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 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 | Misc
What do you buy a six month old for Christmas? If someone asked them what you actually wanted for Christmas, it would probably be to FINALLY get that dummy in your own mouth, or your foot!
Having a June baby is great as you can split the wants and needs in six monthly intervals! So Christmas 2016, RLT will be six months and one week old, therefore we’re looking at what he needs/would like aged 6-12 months, until his birthday!
Here are a few things that we’ve put on his list!
- Fisher Price Dance and Move Beatbo – Ok this one may be for me as much as RLT. I think it is the greatest toy on the market! We love the Beatbo boogie, as do my two year old nephew and five year old niece!
- Fisher Price Laugh and Learn smart stages chair – this one probably could have waited until his birthday, as it is 12 months plus, but it was on the 3 for 2 offer at Argos, so couldn’t resist!
- Fisher Price Laugh and Learn Smart Stages Car – This should keep him going for a while as it is suitable from 6 months until 18th months with the various stages. My two year old nephew has already had a go and he is a big fan too! So it even keeps the visitors happy!
- Fisher Price Rockin’ Tunes Giraffe – this just looked cute and most of RLT’s toys are the Fisher Price rainforest animals, so decided to keep it going!
- SmartTrike – As he will be 10 months old as the better weather as here, a smart trike was the ideal choice!
Extra things I’ve managed to get him that weren’t even on the list!
- Fisher Price Musical Lion Baby Walker – I managed to get this for £17.50, so it is a nice little extra present!
- Amazon pampers monthly subscription – cheers mum!
Something that we wanted to get #rlt, which we can’t find anywhere is an Elmo toy! He loves watching Elmo, as do his cousins and I bought them rock n roll elmo’s etc when they were young, but unfortunately I can’t find anything on sale! So he’s going to have to make do with the Elmo he already has from H&M.

RLT and his beloved Elmo from h&m
by iamcrabstix | Nov 26, 2016 | rlt
I started to think that if RLT looked through images of his childhood, that there would be very few of us together. Therefore, I have had to request that my OH capture some moments when we’re together.
Looking after a baby on your own for most of the day means that you get a phone gallery full of selfies with the baby or pictures of other people and the baby!

As you can see, our selfie attempts certainly are interesting, but I want the lovely candid shots capturing the moments I want to remember, not the moments where once again poor babs has me sticking a phone in his face!
I mentioned this to my other half as I was getting pictures printed through Boots Photo Service (thanks to their fab discount vouchers through the Boots Parenting Club and did not have one of me and RLT but thousands of him with everyone else!
My other half has an eye for composition, he is a brilliant photographer thanks to his training as a film-maker, but these skills sadly are under-utilised. He always tells me that it is important to capture the light in the subjects’ eyes, which apparently is something I constantly fail to do!

Family selfie attempt – oh dear. More work needed there!
Finally, on week 22 of RLT being in the world, my request for a pic to be taken of me and babs was met with a positive response and being the great photographer my other half is, got something that I was extremely happy with. I hope it is the first of many moments captured of me and my little man. OK, my roots are terrible… so it has been changed to black and white! But looking back now RLT will know I was there when he was a baby, rather than looking at these pics of him with everyone else and thinking he was raised by a tribe!

RLT and me!
by iamcrabstix | Nov 5, 2016 | general parenting
I literally couldn’t describe how I felt after I gave birth. The adrenaline and tiredness was all too much. So when my sister-in-law asked me how I felt, I simply took a few photographs.
At the time I couldn’t bear anyone to look at them, but now almost five months on, I think it is hilarious… so here we go!

This is how I felt just as they were weighing RLT and doing his checks.

I think this was a realisation that ‘wow, i’m a parent now…’