How times have changed!! June 23, 2012

Yeah, yeah it’s been months since I last blogged I know, but I’m back with my favourite subject – family holidays!

So we are spending the night tonight at a hotel in Dover so we can get the ferry to France tomorrow morning and it has struck me just how much our life has changed in the last year!

So we arrive about 3.30pm and have a couple of hours to kill before Roxy’s tea time. Previously this could have easily been filled with a trip to the pub for a nice drink/chill out in front of tv in the hotel room/a nice walk along the sea front but these are not to be with a ridiculously energetic one year old who has about a 30 second attention span!!! We opted for a walk – an interesting choice because a) sorry to anyone who lives here but Dover is in fact a bit of a dive! And b) Roxy really does not want to be in her buggy anymore. She’s so desperate to get out and walk, which would be absolutely fine if this was a motor skill she was actually capable of but sadly not yet! So we attempt to allay her frustrations by passing her random items to look at/play with which keep her interest for about 30 seconds then proceed to be tossed out the buggy with an accompanying scream and a failed attempt to escape from her buggy straps!!

Lovely picturesque/relaxing walk over, is it back to the hotel for showers and getting dressed up to go somewhere nice for dinner!?!?? Er, no! It’s head to the restaurant in the hotel for a 5.30 quick meal only to discover the restaurant’s not even open yet! How depressing is that!?! So, bar meals it is then! Fish fingers mostly thrown on the bar floor it’s back to the room to put Roxy to bed! Now this is easier said than done as Roxy’s cot is about one metre away from where we are sat on the bed! Is she just going to lay down nicely and go to sleep? Yeah right!! After about half hour of Roxy hanging over the side of the cot squealing at us I decided there was nothing else for it but to send David down to the bar to watch the football and decamp myself to the bathroom!

So I write this post while sat on a pillow on the bathroom floor listening to Roxy chatting away to herself wondering where on earth my old life went!!

The sleep myths you want to believe! January 27, 2012

I am aware I’ve been pretty useless at keeping up with my blog recently and this is mainly because I am completely and utterly sleep deprived and therefore struggle to string a sentence together let alone type any! But as sleep issues are my current obsession, I reckon I can manage a blog post about it before falling asleep!

So as a keen bean pregnant person I read the books, I went to the NCT classes, I watched the tv programmes, I quizzed my mum friends and felt I was pretty clued up as to what to expect in terms of sleep for my new baby – oh how wrong I was!! So here are the myths I wanted to believe or was brainwashed to believe and I now think are just not true! (apologies for any pregnant or new mums reading this but you’ll thank me in the long run for giving you an honest view!)

Myth number 1 – As a new parent, you’ll have a couple of months of sleepless nights then all will settle down!

Ha, if only! 9 months in and we are still battling with ridiculously disturbed nights and I know of many parents with kids much older than Roxy that still don’t sleep well! But new parents/parents to be take heart as there are definitely exceptions to this rule, like, for example my niece and nephew who have slept like angels day and night since they were tiny but I believe this is down to some awesome baby whispering magic powers of my sister in law or possibly some kind of voodoo magic!!!

Myth number 2 – you’ll sleep when they sleep!

Chance would be a fine thing! This is however, vaguely possible if a) your baby will sleep in the cot at home for more than 20 mins and b) you have no housework to do/other kids to look after/meals and bottles to prepare!! Or c) you are prepared to go to bed at 7pm and get a couple of hours of sleep in before the night wakings begin!!

Myth number 3 – Leaving your child to cry for a few minutes in their cot will psychologically scar them for life!

I must admit that I personally am useless at controlled crying because I have no willpower but I have many friends who have successfully mastered this technique and still have completely happy, healthy and well balanced kids!!

Myth number 4 – Newborn babies love to sleep in prams – the motion will send them to sleep easily!

When I spent about 5 months debating the various features and benefits of the prams/pushchairs/travel systems, little did I know that for the first couple of months Roxy was going to scream every single time we put her in it and refuse to go to sleep no matter how much we wandered about pushing it!!

Myth number 5 – Buy yourself a nice Moses basket for the baby to sleep in for the first 6 months.

Firstly, pretty much every baby I know grew to big or too active for their Moses basket long before 6 months and secondly plenty of babies, including Roxy, for some reason seem to hate their Moses basket and resolutely refuse to sleep in it!

Finally, myth number 6 – Swaddle your baby and lay them down on their back to sleep.

Ok so this is ideally how you want them to sleep but this presumes you do not have a fidgety baby! Let me tell you that a fidgety baby will break out of a swaddle no matter how tightly you do it and once capable of rolling will not want to sleep calmly on their backs thy will want to use the nighttime hours to tryout every sleeping position they can think of including sleeping in the corner of the cot face down with the head against the cot bars and their bum stuck up in the air!

So on that note, I’m off to attempt some sleep before the night shift – night all!!

Trust me I’m a doctor!??? December 19, 2011

Ok so what started out as a routine doctor’s appointment ended up with the doctor leaving me questioning all my parenting skills and pretty much my life in general!! It went a little something like this…

Doc (looking at Roxy): “Ooh, how old is He?”

Me: “SHE is just over 7 months”

Seriously, what more do I have to do? I dress her in pink, in pretty girly clothes and still everyone thinks she’s a boy! Strike one to the doctor!

Doc: “Oh he’s a bit chunky for 7 months”

Great, I’ve been doing my best to fatten Roxy up as she’s always been below average on all the weight charts and too small for all her clothes but now you’re telling me she’s too fat!?!? Strike two!

Doc: “well is he reaching all the milestones?”

SHE, SHE, SHE!!!!! I don’t know, you tell me. What on earth is a milestone for a baby and how would I know if she’s reached it?!?!? Strike three!

Doc (before even giving me a chance to respond to the milestones question): “he must look like his Dad because he doesn’t even look a bit like you”!!!

Perfect, I only carried her for 9 months, went through the excrutiatng ordeal of childbirth and looked after her every day for the past 7 months but now she looks nothing like me! Already feeling a little sensitive in this area as all she can say from morning until night on a continuous loop is “Da-da, Da-da, Da-da”!!! So, strike four to you, Doc!

It gets better….

Doc: “So you’re not pregnant with your second yet then?”

Should I be? Hadn’t really thought about it yet, but is this some back hand way of him telling me my biological clock is ticking or something? Strike five!

Me: “Well no, still hoping to get a little more sleep with this one before I think about another”

Doc: “Oh no, you won’t get a rest now until your youngest child is 25″

I’ll look forward to that then, thanks. Strike six!

Doc: “have you gone back to work?”

Me: “not really yet, taken the odd client here and there when I can”

Doc: “well you need to work really, you need to do something else otherwise it can be pretty wearing just being a mum” ouch, strike seven!

So there we go, seven blows to my confidence in about seven minutes! Well done doc, could be some kind of record! I’m off home now to question my very existence….

Am I an ‘accidental parent’!? November 15, 2011

I don’t mean I ‘accidently’ had a child because believe it or not, despite the stress and sleepless nights, that was actually a deliberate decision! No, I am talking about a book I’ve been reading: The Baby Whisperer solves all your problems. Firstly, the title itself has far too huge a claim for my liking – so once she’s got my baby sleeping through the night and gurgling through the day will she then set to work on fixing the hot water in my shower or put my spine back into it’s pre pregnancy position? No? Then perhaps it should be entitled ‘The Baby Whisperer attempts to solve specific problems related to your baby, as long as said baby is fairly conventional and has textbook issues’! Probably wouldn’t sell quite so many copies though!

Now before I begin my rant, I have to say that my annoyingly analytical brain has actually found this book quite helpful. It just seems a little hard to believe that although the World is full of amazingly unique people with an array of weird and wonderful personalities that every single baby can conform to the exact same routine and be soothed by exactly the same techniques?!? Sorry, Ms Baby Whisperer but I just don’t buy it!

My particular reason for wanting to throw this book across the room tonight is due to the following: my lovely daughter still does not sleep through the night, far from it, in fact she wakes quite a few times – sometimes wanting feeding and other times just wanting a cuddle. So having got back into bed after cuddling Roxy back to sleep I read that this is what the Baby Whisperer calls ‘accidental parenting’!! Apparently by cuddling her back to sleep I have created a bad habit and now she will be unable to settle without me! But surely she’s too young yet to have mastered the subtle art of manipulation so if she’s crying because she needs a cuddle then perhaps she just needs a cuddle!!?!? And aren’t I then actually being a good parent by responding to her needs! And what’s the alternative? That she cries – I’ve already been told in a previous chapter that babies who are left to cry will be psychologically scarred for life so I can’t really win!

On that note I can hear Roxy calling for her accidental parent so I best go and accidently help her get back to sleep!!

Roxy Goes Flying! October 19, 2011

I am writing this blog whilst still a little shell shocked and in need of a stiff drink and/or a lot more sleep! We have just returned from a week’s holiday in Malta where we took Roxy on her first ever flights!

Now I know that it could have been a LOT worse but I have to admit that I found the whole thing pretty stressful!

Firstly, the packing! For those of you who read my previous blog post: ‘everything including the kitchen sink’ will know that packing for a holiday with a baby is no mean feat but now I had the added difficulties of trying to fit everything into suitcases that don’t exceed the weight allowance and also clearing out my changing bag to cabin baggage friendly items only!

Then there is the waiting at the airport and the fine balancing act of when do I try and get Roxy to sleep to ensure that she’s not overtired by the time we get on the plane and therefore a crying, grizzling nightmare but not had too much sleep so will then not sleep on the plane and again become a crying, grizzling nightmare!

We finally board the plane and get ourselves nicely positioned with the seatbelts round us only to discover that there is a delay at Heathrow and we are going to sit on the tarmac for the next hour! I had therefore run out of ways to keep Roxy entertained before the flight had even begun!

How you can keep a 5 month old very active baby sitting calmly on your lap for ling periods of time was complpletely beyond me!

Finally the seatbelt sign is turned off and we are free to find other ways of entertaining Roxy which included passing her down the line from Daddy to Grandma to Grandad like some kind of relay and standing in the aisle playing peekaboo with other random passengers who indulged us by playing along! I did feel a little bit like the cabaret show as I looked down the plane to see about 50 pairs of eyes watching and waiting for Roxy’s next act! Then the crying started and I’m sure she didn’t actually cry for very long but being very aware that Roxy was the only baby on the plane and the only person making such a loud noise it felt like forever! I was trying to work out what was most annoying for the other passengers – listening to Roxy cry or having to listen to me singing dingle dangle scarecrow on a continuous loop as this seemed to be the only thing to stop the crying!

These entertainments/diversions worked for a while until I could deny it no longer that I was going to have to get Roxy to sleep! Now, my lovely daughter fights her sleep at the best of times but trying to rock her in my arms in a cramped airoplane seat whilst simultaneously trying to stop her from spitting her dummy out on the floor and banging her head on the armrest was possibly the most challenging thing I’ve had to do in a while! Then when I finally did get her to sleep they brought the dinner out so I had the interesting job of trying to eat one handed whilst not dropping any food on Roxy and dealing with one dead arm and not being able to get up to go to the toilet!

All in all I would say I was very grateful to reach the terminal building!

Made In Essex! October 3, 2011

As a self-confessed reality-soap junkie I am loving the new series’ of TOWIE and MIC. Any other fans out there might like my checklist of the characteristics required to star in one of these shows!

1. In real life you need to have a very flexible job or an understanding boss so that you can spend your time at a fake job on the show!

2. You must either look like a supermodel or be prepared to be constantly mocked about the non-supermodel like state of your body!

3. Have a relationship with someone either way above or below your league and make it look believable!

4. Practice your shocked/surprised face (botox allowing) as you will constantly be faced with ‘chance encounters’ with your recent ex and their new partner.

5. Expect the expected – these shows do love a bit of predictability.

6. Dress always like you’ve just stepped out of a magazine, forget about practicality – think 7 inch heels for a walk in a muddy field!

7. Perfect the ability to at least atttempt to keep a straight face when you’re meant to be having a serious arguement with someone.

8. Pretend to live within 100 metres of all your friends and that your life is spent ‘accidently’ bumping into each other on the street/in the gym/pub/etc.

9. Finally, be able to cry convincingly on demand in order to leave the more gullible viewers (ie me) somewhat confused as to exactly how much is real and what is made-up!!

Baby teenage tantrums! September 23, 2011

I’m pretty sure that my four month old daughter is having proper full-on teenage strops this week! She is clearly in a mood with me as when faced with time alone with Mummy she is crying, fidgeting, squealing, squirming but is all smiles and laughs for Daddy, Grandma and, come to think of it, the postman, the window cleaner, random strangers in town…. so clearly anyone but me!!!

She has also got some kind of secret conspiracy going with her Dad whereby she gives him a little smirk as he walks out the door and then 2 minutes later does a massive poo for me to have to deal with! It’s happened like this so many times that it can’t be a coincidence!!

I have put Roxy’s stroppy mood down to one of two things that have happened this week that she obviously can’t forgive me for!

1. I had to take her for her immunisations where she was brutally stabbed not once, not twice, but three times with a needle that is practically the same length as her entire leg! The expression that she gave me as the nurse put the needle in was heartbreaking – as if to say “why are you letting this woman attack me Mummy, do something about it!!” Then the blood curdling scream that followed was enough to reduce me to tears myself!

2. We went to Roxy’s swimming lessson and I decided that this was the week to try dunking her under the water!! As she came back up her expression was much the same as the one she had given me during her jabs!

So please forgive me Roxy! I meant you no harm, I’m just trying to stop you catching any diseases and build up your confidence and safety in the water!!

What a week! Hence the reason I am already in bed at 8pm on a Friday night!!!!