Month: July 2008

They arrived from Carinthia in Austria where Sebastian’s sister got married last Saturday. They stayed with us two nights on their way to Singapore and we enjoyed to have them around a lot. It was too hard to have them in Cambridge while they were living in Bruxelles but now that they live in Singapore… it’s easier to stop in UK! We celebrate Louisa’s nine month birthday in CB2 with Rekins, another old Fernanda’s colleagues from Shoshana’s lab in Bruxelles. You can follow Laura on her blog too!

We went to London for the Summer Sling Show in order to try some new carriers before buying one of them. We tried Ergo, Bondolino and Sleepy Nico. We also talked with an independent sling expert and we tried with her the Napsack carrier. The winner was the Sleepy Nico because it was the lightest and the most comfortable. Alan carried Louisa for the rest of the day on his back for the first time and we went to the London aquarium. After the visit we took some rest at “Le Pain Quotidien” where we had some fresh juices and nice pastries.

We took the Eurostar train from London and stopped in Paris at Elsa & Colin’s flat. We had nice breakfast at their place with Sonia & Silvia on their way back to Rio from Singapore while waiting for my parents to arrive. Elsa is pregnant and the little one is due for the end of September. We are really happy for them 🙂 We went to Jargeau and spent the rest of the week-end chatting and enjoying my parents’ lovely garden. We strolled around Orleans before driving back to Paris on Monday.

We went walking to meet our NCT friends for a coffee: Sally & Sam, Catherine & Luca, and Geeta & Sienna were there. We had a lovely time chatting around a nice coffee.

While looking for a third baby carrier, I thought it could be useful to write down here how we choose to raise Louisa in harmony with us.

Babywearing.
From the beginning we only bought a Maya padded ring sling at Little Possums. We then bought a second one, a Kari-me wrap style carrier. These two have been fantastic, I particularly enjoy the Kari-me. It is so nice to walk around and travel with Louisa! No buggy hassle! We went to a slingmeet in Cambridge to exchange tips and ideas. We are now looking to our third one… Beco, Ergo, Yamo, Mei Tai carrier… At the same time, we are thinking of a light buggy like the MacLaren Volo… but we are so happy of wearing Louisa that we may never need this buggy! And so we may better invest in a more comfortable carrier for heavier baby.

Co-sleeping.
While being pregnant, we read “Three in a Bed: The Benefits of Sleeping with Your Baby” and have been convinced that would be the best option for us. At 8 months and a half, we are still sleeping well all together!
We bought a cot and a mattress at IKEA in case, but we even didn’t mount the cot and are thinking of selling it! We just used the mattress as a protection next to our changing table 😉 By the way, we just used an existing IKEA INGO table that we transformed into a changing table by covering it with a waterproof fabric! No extra useless cost 🙂

Breastfeeding.
For me it has been since Louisa’s day one the most enjoyable thing to do. I think we have also been successful thanks to Alan’s wonderful support. But also by carrying her and sleeping with her, I am able to really breast feed on demand and I really think it is really a wonderful thing to do on top of being the best food that I could ever give to her. I have exclusively breast fed Louisa for the first six months and we introduced slowly some other foods like bananas, puree and compotes. I am still breastfeeding for our happiness.

Washable nappies.
We got a free real nappy kit from Cambridge City Council containing a really good numbers of washable nappies to start with (terries, one-life and pre-folded). We also have waterproof wraps, fleece, fleece wipes, Nappi Nippas, nappy bucket and waterproof bags. We wash and dry them every two days and use disposable nappies when traveling. For us it works very well. Since few weeks, we are now try to catch the morning poo to have less dirty nappies. We have been quite successful so far!

Louisa is now 8.02kg! And all is fine 🙂 She has 6 teeth (2 at the bottom, and 4 at the top!). She is almost crawling! Almost there but not yet…

We went to Alex’s birthday in the evening and met lot’s of new people. They loved Louisa, as usual. We had a really good time there.

After being not well last Thursday, I felt dizzy with flu-like symptoms, had a bit of fever and swollen, red and painful breast… I took some paracetamols and had a day off resting at home. Alan stayed home also to take care of Louisa… I am so lucky to have him! I’ve looked over internet and found that it could have been a breast mastitis, which is an infection that commonly affects women who are breast-feeding. Signs of mastitis include red, hot, painful, or inflamed breasts and other flu-like symptoms such as headache, and high body temperature.

We went out shopping on Saturday and Sunday was our last term swimming lesson! Louisa enjoyed it a lot and we did more acrobatics this time… next one will start in Septembre!

We invited Catherine, Tood & Luca for a “French” picnic but the weather was not as good as we could hope… so we ended up at our home. We did “tomates farcies” and “reine de saba”, typical french recipes from my Mum. We talked a lot about the world as Todd travels a lot. Alexia was happy to be able to speak French with Catherine!
We then went to Lyra’s birthday party. We arrived almost at the end, but it was nice to say hello to people and spend a time chatting with Wim & Kate!
On Sunday, Crystelle came from London to have lunch with us. She offered two lovely dresses to Louisa, and we spent a good time to catch up!

Ignacio & Ludmila came to stay with us for the week-end. It was really great to have them around while Ignacio is still in Lancaster and before he is going back to Rio! We had nice dinners together and Louisa enjoyed a lot playing with them! She was captivated by Ignacio reading “Le Petit Prince”!