by iamcrabstix | Jan 1, 2017 | general parenting
We are not even 12 hours in to 2017 and I have woken up with the most awful sense of dread!
It is the 1st January, which means it is exactly two months until I leave RLT to return to work. Instead of being grateful for this extended time ( I had originally planned to go back on 4th Jan) I am driving myself insane with the thought of leaving the little man to return to full time employment.
For those of you who have read other posts, you’ll be familiar with my ongoing battle with anxiety and my need to have something to worry about. This one has crept up on me, but it’s really come to a head in the past two weeks. Reason for this being my dad has given me money to allow me to stay off longer (we did save for my maternity but we spent almost 30k in 2016 due to our house deposit, buying/selling legal fees and getting the house modernised so this massively impacted on how long i could pay my half of the mortgage and bills while I have been off) this is a massively generous thing for him to do but unfortunately he didnt realise I had to give work 8 weeks notice of changes and it is past that deadline.
Now I’m in a massive sulk and feel like I’m going to be missing out on so much, therefore I feel that rather than writing some 2017 blogging goals, I need to have some resolutions that I focus on instead of negative thoughts.
Here it goes:
- Make every day count – enjoy the time I have off with RLT, do as many groups as possible and enjoy the time we have and the milestones he will achieve between now and eight and a half months.
- Be grateful that work have been so flexible and allowed me to have a three day weekend to spend with RLT.
- Be thankful that RLT does not have to go in to childcare and that we have a great support system around us where we know he will be safe, happy and interacting while we are at work.
- Appreciate how hard his dad works and that he will change his working pattern (flexible working request pending) so that RLT has four consecutive days with his parents, which is twice as many as most kids whose parents have full time jobs.
- Remember that we are working to give him a life of experiencing new things and new cultures. This will be useful to him in years to come and help him develop as a person.
Does anyone who has gone back to work already have any advice they would be willing to share on how to cope with this transition? It would be much appreciated!
by iamcrabstix | Dec 29, 2016 | general parenting, rlt
So, RLT’s first Christmas has been and gone! As usual I got massively anxious about everything, such as having people dig at my parenting methods, RLT getting overwhelmed and out of his routine, the state of the house and the cat feeling left out. Turns out, it wasn’t all that bad (with exception of the state of the house, that got pretty bad).
RLT has been sleeping soooo much better for the past three nights – it is a Christmas miracle! Last night (28th), he didn’t wake once between 7.30pm and 7am. This has never happened before in his 27 weeks and 5 days on this earth!
He has been so brilliant over the Christmas holidays, he is so nosey, he has skipped a few naps, but I’ve tried to be quite strict in putting him down at 10am and 2pm to try and keep some kind of routine for him. I’ve also tried to keep his meal times as normal as possible too. Even as an overtired baby, especially on 27th when we went to Mark’s mum’s for the afternoon, he didn’t create he simply just rubbed his eyes alot. He definitely has a brilliant temprement (although, I have seen a different side to this when he has eaten all of his chocolate pudding).
Christmas Eve was lovely spend as a family, we popped round my Mum’s around lunchtime as she was doing the annual making mince pies for Santa with the kids. We got the table set early and Mark prepped the birds for Christmas Day (as in following Jamie Oliver’s recipes, not giving them a team talk). We couldn’t find anything we wanted to watch on TV so after browsing Netflix for an hour as we do most days, we settled on some film about a blended family with Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, it was alright – I cried probably more than I should have at a comedy film! We got RLT’s presents prepped, stocked with batteries and ready to go for Christmas morning. Christmas tradition dictates that you have to have new pyjamas for Christmas Eve, so we all looked very festive (my Home Alone ones are from the men’s section of Tesco, don’t tell anyone). RLT is sporting my ‘MERRY CHRISTMAS YOU FILTHY ANIMALS’ hat which I bought from Urban Outfitters in New York, last Christmas.
Christmas Eve
On Christmas morning, the house seemed freezing, so when RLT woke at about 6:45, I brought him a bottle upstairs and we all snuggled in our bed until the heating had kicked in at about 8am! I went downstairs to take a video of RLT’s face when he saw his presents, in true RLT style, he wasn’t phased! But he’s six months old, we’ll let him off with that! As i’m on maternity leave, Mark and I decided not to buy each other gifts, he did however, surprise me with a night away at Rudding Park on 7th January, which was in a card from RLT. So now I feel terrible for not getting him anything!
Back to RLT – most of his gifts seemed to be made of yellow plastic, which made us laugh. As grandparents came over, the living room was getting packed with the stuff, so we decided to designate the conservatory as his playroom, however, we haven’t quite worked out how this will work over the winter months as it is freezing with that door open!
Christmas Haul
As RLT’s toys are being stored in the conservatory at the moment, foam mats seem to be a good shout on how to keep the cold out – the floor is ceramic tiles and freezing! We have an electric heater in there, but are very conscious of the electricity bill from having it on all of the time.
We even managed a night out on Boxing Day, was nice to get out. Probably shouldn’t have drank so much in such a short space of time, but I thought we may regret not going as we haven’t really been out as a couple since September 2015! Was nice to see friends too.
Here is our Christmas in pics.
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by iamcrabstix | Dec 22, 2016 | general parenting
At six months old, RLT has done three terms of baby yoga! Not bad, ey? Not your every day baby activity, so here is our review!
Firstly, baby yoga classes in the UK, are nothing like the extreme videos that you may have been of a woman in Egypt throwing babies around! OMG, I couldn’t believe it when I watched the video – how on earth can parents let this woman do this to their children? The poor babies are crying their eyes out too! The video is below, but watch with your hands over your eyes if you are a parent!
https://youtu.be/T7ihdsjIqhI
So the baby yoga we attended was (thankfully) nothing like the above! Baby yoga in the UK, according to Mamababybliss ‘builds on your baby’s physical and mental developmental milestones and will aid your baby’s brain development and your baby’s sense of co-ordination, balance and sensory and motor skills.’
I didn’t particularly fancy the baby massage course, as I had already had some experience of this from the health visitor and RLT didn’t seem to be a fan, so we opted for the next class, which was baby yoga – ran by the Mamababybliss practitioner in our area, Angela.
The sessions consist of gentle stretches and breathing exercises for mum to ease you into the sessions and then baby’s turn! The five week programmes are geared around babies from newborn stages to crawling, as there are three different stages. Newborn stage is mostly matt based, with some jumping! The songs that accompany the moves are relatively well known such as ‘Daisy, Daisy’ and ‘The Grand Old Duke of York’ as well as some others I’d never heard of such as Jumping Bean and Mr Sun (which my niece reliably informed me is on Barney the Dinosaur’ durrr).
RLT at the end of his second term of baby yoga
Angela was extremely knowledgeable, welcoming and great with the babies. If your baby was upset, needed feeding etc nothing was a problem. Most of the mums in the class were an already formed friendship group, who had already studied it once before, so my stupid thoughts of making new friends were soon out of the window. When the exercises are complete there is playtime where drinks and snacks for mums are on offer, to give everyone time to talk and the babies to play. As my class had an already formed friendship group, I felt a little bit out of place at the end, so just chatted to Angela or the one other lady who didn’t know the rest of the group. I don’t think the other lady minded the lack of chat as much as I did, I just felt very much like an outsider.
When the term ended and it was time to move up a class, I opted to do the first class again – for two reasons really, one being I knew some mums who would be doing the class so it would be more of an enjoyable experience for me and two, the next session would require the babies to be sitting up a bit more and as RLT bypassed massage he started early, so wasn’t ready for this! He started baby yoga when he was about 12 weeks old, when I think they’re usually a bit older, so at 17 weeks, he wasn’t strong enough to be sitting all of the time in the next class.
We did another five weeks, which I felt a lot more comfortable with as there were two other mums I knew. As RLT had five weeks experience on the babies, it was easy to see how much stronger he was as a consequence – as many of the babies were older than him too, this was interesting to see the difference the yoga had made to his movement. As soon as we put the babies on their feet, he knew it was time for jumping bean (you gently bounce your babies on their feet while singing a song about them being a jumping bean). It was very funny, but also great that he had such a good recollection – but by god my arms hurt by the end of it if there was a full class.
RLT at the end of term three of baby yoga
One of the mums I knew didn’t join us at the advanced class as she was going back to work, but the next stage taught great new movements based on the babies being stronger and being able to sit up a little bit more. Some of the songs and moves were the same but there were developments on how the babies moved and responded – they werent laid on the yoga mats this time, they were sat up, moving around on us, being upside down and still being jumping beans of course! It is lovely to see the babies recognise the songs and know what is coming next. There was a lot of ball and mirror work too in this stage.
I don’t think the PHD stage is available in our area yet, but I think I will definitely do the advanced course again rather than not do it at all. I would definitely recommend baby yoga to anyone with a baby. I was so glad to have found it as there is very little in my area other than what they offer at the Children’s Centres and I don’t find them suitable to my needs most of the time.
by iamcrabstix | Dec 15, 2016 | general parenting
Note to self – to me six months ago, knowing what I know now.
I’ve decided to write a post to myself six months ago, to get down the things I’ve learned and to encapsulate what a journey the past six months have been!
Hi Crabstix
So your little boy is due about now, these are the things you will never believe about the next six months:
- You will be happier than you have ever been and laugh more than you have ever laughed.
- You won’t be as anxious, as you are not at work.
- To date, you have not had notice of redundancy, which you feared.
- You appear to still have a job to go back to.
- You will ask for more time off as your maternity leave has gone too fast despite your concern about changing your job, because baby is more important.
- You will be as bad at housework as you’ve ever been.
- The cat hasn’t moved out.
- The baby is happy and healthy.
- He is an incredibly happy, smiley baby.
- You will not be phased by the magnitude of the task of parenting.
- Mark will continue to breathe loudly in your ear when trying to sleep.
- You are actually surviving on maternity pay.
- You actually like to shop in next for baby clothes.
- You like your baby to be in rompersuits – he may start looking like George Dawes soon if you don’t let him wear clothes.
- You will continually get annoyed at little comments people make and them trying to fix the agenda – just ignore them and enjoy maternity leave.
- You won’t make a batch of mum friends and meet up in Starbucks for chats.
- Mark will get offered a job opportunity, which will make work/life balance that little bit harder.
- You will have spent almost 30 grand on house and baby within that time (GULP).
- You will go out with sick on your top because you don’t even know it is there.
- You will continue to hate the smell of bananas and popcorn, despite no longer being pregnant.
- Don’t got to B&Q on bank holiday weekend in August – some idiot will crash in to your car and you’ll be in agony with your back and shoulder – but don’t panic, baby is not hurt but at that point you will know what is like to be a worried parent.
- You need to get a plumber in before you get new carpets as the idiots you’ve bought the house of have neglected to tell you that the radiators in the kitchen or dining room don’t work due to a pipe issue which will involve a lot of floor board ripping up and holes in walls – you don’t want to find this out the week before Christmas with a six month old baby and 10 people to feed on Christmas Day.
by iamcrabstix | Dec 14, 2016 | general parenting
Google search history when you have a newborn
I thought I’d have a look through my google search history to remind myself of exactly how clueless I have been and how much I have resorted to google’s help in the first few months! It has also been a great memory aid for things I’ve forgotten! I googled everything in the first week, it seems!
Month One (first 13 days of RLT’s life!)
- Can you see baby moving when in labour
- Newborn thinks they’re choking
- Newborn gagging on mucus
- Bit of blood in nappy 2 days old
- How to know when to stop breastfeeding session
- Sleeping on side 3 days old
- Breastfeeding when can i give dummy
- 4 days old hasn’t pooped in 24 hours
- britax parasol
- can newborns get chickenpox
Month Two
- baby massage
- mamababybliss
- new dad gifts
- baby development tummy time
- UKpaedos (apparently you can check what has made the news in your area, so I did)
- baby development day 21
- How much tummy time at three weeks
- are pheromone plugins bad for babies
- local hairdressers
- baby constipation
- bedside cots
- baby development 30 days
- miss polly had a dolly lyrics
- what is a poke stop pokemon go
- kevin mccallister
- avent bottles
- what does it mean when a cat licks your hand
- baby scared in sleep falling
- stop flies in conservatory
- lifecake
by iamcrabstix | Dec 8, 2016 | general parenting, rlt
Thank you to the second best Nicola I know 🙂 for the tag (she’s at Mummy to Dex, I recommend you have a look at the supermum she is, mixing up a storm in the kitchen with this baby led weaning malarky).
Reading her post this morning got me sooooo Christmassy that I went out and bought Winter Spice Ribena!
We don’t have our tree up yet, but I have a garage full of reindeers made from logs if anyone wants one? A good deed went wrong… It deserves its own post when I can laugh about it! Here is a work in progress pic of the little horrors!
- What’s your favourite Christmas movie? Home Alone – obvs
- Have you ever had a White Christmas? Yeah, when I was a bit younger. It gets pretty cold up here in the North East, a white Christmas is not uncommon. We’ve had snow already this year, snow lie!
- Where do you usually spend your holiday? There is no ‘usually’! This will be the first year as a family! Last year Mark and I avoided Christmas and went to New York until 27th Dec. We walked around Central Park on Christmas Day morning and went to a Brazilian bbq for lunch! The year before that we didn’t spend together as it was going to be my last Christmas in my family home, as my parents were selling up, as they decided to separate after 34 years! So was quite sad, as was last year for personal reasons. So looking forward to smiling this year!
- What is your favourite Christmas song? Julian Casblancas (from The Strokes) I wish it was Christmas today or Dominic the Donkey, no idea who that is by.
- Do you open any presents on Christmas Eve? Yeah, new jarmas. Although, I’m not sure if I’ve told Mark about this tradition, must remember to!
- Can you name all of Santa’s reindeer? Yeah, Shaniqua, Donna-Marie, Donna-Sharon, Donna-Louise, Ellie-Mae and Maisie-Mae.
- What holiday traditions are you looking forward to this year? Starting our own, whatever they may be – also locking the door and spending time just the three of us. Hoping to do this on Christmas Eve.
- Is your Christmas tree real or fake? Non-existant at the moment, but will be real when we go buy it.
- What’s your all time favourite holiday treat/food/sweet? Sausage meat stuffing, but I no longer eat pigs as I’ve read alot of literature about how they are as intelligent as dogs, so I don’t eat them now. Maternity leave has given me lots of spare time…
- Be honest, do you like giving or receiving gifts better? Giving. I hate opening presents in front of people because I have a very expressive face. If I don’t like something, my face goes from resting bitch face to disgusted and there isn’t a thing I can do about it.
- What is the best Christmas present you have ever received? Money from my dad to buy RLT’s cot, wardrobe and drawers last year. Saved us a small fortune! Thanks, dad!
- What would be your dream place to visit for the holiday season? Some ski resort. I went to South Africa for Christmas in 2012 and it was just weird being in the heat (and with teetotal mormons).
- Are you a pro present wrapper or do you fail miserably? One side will be awesome and the other, usually the last one, will look dogshit.
- Most memorable holiday moment? I never have any memories of Christmas. I have gone out on Christmas Eve with my friends for 16 years (except 2012 and 2015) and pretty much ruined Christmas Day every year. We always say we’ll start early so we go home early, but this never happened. Obviously now I have a baby, I won’t be doing this anymore so will start memorable moments from now.
- What made you realise the truth about Santa? I was nine and a boy called Damien told me, he was two years older and a pig. I still remember that moment and I still hate him.
- What makes the holidays special for you? I work in education – so we have mandatory holiday… so it is special because I’ve never had to work it! waaahahaha
Again, I’m not tagging anyone because there are a few of these doing the rounds… that’s my Christmas present to anyone with a blog that I know! Merry Christmas!
Me at Google offices in NYC, Christmas 2015
