Playdates

Last week I drove a considerable distance to play date with a friend of mine.  Her second child was approaching 6 months and I got the impression she might be a little lonely.  She had also never been to the wonder that is playgroup.  I have been singing the praises of playgroups to my friends from the moment I started going in March.  I mean what's not to love about a place you and your child(ren) can go to for £1 where you get given a tea/coffee and biscuits and your child gets to play with a ton of different toys with a bunch of his peers? My son literally leaves me at the door as we walk into the place! 

Anyway, my friend has never been to one before and I thought this was the perfect opportunity, so I accompanied her to her local group which was practically at the end of her road.  The mums were lovely and from the moment we got in there they started chatting to us.  Better still my son and my friend's son were off from the moment we walked in the door, loving every moment of their new play space.  My friend sat there in shock sipping her hot tea, being able to use both hands without a child in either.  She couldn't believe it was possible for her to have free time like this and most mums don't.  I know she was probably thinking right now her daughter could be napping, her son playing in his playroom and she could be ironing/cleaning/doing laundry.  Something other than taking time for herself.  I dread to think the last time she had a cup of tea that wasn't cold.

I managed to make conversation without awkwardness or feeling like it was hard work, my friend on the other hand barely spoke and sat quietly taking it all in.  This was the same friend who had told me when I was pregnant, that you need to go to antenatal classes so you have some mum friends even if you don't listen to what they have to say (we didn't bother going to antenatal classes by the way).  I have four mum friends from classes I took my son to, plus my sister-in-law and a couple of other "original" friends who now have babies, I really didn't feel the need to force it and I still don't now.   I couldn't help but think though, if this were a year ago would I really be so comfortable? I was almost in awe of myself, speaking to other mums as if it were nothing and being relaxed for a change and it was amazing to feel a little more in control. 

I'm hoping though now my friend has been (and she is kicking herself she didn't go sooner), she will continue to go without my son and I.  She deserves the break even if she doesn't think she does and she might even meet new people who live in her area.  I don't think I will ever feel truly comfortable meeting new people.  I still carry that shy and socially awkward girl from two years ago but one thing is for sure, I'm slowly but surely coming out of my cocoon and I can now see the progress. 

~AB~

Quick update

The last couple of weeks have yet again been a whirlwind.  So much is changing and happening at home and I really haven't had the chance to do much on the computer (no we do not have a laptop) so everything has taken a bit of a back seat.  

So the bad news is, our TV broke and Great British Bake Off had only aired one episode, so typical! We will be shopping around for a replacement very shortly I'm sure as my husband is already feeling uneasy about the whole thing.  Also, an iPad screen does not do it justice although Mel and Sue are still hilarious regardless of what medium you watch it on.

The good news is, I have managed to sort out my son's birthday party already and an itinerary has been drafted, although no one but my husband and I understand it.  It will be train themed and I am very much looking forward to it! I have also planned a little soiree at our house afterwards for the rest of the family to join us which will be Chinese themed party food and Christmas cocktails because I mean what could be better than that?  I will ordering the party food from here (queue dribble...) and I have found some amazing cocktails on this site which I will definitely be making. 

I have also been very busy on the meal front.  I'm determined my son should eat healthily and I refuse to give up because of pressure about me being cruel.  My friend who is also my trainer told me about The Body Coach a couple of months ago and whilst I was in awe of some of the recipe videos and her subsequent pictures of the meals she'd prepared using the videos, I did nothing about it till last week.   I am now following him on Instagram and I am even more in awe of what I have seen.  For those who haven't heard of him, The Body Coach is a personal trainer from Essex who posts HIIT work outs and recipes (Lean in 15) that take no time to make.  He has his own books, has his own "plan" for weight loss and has had a TV show as well.  Following him makes me truly see how easy it is to make healthy meals including a variety of veggies which my son will actually eat and will in turn help me lose weight.  I'm not going to try and oversell as I'm in the very early stage, but I'm not endorsed and if you really think being lean and healthy is for you, just take a look and see! I will never fad diet again! Here was last week's meal plan: 

Our meal plan for the week

And these are a couple of raw photos (they tasted better than the photos make them look!) of the meals I have made:

Cajun chicken sausage jambalaya and rice

Turkey and kale meatballs with bolognaise sauce (and spaghetti) - this was all we had left! Although the recipe went a long way!

And one my husband made (which he is mega proud of and rightly so):

 

Chicken stuffed with mozzarella and bazil and wrapped in parma ham with spicy cauliflower cheese

 I cannot tell you how excited I was that both my husband and my son ate kale for the first time without realising, I had my smug face on for at least 20 minutes after the meal.  If you have ever tried kale you will know what a strong smell and flavour it has.  

I cannot wait to be 'lean' and take care of my family at the same time.  Oh course there is a time and a place for cake and eating these meals I now won't feel so guilty when we all eat them!

~AB~

Toddler Room Ideas

My son is fast approaching his second birthday and while it makes me feel a little sick inside that this time has passed so quickly, I'm in awe of the person he has become.  He has learnt the cutest and cheekiest little smile and although I should hate him saying no, the way he says it is so matter of fact and cute.  He's his own person and every day brings something new.

That being said, with all of that growth comes the need for space.  My son's nursery, as I'm sure you can gauge from past posts is not the largest of rooms.  It is suitable for a baby but probably not a toddler although it is neutral enough to stay the way it is should the need arise for him to stay there.

We currently have a guest room laying unused since we all decanted when my son was around 9 months old.  It has been decorated with beautiful textured wallpaper from Graham & Brown which was inspired by a hotel interiors.

Sadly (for the room), I fell pregnant before we got the chance to really use the room for guests and understandably people don't feel comfortable staying over when the family have a baby so it has been largely unused till we moved in there when my son was born temporarily as it keeps heat better than our room.   The previous owners had a single bed in there and I can only imagine the amount of space their daughter must have felt like she had so my son will be no different if we moved him in there.

My loves his cars and trains and buses and literally any mode of transport.  Don't get me wrong, he has a kitchen and enjoys pretending to make and drink tea from his "peatot", he loves making music by drumming on things and singing along to his own tunes and he takes care of his toys making sure they are fed and eat what he eats because we're teaching him to "share share" but he will always come back to transport.  Maybe not even transport, it literally has to have a wheel on it or something that will spin and he will be happy.  Whilst this makes designing his room a little bit easier, he may not be into cars forever and so I get that he will need something a bit more mature to live with till maybe his teens. That being said, my son really loves climbing and the outdoors and animals and I have always thought I would get him a mid-bed rather than a novelty one.  So here are some of the ideas for the car theme:

The images to the right will be a mural as I like the idea that my son would wake up like he's driving into the sunrise (I need to find better pictures but these show context).  I'm still in two minds but there is still the presentation to my husband and asking his opinion (yes that's a thing) before anything goes ahead.

I'm excited for this new chapter in my son's life but a little sad he won't be my tiny baby when it's finally done though. 

Tell me what you think, is there something I'm missing? Maybe you have seen some ideas you think might be better? 

~AB~

Oh no :(

Last week I did something I still can't quite get my head around... I managed to delete all of my camera photos off of my phone.  Surprisingly, this is extremely easy to do on an android phone and although you might think I would be angry or upset, I was neither.  I was numb, I had absolutely nothing going on in my head at that moment.  Thankfully, on plugging it into a desktop there was an option called "Import all photos and videos" so I promptly did this and I think it found them.  I do have to sort through all 4,300 files it managed to find though!  I do need to learn to use less haste and more speed sometimes, but this was a step too far.  I could have lost tons of precious photos and videos of my son saying things he no longer says.  An example of this was when he was 14 months and he first said "ma-ma" but the way he said it was almost like he was proud to say it and it was long and drawn out and the sweetest thing ever... a mere 2 months later he was calling me "mummy" and "mum".  So sad.  There is also the cute way he says teapot ("peatot")  but that's for another time.   

I am so precious about backing photos and videos up (we have a copy on the desktop and a copy on two different hard drives) but I definitely don't upload phone photos enough.  The last time I had uploaded before this incident was the end of June.  Any mother of a toddler knows how much they can change in that small space of time.  There is of course another lifeline, the fact I am an ardent user of Whatsapp and that they save all media you send out as standard.  I am so happy that I sent so many photos to family members as at least those were a fall back if I couldn't retrieve anything else. 

That aside, I have been trying to keep myself busy and my mind ticking over as I try and decide what it is I want from my working life.  I appreciate I am a mother now first and foremost but this has always been a difficult subject to address for me.  People know what they want to do with their lives, some people don't care as long as they're challenged/learning/interacting with people and so on, I do not.  I know I want to be challenged in a role, I also know what my strengths and weaknesses are and what interests me.  What I cannot seem to do is translate any of those into a career.  Like any person who is bored in a job, I have job hopped hoping my next move would be my last move and I would be happy.  This is still not the case.  From speaking to other people I have had a range of suggestions but they are all complete changes of field for me.   To be honest, these suggestions were options I had definitely considered but had ruled out as I don't have the experience and starting from the lower echelons and working my way up like I would have done a decade ago is not financially viable for me with a family.  They also bring up another range of questions - would the grass be greener if I were able to find a way into these areas of work? How would I sell myself without the experience for someone to give me the opportunity? Would I be able to have a work/life balance?  

I have mentioned previously that I am studying with Shaw Academy.  To date I have completed the foundation in Graphic Design, foundation in Photography and am currently in the process of studying for a certificate in Child Nutrition (purely out of interest) and a certificate in Career Development (you can see where I'm going with this obviously). I'm hoping that maybe this course will help me adapt my CV to be able to show my skills are transferable - so many recruiters are lazy and/or short-sighted so I need my CV to be as appealing as possible to draw them in.  Only time will tell if people will be interested in recruiting me or not but one thing is for sure, I need to be using my adult brain while I still have one.  Although my job-hopping may look unreliable, if I just had the opportunity to do something I loved I could easily prove I have loyalty, I just need to be given the chance to grow and develop and to feel part of the team. 

~AB~

Summer holidays

I'm not sure what it's like around the world (except Italy as I know they close down everything over August) but here in England the world seems to slow down over the summer holidays.  The summer holidays here refer to schools breaking up usually around the second or third week in July and then starting up again mid-week through the first or second week of September.  It is about a 6-7 week period where the trains and buses are quiet and you may be lucky enough to get a seat.  The pub outside areas are generally full all day because it's sunny and what is a sunny day without a trip to a beer garden for a shandy (half beer, half lemonade)? But all child related locations are full of desperate parents and their bored children.

All classes bar a small handful close down for the summer period.  I only have one toddler who does not go to school (thankfully his nursery doesn't close for the summer) so this leaves me with no classes to take him to to keep him occupied during the day.  I also feel that by closing the classes for the whole holiday they are losing the routine which goes against what a lot of these classes are trying to achieve, I get that the teachers need to take a break too but a couple of weeks is more realistic surely, not the whole summer? Anyway, that's another rant for another time.   Last week I had a playdate with some mums from the playgroup my son usually goes to on a Wednesday, as per usual in England it was raining so a picnic was out of the question so we went to a soft play centre.  It was awful.  It was packed to the rafters with children and their parents trying to keep them busy and my son was so small compared to many of the other kids.  You couldn't really hear yourself think and I think in the end even my son was overwhelmed with the sheer number of children but strangely, the limit hadn't been met on numbers so they were still letting people in! Never, ever again.

Since then I have been searching for things to do with my son that don't involve being in such a small but crowded place, but where he can roam and enjoy himself obviously.  For the next at least 4 weeks that will be very difficult but as he is an early riser and other families don't seem to be, I have been taking advantage of the quietness and we have been exploring places when they open at 9am then leaving as the crowd come in at 11.  We went to Lloyd Park in Walthamstow a couple of weeks ago on a Tuesday morning at 9.30am and it was dead! There were barely any children and parents around and my son got to play in their massive sand pit area practically on his own.  I've been scouring the local mum groups on Facebook to try and get some more outdoor toys so we can have our own playspace here till the summer holidays are over.  I know it sounds anti-social of me but we do meet mums for picnics and we have kids over, it's just that I'm not willing to have my son bombarded and surrounded by a bunch of older kids just for the sake of something for him to do.  That and the fact that aside from soft play and parks, everything else costs so much money.  My son is still under 2 so is mostly affordable but when I start having to pay at least £10 for myself to come with him, it starts to add up.

For the first time in almost a year, my husban and I took our son swimming.  We went to a pool my mum used to take my sister and I to when we were younger.  It just had a refurbishment last year but it used to have two massive slides that went outside of the building and back in again, it was amazing! I didn't think they could top that but having a young child, they have put in a little water play area for babies and my son, despite the fact he can't swim and despises a pool... loved it!  This is a picture of the space:

Leyton Leisure Centre by Trebor Developments

It is absolutely fantastic and the best thing I could have found for the holidays.  I will definitely be taking my son back over and over to get him used to the water before our big (first) family holiday in November, the joy and excitement on his face was something I never thought I would see with him and swimming.  There are other things on our to do list but this has trumped them all so they're not even worth a mention compared to this, I cannot wait to go back.   What are you up to this holiday?

~AB~

Phew!

The last month has been INTENSE and I'm not too sad to see it go.  I feel like I have achieved so much but on the flip side one thing has taken a back seat while I hit deadlines and that's my health.  My skin looks terrible and I have gained a fair amount of weight.  That being said, the weight gain could be due to the fact that people feed me things (dairy filled things) despite me asking if it has dairy in it.  I think I need to rephrase my question and ask what it is made of and not is there dairy in this so I can make the decision myself.  I'm not asking for people to cater for me specifically, just don't hand me dairy because you can't be bothered to tell me whether it has it or not and you think I'm being difficult.  People have actually implied that I have made up my dairy intolerance! Anyway... rant over!

So I did manage to get round to making both the flapjacks and the birthday cake for my sister.  Unfortunately there is no picture of the flapjacks because it fell apart (possibly because I used dairy free butter) and also it tasted so good, I actually forgot to take one before my husband, son and I ate most of it. 

The cake on the other hand I have taken a few pictures of because I'm so proud I managed to complete a recipe and not ruin it! In my last post I mentioned the recipe I would be using however, I decided to only use the icing recipe from this site to fill the cake and have used this recipe for the rest of it instead: 

https://redhotcentre.wordpress.com/2014/07/23/lime-coconut-cake-gluten-free-dairy-free/

Whilst it shows a loaf on there, mine was a birthday cake and I don't think those should be shaped like loaves so without further ado here is mine: 

The best part about this recipe, it is both dairy and egg free.  I used flour with gluten in it but it was super easy and I will definitely be using this recipe again.  

Here's to the end of July and the start of the true summer, may naps like the one I had last Monday be plentiful (well, till my son cuts out his midday naps).  

~AB~

The second child itch

I have heard from a lot of people around now is the time I will start feeling "the itch".   My son is 18 months, he's a little more independent and apparently I will miss having a baby around as I can no longer treat him like one.  As I have mentioned in an earlier post I am happy with us being a three and that if that were to change then great but it won't be any earlier than when I'm ready for it. 

I have seen many changes in my husband and my son over the coming months, I know it is a developmental change but my son is obsessed with babies, he finds them fascinating and thinks all babies cry, which to him is funny.  My husband on the other hand, is trying his hardest not to show it but he is broody for another baby.  He has held two of our friends babies and I had seen that look before when our son was first born, if he had ovaries they would have exploded.  As someone politely put it, the only one standing in the way of another baby is me. 

Don't get me wrong, I don't particularly want my son to be an only child but I'm happy with the way things are right now.  I have made no illusion about the fact I find parenting hard and the older my son gets the more difficult I seem to find dealing with him.  He seems to currently be going through a stage of finding and pushing all of my buttons so by the time my husband is home for work, I can barely even look at my son.  How could I bring another baby into something like that? I said to my sister today, if I had another baby and I feel this way towards my son he would get neglected and I don't want that to happen.  I very much want a close family and for my son to embrace a sibling and feel helpful and just as loved but now is just not the time.  I am still not physically or emotionally ready.

I also hear a lot that when you have the second one it's easier, but isn't that just what everyone says? What if my second one is worse? One friend admitted their older child is struggling to sleep and they actually get kept up at night by the 2 year old instead of their 5 month old baby who sleeps through.  Another admitted they had help bathing both children as the older one refused to be bathed when his 4 month old sibling was bathed.  This doesn't sound like something I am ready to get into right now.  I know it won't be smooth sailing when I have another child but I'm officially scaremongered.  I'm sure in the coming months we will see if my opinion changes but I wish people would stop asking when I'm having another baby.  I'm just not ready and no amount of selling it will do that for me. 

~AB~