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Nursery Blues

1
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

Sorry for neglecting my blog for a little while but it’s been a pretty rough time in the Brown household.

As you know Zara started nursery last week, she was there for 4 days and she loved it, settled really well with no issues which was fantastic :) A huge weight off my mind. So why on earth is this blog post called nursery blues you might ask?

Well basically since Friday, Zara has been awful, full of cold, coughing and this then turned into sickness and diareaha. Not to forget the fact that she also caught conjunctivitus on top of all that. I’ve had gunk, mucus, sick, poo etc coming out of every orifice she has and it’s been exhausting. She’s barely eating, barely drinking, won’t sleep without screaming herself into an exhausted sleep which usually takes about 5 hours. For the last few nights she’s been in bed at 7pm and only finally going to sleep at about midnight or later. We’ve been up and down the stairs with her a thousand times and even cuddling just doesn’t work :(

I think you can safely safe I’m exhausted, miserable and really in need of a good nights sleep. I’m supposed to be back at work now and I’ve been off all week with Zara as we have no other childcare alternatives so I can feel my career slipping down the toilet by the day :( I don’t particularly enjoy my job but it would be nice to actually be able to turn up there for once!

Anyway there we have it, a miserable post on nursery blues! Sorry for depressing you all :)

Zara’s First Full Day at Nursery

3
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

Well after a bad night with Zara I wasn’t particularly looking forward to today. I was supposed to be back at work in Newcastle this morning and Zara was supposed to be spending her first full day at nursery.

She had a couple of hours there last week and apparently was pretty upset and overtired so I was dreading leaving her there for the full day. It wasn’t particularly an issue about me leaving her, it was just the fact that she NEEDS her naptime (2 hours usually between 11am and 1pm) otherwise she is a grumpy miserable monster. Aside from this I had no worries, she seemed fine playing with all the other babies etc and the noise which is surprising seeing as at home it’s just me, her and the cats and a pretty quiet environment on the whole.

Anyway at 4am this morning I decided as I stumbled back into bed after yet another bottle with an unsettled teething baby that I didn’t dare go to work as it’s an hour away from nursery and I was envisioning having to go and pick her up at some point as she was really unhappy overnight.

Anyway Zara woke up at 8am (I had decided at 6am when hubby got up that I was going to rearrange my holidays and stay at home today as I was too worried and I’ve got a lousy cold) and after a bit of breakfast I dropped her off. Her temperature had gone down and she didn’t seem too unhappy so I thought I’d risk it.

At 1pm I rang to check on her (after doing my best to hold off ringing for as long as possible, I figured out 4 hours was pretty good going!) and she was fine, tired and not sleeping but ok I was assured by her carer.

After spending all afternoon worrying about her screaming the place down if she didn’t nap, I eventually gave in and went to pick her up at 4:30pm imagining walking through the door and hearing her screams the minute I entered the building :( Well it turns out I was wrong, I peeped over the door and there she was sat happily playing with a toy completely oblivious to me standing there, in fact it took her a good 10 minutes to notice me and even then it was another 5 before she bothered to crawl across and come and say hello lol. Apparently she didn’t sleep at all but was quite happy playing all day which really surprised both me and the nursery staff. Hopefully once she adjusts she will get used to having a nap there during the day and not worry about missing out on playing with all the lovely things to play with.

No surprise after getting her home, having dinner and a bath, she was asleep within 5 minutes of being put in her cot lol. I’m hoping for a good nights sleep tonight for both myself and her as tomorrow I’ll be in Newcastle and Zara will be back for her second day.

Here is Zara having a ride on her geegee before bed :)

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Dream Genii Pregnancy Pillow Review

1
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

Anyone who knows me, will know that sleep comes very high on my list of priorities. Being 21 weeks pregnant and being mum to an 11 month old certainly keeps me busy during to the day and so when it comes to night I like to make the most of as much sleep as I can possibly get. When my sister asked me to review the Dream Genii pregnancy pillow for her blog over at Mummy Loves I was of course delighted to be able to help her out.

I’ve been using the pillow for about a week now and aside from a teething baby getting me up in the middle of the night, my sleep has been fantastic. This pillow is a godsend. I particularly like that the pillow supports my back and that I can turn over if necessary without having to rearrange the entire pillow. When I was pregnant with Zara I just used a full length body pillow but the dreamgenii is just in a different class, I just feel so supported and comfortable whilst I’m in bed and it’s not so bulky that it feels like there is an extra person in the bed with us :) Of course it does have the disadvantage that it makes it even harder to drag myself out of bed at 3am in the morning to deal with a teething baby but that will be my fault for getting pregnant again so soon lol. :)

Pop over to the Dream Genii website here for more information and also check out their other products, I’ve just seen their new Twinkle Togs for toddlers and I think I might have to invest in one as they look fantastic :) If they ever want me to test one of these on Zara then I’m always happy to help ;)

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Introducing baby #2 – 20 week scan

3
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

Yesterday I went for our 20 week scan so I thought I’d share the picture. It really really reminds me of Zara so I think I’ve convinced myself I’m having another girl but we didn’t find out the sex. I spent the entire of my last pregnancy with Zara convinced I was having a boy so I’m not too optimistic about by ability to determine sex but hey ho we will find out in March :)

I think I’ve been eating too much sugar as baby is a hyperactive little bugger and wouldn’t stay still for photos or measurements but everything measuring ok at present. My placenta is still partially covering the cervix but still time for it to move up yet so I’m not going to drive myself insane worrying about c-sections just yet!

If you look carefully you can see that the thing below it’s chin is actually a hand with a thumb and 4 little fingers :)

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Zara and her Nameart top

2
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

I am very lucky having a sister who is a professional photographer Sonia Thorpe Photography as she was asked by Nameart to take some photographs of their personalised hooded tops and seeing as we were visiting Sonia got Zara a top so that she could be one of the models :)

These hooded tops are lovely and warm and look gorgeous :) Below is a photo of Zara wearing her hooded top with her name embroidered on the campervan. We are in good company as Dannii Minogue has also ordered one for her Ethan. The tops start at £25 and there are a range of embroidery designs, check out their website for more details Nameart . The baby sized hooded tops are limited in colours so I can’t wait until Zara is big enough for me to order her a bright coloured top with a butterfly embroidery on it though I need her to grow a little bit first. She is pictured wearing size 18-24 months (she was 10 months old at the time but is currently in 12-18 month clothes) as it is advised to order a size larger than you would normally buy!

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Could your baby be the NEXT baby boutique model?

1
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

I was so excited when I read about this competition, after all I do think my little girl is absolutely gorgeous, but unfortunately due to the return of the dribble rash I don’t think I’ll be able to get any nice enough photos to enter her but that isn’t going to stop me sharing the details about the competition with my readers :) NEXT are currently running a competition to find the NEXT baby boutique model. The competition is open for  babies aged from birth up to 36 month so if you think your baby is beautiful why not enter and be in with a chance of winning £500 of NEXT vouchers and a 12 month modelling contract with Urban Angels.

Full details of the competition and how to enter are shown below, so what are you waiting for?…. head over to www.facebook.com/nextonline now and get entered :)

Good Luck! xxx

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Dribble Rash Blues – An Update

3
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

Well it’s been about a week since I posted this photo of Zara when I was despairing about her dribble rash and our inability to shift it.

Well after trying a few suggestions I finally went back to the doctors with her last Thursday and they prescribed some hydrocortisone cream for it. So for the last few days we’ve been religiously applying HC cream morning and night and Lansinoh cream inbetween and today we are looking like this :)

It’s not quite perfect yet but it’s a major improvement :) Thank you so much for all your tips and advice, it’s been really appreciated over the last week. Hopefully we’ve seen the last of that nasty rash for a while.

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The Gallery – Food (or possibly the world’s most expensive ice creams)

8
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

This post is this weeks entry for The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers

The prompt this week is Food. Now this is a subject close to my heart as I certainly love my food, the trouble being I don’t exactly have many photographs of it. It doesn’t tend to hang around long enough for pictures. Although just as I was starting to despair, I remembered a photo taken on our honeymoon back in 2007.

We were in Rome, and after a lovely meal and a couple of bottles of vino we were sat at the bottom of the Spanish Steps when we decided we fancied an ice cream. Just a small one, a very small one and so off we went to the nearest ice cream shop and ordered 2 small cones of simple ice cream. Of course the staff in the shop conveniently didn’t understand our simple request and we were presented with monstrously huge concoctions with pretty much everything except fireworks in them and for the priviledge of being misunderstood we were charged the oh so reasonable price of 25 Euros! Eeek! Of course once you are presented with a big ice cream you can hardly say no I didn’t order that (well maybe you can but me and the husband are far to wussy to do that).

Anyway this photo was taken by my rather tipsy husband, of a rather tipsy me holding the worlds most expensive ice creams. We were too busy crying with laughter to bother with photo quality but you get the general idea :)

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Quinny Zapp Xtra – The Opening Night Premier

4
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

When the courier rang our doorbell to deliver our new Quinny Zapp Xtra, I have to admit thinking the box looked a little bit on the nondescript and boring side. Just another pushchair box, or so I thought …..

But my excitement about the contents meant I had to open it straight away, after all it’s not every day you get a new pushchair to test! On pulling down the front of box I realised that this, however may not just have been a normal, ordinary pushchair in a box. After all how many other boxes appear to have what can only be described as a “red carpet” and a strange glow coming from inside?

The mystery deepened as the open box revealed a stage curtain with sparkly lights glowing behind it, most odd I thought, I was afterall expecting just a pushchair in a box!

You can imagine my surprise when the curtains opened to reveal my new, super shiny Quinny Zapp Xtra. I shouldn’t really have expected anything else should I? After all surely a pushchair that looks this good deserves it’s own opening night premier complete with lights, curtain and red carpet :)

OK OK I admit maybe I “tweaked” the packaging a little to reflect what was going through my mind at the time of opening my Quinny Zapp Xtra and the actual unpacking looked a bit more like this…

But with it only taking about 10 minutes to unpack and put together the pushchair, it left me plenty of time to create the kind of packaging I think the Quinny Zapp Xtra really deserves. Maybe Quinny should take note for future ideas? :)

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Beautiful Blogger

2
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

I feel ever so happy because I’ve been tagged by the lovely Kate at The Five F’s with the Beautiful Blogger award :) Kate writes a great blog so pop on over and have a read, it will keep you entertained for ages :)

Apparently now I have to tell you 7 interesting things about myself. Now this could be tricky as I’m struggling to think of 1 or 2 but I’ll have a go….

1. I’m one of 5 children

Growing up in a big family is something I’ve always loved, well I can’t say there weren’t  moments when I longed to be an only child but on the whole I love the fact I have so many brothers and sisters. My little sister is closest in age to me, being just 11 months younger than me. This is probably one of the main reasons that we tried for another baby so soon after Zara was born and we are delighted that they will be close in age :)

2. I met my husband on a dating website

This is a little known fact and one which for some reason I feel embarrassed admitting but I found myself in a situation where I just wasn’t going out and meeting single men anymore so decided to do something about it. Within about 2 weeks of joining the site I began talking to my husband and we met shortly afterwards (outside the Zara store in York – and yes that is part of the reason why Zara is called Zara lol) , 6 months later he proposed and a year after that we got married. We’ve now been married over 3 years! It scares me to think “what if” I’d never joined that site all those years ago.

3. I love the colour Green

OK so it’s not necessarily an “interesting” fact but I seem to have acquired an obsession with the colour, my engagement ring is emerald and our living room is decorated in green. Clothes wise I find teal suits me better than pure green but I have a huge amount of teal clothes :)

4. I’m vegetarian

Interestingly I wasn’t vegetarian before I met my husband but he had been vegetarian for 20 years when I met him. I was never a big meat eater and tended to only eat chicken, fish or bacon but it just seemed  easier to go veggie when I started dating my husband. He never asked me to but it’s something I don’t regret and it certainly makes life easier in the house with us both being veggie now. Zara will be raised as a veggie until she is old enough to decide for herself and if she decides to eat meat then it will have to be at school or friends houses, as I won’t be cooking meat dishes in this house.

5. I’m a MAJOR chocoholic!

And when I say major I mean it. My husband can’t believe how much of a sweet tooth I have, I could sit and eat chocolate from the minute I wake up until the minute I go to sleep. If I opened a packet of chocolate biscuits then I would sit and eat every one of them without a break. Luckily I’m also somebody who doesn’t put weight on so it hasn’t affected my figure at all. I really hope Zara doesn’t inherit my sweet tooth though as I don’t think I’ll be able to cope with a sugar fueled toddler!

6. I do silk paintings

This is a hobby that I first picked up in secondary school and I potter around with every so often, usually as gifts for friends or family. The one below I made for somebody who was into chinese horoscopes, he was a “Fire Dog” and so for his 60th birthday I made him this, I know they aren’t particularly amazing but the recipients liked them :)


7. My favourite number is 4

This has probably got to do with the fact that my birthday is on the 4th October and it’s one of those numbers that I always choose if asked to pick a number. I also tend to arrange things in fours such as photo frames.

And now all I am required to do is tag somebody to share the Beautiful Blogger Award so over to you:

All About Us and Such Like

The Moiderer

Whimsical Wife

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