny has taken Percy to the safari park. I went to Morrisons this morning with just one child, it was like having a holiday!

Since we got back he's been sleeping and I've managed to:
unload the dishwasher
book the rabbit into the vets
arrange a man to fix our kitchen floor and pay him the deposit
begin some cooking for tonights tea
sort some clothes
make and eat my lunch
contact our plumber
and
write this blog

It's amazing how productive you can be when a baby could wake up at any minute. If I was this productive as a student I would have got a first! I wondered how I found just having Percy as a newborn so hard. This is easy peasy lemon squeezy. It was hard though, it was really hard, probably harder than having two. I don't know why, it just was.

Big respect to new mums: it is harder the first time, and massive respect to single mums. Yesterday Dan was one hour late back from work and I attempted to peel potatoes while jiggling a baby, and it made me think single mums (and dads) need more appreciation.

Parenting fail

I started writing this on Tuesday, but its taken a while because I've been typing 1 handed while breastfeeding:

Yesterday was my first proper day of being a mum of two doing a normal routine with no extra help and it was a nightmare. Eric is now 4 weeks old, so Dan had his two weeks paternity then he went back for two days (where I stayed in and people visited me), then it was the weekend and then my mum came from Monday to Friday the next week and then it was the bank holiday weekend and then I had to do a real life day as a mum of two boys!

After about 3 to 4 hours of broken sleep the day began. I need 5 hours in order to not randomly cry at people who ask me how I am.  Dan leaves the house for the early shift at 7.30. I had decided to go to this group which is on in half terms, they have a hall with a bouncy castle and a load of toys and they have a storyteller lady and it free, which is a bonus. Eric was due a feed at around 10am (he feeds about every two hours). The group was starting at 10, so I planned to leave about 9:40 get to the group, sit down to breastfeed while Percy played. It was all going according to plan until I told Percy to put his shoes on. "I want daddy to put my shoes on" he said. "Well daddy can't because daddy's at work," I said. "But I want daddy to put my shoes on." "I know but he's not here." 2 year olds are not the best negotiators but they never tire of saying the same sentence.

Don't you want to go out and play on the bouncy castle? "I want daddy to put my shoes on."
We can't go if you don't have shoes on. "I want daddy to put my shoes on."
Come on its time to go. "I want daddy to put my shoes on."
Well we won’t be able to go then. "I want daddy to put my shoes on."
I KNOW BUT HE'S NOT HERE!
"If you don't let me put your shoes on you'll have to go on time out. "I want daddy to put my shoes on."
Right time out....

....3 minutes later, "why did mummy put you on time out? "I want daddy to put my shoes on."
The conversation continued for many more minutes. And I had no clue what to do. I didn't want to actually not go out because I wanted to go out and see other mum friends. Should I offer more stick or more carrot? I wondered about live streaming this argument on Facebook live and getting people to suggest stuff I could try. I wanted to make time out a bit more of a punishment so I put him in the toilet, (the room that houses the toilet, not the actual toilet obvs). That was a bit crazy with hindsight, but I couldn't really think straight with all the crying. Then Eric woke up for a feed so I resigned myself to the fact that we wouldn't be leaving for at least another half an hour. So I sat in bed to feed him while Percy whinged and cried in the next door toilet. I kept trying to talk to Percy but all he would say is "I want daddy to put my shoes on." I texted Dan to ask for advice and he ended up phoning me, and he ended up speaking to Percy. Dan promised he would read Percy lots of stories when he got home, if Percy was good and let me put his shoes on. I don't really like that I couldn't fix this problem without Dan's intervention but hurrah he finally had shoes on, we could leave the house! (After the massive faff that is getting two kids into two car seats with a massive bag full of nappies and stuff and a pram.)

We had a nice time at the group, a couple of other mum's consoled me, and a Dad reminded me that "this isn't the hardest phase" (cheers Ben). Yes I am fully aware that when Eric becomes a wiggly 4 month old this will all be harder, but one day it will be easier right? When I retire.

In the afternoon Eric was sleeping, so I really wanted to do something nice with Percy as he misses having my full attention now he has a brother. I gave him a list of things we could do together and he chose baking. We started making ginger bread before I had fully checked that we had all the ingredients. We didn't have enough butter or the right kind of sugar but we made do. I was a bit distracted pouring in the sugar and put way too much in. Then Eric woke up and I had to try and spoon some sugar back into the packet without letting it mix with the flour while holding a baby and holding back a toddler who was desperate to mix suff.

The gingerbread men turned out like this:

It's not how you want your ginger bread men to look but at least there's some diversity, a black one and a fat couple.

I did think about becoming one of those parents who blogs specifically about the failures they are having with their children. I could do that. I do wonder with those kind of people who have loads of followers, whether they are just waiting for things to go wrong? and when their kids are kicking off they are just documenting it, and they're a bit disappointed when they behave.

The house was a tip and I'd not made tea, but luckily someone came round and brought me tea! In my church we do a meal rota when people have babies, so that everyone cooks you a meal and brings it round. I felt a bit guilty on Saturday when the lovely Liz came to bring me a meal. First of all I wasn't at my house so she delivered it to where I was (at friend's house), and secondly the friends (The Evans family) had us over for a lovely BBQ and we were just sitting around in the sun being waited on. I feel like when someone delivers you a meal after you've had a baby, they want to arrive and see you just on the edge of coping so they get a nice sense of achievement that they've helped you out. And Liz has just adopted a baby herself, so to then go out and get us food and not be able to deliver it because were out being fed by another family felt a bit awkward.

But anyway back to Tuesday. Roisin arrived with dinner and I was just on the edge of coping and very grateful for the meal. She'd cooked potatoes, salmon and vegetables and brought pudding. It was warm when she delivered it and not knowing how to reheat salmon we ate it straight away. Percy is normally fussy about food that is new to him and we don't really tend to eat salmon. So I was preparing for another tantrum, but to my surprise he actually said "the fish tastes perfect!" it made my day.

This blog is dedicated to all the people who signed up to my meal rota. Thank you. xx

10 years of Han and Dan

10 years ago today I said "so if you want to go out with me I'm ready", and Dan said "yeah alright then" and I said "oh, ok are we going out then?"

Here is our 10 years in photos:

We met for the first time at Will's 21st birthday, we were both on team pink headband for some game or other.

We got to know each other, Dan's look on this photo was analysed at length by our meddling friends

We both fancied each other and most of our friends knew so they tricked us into playing a very awkward game of twister at Dan's 21st birthday. This scene was later depicted in icing on our wedding cake.

We finally got together on 23rd May 2007

3 and a half years later we got engaged, Dan proposed dressed as santa.

Very soon after that we attempted making a life sized elephant for a political protest, but that's largely irrelevant to our story.

in July 2011 we got married...

bought a house together and I painted it....

....and we continued being weird

In 2013, after years of planning and saving, we set off on a two month cycle ride from our house in Liverpool to Kuwait. Just for lols.

We made it!

In 2014 I got pregnant. Look at, us blissfully unaware of the sleepless nights that were to come.

Percy Samuel Jones was born 22nd October 2014

In Feb 2017 after 3 years of trying to move, 1 failed house sale and 9 months of living with another family, we finally got a family sized house.

Which was good news because 3 weeks ago....

We became a family of 4, with our new addition Eric Peter Jones born 3rd May 2017.

I Proper love you Dan. Happy 10 years of us. xx