Tuesday

Okay, have managed to wind Z and he's now on his mat quite happily looking at and listening to the rain stick. We had a good night last night - successfully got him up to bed at about 7 and he stayed there! Brilliant. Now to see if we can make it two nights...

Off to another of my work offices today to see some friends and then ? this afternoon. Went to the mother and baby group yesterday and made a real hash of cleaning some cheesy sick off Z's face (in that I smeared it all over his face...) but otherwise had a lovely time again. Off to Yarmouth tomorrow for one of Mum's coffee mornings, Dad's coming on Thursday and then a day off (!) on Friday. No wonder the days are going so quickly!


see more crazy cat pics

Sleepless nights

Had a fairly sleepless night last night, but no, it was not due to Z! We went to bed about 10ish - Z was zonked out and had been from about 8, so I though I'd at least get a good hour, hour and a half before he woke again...but it was not to be. A heady combination of a slight tummy ache (which I attribute to the beef fajita sausages we had for dinner - they repeated on me to such an extent that when L returned to the room he noticed it smelt of sausages!), a conversation I needed to have with work today and all the house stuff going round in my mind meant I was still awake when Z woke for feeding at half midnight and even then I couldn't get to sleep! Bah.

But still, took some good photos of Z smiling yesterday evening - he's such a cutey. Sadly the fingernails are growing at a pace now and his face is bearing some of the battle scars - we have resorted to scratch mits. They make him look like a mime artist!

Only 919 to go!

I've read 82 definitely - there are 2 I haven't included in this number as I couldn't remember if I had actually read them or not...feel fairly sure I have, but that's probably a damning indictment of how interesting I found them! I have also inclued one I listened to on audio book (so that may be cheating a bit as I haven't actually 'read' it. I've got 4 in my 'to read' pile of books, and 1 (Don Quixote) I'm struggling through at the same time as trying to read other things! Really glad to see an Agatha in the list (The Murder of Roger Ackroyd). I've also read abridgements of a few others and seen adaptations of another good number, but have yet to read the original and full versions.

If I average 18 books a year I can get the rest read before I die. Bonus.

Posts after posts!

Sorry for the splurge of posts today - had a few things to catch up on. So what else has been happening?

Monday - put offer in on the house we like in Long Eaton; complained to the estate agent about yesterday's debacle and was told the chap had gone to the wrong house - his appointment was on another road nearby!; my cousin's wife (cousin-in-law??) came to visit and Z was a bit of a pain! Sicked up on her and then spent a lot of the visit crying - wind. She brought us another load of baby clothes she had when her son was little, and a rain stick and soft book. The rain stick is great - seems to be Z's favourite noise-maker now (apart from buzzy bee of course). Went to the mothers and babies group in the afternoon. *Got just about ready to leave when Z wanted to be fed again. Then needed burping, which also involved a fairly hefty sickup on my shoulder and his front. Sadly I had neglected that well-worn adage - don't wear dark coloured tops when burping your child - and had to change.* But once we got there Z was amazing! A little crying to start with which seemed to resolve itself when he sicked up on the playmat there...but after that he was awake, alert and happy to play for the entire hour we were there. He didn't even complain (well, not much) when we did feet prints. Will definitely go again, but I need to brush up on my children's rhymes and songs!

Tuesday - Town in the morning. See ** above. Repeat. Weather was beautiful so walked back home through the park. I wanted Z to be awake to see the branches and trees and hear the birds but of course he slept through the whole thing - apart from complaining loudly in Caffee Nero forcing me to leave for home! Offer on the house was accepted - yay! However, as we don't yet have an offer on our house, it's conditional, which means the vendors can still take viewings and of course they might then accept someone's else's offer if it's unconditional. Will need to wait it out and hope your house goes now. Spent the afternoon playing with Z - it's lovely how much more awake and alert he is - you can see him starting to look round a lot more investigating the room and responding to sounds.

Wednesday - 6-week check with the GP this morning then I went into work to show Z off. ** again, but fortunately it didn't show up on my top and was a smaller amount so I was dirty and didn't change! I did change my son though. He now has a harem of admirers! Lots of cuddles but managed to stay asleep through the whole thing! Only woke up when we got home. Lovely. We've just had a bit of play time, he fed again and has now dropped off to sleep on the mat. I can now catch up with this and some housework...well maybe not the housework!

My sister's coming tomorrow (brilliant!) and I've also got some Stack & Vac bags to play with. Watch this space!

Haile Selassie I

Here's something you may not have known and which you'll probably never need to know. Watching Eggheads a few days ago (BBC2 quiz where a team of crack TV quiz contestants [eg Judith Kepple who won Millionaire and other panelists who've won 15 to 1 etc] battle it out against a team of 'amateurs' every day. CJ's hair REALLY annoys me!) and a question came up about important religious days and the Egghheads were asked which religion they came from. They got the question wrong - answer was Rastafarianism (sorry can't remember the name of the days...).

I hadn't realised this was actually a religion and wondered who/what their deity is - thank you Wikipedia, it's Haile Selassie I. Tidy.

Babies do not feed at regular intervals

(or when you want them to!) This is now my mantra! The only thing I've been a bit worried about with Z is the frequency with which he seems to feed at the moment. The last few days it seems as though he's been wanting to feed every hour, and despite reassurances from everywhere I look on the internet and the health visitors (babies are all individuals; he'll have a growth spurt at 6 weeks-ish and want to feed a lot more; with breastfed babies you can just throw away the clock; babies take weeks, even months to settle into a routine...etc), you do get little demons whispering in your ear - am I overfeeding him? is he being satisfied with my milk? It's a big thing when you're providing the only food he has.

L has been great though - very supportive and keeps reminding me that we just go with what Z wants at the moment and it will settle down. And to be fair, it's not as though he feeds every hour for the full 24 - particularly when he's sleeping. Yesterday he had a four hour sleep in the evening and this morning he went 3 and a half hours (again while asleep!) between feeds. At night he's also pretty good and for the last few nights has gone for 3 hours after the "going to bed" feed, and then woken at intervals of about 2 hours after that. So really I think we're doing okay and I'm feeling better about it now.

Strangely enough though, although I worry about him feeding too much, after a couple of days of that, if he goes for much longer between feeds I then start worrying that something's wrong because he's not feeding as much. I know. There's no pleasing me!

2nd 6-week check up

6-week check up with the GP this morning. He asked me questions about how I was getting on and then examined Zachary to check all is okay. The GP asked if we had any problems with sleeping or feeding and whether Z was social smiling now (which we think he almost definitely is now), although we were both expecting something a bit more searching on that point! He also checked Z's eyes, back of mouth (to see if he has a cleft palate), hips, heart beat, spine, head control and head circumference. All in order I'm pleased to say!

We also now have a date for the first of Z's injections - 1st May. Nasty.

What a personal disaster

So, let me set the scene - we're sitting at home about 2 o'clock, relaxing after the last couple of days. Just had lunch and the dirty plates are in front of us. I've got Z attached having a feed, and there are papers all over the table, and baby detritus everywhere. There is a knock at the front door - someone come to view the house! Yes, he had made an appointment with the agent to view; sadly noone seemed to have told us about this! No messages on the home phone yesterday, (well, apart from the 3 from Nottingham estate agents reminding us of our various appointments...yes reminders to our number in Ipswich about an hour before we were due for the appointments...in Nottingham...hmmmm) and none on either mobile. Bah. Will be having words on Monday.

So all very embarassing, both for the viewer and for us - particularly when I turn to say something to him and L and realise I've still got a boob out, and that Z may not quite be saving my modesty...

And not knowing whether someone else might drop in unannounced (noone answering the phone at the agents' to check) we've now had an impromptu mass sort out. We will need to be on our guard.

House hunting frenzy

It's been a busy couple of days - managed to get all three of us up, washed, dressed and fed for quarter to nine on Friday to head up to Derby for a couple of days of mad house-hunting. First appointment was at one, then had others booked for two, three-thirty and then ten and eleven the next day. Got to Derby in good time, saw first house, then the agent there had another property on her books she thought would suit us which we had a look at. Cancelled the two o'clock appointment as it is a repossession house and we wouldn't have been able to deal with exchange as quickly as may well have been needed. Saw the three-thirty and made a second appointment to view the extra house again on Saturday. Zachary was absolutely great - slept all the way there apart from a quick stop at Leicester for a feed, then was pretty good been carted around our house appointments. Fortunately, L's mum also came with us so she looked after Z in the car so we were free to roam!

Dinner was fresh trout caught by L's dad (delicious) and even though it took us a good long while to get Z to sleep (and two boobs full of milk!) he slept for a 4/5 hour stretch and then 3 hours, so a really good night.

Saturday saw us at 2 houses, a second viewing of yesterday's house and then a second viewing of one of the morning's houses and we've made a decision to put an offer forward! It's a bit scary as it seems to have all happened so quickly, and I've got an important phonecall to make on Monday! But it feels right and we both love the house we're going to make an offer on.

So here they are :

House 1 - Long Eaton
This had been our favourite from the agent's particulars which they'd sent through. Had a lovely big lounge and kitchen, great garden and storage space, but with only the one reception room and a noisy garden (because very close to the motorway), we were less keen once we'd seen it.

House 2 - Long Eaton
This was the extra house suggested by the agent for House 1. Was in the process of being done up by builders - 3 reception rooms, kitchen a little smaller than we'd like but bigger than here! Garden a good size and again plenty of storage inside and out. It had been extended to the rear, and the extension formed a great room which could be used for playing. Bedrooms all good sizes and the master bedroom was huge!. We went back for a second view of this property, but realised then it was really quite noisy in the bedrooms which faced the front as it is on a main road. But still lovely.

House 3 - Long Eaton
Looked good from the photos, but downstairs, we had assumed there were two receptions rooms, but this turned out to be only one! Tiny kitchen. Good sized bedrooms but not the house for us.

House 4 - Long Eaton
Lovely, lovely, lovely! Had a really great feel to it - large rooms including a huge kitchen and a utility room. Had downstairs loo as well as underfloor heating in bathroom. Okay sized garden and lots of original feature fireplaces and hearths. Loft had been converted to form the fourth bedroom and we had been slightly concerned that there would be no storage space, but a long part of the loft was still available for this and there is a garden shed as well. No off-road parking which was the only real drawback, but considering we've had no off-road parking for the last 6 years, doesn't really matter. Not on main road.

House 5 - Kegworth
Hmmm. The particulars had shown three photos of the same room - diner/kitchen area. It was so much smaller in real life than had appeared on the pictures! Also smelt of wet dog (although that wouldn't last forever!), and the owners had clearly had a massive clean up for the particulars, but not really bothered for viewings... Interestingly, no bath in the bathroom, which was just a shower room really. One of the bedrooms could be converted to bathroom - the hot and cold water pipes were already sitting there in a corner covered by a blanket! Also, on a flight path and a slightly strange set-up for off-road parking. A small car park (8-10 spaces) had been set aside for the residents on the opposite side of the road, and although residents had been allocated spaces, you couldn't guarantee you would get one, particularly on a Saturday when people use the car park to then walk into the town centre. Not for us.

So it's...house 4 we've plumped for and will be ringing the agent on Monday...wish us luck!

Catching up

We have been away for a couple of days and I will blog about that in due course. In the meantime it's about 11pm, I'm lying in bed with the laptop catching up on email and a few blogs and also listening to the amazing array of sounds being produced by my son. He's lying in his bed merrily grunting away, legs a-pumping, also making noises which sound like he's gargling and throwing in a few farts for good measure. Now just awaiting the hiccups...

This only leads to mistrust!

see more crazy cat pics

6-week check up stats

Weight :
Birth - 8lb 4oz, or 3.760kg
Today - 12lb 15.5oz, or 5.88kg

Head circumference :
Birth - 35cm
Today - 39cm

Length (well...height!) :
Birth - 53cm
Today - 57.5.cm

Hurrah for the chubster!

While the cat's away...

...the mice will sleep and do very little! I have a big challenge this week - L's away with work overnight tonight so it's just me and Zachary taking care of each other. Hopefully it shouldn't be too bad - I've managed to fill both days, so it will just be this evening and tonight which will be interesting! L will be back tomorrow night.

Today has been great so far, which is good because I got a bit stressed yesterday! Had my 6-week checkup at the hospital in the morning, but they were running behind so I had to wait an extra half hour before my appointment. Mum had come over to look after Z while I was gone to help L, but I was a bit anxious because Z had been grumbling before I left. Phoned L just before I went in to be told Z had cried for 20 minutes, L had managed to calm him somewhat, then Mum had taken him for a walk. So I was quite anxious getting back, (although all was fine) not to mention my boobs were telling me in no uncertain terms (ie leaking!) that it was time for Z's next feed!

Lunched in town at M&S because I'd heard their baby facilities were pretty good and wanted to check them out. There was a changing mat in the ladies' (and I assume in the men's as well??), and then a whole separate room with another change table, a sink and some chairs for feeding. All nice and clean and smelling good too. Great. On the way back from town I called in at the "Nought 'til they Walk" group which ran until 3. Looked pretty good but I was too late yesterday so am going back next week. As I left the group, the heavens opened! Rain and hail! Got extremely wet coming home (although had a brolly which helped to take some of the worst off the pushchair) and had to almost completely strip off when I got back! Z had started crying, I'd got a headache as well and L stood there just exclaiming how wet everything was! I know! But we both got it all sorted out and calm.

Today much better - one of my friends from work came over with her little girl and we had coffee and a chat. Then had lunch and went for a walk this afternoon. Z has been asleep for much of the day today so far, so have really had it easy so far...waiting for the nighttime! Tomorrow am hoping to go into town to buy L a new jumper (to replace the item I shrank in the tumble dryer! My mistake - forgot to check the tumble dryer setting on the machine was switched off before I put the load on to wash...) and then Z has his 6-week check up in the afternoon.

And if this were not busy enough - L has the day off on Thursday...all right that's not busy in itself but it is to recover from today and tomorrow and to prepare for dun dun duhhhhhh - the trip to Nottingham on Friday. Longest trip so far with the boy which will be interesting but hopefully manageable. Aim is to view 5 houses over the Friday and Saturday to see if any of the ones which look good on the internet live up to their promise!

Blimey. Watch this space!

Lessons I've learned...

...from Wii Mariokarts. This has now arrived at home complete with steering wheel and we've been having a great time racing each other and players round the world. It's a bit strange thinking that there are lots of other people sat down playing the game at the same time as us...and they're lots better than me! L is pretty good and has played through all the race circuits. I've still got a few to go...but already have learned some very important lessons :

1. You still have to steer when you're invulnerable.

2. Don't EVER play Rainbow Road. It's a *** (insert rude word of your choice) nightmare!

3. Players have ridiculous pseudonyms - for example Big Sexy, and Angelilou (apologies if this your actual name). Although I must admit that those two have been singled out for my vitriol because both of them rammed into me and forced me off the track last night! And perhaps I shouldn't be too harsh when my own Mii name is still Pregatron (thanks, L). Pot. Kettle. Black methinks.

4. L kept choosing Peach as a character to ride on a motorbike and then complained about lack of control. Secretly I know he keeps picking this combination because Peach is in leathers. Tight leathers. When confronted with this, he claimed it was a lie but then excitedly told me that in Smash Bros (I think) you can apparently see up her skirt at some points and she is wearing frilly knickers. Is it too late for me to worry??

5. The ONLY good way of steering is to use the nunchuck/Wiimote combo. Seriously, I am completely rubbish with the other easier (apparently) options. And contrary to popular opinion (all right, contrary to some quite fervent ranting from L last night) it is in fact necessary and vital to have the joystick part pushed forwards ALL the time! It helps me. Honest.

That's it for now. Pretty valuable life lessons there I think!

The Estate Agent Cometh...

The estate agent has been and gone - so what happened?

Photos taken of the house, including the inside despite my protestations! To say some rooms look a 'titting mess' would be an understatement (!) but he gamely shifted beanbags, bowls of washing up and other detritus to take the photos - oh dear, well we'll wait and see! But on the plus side that's all done for now.

HIP paid for - he can provide this himself

Energy assessment completed - we're a D which he thought was quite good. He asked lots of questions about the central heating and the extension and fortunately I had most of the answers to hand in the mountains of paperwork I seem to hoard!

So, all done now and we should be on the agency's website by 7 this evening and Rightmove by midnight. But all made slightly more stressful by 'someone' being an absolute nightmare during the visit! Had spent 40 minutes feeding him before the agent arrived and Z was quiet for the first few minutes. Then he was quietly sick all over my shoulder and himself and after that could not be pacified! L was on an important phone call so couldn't come to the rescue, and there was no solution but to jam my boob into Z's face eventually which did the trick! Poor estate agent! Then after about 5 minutes on the boob, Z is fast asleep and is now peacefully dreaming lying on my chest as I type this. Typical! I need a stiff gin and tonic, but failing that, one of the Lindt bunnies has met with an unfortunate accident...

But I still love him to bits (I have decided that his feet and toes are my favourite part of him at the moment!).

So we wait until 7 and then get a good look at our house on the net for sale....

Changing Times...

We've been discussing moving house for a while now, to take us back to the Midlands, closer to L's family and our closest set of friends. It'll mean moving further from my family, but I've been privileged to be closer to them for the last 6 (sorry, 8 ! forgot the time we were in Ipswich before moving to this house) years, and for us three as a family, I think it will be a good move. This house is great, but with L working from home now and a growing family we need more room! The whole thing makes me feel quite nervous, mainly how we will manage it with a baby, but even if things move quickly, the conveyancing process itself could take a few months, so starting things now is looking towards a move mid to late summer and Z will be getting on for 6 months by then.

Our plans had been to start the process about a year ago, however 'someone' got pregnant in the meantime and then it just too complicated thinking about changing medical and midwifery care in the middle, and physically managing to move house with me heavily pregnant.

But now the boy is here we're looking at it again and scary of scary have put the house on the market!

We've been looking at houses in the Midlands and have found that we can afford the size and kind of house we want for what we can afford (which is lucky!) and have made some appointments to view next weekend. We've also had two estate agents round to value our house - sadly given the current market conditions, the price isn't what we'd hoped, but then this is probably reflective across the country and may be why we can get more for our money than we thought we might when buying. Articles like this are always scary. The interesting thing was that the first agent warned us heavily that he was giving us a conservative estimate of price and then the second agent came in below that even! The second agent also seemed to be positively encouraging us to stay put unless we had any time constraints on moving and in fact seemed reluctant to take the house on. So surprisingly enough we went with the first one. Both of them were full of stories of doom and gloom amongst estate agents though - offices closing in the town, withdrawing adverts from local papers... It doesn't sound good, but we're going to give it a go. The saving grace is that because L works from home, he is able to keep his current job when we move, so there are no hassles with trying to time moving with him ending one job and starting another. This should hopefully give us a bit of flexibility if we find that our house doesn't get the kind of offers we need to be able to afford the next house.

It's all such a minefield! But the board has gone up and the agent is coming back today to take details, get us on Rightmove and take some initial external pictures. We need to do some severe tidying up before the internal ones are taken, but with any luck he can show us where he thinks he'll take the pictures and we can selectively tidy!

Deep breath. Calm.

Lolbaby

Have been having a trawl through Lolcats and crazy animal pictures again following posts on a friend's blog. Here are some of my favourites so far, although there are still around 100 pages I haven't yet looked through! The last one is an 'inspired by' which L came up with last night, starring the man of the moment. Tee hee!


see more crazy cat pics


see more crazy cat pics


see more crazy cat pics


Bless him. Yes of course you can!

New things...

Now I'm starting to feel a bit more confident about changing and feeding Zachary out and about, I think it's about time that I got out to try and meet some more mums. I am in an enviable position with L working from home in that I'm not starved of adult company or conversation (well...you could beg to differ with the two of us!) during the day, but I think it would be good for me to meet other mums who are going through the same kind of things, and talk to them about breastfeeding, nights, and all the changes he's going through.

There are two children's centres within walking distance of home - the Wellington Centre, which is just round the corner (literally - about 2 minutes away) and the Meredith Centre which is further away, taking about 20 minutes to walk to. Both of them run a daily schedule of activities for parents and children, taking them up to about school age. I've been to a couple of the Health Visitor drop in sessions in order to get the lad weighed, and there's a baby massage class I'm interested in which I'll hopefully get on when it comes round again (it runs in 5-week sessions). I was also recommended to the breastfeeding drop-in which was this morning running from 10-12. Just a chance to meet other breastfeeding mums and chat about experiences - hopefully a bit less scary than talking to the health visitor!

The first challenge was to not only get myself and Z up and ready before 11, but also to get out of the house by then as well!. It was going really well - managed to get us dressed and ready to go, popped him in the carry cot while I went to get his coat, but on my return found he'd sicked up all on his cot sheet, down his face and in his hair! Nice. And I'd washed his hair specially today!

So a quick change later and we were ready to go. Really lovely weather today so I enjoyed the walk and the drop-in group was great. There were two mums there 'leading' it (in the loosest possible sense) and one other mum whose first time it was as well. Was there for about an hour, had a cup of tea and a really good chat. Very affirming. They also told me about the "Nought til they Walk" groups at the centres - they sounded great, again a chance to meet mums and apparently there are also activities and games for the babies and children, printing, making cards and other good stuff. I'm looking forward to it - next Monday is the next one.

We also talked about places in town which are good for breastfeeding mums. There are more than I thought and Debenhams and M&S both got rave reviews. The usual problem though is that even though rooms are provided for feeding mums, they are away from main cafe areas so you can't eat together as a family. There seems to be a need for some kind of breastfeeding cafe? I think such things exist but couldn't find one in Ipswich...

Smiling babies

We having been waiting with anticipation for the first sign of a social smile from Zachary. We've had a few smiles we thought were 'real' but were then followed quite closely by some milk being brought up, or a bottom burp(!) so were probably wind. L is doing a buzzy bee game with him every day which is getting a good response, but still nothing we'd call a definite smile.

Most of the material we have read (including this), indicates that most babies will start to smile at 4 to 6 weeks, although of course every baby is different and it can take up to 12 weeks for some. Zachary is 5 weeks old this week, so we are hopeful that something may happen soon!

And, judging by the glimpses we've had of what his smile might look like based on his 'wind' smiles, it's going to be absolutely gorgeous.

Diggers

After a slow start this morning, I finally managed to make some biscuits (something I've been trying to do since L bought his new book!)

It's a recipe from Mary Berry, and I venture to claim that these must be among the easiest biscuits in the world! All the melting and mixing is done in one pan (and you could use the same pan to weigh everything first as well to save more washing up), and there's no rolling or cutting out needed. Hurrah! So here's a piccie of the final product



and here's the recipe

Diggers (or Anzac cookies)

Ingredients -
150g butter
1 rounded tbspn golden syrup
175g granulated sugar
75g self-raising flour
75g desiccated coconut
100g porridge oats

Method -
1. Lightly grease baking trays and preheat oven to gas 4, 180C, 350F. Melt the butter, sugar and golden syrup in a medium saucepan and heat gently until melted. Stir in the dry ingredients and mix well until evenly blended.

2. Spoon large teaspoonfuls of the mixture well apart on the prepared baking trays and flatten slightly with the back of the spoon. Yo should have enough for about 45 rounds. Bake for 8-10 minutes until they have spread out flat and are lightly browned at the edges.

3. Leave to cool on the trays for a few minutes, then carefully lift them off with a palette knife and place on a wire rack to cool completely. If the biscuits harden too much to life them off the tray, pop hem back into the oven for a few minutes to soften. Store in an airtight tin.

Postcrossing

Got into this from through one of my friends and my first 2 cards have now arrived!!! I have diligently sent off one more, but now need to write another to top up the five that I'm permitted to have travelling at once. Hurrah.

Dining Al Fresco

Zachary and I have today had our first "al fresco" meal since he was born. I went into town this morning for some bits and pieces and to take advantage of the lovely weather (mucho chango [oh dear, that looks somehow wrong] since Sunday's snow - snow???!). Got to Cafe Nero for my weekly coffee treat and the boy started crying. Just before he started, he had been licking and trying to suck the inside of his coat hood, so I knew what was going on!

I had only just bought my goodies and knew we would not get home with him like this, so settled into my (fortunately) corner seat and fed him there and then. All went very well - no massive spillages from either my boob or Z's mouth, and no funny looks or glances from the other patrons. I feel much more confident about this now.

However as I was trying to eat my blueberry muffin at the same time, it reminded me that I should not be allowed to eat while I'm feeding Z. This time he only suffered from a few muffin crumbs, but in the past there have been dubious incidents with chocolate, and more embarassingly last Friday I dropped a piece of sweet and sour pineapple on his nose! Poor chap looked really confused by this.

Still, if you think that's bad, his father pumped the other night and then wafted Z's head in the stench so that he could 'share the joy.'

Hmmmmm, not really sure who thought we would make good parents!!!

I think I've solved the problem...

Whilst feeding my son in bed (which seems to have been the feed of eternal longeness), realised that the last lines of both stanzas of the Iolanthe DD are wrong and have too many syllables. I think a bit of tweaking will solve it...

Airily fairily
Poor Iolanthe, she's
Banished by fairies be-
-Cause of her son

Dad's the Lord Chanc'llor, so
Strephon's half-human, looks
Anachronistically
Older than Mum.

Hurrah.

(BTW is it wrong to will your son to finish feeding so that you can come and blog?)

Double Dactyls

Inspired by this and this, I spent a good while in the shower this morning trying to put one together this morning. Trying to build it around Leigh's name and Zachary's penchant for stealing our sleep, I had a bit of a problem coming up with a 6 syllable word for the second verse and gave up on that. I did however come up with an Iolanthe based one, although strictly speaking I'm not sure that the very final line works. My guess is that the first word really belongs on the penultimate line, otherwise the natural stress of the syllables doesn't quite fit. Also wasn't sure whether the second line of the first stanza (which should be a person's name) really counts - came up with "Queen of the Fairies; Banished I'lanthe" as an alternative but I prefer the way the version below scans.

Spoke to L about the first double dactyl this evening and he saved the day by coming up with "insomniacally" for the second stanza - probably not a real word but it fits! So below we have the 2 I attempted today and one I found in "Stardust" by Neil Gaiman.

1. Airily, fairily
Poor Iolanthe, she's
Banished by fairies
Because of her son

Dad's the Lord Chanc'llor, so
Strephon's half-human, yet
Anachronistic'lly
Looks older than Mum.

2. Mapely, stapely
Leigh Bobby Caple is
New Dad to Zachary
- 4 week old son

'Sweet' little Zachary
Insomniacally
Robs Leigh of bedtime sleep
Mutinous one!

3. Hankety pankety
Boy in a blanket, he's
Off on a goose-chase to
Look for a star

Incontrovertibly
Journeys through Faerie
Strip off the blanket to
See who you are.

Too much poo!

Fortunately was confined to Zachary's sleepsuit and a bit of wet in our bed!