The One About Card Making . . .

So I thought it was about time that I shared some of the cards I've been making while I've got ten minutes and Alissia is asleep!  I haven't had much chance to blog since she was born, but I have been trying to keep up with everyone's blogs, I just haven't had a chance to leave any comments lately.  I'm sure that once we're in a better routine I'll have more time to do things!

First up is the card I made M for Valentine's Day.  I actually made it in the middle of January as my due date was the 3 Feb and I had visions of needing to be induced at two weeks late,, so I thought I'd just get prepared!

Next up is the one I've made Mum for Mothers Day.  I've actually had time today whilst Alissia has been asleep to make cards, and this was the one I've been wanting to make for ages.  Whilst I was in hospital M bought me some card making magazines, and I got the idea for this one from a few different cards in the mag, and merged it all together.  My Mum is really keen on making patchwork quilts and things at the moment, which is the theme for the card.

The last two cards are a thank you card for a gift that we were given for Alissia, and a congratulations card for my friend who has had the best news today!

Maybe next time I get a couple of hours I might do some scrapping, I've still got my Christmas Journal to finish before I can make a start on any baby photos!

The One About Ten Alissia Facts . . .

So it's the tenth of the month and I thought I'd share ten facts about Alissia now that she is just over a month old:

1) she has started to smile

2) she likes to fall asleep whilst being cuddled on mine or M's chest

3) she squeaks whilst she drinks her milk

4) she would rather look at the images on TV than focus on the toys in front of her when we play on the floor mat

5) when on her tummy on the mat she can move her head from one side to the other and back again

6) again on her mat, if you hold your hand in front of her feet she can push really hard, and push herself higher up the mat - she's going to be crawling early I think!  Those little legs are very strong!

7) she makes little grunting noises in her sleep, which is cute in the day, but can be loud enough to wake you in the night!

8) she is still only sleeping for 3 hour stretches at a time, although last Thursday we got 5 hours through the night and were really impressed

9) she falls to sleep if you take her in the car or walk her in the pram

10) she will wee everywhere just after you've finished changing her, but just before you put the clean nappy on, resulting in a whole new set of clothes being put on. (Oh and we've had several instances of projectile pooing but I won't say any more than that!)

The One About the Hairdressers . . .

One of my Christmas pressies from M was a voucher to go and get my hair done in one of the local salons. Normally I would get my hair done in the salon close to my mum's where I've been since I was about 18, but which is a good 45minutes drive away from here.  M's thinking was that once I'd had the baby I would want to get my hair done, but not want to leave baby for long, so this was the perfect present really.  I'd not been to the salon before but I booked my appointment on for this morning, before the voucher could run out.

I got there to find it was run by just one lady, and my appointment was after she had spray tanned the girl before me.  While I waited for my turn, I heard this strange noise that sounded like a bird, but just thought it was the salon owners mobile phone with a strange text alert sound.  But then I heard other noises that could only be coming from an animal that could copy sounds they'd heard off the tv, or from people.

The salon seemed to be split into three areas, with the first area being where you have your hair cut, and where you wait, the second room you go through to is where you have your hair cut, and the last room looked like it was a private area, as there were curtains half blocking the view.  I imagined the bird sounds were coming from the very back room.

Imagine my surprise to find that when I was taken through to have my hair washed that there was a parrot in the second room!  And not only that, it wasn't in a cage, it was free to do what it wanted.  The hairdresser said to me when I went in that 'it shouldn't fly about' and luckily it didn't.  But it did go to the toilet, and all I could think of was what if it had been flying about whilst it did that and it landed in my hair! Needless to say I will not be going back there again!

It was a parrot very similar to this one!

I'm not so sure about the cut either, and she'd cut some of the layers quite short before I could stop her.  So I'm having to clip bits back, and I'm hoping once I've washed it myself that I'll feel a bit better about it.

This is my new hair do, and I couldn't resist having Alissia in the photo too!

This story was brought to you as part of Sian's Storytelling Sunday, so make sure you pop over to her blog to read all the other fab stories this month!

ETA: I've since washed my hair and dried it how I normally would, and like it far better now, so all's well again :)

The One About Alissia's First Meetings with People . . .

This month I've decided that my 10 on the tenth (organised by the fabulous Shimelle) is going to be related to Alissia, and the first 10 people that she has met.

First up are myself and Mark...

Then came my mum, or as she will be known - Nanny Ann...

Auntie C and Uncle T...

Her Grandma...

Her Grandaddy...

Her Auntie C and Uncle P... sadly no photos yet, but I'm sure this will be rectified soon

And finally my friends Cath and Allison

Ooops so there might be 11 people there but I couldn't really miss any of them off now could I?!!!

The One About Sleeping Like Daddy. . .

When Alissia sleeps she does a lot of wriggling, particularly with her hands, and makes all sorts of gestures with them, including playing the violin, and the flute and being a Ninja!  The other day she put her arm around her in the exact way that her Daddy does, and I had to be quick to catch her photo before she moved!

Well in the night M was in the same position whilst I was feeding Alissia, and I took his photo without him knowing!  Just look how similar they are...

The One About Song Lyrics . . .

Last month I completely missed Sian's Storytelling Sunday, so this time I'm getting a story ready that'll automatically post on the right day, especially in the case that Baby decides to make an appearance!

It was the summer of 1994, and the reason I remember that was because it was the year that Wet Wet Wet were at number one forever with 'Love is all around.'  It was the first summer since we'd moved back from France, and we went as a family on holiday to a caravan park that was near to my Grandparents houses in Hertfordshire.  It wasn't terribly warm or sunny, but then it wouldn't be in the UK when we'd been used to the hot French summers.  The caravan park had a swimming pool, shaped like a key of all things - it's funny the things you remember from your childhood!  But apart from that there wasn't anything else to do there.

When you're on holiday in a caravan as a child you have to amuse yourself, and being well travelled on  caravan holidays my brother, sister and I knew what things to bring with us to keep us busy.  On this particular holiday, I was eleven, my sister was 8 and my brother was 5.  One of things we brought with us was our walkmans and tapes (of course this was well before all the technology advances - they all seem rather old fashioned now don't they?)  Well one afternoon I was listening to one of the 'Now' compilations, and sharing the headphones with my brother, when the Janet Jackson song 'whoops now' came on.  I'd listened to the tape on more than one occasion and was able to sing along to most of it.  My brother listened to the song with me and then kept singing it over and over again because it was quite catchy.  Only he changed the lyrics from 'sorry I can't come' to 'sorry about the eagle!' And no matter how many times we told him what the actual words were he wouldn't believe us!

I'd always had this memory in the back of my mind was trying to tell M about it a while ago because he very often makes lyrics up when he sings songs when he hasn't got the music on.  The only thing is I could never remember the song that my brother kept getting mixed up with.  Then about two weeks ago I heard the song on Smooth Radio and it all came back to me, and I literally ran (well of course I didn't run being pregnant and all, but I got up there as fast as I could!) upstairs to write down the song so that I would remember so that I could tell M.

The One About Our New Little Daughter . . .

So after many months of waiting, I would like to introduce our new daughter Alissia Rose.  She was born at 11:40pm Monday 30th January and weighed in at 6lb 8oz.

For anyone not interested, I'm about to describe her journey into this world.  I completely understand people not anting to read this bit, but I want to keep a record for me while it is still fresh ish in my mind.  Please feel completely free to look over the photos only, I won't mind at all!

Her arrival was not quite as how we had imagined as we went in on Saturday night as I was worried about not feeling as much movement as usual, and was kept in over night with high blood pressure instead, as baby was actually fine.  I was put in a ward with four other ladies, three that were expecting and one that had already delivered her little one.  Well 7:20 am on the Sunday morning after not much sleep as I was up and down to the loo like normal, the bed was uncomfortable and the newborn was crying, my waters went!  I think this is due to hearing the baby crying through the night!  I know it's an old wives tale but I don't think my waters would have gone if I'd been at home.  What they don't tell you about your waters is that they don't gush like you see on the movies, they trickle out, and continue to do so!

So then we went from being kept in with high blood pressure, to being kept in as my waters had gone.  So Sunday was spent waiting, and waiting some more.  If nothing had started by Monday morningI was told they would induce me, as there is only so long you can go with no waters before there is a risk of infection.   Then at quarter to midnight on the Sunday I got really bad backache, I asked for some painkillers and was given co-codamol, and thought nothing of it but just tried to get some sleep.  The backache was really quite bad and so I didn't get much sleep and was up and down to the loo a lot which seemed to help, think it must have been the moving about that did it!

Anyway next morning I asked for some more pain relief and was told I couldn't have any!  Just before 10am I was seen by a consultant who told me I was actually 5cm dilated, and I'd got there all by myself through the night, without actually realising I was having labour pains!  So about 45mins later after M arrived we were taken round to the delivery room.  First thing I asked was if I'm in labour please could I now have some proper pain relief?  Luckily I was provided with gas and air and it helped immensely.  It also made me feel quite drunk and I had some very strange conversations with M and the midwife!  I seemed to nod off in between the pains and I think part of the conversations were part carried on from dreams!  At 4pm I was only 6-7am dilated so we had to keep going.  Anyway by quarter past 6 that evening I'd had enough as the pain was so much more intense, and so I asked for an epidural.  As soon as it went in I felt so much calmer, and quite hungry too!  (Especially as I'd not eaten anything all day).  At 7pm another check showed that I was fully dilated, but as baby was still quite high inside me, it was decided we would wait some more to see of she would drop naturally.  At roughly 9pm I started to push.  We had some really mellow music on in the background and the lights were quite dim and because of the epidural I was feeling quite relaxed.  Despite my best efforts at pushing baby was not dropping and the decision was taken to have an emergency c-section.

Up till that point, through the day I had felt quite calm and relaxed (well as calm as you can be with all that pain).  But this was when I got quite scared, and imagined all sorts of things, like being able to feel what was going on while they were delivering her.  And needing an emergency hysterectomy or anything being wrong with Baby.  But Mark was there with me reassuring me, and he saw her being born and was telling me that evertyhing was ok.  I haven't mentioned much about M in this post, but he was calm and so patient and supportive right from the minute I went into hospital, and I couldn't have done any of it without him.  Baby didn't cry straight away when she came out which frightened me, but as soon as she did I felt so reassured.

M went through to the recovery room with Alissia while they finished sorting me out.  Then came the best bit, having those first cuddles with Alissia.  We were in the recovery room for nearly two hours but the time went really quickly.

We got home very late last night, and so I've got three more days worth of news to share, but that can wait!  We've got lots of visitors coming in shifts this afternoon to meet our little lady!