From Italy, with love

I flew with the children to Italy on Tuesday and I'll stay for almost two weeks. I have to say the flights were much better than I thought. Oliver was on his best behaviour and Martina slept a bit on both legs of the journey. We stopped over in Frankfurt for just over an hour and we manage to all go to the toilet with no accidents. For Oliver was a big adventure, he was mamma's helper and really made me proud. On the fully booked Dublin-Frankfurt flight, the flight attendant near the end realised I was travelling on my own (I had a very nice and helpful German lady sitting beside me) and commented on how calm I was and was I used to it. I said no, first time on my own with two and thought about saying something like "it's the happy pill that keeps me sane" but then again, what if she didn't think I was joking and really thought I was high on something? So I didn't say it. But I was incredibly calm.

On thing that made the journey that bit more challenging was that I was on day 2 of my period so I was very self conscious. I was also loaded as a Sherpa and briefly contemplated wearing Martina only to be thankful I didn't as I really had too many bits and pieces and the stroller was our little mule. Oliver used the toilet 3 times on the plane including a poo about 30 minutes before landing which meant the "go back to your seat" sign lit up almost as soon as Oliver sat on the loo (can you imagine the amount of time I said "don't touch that it's dirty!!!"). Anyway, we got to Bologna safe and sound and I realised how much my son has grown in the last 4 months. This journey was unthinkable only in the summer.

The first night here, Martina slept seven hours straight. That almost never happens. Of course the next night she was up every hour or so... Go figure. One other important think is that I decided to fully wean Martina. My boobs are sore again, and I have had enough of this. I feel like a champ for having lasted so long with so many problems and I'm hoping this will give us at home a bit more exchange-ability at night time. To those of you who still believe there is "a method" that works with every child please keep it to yourself. In my experience is the child that has a method, either it agrees with yours or it doesn't. The child will sleep eventually, but you have little to do with when that will happen. I too had a child who slept through very early and now I have another one who would need to be sedated to do the same. Daytime sleeps are textbook, nights are a beast of their own. Ah well.

I leave you with some love, chat soon!

Holidays recap

We flew to my home town on the 17th of June and we went to the seaside on the Riviera from the 19th to the 30th. Flight was great, and after a day of adjustment to the heat and fuss of the grandparents Oliver was the usual happy baby.

The highlight of the seaside stay was the pool! Oliver absolutely loved it (in fact more than the sea I think!) and the time he spent kicking his legs got longer and longer. The last day we actually went to the big pool rather than the baby one and again it was a hit!

Of course the next best thing for him was the gorgeous juicy fruit he was able to flavour while on holidays...peaches, apricots, melons and cherries! Yes we can find them here to, but honestly there's no comparison.

A few developmental milestones were reached while on holidays. He rolled over at around 25 weeks for the first time unassisted woohoo! And now he does it all the time! He found his feet and we discovered that he also loves to shower. This is very handy as he can shower with me and it's quicker and less messy than a bath. On the food side we introduced cheese which, as he has Italian genes, he absolutely loves and we tried chicken for the first time. Not quite a favourite just yet though.

Elimination Communication is going great, I feel I can really recommend it, at least try! Oliver seems to be truly delighted and I actually now have the impression he waits to go to the loo to do his business!

After the seaside time we moved to the hills (Apennines) where my parents have a place and we regrouped with my granny who was there too. Of course no real pool there but we got one of those inflatable ones and it did the trick. He also turned 6 months on the 1st of July!

It was a very long holidays and I didn't have a connection most of the time, but when I did I checked on you girls (by the way, if you can, activate the mobile settings, it's fantastic for reading blogs on the iphone without having to fiddle with the screen). My heart was broken when I read about Misfit Mrs. devastating (yet again) news.

And I'm glad to be back home and would you believe it, AF is late (like 5 days late) and if it wasn't for the fact that I'm tubeless and had no sex for 3 weeks I would almost think I'm pregnant. The last time I was this late I was dreading being pregnant in my teens! Anyway, hopefully it won't be too long or it'll upset the September plans!

Tomorrow Oliver will be 27 weeks and he got his 6 months jabs today...poor baby, 3 injections this time!! But he was quite good, getting fussy now though.

A few pics of the holidays till next time!

On the beach

In the baby pool with my dad and me

In the baby pool with me

with my mom

in the big pool!

the inflatable pool in the patio

eating granny's legendary pizza!

The voyage

Oliver is 17 weeks today! Weaning is going very well he seems to like everything so far and it's really enjoying the whole process. In fact he's sleeping much better, no more noise at night so I think he was hungry!

Last night we went all out for an early dinner. We sat Oliver on the high-chair in the restaurant (padded with our sling! We had forgotten the stroller!)

And then a song played on the radio in the background. I wasn't paying attention really, I've always found it difficult to listen to lyrics (unless for some reason someone tells me to do so!) but Mike started singing along and said "Are you listening?". So I tuned in. It was an Irish singer (Christy Moore) who I actually really like. The song is called "The Voyage" and the lyrics are amazing (now that I listen!). The chorus goes:

Life is an ocean and love is a boat

in troubled water that keeps us afloat

when we started the voyage, there was just me and you

now gathered round us we have our own crew

Needless to say I teared up! If you have time, listen to it too. If you are there in your journey I'm sure it'll talk to you too. If you are not, know that your journey is not over.

And last night we found each other again.

So much for a plan! (updated with video-clip!)

Well, I gave in and this evening I fed Oliver a little bit of baby rice! He loved it! I am following Annabel Karmel's New Complete Baby & Toddler Meal Planner and so even though Oliver is only 15w4d old I followed my instinct and introduced baby rice (just a tea spoon) to his diet. Milk is definitely not enough. I thought it was last Saturday when I posted but nope. Last night he was very unsettled again, chewing hands and on the verge of crying. I really think he was hungry.

Today it was a struggle to get him through his normal four hours break between 210ml feed of the almost all hungry babies formula. For the last couple of weeks I actually gave him a sip of water or fennel tea between feeds when he seemed to be getting impatient. At 8pm this evening we gave him almost half a bottle of formula to make sure he wasn't starving and then we tried the rice with the spoon. We filmed this moment and we were on Skype at the same time with my parents! Would you believe it, he didn't spill a thing! The book said it probably would take a few attempts and very likely the food would have been all over (babies still have the tongue reflex which pushes against the spoon) but not my boy!

Hopefully this is going to be enough now till the 17 week mark.

Video uploaded (it took ages!!) let me know if you can see it!