Dressing up for World Book Day

Sir Thomas and Lady(?)/Squire(?) Poppy!  We couldn't find his sword anywhere, but that's probably for the best! ;)

Poppy "talking"...

You know it's funny, when I sat down to write this little bit of text I had a deja vu moment...a google or two later and I found this post that I wrote when Thomas was about nine months old...and actually (apart from the messy nappy bit) I could have written those exact words about Poppy, her nappies are much more civilised as a rule (or perhaps I am just more used to nappies per se)...Poppy isn't often very quiet, perhaps a *little* quieter than Thomas was, but most situations are punctuated by enthusiastic expressions of 'EHH!' and 'AH!!' as she joins in with the conversation, yells very loudly (meaning) 'More please Daddy' when eating...although (one thing Thomas didn't do) is to amuse by very occasionally by answering 'YEAH' (perfectly pronounced) in response to questions...anyway, right back on track - just yesterday (and continued this morning) she has (satisfyingly) started saying 'DADADA' (just as Thomas did) although, if my dates are to be believed, about a month earlier than he... ;) If she continues to follow suit developmentally then the next thing we can look forward to is 'DUCK' followed by (of all things for a second word) 'GAAARDEN'...to be perfectly honest though, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised if it was 'SHOES!' - her favourite thing to chew on at the moment (bar nothing)... ;)

Poppy is 8 weeks old

Our beautiful little girl is already 8 weeks old..! Wow...! Where did that go? She has changed so much already and is gaining weight at an incredible rate...Last week, she weighed in at 13lb and has grown so much that I've had to pack away the 0-3 month clothes and move onto the 3-6 month outfits that don't look too big either!

It's hard to remember a time when Poppy wasn't in our life and she is such a good little girl slotting straight into family life. We are so lucky that she has been sleeping well, down at 8/9 - up again at 4 for a quick 5 minute feed then down till 6.30/7 so I feel fairly 'normal' ... Thomas has grown to love her and accepted that she is here to stay... OK, she gets cuddled a bit too tightly sometimes, but his heart is in the right place. I simply melted after a "nearly new" sale where he was bought a new toy, when asked what he chose for Poppy, his reply (after an awkward moment's thought) was 'Oh dear - nothing - can she share my new toy mummy?'

It's absolutely wonderful to watch Poppy grow and start to communicate with us...I had a 5 minute conversation with her earlier, just cooing/smiling and watching the birds in the garden...

I'm so happy and proud to be a mummy to my perfect, beautiful children, Thomas and Poppy :o)

Happy Mothering Sunday!

Happy Mothering Sunday Flyingpops! Lots of love from Poppy and Thomas, thank you for being such a good mummy! We chose all these presents ourselves (and made the rest, including a couple that came home from pre-school)... ;)

We're off to Brighton later for chips (Mummy's choice) and it's home-made cottage pie for tea (assuming all goes according to plan)...! ;)

Baby Poppy is registered...

So last Friday we took baby Poppy to be registered (after making an appointment to do so)-

- taking the opportunity (while we happened to be there) -

- to get some more books out of the library (as the registry office is in the same building)...filling out the forms (with exactly the same lady who registered Thomas) took about ten minutes, including niceties, and then we were free to wander around Reigate town centre for a bit, scoring Thomas a Dr Who action figure in one of the charity shops and Poppy a nice Lamaze panda bear snuggly-thing to suck in the toy shop-

- and then we popped to the little (extremely noisy) cafe in Priory park for a spot of special occasion lunch-

-of rather good pizza (Thomas carefully picking off all the particularly good bits from mine ;)...

However, when it came time to try and open bank accounts we hit a bit of a brick wall-

- everywhere we tried told us they were too busy (urm? Yep, huge queue in Natwest as you can clearly see) and asked us to make an appointment for a future date, which we didn't, deciding instead to check out all the various deals online, but from the looks of things poor old Thomas and Poppy won't be getting a little plastic elephant money box, or a Griffin saver's document wallet and ruler, all the banks (in Reigate at least) seem to have stopped doing that sort of thing, just offering some measly stickers or vouchers! :(

Baby Poppy is signed off!

So with the visit of the health visitor on Wednesday morning (to do a general check-up and successful hearing test) and the little trip we took to the Steppingstones Sure Start Centre in Earlswood-

- on Monday, apparently that's it as far as the medical professionals are concerned!

Poppy and Flyingpops are fit and healthy and happy and ready for the big, wide world (oh and happy two week birthday for today, Poppy...! Lots of love Daddy, Mummy and Thomas... ;)

Jobs for later on today include going to register her birth and opening her and Thomas up savings accounts at the bank (Flyingpops is just checking out the best interest rates and deals), more on that (probably) tomorrow... ;)

Cine Slideshow...

Filmed this off the back of the Canon 600D using Flyingpops' point and shoot, it's a quick sweep using preview through the (several thousand) shots I've taken over the last 9 days, sort of like a roving time-lapse I guess, extraordinary to see the bursts of shots turn into little snippets of film before your very eyes and see all that time condensed into the blink of the camera's eye... ;)

Tongue-Tie...

...or Ankyloglossia (as it is uncommonly known), is apparently an extremely common condition in the newborn - basically, the normal membrane under the tongue is unusually short or thick thus preventing normal movement of the tongue. It fixes itself (the "wait and see" approach) in the vast majority of cases between the ages of 6 months and 6 years, but can also treated medically if there is a (good) reason to do so...

Poppy was tongue-tied, it was picked up (right away) upon her first visit to Baby Cafe (where Flyingpops had taken her as feeding was proving unusually painful) by Anne Humphries, who referred us right away for treatment, but the first available appointment on the NHS was two weeks away...! That would seem fairly reasonable under normal circumstances, but Flyingpops really had been through enough already and some of the gasps and exclamations being issued during feeding were frankly worse than those during childbirth.

We tried her on expressed milk in a tiny baby bottle, but she just didn't know what to do with it (with hindsight that was also almost certainly symptomatic of the ankyloglossia). Not having the inclination to wait two weeks (let alone months or years) as we were rapidly running out of ideas - Poppy *could* feed, but it was *extremely* painful for Mummy and gave Poppy terrible wind -we turned to private treatment options.

The place we started with was the LCGB (the Lactation Consultants of Great Britain), specifically their list of private Tongue-Tie dividers (chopped up (*SORRY*) broken down by county). Flyingpops started the process of checking through the list and was lucky enough to stumble upon Lynn Timms (the designated divider for Sussex) after speaking to our local one (who quoted £110 plus £15 petrol and wouldn't be able to see us for 5 days), Lynn said she *could* see us, but she would have to travel all the way from Portsmouth (she quoted £75 plus £30 train fare and would be able to see us in 2 days) but she suggested we speak to Anne Dobson who covered London just in case (but Anne quoted £160 basic plus petrol which we couldn't even politely entertain)...So, Flyingpops booked in Lynn and we settled down for an uncomfortable few days wait...

Amazingly, the very next morning at 9am the telephone rang, it was the NHS offering us a cancelled appointment at 4pm that day (if we could make it to Dorking)! Flyingpops frantically cancelled Lynn (who was *still* kind enough to call us back offering advice - so can't recommend her enough - find her website here - if you do need to take the private route and are in her catchment area) and at the appointed time we all bundled into the car and headed off to Dorking (dropping off Thomas with Nanjan and Pops on the way)...

When we arrived the centre was completely deserted, the two ladies running it sat twiddling their thumbs (so I think they probably could have admitted a few more people to attend today rather than sending them off seeking private treatment!)...

It started with a brief description of the procedure to come - a quick snip with a pair of surgical scissors through the lingual frenulum - apparently nerve endings are rare or non-existent in this section of membrane at this stage of life and healing takes place during the feed that takes place immediately after the procedure (so in literally a couple of minutes)-

- and then we popped behind a small barrier for *two* snips, a lot of crying (and a little bit of blood) followed by Flyingpops taking baby Poppy off for a feed (which looked a lot like some sort of twisted vampire fantasy)-

- while I was presented with the (extremely nice) surgical scissors "as a memento" as otherwise they were just going to be incinerated (they live in the first aid kit now-thanks!)-

- and then we were on our way! The whole process actually taking longer to explain than complete...had we paid £160-odd quid for someone to come to the house and do 3.5 seconds work, I might have been (just a little) taken aback...but it's one of those sort of any-amount-of-money situations when your baby can't feed... :(

Anyway, to conclude - all's well that ends well, Poppy is feeding perfectly now, can cope with a bottle (on the rare occasions we are using expressed breast milk) and can stick her tongue out far enough to lick her nose (if she wants to)...as for the process? Try and get it on the NHS, it's such a *simple*, ridiculously quick thing to have fixed (I can't imagine how there is a two week waiting list in Surrey - those ladies at the Medwyn Centre could probably do 40 babies an hour (if they put their mind to it) rather than 7 per day (unless I am missing something here))...?

Happy 1 week Birthday Poppy

We don't know where the week has gone, but have loved every bit of getting to know you... Thomas thinks we should celebrate with cake, but somehow I don't think this one will taste very nice...it's full of nappies!!!

Just Perfect...

My perfect little princess in her new moses basket sleeping peacefully...

with Big bear and Dolly to keep her company

and in Thomas'own words.. 'She is cute mummy'

Poppy the Beetle

Hehe...says it all I think... ;)

Poppy Matilda - Our New Beetle

Let me introduce you to Poppy Matilda ...

She was conceived on Remembrance Sunday (deposit paid), Born on Saturday 15th November (collected)  and Christened on 16th November (splashed with Holy water from Maria's christening).

The name 'Poppy' was suggested by Vodqueen so she has become Poppy's Godmother.  I chose the name Matilda as I thought it was a fun/happy name and reflected the personality of the car!

We have owned Poppy less than 48 hours, driven over 300 miles, have flowers in the bud vase and its absolutely fantastic! 

Oh and the best thing of all, if you drive past another beetle, new or old style, you wave and flash your lights...