Asleep with sleeping grandfather Conrad

First passport arrives ... and is bigger than his head (as well as already not recognisable).

A cuddle with Cat

Saturday:
I didn't do everything as originally planned: I did help mobbsy move, which was ace fun. I got to be loadmaster, playing furniture tetris with the van (er, did the second load survive? I mean to check). I departed when there was a general break for lunch, in order to go home, shower, and then drag Tony & Charles to a Benefactors Garden Party (relocated to Dome) at Murray Edwards.

There were several names I recognised in the attendance list, but I didn't see them in person, apart from my much-loved old DoS and the College President. I had an interesting conversation with a rather older alumna who was very much anti the name change, but actually the longest conversation was with another mother (surprise). She had brought a darling little toddler almost exactly the same age as Charles, but rather shyer. The toddlers got on and the family live nearby so I managed to swap email addresses and might actually get the tuits to organise some play dates.

We got home, and discovered some of my planning to remove heaps of garden waste had apparently worked, by its absence. Very soon after I realised I had a headache ... and then I realised it was actually a migraine ... and then I forgot one of the vital drugs for 30 minutes. So I then had a long dull evening lying down and reading trashy romance and failing to sleep, before eventually getting up to drink and eat, and ended up watching the remake of The Italian Job with Tony.

Sunday I took very very easily in order not to trigger another migraine. I did manage to do some freecycle admin and read up more about Inbox Zero, which in turn meant I installed Thunderbird, made it work and set up some templates and filters that may be useful. As with a lot of the 43-folders/Getting Things Done stuff, I think that I naturally have the right general principles, but can get much better by using some specific techniques. Still, I'm currently at about 20 in my personal inbox and want to get to 0 by the end of the week.

My attempts to make space in the house by freecycling books failed when one of the people taking away books gave me a carrier bag of more trashy romance in exchange. I lack willpower to resist people giving me Free Books Brought To My Door. I have managed to find temporary storage space for them anyway, but there's only so much I can read in one go.

Today I went to work as usual but was definitely still a bit slow and tired from the migraine. Afterwards, I opted out of ballet, but carried out a commitment to demonstrate slings to an antenatal yoga class (the one I attended for a bit when pregnant). Charles was fairly co-operative right up until I stopped him Playing With Doors in order to evilly make him go home. I've never had to fight to get him in the bike seat before, but luckily I was able to distract him by pointing out cats and vans and lorries, so he was actually quite happy by the time we got home.

Ow (usually given maximum possible pathetic intonation)
Nonny (Jonny)
Mum/Mummy (AT LAST, after Daddy and Granny and Jonny)
Anna (Johanna, his childminder)
Lala (Laa Laa/Teletubbies)
Yum (usually used for breastmilk, heh)
oo-wha? (What?/What's that?)
le-lah! (look at that!)
Whee (for movement - either on bike or looking at moving vehicles)
More

fanf can fill in any I've missed ...

Charles decided to help us start celebrating early by having a Mystery Nightime Tantrum at 3am.

(I need a new family userpic that shows us now, not nearly 2 years ago).

Yesterday we went to Shepreth Wildlife Park. It's small but seems to make good use of its space and take care of the animals well. Charles's favourite part was of course the playground. I like that it's easily reachable by public transport, and can see us going again from time to time, as Charles grows up and will get different things out of it.

Charles did a lot of pointing at things and we explained what they were. Sometimes he seemed to be trying to say names back to us. When we pointed out a duck, he quacked!

He is getting very interested in trains and I am beginning to think about locating Thomas episodes on dvd. When the train was in motion he looked out the window and said "wheeee, wheeeee" a great deal. He also looks up at the sky every time there is a plane or helicopter noise.

Today we are about to go and surprise Tony's mother by meeting her at Stansted airport - for once the trains are not completely useless for doing this.

Charles is Officially Well, having lasted >48 hours without recurrence of illness, and nearly has his old appetite back. We were laying things out for lunch and found him doing his best to make inroads in the huge family pork pie ... Later on he begged and pleaded for a taste of the co-op fancy lemon tart we had as dessert - only to pull the most hilariously disgusted face once it was in his mouth. Too lemony for Charles.

We are going to try to do Something Fun tomorrow and Friday, to make up for all the annoyance of the last 10 days or so. In the mean time, we finally got hold of Making Money this week and Tony is following me in chuckling his way through it.

This afternoon I took Charles on a long bike ride around Cambridge to collect Freecycle offerings. We went over two new (to me) bridges and across two commons. He seemed to enjoy it even with the intermittent rain, and chattered to me a great deal. I was considerably more competent with the trailer this time, compared to our last Freecycle run (where the trailer came off twice). With both toddler aboard and trailer in tow, I'm definitely slower than usual, but not too badly so. It made a lovely hour's exercise, anyway.

I got home, decanted bags and baby and successfully got some post into the nearby box before the last collection. Rar.

I found my diary! WOOO! I decided to make a methodical search of the house, starting with the study (last known location) and found it tucked inside one of my lever arch files. HUGE RELIEF AND JOY.

The doctor said Charles is doing fine and that babies just sometimes take longer to get well, we need to concentrate on keeping him hydrated (we are apparently doing really well there) until he's got rid of the virus. Then we can worry about feeding him up again. I think the massive tantrum Charles was having throughout the appointment may have helped reassure the doctor that he wasn't wasting away: both the energy required and the fact he was producing copious tears.

The last three times he's been ill seem to have been triggered by overly rich food, so I am going to have to work hard on my natural impulse to share food with him, and stay firm in the face of distressed hungry toddler (or eat only plain food myself, I suppose). The last two times were in the last hour and definitely my fault :(

Charles was ill late last night, so we have given up on the holiday. We are off work until Friday, so have plenty of time to see Charles get better, if Tony and I manage not to go mad in the meantime. We are trying hard not to be too grumpy but the fact remains we are quite bored, isolated and frustrated. Tony has managed to do some work from home and I've been escaping into some favourite books. My diary is still missing, which is really bugging me, but I haven't yet been able to devote enough time to an intensive search of the house.

Signals are mixed as to how Charles is doing: he is almost back to his normal self in personality, but he is also noticeably thinner, sticking-out ribs and weedy limbs. He is still sick at least twice a day. He has lost at least half a kilo (from a starting point of approx 12kg). I have never been more grateful for being able to breastfeed him, and for not making any push to stop him; at the moment I think I'm his primary source of nutrition and fluids, though we are trying to get plain food and dilute juice into him as well.

We will take him back to the doctor tomorrow.

It was such a relief when Charles started being noisy again yesterday evening! Even the part where he had a good noisy cry. He hasn't had the energy to do that all week.

He isn't completely better, still quite thin and sleeping more than usual, but he is so much more his 'normal' self when awake that I am much happier. He hasn't yet ruled out us going on holiday either, but I am trying hard not to count on that because it could change at any time.

This morning I took him in the buggy to do a couple of local errands (on the basis that the buggy is fairly effective at stopping him coming into contact with other people). Shortly after we got back he climbed back into the buggy, did up the straps (with a bit of help) and pointed imperiously at the door. We took another 10-minute walk around the block, and after that he seemed happy to settle down inside again for a bit.

We've all been going a bit stir-crazy and it's been great to speak to Other People, whether by phone or IRC. Hurrah for technology.

Well, the doctor checked his ears, his throat, listened to his tummy and checked his temperature, and concluded that he has no obvious sign of any serious infection, and that he just maybe has a particularly irritated stomach. She was pleased with his lack of deyhdration, and said he seemed basically ok (apart from the whole being sick part). We were advised to go on letting him eat and drink as he wanted to, to bring him back if he was still ill on Monday, and obviously to call the out-of-hours CamDOC service if he got worse over the weekend.

He seemed cheerful and happy afterwards, asked for lots of the big comforting lunch that Tony cooked up for us ... and threw up again at about 3:30pm.

We've discussed and decided that the latest we're prepared to try to join this party is Monday, because trekking across the country for only a couple of days of holiday seems a bit pointless. The go/no-go should be clear by tomorrow lunchtime - if he's sick after about 11am tomorrow, that's it, we're not going. I think we need to draw a line, because the uncertainty is really getting to us.

To add to the General Fun and Happiness, I have managed to lose my diary, vital keeper of our schedules, between 9pm last night and 10:15am this morning.

Charles was chirpy at first this morning, and then suddenly shifted into subdued mode. He hadn't actually been sick but I felt worried enough to arrange a doctor's appointment anyway. Sure enough, about 5 minutes after I put the phone down, off he went.

I am getting worried now - he should be over this norovirus by now, and I think he's losing weight, despite our best efforts to keep food and water going into him. All the NHS advice is to "trust your parental instincts"; well mine are ringing alarm bells now. I hope the doctor can help.

I'm beginning to doubt we'll ever get on this holiday now; Tony was asking about travel insurance but I'm not sure I actually care. I just want my son to be well.

Until about 3pm I would have reported that we were all tired but slowly recovering. Tony and I were gingerly expanding our range of food, and re-discovering appetites, while Charles seemed better if rather quiet and subdued. I was cautiously thinking of joining the Great Party Holiday on Saturday, in time for the big Saturday-night Surprise Event.

And then Charles threw up again, completely unexpectedly. He was much perkier afterwards, at least for a while, so I suspect his earlier lassitude was down to him feeling pretty rotten.

The end-of-quarantine clock is now reset to 3ish on Saturday, which means we can't get down to the party in time for the Surprise Event, so may as well leave travelling until Sunday.

It also means he's been ill for over 72 hours so I was back on the phone to NHS Direct, who said "hmm, yes, that is a bit unusual, but if he's not showing any of [list of scary symptoms] then probably not worth seeing a doctor today. If he throws up again in the next day, you should probably get on to your surgery, or of course if he gets worse in any way."

Tony and I are both a bit grumpy: probably a mixture of mild cabin-fever, convalescence, and holiday-disappointment. Not being able to properly finish at work in preparation for leave isn't helping my mood either.

We take the 48-hour rule very seriously: it's most likely that Charles caught this bug from someone who wasn't following it, and we wouldn't wish to inflict the misery we've had on anyone else. Taking it to a large house-party (including 3 other young children) would be incredibly antisocial, no matter how grumpy and disappointed we are.

I am going to tempt fate and look up Sunday trains to Minehead. To be honest, if we can't travel on Sunday, we may have bigger things to worry about :(

On the good side, I no longer think we poisoned Charles.

On the bad side, this is because we now seem to have a definite infectious cause: I started feeling ill yesterday evening and passed a most unpleasant night; meanwhile Tony had sole care of still-ill Charles for about 12 hours while I looked after myself, and then got ill today (though less severely).

I was ok from about 5am; Tony is looking better; Charles hasn't been ill since 4pm, but remains very tired. However, to observe the recommended 48-hour quarantine thoroughly stuffs up our holiday plans - the group we are going with departs from Cambridge at 10:30am on Friday, which we now can't do. I just hope it won't cost too much to catch up with them once we're out of quarantine.

Our washing machine has been working overtime. I wisely gave up on cloth nappies yesterday afternoon just to make sure we weren't adding unnecessary laundry, and am very grateful for the good line-drying weather.

Now I need to quickly skim email and then go try to catch up on some much-missed sleep.

Charles was ill again throughout the night.
( cut for detail )

So, Charles is now about 20 months old.

When he was about 1-2 months old, all the pain went out of my memory of labour. I remember remembering how it felt, but I have no direct memory any more. I remember the facts of the labour, but the details are all a bit hazy now (and I'm not sure I only remember the facts from having written them down and repeated them to people so much). It coincided with the c-section area finally stopping hurting.

When he was about 12 months old, all the angst went out of my memory of having a c-section. About this time last year, I sobbed over an article on normal birth after c-section. By December: no problem thinking about it.

When he was about 18 months old, all the aggravation went out of my memories of pregnancy. I remember that I greatly disliked most of it, but there's no substance to the memory any more - all black-and-white facts, the feelings all washed out and sepia-toned.

My guess is that the last point indicates when my body finally felt recovered enough to do it all over again. It coincides with when I asked to go back to work full-time and started stepping up my exercise level (all indicators I'm feeling stronger and better). But it is freaky losing bits of my memory like this. I am so glad I LJ-ed obsessively at the time, and that I have whim-proof contraception.

Charles was sick on Thursday night, twice, but thereafter slept straight through and appeared fine in the morning. J was happy for him to go to her as usual as there was no diarrhea, but about 1pm rang up Tony to say Charles was now feverish and crying. As there was no-one to cover for me at work (the person who works with me having the afternoon off), and there was for Tony, Tony collected Charles and looked after him until I could reasonably extract myself from the office.

I had to remind myself several times that Tony is perfectly capable of looking after his son and I wasn't being a Bad Mother by agreeing to this sensible allocation of parental resources.

My only real advantage over Tony is of course milk production, and this did seem to be very welcome when I did get home. Yesterday Charles was apparently better physically but very clingy and fragile and still drinking rather more of my milk than usual. Today he is just his normal self as far as I can tell.

He is taller again. Now he can reach the wine bottles on the IVAR rack in the study, which were way out of his reach last summer. We need to either drink or move them pronto. He can also, just, reach to turn the round door handles upstairs, which means the upstairs rooms are no longer impregnable when closed. We shall deploy more hooks.

I bought him bigger wellies this week, as the old ones are both officially outgrown and apparently not as comfortable as they used to be. These ones have spots rather than stripes, so we can tell the sizes apart. (You can see both types of wellies here - this is the company I used for his washable waterproofs and his swimming wetsuit. I keep going back because they do really nice stuff and post it out very promptly. I ordered the wellies late Thursday night and they were on the doorstep Saturday morning.) The old wellies are just beginning to show some signs of wear, but are still worth keeping.

Me: Do you think he would like a bath?
Tony: Charles? Would you like a bath?
Charles: Ummm. Oh yeah!

Charles then climbs off my lap, asks Tony to pick him up and waves a cheery goodbye to me as they head upstairs.

There are occasional giggles and "yayyyy" noises drifting downstairs now.

I told lots of people this in person because it's so lovely.

On the day we went to Wychwood, I walked through town to the station with Charles in the sling on my back, and after a bit he went to sleep there. I was choosing books in a charity shop when he woke up suddenly and started whimpering and saying "oh dear ... oh no ... oh dear". I assumed this was because he was upset at being woken up and tried to soothe him with chat and gentle rocking while paying and walking on towards the station. After a few minutes of this "oh dear" litany, it was clear it was more than just waking-up grumpiness and was about to take him out of the sling to investigate, when a passing woman stopped me.

"Excuse me," she said. "Did you know your child is only wearing one welly?"

"Ah, no," I replied. "Thanks, I'll go retrace our steps."

So off we went, and just as we got back to the charity shop, another woman came out, holding his missing welly and looking both ways along the street. I hailed her, and thanked her and she said "oh yes, it was on the floor just by the books, I noticed it just now". I slid it back onto Charles's foot, and he stopped saying "oh dear" and sighed happily.

That will teach me to make assumptions about why he's upset.

In France Charles developed a couple of new words: "Nanny" for his Granny Louise (he can't yet say Gr so we are persisting in calling her Granny as is her/our preference and will wait to see what he does when he can say Gr), "ow" and a fair shot at "no no no". He got on famously with the 8-month-old puppy Rosie, who is also rather toddler-like at present, all enthusiasm and clumsiness and testing boundaries. He loved playing with his Granny very much, with some real bonding being achieved by the end of the week.

Today he chatted at length about Nanny so eventually I rang her up and he listened to her on the phone, silent but with a huge smile spreading over his face.

We are going to get the webcam and Skype working soon so he can keep up the contact more easily, and also start building better contacts with his other grandparents. Jonny has already supervised his first webcam family contact, with our cousin Lizzy.

Second day of working full-time and my body thinks it should have fed Charles by now. I haven't felt this full in ages.

I wonder how long it will take to adapt - and why it didn't happen yesterday.

Today was my last day working part-time. Tomorrow I have off to go to Wychwood with antinomy (and her dad, and Charles, and without fanf). Monday I have off to recover from Wychwood and a weekend-with-toddler and then it is four days of full-time work and then a week in France to recover from the shock.

So, I'll be back at work 'normally' somewhat under 2 years after going on maternity leave.

Charles is settling in well with the new childminder. It will be interesting to see how the shift to full-time care changes his routine: he still nurses after I pick him up about half the time, but won't have the option now until 5pm rather than 2pm. He usually naps in the afternoon, but will be able to do so with J, so I will probably have a full-of-beans boy to play with when I get home, rather than a dozy one ready for a nap. Tony and I are going to need to work out how to divvy up the jobs I currently get done in the afternoons.

But still. "Normal" working hours, which in practice will be 8am-4pm with a 30-min lunch break. I will have lunch breaks again! And be able to go to meetings in the afternoon! I hadn't realised until the last few weeks just how much I'm looking forward to such simple logistical improvements.

Party in Oxford; very nice to see j4 and addedentry and their many lovely guests, some of whom I did manage to remember meeting before. We drove over in james_r's car, so he could go on to see a friend in Abingdon, and managed to fit fivemack in as well.

Less good was Charles's travelsickness, causing a lengthy roadside delay next to the house of a very rude person and a rather ... fragrant ... car for the rest of the day. I am now rapidly revising any journey plans which involve me driving alone long-distance with Charles, because it's clear that I couldn't safely do that kind of roadside cleanup alone.

We had originally planned to leave early and hit a housewarming in Cambridge, but in the end it was just too good to leave until rather later. After doing the driving back, I was so tired I went straight to bed.

Today has been fairly mellow: a couple of laundry loads drying in the sun, getting Tony to open his post before the letter rack exploded, a fair bit of Freecycle-related faff which included a nice walk with Charles, and I gather the boys were playing with water pistols in the garden.

Charles having got the hang of soft toys, I dug out several we were given when he was much younger and put away when he didn't appreciate them. He now seems charmed, and is being very cute with them, especially when encouraged to give them rides in his toy buggy.

I did both digging and ballet on BH Monday, which caused me to feel rather creaky as I changed after the class.

On Wednesday I did some necessary shopping in town, equipping Charles for hot weather. His feet have grown again: he's now a 6F in the right foot and a 5.5G in the left. I followed the nice assistant's advice and got his sandals in size 6G; they have velcro straps so are pretty adjustable too. Also did a swift trip round Boots and got 3 pairs of shorts and 4 tshirts. Now he is equipped.

Once home I cooked a vast pot of veggy pasta sauce, as I'd promised to make a family meal for one of the local NCT members who is undergoing chemotherapy. Thanks to Jonny this was merely a bit rushed rather than complete panic, as he took Charles off while I chopped and cooked. I always forget how long chopping takes. I decanted the family's portions into chinese containers and just dropped them off in time by bike. The idea was to have the rest of the sauce for our own dinner but I was too hot to eat hot food so had a cold snack instead.

On Thursday I joined Ben et al for a picnic on Parker's Piece. Charles ran around a great deal, and ate a fair amount of my pizza and generally had a whale of a time before we cycled home just before sunset. Then I took him and Jonny to Tesco because I'd failed to get Sandra's goodbye present on Wednesday. We were able to get other useful stuff to justify the journey, and Charles decided that he is now old enough for the trolleys with little cars on the front (he even did up the strap himself!) Unfortunately they don't let you take those out of the store because "people leave them all over the place and they damage cars" and Charles expressed his opinion of being transferred to a standard trolley at the top of his voice - at least we were leaving.

Yesterday was Charles's last day with Sandra. Thanks to those friends who gave me advice with the reference (I went with ending 1, the explicit explanation about the smell of smoke). I turned up with present, hand-made card with photo of Charles on it, and reference, but then got all emotional, and just handed over the bag with it all in and explained I'm not good at goodbyes. Sandra said she wasn't either and we retreated to laughing at the cat being silly. We sometimes run into her at the shops and stuff, so it's not goodbye forever.

Then swimming in Impington, for which I bussed there and walked back. My hair dried on the walk back, and I drank several pints of water on arrival home. Only two more lessons now before I go back to work full-time and can't take him any more, but it looks as though I may be able to get someone to take over my last 5 lessons. I must make an effort to get contact details for some of the other mums before I finish, I will miss chatting with them.

Work continues rather busy and I find myself looking forward to the extra 2.5 hours per day I'll have in June, while at the same time trying to make the most of my remaining afternoons with Charles. The lovely weather helps.

I'm as usual way behind on photos, but James has some lovely ones from our expedition to Wimpole Hall a few weeks ago.

Last week, Charles and I collected Loïs from kids club clad head-to-toe in waterproofs and somewhat shivery. Yesterday we were in shorts and tshirts and had a leisurely sunny walk round to the shops afterward. Summer is here all of a sudden.

Yesterday evening they chased each other around the garden, in comedy slapstick style, with giggles and gleeful grins, while Jonny and I sat in comfort on the sofas and watched them through the open patio door. Later we ate indulgent pancakes and watched recorded CBeebies, and Charles clambered over both me and L repeatedly.

Loïs asked, on listening to Charles's energetic babble, "Are you sure he doesn't just speak a different language and we don't understand it?"

It's a delight having her round to play - I enjoy her conversation, Charles adores her, she seems to love playing with him, and most of the time I get a bit of a break while they entertain each other.

We think we have a First Word - used regularly and consistently over a period of time for the same context. And it is ... *drum roll*

Oh-dear.

Dropped spoon? Oh-dear.
Spilt drink? Oh-dear.
Pegs thrown all over the living room floor, making a mess? Oh-dear. (And then he helps tidy up and gives himself a clap.)

"Dah-dee" is still the universal word-for-everything, said with many intonations and inflections. He also sometimes says "oh-woww" or "oh-yay" when something good happens/he does something he thinks deserves praise, but that's not nearly as consistent or clear as "Oh-dear". He chatters a lot at us, with many and varied syllables, but we haven't figured out much else yet.

Yesterday he demonstrated taking his pyjama top off at will, and putting it back on slightly less competently. He's having a good go at figuring out how to take trousers off too. I am planning to move his clothes into his reach and mine out of it (huge mummy-knickers on the toddler's head is only funny so many times).

I lost my temper with him today over something completely trivial and shouted at him; he stared at me in shock, threw what he was holding on the ground and shouted right back. Then he burst into tears. I thought "what am I teaching him here?" Then I dropped down to his level, cuddled him and apologised for shouting. When he calmed down, I got him playing with his toys again.

He waves goodbye a lot. Sometimes he waves goodbye to tell you to go away, or that he is about to leave.