A New Day

So a new dawn, a new day. And I feel a lot better for it!

Of recent due to disturbed sleep and later nights, we have been getting up later and doing a lot of though much-needed pyjama lazing, it was getting to the point where it was unproductive on any level. Today, we were up at 8:30am which although six weeks ago would have been a lie-in, we are still adjusting! As we had extra time on our sides, I decided to bite the bullet and go Out The House, which we did after a moderate amount of faffing. Wriggles had her morning bolus on the metro while I subjected her to some window shopping in town, meaning I could drag the feed out a big longer. We were rewarded by it staying down, and I threw caution to funny looks and stood outside H&M drawing up a syringe of water to flush the g-tube.

The rest of the day was spent in the city, doing some light shopping, some library menacing, some minor picnic-ing and then visiting one of our favourite places, the Laing art gallery. As an art gallery, it is fairly nice with every now and then an exhibition that is really worth seeing. However, since having Wriggles it has opened up a whole new aspect of galleries to me: a) it is free b) it has a dedicated pre-school area full of toys, books and sensory things c) it regularly lays on free or low-cost family events which may or may not remotely revolve around art d) the cafe does not require a mortgage to have lunch in and there are ample high chairs e) it has two easily accessibly baby change areas and f) so far no one has batted an eyelid to my child who goes around banging walls and squwarking, delighted at the echo her voice produces. At the moment they have a brilliant exhibition on Quentin Blake and some art he has produced for hospitals including a maternity unit in Angers, France, a mental health unit for older adults and a clinic for eating disorders in London. The original art works were stunning and quirky as usual and there was a lightbox for Wriggles to batter. In the cafe, I let terrible table manners (slide climbing on the sofa and shrieking to play with my water bottle-it was that or my hot cup of coffee) for the sheer relief she was feeling better!

Wriggles is slowly regaining crawling strength although still prefers to be carried around (nothing new there....) or cruise wherever possible. I think her trunk is still a little sore and feeling funny so keeping upright is more comfortable for her. After a few days of being pretty much immobile, her gait is far more noticeable as being all over the place and looking at her stood next to other children, she does carry herself in a peculiar manner. Then again, some of the children we saw today had some very unappealing and curious traits so I am not in the least bit bothered! Actually having been through this last patch is making me accept a little more and embrace that there is no magic cures or fixes and yes, it sucks that we didn't leave behind prematurity when we left NICU, but I did take home a pretty special girl and that is what matters.*

If I fall over the sides, do we get to go back to a&e?

Best. Toy. Ever

Hmmm, how noisy can I be? VERY NOISY!!

*even though I may scream if I have to read "A Squash and a Squeeze" one more time.