Last night Jack was crying all night, he would not let me feed him so although it was my night shift Nic had to take over. It was a horrible feeling knowing Jack wouldn't feed for me, he just kept spitting it out when I fed him. I felt like I was letting him down & letting Nic down because she ended up taking over & I slept from 6:30am to 1:30pm. Tonight I will try again & hopefully Jack will be a good boy, I know its not his fault but it just makes life hard for all of us...so fingers crossed for tonight.

Today some of Nic's workmates came round with loads of stuff for jack & also some choccies for us, woohoo. Why don't more people remember the parents as well as the baby? Nic's parents even got a bottle of champagne fron some friends for being grandparents again - where the hell was our bottle?

Right off to do the ironing now while Nic gets an early night, very modern man me, I do all sorts of housework. Night night all...VampJack x

Life without sleep

So here we are again, 2 nights of very little sleep & i'm still not freaking out - what the hell is wrong with me. Maybe it's because friday was the greatest day of my life, no matter how long I live & no matter what I achieve nothing will ever beat friday. 

I went to pick Nic & Jack up from the hospital on saturday afternoon about 3:30, little Jack never made a sound all the way home ( which if you've ever driven in Coventry you will know is amazing as we must have the most disgracefully under maintained roads in the world, & trust me I have driven on mountain roads in greece & Spain so I know about bad roads ). Once we got him indoors he slept most of the afternoon on my lap, mind you once we went to bed it was a different matter. I know he is only a baby but why can't babies come with properly functioning body clocks? He wakes at least every hour & a half, usually more often. He either wants a feed, or a cuddle, or his nappy changing. Nic & I have sorted out a rota, one of us does the night shift & then gets to sleep til lunch the next day when the other person takes over. I have forgotten what sleep is already!

Sunday Nic's parents brought us sunday dinner, they only live up the road so they did a really nice roast chicken dinner & drove down here with our dinners plated up. I know they wanted to see their new grandson but it was really nice of them to think of us in this way, knowing we'd both be totally knackered & not in any mood to cook a roast dinner. They didn't stay too long which was nice that they gave us the space we need with Jack to get on with figuring out how to be parents. We also had our friend E come & see us yesterday, C came to see us today & my mum is coming over on wednesday. We will also have numerous other friends & relatives popping in over the next few weeks no doubt, my sister is unable to visit at the moment as they are having to sort things for an imminent house move but at least the new house is nearer than where they are now. Both my nephews are desperate to meet their new cousin which is so sweet. Although we have had a few visitors all our friends have been great & not crowded us, even the most irresponsible of our friends has said they will wait til later to visit so we can have some time to ourselves & it is so welcome that people are giving us this time. It still feels kind of surreal having our own baby, we are learning all sorts of things ( such as how many times the washing machine will have to go on ) & although we know we will make mistakes it is an adventure we are both more than happy to embark upon.

You will all be pleased to hear that so far my lovely son has managed to pee on me when I was changing his nappy ( yes I have changed nappies already ), he has also puked on me & I have already had to change a very messy pooey nappy & I gotta tell you, from the state of the nappy I don't think my son is human!! It was gross!!

Time to go, just gave Jack his first bath at home & now its my turn to head for the shower. Before I go I want to say a big THANK YOU to all of you that have either left messages to congratulate us or sent me emails, your kind words do mean a lot. I want to say a special Thank You to Kathy for the wonderful gifts she sent, we love them ( & as Nic knows I read other journals & leave comments she thinks the gift is from someone who's journal I read, she probably does know about this journal but just pretends not to!! ). I have deliberately only put 1 picture on with Nic, as she does not know ( maybe ) about this journal I don't think its's fair to add pictures of her on here for public viewing. Hope you like the pictures.

Good night all......VampJack x

baby announcement

I'm bloody knackered & will update photo's soon but here is the news you've all been waiting for.

 

At 02:00 this morning Nic went into labour ( after only 1 hour sleep for me, how inconsiderate!! ), we got to the hospital at 03:00 & baby Jack was born at 17:39, weighing 7lbs 4ounces. Nic has had a very difficult day but is doing okay & baby Jack is doing great. My son is the cutest little bundle I have ever laid eyes on, the only down side is that the poor sod looks like me!! You never know the meaning of unconditional love until you set eyes on your own child for the first time. Nic & Jack are staying in overnight & I miss him already.

Anyway I'm off for some sleep....love VampJack x

The clock is ticking

I haven't been adding entries lately because aol is pants!! I've had to call the tech support line several times recently because we couldn't get on line & then yesterday I was informed my modem is heading to modem heaven. Strangely we have been able to get on line today ( with a dead modem!!! ) but aol are sending me a sparkly brand new modem so hopefully my problems getting online will soon be over.

This weekend my sister came to visit with my bro in law & my 2 adorable nephews, she came to bring me loads of hand me down stuff as they're moving in april & the new houe will be smaller so out with all the old stuff. As my nephews are 4 & 8 there was some older stuff in the box that we just don't have room to store ( and besides, what self respecting 5 or 6 year old would wear 5 or 6 year old fashions? ), we put the stuff we can't use on freecycle & it went to someone who donates a lot of childrens stuf to a friend in the czech republic who takes in orphans, so now we can feel good that we have helped some people less fortunate than us. Mind you the visit wasn't all happiness, I'd told my sister last week about these very scrummy melting middle choc puds we had & she made me promise to get some for saturday.....needless to say morrison's were out of stock so my sister was not happy. Mind you, me being the lovely brother I am, I took a photo of our puddings yesterday because they were back in stock & sent it to her, she hasn't replied yet so the abuse is yet to come.

Nic & I are both getting tired of people asking us if the baby's been born yet. She gets several text messages a day & every day at work I get the same thing, honestly do you really think I'd be at work if my son had been born? No, exactly. It's nice that people are showing an interest but those of you that have been through this must know how annoying & boring it gets.

I ordered the cotbed today that we have had our eye on for some time, its a hauck cotbed with winnie the pooh covers, bumper & drape. We were hoping to get one from babyequipmentcomplete.com but they have been out of stock for ages, there was someone selling them on ebay ( new ) for £30 more which we would have paid but just found another company selling them on ebay today for only £5 more than the original one we saw. So I think we now have everything, car seat, cotbed, moses basket, more clothes than elton john, toys & books so I can read L'il Vamp his bedtime stories. We've got enough nappies & baby wipes to survive a nuclear holocaust. Thursday is the official due date but we think he's going to be late, I will however make sure that I put some pics on here at the earliest opportunity. I am getting very nervous now, all these thoughts about wether we will be good parents, if we'll be able to afford everything we need & if we will be able to survive the sleepless nights & smelly nappies without killing each other. We watched Pursuit of Happyness last night, it was good, although not as good as we were expecting but it's maybe not the right film to watch when you are worrying about being able to afford to provide for your little ones.

For those of you that like a good read out there, I am currently halfway through a book called 'A small death in Lisbon' by Robert Wilson. If I had picked this book up in a bookshop & read the cover I would probably not have bought it, however I got the book from Harper Collins for being part of their readers panel. I am glad I did it really is a great book, it alternates between 1941 with the story of an SS officer arriving in Lisbon during the war & the late 1990's with the investigation into the murder of a young girl. Well worth checking out.

Well thats all for tonight, some of us have work early in the morning you know! I may be back later in the week depending on the lottery that is aol's broadband service, if not have a great week & a fantastic weekend....VampJack x 

Release the inner child

Yippee, hooray its snowed. We like snow, we love snow.

Got up this morning to find the street buried in snow, check out my car above!! As soon as I told Nic it had been & still was snowing she was out of bed like a shot. It was a bit trecherous driving to work but I was very careful, mind you I was one of the first in the car park at work & as we couldn't see the lines marking the spaces I guess I was parked across about 4 spaces.

Everyone at work was so excited, we rarely get snow here & if we do its normally about a millimetre at most so today was an extra special day. There was not one person who was moaning, I think we're all just big kids when it comes to snow. The second pic above is the snowman Nic made on top of our wheelie bin.

To be honest not a lot's been happening here which is why i've been so quiet. We are getting very excited & nervous about L'il Vamp's impending arrival but we haven't been anywhere except to the supermarket for food because Nic's paranoid about going into labour while wandering around town. She's getting quite sick of waiting now & she is finding it hard to get comfortable so she wants it all over with.

That's all for tonight, hope you enjoy the snow...VampJack x