I remember making chocolate easter nests year after year as a child and it is a tradition we have carried on with Monkey, and will with LM as she gets older. It is such a great fun, quick, and easy make that kids of any age can join in with.
Monkey did it first 2 years ago at about 10 mths old, then last year at just under 2 and again this year. He still needs quite a bit of help but I imagine he will less and less help as he gets older.
It’s Me and Mine time – time to capture some photos of us as a family to store for posterity. I only joined this linky In January and had to miss February! With all of the illness in our house we just didn’t get any photos of us as a family. This month however we managed to get some lovely shots.
On Mother’s Day, with some family round, I gathered the four of us onto our little blue snuggle sofa and tried to get a shot of us all smiling 🙂
A while ago I saw another Mummy Blogger (sorry I can’t remember where!) using potatoes to stamp easter egg shapes and I thought it was genius. I am always on the look out for activities to do with Monkey and while I had been meaning to do potato stamping with him at some point this was the push I needed to do it and thought they would make lovely easter cards.
Welcome to week 13 of #MaternityMondays! Thanks so much to all you lovely bloggers who are continuing to link up very week, I am loving our little community, celebrating the joys (and sharing the challenges) of pregnancy, life with babies and motherhood in general!
I can’t believe my little Monkey is only a couple of months away from being 3! It feels so grown up and impossible for my baby boy to be that age… but at the same time it makes sense as he has grown up so much lately and is such a lovely little lad, he melts my heart daily (as well as driving me crazy multiple times a day 😉 !
So what is he up to? Well lots and lots he is always on the go! You may have read the recent updates about him – Monkey Says and Learning to Read but there is lots more going on too.
Last weekend we had a visit from some very lovely friends of ours who live in South London. We last saw them way back in July last year when their newest little one was just 6-7 weeks old so it was lovely to see them now, to catch up with how everything is and see how much both of their girls have grown. Plus of course we have a new arrival of our own that they were keen to meet.
Their little E is still as lovely and chilled as she was when she was younger and she is so cute and diddy. Her and LM are almost the same size – though of course being 5 months older little E is way ahead developmentally. She’s such a happy girl constantly smiling and so content sitting playing with toys and it was lovely to see.
Monkey loved seeing their oldest, S, again too. He had been a bit poorly and grumpy over the weekend so we weren’t entirely sure how it would go but they arrived and he was so so happy at having a little friend to play with that he seemed to completely forget his grumpiness! S is such a cutie, just a little bit older than Monkey and they are so similar in so many ways. She was great following him around to see what he was up to and he did really well with sharing his toys and playing with her as well as alongside her.
What was really nice was that they were able to stay for a while, often when we see them it is a bit of a flying visit so it was nice to be able to spend some time together to chat about life with another baby and all the challenges and happiness that brings! There was a really great moment while us Mums were with the babies and having a natter. One Daddy was dozing in the garden and we thought the other was playing play-doh with the older kiddies. In reality this was happening.
The kids were playing together so well that Hubs had decided to have a rest too hehe. Who can blame him eh? Late in the afternoon we went for a walk so that the youngest 2 could get a nice nap while we all had some fun. It was just lovely and Monkey and S were running around having so much fun together, it really was adorable.
They even got an ice cream on the way home, lucky kiddies :). They stayed for tea then it was time for them to head home. I’ve said before how much I value their friendship and I really, really look forward to seeing the kids grow and play together over the years to come :).
At the beginning of the year I wrote about how it was time to make time for me. To take a bit better care of myself, to lose weight and basically find some me time. We are now nearly a quarter way through the year (bonkers eh?) and it is safe to say that is not happening at the moment. With Monkey and mostly baby LM, I am continually pushing myelf to the bottom of the priority list.
The diet has stopped as I have been too tired, too poorly, too busy, etc. etc. I don’t like the way I look in most of my clothes as I am larger than I want to be and I don’t want to buy new clothes because the truth is I won’t be happy whatever clothes I am in as I know I am bigger than I want to be. I am lazy and I am making excuses not to look after myself. I only wash my hair a couple of times a week and because I can’t always be bothered to detangle the frizz it very often gets scraped into a bun and stays that way until I next decide it looks too greasy to be acceptable. Some days I don’t even straighten my fringe as if I know I am not going anywhere then who cares whether my fringe is all kinky and sticking out. Well, I should, I think.
It’s not just me, hubs is the same. He let his hair and beard get so long he was looking a bit scruffy (sorry hubs but you know you were) and he hasn’t been to the gym or cycled to work in ages. We put the kids needs above our own (of course) and in our free time prioritise jobs around the house (and I do prioritise the blog too) over taking time out for ourselves and making even a little bit of effort over how we look and feel.
We convince each other that it is ok too, we buy crisps and chocolate and bad things and tell each other we deserve it, that it’s temporary because we are going through a hard time. That it doesn’t matter. But the truth is, it does matter. We matter. Making time to feel good about ourselves does matter! I am feeling so low so much of the time and I think it’s all a symptom of the same thing. Yes babies are hard work and yes I am tired all of the time but I am dragging myself down instead of lifting myself up. If that makes any sense?
So, together, hubs and I are refocusing on the diet. He doesn’t need to lose as much weight as I do but some of his clothes are getting tight and it’s more about our frame of mind and we need to support each other through this. We need to encourage each other to look after ourselves. We usually take it in turns to do the 530am start with LM (yawn) but at the weekend we got up together so that hubs could cut his hair and beard before Monkey got up and the day fully started.
On Monday we started counting our WW points again. Just to remind ourselves what we are putting in to our bodies and also, hopefully, to lose some weight. There are no excuses this time. I have had a couple of difficult days this week where LM’s screaming has dragged me down and I have been a mess at times. But I haven’t given in. I am a huge comfort eater but I need to remember that it doesn’t solve anything and while it may make me feel better in the uber short term, longer term it does not help because I don’t like the way I look or feel.
I will never be skinny but I want to be me-sized rather than big for me-sized. I don’t want to feel so wobbly and squeezed into clothes and I don’t want to buy bigger clothes as they will just be masking the wobbles and I know I still won’t be happy.
We have a goal in mind too. It is my birthday at the end of April and at the beginning of May we have arranged a babysitter (thanks Mum) so that hubs and I can go out together with a group of our friends. It will be the first time since the wedding in August, I think, that we have had time out of the house as a couple without the kids and will do us both some good to be out with friends and out with each other. So the goal is that by then we are looking and feeling better about ourselves.
LM getting into a routine would undoubtedly make this task a lot easier, but (while I am still going to keep trying to get her into one) I am not going to use her lack of a routine as an excuse for eating rubbish and looking and feeling rubbish anymore. No more excuses.
Starting weight is 13st and I am aiming for 11 1/2 st, but as I have said before it is more about how my clothes fit than what the scales say.
Wish me luck!
At the moment I feeling like my life is like Groundhog Day. I am living the same thing over and over and over every day. Does anyone else ever feel like that? Please be warned that this is quite a moany and definitely rambling post so be warned and feel free to stop reading at any time!
Monkey’s chatter at the moment, is very cute and lovely… but it is also incessant. He just never stops and just jabbers away constantly. When he was younger and was a bit delayed in his speech people used to say to me that there would come a time when I wished he was quiet. Oh how right they were!
It doesn’t help that LM stresses me out a lot at the moment with her teething and lack of sleeping. When she is screaming, moaning or unhappy my tolerance levels for any noise reach zero and I can’t even have a conversation with hubs while she is crying without getting stressed. Monkey’s chattering at these times drives me completely potty and I do sometimes tell him to just be quiet. I feel like an awful parent but my brain just can’t take it! He generally doesn’t listen to me anyway and carries on jabbering away. Occasionally there is a couple of seconds pause, or he whisper shouts instead of normal shouting but mostly he just carries on at normal or shouts even louder to spite me!
He is also massively contrary at the moment. It is worse when he is tired or not feeling himself (we still seem to have a cold continually in our house with at least one of us snotty and grouchy at all times!) when it reaches extreme proportions but he is contrary a lot of the rest of the time too. Reverse psychology is in constant use and even that backfires a lot. Here is an example of a conversation this morning. Me in purple, Monkey in blue
Eat your breakfast please. It’s not breakfast, it’s dinner. (Sigh) Fine, then eat your dinner please. It’s not dinner it’s breakfast. Fine. Just eat it. I don’t want to. Ok then shall Mummy eat it? No I wanted it!
If only that one conversation actually meant that he then ate his breakfast without further chatter and debate! It’s not only food over. We have the same conversations over TV, clothes, activities. Even when he was helping Daddy make biscuits at the weekend ( an activity he loves) he was deliberately arguing against every suggestion Daddy made. Would you like to roll the dough? No I don’t want to. Right I’ll do it then. No I wanted it! …Oh I don’t want to! I have to admit it was a little gratifying when Daddy got stressed out by this as it made me feel like less of a terrible impatient Mother when I get annoyed by it on a daily basis!
It’s not just Monkey related though. The laundry is doing my head in at the moment. The step up from 3 of us to 4 of us seems to have trebled our washing (I think Muslins take up a huge proportion of that) and it just feels relentless and never ending. No matter how much laundry I seem to do the washing baskets seem to be constantly full! It doesn’t help that LM refuses to sleep when the washing machine is on so it has to be timed to be on when she is awake, and we daren’t put it on at night at risk of it disturbing her. Our sleep is too precious! Then there is the tumble dryer which again is on all the time – a constant ( well I was going to say hum but it is a lot louder than that) rumble(?) in the background which also drives me crazy.
I went on a bit of a subconscious laundry strike last week. I just couldn’t face it and ignored it (which is very unlike me) and well that certainly backfired as of course the piles reached epic proportions! Hubs said later in the week he wished I had said something to him as he could have tried to do it instead, but with it being a subconscious strike, in that I didn’t consciously decide to stop…. I just didn’t do it for a few days.. I hadn’t thought to mention it. Plus mentioning it would have meant actually admitting to myself that I was doing it and would have forced me to stop being so daft and just do some blimming laundry.
Then there’s the constant amount of crumbs on the floor and the never ending hoovering and sweeping that needs doing. (Even seconds after hoovering every inch of the downstairs I see a new crumb or get one stuck to my foot. I swear they reproduce or grow out of thin air!) And the washing up, and cleaning the table, and cleaning bathrooms and windows. Plus of course the formula preparation and the cleaning and sterilising and all of that rigmarole that needs doing every day. Loading and unloading the dishwasher… the list of housework goes on.
Oh and all the nappy changes…. I really wish Monkey was ready for being potty trained. Not that I am looking forward to actually doing the training, I am very much looking forward to him using the toilet rather than needing changes. Changing two of them all day every day makes it feel never ending . He is nearly ready I think and we are laying a lot of the groundwork, but I really don’t want to rush him as I know from friend’s experiences that that only ever makes things harder. In the meantime, all the hand washing and hand sanitiser from the constant nappy changing are making my hands so dry and horrible. I now wear rubber gloves for washing up and leaning, but they aren’t really so good for bottom wiping or bathy time!
My Mother in law said something the other week (about a totally different subject) that really stuck with me. If you can’t change your situation then you have to change your attitude about it. I can’t stop the amount of laundry that needs doing, or stop Monkey being contrary (hopefully he will grow out of that one day) and we have a while to go with nappies as LM is only 5 mths old. So I need to try and change my attitude. As ever with this kind of thing that is a heck of a lot easier said than done but I need to try as I am a bit of a misery guts at the moment.
A lot of it is down to LM’s randomness and continuing lack of routine (despite our best efforts we still have a mix of good days and bad) which makes me grumpy and I haven’t worked out how to manage my time best, when I don’t know what time I am going to have. I am trying to accept that she doesn’t have a routine and not expect to get things done, as that stresses me out when I don’t achieve things. But then I am still getting stressed because I never achieve anything and can’t even plan how to achieve the things I want to because of our lack in routine! It’s a bit of a vicious cycle.
I keep trying to remember how lucky we are, both kids sleep from 7pm at night and she goes through til 530am which is early but not terrible. Monkey sleeps til nearer 7 and he still naps a few days a week, for a good 3 hours at a time so I know how lucky I am with that. I also know that all of this is only temporary but I don’t like feeling like I am wishing away this time. I also realise that as an SAHM at least I don’t have to worry about all of this as well as being at work… but I also get no break from the monotony.
I made a choice to become a SAHM and I don’t regret it as I have loved watching Monkey grow and learn, and I know I will love doing the same with LM too. But it isn’t always easy and I guess that’s my point.. if I have one at all! I told you it was a rambly post! IBut I do feel better for having a bit of a vent so if you have made it this far, thank you for reading :).
Welcome to Week 12 of #MaternityMondays! Thank you so much to all our lovely linkers from last week, I loved our little Mother’s Day special and there was some gorgeous Mother’s Day themed posts in addition to some also fabulous #MaternityMondasy posts
As Emma and I co-hosted last week across the four days we thought we would both share our favourites from you all. We both loved reading your fantastuc posts. Emma Says:
“This amazing piece from 23 Week Socks documents the Thank Yous she feels she should have said to all the people who helped her after the birth of her baby. It is a documentary of the tough time she experienced because of depression and it really is an inspiration. Other mums will really be helped by this post because it shows, even in the darkest of days, you are not alone and there really are people out there who can help you.
My other favourite was from Treasure Every Moment with her 36 week pregnancy update. Things are hotting up and all the final things to do are coming together. I can’t wait to read all about another #MaternityMondays baby.”
And for me, I loved reading some of the lovely tributes to some fantastic Mummies out there and a few posts definitely bought a tear to my eye – soppy woman that I am these days! Another Bun started me off with a gorgeous post about what Mother’s Day means to her and then TwinMummy&Daddy shared such a beautiful poignant post about a Mum and Grandma who is sadly no longer around, and explaining why to her Grandchildren, and, well that was it for me!
This week has been difficult, we think LM is teething (though when do you really know, unless a tooth appears?) and she has been pretty miserable…. which makes Hubs and I miserable. What has cheered me up though was writing her little 5 month update, and realising it isn’t all misery, and I do know her, even if it doesn’t feel like it sometimes when she is inconsolable and I don’t know what to try next! So this week I am sharing that happy little update of our gorgeous girl with you all.
Now it is over to you! Please grab our badge and share the linky love by commenting on a few other blog posts, it would be lovely if we could grow a little community to share the highs and lows of motherhood and parenting.
The linky is open Mondays only from 6.30am to midnight.
Don’t forget to tweet your link using #MaternityMondays, and if you tag us in we will retweet, we are @EmmaLander2 and @BecomingaSAHM
5 Months? Where does the time go? The weeks and months really are flying by and I can’t believe we are nearly at the end of March and that my baby girl is now 5 months old. Nearly half a year already!
I have to admit I am glad that it is going so quickly though.. Does that sound awful? I adore my baby girl, she is beautiful and lovely and wonderful…. but man is she hard work. I guess I am just not a baby person. I am looking forward to a few months time, when she can sit up by herself, is eating some normal food, starts to get around by herself and starts getting cheekier, actually.
In the meantime though, I will stop wishing away the months and focus on what she is up to at the moment. I’m not sure how much she weighs, I meant to take her on Thurs… but I forgot, lol! She is starting to move into 6-9 mth clothes though. Mainly because she has a long body and a big head so some are getting tight. Her legs aren’t fully out of the 3-6 mths trousers, and honestly we joke that she has short t-rex arms as even with some tops that no longer fit her body, we still have to roll the cuffs up on her sleeves so she can access her hands! On the subject of clothes … she loves being naked. She loves it when we take her clothes off in the morning or at bathtime, she gets so happy and wriggly! In complete contrast to Monkey who has never liked being naked at all.
One of my favourite things about our gorgeous girl is the beuatiful look of undisguised joy when she sees her Mummy and Daddy. It melts our hearts every time and makes all of the hard work so worthwhile. When we go into her in the morning or after a nap and she sees us, she just beams. If I am carrying her up to her Daddy she gives him the biggest grins when she sees him, and she does the same to me when someone else is holding her. It really is wonderful.
Her hair cracks me up to, it is currently growing straight up as like a fluffy mohican… which is so cute!
In general she is a pretty smiley baba and loves being with people. She gives so many of her family the beautiful smiles too and adores her big brother. She watches him constantly and actually it is really frustrating trying to feed her when he is around as she wants to be looking at him as soon as she hears him, even if that then makes her grumpy because she is hungry!
She is so alert and fascinated by everything in the world that it isn’t just her brother that distracts her. She is always looking around at everything and is really grabbing onto toys and things now. She is fascinated by the remote control for the TV and adores some of her toys cooing and chuckling at them. She also loves grabbing on to us. It is lovely when she clutches at our clothing and sometimes when feeding her, a little hand will start pulling at your lips and cheek. Or sometimes when Daddy is holding her she will grab onto his ear or beard which is very cute but not so comfy for him.
She likes to be propped up into a sitting position but still can’t support herself yet and flops forward if unsupported. After rolling once at about 3 months, she is yet to do it again!She’ll get there though I’m sure. She loves her feet and plays with them whenever she can – lying down, in the bath and she is constantly kicking them and sort of rubbing them together. We noticed this habit when she was tiny and it is even more pronounced now, she loves sort of rubbing her ankles together, crossed and uncrossing them. Basically she is a fidget pants!
So where is the hard work? Well we don’t know if she is teething or just poorly or what but she is so grumpy lately. There are times when we literally don’t know what to do other than give her calpol or baby ibuprofen. I hate feeling like I am dosing her up, so it is a last resort but it is happening fairly frequently lately because it does help her and we figure that it’s not happy pills, it is pain relief, so if she wasn’t in pain it wouldnt help, if that makes sense?
Now she is on normal formula and we don’t have to worry about Lactose free so much I tried her on Ashton & Parsons Powders, as they helped Monkey at this age, but they seemed to give her quite a bad tummy still. She has an amber anklet, which we lost for a while and honestly didn’t see any difference in her, though we have found it and it is back on in case it is helping in any way! we have anbesol teething gel which seems to take the edge off for her sometimes but is only ever a brief relief and sometimes makes no difference.
It’s just really hard trying everything and putting all of your energy into trying to help her but generally feeling completely useless as nothing seems to work. I don’t want to resort to pain meds but she is inconsolable sometimes and won’t sleep or eat and has to be attached to me constantly. Which is exhausting, mentally and physically when she is also writhing and fidgeting in my arms. It also feels unfair to Monkey when he is left to fend for himself in front of the TV and with toys strewn everywhere as I can’t give my attention to both at the same time while she is in that mood.
All of this is not helping us with her routine. On good days she does seem to be adjusting herself into a routine, that is earlier than we like, but it is still a routine, so we go with it! Awake around 530am until about 730. Sleeps until around 930 then is awake until around 12. wakes up 130/2 ish and then has a short nap around 4, which can be anywhere between 30 mins to an hour and a half. days like this i love as it allows time with Monkey, time for jobs and quality time with her. But when she is in a mess she will only sleep for about 30 mins at a time and so has 5 short naps a day and is still grouchy and miserable which makes the whole day bitty and it is hard to accomplish anything than get her through to the next nap and then grab a little sit down!
LM’s Chart of randomness
The amount of food she eats over the course of the day is about the same but the amount she eats at each feed varies massively, which isn’t great with formula as you either waste loads or don’t have enough. So we have come up with a system, we make all the bottles in advance in the morning, bottles with varying amounts in. So when it is time to feed we try and work out based on length of time since last feed (In the morning she will sometimes go from a feed at 530am until 930/10ish, but then she will want another feed around 1130, and sometimes drinks loads at that feed!) but basically end up heating up more and more until she’s finished. It makes it really difficult when planning to go out anywhere and is really frustratig if she hasn’t eaten for hours, and is frantically hungry, but then doesn’t want more than 100ml!
Speaking of food we are obviously thinking of weaning and had started Monkey by this point, but she doesn’t seem ready. She has had a couple of mouthfuls of baby rice but wasn’t enamoured. I started to worry slightly, I think as I was just comparing her with Monkey and what worked with him, but after a conversation with hubs I realised it’s ok. When we try and give medicine or herbal remedies orally, she automatically pushes it out of her mouth with her tongue. (Which, by the way, is hugely frustrating at times) Hubs reminded me that this is actually a sign that she probably isn’t devleopmentally ready for food yet, so I am relaxing a little. We had got the highchair down and she has sat in it a few times which is good prep but I am not going to rush her.
Wow this feels like a huge update but I guess there is just a lot going on with our little girly. I have to say I have loved writing this update. Sometimes, when she is unhappy and writhing or won’t eat or won’t sleep, I feel as if I don’t know her at all and am a useless Mummy as I have no idea what she wants. Writing this has reminded me how much I do know her, and I am really glad I have started writing these posts so I can look back on them one day.
