I don’t know whether it’s the the alcoholic eggnog or a little bit of Christmas magic but the last few days have definitly felt very merry. A lovely feeling of calmness and contentment has crept up on me (well as calm as you can be whilst trying to plan all the shopping for the festive period). I don’t want to get all ‘It’s a Wonderful Life’ on folks. However, I feel I have received so many of the hopes and dreams that I spent years waiting for. I have so much to be happy about and grateful for. There is still plenty left to achieve in life but, with a bit of perseverance and hard work, thing ..read more

Winter is not a time of mourning, it is not a season of death. It is a time for conserving energy, it is realising the importance of making time for self care. If plants and trees were to constantly be in the spring and summer stages of growth then they would quickly die during the winter season. Instead they have learnt to adapt to the season. If the conditions around them do not support growth then they do not give up completely or continue to fight against the situation they are in. Instead they just pause. They pause their growth, they don’t feel the need to be on show or at their optimum ..read more

I left the last decade as a strong, independent and confident young woman. I was fresh out of university and ready to take on the world. Going into this decade I found myself at the start of what appeared to be an excellent career. However, whilst the money was good, the job brought stagnation, stress, long hours, self doubt and a loss of confidence. Luckily, for the first few years it was a fun team to be part of and we all had a good sense of humour. As it so often happens in life, as the work team started to fall apart midway through the decade, my home life started to come together. The s ..read more

This photo was taken a year ago, a few days after Isaac’s first birthday. It is a big middle finger to all the people who enjoy telling new mums something along the lines of “wait until they start crawling”, “looking after a newborn is the easy bit” or “this is only the start, you’ve got the worst to come”. When you are in those early few weeks, recovering from pregnancy and labour, a hormonal mess and so sleep deprived beyond all belief, these words can send you in to a panic. You wondering how things could possibly get any tougher. A year later and the husband is currently sorting dinner ou ..read more

Life seems to going at 100 miles an hour. The days, weeks, months just fly past. We are always busy parenting, working on the house, generally trying to make a life for ourselves. It is only very occasionally the husband and I take a moment to spend some quality time together. Away from everything else; away from our work, away from the daily chores, away from being a mummy and daddy. We both love being a family unit but it’s so easy to get stuck in a rut of viewing your partner as a family provider, a house fixer, a father to your children. So when we take some time out from everyday life an ..read more

“There are two gifts we should give our children: one is roots and the other is wings.” – Author Unknown “You cannot be serious?!? I have to wear this all day?” The little guy is off on a trip to the Monkey Forest today (I’m very jealous) I went in to full on control freak mummy mode as I bundled him into the vehicle; explaining to the fully qualified and experienced childcare practitioner how to use his car seat, how to unfold his pram and provided a full itinerary of the contents of his bag “I’ve packed three changes of clothes, a weeks worth of nappies, a lightweight showerproof jacket, a ..read more

This is something that I have been trying to make a conscious effort to do recently. And I can feedback that it is working wonders, I’d recommend it to everyone. Instead of ruminating over little insignificant situations or people I can walk away feeling incredibly proud and actually a little sympathy for the other person. It is important to remember that if someone is rude or lacks maturity then it is because something is missing in their life. It could be that they are imitating a poor role model, they are deeply unsatisfied with their life achievements, are seeking attention in a negative ..read more

Okay, I admit it! I’m a co-sleeper! It’s something that started on our first night home from the hospital. Our little guy cried all night. I had chosen to breastfeed but didn’t know that I wasn’t really producing anything so he was starving – but that is a story for another time. I was exhausted from three nights of labour and no sleep. My husband held me all night while I lay on my side to feed our baby whilst asleep. Once we sorted his feeding out we learnt that our child still WOULD NOT SLEEP! The only way any of us could get some sleep was to take it in turns to hold him. And so it contin ..read more

I love you little guy but that might change if you insist on eating all of mummy’s dates! I was so anxious during the first few months of weaning – worried I was doing it right, using the correct methods, would my the decisions I make now have an impact on him for life? I had already buggered up breastfeeding so I HAD to get this right! I opted for baby led weaning but on my return to work I found I didn’t have the time or patience for it so started to ‘help him out’. This then set off a new worry that I had ruined all my efforts and all the hard work that had gone into mealtimes so far. Howev ..read more

For the first time in such a long time I actually have a photo of myself that I am proud to show off! I had thought growing a human inside me would make me feel strong and invincible. However, pregnancy left me feeling weak and vulnerable. I love Isaac to the end of the universe but I’ve made no secret of how much I hated being pregnant, for many reasons. Before I became pregnant I tried to stay active, I was capable of feeling sexy and dressing confidently (I also ate my fair amount of cheese, pastry and cakes so was never skinny). The pregnancy made me feel too weak to exercise the way I di ..read more