Seaside holiday 2014

With little bump due in August, we took an early holiday this year and spent the 2nd week of June at the seaside in Broadstairs. Picked because it's only an hour and half's drive away from the house (in case of any emergencies) I hadn't realised what a hidden gem this little seaside town is. It has sandy beaches (hard to find in Kent), friendly locals and a real seaside vibe. We will definitely be going back for day trips, Charlie absolutely loved it.

We went with Nana and Grandad and Uncle A and cousin M (now a 3 year old) joined us for a few days at the start. The boys had so much fun, we went to the beach every day and the weather was really good, a little cloudy at the start and then lovely hot sunshine for most of the time.

C got his 2nd proper haircut! He was a nightmare at the barbers over a year ago so I've been cutting it myself, but we tried again whilst on holiday and he was so much better. C&M spent indoors time watching and rewatching Frozen. M was obsessed by Sven the reindeer and C loves to sing along to Let it Go. There was a 'holiday cat' who lived nearby and visited us most days, he was really friendly and C loved stroking him. We visited Deal castle and T and I had a morning in Canterbury, but pretty much spent the rest of the time on the beach. C got up early EVERY day and we took it in turns for early morning beach walks with him, he loved the freedom of being the only person on the beaches! Charles Dickens lived here (in Bleak House) and nearly all the shops, pubs and restaurants in the town make reference to him and his books.

So here's my favourite pics:

From T-B, L-R:

Viking Beach - the sandiest beach with lifeguards and a mini fairground, but we preferred...
Lousia Beach - C & T digging a pool by the sea - the next bay along from Viking, with rock pools and a little quieter.
Viking Beach in the early morning.
C&M sharing a hole.
Mini fair on Viking Beach.
Our windbreak and fishy wind sock - C chose this from a holiday shop with Nana.
A cheeky boy next to a stripy beach hut.
Bump shadow on the beach.
Paddling boys.
Boys at Deal castle - with Robbie the nursery holiday rabbit.
Windbreak.
Charlie.
Our super 'train track' sandcastle.
Bucket boy.
Sunrise boy on the beach.
Starfish and C.
Viking Beach and purple flowers.
Icecream from Morelli's icecream parlour
Early morning Broadstairs.
Shark! at the mini golf.
Boys.
Beach boys digging together
Digging.
Charles Dickens' Bleak House (in the distance on the left).
Beach.
Holiday cat.
Digging holes.
Splash!
Divers, sharks and whales.
Digging in the sand.
Boys.
Sunrise on Louisa Beach.
Starfish and little M.
Bump on the beach.

Charlie at 4 years

4 year olds are fun... and full of beans, highly strung, argumentative... I could go on. C knows his own mind and lets us know. The best days are ones where we've given him plenty of time to run around and burn off all his excess energy. He is very loving, giving hugs and kisses unprompted and will most times say please and thank you without prompting.

He loves his friends, little miss M and little master B at nursery are his best friends and it's lovely watching the three of them play together. There's lots of hugs, kisses and chasing round and round.

He's pretty much grown out of Thomas the Tank Engine, no longer wanting to play with train tracks - a fixture of our living room for the past 2.5 years! But he still loves going on train trips and reading The Little Red Train books. Toys he loves at the moment are - mini plastic dinosaurs, castle, knights and dragons he got last week for his birthday, play house and shop - pouring tea in the tea set, selling toy food through his new toy till and cooking toy food on Mummy's old toy cooker at Granny and Grandad's house, the alien hammer game (like whack'a'mole) and Dino Bite (taking eggs from a dinosaur nest before the dino bites!). Plus scooting on his scooter, he's not got he hang of his bike yet and prefers scooting in the garden or on the way to the park. In the garden he loves having a bowl of water and washing his plastic animals or pebble collection and he adores blowing bubbles for the cat to chase.

He still loves reading, our book choices at the moment are those about having a new baby and starting at school. He also likes Peter Rabbit stories and haunted house books, including Funny Bones and Creepy Castle. On TV his favourite shows are Wooly and Tig, Alphablocks and Peter Rabbit, films he loves are The Frog Princess, Rapunzel and Totoro.

He loves our cat Baxter, it's a love/hate relationship between the two, but it's nice to see the two of them interacting, first thing in the morning Baxter will weave around Charlie's legs as he gives him a nice stroke.

He seems to like the idea of having a baby sister and will kiss and hug my bump. We talk a lot about when the baby get's here and the different type of things we'll do.

He's still a fussy eater but manages to get a balanced diet. Carrots and cucumber are vegetables I know he'll eat, along with apples, grapes, orange and melon. Tomato and cheesy pasta is one of his favourite dishes and he loves a good old ham sandwich with ketchup.

He recognises lots of letters and can say the alphabet, he also recognises some words, his name and 'no' being the main ones. He can count pretty much up to 100 and can do simple additions.

He sleeps from 7pm to 6am and we've just got a sleep trainer clock. He knows that he needs to stay in bed when the stars are showing and that he can get up when the sunshine comes out.

Toilet training is pretty much complete, he has a very occasional accident, but now get's through most days without needing to change his pants.

He can be painfully shy at times, he's fine with his friends at nursery and family,but if there's lots of people in one place (at birthday parties, or the parents coming to the nursery Easter parade) he doesn't like it. He'll become hidey and clingy and stick to me like glue.

Favourite clothes are his turquoise Verbaudet hoodie (it has velcro smiley or sad faces and says 'This is how I feel today' - C loves choosing, but ALWAYS chooses the very happy face :)'. He also has a spiderman hoodie he likes to wear, stripy socks, a pink and a white long sleeved T-shirt and a grey top with dog faces on. He has a pair of cream coloured cargo trousers which say 'Beware the Lions in Africa' which he is crazily attached to! He likes his green dinosaur winter coat and navy blue gilet with grey hood. He has navy blue clarks shoes with flashing red lights and little red trainers with stars on from M&S. He's a shoe size 7.5 and has moved from an F-width to a G.

His memory is excellent, often talking about things I would have expected him to have forgotten.

4 may sometimes be a trying age, but he's still at heart a polite, loving little boy. He has a killer giggle and is happy most of the time.

4th birthday celebrations

On Thursday it was Charlie's 4th birthday. He's such a big boy now and it's lovely to see him interacting with his friends.

He's very shy in large groups (as we've found out at all the birthday parties we've attended recently) so we did lots of nice little things to keep him from getting overwhelmed. On Wednesday night we had tea and birthday cake with Nana and Grandad. C had helped Nana make the chocolate cake earlier in the day as he spends Wednesdays with them.

On Thursday we opened presents in the morning before nursery and then took in cakes for all his friends. We bought an M&S chocolate caterpillar and a vanilla dolly mixture cake and C got to eat the caterpillar's face as he was the birthday boy.

On Saturday we met up with Granny and Grandad, Uncle S, Aunty N and cousin I on the Watercress line steam railway and had a lovely day going up and down the railway and looking in at the engines being fixed in the engine shed. C even got to go into the signal box and pull down the levers to change the points. I made a steam train themed birthday cake which we had at the end of the day with a cup of tea whilst C opened his presents.

Today we had a bowling alley birthday party with 5 friends, 4 from nursery and cousin M who's just turned 3.

Easter 2014

We've had a lovely 4 days for the Easter break. On Thursday night we drove to Wiltshire to stay with my parents. The weather on Friday and Saturday was warm and breezy and we had some good times outside. We visited Lacock Abbey, making use of the National Trust membership we were given for Christmas and had a hilltop walk at Westbury White Horse. The views were stunning and Dad brought his kite so Charlie got to have a go at flying a kite for the first time.

On Sunday we I set up a mini Easter egg hunt for C and after we'd had breakfast, Dad had played the Easter church bells and we'd exchanged eggs, we drove back to Kent to have Easter lunch with T's family.

C loved, stroking the lamb's noses in Granny and Grandad's barn, scrambling on the hill and touching the eye of the white horse with mummy, playing in the play park at Lacock and listening to Grandad read Thomas the Tank Engine stories.

A baby sister

We are expecting again! I'm currently 22 weeks pregnant with a little sister for Charlie. Baby girl is growing well, we had some scares at the start, followed by a lot of sickness, but now all is good. At our 20 week scan everything was perfect and the little kicks I feel inside me are a daily reminder that this time around we are doing well. Because of our last loss I won't lose my unease until this little girl is safely in my arms, but am content as possible that all is ok.

20 week scan

Charlie is very excited about being a big brother, he has lots of questions, lots of name ideas (Rapunzel, Daisy and Slug are his favourites) and kisses and strokes my tummy in a gentle way.

Bump

I started a diary piece before we had the scares and then the daily throwing up set in so it ends pretty abruptly, but here's a record of that first week after finding out.

8th December 2013, today at 13dpo I took a pregnancy test and got the faintest 2nd line. I looked back an hour later and it was still there! Tomorrow I will use a proper test instead of an internet cheapie but in my heart I know that finally I am pregnant again.

I am tentatively excited, I want this baby so so much but I'm not sure I can face the pain of losing another. I'm only 3 weeks and right now the full 40 weeks look daunting. However the weight on my mind that I've been carrying since March is easing, it feels completely right to be pregnant and this time every cell in my body is willing this little one to survive, to be a fighter and in 37 weeks time to be held on my arms.

9th Dec. Again a faint line on the internet cheapie but took a boots own brand test and that had a stronger positive. Hooray hooray hooray!

12th Dec. Pregnancy has become real again. It felt amazingly good to start taking the half pack of pregnacare folic acid that I'd squirreled away in March. All the symptoms, the heavy boobs, intense sense of smell and slight nausea are incredibly welcome and a constant reminder that things are as they should be.

The rainbow baby is such a good analogy. For the first time the dark, depressing storm clouds of miscarriage have parted slightly to this rainbow of hope. The rain is still there and always will be, but the glimmer of sunshine needed to create a rainbow is happy and bright and the lashing rain has turned to a drizzle.

Last night as I lay in bed listening to big brother's even breathing through the monitor with Daddy's hand resting above the baby on my belly I was so happy. Everything was the way it should be once more. Peace at last. 

13th Dec. Today I have gone off coffee completely. From having 4 cups of decaff a day, now the very thought of it makes me nauseous. In Pret at 7.20am this morning I shocked Jorges my usual server by asking for hot chocolate instead of my regular skinny decaff latte.

Oh my goodness nausea also settled in fully today. I felt queasy and seasick at my desk this morning and drank cup after cup of peppermint tea to try and relieve the churning in my stomach.

And soo tired. This week has not been good for sleep, I had three 5am starts (to get to work for 7.30am) and on the other two days I stayed late, once to catch up time missed last week to see C's nativity and the other for book group. So sleep is something I long to catch up on.

16th Dec. Less nauseous today. Phoned to book a doctor's appointment but none left until Christmas week. Will try and book a same day appointment on Weds.

Daddy's Birthday weekend

In March for T's birthday we took a long weekend in the Cotswolds. It was nice to get away just the three of us and Charlie loved staying in our little cottage.

We went to Warwick Castle, Stratford-upon-Avon and Bourton-on-the-Water. The castle was a pre-schooler's dream, with plenty of space to run around, lots of steps to climb, knights and swords (he even got to hold a real sword which he loved), peacocks and a falconry display.

We had birthday ice-cream for Daddy in Stratford and a nice walk down by the canal and river.

Bourton had a fantastic miniature railway exhibition, with buttons for excitable boys to press and C loved running around the model village.

We topped this off with lots of lovely food, a pub lunch and locally baked bread.

A perfect weekend away :)

A summer's day in March

After possibly the longest, wettest, greyist winter for a while we had a complete gift of a day last Sunday, the sky was blue, the sun shone and it reached 18c. We were already planning a trip to the beach and the weather made it sublime.

I think everyone else agreed, the hour and a half drive to Hastings took two and coming back was two and a half in constant queues of traffic. Once there it was busy but not too busy.

We had a great day, Charlie loved having a sunny day out after a long grey winter. We played on the beach in the morning.

Met up with friends and had lunch on the main street. We then took the funicular railway up the cliff top and the boys ran around at the top.

After our walk back down we rounded the day off with a round of crazy golf and an ice cream. Before leaving, C and I took one last walk to the beach to watch the sunset.

Recently...

Over the last couple of months we've (L-R):

Visited the Science Museum with best friend C
Played with Daddy
Made a Halloween pumpkin
Rearraged my cookery books
Watched bonfire night fireworks
Let Baxter outside for the first time
Dressed as a skeleton for Halloween fun at nursery
Visited the garden centre and bought a little bush to sit by the front door and tulip and daffodil bulbs for the window boxes
Played with torches in the dark
Mama visited the Cheltenham Literature Festival
Got smart Monster's Inc. winter pjs
Wore our poppies for Remembrance Day
Played lots of trains
Set up the study
Painted
Had boiled eggs and soldiers for breakfast
Built Duplo towers
Played with Baxter
Homemade macaroni cheese with broccoli
Poached eggs for Mama
Marvelled at the steam trains in the Science Museum
Bought coffee
Stanley & Wilf
Made welly boot drip trays from the pebbles we collected on holiday
Looked at the model of Stephenson's Rocket at the Science Museum
Read

Five currant buns

Five currant buns in the baker's shop,
Fat and round with sugar on the top.
Along came.................... with a penny one day,
Bought a currant bun and took it away.

Charlie has just learnt this song at nursery and he loves it. 

He was singing it all Saturday morning, so we bought cake making ingredients whilst at the supermarket and in the afternoon he helped me make some buns. We added lemon and orange to  make them extra yummy. We made some chocolate chip ones too and his verdict? "Mummy I prefer chocolate chips to currants, remember that please". Cheeky little monkey! He's still singing the song though.

How a book group helped mend my broken heart

Last night saw the final session with our current book group and it got me thinking about how, unknown to them, our meetings over the year have helped me to put myself back together.

In March, instead of attending the first official meeting of our newly formed book group, I was in hospital following a silent miscarriage. I lost my baby at 12 weeks, 6 days and the grief and heartbreak ripped me apart. I was hurting, lost, scared by advice that said the pain would never go away and wondering if I would ever learn to cope. I found myself questioning the big stuff, religion, life, death because I needed something to alleviate the pain I was feeling.

When all I wanted to do each night was cry away the grief that had been building throughout the day, I found myself stuck with the book group obligation. The group was in it's infancy and I was committed to making it work. There's something about a good book group that brings the books to life and, through podcasts, we wanted to take the essence of these discussions and make them available for all. No matter what had happened in my private life, I didn't want to back down from this commitment.

Books have always been my comfort in times of need and it was the books from the club that reached out and pulled me back. There were some I couldn't do, a surprising amount mentioned miscarriage, and once that happened I wouldn't read further (In the Kingdom of Men, Where'd you go Bernadette, Norwegian by Night). But for the rest talking about the books was a way to put my grief aside. When you've read the same book as someone else the conversation is easy and when it's a whole group of like-minded book lovers, the conversation is endless.

The time spent reading the books was time spent not crying or endlessly daydreaming about what might have been and I learnt from the characters. Hattie, who lost her baby twins to pneumonia and went on to have 9 more to try and fill the gap but never really succeeded, Harry from May We Be Forgiven who stumbled through life doing crazy things but captivating the reader anyway and most of all Sally and Larry and Charity and Sid, the two central couples in Crossing to Safety, a novel which shows a full lifetimes of ups and downs and celebrates the small things.

So my fragile heart became heavy when we said our goodbyes particularly as this group of women (and one man) will never quite know just how much emotional strength I took from our meetings. Next week we meet our new group of readers and I am seriously looking forward to the adventures we will discover together within the pages of some really good books.