Poorly Boy

I had the dreaded call from nursery yesterday to say that he was burning up with a fever at midday.  They gave him calpol and he went down for a long nap and woke up happy but by 4pm they rang again to say he was hot and bothered again.

I went to collect him, he had more calpol and home we went.

He's been eating like a trooper for the past few weeks so they were surprised at nursery that he didn't touch anything all day but drank tons of water.  He didn't want scrambled egg when I got him home which normally he loves so we knew he wasn't feeling well.

He showed his normal tired signs at seven so I put him to bed, and popped out to Asda to get baby wipes, and when I got back, I opened the front door and nearly knocked him over as he was standing by it!!!  Steve called through from the lounge (he wasn't watching him at all being in another room) to say he'd cried once I'd left so he got him up again.

Joel then proceeded to play till 9pm until I put 'In The Night Garden' on again on catch up and he finally fell asleep on me and was put in his cot.  Until 12.00pm when he woke crying, and then 4am when he wouldn't settle without me, so we both lay on the spare bed together, him sleeping fitfully and me not really sleeping at all.

He slept in till 8.40am this morning so I was late for work, and he's gone to my parents rather than nursery as I feel happier with him being there feeling poorly.

I don't know whether it's teeth, (we are due some more as he only has four still!!) or another nursery lurgy virus.  But whatever it is, I hope it clears up soon.  He really was a poorly boy at 4am this morning :(

Neglected

Dear Blog

I apologise for abandoning you.

I have so much to say but no time to say it.

We've had first steps!
We've had terrible tumbles which led to bleeding :(
We've had a proper barbers haircut.

But I'm working long hours during a stressfully busy work period and have no motivation to do ANYTHING! once I get home so apologies and I will get back to you soon, I promise!!!

xx

Slap In The Face

Friday made me grumpy.
You know how I keep moaning about having to work full time at the moment. (I am sorry for sounding whingy but it is what it is). I know I could resign, but that would mean I’d have no job. And I’m not someone who would give up a job without having another ready and waiting. And the current job climate is against me.

Anyway, I’m getting off the point.

My work colleague currently on maternity leave has been restructured into a different Faculty (our workplace is undergoing a big change from 6 Faculties to 4 meaning loss of jobs) and she has new managers.
Two weeks ago she wrote asking to go part time. Last week she heard that it was all approved and ok!

Just like that. Kind of like the way it’s meant to be.

It took 5 months for me to get my request turned down. Twice.

I was so upset. Not for her of course. I’m glad she’s got what she wanted. But it just smacks of inequality and unfairness and unjustness and everything else like that.

I cried (again) as it just feels as though I have had to miss out on Joel, and I’ll never get this time back again. And it totally is down to who the manager is. If my manager were a man, or a woman with a family I’ve no doubt I’d have been received with more sympathy. And for a workplace as large as this not having the same ethos in every office – tis shabby.
I’m on the warpath again. I’ve emailed personnel to say how disgruntled I am. I’m trying to find out whether they’ll accept an earlier request from me. And I’m going to ask to go part time rather than job share. I’d like 20 hours. I think it could and would work. I did it all their way last time and got nothing so this time I’m going to do it my way and ask for what I want. I tried to be as helpful as I could to no avail so I’m going to be grumpy about it and make so much fuss they’ll wish they’d accepted me last year!

Tiny Dancer

Joel is a baby on the small side.  He's petite and neat and sweet!

And he loves music.  He hears music and claps along, a rhythm and bops, and he looks so cute standing up doing his little baby dancing.

He's standing on his own quite a bit now, and yesterday stood up on his own away from furniture and looked so proud of himself.  He just has to realise he can move his feet!  They stay stuck on the floor as he either topples forward into arms or onto the floor (a bit of a game for him now) or goes backwards onto his bottom!

The other night I couldn't find any clean sleepsuits (I'm so behind on washing) and grabbed a pair of pyjamas from another drawer which he's never worn as I kept him in sleepsuits instead.  they fitted him perfectly so I was a bit taken aback to see they were a size 6-9 months!  I'm not worried as 12-18m vests fit him well so I guess these pjs must be on the larger size, but he looks adorable in them!

This morning on the drive into work (I had Mum's car for the day) I was singing Queen songs (Somebody to Love) and heard Joel clapping me and giggling with smiles as he loved the singing!! 

My little one man baby audience!!

Happy Joel

I LOVE cheerios!!!!! 

Water play in Granny's garden down in Devon

Lurgy Strikes Again

I don't know what it is at the moment.  Well, I do, but I can't do much about it.

Working full time is making me feel like poop.

I'm tired, run down, washed out, fed up, (and many more negative things).

I've not blogged for ages.  I'm too tired and don't feel that I have anything interesting to say.  Life is going by so quickly and I'm missing it due to this lurgified stupor I've been in for weeks.

Well over a week ago I got a sore throat, then a runny nose, then a full blown congested head cold (which fell on the bank holiday Tuesday) and has left me feeling low and blue and bleurgh since then.

I had the three days last week off as sick leave.  It's really busy at the moment so last week was a better time to try and get better which hasn't happened so I'm sat at work feeling pressure in my ears, blowing my nose, and just feeling miserable.  There have been tears as well.  I'm not doing my job well, I'm too tired at home, I'm just feeling rather unhappy at the moment.

I'm getting ready to apply again for job share.  I feel that I'll be cross if it's upheld this year as the reasons they cited to reject me last time are the same this year and I'll feel that a year of my life has been subject to misery because of it.  I'll also be cross if it's rejected again as I don't believe their reasons for turning me down are valid.  So I'm going to be cross either way but if I get what I want in the long run it'll be worth it.

So that's my moany post for the week.  My next musings will be about Joel and his attempt to walk.  Which haven't happened yet!!

Jubilee!!!

We love a bank holiday we do!

And in this house, we are fans of the royal family, thus a jubilee bank holiday is right up our street!!

We don't have too many plans.  Saturday we met up with my cousins to see our Great Aunt (and their great great aunt!!) then went to Trentham Gardens for lunch and took them to see the monkeys.

Here's some pics of Joel who loved waving the little flag around after having a browse of the menu first!:

Today being Sunday we'll be heading to Church.  Both Steve and I are playing in the worship group.  There was meant to be a Churches Together picnic in the town after the services BUT the weather is a bit of a wash out.  So if it picks up we'll probably go along there, but could stay at Church if not.  We'll see!

Tomorrow my parents street is having a street party!  A proper one, so they've said we could go there and I would love for Joel to attend a proper street party in his lifetime.  I'm sure I went to one when I was in a buggy so around 1980ish.  Maybe it was Charles and Diana's wedding or something?

And on Tuesday, we're off to Wales for Theo and Isaacs Jubilee/sports day themed fourth birthday party!

We'll all be dressing up in appropriate colours too!  It's lovely to see all the houses with flags and bunting out, and the town looks so festive as well!   It'd be nice to keep it up permanently!

I popped into town at the end of the day yesterday to see whether I could grab some bunting from the pound shop as that was the only place I'd seen any, but it was all sold out.  You could get union jack flip flops but not flags!

When I headed back into the town centre, there were little stalls shutting down, so I went over, and said I'd offer to pay for their bunting if they didn't need it!  The folks I spoke to were actually hosting a borough council stall, said they didn't know what would happen to their bunting anyway, and gave it to me for nothing!  And a giant union jack flag, and some red, white and blue balloons!  I was very chuffed, and brought it all home and hung the bunting up outside.  (I used a ladder and it was a bit wobbly and fell over, but I managed to leap to safety and landed in my magnolia bush!!)

The flag is also hanging out of Joel's window.  I shall have to see whether it's all still there after the breezy night we had!

Jubliee everyone!!

Nostalgia

Do you remember before paddling pools, babies got put in washing up bowls on hot days?!

The tradition lives on.

This was last week in the hot spell by the way!  We've not had better weather than the rest of the UK this week!  It's been grey and bleak so this is to remind us of what's possible!!

Stressful Nightmare of an Afternoon

Today began with me feeling a bit itchy and tickly at the back of my throat.  My throat felt a bit sore and I just presumed it was hayfever, so took an anti-histimine (as I used to do regulalry before Joel) and thought nothing more of it.

Come midday, I was tired.  So tired I couldn't keep my eyes open.  I think I may have even dozed off at my desk, waking suddenly when my head fell down.

So, I used 1/2 a days precious annual leave (leaving me only one further 1/2 day) to go home and have a sleep as I wasn't functioning normally at all!

I fell into a deep sleep, with a crazy dream where I was watching the olympic flame go by, but caught the eye of Lord Seb Coe (who looked like Hugh Jackman) and we had a passionate kiss that made the front pages of the tabloids the next day, wondering who the mystery woman snogging Lord Coe was!!  Most peculiar indeed.

Anyway, I was rudely awakened at 5pm by my alarm (thank goodness I had the presence of mind to set it) and I hurled myself out of the house and heard the door slam behind me, at which moment I realised I'd not picked up my keys.

I decided the first thing to do was collect Joel, as it was nearing the end of the nursery day and I didn't want to be fined, nor leave Joel there till last!

So having taken Izzy with me for the walk, and come back with Joel, we went to try the back door.  Soemtimes we leave it unlocked, with a key in the lock but today it was properly locked with the key hanging out of sight.  I guess that was good if burgulars decided to come calling, but for me today it was the last straw. 

Being locked out of your own home, with a baby is horribly stressful.

I decided to leave Izzy in the garden, and opened the shed for her, put a blanket down and hoped that she would be ok, not bark and annoy the neighbours, and not jump the fences to find us.

I took Joel in his pushchair and we went to Asda for supplies.  I got a small pack of nappies, a pack of wipes, some bananas, strawberries (he likes fruit in a morning), clean knickers for me, and some ready done milk bottles for Joel, and some straws for him to drink it with!  We then walked along to the Travel Lodge nearest us and I rang Mum and Dad to check that they'd not put a key safe in their garden (which was their plan as Dad kept locking himself out) but they hadn't and Joel began to cry as he was hungry (again) and I was crying because I was stressed, and Mum was stressed in Wales and Dad kept asking whether I could find a small child to put through the open bathroom window who could find the keys!!!  I ended up snapping at Dad that I didn't know any small children, and if I did I wouldn't want to put them through a window, and saying I'd call them back once me and Joel were settled with food.

I was in a right state by this point, Joel was howling, and I kept popping strawberries in his mouth to keep him going, and we got to Pizza Hut and I must have looked such a mess, he was crying, I was crying, I'd got him out of the buggy and was struggling with nappies, baby and bags, and the staff were lovely.  They sat me down, got a high chair, brought Joel a bowl of spaghetti bolognese straight away, and a tap water in a cup with a lid and straw.  We shared a salad bowl so he had something to nibble as well, and we were able to sort ourselves out!!

We then had a call from Mum to say a couple from Church said we could go there to wait for Steve and they live just next to Pizza Hut, so that was good.  Steve's friend Joe, went to check on Izzy and rang me to say she was find and seemed happy enough in the garden so that was a relief.

And once we were at the couple's house, we had chocolate biscuits and cups of tea, watched a film and then Steve got back earlier for 11.15 which was good.

I'm going to get more spare keys cut.  This situation can never happen again!  It's just too awful!!  :)