No internet access

I currently have no internet access hence the lack of posts. It went off a couple of weeks ago just before we went on holiday and is still down since we got back. The internet company said it isn't a problem from their end so it's either our equipment or BT's line so I'm not sure when it'll be sorted out. Have just come to the library to do a few essentials online and thought I ought to just let people know in case they were wondering what had happened to me.

Letter to my MP

If you are based in the UK, I urge you to write to your own MP about this Bill. If not, please keep it in your prayers. See Alive and Kicking and the Christian Institute for more information.

Dear [my MP],

I am writing to you with regard to the upcoming Human Fertilisation and Embryology Bill. I am aware that you are a member of a group which is against any violence against children. I hope that this view extends to the protection of unborn children. I would urge you to support amendments to reduce the 24-week upper time limit for abortion, end discriminatory abortion of disabled babies up to birth and require doctors to provide women seeking abortion with comprehensive information on the risks and the alternatives to abortion.

Before 24 weeks, the unborn baby is very well developed. The latest research has shown that these babies can feel pain (http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/10/magazine/10Fetal-t.html?_r=4&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin) yet they are usually suctioned out of the womb by a pipe with blades on the end intended to cut the baby into (more convenient) small pieces. Babies born at 20 to 24 weeks are now surviving at much higher rates than when the previous legislation was passed. (http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article547524.ece) Remember that a baby who has been born so early is usually born because there is some medical problem with either themself or their mother. This means that babies aborted at this stage (the majority of whom are healthy) would have a much higher chance of survival than those naturally born at this stage if they were born instead of aborted. Indeed a number of babies do survive abortions in the UK only to be left to die (http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23435549-details/66+babies+in+a+year+left+to+die+after+NHS+abortions+that+go+wrong/article.do and http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article597136.ece) and some babies who have been aborted have survived longer (http://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/s/146/146098_miracle_baby_survived_abortion_bids.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gianna_Jessen).

Disabled people are protected against discrimination by law yet for some reason this is not extended to disabled people who have not yet been born. The current law is worded in such a way that late abortions have been carried out for minor disabilities such as cleft lip and palate, webbed fingers and club foot. In addition, prenatal screening is not necessarily accurate meaning babies are sometimes not as disabled (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=504784&in_page_id=1770) as the doctors thought and in some cases have turned out to be completely healthy.

I am amazed that it is necessary to make a law to require doctors to provide women seeking abortion with comprehensive information on the risks and the alternatives to abortion as I would have expected that this would be standard for any medical procedure. I do hope that you will support this amendment.

I also urge you to vote against amendments aimed at making abortion more readily available and easily accessible. Almost 7 million abortions have been carried out in Britain since 1967 and annual numbers are increasing. Opinion polls show that the public is in support of ways being found to reduce the number of abortions which will not be possible if abortion law is liberalised.
I hope you will take my concerns into consideration when voting on this Bill.

Yours sincerely,

Mrs Susan Xxx.

Getting stuff done

My cold is starting to inprove and I feel like I've been able to get quite a bit done in the last 24 hours.

I have:

• made lamb hot pot for dinner (yesterday);
• made rice pudding for pudding (two days worth so we can have it cold today);
• backed up all our photos onto CD except for the current month which will be done after the end of the month;
• put yoghurt in a pot in the fridge;
• started off the cream cheese;
• harvested a jug of kombucha and topped up the brew;
• been to my church's Ladies Bible Study for the first time since Baby Girl was born;
• prepared a chicken casserole for today and put it on in the slow cooker;
• filed my tax return (I had to wait for the bank to send a summary of interest earned over the last year and it arrived yesterday morning);
• printed a coupon for 50% off at Pizza Hut (it came though my e-mail);
• made the business accounts up to date;
• finished writing a letter to someone (which was quite time consuming as I was "going to them privately" as per Matthew 18v15 so it required a lot of thought and Bible references).

In the next 24 hours I would like to:

• make a salad;
• finish cream cheese and whey and put in fridge;
• do a load of washing ready to hang out tomorrow morning to dry;
• iron a basket of washing (I don't normally iron but it was such a hot still day that some of the stuff just needs ironing);
• sort out photos of Baby Girl onto CDs for both sets of Grandparents;
• file Hubby's tax return (his last bank statement needed has arrived today so I can do it once he comes home from work and opens it);
• pick photos to have printed and then work out what is the best deal (there's quite a lot as I haven't done this since August);
• make wedding present for my cousin (I usually write some appropriate Bible verse using calligraphy and put it in a frame);
• buy a birthday present for our friends daughter (she's three on Tuesday);
• decide what to give my brother for his birthday (it's on Monday but he said he doesn't mind waiting till we see him at the wedding to save us posting it as he lives at the other end of the country).

Well I'd better get working on that list. Hope you all have a lovely weekend, it is beautiful weather here.

Mississippi

One summer holiday while I was a student I spent a month in Mississippi. It was part of a church youth exchange and afterwards we had to write a report about our experience. I thought it would be fun to share it:

The Diocesan Youth Exchange between the Diocese of **** and the Episcopal Diocese of Mississippi was organised by T. The reason for the project is that there are very few young adults involved in church life and this is on opportunity to encourage them to stay involved with the church. Some of the aims of the project were: "To develop the ability to reflect systematically upon another cultural context" and "To explore particularly the interplay of understanding, tolerance and respect in a community's sociopolitical development". We also wanted to look at what sort of provision for youth and young people there was within the church in Mississippi.

The first thing that hit us when we got off the plane was the heat. We arrived in Mississippi during a heat wave and throughout most of the trip we experienced temperatures in the nineties/hundreds with the high humidity making it feel hotter. Mississippi is in what is known as the "Deep South" of the United States of America and is one of the poorest states having never fully recovered from the collapse of slavery at the end of the American Civil War in 1865. It is a very rural state with the main crops being cotton, rice, soya beans and corn (sweetcorn). Apart from about half a dozen urban areas, most of the major towns are a similar size to **** or smaller. With a population of 2.6 million in an area similar to England, it is a much more sparsely populated area and because of this everything is much larger and more spread out making it virtually impossible to go anywhere without a car.

The month long visit was divided into three parts. The first week was a whirlwind tour of Mississippi which also included an overnight visit to New Orleans in Louisiana. This enabled us to get a good overview of Mississippi and its history and also compare it with a neighbouring state.

The second part consisted of two one week individual placements at different churches throughout the state. My first week was with St Peter's by the Lake, Brandon which was near Jackson and I stayed with a family living in Canton (where "My Dog Skip" was filmed). The second week I was at Epiphany Church, Tunica which is very close to Memphis. (By American standards that is: It was a thirty minute drive away!) Tunica County used to be the poorest county in the United States. Since the introduction of casinos this has changed dramatically (and controversially) with for example an 80% reduction in unemployment from 1992 to 1998.

The final week was spent in Jackson working at a variety of different ministries. Over the weekend three members of the group went on Cursillo whilst the rest of us took part in a Vocare weekend. The Vocare movement is for 18 to 30 year olds and deals with issues such as vocational discernment. It is run by young people who have been on the weekends in the past.

When we arrived in Mississippi the people were very welcoming. We were met by JG, W and J who drove us back to the lodge where we met some more people and were given dinner. They were all really friendly and we thought it was strange that they were giving us hugs when we had only just met them. We soon learnt that in Mississippi they use hugs in a similar way that we would use a handshake.

The next morning we went to Saint Andrew's Cathedral in Jackson where we met the two Bishops. One is the presiding bishop and the other is bishop coadjudicator until the current one dies/retires/resigns when he will become the new presiding bishop. We were given a guided tour of the Cathedral which was originally just a church and has many 'English' characteristics such as stained glass windows depicting many key biblical scenes.

For lunch we had 'soul food' (which is "home cooked style food in the African American tradition") at Peaches on Fair Street. This is 'downtown' which is the 'black' area of town. Not very many whites go down there (we didn't see any other white people while we there) and apparently until very recently if someone said they had been down Fair Street you would say something like, "Glad you made it through" or, "What did you lose?" due to the high crime rate in the area. There were lots of 'shotgun shacks' around there which are wooden houses with three or four rooms where you have to walk through each room to get to the next one. It was a complete contrast with the large houses we had seen earlier and we were told that all the people living in them would be black. In the afternoon we went to two museums which helped to give us an overview of the history of Mississippi.

When we returned to the lodge, we were given a talk on race relations by EW. She said that growing up in Mississippi it is very difficult for a person not to be racist. She said that if she was walking down the street at night, she would be more scared if she saw a black man than if she saw a white man even though she doesn't want to be like that. I think that a lot of white people misinterpret the fact that most criminals are black and consciously or subconsciously draw the conclusion that most blacks must be criminals or that they are criminals because they are black rather than because of other effects (such as poverty, lack of education etc.). E told us that her parents were "liberal" and had sent her to a state school and allowed her to have friends of any colour. Even so, when she was in third grade (equivalent of second year junior) and a black boy cycled round to her house to play, her mother said that he should not come round again. This was not because she didn't want him there but because she feared for his safety: If a black boy was seen riding a bike in a 'white' area, people would assume he had stolen it. This means that although there is no longer legal segregation, there is still very much social segregation. In retrospect, excluding the people we met at the various ministries or whom we met specifically to talk about the issue of race, we met no black people. This is because the Episcopal Church is predominantly white and most white people do not seem to have any black friends.

On Friday morning we set off to Vicksburg where we were given a tour of the civil war battlefield park. Everything was extremely well recorded. There were red/blue markers to mark the lines of the confederate/union troops and there were stone markers for many of the battalions where they had been stationed. In addition to this, each state is allowed to have a large memorial. Most of the memorials were from the North and the civil war seems to be very important to the people in the United States. Later on we went to Christ Church and we also visited an Episcopal Church just down the road which was set up to be an 'African-American' church and still has a predominantly black congregation today.

That night we were divided up to stay at different peoples houses and were well looked after. Some of us returned with plenty of food for the journey. It would have been virtually impossible to starve whilst we were staying in Mississippi. We quickly discovered that Southern Hospitality is not renowned for nothing!

On Saturday we drove up through the Delta to Moon Lake stopping off at TCBY, Walmart, a Mall, the Delta Blues Museum and Coahoma. Walmart was very different to what I had expected. I expected it to be similar to the Hypermarket I had been to in France but it was nothing like it. The aisles were very high and quite narrow. It was difficult to find anything as there were lots of disjoint sections and there were no signs. In the Mall we saw a shop called "The Athlete's Foot" which we found quite amusing.

Coahoma is a very small mainly black town which Habitat for Humanity has helped to transform. Habitat for Humanity works to help people to own their own homes. They only build houses for people who are in inadequate housing for their needs but have a job. The houses are built mainly by volunteers and the homeowners also have to put in around 500 hours of 'sweat equity' into their house or other peoples. They then pay back the cost of the house through an interest free loan. The project is not just about building houses but is also about building communities and getting rid of crime so that people can have pride in their neighbourhood rather than living in fear. Coahoma is particularly interesting because Habitat started there as an experiment to see whether such a project could be sustained by such a small population. It had previously been thought that you needed an area to have a certain population before it could sustain development of Habitat but the project in Coahoma has been an incredible success.

The next morning we went to the Church of the Advent before visiting Mississippi State Penitentiary. From the outside the church looked like a shack and we thought that it would have no air conditioning but when we got inside, we found that it was quite modern and it was just panelling on the outside. The sermon was about open and tight fistedness and the fact that if you do not have your hands open to give then you will not be able to receive either.

Mississippi State Penitentiary is 14 square miles big and houses between five and six thousand prisoners at any one time. We were given a tour by LH who spoke to us about the death penalty. He had witnessed the first execution after it was reintroduced and he said that just before it happened he got this terrible feeling that it was wrong. He said that they had a priest there so that after the gas chamber had been cleared of gas, he could go in and administer the last rites. After witnessing an execution, he said that he could not condone capital punishment and that it was murder by the state.

We then drove all the way back to Jackson and arrived just in time for an Independence Day celebration at St James' Church. The service was quite good but there was one bit where they played the anthems of the different military services and veterans from those services stood up when there anthem was played and everyone clapped. I did not really like it as it was glorifying war and I do not believe that war is right. Apart from that I enjoyed the evening.

On Monday morning we set off to New Orleans. The roads in Louisiana were in much worse condition than the ones in Mississippi and we were told that it is because when the drinking age was raised from 18 to 21, federal money for roads was withheld until the states complied and Louisiana did not comply for a long time. Even now it is not very strictly enforced.

We stayed in the French Quarter of New Orleans where the style of the buildings was very different. It did not feel like we were in the United States. There also seemed to be a lot more different coloured people in the streets going about doing ordinary things whereas in Mississippi there seemed to be 'white' and 'black' areas. We did not have any specific organised tours in New Orleans and it was nice to be able to just wander round looking at things at our own speed. We went to the Cathedral and we wandered round the streets and shops. It was like no place I have ever been to. There were loads of voodoo shops and there were people on the streets doing tarot and crystal ball readings and voodoo and weird stuff like that.

On Tuesday we travelled to Trinity Church in Yazoo City where we were picked up by the various people we were staying with and then taken to farm/plantation where they were having a picnic and fireworks display for the fourth of July. The firework display was really good especially considering it was a private one. The next day we were given a short tour of Trinity Church and Yazoo City and then after lunch we were collected by our hosts for the first week.

During my week at St Peter's by the Lake, I took part in/visited a number of different ministries and other activities. These included Stewpot (which provides a day centre for 'senior citizens', the mentally handicapped, and children; a food pantry and clothing closet; meals on wheels; a shelter for women and various other similar things); Ballet Magnificat which is a Christian Ballet Company set up by a lady who gave up a very promising ballet career in order to do it; Habitat for Humanity; Hope House (a house in Jackson for people from out of town who can't afford accommodation to stay in while they are having cancer treatment); visits to Canton town square, Grace Church, Canton and an Antebellum home; Bible studies; visiting someone in hospital; litter picking; going out for dinner with some local high school students; going shopping in an absolutely MASSIVE Christian book store; and of course going to church on Sunday morning. I was very sad to leave my host family and I wished I could have stayed longer.

We all returned to the Gray Center on the Tuesday afternoon and spent the evening catching up with each other and brainstorming next year's return visit with the Mississippians to see what sort of things they wanted to do/we wanted to show them/was viable. The next day we all gave talks on our weeks and it seemed like everyone had had a really good time. After lunch I was the first to leave as my hosts had brought someone back the day before and stayed overnight in Jackson. I was not expecting it to be as good as the first week but it was.

My hosts were DT and MT. DT has been Rector at Epiphany Church for a year and they have both lived all over the United States. As Tunica is so small (The biggest town has a population of 1200!), there is not the variety of ministries that there is in a place like Jackson. One afternoon I was shown round the town and given a little local history by the sheriff and I also spent an afternoon at the literacy council which provides day care for children and education for people who have left high school without a high school diploma. Their main aim is to make sure everyone can read but they also help people to get the GED (the equivalent of the high school diploma).

Over the weekend I stayed with a different family and went out with their daughter (M) who is in high school. On the Saturday we visited Graceland which M had never done before despite living there all her life as she had never been able to convince anyone to go with her. On the Monday morning they took me to the Christian Brothers University in Memphis where I was shown round by a girl who is also doing chemistry. It was really small and they seem to do much less hours per week here (usually 15 or 18).

While I was in Tunica, I had many interesting conversations with people about race. T (M's mum) said that she was happy that M has friends who are all different colours at boarding school in Atlanta but she said that she wouldn't want any of her non-white friends to come home with her to visit as she said it would be dangerous for them. She also said that she hoped M didn't have a 'mixed' marriage as she said that they would probably find that they were not socially accepted by either whites or blacks. It is difficult to know whether that was the real reason.

MT said that she often finds people's attitudes unbelievable. For instance, there was an old lady in town who was ill and she had a black lady who looked after her and she wanted to come to church so another lady came to speak to MT and she said it was fine and the lady said but what about S? And she said,” Well S can sit with me; I don't mind." and they said but what about communion and MT said she could have it just the same as everyone normally does and the lady said that they couldn't do that because it was 'wrong' for black and white people to take communion together but when MT asked why, the lady couldn't give a reason, she said it just was. MT also told me that when she was leaving to come to Mississippi, she told some of her friends that they could come and visit her and was astonished when her black friends said that there was no way they would go to Mississippi. She said they told her to change things and then they would visit her but some of them had had bad experiences when travelling in Southern states in the past and did not want to repeat them.

On the last morning, I got up early to go horse riding before being driven back to the lodge near Jackson. Although I was glad to see the others again I was sad to be leaving people (and dogs) behind. The next day was a day off which included shopping in Jackson and at a mall and taking over someone's back garden and swimming pool!

I spent Thursday and Friday on Habitat sites with B and F and Monday and Tuesday at Shoestring which was a summer school/day camp in Jackson. I was with five, six and seven year olds and they were all desperate for attention and very loving. I found myself instantly surrounded by children and there were almost fights breaking out over who could sit next to me. On one of the days, two children asked me to pray with them and it was amazing listening to a child not asking for things for themselves but asking God "don't let no killers come and don't let no robbers come or no murderers". I wished I could have spent longer there.

At the weekend while T, P, S and L were on Cursillo, the rest of us took part in a mini Vocare weekend. It was about vocation and discerning God's call in your life. Topics covered included Identity, What is a Christian?, Laity, Ordination, Marriage and Spiritual Journey.

On the Monday evening, we met the Rector of a church which had grown dramatically in the space of about ten years. On Tuesday evening we had a special evening on race relations where Dr AG, a lady who had had to fight her way through life to get anywhere spoke to us about her life and what it was like growing up in segregated Vicksburg. It was very telling that JG said this was the only event in the whole month where he had invited loads of Mississippians and not one of them had turned up. AG said that the white people need to give up race and the black people need to give up race which I think is very true. Until I went to Mississippi I had never really noticed race that much (no more than hair colour or eye colour or any other physical characteristics) but now I notice it more and I think that it is probably hard for people who have been brought up in that way to forget everything that they have learnt and done up 'til now.

On our last full day, we visited Camp Bratton-Green before going to the final farewell party and service. It was said to be leaving all the people we had come to know so well over our month in Mississippi.

Mississippi is sometimes referred to as the buckle of the Bible Belt and it would be true to say that most people seem to be Christians. Because of this people are more open about their faith but also have a strong sense of denominational identity. When introduced to people they would often say that they were an Episcopalian/Methodist/Baptist etc. whereas it would be unusual in this country when meeting someone for the first time to say "I am an Anglican" or even "I am a Christian". The greater social acceptability of Christianity means that it is easier for young people to be involved in the church but there is also a lot more available on a Diocesan level. Camp Bratton-Green (the Episcopal Church's summer camp) is probably the only place I will ever see a bishop being thrown into a swimming pool!

Slow and Steady Get Me Ready

For those of you who don't know, Slow and Steady Get Me Ready is a book containing an activity to do with your child every week from birth to age five. It is written by a Christian with the intention of helping parents to interact with and value their children. I chose to buy it because I wanted ideas for activities with Baby Girl when she was very small and also it was done by a Christian whereas a lot of books relating to children and education are very secular and evolutionist.

I would not say the book is quite as good as the description on Amazon claims but it was definitely worth buying. I do not do all of the activities as some are a bit too finicky and some are things that I was already doing (such as "This Little Piggy went to Market" for example) but I have found it useful as it has given me a lot of ideas which I wouldn't have thought of myself. A particular favourite at the moment is a game where I hide an object under something like a cushion and then Baby Girl has to find it.

I think as I get on to the older activities I will probably not find them as useful because I trained as an infants teacher so would have been able to think of those activities myself but I would definitely recommend it to those who have small children unless they have spent lots of time working with children over the full age range already.

Wonderwash

NB for those who don't know, here are the posts about the wonderwash/how we came to be using one:
Living without a washing machine
Making progress
Wet washing

So far we've had the wonderwash for a couple of weeks now I think but I have still not made my mind up about it. I will try to do a comparison between the wonderwash and handwashing in the bath:

• It does get the clothes cleaner than I expected but I think that the work involved is probably similar in quantity to washing in the bath but more difficult because it is concentrated in turning the crank with your arm and it is harder than you expect.
• Possibly less water is used but this is difficult to judge as the loads are smaller and I usually find I have to do 2-3 rinses rather than 1-2.
• The loads you can do at once are much smaller which means you have to do more frequent washes and be more organised about it.
• Each load is fairly quick to do however because the loads are smaller I think it probably works out similar total amount of time spent.
• The wonderwash is enclosed so you do not have a steaming bath creating condensation everywhere. (Although I did decide I was washing with rather hot water so I'm trying to do it with *warm* rather than *hot* water.)

Actually, now that I've written that list, I would probably say that for the most part it is easier just to wash your clothes in the bath. I do think it is useful for times when you want to wash a small amount of particularly dirty stuff (like when we went to a friends house and Baby Girl crawled around the garden getting mud all over her clothes and managed to get strawberry all down her front because I forgot to take a bib) but for large quantities of washing which is of average dirtiness I think washing in the bath is easier.

Now that I'm using warm rather than hot water I've started using Brandy's method of washing which is to get in and stomp on the clothes. It's much easier and more effective and it makes me think of wine pressing. I don't let her climb in to help but Baby Girl loves to "help" with the washing mainly by throwing all of her bath toys in with the clothes:

Not getting a lot done

Even though it's May I seem to have managed to get a cold. I actually thought it was hayfever at first as I don't remember ever getting a cold this late in the year. All three of us have got it but fortunately Baby Girl doesn't seem to be too badly affected.

Unfortunately although the actual cold is not making me feel particularly ill, it has been keeping me awake at night so I've ended up quite tired. Yesterday I planned to do quite a lot but ended up sleeping for the full two hours of Baby Girl's nap and was still exhausted.

I don't feel so bad today but I've decided to take it easy and not aim to get stuff done apart from the basics. That way if I get half what I would normally done I'll feel like I've achieved something and because I'll have been doing it more leisurely it won't make me feel as tired as if I did the same amount but had been trying to do more. I don't know if it's reverse psychology or something but it works for me.

Our veg box comes at lunchtime so I'm going to do a casserole with chicken legs and random veg for dinner as I can sit and prepare it quite slowly and then just stick it in the oven. We had some mashed potato in the freezer (from when someone gave us loads of potatoes) so I've got some of that out to go with it.

A couple of people have asked me questions which I'll try to get around to answering this afternoon.

Out of the mouths of children...

Daily Schedule

I have just updated my Daily Schedule thought it would be interesting to compare what it is like compared with a year ago.

Here is my current schedule:


The reason there is a lot of generic "jobs" is that apart from Daily and weekly jobs, I don't have a set system of what jobs I do when - I just look around and decide what needs doing and I also have a "To Do" list where I write down any one-off/irregular jobs I need to do.

Activities with 1yo is play activities but I try to include a good range of activities to help her learn and develop. I try to do some more structured activities instigated by me and some where I just follow her lead in what she wants to do. I also read aloud to her while she plays (we are currently reading The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe). I don't follow it exactly but I use Slow and Steady Get Me Ready to give me ideas of age appropriate activities.

Just after 1yo was born, my days were roughly like this:

0700: Get up, feed Baby Girl and express. Eat breakfast while Hubby takes Baby Girl to the toilet.
0830: Put Baby Girl down for nap (If she finished feeding early, Hubby would take her so I could get washed/dressed before he went to work.)
0830-0930: Get washed and dressed. Hang out washing and put on new load. (I think there were a couple more jobs I did at this time but I lost my list.)
0930-1000: Sleep
1000: Get Baby Girl up, take her to toilet and then feed (with many toilet stops).
1130: Put Baby Girl down for nap. Have lunch. Bring in and fold/put away any dry washing and hang out third load. Do washing up. (Again I think there were a couple more jobs I did at this time but I lost my list.)
1300-1400: Sleep
1400: Get Baby Girl up, take her to toilet and then feed (with many toilet stops).
1530: Get ready to take Baby Girl out in pram
1545-1645: Go out for walk with Baby Girl sleeping in pram. (Often I would do grocery shopping at the local shop on my way back.)
1645: Bring in washing and open windows while Baby Girl wakes up
1700-30: Feed Baby Girl
1730-1800: Rest/"Bedtime" jobs (these were the essentials we needed to get done before bedtime ready for the next day such as make sure we had clothes, nappies, cotton wool, drinks/snacks etc. out in the right place) while Hubby baths Baby Girl.
1800-1900: Feed Baby Girl then put her to bed for the night while Hubby makes dinner.
1900: Dinner followed by bedtime jobs.
1930: Bed
2030: Get back up and express
2100: Bed. Hubby would stay up later than me to do the 2230 feed of expressed milk.
Roughly some time between 0100 and 0300: Get up and feed Baby Girl (up approximately one hour).


A couple of weeks earlier before she was born, my typical day looked roughly like this:

0800: Eat breakfast in bed, clean teeth in bed and go back to sleep.
1100: Get up. Watch TV or read a book.
1230: Get dressed with Hubby's help (he came home for lunch almost every day while I was pregnant to look after me). Talk to Hubby while he makes lunch then eat lunch.
1315: Watch the news/other TV.
1430: Do a few admin jobs on the computer.
1530: Watch TV/DVD/read a book.
1630: Sleep
1800: Get up and watch the news.
1900: Eat dinner then watch TV/read while Hubby washes up and does a few other jobs.
2100: Go to bed.

In case you haven't guessed, I was quite ill during my pregnancy but I got much better the very day Baby Girl was born. It was quite an amazing change really as I went from having to be helped to get dressed, wash my hair etc to doing loads of household jobs without even thinking about them.