poorly baby but a tidy house!

Natalie had had a rash in the creases of her neck for a little while, probably caused by the heat as this area gets very sweaty. On Friday morning it had suddenly got very raw and was weeping with a yellowish fluid - niiiiice!

So, I took her into Boots to get the pharmacist to have a look and tell me whether or not we should go to the doctors, and he looked horrified - I believe he actually stepped backwards and said 'ew'! So, I got an emergency appointment that afternoon, and it turns out she's got a staphylococcus aureous infection so we've been given some antibiotics and a cream to put on it. The antibiotics are pineapple flavoured - yet another fruit flavour to add to her repertoire of drugs! She will forever associate fruit with feeling unwell!

She doesn't look too bad despite the horrendous mess under her chin!

All weekend we've had to give lots of kisses and cuddles to take Natalie's mind off of the medicine (which she hates!). Pete has discovered a fail-safe way of making Natalie smile, and occasionally dribble into his mouth!

After lots of flying, they were both exhausted!

On Sunday we finally cracked out Natalie's 'Hello Kitty' shoes that Abigail bought for her months ago (thanks Abs, they're gorgeous!) - her feet are finally big enough, so we're trying to get as much use out of them as we can before she grows out of them!

We had a weekend of cleaning and other household chores, and it almost killed us! It got me thinking that we need a strategy to keep the house and garden from getting on top of us, and I figured if we can do it little and often then it wont build up like it did. I know this sounds obvious, but doing any housework when you're busy looking after a baby is a bit tricky, you cant really afford to start anything that will take longer than 5 minutes because at any moment you could get summoned back to mummy duties. So, I've compiled a list of chores that can be done in 5 minutes, so whenever I get a free 5 minutes I can do something productive with it! This can also motivate anyone who works full time and feels too busy to do anything at home in the evenings, as a 5 minute chunk of housework seems much more appealing than a whole evening cleaning session!

5 minutes tasks:

- washing up from breakfast, lunch or dinner (if you wash up after each meal it doesn't take very long as dirt hasn't dried on and there isn't much to clean!)

- wipe kitchen surfaces & sweep floor

- pop a load of washing in the machine

- hang out a load of washing to dry (because of my OCD I organise the washing first and hang it up in groups of like items so when I take it down it's much quicker to put away!)

- dust a room

- hoover the house

- clean the toilet (Domestos ZERO limescale is amazing - we had 1cm thick limescale in the toilet when we moved in and this stuff cleaned it away completely!)

- wipe down the bathroom

- put the bins out

- tidy a room (I have a crate where I put anything that doesn't belong in the room, and I can then quickly tidy the room and put the stuff where it belongs later!)

- water the garden

- weed the vegetables

- mow the lawn

OK, that's enough for today - I have to get ready to pick Pete us from work because we sold the car today! Finally and perfectly timed as our temporary insurance runs out tomorrow. Back to a one-car family at last. Clio, I will miss you!!