December 2014 Archives – Mummascribbles

Here’s my hopes and dreams for the coming year.

* I hope that Zach continues to grow into the beautiful little human that he already is. As I write this, he is in a blimmin destructive mood, stomping around my mum’s house and being a bit too cheeky for my liking. He’s always been such a laid back, sweet and loving boy, I really hope it continues. I can’t believe that 2015 will see him turning three, it just doesn’t seem possible even though it feels like he’s been here forever.

* I hope that the other half and I get a bit more time for us. I saw another blogger saying that parents should make time for ourselves and it’s so true but we don’t do it enough. There’s a couple of films coming out next year so we’ll have to get the babysitters booked up! I know the other half will want to see Bond and I can’t wait for Jurassic Park!!

* I hope that my blog continues to go the way it’s been going. I’ve absolutely loved writing this for the last six months and as I write this I have over 130 blog followers, over 300 Twitter followers and 119 facebook followers. Pretty impressive for a 6 month old blog so thank you to everyone for taking the time to follow, read and comment. I’m starting the new year with my new design and I can’t wait to write lots of new posts for you all. Of course, I’m open to suggestions for post subjects and guest posts so do get in touch if you have any!

* I hope that my new job continues to go successfully. I already have a bunch of events that I’m set to organise along with some hefty exhibitions so it’s going to be all systems go in the new year and I can’t wait!!

* I also want to make time for my sewing machine! I really wanted to do some sewing this Christmas but have so far failed! The next couple of days we have no plans so I’m determined to get my machine out!

More than anything though, I hope that my family, friends and all you lovely readers all continue to be happy and healthy. I know some people are going through tough times right now, I myself had two emotional years running, one with the death of my dad soon followed by the birth of my gorgeous boy, and the following year the death of my nan. 2014 has been the first year in a while where there hasn’t been a death in the family and long may that continue. So let’s see what 2015 brings us – hopefully lots of happy times

What do you want 2015 to bring you?

In January, we had ourselves the case of a missing cat. The only time she’d ever gone before was when she got herself locked in a shed overnight and my dad came round with his ladder and climbed the fences to retrieve her (the shed owners were out!). This time she was gone for four days. It was four worrying days and I’d told myself that she’d gone for good. That was until 6am in the morning when I woke up and could hear her miaowing outside the bedroom window. Despite us having a catflap, she wanted to make her re-appearance through the window! Here she is when she was recovering from her time away – she was incredibly skinny!

In February, Zach’s vocabulary started. He’d said his first word (water), at 14 months old but in this month he discovered the words roll, row, highchair and kitty, although this was pronounced ditty.

In March, he was 18 months old – another little milestone passed! It was also my second Mother’s Day and I was sent off to the Harry Potter Studio Tour which was great he also made me this piece of loveliness at nursery

April was a ridiculously exciting month for us as after weeks of searches, lots of paperwork, banks and solicitors, we completed on our first house purchase. We were finally going to be moving from our tiny one bedroom rented flat (Yep, Zach was still sleeping in our bedroom!), and into our two bed house that had a garden. This was definitely one of the best months of our year and probably of our whole relationship! Here we are opening the door for the first time!

In May, Zach experienced his first live show when we took him to In the night garden live . I really wasn’t sure how he would take to it, whether he would enjoy it, hate it, sit still or want to move around. He was 20 months old and some commented that he was too young but I’m so glad I’d booked those tickets because he had the best time. Probably for about the last 10 minutes he got a bit fidgety but thoroughly enjoyed it and was such a good boy, often completely mesmerised by what was happening on stage.

In June it was our anniversary. In case you didn’t know, the other half and I aren’t married so our anniversary is the day we got together four years earlier, which happened to be at Glastonbury, twelve years after we first met! We’ve been in the same group of friends since college but it was that year that I thought I’d give it a shot! Who knew that four years later we’d have a toddler and a house together?! We didn’t really do anything to celebrate as with the house purchase we were pretty skint!!

Also in June, I started this blog!

July is always a sad month for me as it will now always mark the anniversary of my dad passing away. This year was the second anniversary and once again we spent it with my mum, sister and nephew remembering dad and visiting him where his ashes were buried which is in a huge woodland burial site. It’s the most wonderful place and I’ve mentioned it a few times in previous posts. There is an old style train that sometimes rides past and regular airplanes flying over from the nearby air field. It’s perfect for a toddler with a love of trains and planes! Here he is having helped put flowers down we always go for a little explore round the woodland afterwards!

There were two big occasions in August. One was Zach’s first ever haircut and one was our first festival – Lollibop! Both didn’t go great to be honest but the festival was slightly more successful! I blogged all about the haircut here and all about Lollibop here if you want to read about it in depth! We have recently had the third haircut and the experience has only slightly improved!

September is the biggest month of the year – Zach’s birthday! Also my sister’s and my nephew’s whose are the day after Zach’s (my sister had her son on her birthday!). You can see the full birthday blog here but it was a fun filled weekend full of cake (see this post!), presents and children! Somehow the weather was amazing which was lucky as I’m not sure everyone would have been comfortable squeezing into our front room for two hours!

October will always be the month I’ll never live down as it was the month I went to San Francisco with work! The other half was a single dad for ten whole days as my mum was also away on holiday so our childcare (apart from two days at nursery), was gone! I’m constantly reminded that I owe him 10 days away, despite the fact that I was working ridiculous hours and missed Zach horrendously! Here was the view from our registration desk – it wasn’t all bad!!

October was also the month I started my new job. San Fran was to be my last conference with the company I’d been with for almost 10 years! You can read all about my big decision here. It’s been a big change but so far so good!

November was Zach’s first big meet with Santa. Unfortunately, where I wanted to take him was fully booked throughout December so we had to pick the end of November! It felt a bit early but it did give him the start of the build up as to who Santa actually is! Despite some horrible weather, he had a great day and you can read all about it here.

Sadly November also brought us a very poorly cat. She’s only six but has heart failure among other problems. We know that she won’t be with us for much longer but we don’t know how long. She’s such a special cat and she’ll be sorely missed when she’s gone – even if she is a pain in the bum when she completely misses the litter tray. Her and Zach have actually become better friends just recently and this photo was taken today. All I can hope is that she doesn’t suffer when the end does come. Bless her little cottons.

December has just been a month of fun! It’s just been one massive build up to Christmas and it’s been fantastic! There’s been Christmas dinner with friends, work Christmas parties, children’s christmas parties – I think Zach has met Santa another two times. Christmas has been epic and you can read all about it here!

With just one more day left of the year I think it’s safe to say it’s been an incredible one.

Here’s to another great one in 2015, even though it’s likely there’ll be a little loss in our house.

I thought it was about time that I made my blog look better and so I got a friend of a friend to design me a banner and logo for it and also for my facebook page. I have also changed to a different theme and I think it looks much cleaner, less pink and easier to function. I hope you all like it and I welcome any comments, both negative and positive

Please do bear with me if you see small changes – it’s just me playing around with the new design

To put it quite simply, this Christmas has been amazing. I couldn’t have dreamed for a better one if I’m honest, every second so far has been incredible and I still have another week before it’s back to work time. So, here’s a little look at what happened after I broke up for the holidays.

On the Tuesday of Christmas week, we went to visit my Dad’s burial site. Until now, Zach has been too small to understand why we actually go there but this time I thought it was important and so my Dad is now known as Grandad in the Woods. If you’ve seen my previous post about the burial site you’ll know it’s pure woodland and the most wonderful place to not only visit for us but an equally wonderful place for a toddler to explore. Christmas is a hard time to not have such a close family member around but it’s hard to be sad in a place like this – you can see that from these pictures!

On such a cold day, it was only right that we went for a nice big lunch at the nearby harvester. Note that Zach didn’t eat all of that ice cream by himself!

On Christmas eve it was a quiet one. Other than me going to pick the turkey up, we had no plans. I wanted to make gingerbread men with Zach to leave out for Santa and there was wrapping to be done but that was about it. That was of course until half way through the making of gingerbread, I decided that I’d better check that the turkey fitted in our roasting tray…it didn’t! Cue me going on a mad dash to find a bigger one. Tesco’s had been ransacked, literally nothing left on their shelves related to turkey cooking but my luck was in at M&S who had the very last one that my turkey would fit in. I held onto it like the people in the shops on Black Friday, for fear of someone taking it from me, while I phoned the other half to check the size. All was well and I returned home to complete the rather shoddy job of baking with over-chilled dough and a child who was more interested in his dinner! We did have some fun though although the little men (and stars) decided to merge together in the oven!

After dinner Zach had a bath and then we got everything ready for Santa. We put down a glass of milk, carrot and gingerbread man, left out his stocking and hung the magic key outside.

Once he was tucked up in bed, there was a 3 hour wrapping session for the other half and I!!

So, Christmas morning came and all the build up with Zach was totally worth it. He was so excited when we went downstairs and he saw that Santa had been, left his presents (the stocking ones!), returned his key and left him a thank you note. Unfortunately, mummy had spoiled him a bit and he got well and truly bored of opening presents! He stopped and asked for his breakfast giving me time to put the turkey in, resumed then stopped again and I had to bribe him to open the rest! In the end, he had a bit of help but he is only 2 – it’s expected.

Once I was all dressed, all eyes were on the dinner. Just as I was starting panic as it reached the crucial stage, the in-law’s arrived enabling the other half to peel some spuds! Then I stole the mother in law to assist. I won’t lie, it was a bigger task than I had anticipated. Cooking for 6 adults and 3 children when all the food won’t fit in the oven at the same time and when the turkey takes an extra half hour longer than it said it would – I was stressed. Somehow though, I managed to cook up a feast and it went down a treat. I was really proud of myself and rewarded myself with a fair amount of bubbly for the rest of the day!

After dinner, we had a mad half hour of present opening, presents flying everywhere, no-one knowing who’d got what and from who, but it was fun chaos. There’s nothing like seeing three excited children all in one room! It wasn’t long after dessert that my family turned up laden down with even more presents and Zach had an extra big cousin to play with!

Dean’s family then left a couple of hours after, we finally got a very exhausted Zach to bed at 9pm (he totally missed his lunchtime nap), and the evening was spent with my little lot, drinking, eating and playing a game called Linky. It’s really fun and we all got a bit competitive! Not long after midnight we finished our final game and they made their way home, leaving us to get straight to bed and straight to sleep!

Boxing day was a partially chilled out affair. We got most of his new toys out and had a good play and then we headed on over to the other half’s brother’s place for dinner and to drop all the stuff off they couldn’t fit in their car the night before! It was another lovely time had and another day that Zach got to see his cousins!

Saturday was another cousin day as we went over to the in-law’s for cold meat and chips, followed by more party food! It’s lovely that Zach got to spend so much time with them as we don’t get to see them too often but then it wasn’t without arguments over toys and other such stuff!! I do love this picture of my boys chillaxing for a moment!

And so we are on Sunday evening and the little man is unwell. I guess it was inevitable that he would pick up a Christmas bug and I’m glad it’s come after the main event but he’s got a bit of a nasty cough and cold. Last time he was poorly though, I wrote this blog post and was in emotional turmoil over it all. Tonight, I am pleased to report that it is all so very different. For tonight, as we were having an after bath cuddle while he was still wrapped in his towel, he fell asleep, snuggled into me. I had to promise him more mummy cuddles to get him in his pj’s and upstairs and once again, he fell asleep on me before I put him in his cot when he declared mummy stay. Honestly, I could have cried. One of my main objectives of these two weeks was to gather back some of that need he used to have for me and I really feel like that’s been achieved with a week still to go of me being at home. I felt wonderful tonight when my boy needed his mummy.

That was my best Christmas present! With this bag coming a close second!!

Tomorrow we are off to Holland on Sea to visit some of my family who we haven’t seen since Zach was much smaller. Keeping fingers crossed for good driving conditions, a car journey nap (for Zach, not me!) and an afternoon of more fun!

So that’s our Christmas 2014 and what a wonderful one it was.

Did you have a fab one too? What were your highlights? I’d love to hear some of your festive tales

There’s a lot I want to write – I didn’t anticipate having no time to blog over the last few days but I’ve been running round like a headless chicken buying last minute gifts; cleaning the house from top to bottom; picking up the turkey; realising at 5pm on Christmas Eve that said turkey doesn’t fit in my roaster and dashing to M&S to find the last one in the store that will fit; baking the most disastrous looking but quite tasty gingerbread men and spending the whole of Christmas Eve evening wrapping every single present we have bought!

It’s been a fun filled few days and I do intend to write about some of it (especially the gingerbread men!), but for now I would just like to wish you all a very merry Christmas. I hope that you enjoy every second with your families, eat lots of tasty food, drink some fizz and just have a fab time.

Also, thank you to each and every one of you for reading my blog – even if it’s only every now and then, very rarely or regularly – I appreciate every single click onto my page, every single comment and every new follower.

So thank you and merry Christmas.

Lots of love,

Mummascribbles
xxx

As I’m off work for two and a bit weeks I’ve decided it’s time to kick start my motivation and get my butt exercising again. I follow the Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred and also have a subscription to Results with Lucy and am therefore giving them a good mix up over the coming days. I’ve really struggled with exercise in the last few months, I normally do it in the evenings but having struggled to get Zach to bed before 9pm over the last few weeks it’s just gone completely out of the window!

So here I am on day 2 of exercise feeling great despite the aching muscles! Yesterday I got up before the rest of the house and did it in peace. This morning I did it while Zach was sitting in his highchair eating his breakfast. The two mornings were completely different, with Zach cheering me on this morning for support! Watching me, he thought it was hilarious seeing me jumping around and spent some time after I’d finished jumping round the front room saying Zach do exercise and attempting to do press ups, sit ups, star jumps etc., and it got me thinking – with the World Health Organisation regarding childhood obesity as the most serious global health challenge and seeing that a third of 10-11 year olds and a fifth of 4-5 year olds are classed as obese, should we be exercising in front of our children more often?

I know that myself and a lot of other mummies exercise when the kids are in bed because it’s easier but should we be showing them that exercise is good and that they see the overall effect that it has? Should it be something we install in them from a very young age so it’s a normal part of life and so when they come to doing P.E in school, they don’t hate it because they are used to being shown how good it is for you? Seeing Zach running around this morning being encouraged by me getting horribly sweaty but hopefully fitter and slimmer is a hugely positive thing and I will try and do it more in front of him! And if he wants to do it alongside me, I won’t be stopping him.

I certainly don’t have any worries about Zach being obese right now as he doesn’t stop moving but you never know what’s going to happen and I’d like to think I’ll do my best over the years at keeping him fit and healthy.

So maybe just take a thought next time you put your workout DVD on when you’ve waited for your little one to go to bed, that maybe it would be better to do it with them around and let them see the huge benefits that exercise has

Does your little one try and join in with your exercise and do you find it a bit of a pain or do you embrace it and let them have a go? Or do you wait until they’re tucked up in bed? I’d be really interested in your thoughts.

Well that’s it, Christmas is really here! Today was my last day in work and I’m not back until 5th January. That is 16 whole days at home. 16 days to spend with my two men and our families and friends. There will be a couple of days that the other half has to work so that’s time for me and Zach.

One big thing I’m hoping for is to try and redevelop that bond of ours. He is still funny with me – not as bad but still distant, not wanting me to do anything for him but wanting daddy or nannie (or anyone that isn’t me!). I’m hoping that with some long quality time together, it might all get better. It might not of course but I’m hopeful!

One other big thing is that we are going to see if Zach is ready for toilet training! Again it might not happen but it’s such a long period of time that we are at home, it’s silly not to at least give it a go! If you have any tips, do let me have them!

I have no doubt my posts over the next couple of weeks will be full of fun, tantrums, laughter, mummy pulling her hair out and lots of Christmas excitement! Along with peeing on floors of course – I’ll expect that!!

Have you fellow workers broken up for for the holidays now or do you sadly have to go in between Christmas and new year? I was dead chuffed when I found out my company closes for the whole festive period like my previous one did

Sometimes when I look at Zach, I can’t help wondering what he’ll grow up to be. He’s too young to tell me at the moment but I have no doubt that if he could, he would be something like an astronaut, fireman or digger – the usual toddler job. But I do wonder what will he be. A lawyer, a builder, an office worker? We grow up working our way through several job aspirations – some a bit stranger than others!

The youngest I can remember thinking about what I wanted to be was a teacher at the age of about seven. I had the usual blackboard that I just loved writing on and I used to pretend that I had a room full of children (that was usually a line of teddies) that I would ‘teach’!

A while after that, probably when I was about 10, I changed my career track to being a librarian. I was fascinated with libraries even though I was rubbish in them because you had to be quiet and I wasn’t very good at that! The thing I most loved though was the date stamp. It made the most fantastic noise and I always wanted to have a go, hence I wanted to work in a library where they used them all the time!

Not long after that, I wanted to be a checkout operator because of the scanner. When we used to get home from our weekly shopping trip, I would ‘scan’ everything over the top of the cooker before it went into the cupboards (yep, I just admitted that!). It was an electric hob and had the little rectangle warning light that would come on while it was hot – that was my little scanner! I used to drive my mum and dad crazy because unpacking took a whole lot longer when I was around!

Roll on a few years and reading through the then latest edition of Smash Hits magazine, I decided I wanted to be a magazine journalist. I must have known in my head that I would be terrible at that job as rather than specialising in journalism at university, I went for film, tv and radio studies. While I was at uni, I worked on the checkouts in the local supermarket – bam, one life ambition ticked!

Upon leaving university, I worked in another supermarket in an office based role but I also got to use the checkouts which were far better ones than the other supermarket I’d worked in! I felt like I’d won big time!

I wasn’t in that job long before I got myself into a proper office and guess what? They had one of those library date stamps that I got to use every day for a few months. Life ambition number two ticked!

And so I find myself now working as an event manager – not the job I thought I’d end up in but nevertheless a job I enjoy. There is however a constant nagging in my head that there is only one of my boxes that hasn’t been ticked and certainly since becoming a mum, I wished I’d decided to stick with my first love and become a teacher. That, or a midwife.

Maybe one day a career change will be on the cards. I would love to go back and re-train but sadly finances do not allow for such things at this stage of my life.

I hope that Zach fulfills his dreams like I did as he grows up…whether it’s becoming a pilot or scanning a tin of beans and that he doesn’t look back thinking I wish I’d done that instead!!

What did you want to be when you were growing up and what did you end up as? I’d love to hear your stories

Are your children at the age yet where they have told you what they want to be? What are their current dreams?

Keeping little ones amused in the bath can be difficult. There are days when they can happily go wrinkly and spend ages splashing around and there are days when they want to get out as soon as they get in. Bath toys help a lot and we are always on the look out for new things to keep him entertained and so when the creators of the Tappy Octopus Tap Guard & Bath Toy got in touch to see if I’d like to review their product, I jumped at the chance.

About Tappy

Tappy is the world’s first combined bath toy and tap guard. It attaches to the spout of the tap stopping children from leaning directly against the hot metal and is naturally insulating to prevent burns from taps and water providing all round protection during what should be fun bath times.

The fun part of Tappy is the design. For starters she’s bright green and secondly she’s an Octopus! She also has a number of ways of involving the child with play – each tentacle has a different coloured number from 1-8 and each number is a different colour using the order of the colours of the rainbow. She has a mouth that opens, enabling children to give her a drink along with holes in the end of each tentacle so that the water flows through. As the water runs, her arms wiggle and dance around. Tappy is designed for children aged 6 months to 6 years and there’s a whole ebook on the website with ideas of how to use her in play. If you want to learn more about this product, there is a short video clip available here.

What we thought of Tappy
We genuinely like this product. I can never tell with Zach whether he will like or dislike something but as soon as he saw me take this out of the packaging he was instantly a fan. There’s nothing not to like about the look of Tappy. She is a bright, bold octopus – everything you could require as a child! We used some of the ideas in the ebook that I mentioned above and this evening I had to sing the colours of the rainbow about ten times. We count the number of tentacles which is helping Zach to get his order of numbering right and he’s already picked up that the colour of the number three is pink. We also go through the parts of the body. Obviously his favourite thing is to give Tappy a drink and I reckon he was doing this for about ten minutes solid the other day.

Giving Tappy a drink!

Tappy even helps with hair washing and teeth brushing sometimes! On first usage I suggested that we brush her teeth and then his teeth and it worked – it was like a miracle as teeth brushing is a real issue right now!

Brushing Tappy’s teeth!

As for hair washing, that’s a cheeky mummy one, if he looks up slightly to point out Tappy’s head, I can sneak in a couple of rinses before he realises I’ve done it!! All of this and it stops him from touching the hot metal

Is there anything we don’t like?
As I said above, there isn’t really much not to like about this product. It does its job as a tap guard and as a product of entertainment. It states that it is universal for all taps and probably my only negative is that it doesn’t fit perfectly on ours – but then we have a bit of an awkward shaped tap spout and it fits for purpose and doesn’t slip off so it’s still perfectly safe. I’m also not 100% sure how long it will last as a bribery act but that’s mainly because my child is quite intelligent and susses me out pretty quickly – the tooth brushing didn’t work tonight!!

Overall we are very impressed with Tappy and would definitely recommend it for bath times – especially for those parents who are nervous about moving their baby into the big bath – I wished I’d have had one back then along with the time Zach decided he was terrified of the taps!

Tappy is available at John Lewis and retails at £15.

Disclaimer
We were sent the Tappy Octopus Tap Guard & Bath Toy  for the purpose of this review but all opinions and words are my own.

It’s my last week of work until after Christmas and it has felt like the last week of school when all you really do is have fun!

The social committee at my work are pretty good and along with organising the Christmas party this coming Thursday, they have also arranged a Christmas pod off. Each of our working teams are in sections and each section is one pod. Therefore, each team has to decorate their own pod. The criteria for this was that it had to be themed on a Christmas movie. On Thursday, before the celebrations for the party start, the company owner and MD will come round and have to guess the movie and then judge on who deserves to win. There is a small prize up for grabs but the real prize is the glory for the next year. To say we have gone all out and that we want to win is an understatement! And looking at our pod, we are serious contenders!

We have had team meetings to discuss the task, there’s been a PowerPoint slide, we have got our creative juices flowing and we have delivered! There has been the noise of scissors cutting, of pens drawing, of sellotape sticking. It’s probably taken us a whole day in total  to complete!

So…can you guess the film?!!

In other fun – the big boss’ children popped in today – apparently it’s a yearly thing as at school they make up jam jars of sweets for everyone in the office! So I have this little lovely on my desk full of some of my yummy favourites (how did they know I love chocolate coins and chocolate éclairs?!).