Attempts at a relaxing day...

We took a trip out today to a beautiful country park near us. Margam Park is in the next county to us, but just a short drive down the motorway. We've somehow never been there before, but were invited out by friends to have a play.

J-cub woke up late and hadn't slept by the time we left. We foolishly presumed he would sleep in the car (ahhh how I miss those days), but he gazed happily out of the window all the way there. We met up, reacquainted J-cub with his one true love, A, and bundled piles of stuff and toddlers into their buggies.

The park is huge, and after getting lost and walking up a loooooong hill we took a break in a grassy area in front of the castle (I'm calling it a castle, it might be a manor house or something but it's very castley) to play football with the Hello Kitty ball we'd bought for A.

J-cub took off at a fast crawl, looking like a mini-explorer fighting his way through a forest of grass while we chased him down and made sure he didn't come across anything unmentionable in the grass.

When he eventually started to look tired, we strapped him back in the buggy for his nap, and he started to scream. I'm sensing a bit of a trend here with my posts in general, as I seem to be typing "And screamed, and screamed" far too many times. But scream he did, as I pushed him in circles around the others who were dawdling towards the animals. I did my best to placate him and make him comfortable, but there's little you can do when out and about with a 30lb baby who's too tired to go to sleep. He did eventually drop off, and we managed to grab a drink and a snack in a completely deserted visitor centre while he slept in the buggy.

When he woke up, I took him off to be changed, and when I picked him up he was soaking (which would possibly explain the screaming). He was wearing one of his new TotsBots Easyfits, and I don't know whether I hadn't put it on properly, or if it was just from sitting in the buggy with a poppered vest, but it had leaked all through his clothes and into the squishy buggy seat. It's put any potential thoughts about getting some more on hold for now...

I changed him (he screamed) into a fresh nappy and clean clothes (my over-preparation paid off, as I had spare clothes (for hot weather), spare clothes (for cold weather), a sunsuit (in case it was very sunny), and a puddle suit, so I had plenty to choose from). I came out of the changing room not 5 minutes later, and the lovely sunshine had turned into pouring rain.

We stood around under shelter while A tried to boss us back out into the rain to play football, then we walked aaaaaallllll the way back to the castle for some lunch (toddlers did not want to walk, or ride in the buggies, so we all took it in turns to carry them and push the heavy buggies through gravel and up hills. Why did I have to choose today to forget the sling?

In the cafe for lunch ("Yellow chips! I want yellow chips, not purple. Where are my yellow chips? Yellow chips, where are you?" sang A), J-cub was surprisingly keen on eating, polishing off a big pile of baked beans and poking at some sausages and coleslaw. He managed to get most of the coleslaw all over him, leaving big wet patches which necessitated another change of outfit (see, I'm not over-prepared, I'm just prepared).

We finally made our way to the fairytale village (J-cub again refused to nap on the way), where there were mini-cottages dressed up as various fairytales (they'd gone to all the expense of building actual mini houses, but still just had cardboard cutouts of the characters within), a playground, and a castle. J-cub had a whale of a time in the playground, terrorising all the other children by grabbing their hair and shoving them out of the way, and terrifying us by moving so fast around the raised climbing-frame bit that we could barely get to the openings to catch him before he fell out (but woe betide if we tried to take him out, cue screaming tantrums until he got back in again).

In a shady corner, we found a massive round wooden table and parked him on top of it. We then had to dance around the table while he performed acrobatics in the middle, trying to catch him every time he approached an edge only to have him reverse direction while we galloped like loons to the other side. I suppose the sensible thing would have been to take him off the table, but he didn't like that, oh no.

I eventually remembered the stack of cups I'd shoved into his change bag, and when I gave them to him, his face lit up and we had a couple of moments to breathe.

Doesn't he look happy and peaceful?

Do I sound tired, jaded, ungrateful and like I didn't have a lovely day? It was a lovely day, and I'm so happy to have spent the day in the company of such good friends, my lovely husband, and our delightful children. But I still haven't quite got used to being out and about with an almost-toddler. The tantrums which have only started in the last few days are pretty much constant, and we haven't quite got to the how-to-deal-with-it point yet. He's not walking, so we're either leaning over letting him hold our fingers to work (which is back-breaking), making sure he doesn't pick up cigarette butts or other nasties when he's crawling, carrying him, or pushing the buggy. And when he doesn't nap, or doesn't nap for very long, he never stops. As with all other parts of motherhood, it takes a while for my brain, muscles, and sanity to catch up when he starts doing something new. And becoming a toddler is like starting from scratch all over again. Having a baby was terrifying, but at least if you put it down somewhere, it would still be there when you came back. Now, you can't switch off, or sit down, or have a break for a single second. All day.

I'm knackered.

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I know my Look Up project has finished, but I couldn't resist today - we came across this amazing Tulip Tree, the like of which I've never seen before. It was 400 years old, maHOOsive, and absolutely stunning.

Look Up - Complete

Today is the last day of May, and therefore the last day of my Look Up project. I'm so pleased that I managed to keep going for a whole month, and have blogged every day for the last 31 days.

I haven't yet decided what I'm going to do for the next month - whether I'm going to start another list, or do another project, or what.

We had another horrendous night last night, I was up from 1.50am (which is a perfectly acceptable time to go to bed. It is not anywhere near an acceptable time to be waking up) until 5.45am when Jamie took over. J-cub finally went back to sleep at 6.30am. I was also very ill, with a raging fever, and nausea, and stomach cramps. I have no idea where it's come from, but I've had just about enough of it now.

I've therefore spent most of today sleeping (or groaning), Jamie's spent most of today juggling an overtired baby, a needy wife, and an important OU assignment which he needs to finish and get posted by tomorrow. J-cub's spent most of today in his pajamas, screeching and wreaking havoc and generally being a mischief.

I got two final Look Up photos, which I couldn't choose between. Isn't he adorable?

A Day in Pictures (2)

We've had such a lovely day today, and I had too many photos to choose from, so I'm doing another day in pictures. Last night was awful - we've had 2 nights of pure, unbroken sleep from 7pm-7am, which has obviously lulled us into a false sense of security which needed shaking up. We put J-cub down at 8pm last night, he immediately fell asleep but woke up 10 minutes later and grizzled and groaned and descended into full-blown screaming over the course of the next hour. We gave up and brought him down for some extra playtime. At 10.30pm, he went back to bed, and eventually drifted off. Result, we thought, that means a lie-in tomorrow morning.

J-cub hadn't finished toying with us though. At 3.30am, the screaming started again. We were up, and down, and rubbing his back, and cuddling him, and trying everything under the sun to get him to go back to sleep. I don't know when he did, I just know that I've once again been floating on a cloud of exhaustion today (and he wouldn't go down for his afternoon nap, just when we really needed a break).

It didn't stop us from enjoying ourselves though...

J-cub having his first go on the climbing frame. It's built in a square, with different surfaces and sides on each section. He went round and round and round, while we ran round the edge to block the exits and stop him from falling off.

Crawling through the tunnel, full of giggles.

Riding a very evil looking horse.

My favourite moment - we walked round to the park for the first time with J-cub between us, holding our hands. He got tired a few times and we carried him for a while, then he'd be back down for another go. It's like we're proper parents all of a sudden.

New walking skill - holding just one hand.

Bad Mummy - J-cub's first taste of ice-cream (and it was a Magnum - nothing but the best for our boy).

Picking the flowers.

Adapting our game from a few days ago - "What's in the boot?".

Covering the car with a sarong makes it even more exciting.

Building a den under the Jumperoo.

Rescuing Jemaine from inside the den.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Today's Look Up photo: J-cub enjoying the swing with tiny chuckles and wide-mouthed grins, lots of pointing and staring up at the sky.

Memories

My parents are visiting this weekend, so I haven't had time for thinking about blogging, and it would be hard to explain the taking of Look Up photos since they don't know about this blog, and I'd kind of like to keep it that way.

Therefore, I'm once again resorting to the archives. These photos are from a walk we took when J-cub was teeny-tiny, and from when we didn't know any better and were still using the BabyBjorn carrier (with lots of resulting painful necks and backs).

It was springtime, and most of last Spring passed by in a haze of sleep-deprivation and gradually-building depression. It was Winter when I went into labour, and I barely noticed Spring appearing as I couldn't walk for ages and spent most of the time indoors with the blinds pulled shut (having your boobs out 24/7 will do that to you). On the occasional day that I did venture outside, like in these photos, I was pretty much blinded by the sunlight and amazed at the new green leaves appearing everywhere.

On this occasion, we went for a walk through the woods in the brilliant sunshine, with J-cub sleeping happily all the way. In those days, he'd fall asleep the moment he was put in the sling, it was lovely. There are several attempts at taking a photo of the three of us together, and I love the one above. I'm sad that I don't remember so much of last year, and that what I do remember is triggered by photographs. I'm glad I have the photos or I'd have no memories at all, but it would just be nice if my brain hadn't shut down to such an extent that I've blanked everything out.

In this set of photos, there are several of Jamie looking up at a tree. I don't remember why, but I'm sure he had a good reason at the time.

Jacob's driving in his car...

The two lovely boys I work with are now aged 10, and have decided that it's about time to let go of some of their toddler toys. They invited me to rummage through their garden shed, where I found two lovely Little Tikes cars, which they thought they could just about bear to be parted from. I chose one, and while I tutored E, his brother J scrubbed and washed and cleaned all the spiders off the car. I folded down the backseats of the car and squeezed it in, and arrived home to give J-cub his belated birthday present from his honorary brothers.

We helped him into it, and he's barely spent a second out of it since. We were a bit worried that it would take him a while to work out how to climb in and out of it, but about 5 minutes after he'd first sat in it, Jamie took J-cub out of it to give him his tea, left him for a second to get his cup, and came back in to find J-cub sitting back in the car with the door shut.

His legs aren't long or strong enough yet to propel himself forwards, but he's enjoyed using it as a highchair, sitting it and spinning the wheel, reading books while leaning out the front window, climbing in the wrong way round, standing on the seat and leaning out the front window, sitting on the parcel shelf, climbing out of the door, cruising round to the other side, and climbing back in through the window.

I was very cruel and put it in the garden, after I got sick of having no room for anything else and after J-cub got stuck in the footwell for the hundredth time. I'm just waiting for him to start pointing out the back and signing 'car'. In the meantime, I've been taking him out every time it's not raining for some driving practice.

Today's Look Up photo was an easy one - he leant out the front window to check out the ceiling (just in case there was anything going on up there). AMAZING face :D

World Cup

There appears to be some sort of major football event happening soon, which my lovely husband is very excited about (sigh). I'm far more excited about my biggest guilty pleasure - the last series of Big Brother which starts a few days beforehand.

J-cub and I popped out for a few bits and bobs this afternoon, and the Co-op had massive inflatable footballs hanging from the ceiling. J-cub had just begun to get a bit shouty and I-don't-want-to-be-in-this-trolley-any-more-y, but was suddenly transfixed when he caught sight of them.

Like father, like son.

You can't look directly at a bluebell...

A very quick post today as I'm shattered after all the children at school today were besieged by their volume controls being stuck on high, resulting in my ears still ringing and my brain being numb. I managed to make a small girl cry uncontrollably by asking her to stop screaming "I found a woodlouse!" and just to tell her friends quietly instead.

I took today's Look Up photo standing outside my employer's back door, which opens onto a narrow walkway edged by an 8-foot high brick wall at the top of which is a small strip of wild garden (the house is cut into a hillside). The bluebells were glorious - highlighted by the sun and waving in today's welcome breeze.

From time to time, I like to baffle city-born Jamie with straight-faced explanations of nature, most of which are true, but some of which are not. These include there only being 5 clouds which encircle the world, occasionally breaking up into smaller pieces of cloud but still being part of a greater whole, and my most recent explanation of the blue haze you see at roadsides when banks and verges are covered in bluebells. I insisted, for days, that you can't look directly at a bluebell. It's an optical illusion, like a perception filter, which means your eyes slide right off it and you only take in the group of flowers (like a herd of zebra) but you can never see a single flower, except in the very periphery of your vision.

He didn't believe me. I don't know why I do this, but I get massive kicks from it. I don't think many people get my sense of humour.

(More) new nappies

When I picked J-cub up from nursery yesterday, he was wearing a disposable nappy. They said that he'd been sweating loads (it was insanely hot, and they hadn't yet got the air conditioners working) and they were worried so had put him in one to cool him down. I was a bit unsure about whether or not they were right - cloth nappies are breathable, as are the wraps we use, whilst disposables are not. Then again, the weight of a disposable, even when saturated, is nothing compared to the weight of a wet cloth nappy.

I decided that today was the perfect time to try out the TotsBots Easyfits which I won during Real Nappy Week. The nappies are pockets, and after our initial foray into the world of pockets, we were a little reluctant to try any more. However, I figured that I'd let nursery deal with any potential leaks, and I shoved a few disposables into his bag Just In Case. Pocket nappies don't have a wrap to cover them because their outer layer is waterproof. That makes them ideal for caregivers who aren't used to cloth, as they are as easy to put on as disposables, and are seemingly good for hot weather, as they're slimmer and have less layers.

We bundled him off in one this morning, and when I collected him I had a resounding thumbs up from the nursery staff. I'm happy enough with our normal MEOS at home, but it's far easier for us to strip him off and keep him cool during a heatwave than it is for the nursery staff with all the other babies and children to deal with.

When I got him home I had a chance to see them in action - they are far quicker and easier to change, and after 2 hours and lots of drinks of water, the nappy was fairly dry (although again, the hot weather and a sweaty baby could account for that). Still, I really like them. I started to think about getting some more, as we only have 5 Easyfits which wouldn't cover 2 days at nursery. I was lucky enough to win the brand new Easyfits V2, a fancy new super-dry version which doesn't need an extra booster (hence being so skinny and cool). And which seem to cost a whopping £17.50 each. The ones I won are white, but they come in 6 gorgeous prints as well, and I am so coveting this one:

Damn it, I thought I'd escaped from the cloth nappy mania which seems to befall so many users. Until I win the lottery (or another competition), I think it's unlikely that we'll be able to afford to buy more anytime soon. In the meantime, I'm going to do some proper research into whether or not cloth nappies are hotter, and spend my hard-earned pennies on some potties so we can have lots more bare-bum time at home.

I thought I'd combine today's Look Up photo with a snap of J-cub modelling his new nappies - although this isn't the best one as you can't really see the nappy. It was the only time he chose to stare at the ceiling though, so that's all you're getting.

I'm off to clean the telly now.

Hot Hot Heat

So hot. So very very hot. Dawn broke at 4.30am this morning. And J-cub woke up. And wouldn't go back to sleep. I'm so so tired, and it's been so hot all day. When I picked him up from nursery, he was covered in heat rash and burning hot. He cried most of the way home, despite the air conditioning in the car, and screamed as soon as we got in the house. I ended up stripping him off and giving him his evening bottle straight away, lying on the lounge floor, even though he normally has it right before bed. He seems a bit better now, and is still wandering around in just his nappy with no wrap, to keep him extra cool.

I'm shattered, and can't really do much Internetting as I'm avoiding Lost spoilers. The finale was on at 5am this morning (the irony of me being awake but not able to watch it as I was tending to a grumpy baby was not lost on me) so we've Sky +'d it for later. I can't wait.

I snapped a quick photo of J-cub looking up at me while he drank his bottle, as my tired, hot brain couldn't come up with anything more inventive.

That's all for now - hope all my lovely readers are finding ways to keep cool.

What's in the box?

Now that J-cub's getting a bit older, I've been trying to play with him in a more useful way. Tammy at The Heartful Blogger has recommend The Toddler's Busy Book, which is on my wish list. In the meantime, I've been looking for inspiration from other blogs. When I find it, it always makes me feel like such an idiot for not having thought it up myself.

Today's game, courtesy of Chasing Cheerios, is 'What's Inside?'. This was swiftly rechristened 'What's in the box?', said in a wailing, Brad Pitt-esque voice from the scene at the end of Se7en (which you can see a comedy version of here). Our version involved sneaking something into a biscuit tin, banging the lid whilst chanting "What's in the box?", shaking the box whilst chanting "What's in the box?", then saying "Oooooooh what's in the box?" during the big reveal.

J-cub cottoned on to the game after about 2 seconds, he took over the banging of the lid, clapped while I shook it, then clasped his hands together in anticipation before chuckling when he saw what was inside.

When I thought he'd had enough of playing, I wandered off for a while, only to see that J-cub was carrying on playing on his own. He quickly mastered getting the lid on and off, and even remembered to put something inside the box a few times.

Later on, he found his shadow on the wall for the first time, and happily smacked it around for a while.

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I wrote yesterday about the swallows (house-martins?) and managed to get some photos today looking up at them flying into their nest in the eaves of the house behind us. This stretched my photographic capabilities to their limits, as swallows apparently forage at 30-40kph. I got a few usable shots though, and this was my favourite.

Lots of Swallows make a Summer...

In the eaves of all our neighbouring houses, swallows are nesting (or house-martins, I don't know the difference). The sky today has been full of them, wheeling and circling, catching flies and swooping back to their nests.

It's been so very hot today - noticeably cooler inside the house but it still reached 25 degrees in the lounge - and J-cub has been crawling around naked for most of the day. He loved being squirted by bath toys in the water tray, closing his eyes and grinning with his face turned upwards in joy.

He had an alfresco dinner on the patio, at which point he caught sight of the birds and spent most of his meal with his head thrown back, watching them, pointing and giggling between mouthfuls.

We put our duvet out to air on the grass today, then brought it back in before the dew started to fall and laid it on the living room floor to make sure no spiders were clinging to its folds (I hate spiders). J-cub spent the last hour before bedtime rolling around on it, pressing his face to its softness and making squeaks of delight. When I lay down on it with him, he got as close to me as he could, put his forehead against mine and his arm around my shoulder.

He's such an angel.

No, THIS is Summer.

I made a misguided post about it being Summer a few days ago. It promptly rained for the following week. Today though, it has been HOT. J-cub has been sleeping in just a vest and his 1 tog Grobag, and has still been waking up drenched in sweat. He spent the morning wearing just a nappy, and the afternoon wearing a lovely new romper suit (I LOVE romper suits, I wish it was warm enough for him to wear them year-round). He's drunk 3 whole cups of water, and enjoyed sucking on an ice lolly. He got totally soaked splashing in the water tray, with his face right down close to the water and his eyes tight shut. We blew bubbles sitting on the grass and watched Tilly bouncing around trying to catch them. It was awesome, although I have a wicked headache from the heat.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

I nearly discarded this photo, thinking that I'd missed half his face off (shooting from the hip again, or, in this case, shooting with the camera held up above him so he would look up). Then I realised that he is looking at the camera, but in the reflection in the glass door of the DVD cabinet. Inadvertent awesome shot WIN.

Play dates

I was supposed to have a play date with my two Mummy friends and their babies today. We used to get together every week, but illness and tiredness and other things seem to always get in the way now, and it's been a while since we've all been together.

J-cub went down late for his morning nap, therefore woke up late, and after a hurried lunch we set off to drive to R's house. By the time we arrived, my other friend, C, had already left. Her little one was having an undiagnosed screaming fit, so she'd scarpered to the sanctity of home. R's little one, P, had just gone down for her nap. So 3 out of the planned 6 of us had a lovely play - J-cub enjoyed all the novel toys, the clinky fireguard, the too-high-for-climbing-sofa, the books he'd never read before, and the dogs. The dogs quickly became his new best friends, he fed them breadsticks through the stairgate, laughed when they barked at him, and gently poked their faces.

At exactly the point when P woke up, J-cub started having a bit of an I'm-really-quite-tired-now-Mummy tantrum, threw himself eye-first onto a doorframe, and had a massive screaming meltdown.

We had approximately 5 minutes when both babies were awake and not crying, although P was adorably half-asleep and fluffy-haired and mostly just stared at J-cub in a "where did you come from?" type way.

It was a lovely afternoon, although it didn't exactly work out the way we'd planned it. It's always nice to have some mummy-talk, and for J-cub to play with some different toys. P also still has balloons up from her birthday, and today's Look Up photo shows J-cub looking up at them with glee and longing. When we got home, he stuck the tied-end of one of his balloons in his mouth and crawled around with it bobbing up and down. He now has a rather scary looking lump on his eyebrow from his incident with the doorframe, and I'm predicting a black eye tomorrow morning.

Separation Anxiety

The biggest thing I had trouble adjusting to after J-cub was born, was never being alone. I've always valued 'me time', not that I ever did anything particularly exciting on my own, but I enjoy peace and quiet, and reading, and having time to think and freedom to do whatever I want to do. It was a massive culture shock, having a completely dependent being attached to me 24/7. I don't think I'd really thought about it at all before he arrived, but I resented him for it, and was desperate to get away, at times.

All that has changed now, and though I'm still suffering with my postnatal depression, I don't have any negative feelings towards J-cub, and only get that desperate feeling when I'm away from him, and want to get back as quickly as possible.

With all that in mind, today was horrible. He woke briefly at 6.10am, but I settled him back to sleep and came downstairs to get ready for work as I had no chance of falling back asleep at that time. I pottered around, eating my breakfast, showering, dressing, making my lunch and prettifying myself. J-cub didn't stir. On Wednesday's, Jamie doesn't work and stays home with him. At 8am, I sneaked into the bedroom, told Jamie the boy was still asleep and I was leaving, and I left. With no cuddles, no playing, no time at all with my baby.

I missed him horribly, all day. It was far worse than all the other days when I get an hour or more with him in the morning, and a half hour drive to nursery with him chatting away in the back of the car. Jamie texted me to say that they'd both woken at 9am (9! Why can't he do that on days when I'm at home?!) and were having a lovely day. And I missed him all the more.

I rushed through the last part of my working day and got home just after 6.30pm. We played some music, had some cuddles, J-cub demonstrated his new flair for the dramatic by doing huge, face-cracking yawns then flinging his hand across his face and giggling with his eyes still closed. He suddenly discovered his tongue and spent 5 minutes poking it at us and blowing bubbles. I took him to bed at 7 and he fell straight asleep.

Half an hour with my baby in the last 24 hours. I feel lost.

I can't wait til tomorrow, and Friday and Saturday and Sunday. Although after a couple of hours of mania tomorrow morning, I'll probably be begging him to go down for his nap.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

An oldie for today's Look Up photo, I think I might even have posted it on here before, but it's lovely and appropriate and has given me a nice half hour looking through the photos, which eases the pain of missing him a bit.

Now I just have to try and stop longing to go and get him up again.

Boogie Wonderland

We spent a delightful afternoon at school today, building dens for fairies as part of our Eco School initiative. My group of four boys built the best den by far, even beating the normally endless creativity and imagination of the girls (although the girls' den did have a swing). I can't even take any credit for it, as I was inside catching up on paperwork during the initial design stages (I brought the paperwork home to do last night, but J-cub scuppered that plan by screaming solidly for 4 hours. Ho hum.). When I rejoined the boys, they gave me a guided tour.

My look up photo is taken from the ground floor (which you can't see), which included sleeping, eating and lounging areas. It was covered with a thick layer of cut grass, which made it almost completely waterproof and very warm and snuggly. The first level you can see is a dance floor "for the fairies to have lots of discos". Can you see the mirror ball? How cool is that?

And the top layer, which you can see the bottom of, with the mirror ball hanging from it ... it contained nothing but a thick layer of soft grass and leaves. "What's that bit for?" I asked. They answered "It's a secret place for snogging!"

Excellent.

One small step...

During my drive home from work this evening, where I first stopped to pick up J-cub from nursery, then to drop off the boys at their karate lesson, we had a long, rambly conversation. We covered topics such as how much it cost to fix my car door, why I couldn't afford to buy an Ipod, or an Iphone, or an Ipad, or the DVD of Avatar (all things the boys thought I should own, rather than things I necessarily want), which of their old toys I thought J-cub might like, and how many spiders I thought might be living in their garage, how much I fancy David Tennant and how much I'd cried during his last episode of Doctor Who, why alternative energy sources are important, and how wind turbines are being set up in America above highways, to harness the energy of passing cars. That sounds interesting, said I, I'll have to look that up when I get home.

Today's post is therefore a bit different - I've looked up this unimagined concept which the boys had seen or read about, and found that not only is it true, but there's a whole variety of ways of harnessing wind energy, which don't have the negative impacts which are so often associated with standard wind turbines. There's an excellent post on Biofriendly which explains it all if you're interested. The pictures are amazing, I especially love the aesthetically-pleasing streetlights towards the end of the post.

We try to do our best to help the environment here, we are fanatical recyclers, are now cloth-nappy users, grow our own veg, only have one car ... I know there's a lot more that we could (and should) be doing, particularly to cut down our electricity usage. I was reminded of this post on The King and Eye, about making your blog carbon neutral, which I read a while ago and forgot to follow up. It's high-time I did so, even though my blog falls waaaaaay short of the apparent 'average' traffic of 15,000 hits per month (where are you, readers?). The initiative in question was started by a company called kaufDA in Germany, and, in their own words: "“My blog is carbon neutral” is an initiative, originally started in Germany by the “Make it Green” programme, that has the goal to reduce carbon dioxide emissions. We plant a tree for your blog and thereby neutralise your blog’s carbon footprint for the next 50 years! Everyone can make a small contribution to the environment. Every tree counts!". All you need to do to sign up is to write a post about the initiative, insert one of their buttons, email them, and they'll plant a tree for your blog. How awesome is that? Your tree, in its lifetime, will offset the carbon produced by your blog, as well as doing all the other wonderful tree-ey things that trees do.

Who's with me?

Jacob loves Jemaine

Taken 5/01/10 - aged 10 months

As part of our Sunday cleaning blitz, I decided that it was high time J-cub's giraffe, Jemaine, had a wash (for those who are interested, Jemaine is named after Jemaine Clement from Flight of the Conchords, another of our favourite TV programmes. We're not telly addicts, honest). J-cub sleeps with Jemaine, and drags him around everywhere, and bites on his head when he's teething, and dips him in his food, and takes him to nursery, so he tends to get a bit dirty. Or completely filthy. His care label says 'wipe clean only', which I successfully did for a while, but from time to time he needs a proper clean, and I put him in the dishwasher, with the idea that he won't get as wet in there as he would in the washing machine. It doesn't work, as he comes out sopping wet, but he does come out clean, and (so far) unscathed.

I put him in today, after J-cub's morning nap. So far, so good. J-cub was a bit grizzly, and signed 'more, cuddles' a few times, whilst looking in all his usual Jemaine-depositing areas. When he got tired, the dishwasher hadn't finished, so I tried to put him down with his other sleepy friend, Blue Ted. And J-cub screamed, and screamed, and sobbed, and kept crawling around the cot, and peering out to look on the floor, and picking up Blue Ted, and throwing him as hard as he could at the other end of the cot. After an hour of cuddles and rocking, we gave up and brought him downstairs again.

Jemaine had since been moved to the tumble dryer, but was still damp. A couple of hours later, J-cub eventually fell asleep, and I felt like the worst mother ever. Both for taking away his special friend, and for him being so reliant on a transient object, that even I can't comfort him without it. Part of me can't help but feel that his attachment for Jemaine must stem from sleeping in his own room, in his own cot, with just Jemaine and Blue Ted for company. I know it's silly, and I know that lots of babies have special toys or blankets that they love. I'm just spectacularly good at beating myself up over things like this.

A couple of hours later, J-cub had woken from his nap, the tumble dryer was finished, and they were reunited. J-cub was almost indifferent, giving Jemaine a cursory glance then carrying on with his cup game. Maybe I over-reacted.

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Today's Look Up photo was taken at lunchtime, during an ill-advised "Let's eat cherry tomatoes on the rug in the lounge" moment. J-cub enjoyed picking them up, squishing them in his fist, sucking them a bit, then spitting them out. We were picking up tomato pips for hours.

Shooting from the hip

I was just fooling around with J-cub on the sofa this morning, playing phonecalls (J-cub picks up anything - a remote control, Jemaine, a book - and clutches it to his neck/ear area. I do the same, and we have a 'chat'.), and I started taking photos without looking through the viewfinder. I read about doing this when I was learning how to use my Fisheye camera, but have never tried it with my normal camera. I'm so happy with the photos I got, they're much more natural and really capture the feel of our day.

In this photo, I'm sitting next to J-cub, but holding the camera out in front of us. He's looking at me, chatting away. I love love love this photo.

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Today's Look Up photo comes with courtesy from Maeby, who was having a loving-us (rather than an indifferent-to-us) morning. Maeby is the special one, out of the two cats. She's very shy, and doesn't really understand that she's a cat, and likes to do things like stare at walls for hours on end and hide under blankets when she's scared (which is most of the time). She's named after a character from our most favouritest TV show of all time, Arrested Development, although her name is purposefully misspelt so as to not confuse vets (who would pronounce Maebe either Mayb or Mave).

When she decides that actually, we're not scary giants after all, and might be worth paying a bit of attention to, she suddenly morphs from crazy, haughty, I'm-not-looking-at-you into OhMyGODIloveyousomuchcanIhaveacuddlepleasenownowSTROKEME! She expresses this by miaowing quietly (the rest of the time she is entirely silent), trying to get as close to your hands as possible and reaching up to make stroking movements with her paw (with claws fully extended - it's quite scary). I managed to catch her in full pleading mode here. Isn't she pretty?

Looking back

I think I spoke too soon yesterday, about Summer being here. We awoke this morning to rain, and it didn't stop until after J-cub went to bed.

We had to break out his new waterproof coat when we went out (as I couldn't find his old one), but strangely, although it is sized 18-24 months, it didn't fit. I stuck all the stickers and tags back onto it so I can return it, and found his 9-12 month one, which he's been wearing since last July. It still fits with room to spare.

He seems to have grown loads recently. His huge, always-fit-no-matter-what's-underneath dungarees have been getting a bit snug, and the shoulder straps have been let out to their maximum length. We've had to let his nappies out by another popper, and this evening we've moved him into his 18-36 month sized Grobags. His feet were right at the end of his old ones, and he kept getting stuck in the night as there wasn't room to wiggle free. I hope the new ones will last the prescribed 18 months, as he sleeps so much better in them than with blankets.

I spent a while this afternoon looking back through my photo archives for a suitable Look Up photo. I found this one, where he's just turned 9 months old. He looks so different here - he has so little hair compared to now, and that really changes the look of his face. He didn't use to have a fringe at all, as you can see here, then it suddenly grew out of nowhere. Plus his legs look really short and undeveloped - he hadn't even started crawling at this point.

He's looking at the lampshade in his room here; a cheap paper globe which I painted while I was pregnant to match the jungle stickers on his wall. It has monkeys, butterflies, vines and flowers on it, and I love it. And I love that he loves it too.

Taken 8/12/09

Is this Summer?

We've spent a gorgeous afternoon in the garden - eating ice lollies, bouncing on the trampoline, splashing in the water tray, watering the plants, investigating here, sowing more seeds, practising walking, investigating there, taking photos, tying up sweet peas, and having a rest on a sun-warmed growbag...

I lay practically underneath the trampoline to get this picture, and even though I missed half his head, I love the happiness you can see on his face. He finally got the hang of bouncing on it today, despite having been happily bouncing in his cot for weeks. And my voice is now hoarse from repeatedly singing the Tigger song in encouragement.