And so the learning curve continues. Another appointment and weigh-in with the nice lady at the child care centre showed stable weight - not ideal in a 2 week old baby. So a new regime was instituted. Automatic milking machine hired, installed and duly put into action - a quite fascinating process, which may not be much fun for the milk provider but provides a certain amount of titillation for her husband. Thereafter, breast feeds supplemented with expressed milk and formula as required. Two days of pumping later, weight up by a hundred grams, and a further hundred at today's weighing. Back at birth weight. Marvellous.
Meanwhile, la nouvelle grand-mère arrived on Wednesday to meet her first grandchild. The family threesome set off for the airport to meet her, and got as far as the garage round the corner. Failure to freewheel and a grinding noise at first led me to suspect an old problem, seized brakes, but with passersby pointing at the front offside wheel, it eventually dawned that we had a flat tyre. It being lunchtime our friendly local garage was closed, but fortunately I only had a couple of minutes to demonstrate my total lack of competence in tyre changing (which I put down to inexperience - first puncture in 30 years of motoring) before la bienheureuse spotted someone in the garage. Of course, asking French workmen for help in their lunch break is often a risky exercise, but a sweet smile convinced the nice mechanic to change the wheel for us.
Dodgy spare thus installed in a matter of minutes rather than the hour it would have otherwise taken we set off and arrived at the airport only about half an hour late, to introduce la belle-mère to her petite-fille. One way introduction, as la petite slept through the whole adventure. However, she woke up later and immediately ignored the stranger in favour of a good suckle. As well she should, but they've got to know each other since. Amidst the full time job of feeding, nappy changing, bottle washing, pumping, cooking and shopping, sightseeing for la belle-mère this week has been restricted to strolls along the river with the pram in the glorious sunshine we had during the first few days of her visit. Spring is here even if it's raining now…
