Feeling Cheerful

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Yep I am feeling cheerful this week :). It’s amazing how much better you feel when you are getting enough sleep isn’t it? LM has now slept through from 7pm till 430/5am for the past 6 nights, meaning hubs and I are both getting a good long sleep at night. After a troublesome week last week we are so very, very pleased about this!

We are expecially grateful as we had a busy weekend. On Friday night my brother and his girlfriend came round for a takeaway which was really lovely and, well, the four of us can natter away til the cows come home so it was an uncharacteristically late night for us, meaning instead of our usual 9/930pm bedtime we went to bed after 11! Shocking I know! We were a little tired Saturday morning but had another busy day ahead of us as it was one of my best friend’s hen do. I had my hair cut in the afternoon and then in the evening I left hubs alone with both kiddies for bath and bedtime – the first time one of us has done this alone with both kiddies since LM became part of this routine!

Hard work for him but I had a lovely lovely time with my friends, having a good natter and a bit of hen do silliness :). I love my kiddies but I so need some time for me sometimes and this gave me the push I needed to get out of the house and enjoy just being me, rather than being Mummy.

Sunday was a yummy lunch at my Mum’s with my side of the family and we had a very lovely time, Monkey so loves playing with all of his aunts and uncles and LM was good as gold too.

I love that pic of my Mum and Stepdad with Monkey and LM, just gorgeous :).

Monday I have to admit I was shattered from a 430am start to the day and the busy weekend, but as the week has gone on I have been feeling positively restored. Getting a series of solid nights sleep, even with the early start to the day, really is making a huge difference to my energy levels. LM has been a lot better too, she is still dribbling a lot but she doesn’t seem to be in as much pain with the teething and has been sleeping really, really well. This means I have had more time for me but also more time for Monkey.

We have had some lovely playtimes out in the cold this week while LM has bee happily dozing. I have also been trying to be less negative towards him, to give more positive praise. I am a huge believer in positive reinforcement but it is so easy when you are tired and stressed to focus more on the negative behaviours. So instead we have been concentrating on the good and while we have had to threaten the naughty spot a few times, in general his behaviour has been much better this week and he is learning to say “please can I have” instead of “I want” which is actually going surprisingly well bless him! We are still having issues at dinnertime with him refusing to swallow food but there are a lot less tantrums and he is much more cheerful and so I am much more cheerful….or is that I am feeling more cheerful so he is feeling more cheerful hmm maybe a bit of both :).

How has your week been?

Me & Mine January 15

Posted by Caroline Elliott

For a while I have seen other blogger’s Me & Mine posts and been envious of all the gorgeous shots of their families growing as the months have gone by. The lovely hosts are running it again this year so I decided to try and join in.

I am not 100% confident that we will manage to get a lovely family shot every month but I am certainly going to try as I love a good family photo.

Here is January’s effort, a couple of shots of us at The National Railway Museum. They aren’t the best shots, it was really dark in there so most of the photos came out blurry or just a bit dark and any which had Monkey smiling in them too of course had to be the blurry ones! But here we are, our little family of 4 starting out the New Year!

Troublesome

Posted by Caroline Elliott

The best word to describe this week is troublesome. It hasn’t been a bad week and some parts of it have been really quite good, and lovely, but the children at least have definitely been a bit troublesome at times.

Monkey’s behaviour has certainly kept us on our toes this week. I’m not sure exactly why but since starting playgroup (which is going really well, more on that next week as I don’t want to tempt fate at the moment!) his behaviour had home has gone a little downhill. Whether it is because he is more tired as now twice a week he has busy afternoons, whereas before he nearly always had quiet, restful afternoons, whether it is because he is seeing other children’s behaviour at playgroup, or whether he is just acting up because we have started taking him to playgrup and because his baby sister is taking up a lot of my attention, I am really not sure.

Or it could just he growing into the terrible twos which we have been lucky with up until this point. Either way, the tantrums have stepped up a notch as has the yelling of no and don’t want to at every opportunity. It is taking threats to get him to eat even his favourite foods. That sounds worse than it is, I basically just threaten to throw it away (and he knows we are serious as we have done it in the past) which makes him suddenly realise he does want to eat it after all when he likes the food anyway, if he doesn’t want to eat it at all he just says ok, so I have to follow through!). He has been on the naughty spot after daddy lost it with him on a car journey when he was trying to get out of his car seat. He is threatened with going straight to bed with no stories every night in order to get him to have a bath, which is getting old. We then have another tantrum when it is time to get out of the bath,. He doesn’t want to get in but then loves it so much he doesn’t want to get out.

Sometimes in addition to the threats his toys “talk” to him and they are often much more successful at persuading him to eat something or do something than Mummy and Daddy are! His postman pat toy (and this morning LM’s squeaky crocodile) helps at mealtimes and Herbie the hedgehog (a hand puppet) helps persuade him to do things in the evenings. In some ways I really don’t like doing this, but also I just can’t handle the stress of having stand-offs when trying to get him to do the simplest things. As at the moment there is about a hundred stand-offs a day and I don’t have the energy!

I do feel for him though as I know a lot of it is just attention seeking. His baby sister is also being troublesome this week which is taking a lot of my attention. I am trying really hard to focus on him too but it’s not easy when she won’t stay asleep for more than half an hour at a time and is also fussy when she is awake. Not entirely sure why this is,but she is starting to teethe and is dribbling loads and chewing her teeth constantly. Monkey got his 1st tooth at 4 mths so I guess it is not a complete surprise but she is definitely more restless too.

It’s difficult to know if this is because of the teething or something else but I do feel like it is potentially giving her tummy aches, (apparently this is due to the properties in their drool, which when swallowed creates gas in their intestines(?)) so am on the hunt for teething remedies. We used ashton and parsons powders with Monkey but they contain lactose and while she is fussy anyway it doesn’t seem the right time to re-introduce lactose to her diet. Thanks to all the twitter peeps for their help with suggestions, fingers crossed we find something that works. I am intrigued by amber necklaces and anklets but not convinced yet, we have some teethers from Dr Brown’s on the way and have just started using Chamomilla by Weleda, so I am sure I will keep you posted!

The truth about Making a baby smile

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I love seeing our baby girl smile, it lights up my day and makes the difficult patches easier to bear. Honestly look at this gorgeous face!

So we do whatever we can to bring out thse smiles. We grin, we coo, we gurn repeatedly. I am sure we all do it but behind every one of these smiles, is a whole lot of mummy and daddy looking like eejits. Just as a bit of fun I thought I would share some of the ridiculus faces we pull to bring out a smile 🙂 enjoy!

Yep even Hubs’ grumpy face brings out a smile lol!

Postnatal Yoga and my Weight Loss so far

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I am nearly one month in to my weight loss journey, and well it’s been a bit up and down to be honest!

Diet

I am following the idea of the original Weight Watchers plan. My MIL had all the books and paperwork which meant there was no cost involved, and I am not a huge one for joining groups. Hubs introduced me to WW when I wanted to lose weight after Monkey and I found it worked really well for me.

I like to think of it as an everything in moderation diet because nothing is completely off-limits. You get a points allowance (much like the current WW system) and you work out how many points are in any food and then you can add up how much you are eating throughout the day to meet your allowance. Points come from calories (70 calories per point) and saturated fat (4g sat fat per point) and your personal points allowance is calculated using your current weight, height, activity level etc. I am not sure how the current system works but I think it takes more nutritional values into consideration than just calories and sat fat.

The reason it worked for me so well the first time was because it really made me pay attention to what I was eating, and how many calories were in everything I ate. I could still eat anything I liked but when things have a points value associated with them, and you have daily total, I found that I would make healthier choices, eat foods with lower points, as it meant I could eat more throughout the day.

I did really well on it the first time round and had high hopes it would be pretty easy again but it has been a bit harder so far. I started off really well and according to the scales lost about 5lbs in the first week. then things very much leveled off, even though I was still following the same plan. I have written before how I am not relying totally on the scales as I am not sure how accurate they are as a measure, and how for me, it is more about how I fit in certain items of clothing.

The trouble is though that it is easy to feel disheartened when the needle on the scales stops moving south. It is easy, when feeling disheartened, to go off the rails a little, and I have definitely done that a few times. I could make excuses, we still have a very small baby, I am still shattered after being up in the night with her and then looking after her and a toddler every day… and they are very true, but that is how I got overweight in the first place and not good enough reasons for going back to old habits.

The good news, I have lost weight. I can now do up my red shorts – I mean they are still ridiculously, uncomfortably tight but I can do them up, which I could not even nearly do 2 weeks ago. So regardless of what the scales say, I have lost inches and I need to focus on that.

Not exactly a huge difference from 2 weeks ago but hey it is a start!

Exercise

I have been walking more and I went to a postnatal yoga class last week which was really good. My back has been terrible over the last month or two, so when I saw the taster session for postnatal yoga I was immediately interested. The class was great, the instructor took things very slowly and said it was all about rebuilding the strength in our muscles. The exercises (mainly breathing exercises) were very simple but effective and I could feel them working.

The downside? Little Miss. The idea is that you take your baby to the class and they will either doze to the side or happily gurgle at you while you do the exercises and at times you can include them in the class. Most of the other babies there did that, LM ooh no. She wanted feeding shortly after the class started – not easy to lie down doing back strengthening breathing exercises when feeding a baby! Then she needed burping, then she wasn’t happy on her back. Out of the hour long class I got to do about 10-15 mins of the exercises and was watching the rest of the time. Better than nothing and the one exercise I remember does help when I find the time to do it at home.

I would love to carry on the class but with LM having no routine at the moment I don’t feel like there is much point. I don’t want to pay for an hours session if I can’t actually do the exercises. I know she is only a few months old and a few people have said I shouldn’t be impatient, it is just what a baby is like and I get it, but it is hard to carve out time for myself when every day is so totally different. I keep changing my mind whether to join up or not, and, well I shall keep you posted I guess. The other option is to get a dvd I can do at home but it is very difficult to know which one is good. Any recommendations for a gentle post-natal exercise dvd, please share it!

I need to concentrate on strengthening my back though as it has gotten worse this last week. For a few days my whole left side has been very painful, from my neck all the way down to my knee. My knee especially has been agony at times. Hubs has regular physio for his back and because I was so uncomfortable he looked after the kids for me on Friday afternoon and gave me his appointment. It definitely helped and is all just stemming from my issues with my lower back, so I really, really have to make time to work on it if I want things to improve. I shall keep you posted with how that is going!

I need my body to be strong again and carrying excess weight isn’t helping either so I am re-doubling my efforts to stick to the diet – and I need to ask hubs to stop tempting me with offers of my favourite naughty foods in the evenings. I actually crochet-ed some baby booties for LM recently and concentrating on something and keeping my hands busy definitely stopped me snacking so much, so I think I need to crochet some more things, if only for that reason lol!

Improving

Posted by Caroline Elliott

My word of the week is “improving.”

With LM turning 3 months things are definitely improving, I am not saying life is totally easy but things are definitely better than they were. Her reflux is much improved and she does sleep well at night so I really shouldn’t complain (though of course I do as I am still shattered by the looking after of a baby and toddler ;)).

After a good start at playgroup things with Monkey went a bit downhill and last Friday I was very much questioning whether it was the right thing to do. Thanks to the lovely supportive ladies on Facebook who reminded me it would get easier, which it did, that day in fact. We seemed to hit rock bottom, and then turn a corner and when I picked him up on onday afternoon he didn’t even cry (he had balled when I dropped him off) and keeps telling me he loves playgroup. So I know it won’t necessarily all be plain sailing and there will still be tears, but things are improving.

My mood is improving too. I started off the week feeling really, really low. I went for dinner with some friends on Monday and it was lovely to see them, but it was a bit of a late night for me (home just after 10pm, so going to sleep around 11, rock and roll I know) and actually knocked me for six a bit. I just felt shattered and tiredness can take me to some very miserable places, mood wise and I am not that fun to be around. Add to that a baby screaming and a toddler coming down with a cold and I wasn’t at all cheerful.

I have pulled myself together a bit and have caught up on some sleep and am feeling a lot better about things. Things aren’t easy or perfect but wallowing and making myself feel down about it all doesn’t help anyone.

How has your week been?

From rain to shine

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Last week I had arranged to meet up with one of my lovely mummy friends on her day off work. WIth LM’s lack of routine it is sometimes difficult to plan outings but we decided to go for it and arranged to meet at a local country park where the kids could run around. Unfortunately on the day of the meet up, despite previously sunny forecasts… we woke up to a very grey very wet morning.

We talked about going somewhere else but I had promised Monkey we would go and feed the ducks, so I decided to bundle him up in waterproofs and head off to the country park anyway. My friend decided to join us too, though she definitely thought I was bonkers for still wanting to go (and I suspected she was right, actually). We got there and it really was very wet. Monkey was loving jumping in the puddles, and so were her kiddies so it didn’t start off terribly.

Then we headed to one of the playparks, which, being wet, was incredibly slippy and both our little boys fell off. My friend’s eldest, N, desperately wanted Monkey to play with her and tried to chase him but he was having none of it. He got really stroppy and I got cross. My friend’s little girl then got really upset with him and was sulking. By this point the thought of “what are we doing here?” ver much crossed my mind and we nearly went home.

Instead though we popped to a little cafe for lunch and the kids cheered up immensely. I had taken a postman pat sticker book and the 3 kiddos very much enjoyed paying with them together.

By the time we had eaten lunch, somehow the sun had miraculously broken through the clouds, and we headed to another playpark, which is predominantly sand.

The kids cheered up no end and had a whale of a time playing. Monkey is so independent he mainly played in the sand by himself, but they ended up all on the slide together which is where they had the most fun. Because it was just a cold miserable day we were pretty much the only people there so the kids had free run and were going up and down the slide again and again.

It was just an ordinary outing that got off to a really wet and miserable start, but it ended up being brilliant. LM slept the whole time miraculously, and my friend and I got to have a good catch up while our kids had loads of fun. Lovely day 🙂

My Red Shorts

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I wrote recently about how I am trying to lose weight at the moment, in an effort to getting back to being me. To feeling like myself again. The diet is having ups and downs, good days and bad days but I am not stressing about the bad days. I am trying not to be too hard on myself or trying to do this too quickly. I am a pretty impatient person and want results yesterday, but I know it is going to take time. It is not even 3 months since I had a baby and my body is still recovering. I am walking a lot more and trying to build my fitness up a bit. This week I am also trialling a post-natal yoga class as my back is killing me at the moment and I would be interested to see if that can help.

What has any of this got to do with red shorts? Well, as part of the not pressuring myself I am trying not to base my idea of weight loss success purely on the scales. According to the scales, after 5 days of dieting I had lost 5lbs but then 2 days later on the same diet I was back up to my start weight again. Very demoralising. But, actually, I feel like my clothes are not quite as snug as they were before I started this diet so I do think I am on the right track, whatever the scales say. I always find clothing the best way for me to judge my weight, just because there can be so many fluctuations on the scales.

I have this pair of red shorts that I have had for over 10 years. They have been all over the world with me and I have worn them at different weights and they have gone from being loose to tight to loose to tight as my weight has fluctuated. They are now completely battered and mainly used for doing things like painting or dying my hair but they always help me judge what size I am.

As well as tracking my weight loss, I will also be periodically checking how my red shorts fit me to hopefully keep my spirits up along the way! This photo was actually taken a few days into the diet when I had lost a few pounds, but, well, as you can see, they are extrememly tight, and I cannot remotely do them up!

I doubt I will ever be out and about in them again (note the paint stains) but hopefully my red shorts will fit me again at some point, then I will know I have achieved my goal size and am back to feeling like myself!

Escaping the screaming

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Things in our house have improved quite a lot lately. LM is sleeping so much better which means we are sleeping so better. But that doesn’t mean it’s all plain sailing, ooh no. Our little girl still likes to stretch her lungs randomly with mammoth crying sessions. Crying sessions that feel like they are designed to make me feel like a useless parent. Changed, fed, burped, refusing to sleep and basically miserable whatever I do (or don’t do, no matter how hard I try to remain calm, after a while the tendrils of stress just start nibbling away at me. My patience level reaches zero and I get increasingly snappy with Monkey when he really is just being a chatty little toddler, getting himself in a mess but not being naughty.

All I can think of to do is get them both out of the house. And hope it calms her down even temporarily! If not then at least we are all getting some fresh air and a change of scene.

Wednesday we did just that and miraculously the fresh air did pause the crying, if only for half an hour or so. It was a bitterly cold and windy day but it is hard not to smile and be infected by Monkey’s pure glee at just being able to run about. To race to a lamppost – especially when he stops every 5 seconds to shout “Ready, steady, go!” I’m not sure he really gets the idea of racing bless him!

Ready, Steady, Go!

Red-Faced Little Girl

It wasn’t the longest of outings as it started to drizzle and I didn’t have a rain cover for LM but it did us all good and by the time we got home LM was ready to feed and then had a lovely long sleep. Getting out of the house can work wonders on a tough day, and so can the smiles of my little boy, when I take a moment to lift my head and really see them!

Routines

Posted by Caroline Elliott

This week is all about routines in our house. First of all, hubby is back at work after 2 weeks off over the festive break. We had a lovely time and got lots of much needed jobs done while he was off, but it is good to be getting back to a normal day to day routine. This is especially true as we have been sleep training Little Miss ( I talk about this in more detail here) and trying to find a routine that works for her and for us.

Nighttimes are going brilliantly, meaning hubs and I are getting a more normal amount of sleep now and therefore we are getting into a more normal routine, for the first time in months really! this means more jobs are getting done around the house, little things that have only had cursory cleans are now getting proper cleans, as we are not so drop-dead tired at the end of every day! LM is also happier lately and we are being rewarded with lots more lovely smiles and she even mad her first giggly sound yesterday which melted my heart.

hard to catch on camera but here’s a little smile 🙂

Day-times with LM have been trickier and just when we thought she was getting into a routine…. she threw me for a loop again and changed her nap lengths and wake up times. A few days of this and this and then she does it again! I am a big lover of routines but I have to try and not let my control freak planner side take over and get stressed when things don’t go according to the routine. Especially at this young age as she can’t help it. It does make planning things difficult though and arranging to see a mummy friend this week I really wasn’t sure what time to say to meet she was that all over the place. Thankfully though my friend has obviously been through it and was therefore totally understanding about waiting until the day itself to decide a time… then it started raining, well anyway that’s a story for another day!

Trying to spot patterns in LM’s behaviour!

We also have a bit of excitement this week as on Friday Monkey has his first ever session at playgroup. He will be going 2 afternoons a week from now on. So far he is very much looking forward to it and we hope he enjoys it. I definitely think he is ready for it and am sure when he settles in he will really enjoy it. That being said it will be strange at first. Apart from grandparents, I am used to being the one who looks after him and so have to loosen the reins slightly. I know it is the right thing but it will be strange to think of him being in that situation without me. He may be ready but I’m not sure I am! I am sure I will manage though and it will give me more 1 on 1 time with LM as she gets older which is a good thing.

Anyway this will all change our routine as for the first time since Monkey was born we will now have to be somewhere at a set time twice a week. It starts at 12.30 so lunch will either have to be a tiny bit early or quite a quick affair on those days. I can’t help but wonder how I will balance LM’s routine with this either… But again refusing to worry about it, what will be wil be and she will have to go along with it all I guess! I shall let you know how Monkey gets on at playgroup, eek!

Finally I have also been getting into a bit of a routine with my diet and weight loss. I will do a specific post about it but so far it is definitely working, though I am so tempted to comfort eat when LM is throwing me through a loop, it has really been testing my willpower! I know it is worth it though and comfort eating doesn’t actually solve anything! ( I wrote that earlier but am actually sat drinking a glass of wine and eating chocolate at the mo, hopefully not destroying all of my progress so far!)

So that was my week, how has your week been?

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

Life

Feeling Cheerful

Me & Mine January 15

Troublesome

The truth about Making a baby smile

Postnatal Yoga and my Weight Loss so far

Diet

Exercise

Improving

From rain to shine

My Red Shorts

Escaping the screaming

Routines