Small Steps, Amazing Achievements: Apple!

This week, S has been wandering about the house saying,

A-paaah!

A-paaah!

A-paaah!

To be honest, at first I wasn't sure what she was on about; I thought maybe she'd learned it at nursery or something. I tried to see if she was looking or pointing at something when she said it, but she was mostly just wandering about the house saying it.

After a couple of days it changed to

A-pul!

A-pul!

A-pul!

and I figured out what it was!

I mentioned in this post some time ago, that we were enjoying reading a library book called Orange, Pear, Apple, Bear. A friend then very kindly posted us a board book of it, and we've been reading it almost daily since.

S has always been a big fan of the bear, and for a while we had some confusion between "bear" and "pear" (both were called bear) but now, out of nowhere, and with the book in the bedroom for bedtime stories, she was running around the living room shouting her own version of "Apple!"

S pointing out the apple on the bear's nose

Wordless Wednesday: Our Week in Instagrams

How has Motherhood Changed Me?

Photo by Chris Meany Photography

Just lately, with Katie Hill's #BodyLove campaign on Twitter, I've been thinking about how becoming a mum has changed me. Here's a list. I love lists!

• Until I was 30, I hated my body. I always considered myself to be too fat, too wobbly, too ugly, "don't take my photo from that angle, you'll show my chins!" At one point, I was going to the gym 8 or 9 times a week. I was quite fit. I ran a half marathon and was lifting heavier weights than most of the boys in the gym at 6:30am. But I still had no body confidence. Now my body has produced a baby, I'm much more relaxed about everything. Yes, I've got stretch marks, yes my thighs wobble and I have bingo wings, yes my boobs are a bit saggy. But look at what I made! Also, to experience my body a few days post-birth, and then find that actually, it's gone back to "normal" fairly quickly, was pleasantly surprising. 

• Before, even though I lifted heavy weights and ran in races and all the rest of it, I had no mental strength. I once ran a gruelling 10 mile race around the hilly outskirts of Salisbury by staying behind the man in front of me, and basically using his mental strength to get my through. Experiencing a 10 and a half hour labour has made me realise that actually, my body's capable of a lot more than I ever thought. I tend to think to myself  "come on, you've been through childbirth; this is piss easy in comparison!"

• I am less tolerant of a lot of things these days. I won't settle for a man treating me like crap, I won't put up with people letting me down, I won't have people smoke or drink near my child. Before, I used to put up with all these things and more, biting my tongue and silently seething.

• On the other hand, I'm more  tolerant of other things. People who walk too slowly down the pavement, children asking awkward questions or just generally being precocious, screaming babies in Sainsbury's. I used to tut and think, "Gawd, control your kid!" but now I just smile and think how lucky I am it's not me! People apologise for being in the way and I tell them not to worry about it. Life is too short!

• I have more fun these days. I'm not afraid to go outside and splash in puddles, or spend half an hour pulling faces at S as I push her on the swing. I push her along in the buggy, happily chattering away to her and making silly noises (the latest favourite is a pretend sneeze) and I don't care what you think of me. Stare all you want; I'm the one with a smile on my face!

• These days, I am much more aware of my mental health, and its precarious stability. Before, it didn't matter if I had a bad couple of weeks, drank too much, didn't go into work, didn't wash up. Now I need to take steps at the first sign of trouble, to stop anything nasty from creeping in. I can't afford to be reckless with myself, now that I have someone else who relies on me for food and cuddles.

• I'm a lot more careful crossing roads. I'll stand at a crossing, press the button, and wait for the little green man, while those around me will make a run for it in front of a reasonably slow car. My child is too precious for me to risk her life, and since she relies on me, I can't afford to risk getting myself run over.

• I'm still the world's messiest person, but that mess is confined to "my" side of the living room. The play mats are kept clean, S's toys are tidied and put away as often as possible. Meanwhile, the rubble next to me on the sofa has recently reached epic proportions, and I'm wondering whether I can get away with just chucking it all in a black bag and starting again.

What about you? Has becoming a parent changed you in ways you didn't expect?

Review: Tesco Clothes

When the good people at Tesco offered me some clothes for S to try out, I almost bit their hands off!

I had a look through the website, and these are the clothes we were sent:

This denim patchwork dress costs £12.

S's nursery have a rule that children's clothes must cover their shoulders. It's pretty hard these days, to find a dress that covers shoulders and isn't designed for Winter! Although the dress is labelled as denim, it's actually light cotton, and perfect for those warm summer days. S is also a bit small for her size, so this dress will probably still fit her long after Summer is over and done with - but I think it'll look pretty good with tights and a long-sleeved vest underneath. Also (the best part) it washes well! I've washed it a few times since we received it, and it still looks just as good as new. 

This Cheeky t shirt is actually a boy's shirt, but it's cute and suits S so balls to the whole gender thing. The best part? It's only £2! For me, the best part is the dark colour: hides a lot more spills and dribbles than anything pink or white! Usually, when a t shirt only costs £2 you expect that it'll only be good for a few wears and then it'll shrink or go a bit horrid in the wash - but actually, I've washed this shirt several times now, and it's still good as new. I'm very impressed, will definitely be looking to Tesco for more t shirts!

I was secretly pleased when the weather changed, because it meant we got to try out these awesome Cookie Monster sleepsuits! They start from £8 for the double pack, but we got them in 12-18 months so they were £9. The one with the all-over pattern has the normal poppers up the front, and the white one goes over the head, with the "letterbox" neckline and poppers between the legs. My little pickle is a little small for them, so these will last a while! I've not washed them yet though, so can't comment on how they fare in that respect. Again, I think they're probably meant for boys, but the last time I checked all kids loved Sesame Street characters. And cookies.

I am in love with this pink zip-up jacket; I've included a link from when I ordered it, but it doesn't seem to be available any more. That's a real shame, because this thing has been worn to absolute death! Seriously, you know when you have that one thing where you have to choose very carefully when you wash it... that's this jacket. I really hope Tesco bring it back soon. It's good quality, lightweight so perfect for summer, has a hood, and a zip that S finds easy to run up and down herself. Also, usefully, it's too big for her so it'll last forever! Please Tesco, start stocking this jacket again!

Disclaimer: Tesco provided me with these clothes free of charge, in exchange for a review. This was not dependent on my writing a favourable review though; all opinions are my own.

Magic Moments: 29th July

I wasn't going to take part in this week's Magic Moments linky. I've had food poisoning, I'm knackered and have been struggling to write an essay.

Then I realised that actually, I really enjoy deciding on a magic moment to write about, and it's nice to look back at something and think, actually, things aren't so miserable! Stop whining about feeling poorly, and think of something magical that's happened this week!

S was supposed to go to nursery on Thursday morning, but she was sick a couple of times during the night, so she didn't go. They have a rule that a child must have gone 48 hours without vomiting, so that meant she couldn't go to nursery on Friday either. No big deal for S; she just gets to spend the day doing fun stuff at home. But I'm supposed to work on Fridays.

I asked my sister A if she would look after S on Friday so that I could go to work. To be honest, I didn't hold out much hope but thought perhaps I'd be able to do a half day and at least show willing at work. Imagine my surprise when she seemed happy to look after S for the whole day!

The magical part of this was that S actually had a really great day with her auntie. They played with toys, went for a walk with the buggy, met me for lunch (definite highlight of my day), went to a toy shop and bought building blocks to play with, and S even walked part way home.

I came home to find them engrossed in playing with some toys on the play mats. Happy days!

Speech and Language Development in Children: Recognition of Words

Have you ever stopped to think about how children learn to speak?

I mean, really stop and think. When a child is born, they're not even physically capable of speech, much less cognitively. A human baby's vocal tract has more in common with an adult chimpanzee than an adult human. Their tongues are positioned solely for the sucking of milk in the first few months. Then, as their brains develop, so do their vocal tracts.

Several studies have been done which showed that babies can hear, and even recognise, speech sounds before they are even born. I won't bore you with all the details here, but it has been shown that babies can recognise differences in speech, and tend to prefer rhyming words over music or rhythmic noises (eg drumming). By 4 weeks of age, a baby has learned to recognise, and prefers, its own mother's voice. Babies seem to enjoy what is known as the prosody of speech; the musical sound speech can have through use of stresses, intonation and rhythm. They can also use this prosody to distinguish between different languages at an early age.

Have you ever been on holiday to Spain, after perhaps having a couple of Spanish lessons, maybe bought a guide book? At home you can sit there and understand a "Teach Yourself Spanish" recording as it says "Por favor, muéstrame dónde están los baños" and the response comes back, "los baños están en ese camino a la derecha." You might repeat those phrases to yourself five or six times... then you walk up to an actual, real life, Spanish person and ask them where the toilets are. And their response is not "the toilets are down that road on the right;" Their response is a long stream of Spanish words, of which you understand maybe the first and the last, and one or two in the middle. Because in Spain, the toilets are never down that road on the right. 

This is how it is for a baby, who has never experienced language before. They understand that you are speaking, but it sounds a lot like a 6-month-old's babbling sounds to us. The first thing an infant needs to do is learn to spot where one word ends, and the next begins. They do this by looking for where syllable stresses are. In the English language, 90% of words have a stress on the first syllable. They also look at something called "transitional probability," which involves the probability of certain combinations of syllables being said side by side. For example, take the phrase: "chicken sandwiches." You hear the syllables chi and ken a lot together, and sand-wich-es too. But how often do you hear the syllables ken and sand side by side? Babies very cleverly use this probability to figure out where words end and begin in sentences. This is also why mothers often naturally find themselves speaking slowly, in simple sentences to their infants, and saying the same words over and over again. All of this helps a child to begin recognising words.

It's also worth noting here that babies' hearing also changes during their first year of life. As I mentioned in this post, babies are born with the ability to hear differences between all sounds. You know when a foreign-speaking person asks you to pronounce a word for them, and you do it, and they repeat it but still say it wrong? It's not because they're stupid. It's because in their native language, that particular sound doesn't exist - so while they were born able to hear it, over the course of their first year of life, their brains have adapted to hear only what they need to hear. This is why you can say "very very" to a Japanese-speaking person, and they will repeat back "vewy vewy" and not hear the difference. Similarly, you can go on your holiday to Spain and say what you think is a perfectly accented, well put together Spanish sentence, and the man behind the counter will say "you're English!" It's because he can hear something you can't hear in those words.

The next part in this series of posts is here

Review: The Braun Silk-epil Epilator

Those lovely people at Chemist Direct offered me the chance to review the Braun Silk-epil Epilator for them, and I have to say, I jumped at the chance.

I do have an epilator, but it's about ten years old, and very noisy. It came with an ice pack, which I promptly lost, and I rarely use it any more. I had heard pretty good things about this new Braun one from my friends, so I was keen to try it.

The epilator comes with 3 different attachments for the head. The charger is one of those ones you plug into a shaver plug in the bathroom, which is less than ideal if you don't have one of those power points. Luckily, I had one of those clever converter things left over from when I had an electric toothbrush with the same issue. The good news is that once you've charged it, it lasts a good length of time before you need to charge it again.

They advertise this thing saying it can remove even the shortest, finest hairs... those of you who see me as a perfect goddess, look away now. Fact is, the hairs on my legs are so fine, they don't even really notice if they grow to about half an inch long. Which they do. Say, for example, if you were caught unawares by a heat wave, and didn't want to shave your legs because you were waiting for an epilator to arrive for you to review. Or if you were just feeling a bit lazy for an extended period of time. You might end up with fairly long hairs on your legs.

The switch on the epilator is a dial, which makes it a bit tricky to switch on and off when you're used to using a switch, but I'm sure that's just something you get used to. It has a really bright light on the side too, so that you can see where the hair is that needs epilating.

I'm not going to lie; it still hurts. This epilator can be used wet or dry, and on the legs, arm pits and bikini line. I've used an epilator on my legs before, and this one did hurt less than my old epilator. I also used it on my arm pits, and thought I might cry. I think it hurts less the more you do it though, like eyebrow plucking. I have to say, I've not yet been brave enough to try it out on my bikini line...

They advertise that it can remove hairs as small as a grain of sand... I have to say, it took me 2 or 3 goes before it removed all the hair on my legs, but it did remove them more thoroughly than the old epilator.



Here are my top tips for epilating:

• An epilator is not a quick fix. If you're going out tonight and your legs and pits look a bit like a rainforest, buy a razor. But if you're not going out until next weekend, use an epilator. If you use it regularly, the hairs that grow back are finer, and grow at different rates, meaning what regrowth you do get is less noticeable and less painful to deal with.
• Exfoliate, exfoliate, exfoliate! Ever had an ingrown hair? Want 500 of them? Then exfoliate. Often.
• The fact this epilator can be used in water is a definite plus; the water actually makes it hurt less. Promise.
• For me, the ankle seems to be the most painful/sensitive part of the leg. If you start there, you're likely to give up before you reach your knees. Start a little further up your leg, and go back to the ankles.
• Although it hurts, and you want it over with quickly, don't move the epilator too quickly - it won't have time to grip the hair as you race over it, and you'll end up having to do it again. And again.
• Epilate at night, before bed, especially if you have sensitive skin. Your legs will most probably come out in little red dots (where the hairs have been removed) and you won't want to be wandering about town like it. Apply some soothing moisturiser (like E45) and go to bed. It'll look a lot better in the morning, promise.
• Often it can be less painful if the hairs are shorter. You don't need to grow your hair like you would if you were going to a salon for a wax - especially not with this model, which is designed to catch the shorter hairs.

At the time of writing, the Braun Silk-epil Epilator was £74.99 on the Chemist Direct website. I think that's a pretty good price, when you think how much you'd pay over the course of a year for razors, shaving foam, hair removal cream or waxing.

Disclaimer: Chemist Direct provided me with the Braun Silk-epil Epilator for free in exchange for a review, but this was not dependent on my writing a favourable review.

Silent Sunday, 2013-07-28

Childhood Memory

I think of my childhood as being the time before my parents divorced, when I was 9.

My dad was a long distance lorry driver, and worked away a lot during the week. Occasionally he would come home as we were eating tea in the evening, but he was always gone before we woke up.

One year my birthday fell on a rare day my dad was at home, I suppose it must have been a Saturday. I don't remember any presents I was given at all. All I remember is that my dad was there. We went shopping in a different town; looking back, this was because my sister had weird-shaped feet, and we had to go to a special shop with an electronic foot-measuring device or something, but for me it was a special birthday to be shopping somewhere out of the ordinary.

I pestered my parents to let me have some nail varnish from a discount shop, and eventually they gave in; we compromised and I got a pearl coloured one. I felt so grown up!

In the evening, after tea, my parents were outside in the garden; they both smoked, but didn't smoke in the house, and my dad liked to keep the garden looking reasonably tidy, so they were in the garden a lot in the evenings. I remember walking across the patio to where they were watering the plants, and starting to cry because tomorrow it wouldn't be my birthday any more, and I knew this one had been a special one. 

My dad gave me a big cuddle and told me it was bad luck to cry on my birthday, and not to worry because next year would be just as good...

I Take a lot of Supplements...

Just lately a few people have asked me which supplements I take.

Since I came off my antidepressant medication when I got pregnant, I've been determined not to go back on it. Instead, I take a lot of supplements, religiously. Even when I'm knackered and going to bed early, I still take these. I credit them with my staying sane over the last two years - which have been somewhat bumpy.

Here is a list!

• Pregnacare Breast-feeding: I took Pregnacare Max throughout my pregnancy; S's father insisted on buying them each month, because I was apparently growing a super baby, and only the best would do for her (when she was born early but healthy, he took credit for this; it must have been the vitamins he'd supplied that had made her so healthy). I am still breastfeeding S, but I also stockpiled several months' supply before my maternity pay stopped, so I will probably end up taking them long after I stop breastfeeding. They have 3 tablets to take each day: two with vitamins and minerals "for after pregnancy" - basically the same as any other multivitamin as far as I can tell - and one high purity Omega 3 capsule. To be honest, I'm not sure what I'll do when I stop breastfeeding and run out of these supplements, because they're the only ones I know work well for me and must have everything I need in them. I think the people who make them, Vitabiotics, also make a standard multivitamin though, and S will be taking their kids' one when her last prescription runs out.
• Omega 3 Fish Oil, 1000mg: When I had my breakdown and the antidepressants didn't seem to be working, I was reading a lot of memoirs of depression, trying to see what other people had done to "fix" themselves. The answer from most places seemed to be omega oils. I honestly think taking fish oils did more for my sanity than the antidepressants or the group therapy or anything else. I take them religiously, and again, I have a stockpile of them. I had my sister buy me them for Christmas. I'm very paranoid about running out of these things. I take three a day, which is the recommended dose; but for the first few months after S was born I took six per day: two with each meal. I wouldn't recommend doing that; the packet clearly states that you should take three. I doubled my dose because I was worried about my depression coming back.
• Vitamin C, 1000mg: I don't like these tablets; they taste more fishy than the fish oils. I read in a Patrick Holford book that a high dose of vitamin C can work wonders for weight loss, cravings etc. And obviously Vitamin C is supposed to help ward off colds etc. Because of the weird taste of them, I don't take them as often as I should; probably about 4 days a week.
• Magnesium, 250mg: This is another one from my breakdown. I read in a book that depression and anxiety were linked lo low magnesium levels, so I started taking it. I stopped for a long while because I couldn't afford them, but once I'd had S and was determined not to end up on medication, I decided I'd be better of finding the money from somewhere!
• Flaxseed Oil, 1000mg:  Another one from the breakdown. I'm on and off with these ones, to be honest. They provide Omegas 3, 6 and 9 (where the fish oils and Pregnacare are only Omega 3), but I don't seem to notice much of a difference if I don't take them. 
• Liquorice Root, 420mg: I had a session of applied kinesiology a while back, and one of the things the lady suggested was this. It's meant to help with sugar cravings, but I don't think I'm taking a high enough dose for it to work!

Why do I take supplements?

I'm not telling you that you should take everything I take; really, I don't care what you do. But this is what I do. Here are the reasons I continue to take these supplements:

• I am absolutely, stone-cold petrified of ever having a breakdown as big as 2010. If you told me I had to swallow a live fish every morning to stave off the depression, I'm fairly sure I'd do it. I absolutely do not want to go back onto the medication I was on; it had side effects, I put on weight, it would still be transferred to S while I'm breastfeeding, and I really don't think it worked as well as the fish oils any way.
• I am rarely ill. Yes, I have a cold right now; but it's not a debilitating one, more of an irritation. I haven't been sick since I was in labour. I used to suffer terribly with Irritable Bowel Syndrome, and had at least one day off work a month with it. Since I returned to work from maternity leave, although I've had several days off with S (catching every illness going from nursery), I've only had one day off because I was ill, and that was a migraine.
• My entire live, I've suffered with a weird form of eczema where, when I got cold, my back felt like my skin was literally stretching and cracking. It was itchy and nasty and horrible. This winter, when I was taking all these supplements, was the first time I've not suffered with that, and not needed any cream prescribed by the doctor.

What time of day do I take my supplements?

I used to take all my supplements in the morning, until I was living with the ex and things were going missing too often and the mad rush of the morning meant I kept missing them. Also, although I didn't suffer with morning sickness, I had real trouble swallowing tablets - so I switched to evenings, where it would take me anything up to an hour to take all of my supplements (at that time I was also taking two big, chalky Osteocare tablets a day as well, and they kept getting stuck in my throat and coming back up).

Now, once S has gone to bed, I go to the kitchen drawer and put all my supplements into a shot glass (yes people, I really am that rock n roll: my shot glasses are used for supplements, and for holding Calpol syringes. WOO HOO). Then I take my shot glass and my bottle of water, and take the supplements as I go about my evening.

With regard to S: because she was premature she was prescribed a multivitamin to take every day until she was weaned. Although still breastfeeding, she's now classed as weaned, and so when this bottle runs out she won't be prescribed any more. However, I have read that children who take a multivitamin have higher IQ scores, and I can't justify spending money on supplements for myself if I'm not giving her the same, so she will have kids' multivitamins, and maybe even a fish oil supplement if I can find one she'll have. She's had her multivitamin from day 1; I recently tasted it, and can truthfully say it tastes awful, so I'm hoping it won't be a problem to get her to have a different vitamin supplement or fish oil.

What about getting vitamins etc from our food?

Years ago, when all our food was grown locally and seasonally, yes, you probably could get your RDA of vitamin C or whatever else from the fruits and vegetables you bought at your local shop. Nowadays though, fruit and vegetables are forced to grow out of season in polytunnels, with chemical fertilisers and weed killers and mutant strains to make them larger or juicier or straighter or whatever else. I don't believe that all this fiddling about with nature hasn't affected the vitamin levels in foods. Yes, I could spend time rummaging through Tesco to find the organic fruit and vegetables, and I could go to the organic stall on the market, or go to a farm shop or wherever else - but I don't have time, and I'm fairly sure if I did that I'd end up forgetting to eat the stuff, and wasting huge amounts of money - it's what happens with the £1 bags of kale I buy now.

Do you take supplements? If so, which ones? Do share your experiences in the comments!

The Sexualisation of our Children

On the one hand, we all hate paedophiles. Whenever a story comes up in the news about paedophiles we all tut and complain about how disgusting they are, and Twitter and Facebook are full of everyone's opinions that they should be shot or similar.

On the other hand, these days we seem so keen to force our children to grow up earlier and earlier. Little girls, especially, are sexualised from a very young age these days.

Photo taken from ebay, where there's a
never-ending supply of heeled shoes for children.

Many people seem to pierce their little girl's ears when the girl herself is far too young to express an opinion one way or the other. We put our little girls in revealing outfits with "sexy" slogans on them. They wear crop tops long before they have anything that would need to be covered by one. You can buy heeled shoes in such small sizes these days, you could easily find a dozen pairs for a five-year-old to wear. Some of them are knee-high boots. Someone, please tell me: what does a five-year-old girl need with a pair of knee-high, heeled boots? She should be wearing grubby trainers and running around the playground, surely. I've heard people tell children they look "sexy." Children. Why is "sexy" something we want our children to be aiming for in their looks? Surely, if anything, we'd rather they look "smart" or if you're going somewhere important, "clean" - but sexy? Really?

One thing that really irritates me is this whole "oh, they're boyfriend and girlfriend!" thing - often when a child is only a few months old! What's that all about? Why can't children just be friends? Do we really want our children to have boyfriends and girlfriends before they can even speak? What do we do then, when they get older and have a boyfriend and want to kiss him like they've seen on TV? Surely it's better to leave it as long as possible before your child is deemed to be in a relationship?

When your daughter returns to school in September, will she be going with a brand new Playboy pencil case and pens? Will she be wearing heeled school shoes and a skirt as far above her knee as she can get away with? Will she have new ear rings, hair straightened to within an inch of its pre-teen life? Who is she dressing up for, any way?

Besides the fact we're forcing our children to leave their childhoods earlier and earlier, how can we condemn those who lust after children, when we're encouraging our children to head in that very direction?

Don't get me wrong here; I'm not in any way trying to excuse paedophiles' behaviour, or trying to say that parents encourage paedophile behaviour. Or, God forbid, that children could be in any way to blame for that sort of thing.  I'm not for one moment saying that it's a parent's fault or a child's fault if a child is abused. The blame will always lie 100% with the perpetrator.

But doesn't anyone find it a massive discrepancy in our culture, where paedophilia is so universally reviled, but we put our kids in crop tops and heels, pierce their ears and parade them down the street calling them sexy?

A Script for Parenting

There are certain phrases I hear myself saying to S over and over (and over) again... Here are some of them:

• Ahh, cuddles for Mummy! What a lucky Mummy I am!

• Oooooh, you're so gorgeous, I could put you in a pie and eat you!

• Please put your legs down! (when she's in the buggy)

• Not Mummy's glasses please, I need those!

• Where's S? Where's my S? Where's she gone? There she is! Peekaboo!

• Where's Mummy? Where's Mummy gone? Where is she? Here she is! Peekaboo!

• C'mere and let me wipe that nose!

• Uh-uh, you know the rules: when we're outside the hat stays on your head please!

• Please stop throwing your food on the floor just so you can practice saying "uh-oh!"

• Where's Ted gone? Can you go and find Ted? Where is he?

• Awwww my little pickle, Mummy loves you SO much!

I say most of these about 50 times every day, mostly without even really thinking about it.

Do you have a set script for parenting? What are the things you repeat over and over again?

Small Steps, Amazing Achievements!

As you know, I recently bit the bullet and bought S her first pair of shoes. 

At first, she didn't like them very much, and it was a battle to get them on her feet.

Then she realised that if she was wearing the shoes, I'd let her walk outside. And she could explore more. 

Pretty soon, I'd turn up to pick her up from nursery and they'd tell me, "she caught sight of her shoes in her bag when I changed her nappy just now, and wanted them on!"

Yesterday, I managed to get home to drop off my shopping and handbag before I had to pick S up from nursery. So I wandered back down the road with just her Little Life backpack, my purse, and the keys.

When I arrived to pick her up, she was enjoying song time in the corner with her friends; she kept looking up and smiling at me, but was in no hurry to leave... she was wearing her shoes though!

For the first time, when we left I didn't even bother putting her in the sling. Instead, I carried her across the road and into the entrance of the shopping centre. She wandered happily around the shopping centre with me, saying hi to other children, and generally charming the public.

We wandered around Superdrug, then I bought a drink and we wandered round the shopping centre a little more, before she led me into BHS (worst possible choice as not only is there no aircon, they always seem to have the heating on), wandered through the sale rails, and then plonked herself down on the floor and took her  sun hat off.

All in all, I think she walked about 300 metres. Although the shopping centre is paved, there's a big feature in the middle (where the Christmas tree goes) that's sort of cobbled - and we had a good old wander over that. She only fell over when we went into the shop, and she was clearly knackered. I was so impressed! 

300 metres is nothing to an adult, but when your legs are tiny and used to just kicking about in a buggy all the time, it's a long long way to walk! She kept turning around to see how far she'd come!

Wordless Wednesday - Our Week in Instagram

Review: The Mini-B Beanbag

Room to Grow very kindly sent S and I a Mini-B beanbag to review.

When I was a kid, I always wanted a beanbag. When I finally got one for Christmas one year, I was disappointed - it was uncomfortable to sit in, and I usually ended up practically laying down. I couldn't even use it as a foot stool while I sat on a chair, because the beans just slid out from under my legs. When I was a kid, beanbags were not as much fun as they were cracked up to be!

When Room to Grow offered me one of their beanbags, I thought of that experience, and almost said no... Then I looked at the link they sent me. These beanbags are not what you'd normally think of when you think of a beanbag... they seem to have actually been designed with people in mind - people who want to sit down!

When our beanbag turned up, S was not impressed. It was big and scary and I'd plonked it on her playmats without making a proper space for it. After she'd gone to bed though, I made a space for it properly, and let Ted try it out:

When S came down for breakfast the next morning, I sat her next to Ted, and she stayed there watching TV with him for a while.

The beanbag has quickly become S's place to sit and read books. Also it's big (and comfortable) enough for me to sit on, with her on my lap.

There's a large rubber tag at the top of the beanbag, so that it's easy to move about. There are also air holes at the top, so that you don't risk popping it if you jump on it. There doesn't seem to be any danger of those pesky polystyrene balls escaping! Also, when it arrived it was in its very own travel case. That sounds like a silly point, but if you're moving house or decorating or something, a beanbag is a fairly odd shape - so a bag to put it back into is actually quite useful.

The Mini-B beanbag costs £59.99. At first, I thought that was a bit much to pay for a beanbag. I changed my mind when it turned up though! To be honest, when it arrived I thought perhaps they'd sent me an adult-sized one by mistake. I had to double-check the packaging to make sure it was the mini one. I could happily sit on this beanbag to watch TV, and it will last S well into adolescence. It's wipe-clean too, which I'm quickly discovering is a massive must for anything you're going to give a toddler to sit on!

The Room to Grow website also has a widget of "funny things kids say." Every time you click the button, it pops up with a new saying, and you can submit your own too, with a chance to win £200. Do go and take a look - it's guaranteed to brighten your day!

Disclaimer: Room to Grow sent us a beanbag for free in order to write this post. This was not dependent upon my writing a favourable review though.

Why I'm Not Celebrating the Royal Birth

Everyone loves a good birth, right? Especially a royal baby?

Well, no. Not everyone.

S at one day old

The arrival of a royal baby means the media is full of speculation: what was the labour like? How is Kate feeling? When will they leave hospital? Where will the baby sleep? Will Kate breastfeed? Who will do the night feeds? As a parent, I can't help but be reminded of my own experience.

Those of you who've been reading for a while will know that I had a fairly traumatic experience, both during my pregnancy and when S was born. (one of these days I will write the story of my pregnancy, but funnily enough, while I've written all about the birth, I don't feel ready to talk about what happened before it)

As time goes on, and I become more and more resigned to the fact S will most probably be an only child, and I will most probably not have another baby, I find it difficult not to be bitterly disappointed about my experience.

Quite early on in my pregnancy, I bumped into one of my mum's friends in a shop. We talked about my being pregnant, and as we parted she said, "enjoy yourself; you'll never have your first pregnancy again!"

I didn't enjoy my pregnancy. It was filled with fear and tension and stress and the constant feeling that everything was just wrong. I didn't enjoy my experience of S being born; I didn't enjoy the first few months of her life. Throughout all of that time, I would look around me at other women in my position, and find it very hard not to be consumed with jealousy. You might think I'm being childish or deliberately maudlin here, but just for a moment, stop and think what it must feel like to be in induced, premature labour, and still afraid of demanding too much attention from the man who is supposed to love you.

I have several friends who had babies shortly after I had S. Many of them were first time mums like me. I found it so hard not to be jealous of them with their new babies, when they were so happy and secure and contented with their partners and their little family. S and I were on our own, alone and distinctly lacking in security. I felt so guilty for her, for the life I had brought her into, and I felt sick to my stomach that my only experience of pregnancy and new motherhood had been tainted so badly by the situation we were in.

I'm really not into the whole navel-gazing, feeling sorry for myself business. I tried that approach to life for years, and all it ever got me was further into a stinking pit of despair. I don't want to wallow in that feeling. For the most part, I just avoid thinking about it and try to focus on the positives. And there are some massive positives, as I've mentioned before. Being a single parent is definitely the best choice for me. But that doesn't mean that I wouldn't have liked to have someone taking care of me when I was pregnant, someone asking if I was ok, someone putting me first from time to time, someone supporting S and I in those first few months, when everything was so new and strange and difficult. Someone to fetch me a glass of water on those evenings when I was stuck the couch, cluster-feeding a tiny, hungry baby while the room darkened around me. 

I'm glad that most of my friends had good experiences with their babies. I wouldn't wish it on anyone to have such a hard time in life. But that doesn't mean I don't find it hard to be constantly bombarded with stories of the most anticipated, privileged birth of this generation. 

Have You Heard of Gingerbread?

When I was pregnant, and it became apparently I was going to be a single parent, I began Googling to see what resources were out there for single parents. 

It wasn't long before I stumbled across Gingerbread.

Their slogan says it all, really. Just lately there seems to be a new news story every day that affects single parents. Benefits, childcare costs, Universal Credit, jobs, the list goes on. Gingerbread stands up for single parents, because our families are just as important as the government's two-parent, white-picket-fence families.

Becoming a member of Gingerbread is free for single parents, and joining means you become part of a UK-wide network of over 40,000 single parents. As a member you can be involved in campaigns, take part in surveys, share stories or even become a media volunteer. By working together in this way, we can show the media and society in general that the received stereotype of the average single parent is wrong!

There's also an online forum which can offer no end of help, support and guidance - something that can be sorely lacking for single parents. You can find threads and groups of single parents in your area as well. It's a good place to go and hang out when you feel like your friends on Facebook/Twitter/at work just don't get what it's like to be a single parent.

There's a monthly e-newsletter, and lots of special offers and competitions to get involved in too.

Gingerbread is a massive organisation with influence in the media. By joining them you can become a part of their voice, and make yourself heard above the headlines. Details of how to join up are here.

Magic Moments:Bed Time Shenanigans

Our normal bed-time routine is: messy tea, bath, bed. In recent months we’ve had this down to a fine art whereby S spent just the right amount of time in the bath to be nicely knackered from splashing, and then zonked out almost straight away. And then this heatwave started, and that went out the window.

Bed-time quickly became 2 or 3 hours of me trying to get S to sleep, and S wanting to watch Baby Jake/play with her toys/read books/run around/cry. It wasn’t much fun for either of us.

S, 22 July 2012

Towards the end of last week, as I sat on the side of the bath waiting for S to get bored of splashing, I had a bit of a revelation. I realised: you will never get this day back. Yes, you might be knackered, there might be washing up and laundry and studying and hoovering and a horrifically messy highchair waiting for you downstairs, but they will still be there tomorrow. I had been looking through photos from last year, trying to find photos of S in her cloth nappies, and found myself looking at photos of my gorgeous, tiny baby, thinking "where did that time go?"

I realised, you will never get this time back. This day,this hour, this minute, this bath time, this smile, this giggle - you will never have this exact one again.

And so, last night, bath time consisted of twice as much splashing. Twice as much shouting. Twice as much laughing. We got out of the bath and put S's nappy on, and she spent the next hour wandering about the bedroom, playing with toys and random bits and bobs. I spent half an hour standing at the top of the stairs behind the wall, playing peekaboo with her. The louder I shouted "BOO!" the more screechy and gleeful her giggles. There were cuddles, and stories, and kisses. She also managed to get her hands on a pen, and got it all over both of us. But who cares; we can always wash it off (or, you know, forget it's there and rock up to work/nursery with it tomorrow).

S, last week

This week's Magic Moments is brought to you by the ongoing realisation that all the housework, the cleaning, the preparing for tomorrow, the studying, the watching crap TV, the Twitter, the Facebook, the blogging (yes, even the blogging) all fades into insignificance when pitted against a couple of hours of playing and giggling.

If in doubt, always go for the giggling.

Cloth Nappies - the Pros and the Cons, and Some Tips

When S was still fairly small, I commented on Facebook that I was thinking about using cloth nappies instead of disposables. A friend very kindly brought me over her entire set of Little Lambs, including inserts, covers, paper liners and buckets. (I really do have some effing awesome friends, don't I!)

S at 4 months, loving her cloth nappy!

The nappies we used came in two different sizes, and we started with the smallest. I found myself wishing I'd used them from day 1 with S; because she was so small when she was born, even the micro nappies had been a bit big on her. The cloth nappies we had were smaller though, and because of the velcro fastening, could be used across a wide range of sizes.

The PROS of using washable nappies:

• Cloth nappies these days are nothing like they were when we were babies. My mum was expecting it to be a piece of terry cloth and a safety pin, but they're actually formed in the shape of a regular nappy, and fasten with either snaps or velcro - so a million times easier to use than anything our parents had to fart about learning to fold.

• They look nicer than disposables: the ones we use are fluffy and white, and the covers are plain white. Better than advertising some brand, or having some stupid mass-produced picture on baby's bum! You can also get all sorts of different colours and patterns for the covers; some of them are really funky!

• Sometimes, yes, they do get poo stains on them - but sunlight really does bleach those out. You just put the nappy in the kitchen window for a couple of days, and hey presto, the stain is gone.

• One of the main reasons people give for not wanting to use cloth nappies is dealing with the poo situation.When your baby is very small and being fed milk, yes, their poo is practically liquid and it can be a bit messy to clean up. But realistically, cleaning up poo is cleaning up poo, isn't it. You take the nappy off and put it in the bucket, and then you chuck it in the washing machine, wash your hands, and carry on with your day. 

• When your child is on solids, dealing with a poo in a nappy is easier than with a disposable. You just tip the poo and the liner straight into the toilet, and flush the smell away - rather than putting it into one of those artificially scented bags and having it hang about the house.

• The absolute best point of  cloth nappies is that they have an elasticated waist, whereas disposables... don't. So when your beloved baby has one of those massive, outfit-ruining, up-the-back-and-out-the-sides poonamis, a cloth nappy will keep it all inside. S once went 18 days without a poo, and when she eventually went, none of it escaped the nappy. Show me a disposable that can do that!

• Obviously, there is the "green" aspect of using cloth nappies. Opinions are divided on this though; a lot of people think the carbon footprint you save on disposables is just used up in washing machine electricity and water usage.

• Several people have told me that wearing cloth nappies can make a child easier to potty train. Disposables sell themselves on the fact they wick all moisture away from baby's skin, so they never feel wet. The argument goes that this means the child never knows when they've done a wee, so they take longer to learn when to use the potty. With cloth nappies, they feel wet as soon as they've done a wee. I can't vouch for this personally though, as I've not tried it with S yet.

• Depending on who you speak to, cloth nappies will either make your child more or less likely to get a nappy rash. I can safely say, though, that S has only ever had one, very small case of nappy rash. And she's 15 months old.

• Because they're bulky, there's more padding around baby's bum when they're learning to walk (and falling on their bum every five minutes).

Some CONS of cloth nappies:

• Whilst it's perfectly possible to cope with washable nappies without a tumble dryer, and you can get quick-drying ones as well these days, a tumble dryer certainly does help. Unless you have loads of spare nappies, so that getting the wet ones dry isn't so urgent, you're reliant upon consistently good weather in order to line-dry, or a house with nappies on every radiator for large portions of time. Personally, I don't have the facility to dry my clothes outside, so I have a dryer any way. And I'm lucky in that the set I was given contained loads of nappies, so even when I got a bit lazy with the washing, I never ran out.

• They take up a lot more space around your changing mat than a bag of disposables does.

• Where you can just chuck a stinky disposable nappy straight in the bin, and then take the bin outside, with washables you are left waiting until you have a full load to do. One of S's favourite tricks has always been to wait until I've just given up and done a load of nappies, and then do a poo.

• Because babies feel wet as soon as they've done a wee, they need to be changed straight away - otherwise they're liable to get nappy rash (and a bit grumpy). This can be a bit difficult when you're out and about.

• They can be a bit of a nightmare to change when you're out. When you change a disposable while you're out, you can just chuck it in the bin and go about your day. With a washable, you have to put the wet/smelly nappy in your changing bag and carry it home with you.

• Because they're so bulky, it can mean trousers or tights become too small sooner. When S is wearing cloth nappies, I have to crack out the 18-24 month clothes, but if she's in disposables she's often still in 9-12 month shorts/trousers. (she's still quite small for her age, and is actually still getting about in a pair of 3-6 month shorts some days!)

Some tips for using cloth nappies:

• They take up more space than disposables, so find yourself a spare cupboard or drawer for your clean ones.

• Invest in a couple of nappy meshes. These are mesh bags that you use to line your bucket. When the bucket's full, you just pull the mesh out and chuck it in the washing machine. No big deal!

• Invest in a roll of paper liners. If not when baby is really small (when the paper liners are miles too big) then at least once they are on solids. That way, when baby does a poo, you can just take the liner out and flush it down the loo.

• Buy reusable nappy liners. That way, if you've used a liner in a nappy and there's no poo to remove with it, you can just leave it in the nappy and put it through the wash to reuse. You can reuse liners 2 or 3 times before they're beyond saving.

• If you are using nappies with velcro fasteners, make sure you stick the fasteners together before you put the dirty nappy in your bucket. Otherwise they stick to each other, and to the nappy mesh, and when they come out of the washing machine/tumble dryer you spend half an hour untangling them.

• When you're washing them, put them on a high setting. You don't need to use too much soap, and never use fabric softener. The softener soaks into the fabric and makes the nappies a lot less absorbent. Instead, use white vinegar; it's a really great substitute for fabric softener with anything that needs to be absorbent (as mentioned in my post about it, here).

• With disposables, you chuck your dirty baby wipe into the nappy, and chuck the whole bundle. With cloth nappies, there's nowhere to chuck the baby wipes. I used to keep a plastic nappy bag tied to the cupboard door to put them in each day

Do you have any of your own pros, cons or tips to add to these lists about cloth nappies? Have you had a great, or awful experience with washable nappies? Please do share in the comments!

Silent Sunday, 21-7-13

S's first trip to the beach went well...

Blogging Tips: Blog Statistics Are Your Friend!

I've been writing a series on blogging tips lately. These include How to Write an Amazing Blog Post, How to Promote Your Blog using Facebook, and How to Increase Your Blog Traffic Using Twitter. This one might be more... divisive. It's about statistics, and how they can help you with your blog.

When I first started blogging, the advice I got from most people was: don't look at your stats. Don't read the stats. Don't worry about the stats. Stats are meaningless. 

I'm a bit of a geek, though; I like stats. I like graphs and analysing data and knowing what's going on. So I would carry on checking the stats on my blog, feeling like I was breaking the rules somehow. 

Then I spoke to Mark, who blogs at Best Dad I Can Be (and has written a rather funny book). He was the first person to say to me that, if you want your blog to do well, you need to pay attention to the stats.

If you're just blogging for fun, and you're not at all interested in how to get more readers or followers or improve your Tots 100 ranking or your Klout score or whatever else, then fine. Stop reading this post. It's not for you.

If you are interested in how statistics can help you, read on.

• Install Google Analytics on your blog. You can use it to see useful things like how many unique visitors you have each day/week/month. You can compare this week with last week, and see loads of other things besides.

• Look at how people are finding you. Which websites are your main sources of traffic? What words to people search on Google to get to your blog?

• Use your stats to see whether the links you post on Facebook or Twitter are bringing you any more traffic. Did that linky post you linked up with on a whim the other day actually bring you more traffic than all that Tweeting?

• Use Google Analytics to see your traffic sources, and which sites have the highest percentage of new visitors. It's important here to take note of the average time spent on the blog though; quite often you'll get a high percentage of new visitors from sites like Stumbleupon, but the nature of the site means that people may only spend a few seconds there.

• Which are your most popular posts? Look at what's different about these, and why they might be more popular - do they have more useful information, more personal content, more controversial arguments?

• If you have a Facebook page, look at the Insights at the top of the page to see which posts had the most interaction. Do posts made at a particular time of day get more interaction? Is it photos? Links to other pages? Random "I am picking my nose" TMI posts? Try and use this information to better time when and how you posts links to your blog.

• You can use sites like bit.ly to shorten your links - but they will also count how many times that link is clicked on. This can be useful if, for example, you use these links for specific  posts only (at a certain time of day or in a certain place) - you can track exactly how much effect these actions are having.

• I find it useful to keep my own spreadsheet of how many unique visitors I have, and the average visit duration each month. This can show you at a glance whether what you're doing to promote your blog is paying off.

• I also keep track of the number of visitors my blog has had in the last rolling month. As a rule you want this number to go up, or at least stay the same - if it starts to go down then you know you need to have a look at where you are losing readers.

So there is my list of ways you can use statistics to help with your blogging. Do you agree with these? Do you have any to add? Please do share your thoughts in the comments.

Hooray for the Weekend?

A while back, I was talking to a friend whose wife had recently died. He said he didn't like to walk into town on his own, because he felt that everyone was staring at him.

I told him that was silly, that nobody bats an eyelid at a single man walking through town alone.

And then I stopped and thought...

I have two days off in the week, and until I returned to work I was free every day. On week days I will happily bundle S into the buggy and wander off. We'll go to the park, go to town, do some shopping, maybe go to another park, for a walk... whatever takes our fancy.

On the weekends though, I'm convinced the fact I'm a single mother sticks out a mile, and that everyone is looking at me, alone with my child, and silently judging me. I know this is ridiculous; I know nobody really notices one way or the other. But it still bothers me.

This is what our weekends usually look like.

I dislike weekends, because those are the days when the dads are home from work, and people do things as a family. The parks are filled with dads pushing their kids on the swings, watching them go down the slides, or pushing them in pushchairs. Town is filled with families walking round the shops. Families in restaurants, families on buses, families in cars at traffic lights. 

To me, it notices that I am still on my own on the weekends. Nobody comes home to spend the weekend with us.

On weekends, the loneliness notices more. People go out on a Friday or Saturday night; I have nobody to take me out, no reason to get a babysitter. 

The friends I would normally visit or go to the park with are busy with their husbands or boyfriends, doing family things on the weekends. I don't want to bother them by asking if they want to do something with us, and make them feel guilty for saying no. Or worse, make them feel so guilty they say yes.

In the week, I'm too busy clearing up after yesterday and preparing for tomorrow to notice that I have a 4pm curfew which is rarely broken. On the weekends though, it notices. And it's depressing.

On a Friday evening, the weekend stretches ahead of me as two days where it's entirely likely the only other adults I will speak to will be shop assistants.

Who Would Have Thought...

When I was in the middle of having my breakdown, I went to the beach several times. I think I thought the sun, sea and sand would make me feel happy and at peace, but it never really did.

Every time I went, I would look up at the balloon that goes up from the Gardens, and think, "you could just get in that, wait for it to go up, and jump..."

One time I went as far as joining the queue, but I didn't have enough cash on me.

The next time I was there, I was with a friend. I told her about my plan with the balloon. She looked at it and said, "you can't jump off that; there's a cage all the way round to keep people in!"

Fast forward three years. 

Today I went to the beach with S and two of my sisters. It was S's first trip to the beach, and I kind of expected her to not really enjoy it. Imagine my surprise when I took her down to the sea for a paddle, and she just kept on walking. I lifted her over the waves as they came, but I missed a few and they got her full in the face! No tears though - she just giggled and kept on kicking her legs and jibbering away to herself. 

In the end, I walked up to Primark to buy a cheap bikini so that I could take S into the sea properly. I left her with my sisters (with a list of instructions as long as both their arms), and set off up to the shops. That involved walking through the gardens for the first time since that time three years ago.

As I walked past the balloon, I looked up and thought, imagine if I'd done it.

My life now is far from easy. I'm constantly behind on my studying, the housework, blog posts, emails, Twitter. S is not sleeping brilliantly, I'm constantly knackered, am too tired and short of time to buy and prepare proper food for myself. But I'm the happiest, most contented I've ever been in my life. Instead of going to the beach in a vague attempt to pull myself out of the pit of despair, I was there to enjoy the sea and the sand with my beautiful daughter, who enjoyed the whole experience a lot more than any of us expected.

As I passed the balloon, I texted my friend saying, "hey, remember that time you told me I couldn't jump out of the balloon..." Her response? 

Who would have thought you'd be where you are now?

Certainly not me.

Wordless Wednesday: Our Week in Instagram

Other Wordless Wednesdays you might like:

Autumn

Attempts at a Self Portrait

Ted

The Value of Friends

I have this friend... I'm not going to mention her name.

We met aged 11, at secondary school, but lost touch when I left after GCSEs.

We got back in touch via Facebook, and were pregnant at the same time. My friend's daughter was born a few months before S. She lives about half an hour away from here, so I only saw her a couple of times before S was was born. She gave me some baby clothes and sage advice about not expecting too much from myself.

I don't have a picture of my friend, so here is one of me and S.

At the time I didn't realise it, but my friend suffered awfully with post-natal depression after her daughter was born. Despite this, she could see that I was in a terrible situation myself, and that perhaps her support could come in handy. She turned up here several times with bags of her daughter's old clothes, other useful things, boxes of home made food, and most importantly, a shoulder to cry on. She sent me cards in the post that make me cry even now, a year later, when I read the kind words she wrote.

At a time when I really wasn't sure if I was capable of being a mother, she told me time and time again that I was doing a fantastic job. She never once complained about her own situation or told me to just pull my socks up and stop whining.

On S's birthday, she sent me a card to congratulate me on surviving a year as a mother.

One day when she looked after S for a whole afternoon, they made a card with a love heart on the front made from paint prints of S's feet.

Now that I'm in a stronger place, that friend is still there. She still reassures me when I have doubts. She still offers sage advice (and it's usually spot on) and she never sounds condescending or holier-than-thou. 

I realised the other day that when it comes to listing "people I would trust to look after S for an extended period of time" she would be at the top of a fairly short list. 

I find myself wondering how I could ever have been so careless to lose touch with such an amazing friend for over ten years when I left school. How did I not see the value of this person who is always there for me, who has never judged me, and never once asked me, "why didn't you just leave him?"

I find myself feeling terribly guilty that this friend has run around after me, visited me, picked things up for me, given me things, looked after S for me, reassured me, thought to text me when I was quiet on Facebook... and what have I done in return? My list is considerably shorter. I must set about fixing this!