Author Archives: Daddybean

Had the midwife round today, weighed Butterbean, weighed 10 Lb 2 0z – over a pound up from her birth weight of 9lB 1oz . Well she has been eating for England so it’s good to see it’s gone somewhere – so much for breastfed babies losing weight first I know we shouldn’t care about these things, but it’s hard not to feel pleased.

She seems more settled that Stringbean was, she seems happy to go down to sleep, and mostly only wakes when she wants feeding and can be alert without constant entertainment! Once she has fed she’s mostly ok – occasionally makes a bit of a fuss in the early hours. She does seem to feed a lot from 3.30 am though, so Helen wasn’t that lively this morning. Butterbean spends most of her life on the sofa in the evening rather than the cot as Helen likes to have her around at the moment, rather than stuck up in the bedroom.

It’s been an out and about day for them, Was shown off to everyone at Tots club by Helen and Stringbean this afternoon – so acquired a few more presents, much to Stringbean’s excitement – she doesn’t care whose they are she just likes opening presents. It’s all those Ebay packages……..

In the morning she had gone to her Gym class at the sport centre. She’s been going along to these, and the previous ‘ baby gym’ class for ages, she’s pretty good and loves climbing, swinging etc. There was a bit more DIY when she helped me drill some holes in the nappy rack for a top. Distracted by the arrival home of the neighbour Molly, so of course she wanted to go and visit, one of her favourite activities. I think she likes it that she can go over there by herself..

When not sawing she’s drilling……

Helen has just taken The Beans out to Tots Club, time for a bit of lunch and a catch up on yesterdays blog.

Er…. blank mind alert!!

Butterbean ate and slept, ate and slept…. get the pattern? And of course along the way just kept up the good work on looking cute.

It was nursery day for Stringbean, when I picked her up she didn’t want to come home – they were all dressed up ready to go out side and play – ‘I want to stay, I want to play outside’ etc. She practiced putting on her lippy Carmel gave her – blue is such a fetching colour on me I find…..

Had a mega-long bath with Mum, which involved lots of invetigation on the properties of water – aka lots of swooshing about after her bath she had a mega bouncing session on her bed – Part of me feels I’m supposed to stop her doing this, but she enjoys it so much – and I enjoy watching – tried to get a good action snap as well. It all ended when she hit her head on the wall and put (another…) dent in the plasterboard.

Bedtime ended with a reading of the next of the Beatrix Potter books.

Now, back to the housework….

Apparently, I’m a:

You are an OOMPA LOOMPA!
You are the most evil and foul being to walk this
earth. Get therapy! And stay away from my
family!

Monkey? Pizza? Death? Oompa Loompa?
brought to you by Quizilla

Not really sure where this started now, but I have resisted so far – but what the heck…..

Apparently (and of course if I was a mum…) I would be:

You’re a witchy woman! Chances are that you see
Morticia Addams as a role model, and your
wardrobe sports a fair amount of black. The
other mothers at school pick up may look
askance, but your kids already know that the
judgement of others isn’t what counts.

or possibly:

You’re a punk rock mommy! DIY is probably your
motto, because you’re a punk mama at heart.
Your kids are getting your independent spirit
and guts, and learning to solve problems
themselves. You love it when they show their
independence, even when it’s breaking your
heart.

What kind of a freaky mother are you?
brought to you by Quizilla

Helen thinks that Butterbean will need some Botox becuase of the amazing furrows on her brow that she has when she frowns – or starts to cry. She took her to see a friend Carmel, who had a another baby a few weeks ago – gave us a present for ~Butterbean and a small pressie for Stringbean – real girly stuff – sparkly bangles and some kiddies sparkly body gel, lipstick stuff etc. – so she loved it, especially as we lost the bit of freebie stuff we got off the front of magazine. Though then made a fuss as she had lipstick on when she wanted to eat her dinner – ‘well go and wipe it off then….’ – fuss – fuss.

Stringbean was at nursery today, when I went to pick her up she didn’t want to come home – she want to carry on playing ‘camping’ or whatever it was they were all doing in the corner. Glad to know that home is such a welcoming place.

Got the new hall and landing carpet today so said goodbye to the last of the stuff that was here when we moved in in 1997 – makes such difference… surprise , surprise. Stringbean has bee looking forward to a carpet on the stairs, when she saw it she was so pleased ‘ Oh it goes upstairs as well!” After dinner she had a Kiwifruit, she helped peel and slice it she is getting worringly good at times a using a sharp knife (with a bit of help and supervision) – but she does know how to hold it had to cut safely with it as we’ve always encouraged her to do it and respect them, rathee than hide them away

Going out this afternoon, Stringbean wanted to put on her Jelly Shoes, couldn’t find both (I think one is in the car) so she decided to wear two odd shoes. Of course, normal parental response can be’ Well that’s a bit silly wearing odd shoes, wear something else’ , but bites tongue, if you can’t happily wear odd shoes when as she says you are ’3 to 4′ (she got it from her clothes size labels…) then when can you…

Nanny and Grandad Johnson went back home today, so we will have a bit of ‘ just us’ time before we get a visit from Nanna and Grandad French to see their new Grandaughter. After they went home we had a bit of marathon maths session with Stringbean – though she still tends to call the books ‘Match and sort’ as the first one she had was about matching up and sorting things. We ahven’t done anything much like this for a while really, so it was good to do something for a change.

She used one of the Singapore Maths“> ‘Maths Pals ‘ books. We pretty much just let here choose whatever bit she fancies, using the ‘I’ve forgot what they are called’ blocks we did a bit of simple counting, then some adding using the blocks, while also talking about how additions are written on the page etc. Then we did some number grouping – numbers less than 5, more than 5 , more than 10 etc. She spotted that 5 was in the middle of both ‘less than ‘ and ‘more than’ groups, which I thought was pretty clever, she also seemed to spot that any number with a ’1 and something’ was bigger than 10, since I don’t think she can read the ‘teens’ yet very much, even though she can count them. After I went to fit up some new lights in the hall and landing, Stringbean and mummy continued with stuff on ‘balancing’ numbers etc. and more.

On the topic of numbers, she’s made a bit of a breakthrough on spotting the repeating patterns as you go up though the ‘tens’, she’d been stuck at about 20 for a while, but yesterday counted by herself up to 35 (or 37)

Butterbean is oblivious to all this of course, but is feeding away like there is no tommorrow She even seems to be smiling occasionaly, though I assume it’s just one of her faces at the moment, rather than in response to something. Cute though.

Problem writing this is, that I forget things that could go in by the time I write.

Last night, while Stringbean was helping me give Butterbean a bath the end of the cord dropped off – String was really excited and went down stairs to tell everyone that she had a belly button now. So it does look rather nicer now