Moog's meanderings

Somehow it feels as though it has been a long week.  Munchkin was very well for most of the week then started waking up and screaming for a few hours in the middle of the night.  He has also been dribbling for England so I suspect it may be one of those pesky molars trying to come through.  He now has a runny nose too although not sure whether this is yet another cold or another symptom of teething (though it seems a bit much for the usual little bit that comes with teething).  Personally I still can’t seem to shake off this dratted cold.  Again I wonder whether it’s actually something different and I am just suffering from different colds back to back.  The bonus for today is that although I do still have the cold and feel run down, I didn’t actually wake up with a headache this morning.

Hubby also seems to have got himself another cold having had a healthy week.  He still took Munckin off to the monthly Dad’s group this morning and they seemed to come back in good spirits.  Munckin apparently quite enjoyed the playstation!!  He has gone for a nap now and Hubby has gone off in the cold to dump our compostable bits on the heap at the allotment.  There’s not much going on down there at the moment – mainly because we haven’t had the chance or inclination to go and do anything what with having collectively been ill for what seems like ages.  There’s a lot of digging over that really needs doing, but apart from that it’s relatively quiet.

This weekend is a ‘quiet’ weekend at home.  Definitely what we need!  I suspect that it will turn into a ‘not so quiet’ weekend of swapping around furniture.  I spent some of my time by myself this morning drawing and cutting out bits of furniture using squared paper to stick on more squared paper to see what will work best and what fits where.  It seems crazy in this day and age that hubby and I are doing that (we also did it for our future conservatory/dining room/playroom) rather than using a computer programme which ought to be quicker and simpler once the blocks are put in.  Hubby’s response to my musings on this were ‘xyz software doesn’t do scaling very well, and all the other free drawing packages don’t do dimensions and scaling’.  Ho hum.  There’s something quite therapeutic about the detailed measuring out, drawing in pencil and using a rubber to make corrections, and the careful cutting out of the pieces.  Maybe I’ll take digital photo’s of the different layouts and save them so that we have them electronically for reference when in a few years we find that we have lost the bits of paper?!

Over the weekend we went to a Christening.  Hubby and I were both becoming Godparents.  It was a lovely weekend in lots of ways.  It was the Christening of the third child of a couple we know from University.  Various of us shared a flat together at different points so we know each other pretty well!!  It was really good to catch up with them as we stayed next-door the night before and spent the evening together.  Also to see the kids and for Munchkin to play with them too.  Their church is a very lively Anglican church and I really did enjoy the service (a usual Sunday morning service with baptism thrown in).  Sometimes I think we could do with a bit more liveliness at our church – possibly some more young families too!  The congregation at our friends’ church was predominantly young families and was vibrant, with lots of things going on for the groups of children of different age ranges.

I managed to survive both the awful cold (that I still haven’t managed to throw off yet) and a migraine (very mild by usual standards but worrying as I haven’t had one that I can recall for about 2 years) and all in all the good bits of the weekend outweighed the bad.  Not least for seeing a little one welcomed by a happy and supportive church family with open arms.

Yesterday I spent the day in London.  I must be crazy!  I probably should have spent the day in bed.  However, my Aunt arrived at 7am to spend the day looking after Munchkin (just as I was leaving).  Hubby made sure she was happy and that everything was sorted then went off to work himself.  Apparently it all worked out very well with both Aunt and Munchkin having a good day.  Munchkin was also supposedly very well behaved!!  I had worried a little because he was still asleep after both of us had gone and I didn’t know how he’d react to someone he didn’t know appearing when he woke up, but apparently he just did a bit of a double take and then was a happy camper all day.

Personally I spent the day in a meeting.  I did feel as though I made a contribution and it was nice to get out and re-establish some links.  However I got through a lot of tissues and obviously one cannot inhale or make cider vinegar and honey for relief in such a situation.  I managed ok but having had a bad night I now feel rather as though the left side of my head will explode at any moment.  It did occur to me beforehand that the better thing would have been to spend the day in bed.  However it seemed strange and not right somehow to not go to the meeting which I had asked my Aunt to babysit for.  And I would probably have ended up looking after Munchkin all day anyway.  In a lot of ways I suspect that sitting in a meeting may have been more relaxing (just not the racing down to London and back).

Hubby was a star and had dinner and a bath ready for soon after I got home.  Awww! )

I have just ‘inhaled’ – sat with my head over a bowl of just boiled water with a few drops of ‘olbas oil’ (branded eucalyptus mix) in it and a towel over my head to prevent the steam escaping.  I used to detest my mother forcing me to ‘inhale’ when I had a cold and was really bunged up as a child.  However, it is one of those things that does actually provide a bit of relief and I now feel a little less as though my head has been hit with a sledgehammer.  The other day I took a decongestant tablet before going to bed to give myself a bit of relief overnight and hopefully sleep better.  They’re pretty good!  However it was the following morning that I discovered that one shouldn’t really take them whilst pregnant.  So we’re over to other ways of trying to make myself feel just about human enough to look after boisterous Munchkin.  I have also been drinking Cider Vinegar and Honey (1 tablespoon of Cider Vinegar and 1 tablespoon of honey made up with hot water).  This is something my grandmother used to drink all the time and I find a good soother for sore throats and the like.  Also, Cider Vinegar is supposed to boost the immune system.  The other useful thing is to carry a tissue around with a few drops of ‘olbas oil’ on it and sniff it occasionally.

I believe that everyone who should know has been told so now I can broadcast to the wider community that hubby and I are expecting another baby!  If you saw me in person you’d definitely be asking yourself the question whether I was just overdoing the beer and getting a bit of a gut or whether there might be more to it..!  This one we shall refer to as Pumpkin.  Pumpkin is due at the end of April so I am almost 16 weeks now and (apart from this horrid cold) I am feeling well and generally happy.  The first trimester was pretty exhausing, especially with the sickness bug I had, but things are good at the moment.

Hubby and I are very excited and really looking forward to having two.  Although I must say that I do have occasional moments of ‘how on earth does one cope with a newborn and a boisterous toddler at the same time?!’.  However lots of people do and I am lucky to have hubby around working at home quite a lot so that makes things a bit easier.  Lets hope that the Lupus behaves itself again this time and doesn’t cause problems – so far, so good!

Typically, it was in the last week when the wibsite transfer was happening that there were a couple of occasions on which I had the time and inclination to blog.  Now I am all set up (hooray – and thanks to you amazing techy people that made it happen) but still figuring it all out so please bear with me.

I have a really nasty cold at the moment so not really in the mood for much at all, but here’s the first post on the flashy new system )