I've fallen off the regular blogging wagon again! But here is this week's Dunfermline Press Column with bonus pictures and I promise I will divert some of the pregnant manic energy away from the garden and toddler birthday season and put it into regular writing.

We celebrated Valentine's Day with an Foetal Anomaly scan. My morning sickness has now reduced to the level of just mild nausea if I remember to take my tablets, beforehand the tablets meant that I was only throwing up once a day rather than three or four times a day. I've managed to gain back the ten lbs I lost during my first trimester plus a couple more and I'm at the stage where I have a recognisable baby bump rather than people thinking I must have overdone the Christmas chocolate munching.

Everything is looking good with Wee Green Baby v.2 and the fact that I was worrying about a lack of kicking was explained during the scan by where my placenta is lying. The lack of feeling the movement is because there's a cushion in the way, this baby is as just as much of a kung fu fighter as Sam was in utero, so much so that it took a while to get all the measurements done.

To celebrate the reduction in puking, the healthy baby and Sam's impending big brother status, we decided the following day would be a day trip to somewhere none of us had been before. The Falkirk Wheel is one of those things it seems silly not to have visited because it's so close but it's also too nearby to spring immediately to mind when we're planning outings.

Sam loves any car trip that involves the motorway because of the van and lorry watching opportunities. His vehicle spotting happiness continued to grow when we arrived and found the car park was next to a railway line, the kid loves nothing more than trains! He was also completely delighted by the narrow boats on the canal so maybe he'll avoid his granny's legendary seasickness.

The boy was suitably impressed by the scale models of the water horse sculptures we'd passed on the drive through and obligingly said cheese while his dad and I took photos of him. He also said it for a random passing tourist who happened by with a camera!

The visitor centre is big and bright and airy with lots of accessible information on the history of the Wheel. All a bit advanced for Sam just now, but we'll keep it in mind for when he's a bit older too. We weren't up for a boat trip as we weren't sure our active toddler would appreciate being constrained from jumping out of the boat at will but we went out to have a look at the Wheel and had a bracing walk in the February sunshine to see all the boats. Sam was most interested in the gate mechanism for the lock.

He only got interested in the Wheel itself when we stopped in the café for a snack. The cafe has a wide selection of tasty food with plenty of healthy options for children as well as a recycling station for your trays but it's main attraction is the big glass ceiling. Sam was thrilled to be able to watch the Wheel turn as he ate his snack and when he saw the boats being lifted he renamed the attraction as the Falkirk Wheeeeeee!

I mentioned a failed attempt at a bed change in my last post. After a few days to think it over and get over the self-inflicted sleep deprivation, I thought I'd put the experience down in writing so I don't repeat the mistake when little Ketone Carmichael arrives (awesome bump name courtesy of Maree!).

Sam has been developing an interest in climbing into his cot for the past month or so. He's also been channelling his toddler gymnastics skills into an effort at exiting his cot by standing on his head and putting his feet over the bars. It's all very impressive but also slightly worrying. We did some reading up on transitions to a bed and decided to give it a go while Euan was off so that a few broken nights wouldn't impact on his work.

As a sidebar to this story, I should let you know that through no particular parenting genius, Sam turned into a great sleeper when he was about 8 months old and a dependable napper around 9 months. All this beautiful sleep is responsible for me getting back some of my sanity - and on the odd occasion he has an unsettled night, I depend heavily on Euan's level head and good nature, I roll over and let daddy take over (I think the nine months of nighttime feeds balances it out!).

Going back to the big bed experience, we based most of our research on Dr Laura Markham's advice and I also referred back to The No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley as she was one of the only sleep experts who's book didn't make me feel like I was failing as a parent back in the days when Sam would only nap on me!

We introduced a pillow to the cot about a fortnight before the big change to try and encourage our wriggley worm to sleep at one end of the bed rather than all over it or wedged in a corner with his legs propped up on the side. He loved it straight away and along with the fact that he had started wanting his bed time stories while sitting in the cot, we thought we were at right stage to make the change.

We made the change on the first night of Euan's second week off and it looked promising when Sam immediately jumped into bed, pulled up the covers and picked up a book. Unfortunately it was only 4.30pm and we had to have dinner and bath so we enticed him back downstairs. What followed was a fairly wild night, Sam was enthusiastic at first but when it came to the end of his usual three stories, he just jumped out of bed and started protesting wildly. He used the new found freedom  to bang the wardrobe doors and got totally incensed when we tied them shut.

He eventually went to sleep when we got his sleeping bag out and took turns reading many many more books, but the next night was a repeat of the showdown with an extra special three hour dance party at one o'clock in the morning which put us all completely on edge. Nap times were extreme too, normally Sam settles himself after a ten minute chat with his teddies, but in the bed it took both of us tag teaming to settle him and it took an hour. 

As usual, when you're in the situation, it gets harder to be objective, so I felt that I absolutely had to get Sam into a bed. But thankfully, on the third day as my sense of humour was failing completely, my mum braved the lion's den to poke me with a figurative stick and remind me that I didn't sleep in a bed until I was three (she also embarrassingly pointed out that they had to physically hide the cot because I would just climb back into it when they left me in the bed!). She also reminded me that there is no crazy childrearing law that says you can't have two cots in one house.

So I took a deep breath and penitently asked my long suffering husband to build the cot bed back up. The look of relief on Sam's face when he saw it spoke volumes and with the benefit of getting a full night of sleep, we realised that by the time the baby needs something bigger than his dad's old rocking crib to sleep in, Sam may well be ready to make the change anyway. Worryingly, I then remembered that until he was about four months old, Sam did the majority of his sleeping on me. Time to start searching for a very good wrap or sling, so I can have my hands free occasionally this summer!

Christmas

In my teens it's fair to say that I could be a bit haphazard when it came to being organised, there were many many times when my parents had to ask, “Why are you just telling me this now?” or “how close to the last minute are you planning on leaving this to?”. University meant taking responsibility for my own education and everything else, so I gradually improved and by the time I graduated, a good background in retail administration (thank you part time jobs!) meant that I had a methodical mind. I kept on top of things and planned in advance.

And then, I had a baby and despite running a fledgling business, my brain absolutely refuses to re-engage. I put reminders for everything in my phone and even then often forget. I make plans and then realise I won't have the time to put them in action. Even things that mean a lot to me, like getting back my baking mojo and updating my shiny new website fall by the wayside as I try to keep up with everything else that's going on around me. The value of doing things to help retain an identity apart from being “mum”, is a topic for another day though, what I'm meandering towards saying just now is: I'm completely unprepared for Christmas!

Neither Euan nor I are religious, neither of us was christened but both of us had a good religious education above and beyond what's supplied in state schools. Euan got his in his time in the Boy's Brigade and I got mine courtesy of four years in a Church of England Primary School when we lived deep in the heart of Somerset (this is also where I learned that cider is pronounced soy-der, horses are hoarses and forks are fourks – travelling really broadens your horizons), so Christmas has a lot of meaning to both of us. While we aren't believers, we can get behind people celebrating their faith and we both love the emphasis that Christmas puts on family gatherings. I also love the mingling of religion and pagan tradition, the idea of bringing evergreen plants into the house on the shortest day of the year to remind yourself that spring will come again. I don't know where twinkly lights and tinsel fit in that picture, but I love them too.

However, there still isn't a tree up in our house. The decorations are ready to go, we have tinsel and sparkly lights aplenty, but I didn't read the order form right when I bought our tree from the Bethany Christian Trust so it's not coming until the 13th of December. Ah well, it'll still be up three weeks and as it's my first real tree, I'm sure that will be plenty of time for me to get accustomed to sweeping up pine needles! I plan to try and always get our tree from a charity, the profits from this one will got towards helping homeless people off the streets. As Sam gets bigger, I hope this will be a way of reminding him of the importance of helping those less fortunate than us at a very hard time of year.

Now that I've been in the mummy business a while, I'm starting to realise why my mum and her friends all write essays in their Christmas cards. Not only do you get to spread a bit of festive cheer, you also get to find out what the wee folk in everyone's lives have been up to. But I still haven't put pen to paper for a single card. I'm not so worried about this though, as courtesy of our wedding, I have a proper address box and courtesy of our favourite photographer, we have some stonking festive photos of Sam this year. I'm eagerly awaiting the cards we've made up to arrive with Sam in a mini sleigh on the front and Sam's Chritmas nappy covered bum waving in the air on the back featured at the top of this blog.

You'll notice a marked difference in quality in the photos on this website. Let me be clear, the awful ones are ones that I snap on my phone because I can never remember where the camera is. The good ones will be taken either by Caroline, my guru from Tea is the Answer, Sam's Uncle Lewis, my dad or Ruth. Ruth was our wedding photographer and we love her work so much that she was also Sam's first birthday photographer and is our go to person for chronicling big events in our family. She's also been incredibly supportive of my nappy library efforts and I can't thank her enough. She knows how to capture big moments and special little moments and she's so good at engaging with children. Don't take my word for it, click her name above to have a look at her portfolio .

Back to how disorganised I am, my mum has a veritable Santa's grotto of presents ready to be wrapped in her spare room already. I on the other hand, have lots and lots of eco-friendly wrapping supplies and barely any presents. Sam is sorted but I'm scratching my head for everyone elses. Euan and I have a great plan to get people things to do rather than things this year to avoid adding to clutter but so far we're struggling to decide what those things to do should be.

Last year, I barely planned Christmas at all, I was far too busy worrying about centre pieces, bridesmaid dresses and how embarrassing my dad's father of the bride speech would be. And do you know what? Christmas went perfectly. Everyone gathered at our house for breakfast rolls (my culinary skills are best suited to bacon, tea and coffee on the side) and everyone was far too busy watching Sam admire the wrapping paper to really notice what we'd bought them. So from that example, I'm just going to let go of all of the stress and roll with it this year. The people I love know me well enough by now to not be in the least surprised by a Christmas card arriving in February! Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Happy New Year, I hope you get to really enjoy your families this year.

I'm a big fan of Sam getting plenty of free play, time for him to go at his own pace and have fun in his own way. At home this usually involves toy cars getting moved into specific formation and highly intricate scribbles on his magnetic drawing board before he's ready to pull out a few books and summon me to read with him.

When it's not completely freezing we layer up and don waterproofs and head into the garden because his other go-to activity is picking up leaves and arranging them in his sand and water table (I bought it on sale in September and the shop assistant sniggered and said we wouldn't get to use it until Spring, I just smiled politely and explained my toddler doesn't melt in rainwater!).

Sam loves mess and I love the expression on his face when he's making it. I don't however, love the tidying up afterwards so I was delighted to start Doodle&Splat this term. It's not an overly structured session although there is a small project each week involving paint, glitter and glue etc and there are messy play opportunities galore. Also, no-one seems to mind when Sam decides he'd rather run laps around the room and eat his snack on the move like he did today!

I’ve now been a mummy for longer than I was pregnant. This occurred to me as I simultaneously refereed Sam vs Weetabix and packed his changing bag with nappies, wipes, spare clothes, bibs, snacks, toys, teething gel…on reflection, that list may have a lot to do with the fact that my back is killing me. I rarely need everything I carry for him but I like to have it just in case, I can guarantee the day I forgo the spare outfit is the day that Sam annihilates what he’s wearing!

My hospital bag for having Sam was packed on the same basis - I probably won’t need it unless I don’t pack it. There are lots of helpful websites that will suggest what to take, but don’t feel obliged to follow them to the letter. Some of them are based on healthcare providers elsewhere in the world and some of them are written by people who are even more excessive than me at packing bags! The best advice I can give is to make two lists, one for you and one for the baby. And if you’ve already packed spares, don’t pack more spares!! If you’re really struggling for something, they’ll probably be able to lend you it at the hospital and if not, there’s a big supermarket five minutes away, birth partners and new grandparents make excellent errand boys!

One thing I did have with me was a TENS machine which relieves pain by sending electrical pulses to your lower back via sticky pads. I didn’t use it in hospital as I was past the stage where it would have helped but it was amazing in the week leading to the birth as it helped with niggling back pains without me needing to take any painkillers. I’ve mentioned before that I had a relatively easy birth, my waters broke at half past one in the morning and I had a beautiful baby nine hours later.

I have a theory that I might have been in labour for a full day beforehand though. I put the severe lower back pain down to an unstable pelvis and went for a brisk walk to my parents’ house, got my sister to paint my toenails (they were a great comfort when I was staring down at them during contractions!) and then went for a massive cheeseburger when Euan got home. On reflection, I’m glad that I carried on as normal instead of worrying over every little twinge but I still like to tell people that having a midwife as a mother meant I was too afraid to say anything until I was very sure!

While you write your packing list, have a look at your options for pain relief. I was fairly keen to try without diamorphine, I wrote that in my birth plan and let Euan know too. It’s a good idea to let your birth partner know what you want as they tend to be the ones talking to the midwife or doctor while you’re concentrating on not letting loose with every swear word you’ve ever heard. My aversion to diamorphine lasted all of three seconds when I was offered it as I was panicked by the sudden change in intensity of contractions as I moved into the pushing a baby out phase of labour! And poor Euan got shouted at for helpfully letting the midwife know that I had planned not to use it.

Coming back to the swear words, I surprised myself by not using any (out loud) I just kept saying sorry because I thought I’d said them. But feel free, it’s one of the only times where you can express yourself any way you want. Best piece of advice I got at time though, all the power you put into screaming is wasted in your throat…send it all down the way instead!