By The Wayside

I seem to have forgotten my knitting this past couple of weeks. I've been so busy trying to keep the house tidy and keeping the kittens alive, who are now 3 weeks old as of today that I my knitting duties have fallen by the wayside.

I have tonnes of patterns and free websites bookmarked on my browser so I suppose I should just get on with it. I have wool and needles, not necessary the size I need but I have enough to keep me going so I should just get going right? What's been putting me off? Knitting should be the perfect excuse for me to sit around on my butt all day and click click away but I don't so what do I do instead... I actually have no idea - brain is mushed as you know.

My mum is busy knitting away for me, which is incredibly insane since she has fibromyalgia (apparently spelt right) so her body tells her when she has done too much, which is probably a quarter of the way through the day and if my mum gets further than quarter of the way through the day then the next day she is paying for it by aching all over. My mum told me she was doing 8 lines at a time on our baby blanket. 8 lines. And that blanket is huge, delicate and beautiful. So I really have no excuse to get my butt going on the hooded cardigan pattern my mum sent me. I have a pile of gorgeous things my mum has made and so far I've made baby a cardigan, with no buttons... I really should get some buttons. Hat that needs its bow, booties and mitts to match.

By the way, the house isn't even tidy so this isn't an excuse I can even use anymore. I was trying to clean up using some good old FlyLady techniques - if you haven't heard of them look them up. But then I got ill and achy and had a knot in my back for DAYS! That no matter what I did I couldn't get rid of and for some reason I hate cleaning up whilst other people are in the house I don't know why. Maybe it annoys me that they're sat down chilling out whilst I am cleaning - I don't know. But the house is back to square one again... a mess. I need some kind of structure but it just keeps going out the window. Hopefully my sister, Emily, and her baby daughter are moving out tomorrow so I can do a major clean and feel all fresh and new for a day, because the day after I am guaranteed to feel like a mess.

Pregnancy insomnia apparently...

So that's when I can sit and do my knitting, as well as carry on with the challenge of looking after a 3 week old kitten who now needs to be fed every 3 hours. Yep every 3 hours. Even at night. it's a good job I don't really sleep isn't it? Feels good to get that out.

Surrogate Kitty Mummy

It's not easy you know. I didn't think it would be. But it has definitely been rewarding.

I woke up every two and half hours last night to feed Little Grey - the name I've given the runt of our litter. Being the only girl in a family of six she needed immediate care, love and attention. This included being fed every 2 hours (but I changed it to two and half for my sanity) and given eye drops twice a day along with two of her brothers who have contracted conjunctivitis - common in young kittens.

At first I didn't think I was getting anywhere, LG kept pulling away and meowling. Her claws, not fully developed yet and therefore non-retractable, kept sticking into my clothing making it harder for me to feed her. The nozzle on the feeder was too small and I kept panicking that I wasn't going to be able to feed her and she had to be fed, by me. I am lucky Millie is such a trusting cat otherwise this task would have been impossible! During the night she didn't want to feed much and I felt getting up was a pointless task as I was becoming more and more frustratingly tired at trying to make her eat. I'd tell LG calmly, "You need to eat, this is good for you". Then when Millie came upstairs to feed her brood I would have to literally wrestle the 5 boys she has away from the teet that LG was feeding on so she could get anti-bodies from her mummy.

I weighed all the babies this morning and I knew LG was visibly smaller than the others but she is roughly 9oz smaller than the biggest kitten which may not seem like a lot but with it being life and death here it is vital she puts on weight to become as big as her brothers - the meanies. I wouldn't say that I have become obsessed with weighing her but I wanted to keep track of all the weight she put on or, heavens forbid, lost. But this evening I had a little smile on my face when I noticed that LG had put on 0.2oz and was now in the 5oz category and her beautiful little eyes are shining up at me.

"We're not going to give up on you little one" I told her as Millie got into the bed I've made for them and started washing her. I am hoping it's just first time young mum syndrome for Millie that has pushed her to want to look after this beautiful yet incredibly small kitten. LG is the runt and by far the smallest and weakest of them all most cats would have given up on the runt by now but not Millie who purrs lots every time she has her babies near her. I wonder if Millie knows that LG is the only girl and that's why she isn't going to give up on her. I'm not sure but I am glad of it. Millie is a brilliant mummy. I just had to step in a little and give her a hand.

So, fingers crossed that this two and half hour feeding will soon turn into 3 and 4 hours and LG will be feeding more at longer intervals so will catch up to her brothers and make them see who is boss. You can't keep a woman down and she is a fighter.

Another thing about bottle feeding LG is that her mummy, Millie, thinks the milk is for her too so I've had to pull her off the milk a couple of times as she is trying to lick LG's face off because of all the milk. But I guess that helps with the eye problem which is quickly getting better. It's nice to see all the kittens with their beautiful eyes open.

Date Night Double

Last night Adam and I were bored of staying in the house all the time. We just wanted to get out and spoil ourselves a little. Live the high life and forget all of our worries and troubles and just enjoy an evening together so we decided to go to the Cinema. But because the film wasn't going to be on until quite late (about 9ish) we decided we should go for dinner together first and because the Cinema we were going to is surrounded by restaurants - for obvious reasons - we went to dinner at Fayre and Square. 

I love the meals there because they are really scrummy. We decided for a starter to get this nacho and wedge sharer; it was amazing. The nachos were really salt and peppery BUT it worked well with the sour cream and salsa which I lurve. Then I had scampi, because it was definitely cooked with these really nicely fried chips - they tasted divine. I even had mushy peas! What type of cool restaurant asks if you want a 'fish' meal with peas, mushy peas or beans - Fayre and Square that is who! I can't even remember what Adam had because I was so engrossed in my delicious scampi. I don't have it often especially whilst being pregnant BUT it does the trick. Hits the nail on the spot. 

Then we went to see 'Side Effects' which was a really good film. Catherine Zeta Jones popped up again. She's been in about 3/4 films that I've seen recently. Maybe she was taking a break out and then decided to go on the books again so her agent has had her whipped up at every chance anyone can get. I won't explain the film because I'll explain it tomorrow with the other film we decided to watch today. The woman who is in the film called 'Girl with a Dragon Tattoo' looks SO different in this film I hardly recognised her and Channing Tatum was in it too. He seems to have really stepped up his mark from the sweet romcom films I first saw him in, like Step Up and Dear John. In this film he seems like 'a real man' and I mean that in the greatest sense of the word. My husband has always liked Channing Tatum for his acting of course, but I've more or less liked him just because well, he is nice to look at. But, in this film, he really did it for me in an acting sense. I enjoyed his performance and actually focused on the way he was acting rather than just staring at his face. Oh it happens... and I'm not the only one. You know it. 

So, after our little splurge out last night we didn't really need to go out today for date night but this really funny film has just come out called 'The Croods'. I knew straight away it was Emma Stone as voice over, and it's nice to see another come back as well - Nicolas Cage. His voice at least was great in this Dreamworks pic, hence why we didn't see him act. It was a really fun family comedy with just mild threats of violence... yeah if you count a massive multi-coloured tiger/cat pouncing on the whole family so it looks like they're going to get eaten. However, they are the most flexible family I have ever seen in my life, especially for ones who are not so lean. Adam loved a character called 'Belt' the most which looked like a cross between those singing and dancing racoon look-a-likes in Madagascar (You know the ones who sing - I like to move it) and a monkey with REALLY long arms. Very cute.

See! How cute!

But more on those tomorrow. For now I am going to relax and enjoy the rest of what is left of my evening. I also have definitely have a cold and my lips don't like me at all. I blame my husband who throughout the whole of this past week has had a split lip. I think I inherited it. 

Feel The Rhythm

Feel the Rhyme.

I think I have a cold coming on. I always know when I have one appearing because I sneeze more in one day than I have in months and my nose is getting really stuffed up. I thought it was just another side effect of me drinking lemonade (besides ikkel heartburn) but it's not. I find myself needing to sleep in the afternoons now, back to trimester one but with a bigger belly. I've also realised that I need to sit in some pretty funny looking positions in order to feel comfortable and baby is still lying sideways so I can't begin to imagine how I am going to have to sit once Ava decides she's heading downwards ready for escape.

I also think I am getting heartburn from drinking water and apparently this is a lot more common than I thought. I mean what exactly is in water for you to get heartburn from it? They tell you - 'they' being the experts - to stay away from fatty foods and things that could give you heartburn like fizzy drinks so I did for a while, but then what happens if you get heartburn from water, you're pretty much stuck. I hadn't had heartburn before I was pregnant and for a while I didn't even realise what it was, the only reason I figured it out is because I took some Rennies and the sensation went away. For some reason Gaviscon does not agree with me at all - in fact I think it just gives me more heartburn; by the way does anyone else think the strawberry Gaviscon tablets are AWFUL? I don't know about any other flavour but those ones stick to your teeth - like you need to be getting your finger in your gob to get it off your teeth when it tastes like rubbish in the first place.

Baby Ava seems to be doing somersaults in the tummy at the moment either that or she is just getting bigger and punching rather anything else. To me she doesn't seem that big at the moment. I think that's because I don't have the mirrors around the house to constantly see how big I am getting. But it does mean that when I do get to see myself in a long full length mirror I am very surprised to see bump and kind of think to myself "oh, bump, hello". I can kind of see myself getting bigger but I don't really see the bigger picture from my line of sight. I am at a point where I can still see my toes so I can't be that big yet; still I do have nearly 12 weeks left.

No sickness at the moment but that doesn't mean I won't get any anymore. I am sure it will be fine. We got our first bought dress for Ava the other day and it is really funky. My sister, Emily, got it for me and Adam, or rather Ava, a nice little dress which is also a baby grow! I think its a new thing that I haven't seen around before but all the same, the grow dress is extremely cute. Emily is starting to give me some of the smaller stuff that doesn't fit Amelia anymore which is awesome. I am just waiting for the moment when I can have this coat...

...Which from the look of Amelia recently will be pretty soon.

All Systems Go

Or half go...

Adam has the week off work so today he started on the baby room whilst I tidied our bedroom and then we went food shopping.

It is hard to imagine what the room will look like once we have all the mess out of it but we will get there eventually. He probably lost about a stone just walking up and down the stairs all morning getting rid of the rubbish in the room which will soon go to the skip. For some reason no matter how many times he swept the floor today that he had cleared it was still really messy but I guess once the floor is clear we can put a carpet down and won't even need to worry about the bits of sawdust underneath. So far Adam is 1/4 of the way through the room, in fact I would probably say about a third which is awesome; and with my sister we found the right colours of paint needed for the baby room and the right border which is extremely cute. We could have gone for wallpaper for the whole room which could have been cheaper than paint but then it wouldn't go with the rest of the house so oh well. We probably won't be decorating the room until May anyway but since I can't paint I guess it won't matter.

I have been trying to get round to cleaning our bedroom for days now and the wardrobe has turned into more of a dumping ground for any type of clothing and bedding but at least it is all clean so I tidied half of that today. I have a friend who I used to go to university with and I went into her room one time and she had all her clothes on her floor and referred to it as her 'walk-on-wardrobe' which is what was starting to happen to our clothes so I needed to do something about it before we start having to carve paths through our mountains of clothes to get to the door. So, I was trying to sort the clothes whilst getting rid of rubbish and getting very tired out in the mean time. I get very tired these days - not even exaggerating, silly fat belly. 

Food shopping went well. We managed to get 7 meals to last us for the week for £32 inc. the toilet roll!! Which last time we forgot. We don't have much else planned for the rest of Adam's week off. Thursday I have to have a whooping cough jab but then not much else is going on really. We don't really have any money to go anywhere but it is nice to have him around the house for more than 3-4 hours a day. We were sat watching TV earlier and I was kind of reading something but talking to myself about it - and yes you do it too, you know you do. And Adam kept asking me what I was saying because he thought I was talking to him but I just said "Don't mind me just talking to myself, not used to having people around the house during the day time so just ignore me" because I was talking about rubbish anyway but still he asked me again what I had said when I mumbled to myself - at least he is polite.

P.S. Sorry about the random white box in the blog, it was supposed to be a picture but I can't see it on my blog draft to actually delete it... so it will have to stay.

Brain Boggled by Blackness

I haven't posted for a couple of days mainly because my brain just hasn't been working properly still. It does this from time to time. I can stare at the computer screen willing words to come from my brain and onto the laptop but nothing comes and then I get distracted and forget I was writing at all. Sometimes it gets too late to post but maybe I should write something small and suave or something.

A few days ago my mum posted on her blog the ingredients for Bread and Butter pudding and I had a craving for it for ages and I told mum I wish I had seen her post before we had gone shopping so I could get some eggs - since that's the only ingredient missing from the recipe... and you can't really do it without eggs. I think Adam's mum must be telepathic because we went over for dinner last night and you'll never guess what we had for dessert... Bread and Butter pudding. It was amazing and just what I wanted.

My sister is also a pregnancy craving life saver too because for weeks I have had a craving for coffee and due to my religion I don't drink it, even if I did usually I still wouldn't now because of the pregnancy. But I could smell it everywhere and desperately wanted to drink it but can't have it. However, in our house when I was younger we used to have a caffeine substitute called Caro. It's a herbal drink but smells a lot like coffee and I think because you usually put sugar and milk with it that it seems like coffee too. I have been looking for it everywhere and you USED to be able to buy it in Asda and other superstores but now you can't so unless I wanted to go through to Sunderland to Holland and Barretts there wasn't any way of getting Caro. So I was amazingly happy when Emily rang to say she was in Holland and Barrett so would I like some Caro, uhm YES PLEASE.

I haven't been sleeping properly recently due to the pregnancy and I am SO surprised that Adam hasn't resigned himself to the sofa by now because of all the moving around in the bed that I do. I just can't seem to get comfortable. I've had a few aches and pains all of which I wanted to get checked out with my midwife today, annoyingly enough she said all of the aches and pains I am having are totally normal and will probably get worse - oh well. She said Adam has to give me more back rubs and I completely agree.


Milo, my not-so-little kitty went for his neutering today and it was SO quiet in the house without him. We got him back this evening with no complications or anything with his operation which is good but it is really hard to keep him away from food bless him. He seems very quiet and laid back for now but hopefully he will perk up and like us a little more tomorrow when he wakes up a bit more. The vets we are with are really awesome and friendly and they told us everything went fine. They even offered us a free check up for Milo at the end of the week even though he doesn't need it, they just said if we wanted to come in for peace of mind then we could which is really nice. If you need to neuter your cat or happen to come across a cat that you want to keep that hasn't been neutered please talk to the Cats Protection agency. They were absolutely awesome with us and gave us vouchers for both cats, tell them where you live and they will recommend the cheapest places nearest to you for neutering your cat. We got Milo done and micro-chipped for £20.04 which is nothing compared to what it could be at some places. I really recommend their help.

Who Do YOU Think You Are?

This is a programme that I love which is currently on TV. Not sure which channel but I know it is there somewhere. It follows celebrities (or some are more film stars, singers etc. so famous people), famous people in their quest to find out who they are and where they are from by using family history sources available to them. These sources could be websites, census forms, parish records and sometimes even books.

There is a UK version and of course the Americans took us up on the good idea and now there is a US version BUT I love this version because it has some really famous people in it like Gwyneth Paltrow and Steve Buscemi, both of which I love and would never be on the British version. They start off with the basic information of their parents and possibly grandparents and then work back from there to as far as something interesting can take them. Sometimes they even go back four or five generations and find out some incredible stories about what happened to their loved ones.

I think this show is a brilliant tool in raising awareness about our family history to people all around the world. For years The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints has always pushed the idea of family history so that our families can be joined together from now until eternity - and how are you supposed to do that if you don't know who they are? So, now with programmes like Who Do You Think You Are? There seems to have been a massive increase in people searching for their family history to know who they are and whey they are from.

I know one or two people that don't really care about their family history and that don't want to know more about how came before them and that's fine but sometimes curiosity just gets the better of us and we want to know more. This is why we have experienced an increase in websites helping people search for their family websites such as familysearch.org and ancestry.com have become vital in helping people connect with other loved ones that they didn't even know existed; another reason I love family history.

Sometimes searching through your family history can bring up little surprises that you didn't expect such as one story I read recently about Kevin Bacon and his wife, Kyra Sedgwick who were looking back through their family history and their DNA when they found out that they were actually cousins (once removed), Kevin Bacon although slightly started by this revelation was put at ease by his wife who said that because they were once removed cousins it didn't matter.

But you just never know what might crop up for you. My mum works on the familysearch.org website and as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ and knows so MUCH about family history. She can search almost anyone and if you're looking for someone she will keep searching until she finds them for you. My mum is brilliant at the family history stuff so if you're looking for someone you should just let her know and I am sure she would help.