Hello everyone

Please do stop by Henry Street and give her some virtual hugs. She's had some news that is very bad for her family.

(Incidentally, does anyone else use, or try to use, the Blogger app for Android or iPad? When did it stop letting you put in links?)

I'm on holiday!

So far today I have:

1. Dropped Baby Spouse at nursery (he has a regular space on a Thursday, even though I'm off work we don't get the money back if he doesn't go, so he went this morning so that I could..)
2. Gone to Pilates because I haven't been able to go for ages
3. Met a friend in town for coffee
4. Bought some not very short shorts (as it's not likely to get very hot, and I'm short so they never are very short on me)
5. Complained that the baby carrier I rented for a two week trial hasn't come yet
6. Picked Baby Spouse up again, miraculously getting a proper (not just pick-up half-hour) parking space right by nursery
7. Gone to meet a friend for lunch
8. Stopped a very tired Baby Spouse from screaming all through lunch
9. Taken him home
10. Put him down for a nap
11. Played with my new iPad (well, for some values of "new" and "my" - it's work's and it was someone else's first).
12. Written a blog post about using dummies.
13. Re-installed Tweetdeck, since MetroTwit seems to have stopped working.
14. Just remembered I put a wash in this morning that I haven't hung up.
15. Been unable to work out how to stop the numbers in this list from being in a different font to the text.
16. Realised on preview that they ARE the same font
17. Realised I have no idea what's for Baby Spouse's tea. Nap ending I estimate in 10... 9... 8... 7...

Time flies

Baby Spouse is walking, proper decent walking, a bit of falling over, but he's been very good at it for a few weeks now.  The Oracles say that you should get them measured for shoes about 6 weeks after they start walking - he's in very soft baby shoes at the moment, and I'm thinking "cruiser" shoes next but oh my, the price, and they are all hideous and massively gendered too. We have been given some hand me down shoes, but they are mainly a smaller size and more advanced structure (as they are from a few babies, but babies that walked earlier).

He's also saying more cute things, "bou bou" (bounce bounce) is Tigger, "mamamamama" is both MORE and Mamma, "doe" is "no". There is quite a bunch of words he can say, as some of you know I do this for a living, and I've got a mental note to fill in the questionnaire we're using at work, and keep it to one side to see a) how he progresses and b) how he compares to all the other children in our study when we've collected all their data.  My guess is that he's mid-lower end but I know he's doing well enough not to raise any red flags - and the order in which children develop at this age, unless it's really slow, doesn't predict how well they do at school age, really.

He's nearly 18 months (in about 10 days' time) and we promised Nella a mid-year phone call, so we are planning to email a single picture (we don't really do emailed pictures) to the grandparents, saying it's time for a phone call if she'd like to call us. We'll see what happens.

We're about to go on holiday but I have a really busy week at work to get through (see also: childcare inconvenience, annoying inflexible nursery hours). We are going to a picturesque part of England with gorgeous scenery and lots of history (in fact, the part of England where I was born and where my grandfather used to live, so my childhood stomping ground), but unlikely to have good phone reception. But we have agreed that if we contact them shortly before we go, at least we'll be more relaxed to receive a phone call.

Only thing is, we aren't at all sure how we'll survive without broadband! If you see a battered and moaning Dr Spouse back in about three weeks' time, you'll know why.

Food

This is the theme for the Weekly Adoption Shoutout this week - and one dear to my heart.

I am quite a bit less stressed about feeding Baby Spouse than I was, but it's still not entirely a stress free zone. However, now it's more to do with the mess created than worrying about getting it down him!

Because he was early, and very sleepy, he struggled to feed as a newborn. We would sometimes take half an hour to get an ounce of formula in him. He did pick up quickly but the anxiety was there. The other thing about early babies is that they may not have as many stored nutrients as full term babies (and we are pretty sure a balanced diet was not on Nella's agenda), so although he put on weight well, we were anxious to get him on solids at six months.

Unfortunately like formula, he wasn't convinced at first. He tried a cubic millimetre of banana and thought we were poisoning him. But again he was soon tucking in. He has a good track record of trying new foods but (as I've blogged before) a lot of it is too much like play - how far can I throw this toast and will Mummy laugh. The answer is, I'm afraid, all the way into the hall, and no.

My current advice to new parents is, ditch the dining room carpet.

He's also a middle class baby. He wolfs down his nursery lunch and we only choose fruit for pudding (they do seem to offer an unnecessarily wide array of sugary desserts). Tea is toast and hummus or couscous and he grabs my olives and blue cheese at lunch.

One thing I'd love to know though, an adoption loss if you will, is what Nella did like to eat during pregnancy - especially as there are quite a few different types of food where she lives - I don't know if his tastes have been influenced by hers but it would be nice to know. I know some people say "ask what birth mum's cravings were during pregnancy" but that just felt too personal to me.

(Blogging from my phone and I seem to be unable to insert links. I'll try and edit some in another time).

Another one not so good

If you have been reading for a while you may remember that a former colleague lost their baby to SIDS last year. Their third son was born last month but only lived 2 weeks, in Intensive Care. 

I really don't know what to say, but was listening to a piece on the recent death of a child in Wales (I won't put the name) and another mother whose child was killed said that she hated people not saying anything in case they were "raking things up", because it is always at the forefront of your mind.  I know we have not experienced what this family have, but on that I do agree, so I have resolved to try and message her occasionally (and, because I sent a card last time, to send another card), just because I don't want to be that person that crosses the road (metaphorically).

More questions!

I do apologise for thinking nobody cares! (for some reason my email was on strike yesterday too)

So... questions...

Handstitched Mum asks... how does it feel a year in, being a mum?
I guess it still feels miraculous (how did we get so lucky to have such a funny, lovely baby, who is really still an easy baby and a good ad for babies all round, but also how did we get to be parents at all).  It also feels worrying, childcare is one of our ongoing issues, but how do we make it work overall, it was hard enough working out my job and Mr Spouse's job but with a baby in the mix too (and soon there will be school issues).
It also feels completely natural and I cannot remember a time, so to speak, when he wasn't here. I think of things we did and wonder who was babysitting... well erm... we didn't have a baby!
And it feels, as far as I can tell, no different to having a birth child. But also very different. But the main differences are the worry about what went on before birth (some of which we know, and we worry about how that will affect him long term), and some (but only really mild) frustration about not knowing about his genetic history. Really, I'm not that concerned if I don't know what age all his biological relatives walked/talked at, or if they had long legs/arms/bodies, or tangly hair like him (NO I am NOT getting it cut thank you!) but it's a topic of conversation among mummy friends.

Leah (do you have a blog? the link takes me to a page without any blog name...sad face...) asks if we are thinking of adopting again. Yes, we are... and there's a post here about a discussion we had on that. It should take less time this go round, and we have in our diaries (OK, I have in mine) an appointment to ring up the county council and ask about it, in a couple of months' time, after our summer holiday.  

I've been messaging another adopter going through the process we want to go through, and we met a family locally who also adopted through our council (probably using our second choice route), and it seems awfully quick compared to what we went through. This is partly because it will be second time round, but also because the whole country has got its act together a bit more with respect to not unnecessarily delaying adoption, or adoption approval (I don't know where you are, Leah, sorry).

And Vicky, thank you!