Why do just one major life event at a time? After six years in Cairo, we moved to Bucharest in summer 2014 with our toddler in tow to take up a new job. Oh, and we were expecting our second child to arrive any minute!
The name for the blog is unashamedly lifted from the collection of short stories called "Never Mind The Balkans, Here's Romania" by Mike Orsmby.
As Edward still has a few days to go on his antibiotics we decided that I would discharge myself today and come home. It was a tough decision to make and getting into the taxi to go home without Edward was hard, but we know that it is the right thing to do.
Edward will still have antibiotics over the weekend and so we will not be able to take him home until the start of next week, and as he is in the high Dependency part of the Neonatal unit I can only visit him a few times a day for 10 minutes at a time. I can be at home with Scott, Leila and Granny and pump there, rather than sit all day in a hospital room and pump. There is a chance that they might let me breastfeed Edward directly soon, but we don't know if/when that will happen so coming home and then visiting twice a day to deliver milk and have a short visit seems the best idea.
When I go into the hospital now I always try and take a photo of Edward (as during the daytime visits I am on my own and so can then send the picture to Scott). Here is my favourite picture as Edward looks so old in it and his eyes are open.
During this evening visit Edward was crying and so we asked the nurse if we'd be able to pick him up and hold him (What Shall We Do WithTthe Boo-Hoo Baby?). As he's close to finishing his course of antibiotics she said that we could and so Scott picked him up and had his first cuddle in over a week which was lovely. I then had a cuddle too and Scott was able to get a quick photo.
A couple of updates. Firstly, Alice
is now back at home with us, and that's a wonderful thing. I went to
the hospital to meet her this afternoon, and we were back in time to see
Granny taking Leila on her favourite walk - looking at the diggers
involved in the roadworks on our street!
Alice opted to come back
home because, for the next couple of days at least, Edward is going to
continue to be in the high dependency section of the neonatal unit where
opportunities to visit him are very limited.
Edward himself is being treated with antibiotics to fight whatever has
been causing his problems, and he's making progress. When I visited him
this evening I got a really positive feeling about his progress. He's
feeding better now, and so they're reducing the amount of glucose that
is going in through IV. They don't want to subject him to any more
tests until Monday, so we'll have a proper view of how he's doing in a
couple of days time.
It was an understandably difficult thing to
leave the hospital without Edward, but we know he's in good hands.
There's very little that our continued presence in the hospital could do
to improve his situation, and so now we just have to wait. In the
meantime we'll be heading over at visiting times to see the little guy.
We realise that we're very, very fortunate that the hospital is only a
15 minute journey from our house.
The doctors in the neonatal nursery have been looking after Edward since yesterday afternoon because he has quite low blood sugar.
They're working to increase this, and to help him keep down his feeds
(which he was struggling to do for the first couple of days, and is
probably the cause of the low blood sugar). They are letting us see him
regularly, but he's on a glucose drip which means they need him with
them for monitoring and we're not able to hold him.
The docs have been struggling to get a cannula in Edward to give him the extra glucose that he needs because of his low blood sugar levels. Yesterday they couldn't get it in his hand properly and so they ended up using a vein in his scalp, but this morning they changed to his foot. By this afternoon though, when I took this pic, they had managed to get one in his wrist.
Edward's first visitors were of course Daddy, Leila and Granny :-)
They all came along as soon as we found out that I was able to have visitors, and in particular that Leila would be allowed to visit.
Leila was very good about meeting Edward, although she was a little confused as to why I kept saying that there was no longer a 'wriggly' in my tummy! She was very caring and gentle meeting Edward, but she also enjoyed just playing in the hospital room and the view from the balcony outside!
At 23.36 our little baby boy, Edward Richard Allsop was born at Regina Maria Baneasa Hospital, here in Bucharest. I say 'little', but really he was 4.27kg (or 9 and a half pounds in old money) and 52cm long!
Today started like any other; being 40 weeks and two days pregnant and with no signs of labour Scott went off to his first day at BSB and mum and I took Leila in the buggy on the bus to a check-up with the Doc. I really struggled to lie on my back for the three minutes he needed to check for the scan and the examination, but nothing seemed to be moving so we headed downstairs and made an appointment for two days time and started to get our things together. I sat down for a bit at this point because I was feeling a little tired and had some period-like pains, but we then started back to the bus. Mum carried the bags and I pushed Leila slowly in the buggy as the lower stomach cramps were still there, but we got to the bus stop and got on a bus home.
I had a lie down a bit at home and then ate just a little bit of lunch before putting Leila to bed. It felt like the cramps were on and off but I wanted to wait until Leila was down to starting timing them to see if they were the real thing. Timing them they were about 30 second long and two minutes apart which didn't make much sense as that's the stage you should really rush to the hospital, and there was no way that I was at that point yet, so I took a bath and had a large drink of water (as our doula, Adina had suggested) to see if things would slow down. They did slow down and so I texted Scott to let him know about the false labour signs. By the time Scott got home from work though they had returned at the same interval and intensity, so I was thinking that maybe this could be it. The intensity still didn't feel like I needed to rush into hospital so I stayed on the couch as mum and Leila went to the shops and Scott finished preparing tea. I tried to eat at tea time, but struggled, so put the TENS machine on and lay on the couch. Soon after tea I felt that maybe my waters had broken so went to the bathroom and it was the bloody show / mucous plug which for me was enough of a sign that I should now go to the hospital.
Scott called the ambulance and mum and Leila payed outside. Leila was really good when it came time for us to go as we told her that she was going to do bathtime and stories with Granny while mum and dad went to see the man about the Wiggly. She repeated all of this back to us and then went on playing whilst the ambulance crew checked me out and helped me negotiate the 200m between the house the the ambulance over the filled in water pipe trenches! It probably took as long for the crew to reverse out of our road as it did for them to 'blues and twos' me to the hospital!!
When we got there I was checked in by the doctor on duty downstairs before being transferred to the delivery room upstairs. The doctor told me that as I was already nearly 7cm dilated, my contractions every 2 minutes apart and on my second pregnancy, that there wouldn't be time to give me an epidural as the delivery was going to happen quickly. "It will just be you, and this" she said, pointing to my little TENS machine. Erm, OK, I guess this is it then! Scott met Adina, our doula, as she arrived at the hospital. He hadn't been allowed in the room while I was being checked in because "We don't want your husband to see you like this"
Up in the delivery suite I was examined again by the midwife and Dr Romila had arrived. I had to stay on the bed again whilst they monitored the baby (for what seemed like an age, but probably wasn't too long). I was another cm along now and I checked again whether I would be able to have an epidural, but apparently not.
Once monitoring had finished I was allowed to move again and spent each contraction swaying or rocking and leaning on the bed or the chair. Scott was in charge of pressing the buttons on the TENS machine each time a contraction came, and he talked me through each one with a little story about calming places and happy times (later Adina asked Scott if he had been an English major because she really enjoyed the imagery of his story-telling!).
Adina, our doula was just great this whole time. She had bought some chocolate along to keep energy levels going (we had left all our labour room snacks in the bag in our dash to get here from check in), and was gently offering me massage, helping me with sips of water, stroking my arms to keep my mind away from the pain. Best of all though was that she had convinced the midwife that it would be fine to dim the lights. We were no longer in fluorescent lighting, but the evening light of Bucharest with just a table lamp on in the corner. Not that I noticed much as I was keeping my eyes gently closed most of the time.
After some time Dr Romila did another exam and said that although the baby's head was low, it wasn't yet moving down the birth canal as expected and so he proposed that he break my waters to move things along. He said that this would make the contractions more painful, but that it did mean we had time to have an epidural. I agreed that we go for it. Who would've thought that after all my complaints of the baby being low, he wasn't yet low enough?! I was thankful too at the thought of an epidural as although I wasn't going to argue with the doctor on admission, the thought of having to do everything with just the TENS machine was a little petrifying.
The epidural was amazing. That's not 'amazing' because all the pain suddenly went away and I couldn't feel anything, but almost the opposite. The anaesthetist gave me a small dose at first whilst he monitored mine and the baby's reaction and then gave the full dose once he was happy that we were both reacting well to it. Somehow he managed to get the dose/mixture so that most of the hard pain went away, but that I could still feel and move my legs and could still feel when the contractions were happening.
With the epidural in place and the anaesthetist satisfied that I was OK, Dr Romila said that he wanted me to try and get up. I managed to get off the bed and stand up, with help at first and then on my own. I then kept taking each contraction on the birthing ball or leaning on the bed.
Another exam and Dr Romila thinks I am close, so asks me to try and empty my bladder to give the baby maximum room as he comes out (they didn't put a catheter in with the epidural because they knew I'd have movement and sensation). I try with no luck, so go back to the birthing ball for a while. I'm starting to feel pressure lower down now, but it hasn't moved to my back. I go and try again; Still no luck, but I stop trying as I start to feel pressure down on my bottom and I don't think it's me needing to go to the toilet!
I get on the bed and Dr Romila does an exam and the baby's head is there ready (he's excited, so he shows Scott that's it's about to happen). They then empty my bladder and take the monitoring equipment off my belly so that I am ready to push. The epidural is amazing because I can't feel the pain of the birth, but can feel when the contractions are coming and can feel the urge to push and where/how I am pushing. With Leila's birth I couldn't feel a think and it was like I was 'pushing blind'.
I don't know how many pushes it was, but I can feel the urge to push coming and try two pushes each contraction with Scott on my right and Adina on my left encouraging me. After the head it's just one or two more contractions until he's born.
It all happened so quickly; as suddenly he's there on my tummy and we have a little boy! We'd heard so much about being given the baby straight after the birth, but never really thought it would happen, and then there he is, on my tummy before the cord is even cut!
Dr Romila cut the cord and did the cord blood sampling for us. It took him quite a while to get through the cord as it was so thick - another thing he was excited about and so showed Scott! It turns out that Edward did have the cord around his neck, but Dr Romila easily hooked the cord back round once the head was born.
The midwife and neonatal doctor then did their jobs and checks on him and he was then dressed and passed back to me to try and feed him. I wasn't able to get him to latch properly, but he was able to try and suckle a bit which was, again, above our hopes and expectations for the birth.
There was then an odd post-birth time in the room as we were told that we had to be there for two hours for monitoring. This time passed quickly at first as the placenta was delivered - another moment that Dr Romila was fascinated with and insisted on showing us how large and impressive it was! Adina continued with her doula role by then passing out chocolate to everyone as she had some squares of dark chocolate left. I had one, as did Scott, and Dr Romila didn't want to be left out so Adina popped a square in his mouth for him! He was treating himself as he was feeling pleased that he had correctly guessed the weight of Edward (4.3kg was his guess). We then called mum and Skyped Jane, Kevin, Jim and Fabs in the UK to let them know the news - as we knew that no one would be able to sleep until they heard. All a little surreal!
Finally back in our room we couldn't believe that we had a little boy (on Scott's first day at work, no less!) and our family was now four, not three. Scott stayed with me for a little while, but then headed back home so that he could get some sleep and be there for Leila when she woke up (it turned out that Leila had gone to bed 1.5 hrs later than usual and had had two baths, but had gone to sleep happy with stories and milk from her amazing Granny!)
I blogged about the first part of my final trimester on rockthecasbahcairo.blogspot.com but thought I'd leave the final part of T3 to this new blog.
I've been finding that the bump is getting lower and lower; it feels like it can't get any lower and then drops some more! Maybe it is all a little subconscious though because the Doc in London did comment that Pickle was 'quite far down' when she did the scan.
Now that we are becoming settled I am taking advantage of opportunities during nap time to get a bit of rest myself - as I know that this won't be the case for long! Compared to a few months ago in Cairo though we are staying up a lot later than normal. It just seems that there is still a lot to do in the evenings, including trying to relax which we struggle to do!
I'm finding that bending is getting increasingly a challenge! I just need to make sure that I bend at the knees, but even then it still feels like my belly is about to touch the floor! My belly always seems to be in the way and in the last few weeks even my legs have been giving way - my thighs are burning every time I crouch down as if I have been doing far too many squats at training. Still, it will mean I'm all ready for when baby comes and I need to pick something up from the floor whilst still holding him!
I've not been getting cramp in my legs for ages, but recently started swelling up and getting pins and needles. The bottom of the bump is also getting sore and tired if we've been out or I've been doing a lot. I don't think these are signs of an impending arrival, just that I need to slow down. The Doc here has prescribed magnesium for the numbness that has also spread to my hands (hopefully not the start of carpel tunnel) which seems to help at times.
I've had more trouble sleeping at night, partly because of the heat here (so hot compared to Cairo, especially without AC) and partly because of the awkwardness of sleeping with a bump. But the trouble sleeping hasn't just been for me, but has affected Scott too. It turns out that I have started to snore and so he has had to go to the other room just to get some sleep himself. In all my tossing and turning I have found that I actually sleep a little better without my maternity pillow! I used to really need it to keep my from sleeping on my back, but there is no chance of that now as I can't even stand 5 minutes of lying on my back for a scan before feeling feint.
A big part of this final trimester in Bucharest has been getting to know the new Doc here and how 'things' work. After our initial meeting with Dr Romila (blogged about here) we felt comfortable that we'd made the right choice with him even though in the following meeting he seemed to have been so laid back that he had forgotten our case ("you're 28 weeks, right?" erm...no!). He seems to have the right balance now between being laid back and unmedicalised when it comes to pregnancy and birth, but also being very professional when needed, such as when he did our first proper scan and instead of printing up a picture of the baby, he printed the scan data results!
As the due date has approached we've been getting more and more anxious about his arrival; in many ways we want him to arrive early, but not too early because we need to know that mum is here and settled ready to help looking after Leila! At the 39 week scan the Doc noticed that there was some calcification of the placenta and that the baby's heart rate was high. He identified that the cord was around the baby's neck which is what might be causing this and although he then told us that this was common, we started to worry. I was then trying to keep track of the baby's movements, but with there being less and less room in the womb for him to move it was hard to really tell whether there was less movement, or whether I was just perceiving that that because I was thinking about it constantly. Later that week another scan showed that the movement and heart rate were fine which was reassuring.
On hitting my due date though things suddenly shifted. With no sign of an impending arrival we suddenly are in no rush for him to arrive, because two days after the due date Scott was starting work! We managed to keep ourselves busy on the due date itself with shopping, cooking and playing and then 40+1 was another busy one as it was Fabs' birthday to Leila and mum made a cake and then Leila, Scott and I went to the BSB Secondary BBQ that was being hosted nearby.
That evening as we came home from the BBQ I was feeling really tired and quite nauseous. I put this down to a busy afternoon and not managing to eat much at the BBQ. I had to lie down when we got home, leaving Scott and Granny to do bathtime and bedtime with Leila. Although she hadn't asked for 'boob' for a good few days, and had become used to Granny reading a story and saying goodnight at bedtime, she was still upset that I wasn't there in the room to say goodnight and read with her. Once Leila was asleep, Scott looked it up and nausea and tiredness can be a sign of early labour, but the following morning I was feeling fine so off we went for our post-due date check up with the Doc. He was happy with how things were looking but said he'd be a lot happier once the baby was born this week. With no signs of contractions I made an appointment for two days time and got things settled up at the front desk. I then took a quick sit down as I was feeling tired and had some period-like pains in my lower belly...
Leila has been very excited this week as Granny is staying with us. Mum is out for three weeks to visit (!), but also to help us look after Leila once the Pickle decides he wants to make an appearance.
Leila's first reaction to Granny arriving was to run around the table in the living room at quite a speed, stopping every lap to laugh and smile at Granny.
When she wakes up from her nap now she says 'Mum. Dad. Granny' as she lists off everyone she wants to see. When she hears that mum is up in the morning she starts saying 'Granny, Granny, Granny' until she gets mum out of the bathroom to say 'good morning' to her.
At bedtime Leila has gradually been having more time with Granny. It stated that mum would join us during bathtime and would then say goodnight after teeth had been brushed, but then after a few nights mum joined us in Leila's room as she got her nappy on. With her nappy on Leila was really sweet with giving Granny a kiss and cuddle goodnight. For the last few nights mum has also been staying for a story, first one read by us while she listened, then she read a story to Leila before saying goodnight. This has only really worked because Leila has been asking less and less for boob, and becoming more used to having just her glass of milk (and possibly some fruit slices if she has them left-over from dessert) before bed.
Leila really enjoys playing with mum in the garden and being taken to the park or the shops. They always stop on the way back from the shops to spend time looking for cats along our road or at the diggers that are gradually delivering new water pipes to our street.
I think that Leila is a little confused as to where Gramps is, as occasionally she will just start doing her Gramps grunt. We have managed two skypes with dad which has been good.
Mum has introduced Leila to the art of making cakes and together they added and then stirred the ingredients for a birthday cake for Fabs. Leila seemed to enjoy the stirring and didn't try too hard to eat the cake mixture (probably because she didn't realise it was edible!!)
We're feeling really good because Leila is so comfortable with mum here and mum is really getting her bearings on the area and all the idiosyncrasies about the place! We also managed to find time to head in to the Old Town on the tram.
Back in June, and written about on the other blog, a huge pile of our belongings were packed into boxes ready to be 'shipped' (but actually flown) to Bucharest. 20 boxes of things were duly carted away by United Sons and held in storage until Bucharest was ready to receive them. You may recall that the boxes, piled up outside our apartment in Cairo, looked something like this:
Getting ready to receive them in Bucharest took a while. I needed to provide some notarised documents to allow the company at this end to clear our boxes through customs, but could only obtain them once I was in Romania. It took me a week to get this done, and another few days before I found a way to get the documents to the shipping company's office. After this it was over to Cairo to send the shipment, but they were on the Eid holiday and so we had a week's delay before they could start to move our things through customs.
Once things got moving, though, they really got moving. We were told that the shipping was estimated to be with us this Sunday (24th August), but I received an email yesterday saying that it had already arrived in Bucharest and that they'd manage to clear it through customs without us needing to pay an duty. Hooray!
Just 24 hours after it landed, it was delivered to our house. This was all a bit of a whirlwind, and quite an 'experience' since we currently don't have direct access to the house as a result of the trench that has been dug for the water pipe. The delivery guys did a sterling job bringing our boxes over 'the moat', and within an hour everything was in the house.
Removal firm crossing the ditch!
A Leila-shot of one of the boxes coming in!
A pile of our stuff
Picture frames!
Sadly we needed to photograph and make note of two damaged items - the glass in two of our picture frames had smashed in transit due to being badly packed. However, we can claim that on insurance and at least the glass is easily replaced. I was convinced that I'd open my soft guitar bag to find the neck of my acoustic guitar in two pieces, but I'm delighted to say it survived - so my 'Egypt guitar' that became my One For The Road workhorse can now continue its life in Romania.
Unpacking was great fun. Alice and I both really enjoyed seeing what was in each box, and Leila was delighted to find lots of 'new' toys and books to play with. For some reason she was particularly excited to see our keyboard doormat and was determined to lie down on it!
After the excitement of the mat we decided to open the box of Leila's toys. I spent a few minutes filming her as she started to delve in...
We've just found out that despite all the effort Scott has been going to to get things organised with the shipping company ahead of time, our shipping is due to arrive on Sunday 24th August. Now, we've got a few things on that weekend already (23rd August being our Due Date and 25th August being the first day of school) so it's not great timing. I would make a comment about 'best laid plans', but the shipping's arrival, like with the baby's, is somewhat a known unknown you might say!!
Bucharest is full of parks. Well, not quite full - it's actually full of Romanians, taxis, and 2 litre bottles of Timisoreana beer - but there's definitely a lot of parks, and they all seem to have incredibly well equipped play areas for kids. Our nearest one is a 40 minute walk, or 25 minute walk-and-bus-ride, or 15 minute cycle. Further away is the vast and frankly brilliant Herestrau Park.
The last time we were at Herestrau (it's just down the road from the clinic where Ali has her ante-natal checkups) I took some videos of Leila on her current favourite equipment (other than the swing, which is a permanent favourite). Anyhow, here they are...
We didn't have any appointments today, so we decided that we would take a trip across town to go to one of the Decathlon stores. Decathlon has been mentioned to us many times by the expats we've met as being _the_ place to get outdoor clothing and gear, so we wanted to go there to buy a bike for Scott and bike seat for Leila. There are three Decathlon stores in Bucharest; one in the South, one in the East and one in the West. We live in the North.
We walked out of the house but by the time we'd got to the end of our street we'd noticed that something wasn't quite right. 8.30am is early, but the workmen who are digging and plumbing the new water lines down our street were nowhere to be seen. Also the main road wasn't as busy as usual as we walked towards the Jolie Ville to pick up a cab. A quick question to Mr Google and it was confirmed; today was a bank holiday! With this news we had a sudden panic of whether the store would actually be open or not, as we didn't want to make the 30 minute cab journey across town only to find it closed. We decided that as they still claim to open from 10am to 10pm on a Sunday, we were in with a chance so got in a cab and off we went.
The store itself was huge and whilst Leila and I tried on different bike helmets (settling on, of course, the Hello Kitty helmet!), Scotty checked out the bikes on offer. Once we'd picked out a bike we chose a seat for Leila and it was great as the bike engineer there fitted the seat and adjusted the bike for us before we left the store. It took a bit of negotiation to get the bike in the cab back home (our cabbie there had left us his number and within 10 mins of us calling him he was outside waiting for us), but we managed it and Leila was once again great for the long journey.
During Leila's nap Scotty took the bike out for a run to see what it was actually like riding along the main road here, and to see what kind of time it takes to get to places. He came back hot and sweaty, but had managed to get all the way to the park and back in about 30 minutes! After her nap, Scotty took Leila out on the bike to the park and she loved getting ready with her 'hat - meow' and her seat.
Scotty and Leila got back just after 5 and we all then headed out with the buggy to The Don to have a final 'family of three' dinner out. Leila mainly ate chips again but we were made to feel very welcome there (colouring supplied while we waited for our meal and then a shot of ice cream each afterwards!).
We were a bit later than planned getting home (for a second night running, as last night we were at our play date with Sarah, Andy and Sophia until 5.30pm) and so bathtime and bedtime were late. I think we just missed the window of an easy bedtime as she was a bit upset with the bath and then wanted boobie again and was falling asleep with her books but not wanting them to finish! She was down by 8pm in the end and so we soon collapsed ourselves downstairs to our usual checking of email, facebook, blogging and generally bodding about.
Then as we were going to bed we decided to replace our cardboard blackout Windows in the bedroom with the blackout curtains Phil had kindly given us. This was not a quick job we soon realised but finally we fell into bed exhausted!
Leila can tell that things are bit up in the air at the moment and although we are pretty well settled here (well, nearly!) there are constant slight changes to her routine.
Ever since we got here meal times have been really variable. Some days she will sit and eat loads, but most meals she is keen to get down from the table and wander around. We're not sure what is fueling this, but it isn't that she is neccessarily 'full' as she will pick away at her food for a good while after getting down. She will often then come back and sit on our laps and eat from our
plates, or her own again, or will sit on one of the other two dining
chairs and reach up to eat from the table. We don't feel that we can do the whole 'once you get down from the table you can't have any more' approach, and so we are letting her eat where she wants, but are trying to be consistent
ourselves by not leaving the table to play with her until we have
finished eating.
Mornings obviously started very early with the two-hour time difference kicking in, but we gradually got Leila back to a 6-ish wake-up time. When she was waking up though she was saying that she was hungry, but we weren't keen to move breakfast into the 6-7am slot, so were offering her a slice of toast in the bedroom before going down for breakfast. Gradually though she has shifted her morning wake-up later and so we can now avoid the snack before breakfast. Today she has shifted herself so far that we were both awake and it was 7am before she woke up!
Nap times, like in London, were pretty consistent in terms of timing and routine. Unless she's really tired out, it will be 1.30 that she starts her nap and she has managed a numnber of 2-hour naps here although recently is back to being an hour and a half. Going down we often remind her that it is nap time and offer her a 'sleepy biscuit' a.k.a a quarter of a rusk! We'll then have a story or two in her room, a drink of water and then she is put into her cot and tucked in with her blanket. The cellular balnket is very much part of her sleep routine now, but doesn't seem to take the role of a comforter (yet?!) as we are easily able to wash and change between the two blankets that we have. We do have to be really careful about coming home in the buggy after a morning out as the combination of heat and buggy in the walk from the bus stop mean she is prone to letting her eyes glaze over!
Bed times have been gradually changing this summer in terms of routine and timing. We always used to aim for 6.30 starting bathtime and 7pm bedtime, but Leila's actual bedtime has shifted to be 7.30pm and bathtime starting more around 6.40pm Leila has always enjoyed the bath, and even though the bath is smaller here (we use our shower cubical to save water!) she still enjoys splashing about, pouring, kicking and squirting with her toys.
Part of her routine has always been a final feed before bed, and with the slow addition of dairy into her diet, I was reluctant to try and stop this feed. We were also reluctant to try and force a stop to this feed with so many changes taking place this summer (new home, new baby), but decided we would see how things went. In reality this stopped being a 'feed' a little while ago, but she still takes milk from me, followed by a drink of water and some stories all together. The change that gradually has taken place these last few weeks has been her wanting to finish the desert snack that she was having before her bath, and her 'breaking off' more during the 'feed' to talk with me about her day. I tend to ask her what we have been doing and so she breaks off to tell me about the park and the swings, or the people we have seen. Once she is fully distracted she is very happy to climb onto the bed for a story together whilst she munches a final piece of apple.
Leila often will mention 'boob' when she gets out of the bath, and we'll reassure her that yes she can have some, but that it's really for babies. She seems to get this idea, as in her main 'New Baby' book there are lots of drawings of the baby feeding, but the 'big girl' eating food.
Two nights ago it was the same; Leila asked for 'boob' and so I settled down with her and reminded her it was for the baby, and that Leila can have lots of different food, but that if she wants to have some boob then it's OK. What happened though, was that she was swapping side to side and not able to get anything much out, so I suggested to her would she like a glass of milk instead. She said 'yup' and so I called down to Scott to bring one up. So she then drank her milk (and asked for more!) whilst sitting with us for her stories.
Then last night when we get back from the bath she got herself so distracted playing her matching/finding game with her Egyptian ABC that she forgot to ask for 'boob' and was happy to just drink her milk and water instead. So for the first time in nearly 22 months she didn't feed from me! She settled happily into her cot as normal at 7.30pm and then we didn't hear a peep from her until nearly 7am this morning!
Of course this feat wasn't repeated tonight as I messed things up a bit with bathtime (which shifted earlier because she wanted to go upstairs early and then we lost water half-way through filling the bath, so started bathtime early) and then as I put her nappy on after the bath she remembered about 'boob'. She only had a little bit from me and was soon distracted enough to grab her glass of milk and do some reading and matching. She was crying as we left the room though, so we'll just have to see what tonight and tomorrow brings.
The house is gorgeous and has large windows which mean we get loads of lovely light in. What we've now realised this means though is that, because the end of the house is also south-facing, this also translates to loads of heat from long days of direct sunshine.
Our bedroom has two sets of windows (one full-length onto the balcony) and gets the sun in the morning. 'His room' (as we seem to be calling the room that the new baby will eventually sleep in!) has two sets of full-length windows that get the sun all day. One side gets the sun from sunrise until mid-afternoon and the other gets it from midday until sunset. Leila's room has one set of full-length windows that get the sun all afternoon. The guest room/floor is the attic and has velux windows and some full-length windows onto a terrace. All in all, this adds up to a lot of windows!
What we've found is that the temperature in Leila's room is constantly sitting around 28C and she has been waking up from naps being all sweaty (especially in her hair), and having some disturbed nights. There is one AC in the living room, but that's it in terms of trying to get the temperature to be more comfortable for her.
Fan
To start with we went out and bought a standing fan for her room and directed it at the bed. We know that fans don't actually cool the air as they only move it around, but this does have a feeling of cooling and has reduced some of the sweatiness she has been waking up with.
Shade
Our first cooling strategy was to keep all of the sunlight out of Leila's room using the external blinds that come down over all of her windows. Although this meant that the room didn't heat up from the sunlight during the day, it also meant that it never could cool down and felt very stuffy as the air didn't move through it.
Another problem we then found with using the external blinds was that they themselves were absorbing heat and heating the air trapped between them and the windows. We're still at a loss as to how to completely overcome this problem as the blinds even heat up when they are fully retracted and we need to use them to block light from the room when Leila naps (as the curtains alone are all too thin to block any light out and nap time happens to be when the sun is right on these windows anyway).
Part of the 'blocking sunlight' strategy was also to simply close the door to 'his room' during the day, as we found that it was heating up like a greenhouse and then this heat was moving into the corridor and other rooms. Although this room has white, light curtains that should, technically, reflect the heat/light, we found they were really ineffective at this! We later were able to alter this strategy slightly by rigging an external shade for the room. The first shade was a blue tarpaulin from Ikea that Scott was able to strap from the bottom of the attic roof terrace to the side of the first floor balcony. This was pretty effective but from the outside it looked like we were having some crummy building work done (!) so Scott went the next day and was able to buy some other, nicer material from BricoStore (Romanian B&Q). These shades have had a definite effect on the temperature in his room, and closing the doors from around 11am has also reduced the heat escaping from the room into the other rooms on that floor.
Air movement
Our second strategy was to open all the doors and windows up in the morning to get the air moving around and cool the rooms all down. This worked well at first and Leila's room dropped by a few degrees in the first hour or so we were up. But we then found that the moment it hit 10am the temperature started climbing again and the room was back to the original temperature by nap time anyway. We did extend this strategy to nighttime and once she was asleep we would creep back in and open the door to the balcony (whilst keeping the shutters down) to get a little movement.
A problem with this strategy though was that we found that even with all of the doors and windows open, unless there was a decent breeze outside, air didn't naturally shift through Leila's room in comparison to the way the air would move through our room and 'his room'. It seems that we get all of the 'weather' and her room at the back is somewhat sheltered.
Technology
Once we felt that we had tried pretty much everything that physics allows us to do in this house we fell back on technology. After the fan, our next purchase was a cooling humidifier. We decided on this because it was a lot cheaper than an AC unit and although the reviews of them are not great we thought that it might be able to take a few degrees off the temperature in there and it didn't require any venting. We tried it for a few nights/naps but soon discovered that it would never really be very effective at cooling the room because the air here is so humid in general, and so trying to cool air through evaporation was not going to cut it.
This left us with two options; portable AC or split unit AC. Although a split unit AC is by far the most energy efficient and effective option we decided to try a portable AC unit first. We did this because installing a proper AC would need the permission of the landlord which would take time to agree upon, and would obviously limit our cooling to that one location.
Now
The portable AC has now been set up in her room and vents out of her balcony doors. We've had to use a large piece of semi-hard plastic up the side of the door, and soft plastic at the top and bottom of the door to try and 'seal' it, as otherwise the hot air from the vent (or the hot air outside generally!) will creep back in to the room. When the AC is in we need to have the blinds 1/4 up so that it can vent properly (I forgot to do this one time which meant the hot air couldn't escpae through the closed blinds and so the room didn't cool down at all), but once we turn the AC off we can close the blinds fully (the one time we didn't do this she only did a 'half nap' as she woke up because of the daylight coming in through the thin curtains).
So now our routine is to have the blinds 1/4 up and turn the AC on about an hour before she is due to sleep. This typically brings the temperature down to 25C by the time she is about to sleep, at which point we turn the AC off and fully close the blinds. Although 25C is still hotter than we had her room in Cairo it does mean at least that she's not sitting there sweating while we read bedtime stories. During the day we open the blinds and doors in the early morning, but then close the doors to the other rooms around 10am and make sure to lower her blinds to 1/2-way by 11am to avoid any additional sun heating the room.
She's been asleep for 2-hours now and the temperature has already returned to 28C which is really not ideal, but it feels better than it was.
Future?
We're considering approaching the landlord about installing a proper AC unit that will be more effective than what we have at cooling the room. Although temepratures are meant to start dropping in August it's next summer we're thinking about too, as we hope that we might be able to spend a good proportion of the summer here (rather than needign to escape for the full break as we did in Cairo), and we'd have two kids that would need cooler temperatures.
If we do this we expect that we'll have to pay for the unit and the installation if they approve the change taking place to the property (as landlords ourselves we're not sure if we'd want permanent changes taking place while we were out of the country!). We'd hope though that they might consider buying the unit off us when we leave, as otherwise we'd incur costs of 'making good' again at the end of our tenancy here.
If they do approve a unit, then the next issue would be where to site it. We think the best place might actually be in the corridor outside the two 'kids' rooms and then rigging a heavy curtain up to trap the cool air and direct it towards the rooms, rather than around the upstairs generally.
EDIT
So how did this saga end? Well we did email the landlord proposing that we purchase and have an AC installed with his approval and he contacted us straight back saying that he would be happy to pay for the unit and installation himself. He arranged for an engineer to visit to look at the options but unforuntatly he concluded that because of needing a sloping option for draining the unit there was only one place in the corridor that that AC would work; outside our bedroom facing the stariway! In discussion with the landlord he decided to instead simply instal a smaller, singleunit just in Leila's room. They came to install this a few days ago and again their first preference location wouldn't work because of drainage issues, so they installed it on the far wall of her room. The engineers are going to return and re-position it this week though because the site they put it in actually means we can't fully close the curtains in her room (which isn't a huge problem because there are external shutters to keep the sunlight out, but does pose a possible safety hazard if we're not careful). With the AC on during her nap yesterday her room was lovely and cool for once (although she did then wake up and complain about being cold - fickle child!!)
Yesterday we investigated the 301 bus that runs from the Jolie Ville about a 12 minute walk away. The ticket system is like Oyster, with a single charge irrespective of distance. The great thing about the bus is we can take the buggy, whereas it wouldn't fit in the boot of a taxi. We realise we may need to collapse it if the bus is busy, but haven't needed to so far.
Today we travelled a bit further than yesterday and went to the glorious Herastrau Park. The bus stops on a bridge over the huge lake, so we got off and walked around the lake before heading to a playground. It was here that Leila finally rode a camel which, as we wrote about a few months ago, was a bit of a scary prospect in Cairo. The one today was, however, made if pink plastic and mounted in a roundabout. She still loved it though!
We planned to take the bus home from another bus stop, but struggled to find it. However, a man at the road crossing saw that we were a bit lost and pointed us in the right direction. From there it was as easy as, well, taking a bus.
Alice and Leila have now been in the house for two weeks, with myself and my mum having spent a few days prior to this to 'get it ready'. The work we did in those first days definitely made settling Alice and Leila in much easier, but to turn it from 'a house' into 'a home' obviously takes more than three days.
So the past couple of weeks have seen myself and Alice doing various bits of sorting and arranging of things. This is far from complete as our shipping has still yet to arrive, but we've given it a good go. I'm sure that to my mum it won't look much different to when she left, but the little things - which items go in which drawers, etc. - have become embedded (or at least have started to become embedded).
So, here's a few photos of the place as it stands after 2 weeks of being here.
It probably makes sense to start with a view of the outside of the house, so here's a photo from the garden. Straight in fron is the door to the living area, but one of the brown window shutters is closed to block the (really quite hot) afternoon sun. Above that is the balcony outside the kids' rooms (currently covered with an awning to try to give some shade), and to the right (the windows set in the brick) is our room and balcony. Above that is the attic room and the roof-terrace at the top-left of the picture.
Moving inside, you enter the open-plan kitchen / dining area / living room.
Here's the front door. In the centre(ish) of the photo is the door to the downstairs toilet and, between that and the stairs, is the door that leads down to the garage.
Heading upstairs you first come to the shared bathroom, then our room (en-suite), the baby's room (a work in progress!) and finally Leila's room.
From the upstairs landing there's then another door that leads upstairs into the enormous attic, although to be honest it's far from being just an attic! This is the room we intend to keep for guests and, although it's stiflingly hot up there at the moment, at least it's away from the kids when they surface at 5am!
Finally, through the doors in the attic room you can see in the first of the pics, there is a roof terrace. I've not taken a pic of the terrace itself but instead have take a photo look straight down over the balcony outside the baby's room and onto our garden.
Our initial plan had been to go the the bus station/terminus (where one bus terminates!) and buy a ticket, take the bus to the end of the line (as we haven't really been able to find any maps online to show where it goes!) and then come back again. We suceeded in buying a ticket and taking the bus, but got just three stops in before decided that we'd stop at the park instead!! We plan to take the bus a little further tomorrow (to another park!), but at least we took our first steps on the public transport system and Leila can once again enjoy 'Wheels on the Bus'
Waiting at the bus stop after playing at the Casa Alba park.
It seems that you can buy either a carnet of ten single tickets, or an oyster-type card that you top up. We went for the top-up option and I asked for two cards, but the lady informed me that Scott and I could share a card (this was done via gesture and pictures as she had no English and I have no Romanian). It's pretty cool that when you 'beep' in you first select either 1 or 2 to say whether you are travelling alone or in a pair.
The 301 bus doesn't quite go all the way to our house, but terminates at the Jolie Ville shopping centre, which is about 10-15 mins walk away. Each journey costs just 1.30 Lei and the bus is meant to run every 10 minutes during the week although we waited 20 minutes on the way back today.
There is also a 'local' bus that runs along the main road, but we can't find much about it online so we really will have to just flag him down, get on, and see what happens! Assuming we can work it out, this could be a really handy bus as it apparently runs past the top of our road and goes past the school.
