step back and be thankful

I've spent the last hour browsing blogs I like to read about parenthood, screaming toddlers and the brilliance of cbeebies. I have to say I have really enjoyed the last hour.

I spent six hours today browsing the web searching for clothing and accessories for the magazine I am working on at the minute. I didn't enjoy those six hours.

Skip back four years in my life I could have spent six days looking for winter coats, woolly hats and delicious two-months-of-my-wages Mulberry handbags.

This has made me take a step back, look at my life and be utterly thankful for everything I have- my amazing partner (he's 30- too old to be my bf!), two priceless children, my own home (ok, rented but still mine) and all in all a very happy life. A life that I would look at and envy.

Ok, so at the minute I can't use my switch card because it would positively melt and I still don't own matching bedlinen (see previous post) but I have everything I will ever need.

Next week himself and I will celebrate our 9th anniversary (over a half price bottle of wine no doubt), four months ago we shared a bottle of half price wine and remembered our friend, G, now dead 9 years.

I fainted when I was told he was dead, my bestmate almost crumbled. But himself was there for both of us and G now looks after all three of us. For if he was still with us, himself and me would not be together, we would have probably never felt the love of a child and my bestmate wouldn't be due to give birth to her first child any day now.

It's harsh to admit it, but without his death all these positive things would never have happened.

I often talk to him, just say hello how are you, and I know he's always there watching all we do and watching over us, caring for us.

When I think of the young life lost it really makes me sad to the pit of my stomach. When I visited his grave last week I again nearly fainted. The pain we felt was unreal.

But without pain you can never feel happiness. And so when something triggers thoughts of him in my mind I send him my thanks for all my happiness.

Step back and smile about what you have, otherwise we're all dead.

Nine reasons why I love him so...

*I started this blog post a month ago, it's been sitting in my draft box for that long!*


We are now on the eve of my favourite month of the year, October. I love this time of year because the weather starts to get colder, the night time seems to last longer, I have a good excuse to buy cosy and warm clothes and the onset of October means Halloween is nearly here.
I love the celebration of Halloween, as even thought I am the biggest scardy cat alive I love how the night itself is always crisp and clear and very very dark.
October is also the anniversary of me & himself, nine whole years together, from I was 16 and he was 21.

At times when I think back to 9 years ago it seems like a lifetime away, other times it seems like yesterday. With 9 being my favourite number I think this year we are on a high, a high that is only going to get higher and higher....

1. I love that he loves chocolate more than any woman I know.
2. I love that he thinks I am a great cook and can cook his steak better than any chef!
3. I love that we can snuggle up on the sofa and just laugh about our life and the crazy things we do together and just be happy doing that.
4. I love that together we have made two amazing children.
5. I love that there is a very high possibility we will make more soon ;)
6. I love that we share our dreams and try to carry them out.
7. I love we share memories of things we have done together that no-one else will ever know about.
8. I love that he works so hard for our family. (who else's hubby sometimes works an 80 hour week!?)
9. And finally I love him most for just being him. The original joy to my life :)
Happy anniversary hon xxx

Am I a breastfeeding cheater?

There we go I’ve done it again…………
No, not ran off into the hills with a tall, dark and handsome stranger………..
I’ve given my ten week old baby boy a bottle of FORMULA! And I feel very guilty about it, so guilty I often have conversations with myself in my head over why I’ve been secretly doing it. I haven’t even told my closest friend I do it. It really does sound like I have a very dark secret lurking behind my blue/green eyes- but no, atm my only shameful secret is that I have given my baby a bottle of formula milk.
Here’s how my guilty secret started…
At six months old my first baby had never taken a bottle. Full stop. Never a bottle of anything, not my pumped momma milk, not formula, nothing! And it wasn’t for the lack of trying, I tried, oh boy, I tried, but she was a persistent little bugger. It was something I vowed to change second time around. So, once the wee man reached six weeks I tried to pump milk. Nothing. Nada. Zilch. I couldn’t get any milk. (turns out it was my pump, not me) by week seven of his life I was getting itchy feet fretting that I’d missed the boat on the bottle front, so I tried him with 2oz of formula- just until I got the pumping established. Understand?
Well, three weeks on, the new pump still takes pride of place on my hall table, boxed in all it’s newness and instead I now give the wee man a bottle of formula every couple of days. He gulps down the 3oz I allow him in seconds. And for a split second I feel good that ‘yes he is still taking it.’ Seconds later I feel bad that I have given it to him and I don’t even know why, it’s not that I’m pumping petrol into his body through the tempting allure of a Nuk latex teat, it’s just because I feel bad for wanting him to take a bottle in the first place.
I only want him to take a bottle so that if the situation arises I will be able to leave him for an evening. One evening. That’s all. I don’t even know that this evening or event will ever occur, but if it does I’m going to be a good girl scout and ‘be prepared!’

I think the real reason I’m finding this situation so frustrating is because I like to moan and dare I say bitch about women who won’t even give breastfeeding a try. A friend of mine is due to give birth in a couple of weeks and I know she would rather die than breastfeed, her view is “Whats the point in me doing it when he can do it from a bottle?”
This view makes me sad because I know she will never feel certain things breastfeeding mothers feel. Amongst others the satisfaction you feel why the scales read WWWWAAAAYYYY over the weight the baby started at and you know that was all down to you. That’s a moment when you can feel very very smug!
When did parenthood get so thought-provoking? (Humphhhhh... & folded arms)

Riding the rollercoaster.....again

I have definitely decided that life is one long, long rollercoaster full of ups and downs, loops and sudden breathtaking drops.
I once had to do a filming project on a rant- a subject that really got under my skin. It took me days to think of a subject, and eventually I settled on ranting about my nosy neighbour's because they were always trying to get juicy gossip out of me and my brothers about my mum and dads divorce. In the end it was a half-hearted rant, because really I didn't give a flying **** what the neighbour's thought, but today approximately five years on if I was asked to do that project again, I would truly excel at it.

I suppose it's part of being a grown up and a parent, the part in you that becomes more wingey, more cynical, more, well overall more aware of life and the crap thats happening around you.

So far maternity leave for me this time has been a dream. It's had it's up and downs but so far the bubble hasn't smothered her younger brother, and said younger brother is growing up so fast and already at eight weeks old has moved on from his real baby baby stage. The only thing thats getting me and in fact my whole household down is that little old nuisance- money.

The problem with it is that no matter how much we have we always need more and about ten minutes ago it just hit me like a dagger in the heart. Himself works full time, as a well paid, probably undernourished and most definitely sleep deprived lorry driver. I (usually, when not having children) work four days a week as a magazine editor. Not well paid, not usually sleep deprived and positively NOT undernourished. Bearing these two facts in mind (the two full time workers, not the nourishment factor) why then when I was changing my bedlinen today did I realise that we don't own one duvet cover that is the same pattern as the pillowcases. Thats correct not one bed set do we own.
On realising this I texted himself to invite him to comment on the fact and got a smug reply 'Eh, buy one.' That was it, I just had to phone him and said I couldn't purchase such a luxury because, and I was only surmising, I figured he wanted to eat for the rest of the month, I also presumed the two mortgages we have probably needed paying (A-totally-nother story- in brief, we foolishly bought a plot of land to build on, couldn't sell his mums house to finance build and now have to pay for stupid bit of grass and a portion of his mums mortgage which we used to finance deposit for aforementioned stupid bit of cow feeding land. Bitter? maybe).
And there we have it, this is only two rivers our money flows down there are more, many, many more and at the minute I don't know where it will end, unlike this ranting blog which is ending now.

Guilt

When I was pregnant I remember telling everyone how I was worried about how the Bubble would react to another baby in the house.
And now two weeks in, with everything going along at a normal enough pace with himself back at work, the Bubble at nursery and me permanently attached to the sofa feeding the wee man, I feel nothing but guilty.
It's not just towards the Bubble that this guilt is troubling me, I also feel guilty for not being as attentive to himself. At this time when I need lots of hugs, I can't give that many of them out and seem to have even less time to receive them.
I seem to spend alot of my time saying 'No' to both Bubble and "No' to himself, when he tries to load the washing machine with a white load and one trouble making red towel.
At the minute, I still have six months left of maternity leave left and I'm already beginning to fret about returning to work! This is madness and a true sign of my stupid pre-childbirth emotional brain because I was SO ready to head off to work again after the Bubble. This time it's different because I want to win the lottery and live in a bubble with just the Bubble, the wee man and himself. That wold be good, and maybe I wouldn't feel so guilty then.

Named at last

Baby Smith, as he has now been known for almost six days now has a name. We have decided to call him Keenan. Both myself and himself don't really know where this has emerged from it just has. So there.
Keenan is quite a remarkably quiet baby so far and not causing too much stress and mayhem to our household. Saf totally loves him and even though she doesn't understand she can't bounce on her bed with him, he seems to have been accepted pretty well.

whats in a name?

Well alot as a matter of fact! This is a short post to let you all know my little bundle has arrived. The night before I was due to do in to be induced, there he came like a rocket shooting out of my neither regions..... (Stay tuned for every detail of labour in the future)
At three days old we still have to name him and are finding finding a name pretty tough- so all suggestions are very welcome :)
But I am happy to report, both myself and all 7lbs 12.5ozs of my son are keeping well.