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motherhood

The last few days before Christmas

Posted on 22nd December 2016

These last few days are mad, everyone running around trying to tie up loose ends before the big day. Looking for some kind of resolution in the chaos of the whirlwind so that you can just relax and chill out with family and friends on Christmas day. For that reason I decided not to book our calendar up with much during the run up, we already have Hydrotherapy (or so I thought – duh broke up for Christmas) and Physiotherapy on Thursday. This gives plenty of time to finish anything last-minute jobs and tasks, such as post parcels, write last-minute Christmas cards from unexpected sources, buy the last few presents (then subsequently be in for their delivery).

With that in mind we wandered to the park Monday (with firm instruction from any couriers to leave our packages in our preferred safe place). It was a really wet day out so Ariella wore her all in one waterproof which given the other parents were having to dig deep to find something to dry off the playground proclaiming loudly “Mummy forgot your waterproof” I think it was a good call, this normally does not happen for me! Without the fleece liner in it’s actually pretty mobile, you can easily fold it down to fit in a handbag. This is why Polarn o Pyret market it as season variable (perfect for our unpredictable weather here).

Lunch this week I wanted to try a few different recipes as I was getting quite bored with the same combinations. I found a recipe online for Lemony Fish Bites, a simple method which if you have covered things with bread crumbs before you’ll recognise. If you want to give them a try yourself I’ve linked the recipe above, Ariella liked them. I think they were surprisingly easy to do as the Cod I purchased had the bone removed and also the skin had been removed already. This meant that really it was just a matter of dipping in each bowl and then frying. I’m sure you could bake them if you preferred rather than frying.

I don’t know why everyone seems to do this but the Christmas deadline really makes you want to clear out any old jobs that have been sitting around for a while. One of which was sorting through Ariella’s outgrown clothes. This is something that I used to have to do a lot more frequently than I do now, when she was outgrowing clothes sizes from Newborn/One Month, 1 – 3 months, 3 – 6 months, 9 – 12 months, 12 – 18 months then 18 – 24 months. The first few months it felt like she had just arrived and we were already shipping out her clothes from the drawers. I remember fondly keeping back few outfits that had sentimental value to us and selling the rest for another parent to enjoy on Ebay. You really don’t get much for the clothes, even the designer clothes online but It felt reasonable to give those clothes a use.

I had stored up things from over a year ago, Christmas 2015! Probably 9 – 12 months onwards. We are now in the 2 – 3 year range, although some things from 18 – 24 fit fine still but I won’t buy anything in that current range now. We are keeping all of this though, I feel that any other siblings should have their own newborn clothes so that they too can have a special box of memories of things I identify as “theirs”. Ariella’s drawers now look as they did long before her arrival, neat, tidy, organised. This pleases me, I do love an organised home as I feel it gives me the ability to hold an organised mind. I must try harder to keep this so!
On Tuesday we needed to play Postman, I had a few parcels to send and thankfully everything arrived in time to do so. I think I may have mentioned in a previous post that this year two of my deliveries (although it’s now looking like three) have gone missing? The rest of the year I can’t even think of one time that my parcel has wandered off. Picture me with a huge parcel in my hands, two parcels in a big side hold shopping bag and Ariella strapped to my front in the Tula as I walk down to the post office. If someone had been around to take my picture I would have asked them to! It was all in the careful knowledge that my efforts would be rewarded with a foot long sandwich from Subway after.

Tuesday afternoon there was a chill in the air, but we decided to catch up with one of my friends and her son at the park and to check out how the birds were getting on.

I forgot to say another job on the list of tasks was building the IKEA kitchen that is our gift to Ariella for Christmas. I wanted it pre built as there was little point in wrapping it, so for now it’s hidden in the Study, I’m so pleased with it. It took some time to build even with the two of us doing it, but it’s a great height for Ariella and I’m sure she will enjoy it for years to come. If you are still looking for ideas for your toddler at Christmas please check out The ultimate Montessori gift guide on Fridabemighty.

Wednesday I thought we had Hydrotherapy in the madness of all the letter’s I receive I had just auto pilot entered a lump of dates into my calendar on my phone. We didn’t have it, which I realised when we got there and were told it wasn’t on today. But never mind, the trip out settled Ariella and when we got home she had a major nap. She had been really unhappy all day, it was only during the evening that I noticed she has some more teeth coming. Finally the gaps between the front and back teeth are starting to fill out, but it explained why she was grumpy and why she had started to expect her milk and bottle again.

We don’t have any of the bottles in the kitchen anymore, so we haven’t given in at all with this. I’m sure once those teeth are through she will be back to her normal self. In the afternoon we baked some mince pies! I didn’t make my own pastry, I could say this was because it’s quicker and yes it definitely is in my view. But it’s mostly because every time I make my own pastry it looks like some of rerun of the days where I used to make play doh food (or my mum’s home-made version of it). I loved doing this with Ariella, it really did make us feel very festive and set the mood for the rest of the holidays. Little hands can really help with cookie cutters, when she got bored she could go off while I finished up. One thing she made sure of was that she got a taste straight after they came out the oven!

: What you need

: Little fingers can help make the tops

: Filling with cranberry mince meat

: Don’t they look pretty?

: Clearly a winner

: Yum!

Today we had Physiotherapy as expected! It went really well, Ariella is making progress and progress is always good! We have a few things to concentrate on, lots of work with standing and sitting. At the moment Ariella isn’t able to reliably get back down from standing, so we will work on getting in and out of this position with her and hopefully by our next appointment things will have progressed again. Our physiotherapist is going to be running a few of the Hydrotherapy session so it will be good fun to see her more regularly!

Tomorrow I have not one single thing in the calendar booked in. Blissful!

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Twenty Months – “Walking in a winter wonderland…”

Posted on 13th December 2016

Twenty months old, twenty. I guess we stop counting in months soon? Maybe when they reach two? To say they are only one for such a long time in which so much changes, seems silly so I understand why things still count in months. I guess if I was looking at clothes, they all seem to stop counting in months at two. Two it is then.

Sleigh Bells Ringing, Just hear those sleigh bells
ringing and jing ting tingaling too
Come on its lovely weather for
a sleigh ride together with you – Neil Diamond

We put the Christmas tree up this week, I wasn’t going to I know but looking at it every day sat out in the cold looking sorry for itself all wrapped up. Everyone else seemed to be putting their’s up and it only has to survive a couple of days without me topping up the water. Worst case scenario? The husband has to take it outside and saw an inch or two off the bottom again. Because I’m not doing it, having done it by myself while I was feeling all high and mighty during the start of the week I’ve decided that using a saw while simple involves quite a lot of physical effort and it’s definitely not for me! I did it though and I dragged it’s sorry self all the way up into the living room. Put it in it’s stand, unwrapped it, threaded all the lights myself and then decorated it. Where was little Ariella during this? She was napping, pretty good use of time in my view. My back does not agree but that’s an ongoing debate between me and it.

Taking a little rest while admiring the various hours of hard work

If you don’t have a Christmas tree stand for your real tree yet I really do recommend you spend a little more than you might normally and buy a Krinner. You can put the tree up by yourself as it has a little foot pedal and a great big water storage area.

In other news, we’ve ditched the bottle (hooray)! Ariella has slept through the whole night for quite a while but when we tried to remove the bed time bottle she was waking up in the middle of the night for milk. She definitely wasn’t waking due to hunger at this age and she didn’t really want the milk after all she wouldn’t drink it in a beaker cup. We decided to just go cold turkey, we explained to her that she was a big girl now and big girls don’t drink milk in a bottle. The first night was predictably dramatic, she had full blown tantrums, threw her arms around, threw her head back, screamed, cried, could not be comforted. We kept going in to reassure her and eventually she wore herself out when her efforts did not bring us running to her room with bottle in hand.

The second night, it was like a switch had flicked and she no longer woke for milk. Just a little whimper then soothed herself back to sleep. Third night in she didn’t wake at all, I did go have to go in and put the blankets over her again as she really loves to move around at night. But other than that she was totally asleep, I had no idea we would only be in for one night of tantrums. It feels really too good to be true!

We had our first hydrotherapy session on Wednesday and I had no idea what to expect, although Ariella did attend swimming lessons for many months I had never taken her myself. I also wasn’t sure exactly how hydrotherapy would be different to normal swimming, but from what I can tell the pool is warmer but so far most of the swimming exercises are on par with the likes of Waterbabies. Naturally the amount of children attending is a much smaller group, just three but this gave the two therapists plenty of one to one time to help out with the exercises. Ariella really enjoyed herself and spent most of the time laughing, It reminded me to book up some regular swim classes again as she really does enjoy the water (we stopped when we moved). One big difference as I said was the temperature which is comparable to being in a hot tub, so rather warm! Ariella has never liked a cold pool so this was perfect for her, for me I can’t say It bothered me too much but I do tend to have quite a good tolerance for warm water.

At our last physiotherapist session Ariella was given some orthopaedic footwear (Piedro) to aid her recently diagnosed hyper mobility, hyper mobility is in basic terms over flexible joints. We decided this week to put them on her routinely, so she now wears them from waking until bed time and this has really improved her walking hugely. I’ll definitely be looking at the Piedro brand for her next pair of shoes, they also do sandals so I’ll look to add those to our holiday list. The pricing of the footwear is greatly inflated but the extra support really helps gain confidence in the basic structure of the foot. Even when we take the boots off now she seems much more stable, so I’m sure the specifically designed footwear is having a large impact.

This week has been a real run up to festivities for us, we had plans to attend a glitzy red carpet affair on the weekend and then continued that with a long weekend spa break. Both were exceptionally well timed, fun, relaxing and I think Ariella enjoyed spending a few days with her grandparents who offered up their babysitting service for the red carpet affair before heading into the Cotswolds. We greeted them at the door with a vomit soaked toddler, vomit covered mum and the external pieces of the car seat in hand. Everything was sponged down or washed, just in time for her second go hours later at which point we decided she was either car sick or unwell. As days past it was clear she had some kind of vomit bug given the car seat was covered once more (and currently sitting in the washing machine for a good deep clean).

Red carpet evening, child free!

Next in line was Calcot Manor & Spa in the Cotswolds, one of our favourite places to relax. They have an onsite creche which you can use included in the room rate when staying in the family rooms alongside the baby listening services. The Creche is such good fun, the staff are always very reassuring and all lovely. As well as this they have the most awesome spa with a blissful outdoor hot tub and top of the line treatments. We used to visit often before children and it’s remained consistently excellent throughout the years with a unique balance between catering for the couple market and also families. This is such difficult line to walk on! The food is top quality, the spa excellent, the family rooms lack nothing – they are as comfortable and accommodating as our own home. Perfect!

On this occasion we decided to go for a family suite as Ariella tends to get disturbed now when we come in and out of rooms. It’s not always an option but she did sleep a full 12 hours as normal here, the rooms are beautiful whether you have older children or younger. They are accommodated with tv’s, games, books and also the younger children have all the extras you might usually need to bring (steriliser, washing up liquid, nappy bin).

The first evening we dine with Ariella at the children’s high tea then once she was asleep enjoyed some superb cocktails in the beautiful decorated lounge area with some of our close friends, with roaring fires and Christmas trees scattered throughout it was very relaxing. Just what we needed to unwind and prepare for the rest of our stay (as well as the treatments had scheduled at the spa). The following day we made use of the creche, dropped Ariella off and headed to the spa where we enjoyed spectacular massages – I opted for my usual hot stone but a much longer duration this time. We managed to change or creche booking to a little earlier so that we could enjoy the spa and the hot tub before our treatments, as we weren’t sure if we wanted to take Ariella swimming. The swimming times for children is quite a narrow window but as it turned out, Ariella wasn’t feeling very well anyway.

Yummy lunch in the conservatory restaurant

The following evening we had a baby sitter booked in, the creche at Calcot offer baby sitting in the evenings which is really a treat. So that left us free to dine with more friends in the fine dining Conservatory, exceptional food and wine is on offer. It was so great to have a huge amount of time to ourselves, child free and I feel very much ready for Christmas now!

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Weekly Update – 28 Days until Christmas

Posted on 27th November 2016

Can you feel Christmas in the air? I’m a huge festive fiend and I adore everything Christmas related, the markets, the mulled wine, listening to Christmas music, the warm cosy feeling that this time of year brings. We’ve had some lovely exciting activities and interesting things going on this week, I’ll start by talking about our London trip. I have a brilliant bunch of mothers who all found solace in each other, sharing the same due date month. From pregnancy to present, all across the United Kingdom they have been there during the early morning and late night feeds, the strange nappies, the illnesses, the good and the bad. Occasionally those local to each other meet up, this week we did just that and it was brilliant to see some of them and their lovely children. Children whom I have watched blossom from tiny little dots to big smiling, stomping, questioning beings.

London felt very festive, a short walk down the river we passed lots of Christmas markets and stalls. It was fitting that there was a wintery chill in the air, but the sun had come out and Ariella even got to experience her very first ~~real life~~ rainbow.

Then the week had a little blimp, you can read about me losing access to my phone here. But I like to think that things tend to balance themselves out again, while I was missing in action we received a letter. A letter that I’ve been waiting to fall through our letter box for a while. We have a date for Ariella’s MRI scan! It’s the first week of January 2017 and it works perfectly for us, it doesn’t clash with our festive plans and things we have booked in already. It’s really reassuring to have a date, I think not having a date was for me quite challenging I’m not the most relaxed when it comes to the unknown, now I know that in a month and a half we will hopefully have the scan done with. I’m going to try and get a copy of the results so I can analyse them myself as we won’t see neurology to discuss the results until February 2017. As odd as this may sound, I did this with my own MRI scan on my spine and could see the various issues which I found reassuring when discussing them after with my consultant.

Other than that there is Christmas and Christmas shopping, now that most of the shopping is done online it’s like Cardboard city in our home. Your biggest challenge is coming up with creative new tetris style solutions to fit the cardboard the best into your disposal bin! I’ve been practically hosting my own depot, but we have hit the list down greatly. Efficiency is key in our lives!

The weekend saw a trip to check out the Godalming Christmas Festival, naturally we had not been before and did not know quite what to expect. It was awesome, mulled wine, great wares, good street food, all the lights were switched on after a big count down. Very welcome, what a great way to celebrate having less than a month until Christmas. Jamie went for a hog roast bap accompanied by crackling and apple sauce, mulled wine and a nutella/cream crepe. I decided to try some satay prawn skewers, sea food paella and mulled wine. Yum yum, well done Godalming! The stalls had plenty of things to buy for Christmas presents, yourself, your home. There were donkeys rides for the children, carols, lots of the restaurants had come out to make their food on the street, local companies all advertising their wares. It was truly the best market I’ve been to in Surrey so far. To keep Ariella sweet we took her for a quick trip to the park before heading around the stalls.

We decided to visit twice, once during lunch which was perfect as the crowds weren’t as busy. Then we popped back for the light switch on in the afternoon, which by then it was difficult to navigate around, many of the stalls selling homewares had sold out of lots of items and I would have preferred to use the Tula carrier if this was our only visit.

It was very festive but crowded, we watched the count down and the light switch on but then left once the bands started. Ariella was quite tired, so I think while it was lovely to see the lights I would probably just go for the day next time.

During the break between we had a surprise delivery, I had ordered a starry sky decal with 1000 individual sticky dot stars combined with a comet, three shooting stars and a moon. I bought it from an Etsy store called Stella Murals which is based in New Zealand (hence not knowing when it was going to arrive). The designs are truly exceptional, beautiful pieces of artwork and so realistic. I hadn’t considered how long it would take to stick 1000 dots randomly, in star like patterns onto the ceiling of Ariella’s bedroom. It took quite some time as the dots varied from reasonably big to tiny, we took it in shifts between us which worked well. Share the burden!

I’d love to have got a picture of it once done but I can’t seem to get one to show up on my phone, but it looks exactly like the pictures on the advert with some different placement naturally.

I’m obsessed with space, I hope that Ariella enjoys all the effort the night we installed them she fell asleep immediately. That’s a good sign!

Being Mum Lifestyle Parenting Weekly Update

Weekly Update – Is Ariella going to do some walking? “No” oh! Okay then

Posted on 20th November 2016

I had such high hopes for this week, we had lots of lovely things planned starting with a music class, classical music performance to watch and finally a Christmas market/fair. Then on Monday morning I woke up with Ariella’s cold and I knew then that the week was going to be challenging. I understand that children pass germs and viruses around, they don’t really understand the concept of breeding germs but my immune system has taken such a battering since becoming a parent. Somehow I managed to survive the first year without a single cold, but now Ariella touches everything and mixes with other children it’s just a matter of time until the next and the next.

Due to my inability to function as a person we started our Monday off pretty quietly, it’s not too long before a toddler realises that they’ve been indoors all day so the easy morning can only last so long. We worked through as many activities as I could encourage her to be interested in, she played with her Teddy. She has learnt to share her stacking cups and pretend they are cups of tea along with a big slurping sound. It was lovely to see such great pretend play.

Cup of tea Bear?

I also really wanted her to start practicing more with her cubes on the spindle as this activity helps children thread later on and works on fine motor skills. It’s something she until this week couldn’t quite do fully but she mastered it!

Mastering blocks on a wooden spindle, well done Ariella!

Never underestimate the fact that parents do not get to recover from their illnesses, I think every illness I’ve had since Ariella has taken me double the time it used to recover from. After realising this yesterday I’ve decided it’s because life just continues as normal when you are unwell. I’m not medically trained, just an observation but I guess if you are not resting then it would make sense?

When I’m not feeling 100% it’s hard to muster the energy to do new interesting activities, we spent a lot of time at the park this week which is my go to. Ariella absolutely loves the swings though so I don’t think she minds! Being in a totally lazy mood I also didn’t feel like cooking, so lunch on Tuesday was a quick trip to a local sandwich shop Pegs Parlour on Godalming high street. We hadn’t ordered from there before but It was delicious and I highly recommend you pop in for a visit. I don’t eat meat so sometimes sandwich choices can be quite limited, the kind member of staff recommended the goats cheese and caramelised onion filling for me. He made one up and a cheese sandwich for Ariella, both to takeaway and off we went. We will definitely be going back!

Sadly we didn’t make it to the music class which is our weekly class in the mornings, we could have gone but I really didn’t want to infect everyone else. I was in full cold mode, spending most of my time running around with a bunch of tissues in my pocket and in no real state to want to sit in a room trying not to cough or sneeze. Am I the only one who thinks this?

To make up for my completely lack of effort in the food department at lunch I felt I should try something new for dinner so I did whip up a storm using a new sweet and sour recipe recommended from one of my friends months ago. It went down a treat, I was surprised how little sugar you can use when making it yourself. Normally we don’t have sugar in our sauces which is why I have to make everything from scratch all the time.

What’s new?

Communication

We had a couple of new things happen this week, Ariella’s vocabulary is increasing day by day. She can now say “Cow” and make the noise to go with Moo. Also she likes to say “Ready, Steady, Go!” all together and my favourite “No” pronounced Noaw. Learning to say no has certainly made things interesting, not because she uses it irrationally – no in fact she doesn’t say it that often. But because now It’s very clear what she wants and does not want, we ask Ariella a lot of questions. “Do you want to do this? Do you want to do that? Do you want to get out the bath?” now she understands to express her view sometimes respecting it can be challenging. We try though!

We have also had lots of fun with our lighting, Ariella can say all the colours and so far seems to really love “purpurl” ~~purple~~, we let her shout out the colours and change the lamps to suit. It’s easily done with the Phillips Hue lighting system and can be easily be controlled from the luxury of our mobile phones, or by just asking Siri on our watches.

Physical and Motor Development

Gross mobility has come along slowly too, although she doesn’t seem to be too interested in walking much she can now get down herself when climbing the sofa. This is great, no more worrying that she’s going to fall off or frustration from her because she can get up but cannot get down again. Next week I’ll try introducing the stairs more again, she does have access to a staircase 24/7 while at home. We have a neat little one which has walls on each side so it’s rather safe to learn on (the others are gated!), she doesn’t show much interest in it at present though.

I almost forgot – Ariella learnt to dance! On demand.

I’ve spent all week trying to get her to stack a tower of blocks working on fine motor, will she? No. She loves knocking them down though, I think that’s just how she likes to be. She can stack a single block if in the mood and she enjoys the spindle blocks which helping a lot. Ariella also has been practicing with her little activity cube from Asda, dropping balls down the track and has shown some interest in positioning the cars on her ELC Click Clack Track. It’s been quite difficult to take her interest away from her iPad this week, I don’t know if using an iPad counts as fine motor? I guess it does, she’s become quite good at manipulating the objects. Check out the little video below.

Sensory and Cognitive Development

Ariella has really come on a long way since her review in this area, she understands now that objects don’t just disappear if she cannot see them. She likes to hide her sticky dots for her bath under the bathroom rug and knows when I hide her iPad that it’s not gone (mean mummy!)

This week she learnt about different shapes and their names, she can even say certain ones and she’s able to complete the shape puzzles used in the review. We are trying to move towards using a shape sorter but I think once fine motor improves she will be mastering the sorter in no time.

Here’s a few pictures of our week, I shan’t bore you with a blow-by-blow account all you need to know if it’s been raining a lot and pretty cold here in England. However we have had lots of festive fun, with the cold season starting the various fairs and markets are kicking off. We intend to end our week on a high with a trip to a Christmas Market this afternoon!

Autumnal park fun!

Goats cheese and caramelised onion sandwich from Pegs Parlour in Godalming

It arrived! Polarn O. Pyret all in one suit!

: Devotion, pushing the swing in a rainstorm

: Testing out the new suit!

The first minced pie of the season

Practicing standing ready for a trip outside.

Trip to check out the Guildford Cathedral Christmas Market

Lunch at Zizi’s in Richmond, London. Lovely children menu, went down well!

At the dentist, waiting for a long time (two hygienist appointments back to back). She did very well!

The Good the Bad and the Ugly

The whole week so far has been a bit of a silly flop, we couldn’t go to the music class as I haven’t been well. Our trip to the park ended up with me soaked to the bone in a deserted playground pushing Ariella on a swing in a rainstorm, with a cold and no coat (silly me!). Once I was well enough Thursday we missed the classical music children’s show because there was nowhere to park, on Friday we went to a local Christmas Fair which was advertised as a big market in Guildford. The most amusing part of Friday was trying to find the place with one of my lovely mummy friends and her son, we certainly worked off the chocolate cake we had once there but the market turned out to be more of a crafting fair.

To top it all off a trip to the dentist, which actually was quite amusing for Ariella at least. I have my fingers crossed that today will be better, we are off shortly to another Christmas Market this afternoon, if I don’t get some mulled wine this time I’m going to write the week off entirely.

On the plus side, Ariella got a new hat, she visited the park A LOT, her new all in one came so things aren’t as difficult outside in the rain without her walking, Ariella isn’t unwell ~~thank goodness~~ and I’m starting to feel better finally.

All in a days ~~lifetimes~~ work eh? I did get a minced pie though, just saying.