flying on a jet plane

If anyone is reading this from San Diego and is planning to go to the BIO expo being held there this week, please go visit the German booths and keep a look out for a tall bald (good looking) guy in glasses. He won't be hard to recognise as HE WILL BE UNSHAVEN! Darling Z flew to the US today and in his untypically non methodical packing, forgot to pack his shaver. He also forgot his VISA card so I won't be getting more than a mug this trip! Normally he starts packing at least 3 days before he goes anywhere and has a list so he doesn't forget anything. How times have changed, this time he was packing between feeds and football (yup, we have the European championship on right now- I'm a football widow;-)). I can't wait to rag him about this, as he always tells me I'm the worst packer out, doing everything at the last minute.

My folks have in the meantime come to stay for the duration of Z's trip, to help me and to visit their only grandchildren. I'm loving having them here, my mom has already done one feed by herself (while I was taking Z to the airport which was a 4 hour drive) and has pretty much told me to take at least one evening off as she wants her granddaughters to herself! Thank god for grandparents!! She's even managed to get Enya to drink her bottle, I usually don't let other people try as she is so difficult to bottlefeed that she usually lands up only drinking 50ml out of 130ml. Now I just got to find a way to keep the folks here!

On the eating front Enya remains very variable but I am trying to ensure her feeds last no longer than 15-20 mins (milk and solids both together), this was the sum total of the help/advice given to me from the ESKB team. They said that Enya is very difficult to feed and that most of what I'm doing with her is right but that I'm also dragging her feeds out too long. She is getting enough to take the edge off her hunger and then gets bored and therefore stops eating/drinking. The solution is to ensure the meals are kept short and "teach" her to eat it when it is offered.
My new mantra should be: I choose when and what she eats, she chooses how much she eats!
i.e. I'm also to stop worring so much about her eating as I'm just reinforcing her behaviour. Only I find it very difficult not to worry when, like this last week, she isn't putting on any weight! I've agreed to give this a couple of weeks trial and then we will meet up and talk it all through again.

A positive note to end with: Ciara pushed up onto her hands and knees this evening and managed to hold the position for a couple of minutes. She still needs to learn to push her weight back over her knees but she is definitely developing trunk control and balance needed for crawling.