Looking back....

Year 2000 - I had just started teacher training at Edge Hill and was enjoying the freedom of living away from home. Going out drinking very often! My first "proper" boyfriend finished with me and I spent months trying getting over it.

2001 - Still at uni but after not getting on so well with hall mates, ended up living with complete strangers. Also lost my Grandad Smith :-( Finally discovered that biological washing powder was the cause of my strange itchy-ness.

2002 - Last year of uni very hard with dissertations and final teaching practice. In new student house with great group of girls who I still meet up with today. Graduated with a 2:2 in July and signed on as a supply teacher in September. Went for countless interviews and never got any of the jobs, moved back home with mum and dad which was testing.

2003 - It started with a kiss! At the Scouts ball on 3rd Jan I kissed my husnabd to be (although I didn't know it then)! We got on great and life was good. We had a brilliant year going here, there and everywhere and we were madly in love. Work was still bad, very little supply teaching available, didn't like it, got scared and depressed and started having nightmares. Was living between mum and dads and DHs mum and dads! Began to think about alternative career options.

2004 - Finally admitted that teaching was not for me and got a temping job as an admin assistant, ended up there a whole year! Much happier. Had to get over the pride thing and tell the parents though. DH and I bought a house together and moved in :-) so I moved from Blackpool to Chorley. Made new friends through DH.

2005 - Enjoyed living together and working now at new job and going to see friends.

2006 - Got promotion to Inventory Specialist and big money! woo hoo! Also got engaged, put the house up for sale, sold it, moved back in with DHs parents and booked the wedding for April 07. Moved into current house soon after and began making it our home.

2007 - Sadly lost my last remaining Grandad over New Year and was very upset he wouldn't be at the wedding. Discovered was pregnant only 8 weeks before the wedding!! Had wonderful wedding and great honeymoon (if you ignore the horrendous morning sickness). Little man was born 4 days late, on 1st December and life changed again. Really enjoyed new house especially it's location.

2008 - Enjoyed being a mummy and decided to give up work and stay at home. Met new friends through NCT classes and local children's centre and enjoyed regular meet ups. Little man started crawling at 6 months and also walked on his own at 9 months old! Lots of wonderful moments and precious memories.

2009 - Bought a caravan with our savings so we could go on more holidays. Have yet to use it to our full potential. Finally stopped breastfeeding after 22 sucessful months. Enjoyed a holiday away with new found friends and their children. More wonderful moments with little man as he continued to amaze us with his development. Found things hard from time to time and still do. Struggled for money for the first time ever. Wondered about having another baby several times and then changed my mind again straight away!! He's hoping 2010 will be more positive for me personally!!!

Snow, Mummy, Snow!!

We've had snow! It doesn't often snow very much in our part of the world (Chorley, Lancashire) but we had a cm or two yesterday and last night.

Little man is most excited, he's amazed us this week by saying "no-man" for snowman and today he was screaming and shrieking about the snow. Rather bizarrly he can't pronounce the s or the w so it comes out as "no" - see above for no-man and two or more snowmen are referred to as no-mans.

Little man had great fun walking in the snow, he loved making footprints and was amazed at looking at them. I pointed out dog footprints and bird footprints and he was equally delighted.

He was so happy, until he got very wet hands from picking up the snow and his tiny mittens are not waterproof, he got so cold and it must have hurt as he started screaming a lot. We found dry gloves (note to self to buy more) and after some distraction we set about drawing pictures in the unspolit snow with sticks.

Unfortunatly it wasn't quite good enough snow to make a "no-man" but we had good fun and little man decided that he needed to use his toy lawnmower as well and he had great fun running round with it!

Little man's vocabulary has suddenly shot up, we've had 5/6 new words every day for the last 3 days, boy, girl, dark, sharp, snow, snowman, cold, laa-laa (teletubbies), in, bag, hat (also teletubbies), great mar-mar (Great Grandma) and he is now a little parrot, he copies lots of words tonight he said cha-gar for charger but I don't think he'll remember them all!

Father Christmas is declared a "No Yarrr"

It's official, Father Christmas isn't scary. Little man met him on both Monday and Wednesday. He went with Mummy and posed for a photo each time.

He did get rather in the bad books on Monday though for leaving little man's present to almost last out of 40 children. (Little man's bad books not mine). Although this was after many a strop as little man wasn't to keen on the format of the party or Mrs Jumble who had been hired in for the event, he joined in inbetween stropping and was most upset when there was no cake to eat. This is due to his recent birthday and him confusing birthday parties and Christmas parties. I gave him my mince pie which he surprisingly woffled down and declared "yam-a-yam-a -yam!"


The first playgroup insisted that we brought out own gift for our own child. No more than £5 was the limit, I was a bit surpised but luckily found a birthday present from last week he'd hardly touched we used that. My parents are amazed that we had to provide our own present "shocking" they said. Personally I wasn't too bothered.

Last night we got out the navitiy set, little man saw baby Jesus and with his current baby fetish wanted to play with the navitiy set as if it was a dolls house. Hmmmm, cute but no. One thing I've noticed is that there's no Angel Gabriel in my navitiy set.

Testing Times

Little man's new favourite word is NO. I've stopped asking questions as I'm fed up of getting no as an answer followed by a strop when he decides that no means yes. I assume this will be familiair to many other mummies.

Little mans's new favourite pastime is wanting everything of mummy's. Mummy's food, juice, tea, pens, shoes. Now he wants Mummy ALL the time, he follows me up the stairs even if I only go for 2 seconds to get something, into the kitchen, into the bathroom. It's even worse when I'm on the toilet and he asks to be picked up??!!

He's talking all the time mostly his simple limited vocabulary mixed with babble and he's started to copy everything I say or every noise I make. He's picked up people calling me by my name at his party and randomly shouts out "Nen, nen, nen, nenny, nen" he hasn't actually called it me yet and I don't respond if he does.

We're also asking for all the above repeatedly with "pease, pease, mummy pease" after it, it the wish isn't granted he throws a strop woth tears and everything.

Tumbletots is becoming a nightmare - he's not emotionally ready for the move up into the 2-3 class but physically he is almost to advanced for it already. I spent most of todays session stopping him screaming because he wanted a blue ball and a green ball and another child had the blue one.

I have to confess that although I love him more than anythign in the world, it's not fun anymore, every situation is leading to a mini strop and I am panicking I've done something wrong, spoilt him too much, not paid him enough attention, not been strict enough, been to "grown up" with him when explaining things and more...

It's one thing nobody tells you before you have a baby, even when you're pregnant, your child will change your life in mnay obvious ways but the none obvious ones involve the psycological side of it. I am a worrier, and now I have much more to worry about. Baby baby posted about home safety recently and I share all her fears and have done silly things and panicked when my husband was home late last night and his phone got switched off.

With a baby.toddler you are constantly worrying about the right food, the discipline, their speech, the size, their happiness, money, toys, are they ill or just a bit down today etc.... the list goes one - they consume your body and maind and you're left with very little time for yourself.

I am currently unable to let him go away from me with a relative, I can't cope with it very well at all. Maybe I need to but the thought makes me want to cry, don't even mention starting nursery!!

Not got Christmas yet

The ambiguous title refers to not being ready for Christmas and also little man not having grasped the concept of what Christmas is.

So, apart from writing all the Christmas cards we've not even got the tree down from the loft. I've mainly done the cards as most of them include a thank you card for little man's 2nd birthday presents and I'm getting value for money out of royal mail by sending two cards in one envelope.

Being born in December this is little mans 3rd Christmas which seems rather bizarre. He has no idea what it going on, he keeps pointing to Christmas trees and saying "troo" but I am sure he is wondering what on earth they are doing inside and decorated as he keeps pointing at all the outside ones more than usual.

How do you explain Christmas to a just turned 2 year old? I've taken the following stance based on his recent experiences. We are using an advent calendar and he is very excited about having a daily chocolate from it. (He is also having a daily strop about not being able to open more doors or eat mummy's chocolate but that is another story). On the advent calendar there is a picture of Father Christmas, so I have told little man that when he has opened all the doors, the next morning Father Christmas will bring him some presents. Having just had lots of presents for his birthday I hope this will make sense.

We haven't told him the religious version of Christmas at the moment.

The stressful, where are you going for Christmas dinner argument arrives every year and frankly I've lost the Christmassy feeling. DH doesn't want to go to my mums as he hates her cooking and I can't blame him to be honest. HIs mum and dad can't make up their minds as they never can do.

I just want some company, I don't want to be all alone with little man. I think next year we'll run away to a holiday cottage on a lovely island where it's warm in December so we can go to the beach and play outside - wouldn't be so much better if Christmas was celebrated in June?? Imagine almost a week off in lovely sunny warm weather?!

That's it I'm off to Australia - anyone coming?!!!

ps - oh I must add we'be hung up little man's beautifully decorated stars from playgroup on the mantle piece so we have decorated a bit :-)

Ingredients for a successful 2nd birthday party!

based entirely on what happened yesterday!!

1) Invite the correct number of children for the size of house (remembering to include parents whn assesing this)

2) Hide your little ones very favourite toys and items such as ride on bikes and shopping trolleys upstairs to try to prevent jealousy attacks of "mine" (especially if your little one is not into sharing like ours is)

3) Create a distraction with a large inflatable car ball pit filled with balls and balloons, fairy lights and a child friendly flashing disco light.

4) Play music and get the children to dance in flashing lights.

5) Play games like pass the parcel instead of focusing on toys

6) Have toys in the other room/other space for those who don't like pass the parcel and dancing or want to sit on their own.

7) Have seperate food availavble for mummies & daddies - remember they will be very hungry too. We put ours in the kitchen so it was seperated from the children's food. We just did jacket potatoes with variuos fillings.

8) Have a space for nappy changing upstairs (we used little mans bedroom) and place a potty, wipes, anti bacterial spray, a bin and a step for little ones to reach to the sink/toilet in your bathroom.

Well it went unbelievably well!! We are so happy, our little man didn't have one strop, no tears and only a slight tantrum over a green train which became the favourite item once discovered. There were very few tears and it was lovely, everyone knew everyone else from playgroups etc.. so that really helped and the children were lovely. We had 9 children aged from 5 to 5 months, the majority being between 20 months and 3 years.

We got the inflatable ball pit from Tesco for £5 (bargain!) - the balls to go in it cost £10 for 200, but it was worth it for the entertainment value and it really helped take the emphasis of little mans toys. The other children did discover them but he coped with it and was sad when they went, he asked for more "miiiss" and made cuddling motions with his arms!

He's a little 2 year old superstar!

We had another party in the evening, mainly for adults but some older children came (10, 8, 6 and 4), they still loved the ball pool and we switched on Wii and they played Wii sports happily whilst we all chatted in the other room.

Little man spent lots of time kissing and cuddling the 4 year old girl in ball pit!!!

Almost almost 2!

I've been absent from blogging for a while. I've been busy being a mummy and a wife, not a very happy one but the work never stops and you have to keep going. Rather than focus what is not so good let us focus on the soon to be events of the following week.

Little man turns 2 on Tuesday!!!! Argh!! It's very scary, maybe because most people say "oh no terrible twos" personally we started these at around 18 months, they do seem to have reached a peak recently (I really hope). I don't now why it's scary, maybe how quickly he has developed recently is the scary thing. He has started talking all the time, his vocabulary has expanded slightly and the amount of babble is much reduced. He can now name the entire family of Peppa Pig. Although Peppa is pronounced bebba, am I very impressed at his ability to say "George".

We're taking little man to the Sealife centre for a birthday treat, then grandparents are coming round. On Saturday we're having a little party at our house with a few playgroup friends. I am very nervous about the party.

I'm having my hair done tomorrow - a nice indulgent treat for me whilst DH has the week off, we have little mans development check up on Thursday and more Tumble tots on Friday.

I have 2 cakes to make and lots of presents to wrap up and the house needs de-cluttering and tidying after dying from a terrible cold which has lasted for almost 9 days before.

I'm exhausted!