Fear and learning in our house

I've not been here in a little while, I've been really busy with teething and other things, but that's another post.
The other day I was giving Flynn a snack, I offered him a rusk, he had had them a couple of times and usually just sucked them for a while then threw them away, this day he took a big bite and before I could react he had chewed and swallowed it! Stupid me should have taken that as a warning and taken the rusk away I'm an idiot and didn't lo and behold he took another bite, this time he didn't chew, he started choking and gasping! I'm really proud of myself I didn panic, I pulled him out of the high chair, flipped him upside down over my knee and gave him two smacks on his back, luckily he coughed and dislodged it, I hooked it out of his mouth and gave my rather bewildered baby a hug.
the point of this post? Yes partly don't try feeding babies things they probably aren't ready for, but mainly its the importance of first aid training, I was lucky and while I was pregnant I did a first aid course at work and the trainer added in a bit about babies for me, I don't know what I would have done if I hadn't learnt the choking technique, this could have been a very different post.

luckily for me all is now well and there were no lasting effects, Flynn is fine and I'm rather paranoid about what I feed him (rusks only if smushed with milk...)
What would you have done? How would you react?
It scared me when I thought about if I hadn't done the training and it worries me how many mummies don't have basic first aid training, I wanted to post my experience in the hope that even one mummy would read it and book themselves on a course local children's centres do them sometimes for free I'm sure there are other places too.
is your babys life worth a quick google and possibly an afternoon?

Silent Sunday.

Isolation

I've always said I'm lucky for living with my sisters in law that they work evenings and my husband works days so there is usually someone in the house to talk to and so far i've not felt lonely at all.  Until today, sisters in law had their civil partnership last saturday and on wednesday went away on honeymoon for two weeks so today I woke up after hubby had gone to work, there was no one in but me and the bubba, I realised that today would be identical to yesterday, sat in the house with a grumpy baby who seems to be teething with no one to talk to till 7:30 when hubby gets home, I don't really have many 'real life' friends, mainly through Facebook and forums etc so I had no one really to call on to go out with, I decided to invite my mother in law out for the day. It might sound odd but she's one of my closest friends, she was too busy.
I'm sat in the house fed up and with no options to go out, after 20 min of the coronation street omnibus I had two options, top myself or go out alone and still have no one to talk to.
Quite sensibly I decided to go out and off out to a park we went, had a nice walk round and Flynn had a go on his first swing, one of those big ones that look like a disk, he laid there giggling away and even though I still had no one but Flynn to talk to but it was nice to be out at least, walking back through town to the car a kid about 7, was running towards us, tripped and fell into the pushchair luckily the snack tray/bumper broke his fall and Flynn wasn't hurt but the kid smacked his face really hard on the plastic tray, no idea whether he was injured as he just got up and ran off, no apology or anything!
Do we not teach manners and concern for others anymore? Where were this boys parents? I'm also shocked that in a busy town centre no one stopped to ask if we were ok while I was trying to calm down a terrified baby. I'm still quite upset about it and I just hope I can bring Flynn up to be more careful and to have manners and basic humanity.

So I'm putting out a call to all the mummies out there please help your children to grow into polite and nice people, our babies and children will make p the future and its up to us to help them to be the best people we can.

oooh, shiny and new!

I'm starting this blog almost exactly a year after finding out that I was pregnant, I was terrified! Don't get me wrong I was thrilled, we had been trying for a year and were getting a bit downhearted but suddenly that little blue line changed everything! I had an awesome new job lined up, that was the first to go, my new found love of alcoholic beverages? yup! Gone!

Did I mind giving it all up? not at all I may have been terrified and constantly reminding every one of how easily it could all go wrong but there was an actual life growing inside me! I would have given my life for it and it wasn't even as bis as a sesame seed yet.

Little did I know during the next 9 months how much I would have to give up and how totally different my life would be when Flynn arrived than I ever could have imagined.

when we found out I was pregnant we were living in a two bed rented house with old beams, quirky corners and a leak in the kitchen which caused mould and an infestation of slugs, we had reported the landlord to the environmental health shortly after moving in and he had done the bare minimum work, not long after finding out I was pregnant I also found out we were going to be evicted, we were given 4 weeks to find a new home, after lots of tears and upheaval we found a lovely bungalow not far away, we thought that things were looking up and got all settled in. Moving into a bungalow was a stroke of genius as I developed a condition called SPD which basically meant my hips were in almost constant pain and eventually by the end of my pregnancy I could barely walk and on rare days out i had to rely on a wheelchair or electric scooter.

Everything was great while i was pregnant, except my hips, I never got morning sickness and the worst symptom I got was heartburn towards the end. at 20 weeks it was confirmed I was having a boy and immediately he was Flynn, there was no big decision or discussion he just was!

At 8 months pregnant the unimaginable happened we were told that our landlord was selling our little bungalow and we would have to move, the date they gave us to be out by- 12/07/11 Flynn's due date- 13/07/11! They couldn't have planned it better and since they knew I was pregnant I couldn't even guilt trip them into letting us stay till he arrived, we looked round houses and flats but couldn't shake the worry that it would all just happen again until John's (husband) sister Sarah and her partner Nicola came to us and offered to share their house with us, the single most amazing offer I ever had! we sat down and discussed details and eventually a month before Flynn arrived we moved to Sheffield and started our new life.

I have to say it's the best thing we could have done, not least the money aspects (1/2 price bills yes please!!) but in the early days when I was struggling to move around, couldn't drive and felt isolated there was always someone in the house to cheer me up and if I wanted to be alone we have our own living rooms so can be alone too.

Two days before his due date I got into bed, felt a 'pop' and my water broke, 18 hours, out came Flynn, all pink, noisy and amazing! My birth story can wait for another day, its long and it all went wrong.

I went home the next day and thanks to an amazing support network the last almost 4 months have flown by, Flynn is thriving and I haven't once been Isolated and scared as I could have been if we were living alone and Flynn has the best relationship with his aunties I could possibly hope for.

Life is good and if you can make sense of my ramblings then I'd like to share it with you.