Synchronization of Us

My baby (as she will always be ) is now a big 2 year old. I think where she will be this time next year and want to cry. She was meant to stay little

Eilidh is great, people find it hard to not notice that. She is so vibrant and bright and brings laughter and fun where ever she goes. She is loud and sometimes much to fearless (im shocked we have never needed an ER visit with her) , she will do what ever the bigger kids do and take it one step further.
There is just something so special and fun about her, she is not at all a girly girl and would roll in the mud all day if i let her. I think she is the perfect middle child - Rebecca is so far all girl and if Ru is a typical boy then Eilidh fits in wonderfully with all :).
Its also been a difficult year for her, her sister completely disappeared and her parents were hardly around . She would sometimes not see us for more than a few minutes each day . Then of course once Rebecca got home we added our newest addition. She has taken longer to warm up to Ru than Rebecca . For the longest time she would ignore him completely and would get very resentful and upset when i would feed him , these days she is getting used to him being there and enjoys cuddles and kisses and the occasional hold - i think he likes her to and flashes her the biggest grins when she comes close.

She has been wonderful through all these changes and dealt with it amazingly , she has her moments of meltdown but is very easy to cheer up . I do sometimes feel Eilidh is left out of everything , after all both Becca and Ru get cuddles all night long and so many cuddles during the day . Eilidh is just more independent and i have to remember that.

Eilidh at 2

- She is like her sister slightly small for her age . She is around 26lbs and while im not sure of height she is just moving into 18-24 months. Becca and her can and do share clothes and shoes sometimes.

- Is not toilet trained but we may be starting soon, she is very aware of it and can and will tell you when she does a pee or poop . She sometimes refuse’s nappies and wants to wear “pants” , when she does have an accident she runs to the toilet shouting “pee pee” and goes and sits on it . We think she seems mentally ready but is just not able to hold it yet . We are in no rush though .

- Is of course not breastfeeding, something i still get upset over . 2 for me was always the minimum feeding age but i can not force her , she will sometimes take a little expressed milk but nothing more than a sip . She does still suck her thumb

- She loves her sleep and most nights is in her cot between 6-7 and gets up between 7-8 the next morning (normally about 13 hours after going to bed) . Most days she naps for almost 2 hours but it depends on what we are doing and she can skip a nap fine (although in most cases if she has no nap at all she wakes during the night) . We will NOT be making the move to a big bed anytime soon , she loves her cot and will play in it happily for hours plus she uses a sleeping bag in it so we don’t worry about climbing out. When she does wake up she settles very easilly, most of the time a short hug is all it takes and she will go back down again (very short sometimes for only a couple of seconds)

- She loves her food and will try anything once, she loves getting her hands on a bag of grapes and putting them all into a bowl then eating them . She is not the biggest chocolate fan although would devour a bag of crisps in seconds . She loves her fruit, veg anything else good for her. She does not like beer though

- Is very active and loves to bounce, climb and jump. She can jump higher than her sister and is prone to doing silly stuff like running in circles, walking only backwards or bouncing everywhere. Stairs are no object and she does not need to hold on (although she worries me on then as she takes going down to fast) , she will throw,kick and (attempt to) catch a ball with glee.

- Has great fine motor skills and does puzzles and build towers almost as good as her sister , feeding herself is no trouble at all and she will draw some basic shapes and faces - even when colouring in a picture she will scribble over the picture and not on the outside of it. Shape sorters are great fun for her

- She chats alot , have lost track at the amount of words she says and will easily say a few word sentences . She has a big pronunciation problem but no one is worried yet as she is still so young. Im guessing only about 25% of what she says can be understood clearly. She can count to 3 (sometimes) and knows some shapes and colours - im very anti teaching these things though and let them pick it up themselves. No is definitely her favourite word (normally said as NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO with crossed arms) , her sister is still called Na - Ha and Ruaridh “Baby” . She is big on the use of Me, There,Can . When referring to herself its always “Me Me” , as in “Me, Me want Cheerios ”

- Is prone to being very 2 and acting out terribly but thankfully these normally last for only a few minutes . She is dramatic about it and will fling herself down on the floor screaming .Time outs never seem to work as these are just the funniest thing EVER. The last few months have been great in terms of her co-operation when out and about and she is a lovely helper in the house (when she wants to be of course) . She loves being the centre of attention and all eyes on her .

- Is settling in well at “school” , she did not want to leave me at all the other day but was fine the moment i left. According to her teachers she is happy and really enjoys herself, she joins in well with the other kids “nothing like her sister” they say. Overall she is not that great at actually getting involved in games with other children . chasing around is fun but she does not seem to join anything else. I think its to do with always having Becca there - they have each other so don’t need to make other friends . Some separation is good for them.

- Is horribly fussy when teething, she is still waiting on her 2nd year molars and one canine . We hope they are done before the boy starts with his

Eilidh loves Peppa Pig, talking, dancing, jumping in puddles , grapes , apples , wake up sweeties, attention, sleeping, her big cousin and sister, painting, tickles , her cot , giving kisses, copying .

She is just my special little girl, she will never be the typical middle child to us - she is to wonderful and full of life. She is such joy and excitement and everything in this world is amazing to her. Everything seems to be a game and that huge smile of hers is nearly always present . My love for her is so incredible , so powerful and so real.

Was planning to do this in one post instead will be breaking it into three.

This will be a long and photo heavy post . I feel its been so long since i have documented what the kids are up to , i want to get it down before i forget. At its heart this blog is still a place for me and my family to look back on years from now and remember all these moments. Will not mind at all if you chose to skip this post

Amazingly my first born will be 3 1/2 in a matter of days (on the 8th December), i remember 3 years ago nearing this date and being so excited about starting solids - as it turns out it was not the best of moves and we should of left it for a few months. 3 and a half sounds so old to me, from that day it becomes a count down till the 4th birthday and that is just big .
Rebecca has had a tough year and has came out the other side better and brighter than before . No one could tell by looking at her that she was in such a bad place a few months back , we would never chose for the summer to have played out the way it did but in the end its made such a difference to Rebecca’s life .
Since the original surgery in June she has gained about 4lbs bringing her up to around 31lbs , not huge but she is on the charts now - we do wonder if her condition had caused her slow weight gain - the surgeon had mentioned it as a possibility before. She also no longer gets out of breath so easily . She is so healthy and happy these days, she takes medication 4 times a day and had to get blood taken last week to check her haemoglobin levels - she handles this better than most adults i know .

Her development is still behind , but this no longer gets to me the way it used to. She has picked up so much in the last few months . Plus i feel as if we are now being listened to and she is either getting help or will be getting help . She is not stupid , everyone agrees with that - she knows just as much as every other child her age but just cannot seem to express it (through either words or actions ) the same way . She seems to lack in fine motor skills and strength - all issues im hoping will be looked at at the orthopaedic clinic.

Rebecca at 3 1/2

- Is still co-sleeping, she may be ready to move into her own bed but we are not giving it a shot just now (lack of room really) . Plus she does have a few clingy issues resulting from the hospital stay.

- Is fully toilet trained during the day but not at night, night time may be a while off yet but due to the sleeping with us we don’t care. Im still shocked at how easy it was, i think she has had maybe 2 or 3 accidents the whole time (and never out and about)

- Can be very clingy , she sticks to me like glue till someone else is around . Once Daddy/Auntie Stephanie/Nana ….etc… is around she refuses to leave there side . Cute at time it can quickly become annoying . This is new since the hospital stay .

- I have no idea what height she is but i think she is just slightly below average now although she is only into 2-3 years clothes wise. T-Shirts and tops she can go for 3-4 fine but trousers she really needs 2-3 years or sometimes 18-24 months. Short legs and long torso .

- Motor skills have came along way and she has went from scribbling all over paper to drawing faces and people in a few weeks. She can easily complete puzzles and build more complicated towers using legos and blocks . According to both the speech therapist and nursery they think the reason she could not do these before was down to lack of patience rather than ability - common in speech delayed children . She loves to “write” , i should take a picture of her writing as it is more a series of shapes but she is getting the idea of it.

- Speech blooms every day, still very unclear but im just happy she is talking. We can now have conversations , we are working on “using out words” to explain situations . She is a wonderful (silent) communicator and for to long we have accepted this , now we are making her explain or ask for what she wants and its helping alot. Through work with her therapist we have realised she really lacks in verbs and are currently working on them . My fave from this week was when i stole a bit of her chocolate and she clearly told me “no mummy , there mine” . Noticing a lot of there’s coming in lately (as in there mine, there they are etc…) . I think she knows all her colours, shapes and numbers just fine although she does not always express that. You ask her the colour of an object and she seems to always answer blue - but is you asked her to pick up a pink object she could do it just fine.

- She adores her nursery and is starting to make some friends there, she is shy and holds back a little. The teacher does think its her communication skills that do this, Rebecca seems to not to want to get involved to much - she seems upset when the other kids don’t understand her. Its a shame and hard to not get upset over , she is so great and i want everyone else to see that. She is getting there though and the other kids are always shouting on her and encouraging her to join in - her teacher thinks its now becoming a game for her . She is prone to copying bad behaviour though.

- She loves Lazytown , dressing up , crafts/drawing , playing house (with dolls, pretend ironing etc..) , yoghurt sweets , wearing boots, slides, buttons , helping everyone with anything but doing everything herself , playing chasing games with her sister, helping with her brother , lights (she goes crazy for circle lights) and much much more.

We do sometimes worry about her, we worry she will not be ready to start school in August 2010 . At 5 years 2 months she will already be older than alot of her classmates and we do not want to hold her back (they only do one intake, Eilidh for example will start school when she is 4 years 9 months old ).
We just constantly remind ourselves how far she has came in the last few months and how long away August 2010 really is .

She is perfect, she is healthy, she is happy , she is amazing, she is crazy ,she is admired, she is brave, she is my girl . She is loved

Just a couple of pictures from Eilidhs birthday party (even though it was almost two weeks ago) . And no the chocolate did not come off the dress but i bought them dirt cheap from ebay so don’t care.

It feels like its been forever since my last post. Guess you can all tell i gave up on NaBloPoMo . It was a choice i made, i gave it a shot and was just pretty miserable trying to do it. When im sitting at the computer without a baby the last thing i tend to feel like doing is - well - anything really .

I have no idea how life got so busy , yah i know i have three young kids and that in itself gives me plenty to do but im not sure its just that. Its more like nursery, playgroups, babysitting, mums groups, speech therapy, breastfeeding group, playdates, library times , family obligations . None of this even includes parenting and /or housework .

Don’t worry im not complaining, i get alot of chill time -ok most chill time has me feeding a baby but im still sitting on my ass either playing the computer or watching tv . Almost two hours every afternoon and plenty of time in the evenings. I know lots of parents with one child would love the breaks i get. Mainly i love being busy, i love how getting to spend a whole day at home with nothing to do is a novelty and treat rather than a norm . Guess what im saying is im around , but posts may be few and far between for the foreseeable future. Hope you guys all stick around

I think every family must have one, you know what i mean that one person you have no idea what to buy for . Christmases and Birthdays you dread as yet again you are trying to find the perfect gift for this person .
For me its my mum and we normally settle on yet again getting her a voucher for a local shopping centre , boring and impersonal. I would love to get her something different this year.

I never thought about trying out a gift ideas website before and i think i will be given this ago with every member of my family .
Its incredibly simple to use - you just select the amount you want to spend , Age group , Character and male/female/couple/does not matter . They give you a selection of gift suggestions along with websites, price compare and shops for the product. Does it get any easier than that ? So mum if your reading i now have the perfect Christmas gift on the way for you

Long time readers may remember this post made just over a year ago. It was Rebecca’s first day at playgroup and it hit mummy hard .
Today it was Eilidh’s turn. We talked about it (alot) , it was finally her turn to go to “school”. She even agreed to go for an earlier nap and when she got up kept chatting about school and her.

I was nervous, Eilidh has always been an outgoing child but recently has developed a clingy side . I had no idea how she would react to the whole thing. Thankfully she done great , we got there and she happily kissed us all goodbye and ran off playing. Of course i could pick her up to find she spent the whole time crying but at that moment she was happy.
Just now its 1.30pm and two of my three children are in “school” .I am grateful that all versions of school - Eilidh’s Playgroup, Rebecca’s Nursery - are in the same building . The same building that my niece goes to school in and is a two minute walk from my house.
Its a little hard to accept that Eilidh is old enough to be going there, she is still my baby but is now out in the world on her own. I think it will be wonderful for her, its giving her something that is hers - a place to go, friends to make and trouble to get into without the comfort of her big sister. As much
as i love the girls being together i do think its important they can be happy apart to.

Why do i feel before i know it i will be writing playgroup part 3 the Ru years .

My baby girl was two today.

Its been non stop, a busy day spent playing and opening gifts followed by a small family tea party this evening. All three kids are now sound asleep and i imagine DH and i will not be far off ourselves.

Im so proud of the girl Eilidh has become and its a joy to be her mother.

Happy Birthday my angel xxx

I guess the drama started about 5 weeks ago, you see the way the pre-baby care works around here is for the first 10 days you are under midwife care. They come to your home every day or two to chat and weigh/check baby . After 10 days you are discharged and a health visitor becomes responsible for the care of your child. They visit a couple of times after baby is born to check on how things are going.

I was discharged from the midwife care as normal, 16 days after Ru was born i received a call from my health visitor (we will call Ann) arranging to come and see us . I had been looking forward to this for a while, i really love our health visitor and i was going to enjoy showing Ru off and showing the changes the girls had been through. She was the one we worked with on Rebecca’s weight issues and i was really hoping she would want to weight Rebecca again and basically close that issue (Becca is around 31lbs now and while not the biggest 3 year old around she is no longer underweight) .
The day of the visit i was a little upset when a stranger showed up , she seemed lovely but was someone who knew neither me or my children. She told us Ann was off at the moment and she did not know how long till she was back . I found it strange even then as she never used the word “ill” just that she was off.
The next day was the day of my breastfeeding group, i have mentioned this group now and then of here but its a fun part of my week. I have been going more or less without a break since Rebecca was 6 weeks old . Its an informal ran group and the girls are really great, the group is in my doctor surgery and the lady who runs it is the other one of my health visitors (we will call her Hope).
That day Hope was also off and the group was taken by the health visitor who visited me the day before , Hope was also just off (no mention again of ill) and we had no idea when she would be returning.

This carried on for a while, still being told that they had no idea when either person would be returning. Its was during the Halloween party they decided to brake the news to us, both Hope and Ann had been moved to a different department and the group was being shut down .

And……..thats all your getting tonight My own little booby monster has woken up and by the screaming i think he is wanting milk (and no i don’t do typing while nursing at the keyboard)

Don’t you just want to eat him up

Not missing any meals is he