A Good Day

Today has been a good day. I am still ending it feeling tired and in need of my bed, trying to scrape together the energy and motivation to finish off those menial tasks that will help make tomorrow an easier day, but nevertheless today has been a good day.

I spent much of it with a lovely, understanding friend. The kind of friend that knows you inside out and you can simply be yourself with, even if that self is a little bit grumpy and moany. Although after a short while with such a person you don’t feel so grumpy. The kind of friend who has already been there and done that and so knows just how tiring a toddler can be and how much harder it is when you are 8 months pregnant with your next child.

We spent our time chatting, listening to our boys screaming with laughter at something in the playroom. It sounded boisterous and manic, but amazingly didn’t end with anyone in tears. They are only four months apart and played together really well all morning. They are both strong-willed and can be a handful, so it was lovely to see them working things out for themselves.

We discussed baby names as she pushed both the boys on the swings, she didn’t baulk at any of them and she generally let me sit down while making sure Mini Mck had something to play with and something to eat.

On our way home Mini Mck and I played music from ‘Glee’ loudly and sang. We stopped at the allotment to pick the first baby spinach of the season. Mini Mck told me he had to be careful not to stand on Daddy’s plants or any stinging nettles. We looked at the chickens in the plot opposite and yet he came away without complaint.

When we arrived home I was greeted by this…..

Beautifully made by a lovely friend, who must’ve read my mind. We had a blanket/fleece for Mini Mck that we used lots, but it wasn’t really to my taste. As I was sorting baby stuff this week I came across it and decided I would get another that I did like.  Now, I don’t have to and the fact that this has been made for us makes it extra special.

So, today has been a good day and now I’m going to make sure it ends that way by turning off the laptop before I get too tired to read my book and go to sleep early, hoping tomorrow will be just as good.

Silent Sunday

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Beware!

Beware! Stand back! I am a pregnant woman and I have the ‘rage’. No-one is safe and especially those that try to cheer me up by telling me that I’ve not got long to go and that it is so exciting to be having a baby.

I want the world to leave me alone, stop hassling me to see them, return their calls or respond to their e-mails. Of course, not you dear readers, my on-line people are the only ones that are currently keeping me sane. It is very strange that it seems through a computer I can find honesty and the kind of rye humour I need, rather than the ‘hallmark’ version of pregnancy that seems to exist in the ‘real world’.

Family want to know what we are doing over Easter, which is a perfectly normal question, but I know it is leading to wanting to see us and I just don’t want that. We still have things we want to do before D-Day and Mckdaddy has lots of time off over the next couple of weeks. So we want to be left alone to get on with things. There will be some spare time, but I don’t want to spend it with ‘other’ people. I want to stay safe, in our little unit, just the three of us.

Even the rare offers of help make we want to rage. I realise I am not at my happiest or most bouncy but I feel I am coping well with day to day life. When someone comes over and offers to clean my bathroom, it just makes me feel that they are making a judgement on the state of my house. Anyway, what I really need is for someone to take Mini Mck out and run with him, kick a ball, lift him onto the slide. All the things that I can’t do. Standing and doing a little bit of ironing with the radio on and a cup of tea is far less strenuous than that. However, no-one is offering to do that, no-one actually asks what ‘help’ would actually help me.

I know that if my brain was working in the way it should and I didn’t have hormones tearing thorough my body I would see these attempts at kindness for what they are, but at the moment I don’t want it, I don’t need it and it just seems like added pressure.

I have tried being a more honest during this pregnancy, admitting I don’t like it, that it makes me grumpy and I don’t feel particularly excited about this new arrival, just anxious and overwhelmed by the thought of  it all. I may as well have said I don’t like my own child, from the looks I have got. This makes me rage too. Why should I be judged for being honest? I make it clear that I do know it will be worth it and I have no doubt that once the baby arrives I will love it as much as I love my first, but just now I feel grumpy and irritable and full of rage. If people don’t want the truth they shouldn’t ask.

In fact, that would be great, just don’t ask. I am tired of being asked about this pregnancy as if I am just a bump now and not a person. I still have a brain and I don’t want to think or talk about being pregnant ALL the time.

I think it’s all a form of nesting, a rather extreme form perhaps, but wanting to withdraw seems perfectly natural, it is what my instincts are urging me to do. We need to do practical things, but I also need to prepare myself and I work best if I can do that without interference, without any added pressure. We need to spend some time, just the three of us, we will not be a family of three for much longer and I want these last weeks to be as enjoyable they can be.

So, don’t expect the rage to disappear, perhaps my hormones are doing what is required by ensuring that I rage sufficiently to keep people away, to do what I need to do for myself and for my family, all of them, even the ones that are not here yet.

A baby-led staple – Rachel’s Organics Review

I am not really sure where my sanity would have been if Mini Mck had decided he didn’t like yoghurt.

Mini Mck was weaned using a Baby-Led approach, meaning we didn’t purée food or spoon feed him, allowing him to discover and explore different food and textures at his own pace. This pace hasn’t always been to my liking and sometimes I felt he would never do more than throw his food and eat a few firm favourites.

Gradually, thanks to an awful lot of patience most of our meals now pass with little fuss, although I would like it if he ate more protein and tried new things, but I keep putting them on his plate anyway. We are finding that allowing him to be involved in the preparation of the food helps, for example making pizzas and fajitas together is a real winner. I have learnt not to fret about how much he eats. He is a bit of a grazer and so the amount he is eating can seem small, but he is growing and in proportion and healthy.

There have been times though when I have really worried about how much he is eating, but one thing I know is always going to go down well is yoghurt. So, when the lovely people at Rachel’s Organics offered to send us some goodies I couldn’t resist.

We received a pack of My First Yoghurts, which were pretty much what you’d expect from a baby yoghurt, with the added bonus of a banana flavour for my banana addicted boy and a pack of Taste Explorer’s. These were basically the same as the the first, smooth, thick and creamy, but with some different flavour combinations. My only criticism, which applies to most yoghurt marketed at babies, is that they state they are suitable from 4 months and the current up to date health advice is not to start your baby on solids until 6 months. This is really a general food labelling bug bear of mine to be honest, but would love it if organic companies would lead the way on changing this.

Thankfully the Taste Explorer Rice Pudding is labelled as suitable from 6 months and coincidentally Mckdaddy and I had been saying we thought Mini Mck would love Rice Pudding and it would be a nice thing to have in store for a treat or when we fancy a pudding. There were some of these included in our hamper and as it is one of my favourite things, Mini Mck was lucky to get some. However, for the purposes of review and for your benefit dear readers I did share them give them to him. I think it would be safe to say that our Mini Reviewer gave them a big thumbs up.

I think it would be hard to find a baby or toddler household that doesn’t have a supply of yoghurt in the fridge. They are easy, quick, popular and great for little hands to learn how to use a spoon. Just look at how much better Mini Mck has got at this particular skill.

I shall let you know what we created with the adult samples in a seperate post and will include some recipes for you to try out for yourself.


Disclosure: We were sent a hamper of various Rachel’s Organics yoghurts and desserts in return for a review. All the words in this post are my own and represent my (and Mini Mck’s) honest opinion.

Two

Today you are 2. When I look at you I can no longer persuade myself that there is a  baby looking back at me. You are a boy. I can no longer refer to your age in months. You are my two-year old. 


I watched you walking in front of me last week, actually stomping would be a more appropriate word. You were striding confidently forwards, taking in everything you could see and hear. There was no wobble, in fact you are are more likely to be found running than walking. It occurred to me that on your first birthday you hadn’t even begun to walk. 


You hoover up the world around you with such relish. New words and phrases spill from you every day. You love to talk and treat me to a running commentary of our lives each day. We can have conversations now and the more you understand things, the more comfortable you are with them. You ask ” What’s that?” and “Who’s that?”. You tell me that cake “tastes delicious”, that sparkling water is “very fizzy” and that your bath is “nice and warm”.


Your imagination is exploding as you serve me ‘party food’ that only we can see and use different voices for you plastic figures. You wander around the garden before telling me that “You’re BAAAACK” and that you’ve been to school to teach the children reading, just like Daddy does. 


You still resist sleep. You are too busy. Too busy to sleep, too busy to eat sometimes, too busy to get dressed or have your nappy changed and too busy to stop and put you shoes on before you run into the garden, enjoying the feel of the shingle between your toes. Who can blame you? If we were honest who wouldn’t want to carry on spraying water from a hose, rather than go for a boring nap.


Even though you have changed almost beyond recognition, in many ways I see things in you that have been there all along. You have always had strong opinions and have always expressed them. When you were tiny they were simply about how you liked to be held or where you wanted to sleep. Now, your opinions are more about gaining some control over your world and stamping your mark on it, carving your personality as you go. Sometimes this strong will you have is frustrating to deal with day to day, but secretly I admire it and I hope that you keep some of it forever, but if you could let me put your shoes on without saying “NO” that’d be a great help. I hope you keep you sense of fun, love of laughing and of making others laugh too, that will help you just as much as your stubborn will.

We are moving into a new phase, you and I. Soon we will be joined by another, someone who will be so utterly dependent on me and I know this will sometimes be hard for you, but I am sure your good nature will make you a wonderful big brother.

You won’t remember a time when it was just you and in many ways I am relieved. Nevertheless, I feel a little sad that you won’t recall this special, joyful two years we have had with you and you alone. You may not remember it, but I will treasure it forever and I promise you, it has been a blast.

The Gallery: Tomorrow

A test from the Gallery Master, Tara, this week, in the form of the prompt ‘Tomorrow’. Strangely as soon as I read the prompt I knew what I wanted to write about. Finding the right image was a little more difficult. 

I have been thinking an awful lot about our tomorrows, in fact I think of and plan for little else at the moment. In a matter of weeks our world will change all over again, with a new person to get used to and get to know. Soon my days will bear little resemblance to the comfortable routine that Mini Mck and I have fallen into. 

As I watch him make his own way in the world or share a special moment with him, thoughts skim across it about how his tomorrows are going to change in the biggest way he has ever known. Soon, he will need to share his toys, his house and most of all his Mum and Dad. 

We spend our time preparing our home, ourselves and our son for this new tomorrow, not knowing exactly when it will be and as I feel this baby move inside me, with a strength that increases every day, it feels as if our tomorrows are here already, but they are not. Until I hold this child in my arms, safely delivered and healthy I cannot fully breath.

Tomorrow is something new and unknown, you are not able to touch it or see it, you must simply prepare this movable feast as best you can and await it’s arrival and that is very much how I feel about life just now.