Playing with friends – 27 months

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey made a really lovely big step last week, and one I am really proud of. All babies and toddlers start off playing pretty independently from other children, sort of sid by side, without interacting with them. Monkey has always been particularly wary of other kids, especially after a knock earlier this year. He has been getting a lot better and there have been signs of improvement over the past few months. For example he stopped launching himself off the side of a climbing frame whenever he saw another child nearby!

Pretty much every week we meet up dor a play date with my friend S and her little girl E, who is almost exactly a year older than Monkey. They get on pretty well for the most part though do bicker and snatch toys from each other at times. E though has been very excited by the development of Monkey’s speech over the past few months, often exclaiming “he can nearly talk as good as I can!!”

There has just been little more signs of interaction between them over the last few weeks and then last week they really actually played together. They were lying on the edge of the ‘baby’ zone in the soft play and after watching E roll of a few times (making Monkey chuckle a lot) they then started counting together and trying to roll off at the same time. Sometimes they managed it, other times they were way out of sync, but they were taking it in turns counting down and really trying to do it together.

They looked so cute playing together S and I really had a moment! E is a really sociable little girl and loves playing with other kiddies whereas Monkey has always been much more reserved. We spend so much time together and S was as proud of Monkey as I was. It may seem small but actually a huge step for him and one fo the many signs recently about how much he is growing up and getting more independent from me. Just so lovely 🙂

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I walk the line..

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey is growing up so much at the moment and really acting more like a little boy than a toddler. He is just playing a lot more, and in so many ways, doing things I remember doing as a child. He has quite a neat and tidy streak and likes things to line up in a row and be neat, and also he does something which I remember doing a lot of as a kid – walking the line.

Be it on the edge of a curb, on a wall, on a line on the pavement, Monkey loves walking on the line and staying on the line. There is a little local shopping centre we go to where this is the most evident. Its quite a run down little centre, there is Wilkos and a QD, and it also happens to be home to the local library where Monkey goes every Monday for rhyme time with Nanny & Pops. They often have a wander round the shops while they are there too and it is quite nearby so a handy place to pop to, so we go wuite a bit.

In the middle of the open sort of courtyard area there is I guess a drain, but it is a thin silver line which Monkey loves to walk along. He has been doing it for ages, and I am not really sure when it started or who he started doing it with but now if we go there he has to walk the line.

He is so cute and gets massively excited, running off shouting “Walk the Line” which sounds more like ” Walk a Yine, Walk Yine!” He has to go all the way to the end too.

We popped there in the week and I fianlly managed to (remember to) catch it on camera!

I just love that he gets so much pleasure out of something so simple! He does it all the time when we are out on walks, if there is a line to be walked on, he will find it and walk on it!

Do your kids do that?

#GetGoodSummer -They think it’s all over, it is now!

Posted by Caroline Elliott

So we are at the end of the 10 weeks of #GetGoodSummer! What started off seeming like a long time has actually flown by, especially lately. I can;t believe we are at the end already. So, what have we achieved?

Goal 1 – Clearing out the baby room √

We did well with this one early on and managed to get it cleared out ready for decorating, which was goal no.2

Goal 2 – Decorating the baby room

I haven’t ticked this one off sadly. We have done a lot of the decorating but it sadly isn’t finished yet, as I had hoped it would have been by now. The blind we bought and started to fit, turned out to be bent in the middle so we are currently waiting for a replacement to be sent out. We have got the furtniture out of the loft but haven’t yet managed to build it. We don’t want to put the wall stickers on the wall until we have got the furniture in place as we aren’t 100% sure where we want them to go until then. But we have made great progress and I am sure it will be ready in a couple of weeks time (hopefully!).

Goal 3 – Sorting out the lease on my flat.

This is the big failure really as we are yet to sort it out and it is really irritating me as I know we need to do it and need to have got somewhere by the time baby comes, otherwise it just won’t happen and could end up costing us even more money 🙁

Goal 4 – Catching up with family and friends √

A very fun goal this one and one that was really easy to fulfill. I didn’t manage to catch up with everyone I had hoped to over the summer, as pregnancy and SPD put a stop to a couple of planned outings, but we still managed to do really well and had some lovely fun with friends :).

Goal 5 – Getting Organised √

There is still more I would like to do with this one but we have done a lot and really does getting organised ever end? As soon as the furniture has been built for the baby room I can start organising the baby clothes and then I will be happy. We got them out of the loft at the weekend and its incredible looking at all of the teeny newborn clothes. Hard to believe Monkey ever fit into any of these gorgeous miniscule little clothes!

Overall I am pleased with what we have achieved and I think #GetGoodSummer has really helped motivate us to get things done. If it has taken us this long even with the help of #GetGoodSummer I dread to think how little we may have achieved without that added motivation! A big Thank You to Claire at Clarina’s Contemplations for hosting this fab linky over the summer!

How have you got on with all of your goals?

31 weeks and lacking sleep!

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Don’t I look happy? 😉

I am 31 weeks pregnant and I’m afraid to say I am not enjoying pregnancy at the moment. Apologies for a slightly moany post, I know how lucky I am to be pregnant and this pregnancy has definitely been easier than my first, but right now, I am not enjoying it.

My pelvis and back have been really painful since the wedding a week and a half ago. Up until then I have been managing the SPD quite well with a combination of weekly aquanatal yoga and fortnightly physio. It has troubled me at times but I have been managing it, which is about the best you can hope for with SPD. Lately though I have not been managing it so well. I am in pain a lot of time and night-times are by far the worst. Sitting in the car for 6 hours over 2 days to get to the wedding and back definitely did not do me any favours!

Come 9pm every day I am pretty exhausted and head upstairs and do my leg and back stretches before bed. What is unfortunately a nightly occurance at the moment though is that as soon as I am drifting off to sleep my legs start twitching (which I know is due to compression of nerves around my pelvis and spine). Then our little wriggly baba decides to have a party in my uterus and starts kicking and pumelling my pelvis and bladder. She is still very much breech and though I can feel she is trying to turn, I am about 85% certain there isn’t enough room in my Bicornuate Uterus for her to make it all the way round, and therefore we are heading for another C-Section. Hey ho, I am not worrying or getting down about it and we will find out for certain when we see the consultant at 35 wks.

Because of the gymnastics going on in my tummy I usually have to haul myself out of bed and off to the loo at least 3 times before I have even got to sleep. Which just hurts. As with everything in life with SPD you need to keep your legs together at all times. The best way to get in and out of bed with SPD is to sit on the side of the bed with your legs together, and sort of lift your legs (keeping them together) as you lie down on your side and roll into bed and then position yourself with pillows between your legs etc. (I have a dream-genii pregnancy pillow). Trying to get out of bed the normal way, one leg at a time, is just agony.

I lie back down and then the leg twitching and baby kicking generally resumes. I have thought about getting up and doing something but mentally I am shattered and desperate for sleep. Hubby gave me a massage the other night, bless him, and though this sounds lovely it was actually just agony, the slightest touch of my muscles at the moment is really painful 🙁 . Using tiger balm does help sometimes as it numbs my back enough to stop the leg twitching long enough for me to doze off. It’s difficult to know how safe this is during pregnancy though and there’s so much contrasting info online… I hope it’s ok but I have no idea so do try and manage without it as much as I can. Not sure if I am making it harder for myself though? Maybe I should just slap it on?

This process sometimes lasts a couple of hours before I manage to drift off, and I am often keeping hubby awake too with all my tossing and turning, trying to get comfy, and all the palava of getting in and out of bed to go to the loo.

So I am generally a bit tired, sore and mardy at the mo, and spending a lot of time sitting and lying on heat packs. I have physio this afternoon which on the best of days is a seriously painful 30 mins of her digging her elbows into my back and bum muscles to stop the spasms. I am not exactly looking forward to the pain today but it is a case of no pain no gain and I am just really hoping that it helps take the daily discomfort down a notch or two!

I am struggling with clothes at the moment too as my summer maternity clothes are getting small and uncomfortable. There was a lovely week or so when the weather was cooler and I could wear some of the bigger maternity clothes, but now the sun has come back out again! I am probably about the only person in the country longing for cooler weather, but I am not buying bigger summer wear at this point, and am sweltering in my warmer clothes!

Apologies again for all the moaning, I just needed a bit of a vent. Looking on all the bright sides, hopefully physio this afternoon, and my aquanatal yoga tonight will mean I get a better night’s sleep tonight and feel a bit more cheerful tomorrow. Monkey is being a darling and coping so well with my slow and limited movements, he is just growing up so fast at the moment! Plus if I am right and she is breech, although I won’t get the VBaC I was hoping for, at least we will get a date for the C-Section, and can start counting down the days. It could mean she is here in about 7-8 weeks time. That is exciting and what I am holding on to. I know all of this is worth it to have her here and healthy.

I caught a headline recently about a celeb’s wife who had a stillbirth at 32 weeks’ pregnant and that must just be so devastating. I was then chatting to my lovely midwife yesterday who told me about her stillbirth at 26 weeks (in March this year, bless her, how she copes as a midwife, seeing all us preggos is incredible) and it just doesn’t bear thinking about. Through all my discomfort and moaning I have to remember how lucky I am, and hope beyond hope that nothing goes wrong for the baby as that is the most important thing. In the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter how uncomfortable I am, as long as she gets here safely and healthily. I do feel guilty that Monkey doesn’t have a very active energetic mummy at the moment but it’s only for a short time in the grand scheme of things!

Think before you speak…

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey’s speech is developing so quickly and improving by the day. He tries to repeat just about everything and his pronunciation is getting a lot clearer. There are still times that we have no idea what he is saying, but most of the time we can work it out and some things he says are just so clear.

With this development, which we absolutely adore… we are really having to be careful what we say now. I nearly called it a phase but let’s face it, once they start talking and repeating things they don’t really stop, so this is it now, we have to be careful what we say from now on!

The most obvious words to avoid are obviously swear words and I am surprised how well we are doing with this. My language has always been… er pretty colourful, particularly when stressed, so there was definitely a time when I worried about Monkey’s first words being slightly rude. Somehow though it has completely changed and I am now almost anti-swearing. I guess maybe it’s because I am with most of the time, swearing almost feels wrong to me. At the wedding we went to last week someone swore and for about 5s I forgot that Monkey wasn’t with us and took a breath in…. then realised no kids were present so relaxed again.

Hubby is doing pretty well too, and I mean neither of us are 100% perfect and occasionally we gently correct each other but so far thankfully Monkey hasn’t picked up on any naughty words. What he has picked up on though is some of the random little phrases that hubby and I say without realising. I think everyone has things that they say regularly without realising. Monkey talking and being our little parrot we are becoming more aware of these little sayings.

This has been true ever since he first started talking as the first phrase he picked up was “I Don’t Know” not something we thought we said much, but once he started saying it, we realised that we both in fact said “I don’t know” to each other all of the time, even when we do actually know, so daft! Then he picked up a very reluctant ‘okay‘ from us when we don’t want to play play-doh for the millionth time!

Another phrase he has very much picked up on now is “Oh dear me” and apparently I say this quite a bit, as opposed to swearing I think! It is so funny hearing a little two year old running around saying “oh dear me.” He saw a man cutting the grass on one of those big drive on grass cutters the other day and it was “oh no! Oh dear me!!” He drops something on the floor and it’s “oh dear me.” hehe I don’t think it’s purely me that says this though as I heard it being said on Postman Pat the other day, and as he loves it, that is a big influence on him too.

His other favourite thing to say is “No, not yet, soon” to anything he doesn’t want to do. I actually really like this one as at least there is room for maneuver. It is very rarely a definite no (though we do get those too of course) and we can then set a limit, so yes, after this episode, or after one more go on the slide, etc. etc. Again though I have a feeling he has picked this up from us, which is just amusing really.

Something else which he has definitely picked up from me is saying “I know” instead of yes. I really was not aware that I did that, but since Monkey has started saying it I have become so aware of how often I do it and I hate it! Makes me feel like a right know-it-all! Because I have been more aware I think I have been saying it less, and Monkey is definitely saying it less, which is good!

Only time will tell if he picks up any of the other things we say – hubby’s phrases are “it’s one of those things, where…” and “this is it” (hehe sorry hubs) so I wonder if Monkey will start parroting back those phrases any time soon!

Do you notice your kids repeating anything back to you? Any choice phrases they have picked up on?

Car seats for tall babies and children

Posted by Caroline Elliott

Monkey is not quite 2 1/2 yet, but at over 3ft he is seriously tall for his age and his current car seat has been feeling really small for him. Trying to look for the best car seat for your child can be so difficult as they all vary and are based on age and weight. Please note this post contains some amazon affiliate links, for further information please click here.

Car Seat groups:

Group	Child’s weight	approx. age of child
0	birth up to 10kg/22lb	birth up to 6-9 months
0+	birth up to 13kg/29lb	birth up to 12-15 months
0+ & 1	birth up to 18kg/40lb	birth to up to about 4 years
1	9-18kg/20-40lb	about 9 months to 4 years
1 & 2	9-25kg/20-55lb	about 9 months to 6 years
2	15-25kg/33-55lb	about 4 to 6 years
1, 2, 3	9-36kg/20-79lb	about 9 months to 12 years
2 & 3	15-36kg/33-79lb	about 4-12 years

Looks confusing doesn’t it? When Monkey was a newborn we started off with a Maxi Cosi Cabriofix car seat (Group 0+), with Easyfix base, for ease of getting it in and out of the car mainly. We loved it, it was such a handy car seat and we hoped it would last quite a while Unfortunately though because Monkey was on the 98th percentile of the growth chart he outgrew this seat pretty early. To move onto the next group of car seat they need to be around 9kg, which is estimated at being at about 9 months of age. Our tall baby was already 9 1/2 kg by 5 1/2 months and just far too long to be comfortable in this seat much longer.

Because of his size, as soon as he was able to sit by himself (around 5 1/2 – 6 mths) we moved on to a group 1 car seat. We chose the Maxi Cosi Axiss because we liked the handy swivel of the seat. My car (an 08 Honda Civic) has really wide back doors, which means that in tight parking spaces it is impossible to open them very far. Having a seat the swivelled when you put the little one in made life so much easier for us. We have loved this seat and it has grown really well with Monkey… until now. (In the below pictures he is in the Axiss at 8mths old and 21 mths old )

For a group 2 seat, they usually say the child should be around age 4, or over 15kg. A group 2 seat is also what is known as a booster seat. With a group 2 seat there is no harness and instead the child is strapped in with the car’s 3 point seatbelt, whilst sat on a seat. They vary in terms of support but it can vary from a very simple, basic little booster seat (the kind I remember sitting on as a kid) to something more resembling a car seat.

As I said at the beginning of the post, Monkey is not quite 2 1/2, but he is just growing too big for his group 1 seat. The highest level for the straps is actually below his shoulders, which means they come up and over his shoulders before going down over his chest and he just wasn’t comfortable in it any more. Plus his head was higher than the headrest, making it ever so slightly pointless. He has also just reached the 15kg mark.

But a group 2 seat, with just a normal seatbelt? Felt a bit scary to me. My friend has just moved her 3 1/2 year old onto a car seat with the normal 3 point seat belt and has mentioned how she can now pull the seat belt and wriggle around more. At a year younger than her I didn’t feel Monkey was ready for this at all. He certainly isn’t ready to just sit on a booster seat as I think he would slide off it!

I didn’t know what to do, but luckily there are seats which bridge the different groups. We popped to our local Kiddicare on Saturday morning and the young lad we spoke to there was just so so helpful. We talked about the different options and the fact that although 2 1/2 feels far too young to be in a bigger seat, that it really is weight, and in our case height, that is the most important thing for meeting the safety requirements.

In his big Boy Car Seat, the Kiddicare I seat

We tried out one of the Kiddicare Opus SP Group 1/2/3 car seats which definitely bridge the gap from a group 1 to a group 2 seat. It can be used as a group 2 car seat, using the cars 3 point seat belt restraint, but it also has a 3 point harness which you can remove as the child grows. The key factor for us was that this harness has more height levels, at and it’s highest level it is comfortably above Monkey’s shoulders, which is where it should be rather than part way down his back! It was also incredibly good value and a lot less than we had thought we would probably spend on a car seat, at just £39.99. There aren’t many seats on the market (that I have found anyway) that bridge the different group boundaries and the sales assistant showed us one other more expensive brand, though we couldn’t see anything about it that made it seem worth the extra money. There didn’t seem to be any extra padding or safety features etc.

We were really happy with this and about ready to buy when the sales assistant recommended we have a demonstration in the car. We weren’t fussed but said yes and thank goodness we did as sadly the seat didn’t fit in my car! The angle just wasn’t right and there was a big gap between the back of the seat and the car. Thankfully they had the same design seat with a few variations for just £10 more. The Kiddicare I seat (sadly I can’t find this available on their website but it was in stock in the Peterborough store). It has moveable arm-rests (not a big selling point) but also wedges on the bottom of the seat which you can lift to change the angle of the seat. With these lifted the seat fit perfectly into my car, phew!

Monkey loves his new big boy car seat and we are relieved to know he is safe and comfortable in a bigger seat. Do you have tall children? How did you get on choosing car seats? Did they fit into the ‘average’ age bracket?

Playtime at the park & fun with flowers

Posted by Caroline Elliott

After Monkey’s little accident this week and an easy day to make sure he didn’t reopen his cuts, he was in desperate need of burning off some energy! Thankfully there are a few parks within walking distance of home and though it was a tad grey I decided to trust the weather forecast and pop out for him to have a run around.

It was lovely to see him running about and climbing with such a big smile on his face. The swelling on his face has gone down a lot now so my over-protectiveness has calmed down a little…. though I am a bit more worried than normal about him taking a tumble as I think it wouldn’t take much for his cuts to open up again!

Thankfully though there was no trips or stumbles or slips and just lots of fun and giggles. We sat together on a spinny thing (no idea what you would actually call it and no photos of us both on it as I was trying to make sure neither of us fell off it) and just hearing him giggle his heart out and shout wee was lovely for the soul. Somehow Monkey hurting himself so badly really made me remember how precious he is and with my preggo hormones at the moment I am being a properly soppy Mummy and it was just lovely seeing him having so much fun!

this is the spinny thing 🙂

Our little Monkey loves flowers. Even before he could say any words he would regularly be found picking daisies and dandelions on our walks. This hasn’t changed and he still loves picking up flowers whenever we go out. For a while he called them “Bowers” but his pronunciation is improving so we are now at “fwowers”. As per usual he spent quite a bit of time with flowers at the park. Carrying them around, taking them down the slide with him, and then a couple of daisies made their way into his pocket for the walk home.

It was a lovely little run around at the park and nice to see him so giggly and happy 🙂

An emotional week

Posted by Caroline Elliott

This week the word I am going for is emotional. It has been full of emotions, both happy and … less happy this week.

Starting with the happiest, we were at a wedding last Friday which was just beautiful. You can read more here but it really was wonderful and they had so many personal little touches to their day that it was a bit emotional. During the ceremony I teared up right at the start as instead of walking down the aisle to meet him at the alter, the groom left the alter and came and got her. He took her hand and they kissed before walking up the aisle together. I just thought it was a beautiful moment and makes me tear up even thinking about it. I hated walking up the aisle at our wedding, with everyone staring at me so I wish we had thought to do this at ours!

Hubby and I were also full of pride when we came home as Monkey handled our absence amazingly well. Our little man really is growing up right in front of our eyes.

Unfortunately then the week turned a little gloomy. I was really tired and in quite a lot of pain with my pelvis after standing a lot at the wedding and spending about 6 hours in the car there and back. Tiredness and soreness sadly makes me a tad on the mardy side so there was a grumpy couple of days at the beginning of the week! Poor hubs!

By Wednesday I was feeling a lot better and a day catching up with friends while the kids all played made me feel back to my normal happy self. Then that night, disaster struck. I have no idea how it happened, I was in the kitchen getting the last bits for dinner, hubby and Monkey were sat at the table. then I heard some very odd scuffly noises and saw hubby leaping in a panic and then scooping Monkey off the floor. Somehow, Monkey had managed to fall off his chair.

This is the boy that loves climbing and scampers up climbing frames and is running about all day without coming to any harm. He sits on his chair in the dining room, the chair he sits on at least twice a day, and manages to fall off. It may not sound that bad yet, but he must have landed right on his face as he is a mess the poor lamb. Hubby scooped him up for a cuddle and then we realised there was blood everywhere, it was pouring out of his little mouth and even after we managed to slow the bleeding we really struggled to console him.

Honestly we haven’t seen him so unhappy for so long since the days of colic as a baby. Of course he cries sometimes, and has cried a lot during illnesses but we always manage to soothe him with a combination of cuddles, singing, stories, tv but on Wednesday none of these worked and we were really worried. It was clear he was in a lot of pain and was really stressed out by the fall.

I then had a bit of inspiration and we gave him an ice lolly, in the hope that the ice would help his wounds, make him a bit numb, take the taste of blood out of his mouth and hopefully take his mind off of it.Thankfully that and a bit of Postman Pat on the TV worked and soon enough he was back to his usual happy self again. Phew!

His poor little face though is so swollen and sore looking. He seems to have bounced back from his ordeal but hubby and I are taking a lot longer to recover from the stress of it all. I’ve honestly been an emotional wreck and couldn’t stop crying the next morning. I’m partially blaming my preggo hormones but seeing his swollen little face just broke my heart and I have just been worrying non stop. Rationally I know it is fine and he will heal but it just looks so awful and painful. It really is horrendous seeing him hurt and that’s only a bash on the face. I can’t imagine what a wreck I would be if anything serious happened to him, heaven forbid!!

I’ve also been well and truly on over-protective mama mode, not like me at all, but I am terrified that he will bash his lip and re-open the wounds so have been insisting on a lot of calm indoor play at home to avoid any more dramas while it heals. Not easy with a hyper toddler who loves to run around like a little loony!!

I also know it’s daft. He’s a toddler. He’s clumsy and sometimes he is going to hurt himself. I am not one for wrapping kids on cotton wool as I know it is part of the rough and tumble of childhood. I also know that you can’t protect them every second of every day, it’s just not realistic. Who would have ever thought he would do so much damage falling off a chair that he climbs up on and gets down from by himself multiple times every day? I just don’t want him to have another knock that reopens it or makes it worse!

It has definitely been an emotional week in our house, how has your week been?

#GetGoodSummer Week 9, One week to go!

Posted by Caroline Elliott

I can’t believe we are on week 9 of #GetGoodSummer! This summer has gone by so so fast, but with the weather lately it does feel like it is pretty much over.

So anyway, where are with our goals?

Goal 1 was to clear the baby room and we definitely checked that one off the list at the start of the summer!

Goal 2 was to decorate the baby room. We haven’t finished yet but we are making progress. The room is completely painted now and yesterday we had the flooring fitted! We have gone for some ultra hard wearing vinyl, which is pretty expensive but our hopes are that we never really have to put any other flooring down – it has like a 15 year guarantee on it! We like hard floors as good for spills and messes but with it being vinyl its not as cold as some hard floors can be. It looks lovely too!

Hubby also drilled holes to get the black-out blind up, and we just need to cut it to the right size now. We also got some gorgeous curtains from our sister in-law who doesn’t need them anymore – some lovely pink gingham Laura Ashley ones, they are just gorgeous! We need to buy a curtain rail before we can put them up!

Now the flooring is down we can finally get the furniture sorted out in there and then we will need to get the wall stickers on the walls, though we aren’t wanting to rush that as it may be a challenge!

Overall though Goal 2 is going well and hopefully we will get a few more bits done in there at the weekend!

Goal 3 is the goal we are failing at so far. We have not really got anywhere with sorting out the lease on my flat. We were recommended a property lawyer and hubby called them, but sadly they weren’t available. He left a message but hasn’t had a reply so we are pretty much at square one with it! We will try and get started over the next week but there is now no chance we will complete that one by next week! Boooo! 🙁

Goal 4 went really well and has been a lovely fun goal – catching up with family and friends that live far away before baby comes along. We have done pretty well with that one and Baby day is getting ever nearer now!

Goal 5 was to get organised. We have done lots on this one too though there is still more I want to do – which is organise baby things. Now the flooring is down in the baby room and we can get the furniture set up, it is also time to get the baby boxes out of the loft. Time to see what we kept, what is in good enough condition, and what we need to stock up on for baba’s arrival. I am hoping to get a bit more of this done during the last week of #GetGoodSummer, so keep fingers crossed for me on that one!

How have you got on with your goals? One week to go!!

Mummy & Daddy take the night off!

Posted by Caroline Elliott

On Friday morning hubby and I left the house at about 8.15am and headed off to Hereford for a wedding. Monkey? Monkey stayed at home, in the care of his Nanny & Pops! This was quite a big deal for us. Before we had Monkey and when he was a tiny baby we had grand ideas about leaving him with the grandparents fairly regularly so he would get used to it from a young age and it wouldn’t be a big deal.

In reality things didn’t quite work out as we planned (when does it ever, with babies?). Colic didn’t help matters and I always found leaving him behind difficult when breastfeeding – having to express extra milk before the event, trying to ensure he would drink out of bottles, having to find somewhere quiet to express your engorged boobs while at an event (trying not to get any on your fancy outfit) to relieve the pain. Not simple or stress free, in my personal opinion. We did manage a couple of days like this but didn’t actually have any events or plans far away, requiring an overnight stay, when he was very little so always came home for the night.

Continue reading →

Becoming a Stay at Home Mum

Can I really do this?

Playing with friends – 27 months

I walk the line..

#GetGoodSummer -They think it’s all over, it is now!

31 weeks and lacking sleep!

Think before you speak…

Car seats for tall babies and children

Car Seat groups:

Playtime at the park & fun with flowers

An emotional week

#GetGoodSummer Week 9, One week to go!

Mummy & Daddy take the night off!