Remember how I've had a really stressy, knackering week with Alex being sick? Remember how much I was looking forward to a relaxing, sleep-filled weekend?

Yeah... doesn't really happen when you've got kids.

Was having a nice Friday night - a bit of wine, a bit of Afterlife - had just fed Alex at about 11.30 and managed to put him down awake & was feeling all smug about it and starting to think about bed at midnight when I heard a really loud, repetitive, barking cough from upstairs. 'Poor Alex', I thought, 'that cough's no better'. Only, after 30 seconds or so I realised it wasn't Alex, it was Vi. When I got to her room she was crying & struggling to breathe. a 999 call later, the paramedics arrived, diagnosed Croup and took me and her to the nearest Hospital with a proper A&E - in Ashford, 40 mins drive away. She was able to breathe better by that point but still very uncomfortable. Long & short of it, she was given steroids at half 1 which soon made her feel better but we still needed to wait for one of the handful of Doctors in the packed A&E (BTW - hey, drunks! That's some nice straining of NHS Resources you're doing there! I really like the way your self-inflicted maladies take space and medical attention away from those who are genuinely sick or badly hurt - please, keep that up!) to check her over and sign us out & that didn't happen til nearly 3.30. And after that I needed to call Hubs to sling Alex in the car & drive all the way over and pick us up. Got to bed at 5. I'm not too bad after sleeping til noon and Hubs is surprisingly chipper, but poor Vi is exhausted. Bah.

Anyway, thanks to Albino Cavewoman for sending me this last night. Really cheered me up. 'Warp me to Halifax!'

Flipping knackered at the moment - Alex has snuck back to 2 night feeds now - managed to technically make it just one by waking him for a feed at 10.30 last night, but I still didn't get to sleep til midnight-ish, then had to get up to feed him again at 2.20, got back to sleep at 3-ish then had to take both kids at ten to 7. This is after about 5 hours broken sleep the night before, as well. And it doesn't really stop in the day now with the 2 of them - once Vi's napping and the washing up's done, Alex is awake again for another feed - so no opportunity to nap. Considering this week's only 4 days, it's going on forever! All writing has ceased at present - it's taken me about twice as long as it usually does just to write this!

Reposting the photo meme - need more suggestions to make it worth breaking out the camera!

List up to three (3) things you would like me to take pictures of. Once I've gathered up all the requests, I'll make a post with the pictures I managed to take.

Poor Vi still isn't well. No more sicking so far, and no squits, but a fluctuating temperature, grumpiness and sleepiness, plus she's off food and now off drink as well. Really hope this is short-lived and doesn't pass on to Alex. At the moment we're keeping Alex in a different room to Vi, but it's quite hard when he needs something and she's still very clingy to be there for both of them, seperately.

Plus Vi's such a skinny thing that she always worries me when she gets a tummy bug and loses yet more weight.

*Sigh*

We're currently waking about once every 2 hours with Alex - extra annoyingly, it's not always for food - this kid poos more often than you'd believe, and sometimes wees so much that it escapes his nappy even after two or three hours. If he wakes up dirty or wet he often won't want much milk and so wakes up hungry a couple of hours later again... I'm sure if we didn't keep having all the poo calamities he'd be waking after closer to four hours. Anyway, the long & the short of it is that Hubs & I are both very tired and irritable. Plus I've had a touch of Da Baby Bloos - nowhere near as bad as it was with Vi, but still enough to make me feel even less like my usual self. We still have Nana Help at the moment but after the weekend it'll just be the four of us for a bit, and we'll have to amuse Vi ourselves as well as catering for Captain Poopy. Dreading Hubs going back to work, although that's not for another fortnight yet.

I do keep managing to take small consolations during these Zombie Weeks, though. Firstly, night feeds aren't for *too* long - we should be able to get Alex into a less exhausting 4-hour routine if not this week then hopefully by the time Hubs is back at work, and Vi was giving us around 6 hours straight at night by 6 weeks, I seem to remember. And after that's over we'll never have to do the Newborn Night Feeds crap ever again.

Another consolation is that I am now done with pregnancy for good. I may not be allowed to sleep for more than 2 hours at a time, but at least I can lie on my front again for the first time in about half a year. I'd missed that - I love sleeping on my front.

Also, I'm back to my old dress size! I don't feel beyond heavy whenever I walk any more, and have been out for a few walks by myself while the kids have been napping over the last few days, enjoying my new weight and the re-emergence of my waist. Plus I bought some nice Normal Person Size clothes today - Yellow Top, combats (on sale - woo!) plus 2 New Look TShirts that I can't find on their website, but they're pretty and probably too young for me but shit to it!

I have a son! Alex was born on Friday night after a relatively short & uncomplicated (but still very painful & knackering) labour. I have strained muscles I didn't even know I had (and no, I don't just mean 'down there' - I feel like I've just got back from a marathon Yoga session with Satan himself instructing).

Back home now, but V busy catching up as well as juggling the needs of both kiddies. Shall post more/reply when I get the chance.

Scribbles xxxx

Vi had her first train ride today! She bloody loved it! We had another Playgroup Excursion to this park not far from Dover - it had been rescheduled from a fortnight ago when it had been raining, which was great because it's been a glorious day today. Vi had loads of fun, played with her little friend Henry (chased him around a lot shouting 'Henry, come back!'), kicked balls, climbed on climbing frames, covered me in chocolate icecream while remaining immaculate herself somehow - the lot.

One minor point, I'll have to create a virtual memo to myself that while my pride in many of my friends writing and publishing both online and in paper Gay Erotica is a fun addition to many discussions about literature, mentioning it to a group of mums from a Church Playgroup in the presence of their tots might not be a great idea. There was Tumbleweed Moment, and the conversation moved on. Hopefully they'll forget about that one or attribute the faux-pas to somebody else.

Great toddler conversation from today:

Little Boy to Vi: You're a Bashy-Bashy!
Vi: Not Bashy-Bashy; Vi-Vi. I'm a little girl.
Little Boy: I'm a boy. I've got a winkie!
Vi: I've got a winkie!

Also, while colouring in and waiting for her dinner, Vi picked up the calculator, held it to her ear as t'were a mobile phone and said:

Hello, Nana. (*pause*) Playing. I'm drawing Igglepiggle. (*pause*) Mummy's pretty, Daddy's pretty, Vi-Vi's pretty. (*pause*) OK. Bye-bye.

That kid. Cuter than a kitten full of baby rabbits.

This child will be the bloody death of me. She still has this weird bed-phobia, has been very difficult to get down to sleep at bedtime, up at the crack of dawn, and then refuses point blank to nap despite being visibly knackered for the last few days. After a hissy fit at Playgym, she passed out in her pushchair on the way home today for about 10 mins. I tried to carry her up to bed straight away. She woke up and screamed the house down. that was two hours ago. the proper attempt at nap time started an hour ago and she's still clonking about in her room, talking to her toys and pretending to play the trumpet. But every time I go upstairs she's suddenly, miraculously lying in bed. She keeps asking me to lie with her but I'm not getting into that habit of her needing one of us with her to fall asleep again.

She is a monkey.

may have to give up on naptime yet again in a bit, although she's then absolutely guaranteed to fall asleep in her pushchair this afternoon, only to wake up the moment we're in.

EDIT - everything went quiet just as I was about to submit defeat and get her up. Let her doze for an hour then woke her, causing an HOUR LONG tantrum. *Sigh*

OK, now why the Hell has Vi suddenly decided that she hates her bed? At what was supposed to be nap time today I came upstairs to check on her and found her lying, half asleep, on the floor next to her book box. All attempts to get her back into bed were met with horrified screams. I thought it might just be that she didn't want to nap today, but now that it's bedtime she keeps crying and leaping out as if it's a hot potato. All that's different is that I've changed the sheets, which I do every week.

*Sigh* It's been a long day.

A very 'nice and sunny day', in the words of my daughter. The S-i-L was down for the morning so accompanied us to Playgym and then we had a playdate in the park with my friend who moved away before Christmas, and her twins. These are the ones who call Vi 'Captain Violet'. They are fearless and adorable. We kicked a ball about, the tots gazed in wonder at the fountain (Vi shouting 'Wet! Wet! Drip-drops!' all the time) and then made a bee-line for the bandstand, which they then couldn't be persuaded to leave. Lots of running about in it, kicking the ball around it, clambering up it and carrying things up and down its steps.

Then came an occurrence that I wouldn't have minded if it didn't happen to me or whoever takes Vi to the park pretty much every time we go - the latching on of the Idleness Orphans. Almost every time we play with Vi in the park, we will be quickly joined by somebody else's kid - two of them in this case, one about 4 or 5 and one who was probably about 1 and 1/2 - who, more than wanting to play with Vi, demand attention and care from me while whatever 'grownup' is supposed to have taken them out to the park sits barely within visibility and utterly ignores them. I'm happy for Vi to play with other kids and it's probably flattering that I'm apparently approachable, but I really fucking resent having the children of strangers foisted upon me simply because I take an active interest in playing with Vi when we're out. Plus I think it's incredibly sad for the kids that they have to latch on to any old passer-by for conversation and play. Whenever this happens, the parents never stop doing whatever it is that they're doing instead of paying attention to their kids (in this case, sitting around chatting with their mates) either to play with their children or to strike up the briefest of conversations with me, check I'm not a nutter (which I'm not) or whether I mind nannying their kids (which I do). I'm a complete stranger. I know they can see me, but I can't believe there are people so lazy they'd let their toddler run off and play with someone they don't know from Adam, rather than playing with or engaging the kids themselves.

I just think it's incredibly rude. We had our hands full as it was with three hyper two year olds pegging it around a grubby bandstand, plus we barely get to see these friends and I ended up talking more with the kids of these strangers than I did with my friend or her cutie girls. And it happens with a depressing regularity.

I am not Mary Poppins. Just because I like to play with my kid doesn't mean I want to nanny yours. Lazy Parents Of Britain: GET OFF YOUR ARSES, PUT DOWN THAT COPY OF HEAT AND ENJOY YOUR CHILDREN BEFORE THEY GROW UP AND UTTERLY RESENT YOU! ARGH!!!

Escape to London today was well worth
a, the guilt of leaving the house just as Vi, who had been doing really well all morning, puked up her breakfast
b, possibly the worst Coach journey ever, on a completely packed coach. Picked a sleepy lady to sit next to, which was good, but ended up sitting the other side of the aisle to two massive charvers who spent 2 hours loudly and swearily sort-of chatting each other up as the girl (overweight and dressed head to toe in skintight white clothes so that she looked like the Michelin Man) simultaneously chatted with various people on her mobile - including her boyfriend so that ChavvyMan (who got on board with a can of Special Brew... if you're not pissed by 11am you're obviously not trying hard enough... and twice 'went to the toilet' for 5 minutes, during which time the whole coach mysteriously smelled of fag ash) ended up having a loud, sweary argument with Phone Boyfriend that 'they were only sitting next to each other on the fucking bus, for fuck's sake'. Actually, I was quite glad of Chavvygirl as she stopped Chavvyman from trying to talk to anyone else - apart from taking a few moments to ask the foreign students behind him some random questions and then take the piss out of them for not being able to understand his weird, slurred ramblings while Chavvygirl laughed her arse off. Having sworn that there was nothing going on they then kissed as the coach pulled up and exchanged numbers, Chavvyman leaving her with the immortally romantic line 'Just put me down as "Paul Coach". Now I've got to get off. I've got to get one of them... fucking... things...' He pushed me in the back several times as we were getting off. He was a CHARMER.
c, braving Victoria's alfresco ticket 'office' (aka the worst ticket booth in the world) for five minutes, then discovering that the Viccy line was closed so what should have been a quick hop to St Pauls ended up involving three different tube lines. It was quite fun playing 'how long before somebody offers me a seat', though - and impressively I was offered a seat on every tube I got on on the way there. None on the way back, mind.

But as I say, it was all worth it. I had a lovely escape with Miss C, la Nunn and 'Brickwork' Kahn, who we only invited to look more multicultural but impressively ate with a knife and fork and didn't even try to blow us up once. She did have a bit of a headache since we were eating in the shadow of St Paul's and everybody knows that Cathedrals are built out of Muslim Kryptonite. Jokes were made. Fun was poked. Plans were planned. Some children stared at La Nunn in a Village of the Damned sort of a way. Two old people pressed their noses against the door of the restaurant like tramps in a silent movie until our mockery of them caused them to move on. We saw two brides and compared their tits. I got terribly hot, but that might have been a Preggo thing.

Vi's illness these last few days seems to have turned me into my mother. I fretted and phoned a lot, but was happy to see that she was in a far more cheerful mood by the time I got back. Fingers crossed for her being more back to normal tomorrow.

Right - washing up and laundry to do! Saturday nights are a blast!

*Sigh*

Today has been SUCH a Thursday. Arthur Dent would be proud. And it's not necessarily over despite Vi having gone to bed some time ago. She's already woken up, very upset, with a pooey bum once tonight.

I have done a lot of laundry. I am very tired. Vi has pretty much put herself on nil by mouth since this morning, bar half a piece of pitta and a few slurps of very diluted juice. I can tell that she's thirsty, but I think she's too frightened of throwing up again to drink anything now. I hate it when she's ill so very much - she's usually such a cheerful little girl, it's horrible to see her so miserable.

A few things have made me smile today, though. One was 'OMFG Magazine' (*points to earlier post*) and the other is the preview of the Family Guy TNG episode as posted by Mrs P and little Willy Wheaton, and as seen here. If any TNG fans haven't seen it yet, I advise that you do. It's brilliant. 'I'll have a hamburger. No! A cheeseburger. And a...' 'YOU'LL HAVE NOTHING AND YOU'LL LIKE IT!!!'

Ugh. Was tired and stressed by the time I went to bed anyway last night. The Parade Of Twats at God-Knows-What -Time in the night really didn't help - it was like an unending river of honking, braying, bawling, drunken fucks. Went on for about half an hour, and I slept very oddly after that. Then Violet was sick, at about 6.30 in the morning, so I spent a lot of the early morning cleaning that up. Decided to take her to playgroup for a bit to stop her just moping in front of the telly, but that was, of course, when whatever's upset her tummy went from being vacated from the front end to coming out of the back. Spent the majority of playgroup changing her nappy. She then passed out in the pushchair. She's in bed now, hopefully she'll have a nice, long doze and wake up feeling better. Nothing else we need to do today, thankfully, and I've bought a new desk fan in the hope of the white noise drowning out any more 2am crocodiles of fuckwits.

Oh, and we got rained on, too.

Not a great day, so far.

Due to lots of little jobs that needed to be done last night, plus various interruptions, we only managed to watch Monday's Stewart Lee last night and didn't get round to Charlie Brooker's new show. However, this clip gives me the feeling that it's going to be well worth catching up on.



I'm starting to wonder whether young Charlton might actually be the Second Coming. He's always right. ALWAYS!

Not entirely sure how this is 'news' as such in 2009. This is me. This is so very, very me, and has been me for over 2 years now.

You definitely don't need a penis to work your way around blogging and social networking sites - LJ in particular seems to be almost exclusively female. I don't see how having a blog makes you a 'geek'... I am a massive geek, but not because I have LJ, Facefuck and Twitter accounts.

Being a SAHM can be very, very isolating indeed. I've made some nice friends at my happy-clappy playgroup, but before I found that and there was only the Elitist Sing & Sign and Playgym where you never get chance to talk to anybody, I felt incredibly lonely during the day if I were to factor out my online whiffling. Even with my playgroup chums, I'm very aware that we have not much in common except that we're all parents to toddlers. Online is where I can have a lengthy conversation without mentioning parenthood once, where I can swear and make sexual innuendo as much as I please, where I can be my old, shameless, nerdy self. Whether you're a RL Friend who takes the time to have rambling email/PM conversations with me, or someone I only know online but is happy to blither on about absolutely fuck all while I'm avoiding the washing up and/or Grandpa In My Fucking Pocket, youse kids should know how much I appreciate you keeping me sane.

Ta.

Vi *still* not her old self, 24 hours after getting home. Only wants to eat dry, plain carbs (dry Rice Krispies for brekkie, a plain toasted pitta for lunch) and still very reluctant to drink anything, which is the main worry for me. She *has* had a couple of good drinks today, but still much less than she usually drinks and still goes through long phases of bursting into tears if I even offer her her cup. She's much sleepier than usual, but I don't know whether it's that she's sleepy so she won't eat or drink properly, or that her starving/dehydrating herself is making her drowzy. Poot.

Stressed. Always get very stressed out when Vi's ill, and worrying that this is going to start happening every time we go away. Can't concentrate to write, which is annoying, and I don't want to take her out this afternoon if she's poorly.

Any attempts to cheer poor FretfulMother!Scriblet would be much 'preciated. So far the only thing that's distracted me suitably today has been another of Peter Sarah-fanny-wedge's Twitter Games (today: Tired Actors. Didn't get retweeted, but I was still pleased with my offers of Kevin Achin', Gerard Deparduvet, Ovaltine Newton John and Matt LeBlanket.)

ADDENDUM - She has just wandered in from the front room, grabbed her cup and taken it back in with her. Possible good sign.

Good things today -

It is gloriously sunny and springy today, and the nice lady who runs the playgym let us in for free because we were a bit late and I only had a tenner on me.

I been done won me some Tardos Awards!
( My gongs, let me show u them! )
I other words then, that's 1 win (bizarrely, for one of the shortest, silliest fics I ever wrote) and 6 Runner-ups, which I'm pretty smug about. I'm also happy because a lot of my favourites by other people did well too.

Also, I had another wonderful orgy dream this morning - D&DC this time... obviously predicting the brilliant 'Love Stinks' glorious victory in the Best Adult Fic category. My subconcious gave me a P/E/D sandwich, with Eric in the middle. They were all loving it too, the dirty birds.

Bad things today, however - apart from my friend Bill posting a bunch of photos of me from my comfort-eating-heavy-drinking days at the paper on Faceache book, Hubs is finally back at work today having taken February off to spend some time with us. I'd forgotten how much work this at-home-mummying lark is when there's just one of you! Off to do the washing up in a sec while madam's still napping, then hang up load number two of laundry. *Sigh*

Haven't been posting or replying much recently... not actually due to Twitter this time (although that's still great fun... I think The Spine might be a Witch. That, or he's been in the Industry so long that he knows exactly what kinds of films and performances - and what level of lobbying - will guarantee an Oscar win. Either's equally likely) but due to Prince of Persia. I finally spent the Amazon Vouchers I got for my birthday the other day on the game, even though warrior Within put me off the franchise so soon after I'd fallen head over heels in love with Sands Of Time. Needless to say, I'm really enjoying it. We have a new 'Prince' who, while American accented (I still miss the English accented voice from SoT) is at least back to the cheery, cheeky, wisecracking kid who we lost in WW. Unfortunately, this new guy isn't as agile in battle as the old Prince was (that or I'm playing it wrong, which is quite likely) but you don't actually fight that much. There's lots of running, jumping, climbing and whatnot, which is the stuff that I love. And he has a little Speshul Sparkly UberSue who is bound to die at the end and make him hold her limp body in the rain and shout 'NOOOOO!!!!' - Anyway. I'm having fun. It's very pretty and easy enough for a spoid like me to play.

Have watched Lost S5Ep6 now... thoughts on that later once we're back from Playgym.

Looked at our first Nursery School yesterday - really, really nice, but quite a walk... have to bear in mind that I'll be taking her there, then coming home, then walking there again to bring her home a couple of hours later. Considering I'll have a 2 month old by September, I don't want to be hiking too much.

Anyone else with little kids know the Hairy Maclairey books? Vi loves them! they're her new favourite thing! If I have to read about him chasing all the cats again I might go mad.

Busy Busy Busy... RL has taken over for a bit what with Hubs' month off meaning we get to do lots of fun stuff. Don't really have time to blog, certainly don't have time to write and I've already fallen behind my reading schedule for Tardos. Should really go into town while Vi's napping now, although I've been online getting loads of details about nurseries since one of the mums at Playgym has put the fear into me for getting Vi a PreSchool/Nursery place for later in the year... do they even still have state PreSchools any more? Doesn't look like it from the local government list I've pulled up. Is this another reason I should be fuming at 'the Labour Party' for pretending to be different to the Conservatives and then just prancing around shutting down state education exactly like what The Bastard Tories were trying to do when we kicked the cunts to the kerb? Hmm?

Anyway, all I really wanted to post for was to show off this lovely banner for When One Door Closes.



Some lovely soul in the DDC Fandom has been making them for all the Tardos Nominations. I hope that whoever it is will reveal themselves once the voting has ended and reveal themselves so that I can thank them personally as well as credit them for their beautiful work.

Scribbles Out
xxx

Once upon a time there was a terrestrial TV channel called Channel 4, which bought the syndication rights to an interesting, aesthetically-pleasing weirdy-poo sort-of Sci-Fi show called Lost. It was one of those dramas with an ongoing story arc which relied heavily on unanswered mysteries and cliffhangers - the sort of thing that young Scribbles enjoys. The sort of thing that young Scribbles could easily get hooked on, and hooked she got. But then one day an evil Right Wing tyrant called Rupert Murdoch came and outbid Four for Lost, two series into its six series run. 'Oh well,' said Four, 'we'll just carry on making bollocks reality shows and programmes about moving house, and nobody will notice.'

But Scribbles liked the art of storytelling, and Scribbles preferred to know the resolution of a story she had invested two seasons in, but Scribbles could not, would not get Sky. So Scribbles turned to her old friend the internet. First there was Naughty Pirating, but then the Naughty Pirates turned into Spineless Snitches and started giving out the IPs of their downloaders to big bastard companies, and Scribbles' husband said that they should trust the pirates no more. Then Scribbles discovered that she could purchase Lost from iTunes, which, gleefully, she did.

But then the day came when the first episodes of the new series were up on iTunes, and Scribbles tried to purchase.
'But no,' said iTunes, 'for no reason you cannot buy this unless you have the brand new, shiny version of iTunes.'
'All right then,' said Scribbles, 'please may I have the brand new, shiny version of iTunes?'
'No,' said iTunes, 'for your Mac is now obsolete! Mwah ha ha!!!'
'How can you be obsolete?' asked Scribbles to her Mac. 'You're, what, six years old - seven, max? If you were a person you'd only be at Primary school. How is that obsolete?'
'Ah,' said the Mac, 'but you are forgetting, I was made by Apple, and everything made by Apple, no matter how expensive, is apparently as disposable as a Bic Biro. Did you learn nothing from the saga of the knackered iPod Mini? Too bad, baby. No South Pacific-set wibbley-wobbley-timey-wimey hijinks for you!'
'But Mac,' cried Scribbles, 'I thought you were cool! You were personified by weird-eyed David Mitchell in them adverts, and I like him.'
'No,' replied the Mac with an air of Maclike smugness, 'David Mitchell played the PC. I was personified by Robert Webb - the one you have an irrational dislike of.'
'But how does that work?' Scribbles enquired. 'Surely Apple, the comissioners of the ads, should have been aware that David Mitchell is the one that's actually cooler, and Robert Webb comes across as too self-aware and trying too hard, like a bit of a nob?'
'Look,' replied the Mac, 'it's just an advert, all right? I don't know why we're having this discussion anyway, I'm only a machine. Now, if you don't mind, I'd like to spend the next ten minutes not being able to get any internet connection for no reason until you switch everything off and on again, like I do every evening.'
'Fair enough', Scribbles replied.

In short, I can't get S5 of Lost until Hubs finally gets round to hooking New Mac upstairs up to the intertubes, which will be next week at the earliest, so I'm afraid I'll have to ask for further Radio Silence on the old spoileroonies, oh FList of mine.

This has actually been the least of my woes today, what with a very broken night's sleep coupled with a cold leaving me utterly exhausted, and having to deal with a toddler who not only is still not keen on her new bed but also shares my cold and cut the first of her back molars today ("Grumpy" is not the word for it) and whatnot.

Still, I have done some writing. Unfortunately though, even though I should be working on either the Thrilling Conclusion to the New Adventures or the next installment of Rollercoaster, I have instead been writing the first chapter of the conclusion/sequel to Rollercoaster, which I'm miles and miles away from, plotwise. It's mainly because I've recently decided how I'm going to end it, and how I'm going to fit it around a certain incident at the end of the canon, and the bunnies were gnawing away. Hopefully the first chapter will sate them for now, and it does mean that I now have not one but two future points to work towards, since I started the story off with a future flash to the end of First Contact and have since then been working to wards that - now I have an end point to head for once I'm past old Borgybitch.


What a long entry! Clearly, I needed to vent. Carry on!

So Vi-Vi didn't fall out again, but rather nervously slept squidged up at the wall side of her bed instead. She's still a little anxious about the prospect of sleeping in it, and had a cry when it was nap time today, but she didn't get out and is now fast asleep. She's not in the best of moods today anyway, since she has a streaming cold.

We ordered a bed rail for her to minimise night time tumbles and have realised that we won't need to buy a single duvet since we still have ours from our student days, back when we perfected the art of fitting two slightly overweight adults comfortably into a bed approximately three inches wide, and hiding one of said adults (albeit shoddily) from the cleaner who came in at about half seven every Wednesday. But that's another story. Anyhoo, once we've given my lighter duvet a good wash, we'll be attempting a move away from the sleeping bags. We gave her a pillow for this nap since she likes snuggling into ours whenever she gets into our bed, and she seems to have appreciated it, so that'll stay now, too.

Those of you who are friends with me on Faceachebook might already be aware of my ongoing struggle recently to find maternity wear suitable for my cousin's wedding in March. My main problem with this was that, if pretty much all the major Maternity wear retailers in the country are to be believed, pregnant women only ever want to wear black, charcoal grey, navy blue or a hideous paisley tent. The only dashes of colour I could find were in tops that were far too casual. Absolutely every formal top or dress I saw would have made me look like an obese waitress or a whale at a funeral. However, I eventually found this, which is still mostly grey but is at least a little bit pretty and weddingy. Also bought a pair of smart black trousers, which are never not useful. Wearing them now, and they are without a doubt the comfiest trews I have ever worn. That's one of the few benefits of pregnancy, along with being able to pretend that your Toast Belly is all part of your Bump - the clothes are just. So. Monstrously. Comfortable. Seriously, next time you're in a shop that does maternity clothes, just try some of the trousers on. They're brill.

We are attempting to get Vi to make the transition from cotbed to plain old bed at the moment - ever since we deemed the travelcot to be too small for her to sleep in back in Autumn we've been grounded, and we need to stay at my Mum's in March for my cousin's wedding. Since she's made a couple of attempts to get her ankle up over her cot bars recently, we decided that now's the time. So, she still has the bars on the wall side of her bed and both ends, but her bed is now open on her room side.

She fell out twice in the first five minutes, and I think she might have fallen out a third time a little later on. The matress is very close to the ground and we've put down a doubled-up sleeping bag as floor padding, but she still cries every time she hits the deck. Hubs is upstairs on 'falling/getting out of bed and trying to run around' watch til she nods off tonight and then I'll be doing it tomorrow, but I still feel a bit horrible. I get the feeling that she'll be clonking out of bed a few more times tonight.

Maybe it's time for us to invest in a proper duvet that we can tuck in and keep her inside rather than her grobags... but she still moves about a lot in the night and I'm worried about her getting her head underneath it. Hmm...