Well, where do I start...?!
Obviously since Joseph arrived finding time to update my blog has become more and more difficult. With a 3 and a half month old boy and a nearly 3 year old girl in the house, our time simply revolves around them. Not that I'm complaining here mind. We knew exactly what to expect by having the two kids within a few years of each other, and if I'm being honest it's actually easier than me or Jen expected - touch wood! Yes your time is not your own until they're both in bed on an evening, but I wouldn't change it for the world. It does make me wonder what the hell we did with all our time before the kids came along mind!
Joseph's a little star. I don't know if there's actually such a thing, but he really is a 'low maintenance baby'. We have his routine sorted and as long as you stick to this, there's never a peep out of him. He's has quite short cat naps throughout the day every 2 hours, but then on a night time he's in his cot from about 7.30pm - 7.30am with only ever 1 or 2 feeds in between.
When awake there's no doubting how much he loves attention! He will happily chatter away to himself, but as soon as you talk to him he beams from ear to ear, whilst kicking his legs and flinging his arms all over the place. I'm still trying to upload photos to flickr in batches and did two lots last week;
Abigail absolutely loves him! She asks for to see Joseph as soon as she wakes up, she tries to help during nap
py changes, she helps to hold is bottle during feeds, and has recently started to give him his dummy when he needs it. It's easy to forget how old Abigail is when you hear her coming out with lines such as "Ah hello little Darlin' ", and "hello little boy"!
py changes, she helps to hold is bottle during feeds, and has recently started to give him his dummy when he needs it. It's easy to forget how old Abigail is when you hear her coming out with lines such as "Ah hello little Darlin' ", and "hello little boy"!She seems to have grown up so fast since Joseph was born, and in her own way become more independent. Abigail skips the potty in favour of going straight from nappies to the toilet, and apart from the during the night nappy, she is now fully toilet trained. She can happily do the whole toilet thing herself which is invaluable when you have your hands tied with Joseph.
We received confirmation this week that Abigail will be starting morning nursery at Bede Academy in September, which is ideal as it's what we requested. This will be around the same time that Jen returns to work after Maternity Leave.
Jen is fine as always and still does her daily best to hold on to her Mother Of The Year title. Not that I'm biased of course!
She was at Liverpool last weekend for Chrissy's Hen Weekend and everyone apparently had a great time. The wedding itself is in Ireland at the end of May and Jen is a bridesmaid so that will be a bit of a frantic time!
Lastly we come to me, where as usual nothing is straight forward!! I started experiencing bad left knee pain around the middle of last year, which was eventually discovered to be a problem with my hip. (Knee and hip share the same nerve endings, so there's a kind of pain transference to the knee when in actual fact it's the hip which has the problems). Docs didn't see any other option than surgery, and because I has such limited mobility the decision was made to get this done as soon as possible so I could get my full quality of life back.
I went into the Freeman Hospital on 8th April for an operation on the 9th. I was lucky enough to get away with a Hip Resurfacing operation as oppose to a full Hip Replacement, which meant I was discharged from hospital 3 days after the op and the recovery time should hopefully be quicker.
The surgery immediately alleviated the pain in my knee, but has obviously left me with some discomfort in my hip during recovery. 3 weeks on, the staples have now been removed and I'm on the road to recovery. I have to use crutches so as not to put too much strain on the new joint during the early stages and I'm on sick leave from work for at least 6 weeks. Driving is out of the question during this time and I must take care not to put too much strain on the hip.
I could waffle on for ages about my stay in hospital and go in more detail about the recovery, but those close to me are probably bored stupid of hearing about it by now!
Finally just to add to everything else we have going on at the minute, work has resumed on the house extension; The lintels have been fitted this week to allow the kitchen wall to be knocked out and form one large kitchen. The kitchen itself was delivered yesterday morning and installation should hopefully begin next week. The kitchen is the biggie, and once that's done we* should be able to plough on with completion of the other rooms. I'll post pics as things progress and they look at bit more interesting!
* I say 'we', but obviously neither myself or Jen can help at all. It's good to watch though! Poor Laurence (Jen's Dad) may as well move in here given the amount of time he's here working on the extension. Needless to say it's very much appreciated.
Sorry again for the ridiculously long post, if you're still reading at this point! Lol. I really need to take a leaf out of Michele's book and do shorter posts on a more regular basis......but I've been trying and failing to do that for years :o)
