Moolies

Lose weight fast! Let me tell you how...

Mackay had mentioned before that in Africa, women breastfeed for 4 or 5 years because it's a guaranteed clean foodsource for their kids. Even if they are starving, they will still produce at least a reasonable amount of milk, since the body digests itself rather than let breastfeeding kids go without.

This I can entirely believe. Right after breakfast, my stomach must have gone in to "shut down" mode because the entirety of breakfast came up later. After that, no food could pass my lips - water only. Yet, the evening feed (which I still express out in order to give Noo some extra and/or freeze for such eventualities as nursery) was only 1 ounce down on the normal, and this morning's feed seems to have been half an ounce down, judging by the leftovers.

So all that milk came from me, not my food. Where are my nice pre-pregnancy trousers?

Meanwhile, the fuckers two doors down were having a drum & bass style marquee party in the back garden until 3am last night. I had to go round *five times* to explain that we were si9ck, Nora was sick and everything was rattling in the house.
not that it made any difference. Bastards. So, I think I've had about 3 hours kip.

Oh God...

She passed it on.

(Hurrrrggghhhhhh).

Mackay's worse than me, ftr. I'm assuming my immunity is being boosted by continuing to breastfeed.

I won't go in to details, except to say, luckily we were sick in relay so Nora was a bit freaked out wondering what the hell was going on, but she didn't want for care/attention.

Not exactly producing my biggest milk quotient today.

Thank God for Danny's guide to Oral Rehydration.

Viruses

Are no fun as a baby. Fortunately, as a baby, at least you'll never remember them and you don't really know what's going on at the time.

The only time Nora looked vaguely upset yesterday was after she had been violently sick all over me and several cushions. The reason she was upset was not the copious amount of vomit so much as the look on my face and my urgent call to Mackay. So there was I forced to say "We need to take her to hospital right now" (bloody Saturdays, no Docs) with a happy, smiling face.

Lasted about 10 hours in total. Nothing too serious and her first official caught illness. I've just been talking to a mate in Dulwich whose little girl had a similar thing...

...and 24 hours later, both he and the missus came down with unbelievable 24 hour flu out of both ends. We're now waiting.

Will someone please stop

The screaming sound in my head.

Nora's on her own at the nursery as we speak.

I am achieving a *large* amount of housework. ANYTHING to keep me sane.

Hate it. Fucking hate it. I feel like I'm letting her down. Well, I am letting her down, but I have to go back to work. There's nothing we can do about it.

A week of changes

-Teething. Ow

-Speech! Well, proto-speech. We were listening to some piano something or other on Radio three. All of a suddenly "Dhai dhai dhah dhah dhai". She started wibbly talking to the radio! For about three days afterward, it was verbals with every complaint. A typical English lass, in other words. After that they started when she was surprised and interested in something (more "oooh" high pitched based sounds there). A very soft "ch" sound today. It's all happening.

-We're now in a high chair, ladies and gents.

-...and we're having lunch as well as breakfast and tea. No dropped feeds yet. Favourite food? Carrot, pear, butternut squash. Really likes broccoli, but only as a 50% mix with carrot. More than 50%, you'd better watch it.

Blimey

I'll bet Al's pretty happy with these audience figures.

Oh yeah, that thing...

The birth.

I was going to write a huge essay on it but, unsurprisingly, didn't have the time. There is now a quarter written timeline blether on my desktop which I will delete. I realised last night that I'm now "kind of" ok to talk about it.

(note: I've just added one sentence, and will go through the terrible spelling later - doh)

Unbelievable.

Pain. When did I post up my first dental entry?

So, the second tooth with a white filling in is now dying. A new dentist, who might actually be good (you never know) told me this. She also told me that the front tooth will need to have another root canal treatment.

At present, I'm taking 3 doses of paracetamol every day and hoping I can make it through to next Monday when I have a long appointment in which I pray to God she will drill out all the crap I have in my mouth and help make it usable again. At present, it's looking unlikely. The (look away if you feel squeamish) gum has pulled right up on the back tooth and exposed a load of root. It hurts me when I BREATHE for God's sake. Un-fucking-believable.

Un. Fucking. Believable. The whole thing. I mean, in February, *one* tooth hurt a bit in my head. Since then I've been on three doses of antibiotics, I'm on prescription painkillers, which I desperately attempt not to take for Nora's sake - the whole thing is a fucking nightmare. I haven't actually eaten on the right hand side of my mouth since my first dental work.

I have been in touch with the British Dental Association to ask them what complaints procedures exist and they haven't replied yet. Gits.

By the way...

In all that grumpy whinging the other night what I didn't admit, which is blazingly obvious, written in ten foot high letters is the frumpy jealousy involved in my behalf of said whitterers.

The point being, occasionally I attempt to noodle these things and pontificate on the nature of on and offline community planning, consequences etc (something I often discuss verbally) and sound like such a wanker I just can't go through with posting it up! So many people do it much, much better than I could simply because they dedicate their lives to it. Many people also do it a lot worse than I could if I could be bothered. Unfortunately (or rather, fortunately, probably) I can't. Hence I end up feeling a bit useless of occasion.

So. There you go.

Key no work horror

So the key wouldn't turn in the lock.

The spare keys. That had been used before. Nora looked at me for a second then returned to grabbing the door knob. Far more interesting.

Y'see, I temporarily couldn't find my keys. I had to go to the post office to pick up a parcel. I was wearing Nora who was loving the hot afternoon, and it was half an hour before her evening solids feed.

Oh shit.

So lots of thanks to Yoz for trying to help long distance, attempting to get hold of the previous key holder (how the fuck did he get in the house, I wondered? No joy, unfortunately), Zelda who lives in Brixton (not answering the phone) and a fish mail to find out if anyone was in south London. All this whilst Mackay was winging his way home.

Meanwhile, two guys redoing next door's kitchen clambered gingerly over our fence, and tantalisingly, opened the back door. All very well but I had no side door key and was wearing Nora - getting over a fence.... hhmmmm. No. A screwdriver is called for and twiddled with strangely in the side door lock - it springs open and voila. I can enter the house, only 15 minutes late for Nora's feed.

Hurrah!

Thank Christ. What a nightmare. The sheer blank horror of continually turning a key this way and that in a lock, with a little girl who is becoming a teeny bit frustrated, knowing you've got an hour to wait in the baking heat. Sheeeeeit.