Quiet time

Only three more weeks till the end of college term. Of course there will be exams after but at least the chaos on campus will be over. I had a very good week with two papers being accepted whohoo for me!
We had enjoyed a fantastic weather for a good ten days, I suspect that was our summer! Oh no wait, I'm going to Cali this summer!! So I'm bound to get a bit more sun, right?

Let's see what happened lately.
Oliver went back to the crèche on tuesday after a week of chicken pox. I would say it wasn't very bad but was not a light one either. We had a few rough nights and I was surprised to learn that actually the worst day for itchiness  is the 3rd or 4th! We bathed him often which gave him great relief and of course we had all the ointments available of and I think they were also useful. He was off his food and generally quite unsettled but this is also part of the chicken pox virus I hear.
Any time we have a break from the crèche it's like a new induction every time he goes back, but at least this time with the good weather they were out in the yard playing most of the time and he had a fab time.
He's very demanding when at home and a bit of an actor when he doesn't get what he wants...but still sweet and cuddly.

Still no walking on his own really, unless you set him up for it, I suppose crawling is still much quicker, but he is now in love with our kitchen chairs which are his favourite walker...

This morning I bought him a few more toys and packed away the baby ones he's not even looking at anymore, we need to find things to keep him entertained when at home or we are all going insane!

Looking forward to Easter next weekend and the end of my chocolate free Lent!

Outpouring of love and chicken pox (for real!)

You guys are amazing! Thank you so much for all the comments on my last post, it felt like a warm hug and I nearly had tears in my eyes. I LOVE this community, I truly do. Junebug and Alex said something about expanding our readership into parenting blogs (which I have not searched for to be honest, I like to read those I  knew from the beginning of the journey) and I think they are right, I will do something about it.

Today is the first official day of Spring and my MIL 73 birthday! She is one amazing woman, after all she's been through she always seems to come out the other end with the same positive attitude. I wish her many more of these days.

This time I do believe Oliver has chicken pox. Yesterday when I picked him up from the crèche they mentioned he seemed to have a few spots in the nappy area but given the previous false alarm they didn't call us and just kept an eye on him. He was in fab form (while we had a few tantrums at home over the weekend) but this morning he definitely had a few more spots...he has no temp so we brought him in but I suspect we'll be called as soon as they change his nappy! Of course I have a very busy work schedule so we'll have to see how we can get through the next few days if we have to keep him home.

 Better go, I have labs all day and a lecture in the middle!

Walking. Wooden wedding anniversary. Blogging.

Oliver took his first few steps unaided on Tuesday the 12th of March! You should have seen his little face when he realised what was happening! We spent a good while getting him to walk from me to Mike and viceversa. He'll be always on his feet in no time.

Tomorrow is our 5th anniversary and I just read wood is it's symbol...of course we don't have anything planned, it's St. Patrick's day and it's supposed to rain (nothing new there!) so I don't really feel like going to a parade to be honest. I'm finally feeling better but still not 100% despite the round of antibiotics and Oliver would get bored for sure.

I feel I have to add my 2 cents to the blogging "tension" currently going on. I never had one bad comment and never felt excluded by the blog-community. I also blog to keep track of what is happening and of course my blog moved from infertility and the drama that came with it to a pregnancy blog to a parenting blog. I don't know what else it'll be turning into in the future but I like to think that it can be anything I like. One thing I certainly noticed is that I can now count on one hand the comments I may get any time I post. I have cyber friends who I know will stop by to see what happens in my side of the World and would live a message, and other who may just be reading and say nothing. I would hope that, should I need support at some point in the future that they will be there for me like in the past, but of course I don't know that. I do feel a bit sad at times, as if I've lost friends. So I'm not sure if it's because the bloggers that once shared infertility and are now happily parenting have no time/need to come back and say hello, or if it's because there's now this parallel community which I didn't join but I really should, or if it's because my blog has become boring. Well, I tell you what, I am truly happy that my complaint now is that my life is normal and with no drama, long may it last!

A cold, a weekend away and blogroll review

I had a cold since Monday. Nothing strange really these days, we seem to get sick in rotation. But this one is a really hard one to shift! By Monday night my left ear was completely blocked and it felt like my left side of the face was about to explode! Do you guys have colds on just one side? Of course I had a terrible night, not breathing, sore ear etc. Tuesday I went to the doctor, this cold lodged itself in the sinuses this is why I'm so miserable. My ear is also inflamed but the doc thought it was still likely to be just viral (and I agree), gave me a prescription for antibiotic just in case by Thursday I was no better. Wednesday I was worse, dizzy, sore etc. got tablets which are supposed to help with the sinusitis and they helped a bit. On Thursday I got the antibiotics and today I finally seem to have turned the corner a bit. Still feel quite spaced out which isn't helping my hypochondria...I won't even tell you my thoughts of the last few nights...but I'm sure you can imagine.

Tomorrow we are going to visit friends in the South West and I really hope to be in top shape and not ruin anyone's day. It will be our first weekend away as a family and I feel both excited and a bit anxious about it. We will stay with our friends (they have two children) so hopefully I'll be able to just relax!

So in these days at home I have gone through my blogroll and realised there were still many blogs (not necessarily showing in my side bar) that had not written a thing in over a year. Actually a few didn't even exist anymore! So I did a bit of a clear out. Of course I did the same with my emails. It gives me great pleasure to hit "delete"!

Now...if I could only tackle the house...

oh and I thought I'd mention that today is my parents' 38th anniversary! Wohooo well done mom and dad, not an easy thing these days!

Progress

You know the way toddlers will imitate what you say, trying to sound the same? Well as of yesterday we had a few cute things to report. No, no words that we can understand yet, but this is better.

First he now puts one hand to his hear a makes a sound that's like "hello?" and so we have endless fun pretending to make phone calls.
He shakes his hand and says "hu hu" (no no) when he knows he shouldn't do something (and yet...)
He points at the light, at Carlito and at Mike when asked the question "where is....?" in either language. No, mamma is not in the picture apparently!
But the absolute cherry goes to the fact that he now can imitate sneezes!! It's really funny to see and he has a great time doing it (with the head movement and all!). We have it on tape too!

I thought I had to make a post of this for future laughs!

What's new?

Not much really...I've been so so busy with work I actually don't think anything happened at all! Maybe a bit of news is that I'm thinking of changing my car. I have a 2004 Nissan Micra, still works and I look after her of course but it is a left hand drive import from Italy and on a couple of occasion, specially with Oliver in the car, I felt I really didn't have enough visibility (in Ireland they drive on the left hand side and so cars are right had drive). I always thought that my car was great if we were going to France on holidays, and we did go on an "on-the-road" trip to Europe a few years ago, but it's not something that it's likely to happen again soon. So I'm looking at some bigger cars, probably a crossover. I'm going to test drive one next saturday...that will be fun...with the car at the "wrong" side of me, I'll look like a newbie! I'll better practice in some parking lot with Mike's car first.

Today I sold part of my original stash of bamboo nappies (I sold 12 and kept 8....you know...just in case) and I know I'm still due a review on the bamboo ones vs the Charlie banana and I will do it soon. But what I wanted to talk about was the fact that the girl who contacted me about the nappies through a local board, is not due till the end of the summer!! Fair play on her, I wish I had her confidence at the time! She was lovely, actually, I didn't tell her anything about my story of course (you wouldn't want to scare the crap out of a mom-to-be!) but it was refreshing to see that there are people for which a positive test equal a baby and they don't know any different. It also sort of saddened me to remember how little I enjoyed my pregnancy, with the constant fear of something going wrong...and I wonder if it will be different next time (hopefully there will be a next time). I want it to be different but I am not sure my traumatised mind will cooperate.

I don't know if I ever told you that I'm collaborating on a research project with a paediatric surgeon. It's great to have someone I can talk to when I have a "fear-attack" on Oliver's health and generally he just says the right thing i.e. "don't be silly!". But last tuesday I went to his lab which is based in the main children's hospital. While of course I was no where near patients, it was impossible not to know that very sick children of all ages are in that hospital. I could have gotten a tour of the wards etc but that would have killed me. I never ever want to be there for any other reason than work and research. How do those doctors go home every evening and leave the horror behind it's a mystery to me. Anyway, I suppose someone has to do it.

In other, much lighter news, I'm really happy some of my favourite bloggers have the removed the hated word verification! Please join the movement!

Love to all

Another week

Friday already! Can you believe it? We had a bit of a rough week, Oliver got sick at the weekend and eventually we went to the emergency doc has his temperature was quite high, he was crying a lot and no sleep at all. The verdict was a very inflamed throat and so we had a light antibiotic to make sure no secondary infection was setting in. He was much better within a couple of days. I stayed home with him till Tuesday and though this never happened before I found it so difficult to go back to work on Wednesday!! Mike came down with the same flu about monday evening so I had two to look after. I seem to have escaped the worse of it though I'm getting a cold just now...

Oliver is making steady progress with cruising, still needs at least one hand to walk but every wall, table or chair is a great "walking aid" for him. His new love is going up the stairs with me or Mike holding his hands and he goes up one full step at the time! Of course for him the steps are as high as his thighs so it's a big effort!We also got some locks for cupboards in the kitchen, mostly where I keep detergents as he seems really curious about that specific press! I bought him his first pair of "real" shoes which are very flexible and soft but will help his stability, in the shop the assistant actually took a pic of Oliver and frame it for us as a big milestone! One thing I liked is that they measured also the width of his foot (both!) to make sure they model was a perfect fit. He loves  wearing them.

I'm still very excited about our trip to the US and delighted I may be meeting even more bloggers! I have not decided yet when I'm going to the East Coast, and of course I don't have to go to Boston directly, could go to New York and have a couple of days there and meet a few more bloggers! So all is possible.

One final thing, I noticed that those blogs that are using the "word verification" thingy when you comment have now a new version of it, if possible even more annoying where you have to type two words which are often illegible! Do you guys get that many spam comments? I removed that check a while ago and eliminated the option for anonymous comments and never had a problem! I read a great post a few months back about how useless that feature is and how it limits comments (if you read from your phone for example), so I invite you to give it a go and see how it goes without it!

Have a great weekend you all.