I have teamed up with the lovely Emma from Farmer’s Wife & Mummy to host a new, weekly linky called #MaternityMondays.
It is really for anyone expecting a baby, on maternity leave or weaving their way through this mine field of parenting.
The lovely Karen over at Let Kids be Kids is away on holiday this week down in gorgeous Cornwall, and she has asked me to host this week’s Let Kids be Kids linky! I jumped at the chance as this is one of my favourite linkys to join in with!
There are always so many great posts with fab ideas for good old childhood fun, both indoors and outdoors, I always get so much inspiration from everyone’s posts!
We have been loving this summer and having loads of fun with outdoor play lately, although the cooler weather seems to have set in too this weekend with a lot of rain forcing play indoors! Hopefully we still have some summer fun ahead of us yet though 🙂
Right, on to the linky!
This is a linky all about letting kids be kids, getting back to basics and having great childhood fun. We live in such a fast paced modern world with so much technology and stresses round every corner, we often need to be reminded to just ‘play’ and have fun, it’s healthy for us all (yes, that includes you parents!).
Please join Karen (and I) in spreading the word, for encouraging children to step away from the technology for a while and go out, run around, use their imaginations and just have general basic FUN!
There’s not many rules, just link up your posts (screen free), old or new, about genuine childhood fun (of any age). It may be fun outdoors, jumping in puddles, nature hunts, riding bikes or making mud pies. Or it may be fun indoors with arts and crafts, making dens, cooking, messy play or reading. Or how about visiting a farm or fun at a fete. Or a discussion about children growing up too fast, etc.
Whatever basic fun you have been having or discussing, link up and share your ideas, visit others to get inspiration and comment on as many as you can to give each other encouragement and support, but most importantly, HAVE FUN!
This linky will open every Tuesday for 6 days, so there’s plenty of time to add your posts.
Please spread the word and grab the badge below!
If you tweet me your link (@BecomingaSAHM), I will happily retweet.
Welcome to week #10 of the Creative Challenge Linky, and yes I think this is going to be the last one for a while.
Thank you so much to everyone who has linked up over the past 10 weeks! I have really loved reading each and every post, and seeing all of the creative ideas you have come up with. I really appreciate all of you supporting my linky too, it really means a lot!
The truth is, Linky’s involve more work than I realised and with being really tired with this pregnancy I have struggled to keep up. I’m not sure I even got round to commenting and tweeting all of last week’s posts so for those of you I missed, I am sorry, I will try and get there belatedly!
It doesn’t mean the Creative Challenge is dead and buried, hopefully I will reprise it one of these days, when I am feeling like less of a zombie!
So, on to this week! My favourites last week (of those I have managed to read so far) were the seriously cute simple easter cards by Clarina’s Contemplations and all of the many ways to play with water beads by Let Kids be Kids.
I’d love it if you could join in, you can link up anything remotely creative. Decorating, baking, sewing, even being creative in what you wear. This linky is about challenging ourselves to be a bit more creative – in whatever way best suits you!
Getting crafty with the kiddies
Being creative in the kitchen
Experimenting with a new hobby
This week ‘s post was all about me challenging myself with my birthday cake, and having lots of fun (and some stress when things went wrong) along the way!
The linky opens at 6.30am on Wednesday and will close at 11.00pm on Sunday so there is plenty of time to join in.
Welcome to week #9 of the Creative Challenge Linky!
Thank you so much to everyone who linked up last week, I couldn’t believe how many lovely bloggers linked up! I really very much appreciate it, and have loved reading all of your creative posts, there are some creative mamas out there!
The Creative Challenge isn’t just about arts and crafts – but it is all about being creative. It is getting increasingly difficult to choose favourites as there were lots of really fab posts. But I loved reading about Ruth’s sewing challenges and really admire anyone who has the guts and drive (let alone skill) to turn a hobby into a business! I also loved the genius Cardboard bus from Tarana at Sand in My Toes, as Monkey loves buses we are going to have to attempt this one day!
I’d love it if you could join in, you can link up anything remotely creative. Decorating, baking, sewing, even being creative in what you wear. This linky is about challenging ourselves to be a bit more creative – in whatever way best suits you!
Getting crafty with the kiddies
Being creative in the kitchen
Experimenting with a new hobby
This week I was all creativity’d out over Easter, and also today is my Birthday! So *gasp* I am handing over to daddy for a guest post about him getting all creative with Monkey to make me a birthday card! Yay! I haven’t seen/read anything yet either so I’m dead excited to see it!
The linky opens at 6.30am on Wednesday and will close at 11.00pm on Sunday so there is plenty of time to join in.
Welcome to week #8 of the Creative Challenge Linky!
Thank you so much to everyone who linked up last week, I really very much appreciate it, and have loved reading all of our creative posts, there are some creative mamas out there!
The Creative Challenge isn’t just about arts and crafts – but it is all about being creative. Last week I loved the gorgeous baby blanket made by Caroline at Tea is the Answer and of course the award winning Easter Bonnet by Brummy Mummy of 2 deserves a special mention!
I’d love it if you could join in, you can link up anything remotely creative. Decorating, baking, sewing, even being creative in what you wear. This linky is about challenging ourselves to be a bit more creative – in whatever way best suits you!
Getting crafty with the kiddies
Being creative in the kitchen
Experimenting with a new hobby
This week from me has to be my post about decorating Cakes with Buddy Valastro – how much more creative can you get? In my case, probably very much more, but hey I had fun 🙂
The linky opens at 6.30am on Wednesday and will close at 11.00pm on Sunday so there is plenty of time to join in.
Welcome to week #7 of the Creative Challenge Linky!
Thank you so much to everyone who linked up last week, I really very much appreciate it, and have loved reading all of our creative posts,we have some creative mamas out there!
The Creative Challenge isn’t just about arts and crafts – but it is all about being creative. Last week I loved the egg blowing over at Let Kids be Kids – fantastic Easter activity and the shapes puzzle from Tarana at Sand in My Toes. But it’s getting so hard to choose from all of the fantastic posts!
I’d love it if you could join in, you can link up anything remotely creative. Decorating, baking, sewing, even being creative in what you wear. This linky is about challenging ourselves to be a bit more creative – in whatever way best suits you!
Getting crafty with the kiddies
Being creative in the kitchen
Experimenting with a new hobby
This week was all for me it was all about some creative fun for Granny (hubby’s mum)’s 60th Birthday and the fun we had with that 🙂
The linky opens at 6.30am on Wednesday and will close at 11.00pm on Sunday so there is plenty of time to join in.
Mama H at Thursdays Child, Friday’s Thoughts has started a lovely linky called Family photo Friday which I think is a really lovely idea. The idea is to share a family photo from the week just gone so that by the end of the year you can chart the growth and changes. I think that is a fab idea as we take so many photos and it’s lovely to see how much they change.
So here is my photo from this week!
It was taken after tea on Saturday night and we were playing cars across the dining table. Monkey was loving it so much and really had the giggles and I just think this is such a gorgeous piccy of him and his daddy having fun together. Don’t you just love the sound of toddler giggles? Best sound ever in my opinion!
Thanks Mama H for starting this lovely linky and thanks to Jocelyn at The Reading Residence for introducing me to it! I look forward to watching the little ones grow in these photos.
Approx. 8 months pregnant
As I mentioned in my previous blog post, we are starting to think about having another baby. This has got me thinking about pregnancy and taken me on a little trip down memory lane to what my first pregnancy was like. Before I got pregnant I have to admit that I was a bit judgemental about women who had difficult pregnancies and thought seriously how hard can it be? One of my best friends had such a smooth pregnancy and I naively thought that every pregnancy was the same and that it was a lovely happy healthy time where women bloom.
Then I got pregnant, and oh how wrong I was and how I regretted being so judgemental in the past!
It was difficult from the off as I had really terrible morning sickness (more like all day, every day sickness) and just crippling exhaustion that made me feel like the living dead. I was useless at work (not great when you have just been promoted) and had so much time off sick. I also had to stop driving after a while as  this zombie-ness really made me feel unsafe on the roads, and after a few too-near misses I eventually stopped driving (and I love driving so I just wasn’t myself at all). This led to me feeling very depressed and in the end I was signed off work until my maternity leave began. I was already planning to leave at the very earliest point you can take maternity leave, but I finished a few weeks before that in the end as I was seriously struggling to cope.
As I started to feel a little less exhausted and sick, the slight nagging pain in my pelvis that I had ignored started to get steadily worse. I was diagnosed with SPD (Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction), which is due to the pregnancy hormone Relaxin. This is supposed to help your bones and ligaments make room for the baby, but unfortunately in some of us, this hormone causes our pelvis to relax too much, causing a lot of pain as the join at the front of your pelvis (the symphysis pubis) pulls too far apart. I saw a physio who told me to keep my knees together at all times during my pregnancy, and she even suggested I tie my knees together overnight so they didn’t come apart while I slept. Climbing stairs was a nightmare and soon just walking was agony, even at snail speed so I ended up on crutches. I wasn’t even allowed to go swimming as my pelvis was too unstable.
Monkey trying to get out the wrong way! Two days before birth
The other issue we had is that apparently I have a bicornuate uterus, which basically means I have a sort of heart shaped uterus and makes a breech birth much more likely. We didn’t know this at the time and did all sorts to try and turn Monkey (including the doctors trying to forcibly turn him, which we couldn’t possibly know would never work as he was stuck in one side of my uterus). So all plans of a nice water birth went out the window and we had a caesarean, which is how they saw that I have a bicornuate uterus.
Of course I know that in many ways we were very lucky, Monkey had no problems at all, and there was no scary risk factors in terms of either his life or mine and of course I would rather feel some discomfort than have any more serious problems. But from start to finish, it wasn’t great. I can truly say I never got the pregnancy glow that people talk about and I’m not looking forward to going through it again. Hopefully the nausea and exhaustion won’t be as bad next time. I won’t be working silly hours in a stressful job so I definitely have an advantage there. Plus that kind of thing can vary a lot from pregnancy to pregnancy so fingers crossed I won’t feel so bad second time round. Because of my strange uterus I have a 50/50 chance of another breech baby, which would definitely mean another caesarean, so we will just have to wait and see with that one and I guess what will be will be.
On crutches at a wedding – look at the size of me – approx 8 months pregnant.
But the SPD, by all accounts is likely to reappear. I have heard that not everyone gets it again, but in most cases if you have had it once you are apparently likely to get it again, with the symptoms appearing sooner and progressing faster, so I have that to look forward to! I still get the odd twinge every month before my period so I have to prepare myself for the worst I think (then I may get pleasantly surprised, who knows?), but  I am doing everything I can to try and prepare for it though. I was a bit overweight before I even got pregnant last time, which can’t have helped, so I have been steadily trying to get healthy before we start trying again. I am quite a bit lighter than I was last time so hopefully that will help by putting less pressure on my pelvis.
My exercises, stuck on the wardrobe to make sure I do them!
I also know the exercises I need to do to strengthen the muscles supporting my pelvis (the transverse abdominus and pelvic floor) and my new year’s resolution is to start doing these exercises every day so that I am in the best shape possible before I even get pregnant to at least try and limit the damage! I will also know what it is next time, so unlike last time where I ignored it for a while, and then tried to push through the pain and carry on as normal (apparently completely the wrong thing to do!) I will listen to my body and take it easy when I need to. Even though I will hate to do it!
I am worried about what all this will mean for Monkey, as he is such an active child and loves going for walks or running about, and I love doing those things with him. My best Christmas present is a nice pair of winter boots to keep my feet warm as we spend so much time outdoors! How is that going to work if I end up on crutches again? How will I keep him safe if I can’t run after him should he make a dash near a road? He is pretty good but you can never be too careful. If I have to stop driving again because I don’t feel safe how will we get to baby groups and go on play-dates?
Both sets of grandparents have already offered their assistance and I know will help out as much as they can. Hubby has also said that he will work from home more if he needs to so that he can help out. But I know that no matter how much help I get, I will struggle with the fact that I am not able to be the mummy I want to be, even if only for a few short months.
But needs must, and it was worth all of the hardships last time to have such a gorgeous little man at the end of it, and I’m sure it will be worth it to have another gorgeous little baba in my arms one day. Fingers crossed that all goes as well as can be hoped for!
