Mummascribbles – Mummascribbles meets…Arthurwears – Mummascribbles

This week we meet the lovely Sarah from Arthurwears. Thanks so much for taking part Sarah.

Tell me a little bit about yourself and your family

I’m Sarah, 31 years old and Mummy to Arthur – the little guy I named my blog after. I live in a little town in West Yorkshire called Ilkley with my husband Thomas, although neither of us are from Yorkshire originally! I was born and raised in Nottinghamshire, not too far away from Sherwood Forest (yes, total cliche – I also won a gold medal at the British archery championships when I was 12, just call me Robin Hood lol) and my husband was born and raised in Holland. We have been together for over 11 years now and I still (shamefully) haven’t learnt to speak Dutch. I’m afraid that the only phrase that ever comes into my mind when people ask me what Dutch I know is ” neuken in de keuken” ( which means sex in the kitchen) and there aren’t many chances I get to use that phrase!!

I met my husband at the University of Sheffield where we both studied law – he was judging a moot that my twin sister was taking part in and I was sat at the back of the ‘court room’ sulking because I didn’t want to be there. I fell in love with him instantly and we have been together ever since.

What do you like doing to be you, when you are not parenting, working (if you do), or blogging?

When I am not parenting, working or blogging I am most definitely sleeping ( and arguably still parenting) because I am literally doing either one ( or all) of these things all the time. Before I had Arthur I was a Primary School Teacher specialising in Early Years. At the end of my maternity I decided, for many reasons, not to return. When Arthur was 9 months I started Nannying for a little boy who is the same age and I take Arthur with me, so working and parenting go hand in hand. I’m pretty sure the only time off I ever get is when I go to the hairdresser every 8 weeks and the occasional ‘mums night out’ – which has ended prematurely a couple of times due to a screaming child back home. Arthur is going to do a couple of mornings at pre-school next year so I am hoping to reclaim a bit of time to myself and rediscover what ‘being me’ actually means.

What is your biggest achievement to date?

I’d be mad if I didn’t say giving birth to my child – I still haven’t found the courage to write about it, but I have made a peace with it now. It is only in the last few months that I could look back on it all without having awful flashbacks and feeling ‘phantom pains’ at the memory. As far as birth stories go its not actually that bad, it was all over in 4-5 hours, no pain medication, water birth and a totally healthy baby…if you miss out the bits where I was left on my own for almost the entire time, almost had him in the corridor whilst wrapped in a bed sheet shouting that I’d pood myself ( I hadn’t, it was the baby) and then had to spend hours getting my hoohaa stitched back together. Oh and at 22 months he’s still ALIVE!! I am winning 🙂

From your own experiences, what do you find the hardest part of parenting and what is the easiest/most rewarding part?

For me, the hardest part is the loneliness. I live miles away from any of my family and I didn’t grow up in the place I now live so I don’t have those lifelong friends who live just around the corner. My husband works late a lot and I have had days where the only person I have spoken to is my child. Being switched on 24/7 can be physically and mentally exhausting and I feel I have aged 10 years in the last 2. Trying to justify your tiredness to others who don’t have to do what you do can make it even harder, particularly when they think you are ‘just’ a mum. 

The most rewarding thing about being a parent, apart from watching your child grow and progress, is the unbelievable joy you feel. You feel it at the smallest things, like watching your child’s face light up with excitement at seeing fireworks, or hearing them call for you when they wake from a nap (note I did not say when they call for you at 3am). I had forgotten how exciting fallen autumn leaves were until I took Arthur for a walk amongst them and you soon find yourself getting excited about things such as aeroplanes in the sky or tractors in the field simply so that you can share it with your child. I was genuinely gutted the other day when I saw a rainbow as we were driving to my sister’s house and Arthur missed it because he had fallen asleep.

Parenting in itself is no mean feat; how do you juggle everything you need to in order to get everything done on a daily basis?

Quite simply, I don’t. Something has to give and things have to slide. My house is usually a bit of a mess and the ironing never ever gets done (at least not by me – hubby does his own shirts the night before once Arthur is asleep). Arthur has one nap a day, although some days he doesn’t have one at all, and it is usually between 30mins – 1.5 hours, and I cram what I can into this time. If i have a deadline for a blog then I will do that first. If the washing is piling up or the kitchen is a state then I tidy up and If I am totally exhausted and we had a bad night (Arthur still doesn’t sleep through) then I will have a lie down. On a ‘work’ day I don’t get to do any of these things though! Apart from that, everything else usually gets done between 8.30pm and 10pm once Arthur is alseep and before I go to bed.

Why did you decide to start blogging?

Initially my blog was just a bit of a diary for family to keep up to date with Arthur (and his many outfit changes!) our families all live pretty far away so I thought it would be a nice way to keep them involved. I used to run a blog for my class at school and I really missed it and wanted to have something else to do other than just being ‘mum’. When I decided not to go back to my Teaching role my blog became a way of putting my thoughts and ideas on EYFS education and activities to good use by sharing my ideas online, and as people started to read it I started to write about a wider range of topics.

Tell me a bit about your blog?

Arthurwears is a parenting and lifestyle blog with lots of learning through play activities and ideas thrown into the mix too! I love to share my parenting experiences and advice on things such as Colic and reflux, and I am ‘beauty obsessed’ so there are a fair few product reviews in there too, which are aimed at parents like me. Basically I write about anything and everything on my parenting journey that I feel might be interesting or helpful for other parents to read.   

What do you want your blog to achieve and where do you hope to see it go as it grows?

I would hope that my blog helps others to plan and take part in fun and exciting activities with their children, maybe gain some useful advice and confirmation of ‘normality’ when reading my posts on the usual trials and tribulations of parenting and to discover some new, quality products off the back of my reviews. I am always honest with the reviews and products I recommend so I hope that others read my posts and can see that I am genuine. I’d love to be able to make a living from my writing eventually, but at the moment my family comes first and my blogging second – so I only take on what I can fit into the time I have.

What advice would you give someone who is thinking about starting a blog?

Start it. Just write and write for you at first, don’t worry about all the other technical stuff – that can come in later. Make sure you view it as a hobby that is there to help you – the moment your blog becomes a hindrance rather than a help it is time to take a step back and take stock. Don’t start a blog just to make money from sponsored posts and product reviews, and don’t expect any of that to happen until you have been blogging for at least a year if that’s the direction you would like to take things eventually. If you give it a go and decide that you  are in it for the long haul – then buy your own domain so that you can start building up your DA score as soon as possible.

If you could have dinner with three people (dead or alive), who would it be and why?

This is really hard to answer because I am taking it far too seriously and feeling guilty about the people I don’t invite! I am also massively sentimental so of course my first reaction is to say my Grandad who passed away in 2005 – who wouldn’t choose a lost loved one for one more dinner?? And then my husband and my son – because neither of them met him…even though I met my husband 8 months before he passed away, it just didn’t happen in time and of course we thought we had all the time in the world back then.

Tell me three random facts about you

I’ve already let a couple of these slip but…

1) I’m a twin ( non identical)

2) I won a gold medal at the British Archery Championships when I was 12

3) I once found Peaches Geldoff’s bank card at Leeds station and after failing to return it to her via Twitter, I joked to my husband that I’d hang onto it in case she died one day – genuinely didn’t think it would happen as soon as it did. And I still have it somewhere tucked into the back of the handbag I was using that day, I felt like that was where it ‘belonged’.

Along with her blog www.arthurwears.com, you can also find Sarah over at Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest and Youtube.