Reboot...

It's easy to think it's all for nothing some days. She won't eat her veg... Well she's hardly malnourished. She's a bit too grabby with the other babies... Well that doesn't make her a serial killer. I haven't read to her in a few days... Well that won't exactly be impacting her GCSE results just yet. I don't think I repeat enough words to encourage her speech... Well I'm sure she'll learn to talk anyway. I say on Facebook all through her lunchtime yesterday...

Do little things matter? Define little things... Label the insignificant. 

It's easy to think none of it matters. That children have survived before baby led weaning and super-nannys and the Ginas and the article I read last week about empowering vocabularies to use around babies. Much simpler to think if it was alight for them...

Thing is it's not about Mrs Rapley and her crinkle cut food. It's not about THE ROUTINE or naughty step or changing our "good girls" to "clever/loving/brave girls". It's not that. It can't be, babies grew up wonderfully for generations before it all.

I was thinking there are two parts of what motivates us towards our parenting fads that do matter... Firstly it matters we're trying, that we're doing our best, that we cared enough to pick up the books and get some intentions. Not all of it will work, not all of it will be right or good advice and none of it will apply to all children so there is no definitive anything anyone can offer us. But our babies will see us trying and they will know they are important. They'll see us trying and know they're loved.

Secondly I think seeing flexibility in the generation above us is important. Seeing trial and error in practice. Also once you have your own home, job, money, spouse and family it's safe to say you could keep doing and knowing exactly what you do and know and you'd survive just fine. But to still be expanding your mind beyond what is necessary is inspiring to young people. 

Really I'm just writing myself into some motivation. That's the thing with being a Mum, none of it on its own is hard. Just all of it all the time is. The everydayness of it. We do it once and it's fun. We do it a dozen times and we hit our stride. We do it 50 times and we find easier ways to do it until we realise we're not really doing it well... Then we do whatever it takes to reboot back to fun. This is what it takes. 

It's all important. She may look like she's just smearing snot in to her carrot and sweet potato mash but really she's sitting there seeing I'm trying and feeling the love. She is. 

She is. She is. She is. ;)

Meanwhile... Oh! Has it sprung? No... It's still freezing, infact it snowed again today... But it looks warmer. The rest will follow right?

ISO Springspiration!

It's hard to broach the seasonal topics of Easter and spring and all their connotations towards new, birth/rebirth and growth when there's a layer of unprecedented snow on the ground. I can't even contemplate the idea of a spring clean when all I want to do is hide under blankets on the sofa and drink hot chocolate.

But I'm jonesing for a little springspiration.

Looking forward to that first day when I think "I don't need a jacket" or "we could almost drink these coffees outside".

I wanna wake up and open a window.

See some sun, ditch my plans for indoor activities and get outside.

Feel that rush of "let's get stuff done because it's glorious and it's spring".

I want to be motivated to purge, decorate, organise, shop, craft.

Not yet though. It's still icey cold. Little daffodil buds did appear but then a layer of snow smote their chance to bloom. I even had the fire on yesterday.

Some pictures from the first few days of English spring 2013...

Baby led weaning at lunch... Veggie-smash is the new cake-smash...

Brrr...

Come on sun! It's time to play outside!

Tree love...

Salad and BBQs are on their way... PROMISE!

Ye olde faithful Nuby bibs...

Hair-clips and building blocks...

Stay cosy everyone! Spring must be on it's way!!

Wordless Wednesday at the Window...

She could spend days here... Today she crawled in the basket and found a fencing catalogue to peruse...

View from the Fox Hole...

Two weeks of playing nurse and then swapping in to play patient have left this house frazzled. We've had one of those fortnights where it all just becomes about survival. Socialising, baby groups, family days out... All the fluffy stuff... Gone. This week we just make sure everyone gets cuddled and fed and hope the towering washing pile that appears to be reproducing in the utility room doesn't grow teeth and devour us in our sleep.

Needless to say some stuff went by the wayside. Not least of it, my closest and oldest friends birthday. It took for  me too see a photo on FACEBOOK, two days after the event to realise. Cue that hideous grip of guilt that makes you physically squirm in your seat and the squirm repeats itself every time you think of a new angle to your thoughtlessness.

Earlier in the week Steve told me how much a pint of lager is in an average pub these days. A good two pounds off where I left the pub scene.

Having a baby has been a bit like "BATTEN DOWN THE HATCHES! I HAVE A HUMAN TO KEEP ALIVE!" The idea is you poke your head out of the fox hole every so often to see what's going on, check nuclear warfare hasn't erased the rest of species and remind yourself of the outside world.

That's the idea.

Weeks like this. Moving house. ANY additional workload essentially means those civilisation checking  head pokes happen less. And they didn't happen very often before.

Fortunately I have beautiful forgiving friends. Fortunately I didn't miss the apocalypse. So while there's still time I'm vowing to make concerted effort to peep or even crawl out from the fox hole this week. I need to get out.

Some pictures of the gorgeous George who came down the fox hole this week...

WW Little Snaps

A few little snaps from around our new pad...

 Also... Nuby Giveaway winners have now been contacted so go check your emails!!!

Finding Comic Relief...

HARD week.

Euna and I have been struck down by some heinous cold FLU virus. All week we've clutched pitifully to the sofa, red-nosed, doe-eyed, achey-boned with horse-throats. Buried under covers and balls of rancid tissue we've festered. Sneezing, sniffing, coughing, whimpering, whining and whinging. Oh... It's been bad guys.

Our only saving grace was the Sky man finally hooked us up to some decent viewing. (Immediately after I watched a segment on ITV's This Morning about a woman who claims to of been kidnapped by aliens who gave her amazing orgasms via aerial TV. Yikes.) Helloooo Sky Atlantic... Two weeks is too long.

This morning I felt so sorry for myself I sat on my bed and sobbed at Steve not to leave me. I pleaded that there was no way his 3 meetings were as important as rubbing my feet and taking over the changing of Euna's (BIBLICAL) nappies. I was ready to pull every trick in the book to not spend a fifth day on my trapped in my snot rag fort alone with a baby who cries all the live long day. Tears, tantrums and emotional blackmail. Bloody man went anyway. Fortunately for his career and our financial stability he ignored my tears.

From my cesspool of self pity I've spied the appearance of clowns noses. It's Red Nose Day. (Aka the day the BBC do a MASSIVE fundraising drive for the charity Comic Relief) Charity... Those is real need... What's important...

So I take a healthy and humbling dose of perspective and breathe a sigh of "we're alright reeeaaalllyyyy". Then I took my own dose of Comic Relief and remember Chris Rock's line in "What to Expect" "Sure, I think about paying for college sometimes and I have to cry in my car for half an hour. But then I just punch myself in the dick and get over it." 

Check this out for a little of your own comic relief... He he!

A few snaps as Euna's friends celebrate their birthdays...

Still time to enter my Nuby sippy cup GIVEAWAY!!!! Takes seconds!

WW Baby Toes...

5 days left of my Nuby GIVEAWAY! Try and grab yourself a freebie here! It'll take seconds! 

Nuby GIVEAWAY!!!

To add the first birthday celebrations I am adding my very first GIVEAWAY! A chance for me to shamelessly ask you to promote my blog through a few social networking avenues and in return I will send you a couple of freebies courtesy of the wonderful peeps at Nuby! WIN WIN! 

Weaning has featured quite heavily on my blog over the last six months. The weaning countdown was a nervy time and I trudged through books, recipes and a world of advice. We went with a Baby Led Weaning approach and everything else was trial and error. 

A friend posted this on Facebook the other day and it reminded me of how weaning has come gone... Kinda up and down and sideways and backwards and around... 

Regardless of the fact it feels like I wipe everything I cook off her chops or off the floor she is plumping out beautifully so the line must be going the right way yeah?!

Then in came a few things that have helped us along the way... Helps when they're cute...

And of course if you're getting food on them you've got to get fluids... And these were my favs...

SO! FREEBIES!! I can give two lucky winner TWO Nuby Grip N Sip No Spill Cups... 

 And one set of these Nuby Fork and Spoon Sets!

 See below for how to enter...

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Good luck and thanks for entering!!! :D

Home...

Favourite things about our new house include; windows low enough for Euna to see the cars go past...

That tree in the background. Must be so old. It's beautiful...

BIG windows mean big light...

And it's already got that priceless home feeling. :D

Celebrating One...

Yes the year has flown and I am thinking a lot about what the year has done to me. Foremost it made me a Mum. A change so big I don't think I remember the version of me that wasn't a Mum. If I do then oddly that version is a less happier me by my memory. Not because I didn't feel happy then but because I don't remember feeling this comfortable in my own skin. 

Essentially being a Mum (by one means or another) means you do two things; you bring a human being into your world and then you care for it. You feed them, water them, keep them clean and warm and there's no question on if you don't because you just do. 

Whatever your path is to and through these things; Pregnancy or adoption. Breast or bottle. Work or stay at home. However you do it, YOU do it. You do it everyday. You make choices. You dig deep and form opinions on what is going to work for your family. You study. And you love so hard that you'll question everything on this earth except the fact that you have to do it all. 

And I take pride in all of that. I do that and I am proud of myself. I look at her and I swell with pride. I swell with pride and like Kryptonite it shrinks everything else that could have the potential to define me in the negative. I swell with pride and I look at the previously insurmountable and think "well I made a freaking person! A freaking awesome person! I can do THAT!" I feel that confidence and failure isn't as fearful. If I failed a course, received criticism, lost a job, was unsuccessful in an interview or was betrayed in any way none of these things could take me as low as once they would have. Because after them all, I still did that.

So in the spirit of UK Mothering Sunday tomorrow read this. If your card is a bit crap and your tea in bed is weak and cold give yourself the gift of well done. Confidence in everything you do because look at what you do! And some fearlessness too! 

Happy Mother's Day!

How Euna rocks a birthday, with pancakes for breakfast...

Presents and cards...

A family trip out...

Party dress was obligatory...

Friends, family and food...

Cake! Of course!

At what point do we stop eating cake by the fistful?

Lesson

Be proud. Celebrate them. Celebrate you.