22/07/2010 by stupidgirl_no1.

This is me on a carousel in Brighton just after the Biall conference finished.

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18/07/2010 by stupidgirl_no1.

So says one of Owen’s t-shirts, and last weekend I really proved it right.  At last it was time for my Christmas present from Bryan.  I had had it in my possession for some time but the wee bit of paper wasn’t doing much for me, despite its shiny hologram, except for giving me a great sense of anticipation.  So what was the present - a weekend camping T in the Park ticket obviously!  As many of you will know, I go most years.  I did miss the first 2 years, then I think the year before we got married as I was saving for the honeymoon, last year I was pregnant so decided against it and the year before that we were saving up to start a family so I was good then too.  Several times I have said “this year is my last”, and I have said that a few times in the past couple of weeks it must be said.  Well, we’ll see huh?!

This year as well as the fact that I didn’t pay for my ticket (thanks Bryan, love you!) I also got wonderful accommodation.  My dear cousin Lynne had offered me space on her floor in Kinross when I said I was going.  She then bought a new house - in Newburgh, in January!  Whilst I was happy for her to have a lovely new house I was slightly distraught at where I would sleep - I really am too old/boring to be in a field with a load of drunken folks!  Anyway as time wore on the flat in Kinross wasn’t selling, so I eventually put on my “if you don’t ask you don’t get” cheeky hat and asked Lynne what she thought.  So Lydia and I had a lovely dry flat to live in for the weekend, with running water, a clean toilet, a fridge and a shower.  Hurrah!  T in the Park is lovely enough to provide a free bus to and fro Kinross so we were sorted!  We did walk out to the field on the Friday in case the bus didn’t work out, thinking it was easier to find the route in the daylight, but after that we bussed back and forth.

Our line up was:

Friday                 Editors, La Roux, Matthew P, Florence and the Machine, Muse and Calvin Harris
Saturday             a bit of Scouting For Girls (stupid queuing), Newton Faulkner, Joshua Radin, The Proclaimers, Shed Seven, Vampire Weekend (girls mud fighting, hilarious), Skerryvore ceilidh band, Paolo Nutini, 30 Seconds to Mars, Mumford and Sons and then Eminem
Sunday                Skunk Anansie, The View, Tricky, Ellie Goulding, a bit of Dizzee Rascal, Gossip, Biffy Clyro , Jay-Z, Bombay Bicycle Club, Madness and KASABIAN

You can see my photos and videos at: http://www.flickr.com/photos/stupidgirl_no1/sets/72157624479752132/  If you hit the Slideshow option at the top right apparently you can waste 35 minutes of your life sitting back and watching my weekend, but make sure you have your speakers on as its the music that counts!

Lydia and I were most pleased that we only saw one person each with wellies the same as ours.  I love my peacock feathers!

Highlights of the weekend were: Mumford and Sons, Calvin Harris, Kasabian, dancing to Eminem’s Loose Yourself in The Moment in a big open space with Lydia in the dark, watching some girls mud wrestling (nearly peed myself laughing!) and a very nice pie and chips that just hit the spot!

Being old and boring I was most impressed at the caring additions that T in the Park had made to previous years: folk walking round with free water and fruit, the picnic tables where we managed to sit at for each of our meals, laminated pouches for tickets so they didn’t get dog eared and soggy, and hand sanitisers near each block of toilets.  The toilets seemed to stay rather usable and supplied with toilet paper all weekend - we only had one bad experience but that was a back corner row of 8 cubicles that didn’t have supervisors watching over them - we should have guessed and ran away rather than using them and nearly puking!!!!  There is also now a Healthy T area with local, good food.  We ate in the main arena for our first meal and then found the special fenced off bit - and didn’t eat anywhere else for the rest of the weekend!  I had an amazing Roast lamb with rosemary and thyme roll (wholemeal of course) with salad and homemade coleslaw one time and yummy lamb stovies another.  There was also an orgasmically good chocolate muffin at one point…

I thought it was good on the Saturday how the main bands were staggered - so we managed to see just about everyone we wanted, Sunday they were more similar times so this wasn’t so easy to do.  This is always a problem for me - wanting to see everyone that is on and being limited by the time/space issues.  When 3 different stages have bands you want to see on at the same time it is logistically impossible to see them all and so you have to miss someone out (sorry Ash!  I wanted to see you but just couldn’t!  And Faithless and Prodigy).

Talking of problems with music - what was up with the sound system?!  NME and Main Stage both seemed to have issues all through the weekend.  You won’t have known if you watched on TV as of course the camera was right there but we could hardly hear Florence and the Machine and there were others that were bad too.  Biffy Clyro were painful to hear from where we were, so we left - we’re seeing them in November anyway and were actually getting to the point of thinking we should sell our tickets! 

This year there were some lovely colourful flags on the stage between Main Stage and King Tut’s tent.  Although they were really nice to look at they were awful in the wind and it was terribly windy early on, on the Sunday.  We were sat at a picnic table under the flags for lunch listening to The View - or rather trying to!  You actually couldn’t hear the band over the noise of the wind in the flags.  Gutting!  Unfortunately the wind also meant the wee screens to each side of the main stage had to be taken down, well I presume that’s why they went down low and then went back up later.  This was a shame too as you couldn’t see the performers so well, but understandable in the wind! 

The weather was very mixed, Friday it rained as we drove down but was dry all the time we were outside.  Saturday started off raining but dried up before I got soaked through!  We did start to feel a bit miserable at one point but went to the Ceilidh Tent and got warm and dry - and discovered a fab band called Skerryvole!  I do love a man in a kilt, as you maybe know, and I am always in awe of anyone playing the pipes as I failed miserably at learning to play just the chanter!  Sunday was dry but windy - and it got a bit too sunny for my liking, I do burn easily!

Anyway that’s a wee overview of our weekend, could wax lyrical about the bands we saw but that would just bore most of you so suffice to say I had a fab time and really enjoyed myself, just disappointed about some of the sound quality - after all it is the music I go for!

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07/07/2010 by stupidgirl_no1.

As promised, some time ago sorry!

Well the boy has obviously been growing up!  He now weighes 1.5 stone and is nearly into 1 year clothes!  He has been wearing 9-12 months clothes for quite some time so I guess its not surprising but he is still only 8.5 months old, bless the wee lump!

I’ve started buying clothes for him.  We’ve been really lucky and been given a lot of hand me downs and presents so far so we’ve not actually needed to buy him any clothes.  We did buy him a couple of things but now we’re going to have to buy everything as the hand me downs are drying up!  Knew this would happen as he gets older and sizes last longer - at least we get the chance to get our money’s worth out of stuff from now on apparently.  Anyway I’m taking advantage of any vouchers and special offers I can - is a fun challenge to see what barguins I can get!

So what have we been up to?  Well before I went back to work we used to go to Kids & Co every Tuesday morning (babies play, Mummies gossip!) and Mainly Music every Wednesday morning (singing and dancing and having a fab time!).  Both groups were at our local church, neither was very religious but it was nice to feel part of the community and to see the same lovely folk each week.  In the modern way, I added as many as possible on Facebook so we can keep in touch now I’m back at work.  The last couple of weeks I was able to take Owen to Jo Jingles which started up in our area.  This is another music group but instead of all singing and dancing together each child sits on its own mat and gets given various things to play with. 

Owen loved both music classes and I’ve always sung to him quite a bit - hence him learning how to clap his hands!
Video here if the embedded version doesn’t work!

We went to a Bookstart Rhymetime in our local Library and Owen got his first Library Card.  Proud Librarian Mummy!  Not that I’ve let him borrow any books yet as he tends to suck them lots and so I only let him do it to his own books.

Other than that our days were made up of going for walks, doctors check ups, and visits from friends.  Lunches out were managed occassionally although any leaving the house seemed like a huge mission back then!  What to take?  What would Owen do?  Would we get home safely?  Quite funny looking back on it now when I jump on a bus with him every day to get home from nursery!

We had a family holiday - well a long weekend in Edinburgh.  My lovely friend Jennie let us use her flat to stay in so we had a fridge and cooker which made it easier with Owen.  We bought a travel cot so he slept in that in our room, he’s such a good sleeper it wasn’t a problem all sharing a room again.  Other than I had a cough so risked disturbing him!  I got some medicine on the way down from the Minor Ailments Service at the local pharmacists so that helped!  Of course that was mid May and its the cough I’m still suffering from!  Was lovely to catch up with our Hillside buddies, and I took Owen into my old work to show him off.

An amazing thing happened on Friday 28th May - Nicole and I actually had an evening together, just the two of us, with no husbands and no babies.  Much as we love them it was nice to have some girlie time together, just the 2 of us.  We couldn’t remember the last time it had happened but hopefully it will happen again soon - ooh must see about arranging that!  We spent some time getting “prettified” and then went out for dinner.  It was a really lovely night - and we did scrub up nice!

I’ve already blogged about going back to work.  Its still going well, with Owen still loving nursery so that’s cool.  My trip to Brighton was great, the conference was really good and the night out was awesome.  My usual “posse” was quite depleted at the conference so I did that networking thing and made some new friends which was good.  I may have also been snapped by the official photographer drinking Champers before noon with James!  Check out my cool bag though!  @Jaffne made me it, she’s so cool!  You can see some of her craftiness here.

The night out with Twitter folks was really good, apparently after speaking to folk for about 3 years you do know them quite well, even if you’ve never met them.  I have some utterly awesome friends, just a shame Brighton is so far away!  A couple of them that I was looking forward to meeting didn’t make it but one special chap I didn’t think was coming did so that was fab.  You know who you are folks! 

And yes, I went on the Carousel - twice - once with a Law Librarian Carousel-Virgin and once with 2 Twitter chums.  Hurrah!

So yeah, life is good!  Hope yours is too?!

Posted in Baby!, body issues, Trips out, General waffle | 3 Comments »

23/06/2010 by stupidgirl_no1.

Yesterday Owen had his first trip to the theatre.  We went to see Peppa Pig, the live stage show.  I was slightly concerned how an 8 month old wee boy would take to the theatre but he totally loved it!

As usual I had free tickets as I was writing a review so we had really good seats, we also got spoilt rotten in the interval!  We had exclusive use of the stalls bar with Owen getting free ice cream from lovely Joyce - which he also loved, although it was cold, don’t you know?!

Now I’m not saying he sat still right through the performance, he spent most of the time either standing on my lap or sitting on my hand on the arm of the chair!  But he watched most of the show, with just a few distractions of other children playing with their fibre optic light stick toys from the merchandise stand.  We had taken his George toy (that’s Peppa’s brother for those of you who are out of the loop) and he cuddled/sucked that for some of the time.

By the end of the show he was grinning like a loon, although so obviously fighting sleep as he’s not used to being out that late (yes folks it was after 5pm when it finished!).  Luckily nursery had been really helpful and given him his afternoon nap early so he was fresh and ready for the 4pm show but he was asleep almost as soon as I put him in the car seat when Daddy picked us up afterwards.

All in all his first theatre trip was a great success and the way he smiled at me at the end, clapping his hands, I could tell he was saying “thank you Mummy, that was AWESOME”!  Just hope I can keep him away from all the merchandise now, he could end up bankrupting us and turning our house pink!! 

Posted in Baby!, Theatre reviews, Trips out | 3 Comments »

05/06/2010 by stupidgirl_no1.

Gosh.  Well.  Yesterday was Owen and I’s last day home alone on maternity leave.  Bryan is off work next week and on Monday Owen starts nursery part time.  Every day next week he will be at nursery for 1.5 hours.  We will still go to our toddler group on Tuesday morning and music group on Wednesday morning but they will be our last visits to either. 

This last week we’ve had various visitors for one last visit before I go back to work and we’ve just tried to enjoy ourselves as much as possible. 

We’ve had a lovely 7.5 months together, it really has been fab.  I’m so glad Bryan and I were able to save enough money up before I needed to go on maternity leave so that I could take the full 9 months that one is entitled to Statutory Maternity Pay.  We really are lucky in this country to have that opportunity.

Then on Wednesday afternoon I will fly off to Brighton for the BIALL conference that runs Thursday morning - Saturday lunchtime.  Quite jammy to work it that my first day “back at work” is at a conference but it is something I have been to most years since I got into law librarianship.  I thought it would be a good way to get my head back in gear - and after being away from Owen for that long putting him into nursery full time on Monday 14th June shouldn’t seem like such a big thing!

Bryan will actually be alone with Owen from Wednesday night till Sunday night as I am making the most of work paying for my flights and having an extra night in Brighton.  Thanks to my parents and one of my aunts giving me money for my birthday I didn’t even have to pay for the hotel that night!  On Saturday night I will be on a night out with various lovely people that I talk to on Twitter and I just can’t wait to meet them all!  I may worry a bit about the fact its called @BrightonPissUp and I’m very out of practice with drinking but hey, I’m willing to give it a go!! 

Once I come home I have the Monday as annual leave, partly so I’m available if anything goes wrong with Owen’s first full day at nursery and partly so I can do laundry and clean the house after leaving my 4 boys alone for 4 whole days!  Then I will be back in the office on Tuesday 15th June trying to remember what I have to do at that “work” thing…!

I keep getting asked if I’m just going back part time so I can spend time with Owen but unfortunately I will be going back full time.  The nature of my job, and the fact we need my full salary, prevent me doing anything else.  The good news is that my hours have always been 9.30-1 and 2-4, plus covering any events the Society is having so it should work out quite well with having a wee one anyway.

I used to get a lift with Bryan to and fro work and just be there extra time as he works 9-5 but now I will get a lift in with him, and the bus home.  If he drops Owen and I at nursery I can go in and get him settled and then get to my work for 9.30, then when I get finished at 4 I can go collect Owen and we can get the bus home.  Hopefully we will get him fed and bathed by the time Daddy gets home so they can have some time together before Owen’s 7pm bedtime.

Unfortunately this adds the cost of a bus pass to the cost of nursery so we will be rather skint for the next 4.5 years until Owen goes to school!  But at least we know he will be getting a varied programme, balanced diet and lots of other wee ones to play with each day.  Think he’ll have a whale of a time at nursery!  It’s really nice as they give you a wee report of his day each night so we know what he’s been up to, what he particularly enjoyed, and what he’s had to eat.

To mark the end of the era of my maternity leave Owen yesterday managed to pull himself up to standing position with only the aid of a coffee table.  He’s growing so fast and developing so many new skills, it really is amazing.  As usual I caught it on camera and added it to my Flickr page, which I have still been updating most days even when not blogging.
Link to video.

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31/01/2010 by stupidgirl_no1.

Well I just realised that at 2.50pm today Owen turned 15 - weeks obviously!  Hard to believe he’s been ours for that long but then at the same time I am now feeling a bit more confident as this Mummy-ing thing!  There have been quite a few “first”s since my last post - his first wee chuckle, first (and second the next day!) time going to a birthday party, first go on a bouncy castle, first attendance at a wee person’s music group, first trip to town shopping, first feed in public, first afternoon with his four cousins, first swing ride in a park, first look at a book and his first turning of a page himself.  The last thing obviously made his Librarian Mummy very proud!

Meanwhile I’ve had my first night out with a whole glass of wine, and another night I had my first beer since June 2008 when I gave up drinking and we started trying for a baby.  This is all due to the wonder of Owen now having his own bedtime.  I feed him at 7.30 and then we put him to bed and he tends to be asleep by 8.30 or 9 at the latest, so we have some time to ourselves.  He sleeps until at least 3 as a rule so its safe for me to have a wee drinkie once he goes to bed - woohoo!  The night I was out at Gill’s I was enjoying myself chatting to the girls so much that I didn’t get home until about 2am - and then Owen was awake an hour later!  That was hard, but worth it!  Nice to have some grown up chat for a change.

As for weight, Owen is now healthily over 15lbs and filling his 3-6 month clothes nicely.  On our shopping trip I chose him two outfits which are the first clothes I’ve chosen myself!  Everything else he’s worn has been hand downs or gifts - well except for the Manchester United clothes and the Mamas and Papas jacket that Daddy chose!  I am down to 10 stone 11 so only half a stone to loose before I get back to my pre pregnant weight - hurrah!  I’ve already past my pre trying weight as I was about 11 stone when we decided to try for a baby, got down to 10 stone 4 before I got pregnant and put on 3 stone!

Owen can now support his own head so we can now put him in his Bumbo seat, or the in door bouncer.  Its lovely that he can sit up supported and play with toys and as he can now grasp things he is enjoying playing with things - everything fascinates him and needs inspected.  It’s so cute watching him with new things, or with his favourite talking Winnie The Pooh teddy which he just loves.

As I reported with his hip he now only wears his splint at night so that’s lovely as we get much nicer cuddles during the day, much closer!  His blocked tear duct seems to have cleared up so we’re not having to clean it and cream it twice a day, the down side is that when he cries we get real tears - which makes Mummy’s heart ache!!  We’ve still not managed to breast feed the “normal” way but we’re still happy using the breast shields, it doesn’t bother me anymore, I’ve just accepted that we use them and that’s that.  It does mean I’m constantly sterilising them and the machine is constantly on but such is life!  I also can’t just be lazy and stay in bed to feed him during the night, we have to come downstairs and get a shield from the steriliser - and it does leak sometimes so we couldn’t feed in bed anyway.  Never mind, small price to pay and it means I get to check email, Facebook and Twitter whilst the wee one fills his boots!  This is also why it was a big thing for me to finally feed in public, its a bit difficult to be as discrete when using shields, but it is possible!

At Lucas’ birthday party our wee guy started crying quite a lot and we were thinking he was teething but he’s only had a couple of crying bouts in total so I think it may have been his colic, or just that he was too warm or something.  Sometimes it’s hard to tell with babies.  He does like to chew or suck things but then babies like to investigate things in their mouths so it might not mean he’s teething - that will come soon enough I’m sure!

And that, I think, is that!

Posted in Baby!, body issues, Trips out, General waffle | 1 Comment »

27/12/2009 by stupidgirl_no1.

Posted in Baby!, Trips out | 1 Comment »

14/10/2009 by stupidgirl_no1.

So after my disappointment yesterday I got taken out for lunch today.  Mum, Dad, God Mummy Jenny and Harry made an almost 300 mile round trip just to take me out for lunch - hurrah!  Got lots of hugs too which was super.  We went to a local carvery for lunch, after I gave the ladies the full tour of the baby ready nursery of course!  Had a huge plate full of roast turkey, beef and veggies, then a pudding of chocolate fudgeyness.

After that it was suggested that a walk at the beach might be a good idea so we headed to Balmedie and got some lovely fresh air and exercise - slowly of course, a 41 week pregnant lady post-lunch only manages a gentle waddle!!

Then it was back to the house for afternoon tea - ooh and cake!  Hurrah!  Been wanting jam doughnuts for a couple of weeks now but keep forgetting to mention when Bryan is near a supermarket so that’s been sorted now!  Aunt Jenny had brought me some bubbles so we amused ourselves by blowing bubbles at George cat and watching his reaction - bless!!

They managed to stay long enough to see Bryan before heading back home.  I managed to decline any offer of dinner needless to say - there is a limit to how much even I can eat!!  Although might need a wee snack later… hee hee!

Once they left Bryan had a wonderful idea of how to get the baby out…maybe….

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13/10/2009 by stupidgirl_no1.

Baby bump is still appearing totally unaware of the fact we were expecting him/her last week and isn’t coming out to play at all.  On the upside this does mean I am getting most of my To Do list done, and have plenty of time for visitors!  Yesterday Rhona came to visit and we had a nice chat - and she brought gorgeous cakes with her too!

Today was a down though, the midwife came to visit to try and get things started but was unsucessful (will withhold details for all our sakes!).   It is possible things might happen later in the week but it doesn’t look likely so I will have to wait for Saturday’s appointment at the hospital to get induced.  Baby is fine though, all the tests are okay so this isn’t a thing to worry about, just a bit disappointing that we have to wait longer to meet the wee one - and I am getting quite big and uncomfortable now.

Most disappointed though is my Godmother.  Jenny and Harry are up visiting my parents for 2 weeks and I had been told that they would come visit me once baby had arrived, however they go home to Hampshire on Thursday and so it looks like I will produce too late.  I blame Gill, she’s in Florida and asked me to wait for her to come back before having baby - think she’s back on Thursday so looks like baby listened to her - not surprisingly as it was her that threw us the fab baby shower!  Unfortunately for Jenny her requests were by phone and email so baby bump won’t have seen or heard them whereas Gill had all 4 of our ears for her demands!!

There is an upside though - Mum phoned me back after I reported on midwife visit and they are all coming up to take me out for lunch tomorrow!  So I will see Mum, Dad, Jenny and Harry - and probably get crumble and custard!  Much better than sitting on the sofa feeling sorry for myself as I am currently doing!

Unfortunately the other downside of baby being late is that it now looks like Bryan won’t get 2 consecutive weeks off work for his paternity leave as the other engineer has annual leave booked.  However I have my pal Jennie (not godmummy JennY but JennIE) coming to stay for part of the week Bryan can’t be off so at least I will have some help and support, just sux for Bryan!  Such is life though unfortunately.

So that’s the news so far - no baby to report!  Yet!  Induction at hospital on Saturday and they won’t send me home without a baby according to the midwife so at least an end is in sight!

Posted in Baby!, Trips out | 4 Comments »

11/10/2009 by stupidgirl_no1.

Neil, Zoe and their 2 gorgeous daughters moved to Shetland so we don’t see them much anymore but they had got in touch to say they were “coming to the mainland”.  I’d said it would be sensible for them to arrange to meet Ray, Nicole and Lucas and we’d just join them if possible - seeing as we’re hoping to “pop a sprog” sometime around now.  And no, it’s not happened yet!!  So today was the day and we were able to make it and join them all.  As they were arriving by boat and leaving by train it made sense to meet up near the harbour and station so we met at the Carmelite Hotel.  It worked out fine as they let us sit in the reception lounge where they had comfy sofas and games of Jenga.  The grown up men, well Robertson boys anyway, got a bit competitive with building a tower taller than Abby’s whereas the young girls seemed to delight in building things for wee Lucas to knock over!

 Few more pics on my Flickr page.

We had coffees and chatted until lunchtime when we moved to the restaurant and had a yummy lunch - the burgers looked awesome!  I had Chilli Con Carne (well hot stuff might get baby moving!) which was very tasty, and then Bakewell Tart which disappeared effortlessly!

Eventually it was time for the Galbraiths to head off and meet their next friend on the itinerary and the rest of us headed off to different shops.  I even got Bryan to Next and we bought him some new clothes!  Was quite an effort though as we were stuffed after lunch! 

When we got back home I got greeted by a neighbour, they had seen us leaving this morning with the hospital bag and thought that was baby coming so she was a bit surprised to see me back and still big and bumpy!  Explained we just didn’t like to be away from the house without bag now that baby is 6 days overdue.  Nice to know even my neighbours are watching excitedly for news, although I feel bad I’m keeping everyone waiting!  Not my fault though!!

I’m now happily back on my sofa, he’s given me a fashion show of his new stuff and I gave him a tour of the nursery now I’ve got it finished. 

Now he’s playing Fifa 10 on Xbox and yelling at me to look every now and then as he’s uploaded his photo into the game so one of the players really is him - whatever will they develop next?!  Very clever and quite effective looking too. 

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