Aldi Mamia wipes -a review! #mamiaparentpanel

I've always been very particular about what I used on G's skin as both myself and Chris have sensitive skin.  Then the opportunity came to test mamia wipes we took the plunge!  On first inspection they have a lovely baby smell and are quite moist, however Chris' first comments were they're a bit thin and not going to clean up poo very well are they, however by day two he had to eat his words as they cleaned up G's bum easier than our regular brand!   There were only two minor niggles with these wipes it's very difficult to get just one wipe out of the pack at a time especially when doing it one handed because your other hand is trying to keep a wriggling toddler still to stop him getting covered with contents of his nappy!  Unfortunately this is the case with most baby wipes though.  The other point is that as you get to the bottom of the packet the wipes get wetter and wetter with the last wipe holding quite a bit of liquid which Chris squeezed out to prove his point!  They are however much more robust than they first appear and we are both converts and won't be wasting our tight budget on branded ones in the future!

Disclaimer: I was given a pack of wipes free of charge for the purposes of this review, and write an open and honest review, all opinions and thoughts are my own.

Aldi mamia nappies -a review #mamiaparentpanel

When you have a baby one of the biggest expenses is nappies until you have to buy them regularly you don't realise how much they cost.  When G was a newborn I was very particular as to using branded nappies as I naively thought they would be better for him as he got older and money got tighter we started trying other brands but once we tried mamia we didn't look back  they are as good as the leading brand if not better and half the price -even better!

So when our princess came along last week we didn't hesitate to try the newborn mamia nappies and I'm glad we did at 6lb 15 she us by no means a tiny baby but the branded size one newborn nappies drown her these were a more snug fit and just like the regular nappies they were as good as the brand if not better and will definitely be a regular in our shopping trolley from now on!

Disclaimer: I was given a pack of nappies free of charge for the purposes of this review, and write an open and honest review, all opinions and thoughts are my own.

Aldi mamia baby bath- a review! #mamiaparentpanel

Mamia baby bath has a lovely delicate fragrance which is a refreshing change as some baby baths are too strong.  It gives good bubbles which lasted throughout bath time and stood up to G's bubble beard test!

Disclaimer: I was given a bottle of baby bath free of charge for the purposes of this review, and write an open and honest review, all opinions and thoughts are my own.

Aldi mamia baby lotion - a review #mamiaparentpanel

Mamia baby lotion has a lovely fragrance that took me back to when I was about 10 and my sister was a baby.  We don't tend to use lotions and potions in our house but we have for the purposes of this review.  So long as you don't put a ton on like I did the first time it soaks into the skin really well and leaves baby's skin smelling lovely and silky soft.

Disclaimer: I was given a bottle of baby lotion free of charge for the purposes of this review, and write an open and honest review, all opinions and thoughts are my own.

Aldi mamia baby oil - a review #mamiaparentpanel

I've never really used baby oil before as I always imagined it was really greasy I was pleasantly surprised at how easy it was absorbed into baby's delicate dry skin and it had a lovely delicate fragrance which is very pleasant but not too strong that I was concerned about irritation.

Disclaimer: I was given a bottle of baby oil free of charge for the purposes of this review, and write an open and honest review, all opinions and thoughts are my own.

Induction and a birth story

I was booked in for induction on tues 5th nov 2013 when I would be term plus 5 on the grounds of unstable blood pressure.  On the way we stopped at Starbucks for a yummy Xmas orange mocha and a cinnamon swirl!  We arrived in time for our 11.30 appointment but as always with these things we were kept waiting I was hooked up to the ctg just in time for the doctor to come on the ward. It was a male doctor and at first I was apprehensive about having an internal but to be fair he was much more gentle than any others! He said I was 2-3cm dilated and so would only need the gel which needs to be in for 6hours, this was a huge relief as was convinced they'd make me have the pessary and wait 12 hours!

Once the gel had been in for half an hour we went for a walk unfortunately it was raining so we went through the hospital to the front where there's a Booth's supermarket, Chris joked on the way as all these old dears kept overtaking me! I felt like my bum was literally going to fall out! When we got back to the ward I found I'd suddenly sprung haemorrhoids what a time for them to pop out!

It was around tea time I started with irregular contractions and was reattached to the ctg about 8pm as hadn't really felt any movements this showed I was having contractions but not regular and they peetered off towards the end of the trace.  We were just waiting for a bed for them to break my waters.  They took my blood pressure and it had peaked to 175/98 at just after 9 so she tried to get me laid down on the bed to relax and said she'd recheck in a few minutes. I wasn't comfortable the pain in my back was unbearable I went for a wee and came over really sick but couldn't be sick.  When I came out of the bathroom the contractions seemed closer together when all of a sudden had to tell Chris was fighting the urge to push! Never seen him move so fast to get a midwife two appeared and got me on the bed to check what was going on baby's head was there but waters not gone. 

They got me in a wheelchair and into the lift before could catch my breath up to the delivery suite where they got me on the bed and she just about got the nozzle on the gas three pushes and out came our beautiful little girl at 22.51. Officially my labour was classed as 45mins  I didn't even get the midwife's name until after it was all that quick, she didn't get to fill in any paperwork either.  Unfortunately because she came so quickly I ended up with a third degree tear so was whisked up to surgery pretty quickly to be fixed up! It was when I returned from theatre that I got Laura the midwife's name. Definitely the way to do it they say the next one is like shelling peas - not a bad description!

A birth announcement

It's with great pleasure we welcome our beautiful little princess Isabella to our family born 5/11/13 @22.51 named after my late grandmother she is just perfect! Although I may be a little biased!!!

D-day!

Today I'm 40 weeks pregnant, this morning I had an appointment with my consultant, there was a medical student working with the midwife so got given a thorough once over, then in came the doctor who was lovely and was aware of my case as she was 'the boss' the doctor on Monday had consulted with!  My blood pressure is borderline but not high enough to treat or be overly concerned.  But the decision was made to induce me when there was availability on delivery suite.  Meanwhile she performed a membrane sweep which has to be said is not the pleasantest of experiences but anything to get the ball rolling! It's not much worse than a smear test but you are left feeling a bit uncomfortable. (If not a little violated!). 

My induction is booked for tues (bonfire night!) at 11.30 of course if they're busy it could always be delayed! But at least something proactive has happened and if no labour by tues I know something will get done.

39 weeks pregnant

A little late with this post but as you'll find out I've been a bit busy! Last tues started with pain in lower back (feels more like bum!) saw midwife on thurs @39 weeks she's referred me to physio who I'll see on weds (day before dday!!!) bp 140/82 also said I had oedema in legs - I'd not noticed anything so booked a home visit on Sunday for monitoring.

Sunday came and midwife turned up about 11.30 bp 120/104! Did a recheck was 140/96 so it was a trip up to the day unit!  We dropped G off at the inlaws on the way and picked up some mcds as not had lunch then straight to hospital.  Fortunately not too busy when got there about 1ish so was put straight into monitor had 3 relatively normal readings then on last one where she'd have sent me home went back up to 142/91 so had to wait for a review with a doctor.  Unfortunately there'd been an emergency c section so everyone was in theatre.  The day unit closes around 4.30 so then got taken up onto maternity ward to wait for a doctor there, was only sat there about 10 minutes when called through was put in a single ward and wasn't long before doctor arrived had a chat and decided needed rechecking tues at day unit and see midwife thurs then attached me to ctg to check baby- who is fine and gave a text book reading!

Monday morning rang to organise appointment at day unit and found out was only for single bp reading so asked if could organise community midwife to do it, there was a local clinic on Monday and they got me an appt for in 10mins so rushed to get there weeing in a pot before I left.  It was the same midwife again poor woman sick of seeing me!  Bp up again 130/98 and 140/90 on retaking! But there was protein in wee so another trip to day unit!  Which was absolutely heaving when I got there so had a long wait bp profile pretty normal but wanted me to see doctor to come up with care plan!

Doctor discussed sweep and induction with me and got excited thought they were going to do a sweep there and then and start the ball rolling but when he came back after talking to his boss decided to send off some bloods if they came back ok then will see my consultant thurs to discuss induction but if came back raised urates then they'd have me back there and sort out induction.  'Unfortunately' they came back ok slightly elevated but not to be a concern so have to wait till Thursday morning now for anything proactive! Which is due day anyway!!! 

Halloween hand and footprints

Messy Monday moved to Tuesday this week as we had a play date on Monday! So continuing the halloween theme as trying to fit as much in before baby arrives - not that G is even aware it's halloween!  I thought we'd get the paints out so good old Pinterest didn't disappoint with inspiration and came up with 3 pictures to create using hand and footprints.

Once we'd done the actual prints G was way more interested in playing with the bowl of soapy water for cleaning up than in finishing the pictures - so it was down to mummy!

Once finished I let him loose with some fresh paper and he seemed to prefer the freedom he even tried painting his own foot like we'd done earlier! So cute!

This soon turned into a session of body art! - my son seems to prefer painting himself to putting it on paper!

So here's our finished pics not too shabby and now in pride of place on the fridge!

And here's his solo piece bit abstract!

Our wedding day

Statistically the two most stressful things a person can do in their life is nice house and get married!  October 15th 2010 we moved house, on the 16th we got married I know we must have been mad you say well it wasn't planned that way the house sale was supposed to go through weeks before then was about to fall through and we just wanted it out of the way before our big day!  In a way it was nice because I was stressing about the house I was able to relax and enjoy my wedding day glitch free (well apart from a slight panic over the cake but more on that later!) and we came back off honeymoon like an old fashioned married couple to our new home together.

We chose the beautiful Allerton castle nr knaresborough North Yorkshire for our wedding fortunately at the time chris was self employed so we were able to pile money into our wedding pot if we were doing it today it would be a whole different ball game.  But it was the sort of place you walked in and just went wow!

My gorgeous husband scrubbed up well for the occasion.

Neither of us is religious so we decided to have a civil ceremony but the beauty of the hall in the castle is that it feels quite chapel like and certainly adds its own character to the day.

I can't believe how nervous I was I'm not one for being centre of attention and I had a staircase to walk down which added to the tension, I must have looked pretty scared as the registrar wouldn't continue until I cracked a smile!

We decided on very simple decorations using single flowers suspended in large vases so as not to detract from the splendour of the room, for flowers we chose the white rose of Yorkshire for me and the red rose of lancashire for Chris.

On to the cake, as we'd spent so much elsewhere on the wedding we chose a plain ivory three tier cake (1fruit and 2 sponge) from marks n Spencer's getting the florist to decorate it for us when Chris went to collect the cake on the thurs one of the layers was missing! They found a white fruit bottom layer, the girl at the desk -trying to be helpful- offered to take it home and re-ice it for him as she did a bit of dabbling!  Realising this wasn't an option they found another fruit layer in white and a final layer would have to be collected from another branch in the morning!  Chris went off to fetch it I went to collect my dress and go to solicitors whilst a hoard of people moved us into our new home!  After he'd collected the final layer he got a call saying there'd been a mix up and somebody had returned our cake anyhow long story short we ended up with six layers of wedding cake! The final one has just been used for our sons naming day.

It was the perfect day surrounded by family and friends and the man I love I couldn't have wished for more.

Messy Monday 14/10/13

After the success of the last sensory box I wanted to make G a halloween inspired box.  I coloured some rice using black food colouring and alcohol hand gel.  I picked up lots of spooky bits in the three for £2 at morrisons and added some table confetti from a pound shop. I also found a flickering pumpkin for only £1.89 at home bargains.  I buried a large skeleton in front of a tombstone then hid some smaller skeletons and spiders in the rice. Then sprinkled on some of the confetti

It's been sat in the dining table all weekend and G has been eyeing it up so when I got the messy play mat out and put it down in front of him he couldn't wait to dive in!

He soon found the buried skeleton and was mesmerised by how it's jelly like structure made the rice stick to it.

He dug out all the 'buried treasure' and even seemed to be sorting the confetti into piles but I think this was purely coincidence - either that or we have a child genius on our hands!

Then it got thrown back in and it was a free for all!

The small skeletons were incredibly stretchy!

Though it turned out not quite as stretchy as he thought and we now have bones rather than a full skeleton!

And after all that play he even helped to tidy up!