I thought my bit of impromtu sun/apple shelter was pretty nifty. Just a tarpaulin strung between the two apple trees and then guy-roped into shape. Looks kind of serenely aerodynamic. Whatever that means.
Anyway. I put that up on Wednesday and it’s now Sunday and Lola is a month old. But I’ll have to catch up some other time. Now is bed time. Zzz.
Midday on Sunday and Isa and Lola are having a nap on the big bed. Lola slept well last night: from ten-thirty to half-four, then from quarter to six to about nine this morning. Which is great, but Isa’s still pretty tired — had quite a sleep-disrupted few days, and she didn’t nap yesterday: too much exceitement with grandma’s visit 🙂
It’s a bit cooler today, much to our relief. Last night it was 26°C in the bedroom. Perhaps we’ll pop out for a walk this afternoon. Meanwhile, I must get on with tidying the flat a bit and then starting a ragú.
Making use of one of the features of the new parental abode in Watchet (its comparitive proximity to London), Lola’s grandma came up today to meet her for the first time. My Mum (as she also is, by an odd coincidence) hopped on a train at Taunton and got to Paddington 100 minutes later; total journey time about three-and-a-half hours.
We had a fabulous time, sweltering together in various locations in the house and garden. An awful lot (with some emphasis on the awful) has gone on since we we last together at Christmas and it was so good to see her looking well. And just so good to see her. Full stop. What a fab mum.
A great shame that dad couldn’t come up, too; still, luck holding, Lola will get to meet her grandad in a few weeks. Whether he’ll come up in the camper or we go down there, we’re not sure yet. No reason not to go for both…
Isa has decided that Lola looks a lot like her grandma and I must admit that, now she’s said it, I do see a lot of Mum in Lola. Then again, I am a credulous kind of chap with no great eye for these things.
Any road up. I would like to witter on more, but the desire to go to bed is just too strong.
‘Night.
Oh my, it is hot. And has been all week: I’ve been sweltering at the office, my paternity leave sadly over, and Isa and Lola have been sweltering in the garden. At night, we all swelter together in the bedroom, where we sometimes also sleep.
Lola’s not slept well the last couple of nights, this cloying heat presumably not helping there, either.
It was not nice having to go back to work; there’s a nagging wrenching of the heart. Lola tends to be getting less sociable by the evening, but I get some good time with her, bathing, changing, chatting, singing. This morning, around 4am, I managed to stop her crying with a song that I then had to keep up for about an hour as I tried to give Isa a bit of a rest. There’s not a lot I can do to aid the nighttime feeds, being devoid of boobs.
Yesterday, I cut the trunks of all the ivy which is throttling the sycamore tree at the bottom of our garden. Not that I have any great love for the water-guzzling sycamore, which was probably partly responsible for the death of one of our apple trees this year, but the ivy foliage is very thick and stops a significant amount of light from reaching our garden.
I felt very guilty killing the ivy, though. I’ve recently started killing flies and mosquitoes and, occasionally, moths. Which also makes me feel terrible. How dim is that?
Abdoul popped round last night, bringing a couple of lovely dresses for Lola. He looked very well; he’s off tomorrow to a festival in Ipswich to cook Morrocan food (plus one Brazillian dish, apparently) for 300 people. It sounds like things are going well for him since he got back, which is great.
After he left, we bathed Lola and started making some dinner and thinking about making the biscuits and brownies for Elly’s picnic. I’d just put the chicken salad together and Isa had measured out all the ingredients for the brownies when Lola started crying. And crying. Mum had to go and feed her, and was unable to leave her for over an hour. I managed to do the required bit of 5eye work and then make the brownies. Isa eventually escaped the nipple-monster and came to eat and make the choc-chip cookies at around one AM.
That was the start of the worst night so far, with Isa being woken again and again by an insecure Lola. This morning was no better, and our attempts to get ready for the afternoon’s picnic (including baking muffins) were heavily compromised by Lola’s only-a-nipple-will-do unrest. Still, we did eventually get out and make it to the picnic with muffins, biscuits and brownies, which astonished the other guests who assumed simply looking after the newborn would be as much as anyone could do!
Does this mean we’re neglecting you, Lola? 😉
I bought a load of cotton nappies as I was worried about the potential environmental impact of sending so many disposable nappies to landfill. Even though we were using organic, biodegradable nappies, they don’t necessarily get the chance to degrade properly in most landfill sites. I’m sure there’s loads of stuff I do that has an equally large negative effect on the environment and it’s probably a bit hypocritical being so up my arse about nappies (vague pun intended), but it does kind of smack you in the face when you’re dealing with so many each day.
Anyway, it seems you have to be pretty careful with the way you use the non-disposable types to ensure you really are being greener. There’s been a fair bit of research…
cloth nappies, terry nappy, prefolds
 Oh my gosh, nappy rash is *so* red. Poor wee (“wee” is probably multiply operative here) Lola has had it for a couple of days now — just *before* we switched to cotton (non-disposable) nappies. We’ll let her hang out naked for a while when she wakes up; get some air to her bum. And maybe we’ll need to get some sort of zinc cream…
Good thing: Dunns Bakery opens at 7am.
Bad thing: Dunns Bakery doesn’t open at 5:30am.
Hm. Having told Stephanie about Lola’s early sleep-spasms (for which she had a name which now escapes me) and how they’d gone after the first two or three days, they have now made a re-appearance tonight.
I wonder if that’s anything to do with the sacro-cranial session.