- Sarah 7 Comments

Living Arrows 3/52

So we’re into week three in the I Heart Snapping Living Arrows project. Toby was sat in his highchair in the kitchen while I did the washing up. He was very happy playing with his new toy that he got for Christmas. I really like this toy because not only is it wooden and really well made instead of being plastic and noisy and liable to break, it also has suckers on the bottom so I can stick it to his highchair tray and he can’t throw it on the floor! So while we were in the kitchen I noticed the light was pretty good so I decided to grab the camera and see what we could get. And this is the result…

Living Arrows 3_52

living arrows
- Sarah 14 Comments

First food (The Ordinary Moments #10)

I’m linking up with Katie at Mummy Daddy Me again this week for some more ‘Ordinary Moments’.

At Christmas we gave Toby his first food to play with. He has eaten a few things since then but he doesn’t really seem that interested at the moment. Still, I’m trying to give him the opportunity to eat at least once a day and this week he tried porridge for the first time!

Baby eating porridge - first food

I wasn’t sure if he had actually eaten any or not, he seemed to spit most of it out. That was until the next day’s nappy – then I was sure he had definitely eaten some! And I will leave you with that image….it is after all a very ordinary moment for all parents of young children!

mummy daddy me
- Sarah 5 Comments

Team Honk Blogger Relay: Scotland

If you have been anywhere near Twitter in the last week you might have heard about the Team Honk Blogger Relay. But even if you have heard of it you might still not be to sure what it’s all about. So let me give you the lowdown:

  • The Team Honk Blogger Relay starts in Lands End on the 12th January 2014 and finishes in John O Groats on the 23rd March 2014.
  • We aim to raise over £20,000 for Sport Relief.
  • In terms of modes of transport, you name it we have thought of it: pushchair pushes, roller blading across the Humber, boating round Bristol, #Honkopoly around London, fancy dress, onesies, bikes, scooters, planes, hiking, rafting and mountain climbing.
  • #teamhonkrelay involves over 200 bloggers, their friends and families in a route that zig zags up the UK taking in 38 regional teams.
  • Here you can see the official regional route details and dates for the relay : http://teamhonk.org/2014-blogger-relay/team-honk-2014-relay-route-and-masterplan/

Are you with me so far? The relay is already underway, having started in Land’s End on the 12th January and there is a mighty troupe of bloggers all lined up to take the baton over, across and around England. However, the relay gets a bit less, well, relay-like when it gets to Scotland. This is mostly due to the size of the country (it’s bigger than you think!) and therefore the lack of suitably located bloggers. So Annie and Penny,two of the Team Honk organisers, have volunteered to take the baton from Washington to John O Groats linking up with bloggers where they can along the way. Which is where I come in!

On Friday 21st March I will be meeting up with Annie and Penny (with the baton) and some other bloggers in South Queensferry, from where we will be walking/cycling/scooting/generally crossing by some means or other the Forth Road Bridge. I’ll be taking Toby with me in the baby carrier (I’m not risking the buggy with the winds on the bridge after I helped some poor woman in Edinburgh the other week when her buggy (and child!) were almost blown right over by the wind!). The baton will then be carrying on its way up to John O Groats via some whitewater rafting in Aberfeldy and a climb up a Munro somewhere near Inverness!

The final weekend of the Team Honk Blogger Relay coincides with the first ever Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Games which take place from Friday 21st to Sunday 23rd March 2014. The public can join the fun and games by running, swimming or cycling their way to raising cash at over a thousand venues around the country, including the landmark events at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.

As one of the biggest fundraising events, Sport Relief brings the entire nation together to get active raise cash and change lives. The money raised by the public is spent by Comic Relief to help transform the lives of some of the poorest and most disadvantaged people both at home in the UK and across the world.

Sport Relief is a really great cause and I’m glad that this year I’ll be doing my bit to help rather than just watching it on TV. If you would like to do your bit too and help Team Honk reach our £20,000 target then you can donate by clicking on the badge below or by texting HONK to 70005 to donate £5 to Sport Relief. Please do, it really can make a difference.

Team Honk Blogger Relay

- Sarah 15 Comments

Guilt is to motherhood. . .

Mummy guilt

I’m linking up this week with the lovely Sara at mumturnedmom for her shiny new linky ‘The Prompt’. Each week Sara will provide a prompt – the rest is up to you. I’m already joining in with a few photo linkys so the idea of one focusing on the writing appealed to me and hopefully I’ll be able to join in every week. You can read more about why Sara decided to start the prompt here.

So without further ado…this weeks prompt…

Guilt to motherhood is like grapes to wine. Fay Weldon

It is morning. I hear my baby wake up and start babbling to himself. I don’t get up, I wait. He goes quiet, I turn over and go back to sleep. Ten minutes later I hear him again so I drag myself out of bed to go to him. He is happy, lying in his cot and grinning at me, but I feel guilty in case he has been lying awake and waiting for me.

I sit on the sofa, scrolling through Twitter on my phone. My six month old son is lying on the floor, wriggling and reaching for his toys. He is happy and yet I feel guilty that I am not giving him one hundred percent of my attention, that I am not down there on the floor playing with him.

My boy is in bed having a nap. I hear him wake up and call out. I don’t go to him straight away. I just nip to the loo first and get the washing out of the dryer before I go and get him. He is happy looking at the stars and planets on his wall and yet I feel guilty that I don’t go to him as soon as I hear he is awake.

We go out to the park to meet our friends. Toby is sat on my knee whilst we chat. He reaches out and tries to grab the teapot which only a few minutes earlier contained boiling water. I move it away and he is fine, the teapot was cool, and yet I feel guilty that I didn’t think to move it out of his reach earlier.

Home from the park, and it’s time for bed again. My son loves to sleep and I know he needs his nap and I yet I feel guilty as I hope he sleeps for a few hours, so that afterwards I don’t have to entertain him for too long before it’s time to go and pick up his daddy from the station.

Only an hour until bedtime. The little bear is happy playing with his daddy and yet I feel guilty for counting down the minutes until we can have some time to ourselves.

My baby is clean and ready for bed. He lies on his daddy’s knee having his last bottle before bed. I kiss him good night and tell him that I love him. He is happy……… and so am I.

mumturnedmom
- Sarah 7 Comments

Rolling (The Ordinary Moments #9)

I’m linking up with Katie at Mummy Daddy Me again this week for some more ‘Ordinary Moments’. I’ve even managed to get my post written and published on the day the linky opens instead of in the middle of the week!

I know babies develop quickly and sometimes it seems like they learn to do something new every week, but for us this skill has been a while coming. Toby has been almost rolling over for a couple of months it seems. He would manage it every once in a while but I think that was more a fluke than on purpose. Until this week that is. Toby has now well and truly mastered rolling over. But only from his back to his front and only to his right side. And now he literally won’t stay on his back for more than a minute (or sometimes even a second!). Which would be fine except that he hasn’t worked out how to roll back again so when he gets fed up of being on his front (which happens quite quickly sometimes) he shouts for someone to come and help him turn back on his back. And as soon as you do he promptly rolls onto his front again….And repeat, ad infinitum!

Baby lying on his tummy

The last few mornings this is the view I’ve been greeted with when I’ve gone into get Toby up. I’m not sure if he is rolling over straight away and then sleeping on his tummy all night, or just rolling over when he wakes up. I suspect he might be sleeping on his tummy all night though. When I popped my head in while he was napping the other day he was sleeping on his front. I don’t mind if he is – we have a Angelcare movement sensor monitor (which I’d highly recommend by the way) so I’m not worried about him burying his face in the mattress – apart from the fact he always used to wake up in the mornings and lie happily chatting to himself until we went to get him and now he starts grunting and groaning with the effort of trying to turn back over before starting to shout if we don’t go and get him pretty quick.

Hopefully it won’t be long before he masters rolling back the other way and then he can be whichever way he chooses. And then it won’t be long before he’s on the move! I love seeing Toby learn new things but it’s all happening so fast!!

mummy daddy me
- Sarah 3 Comments

Operation shift the baby weight – two month update

This is just a quick update on my weight loss progress. What with Christmas and visiting family (and my mother-in-law-who-makes-all-the-cakes) I was expecting a bit of a disaster this month. Despite my best intentions not to go crazy over the festive period I managed to consume quite a lot of chocolate (and wine!) but actually it’s not looking too bad as far as the numbers go. Since last months update I managed to lose 2lbs, put 3lbs on over Christmas, and then lose 2lbs again in the last week – so if you’re following the maths that leaves me 1lb down overall. And I’m calling that a win!

So time for the stats: (Figures in brackets are my original starting weights and measurements):

Weight: 13st 2lb (13st 8lb) – lost 6lb

Waist: 34.5 inches (37 inches) – lost 2.5 inches

Hips: 43 inches (45.5 inches) – lost 2.5 inches

Bust: 40 inches (42 inches) – lost 2 inch

So far so good. Now although my long term goal is to improve my general eating habits without being on a diet I’ve been given the chance to try a meal replacement diet (Extante Diet) for a week which I’ll be doing next week and blogging about when I’m done. Hopefully it will just give me a bit of a post Christmas boost so I can then carry on with my sensible and balanced eating.

- Sarah Leave a comment

Toby is six months old!

weaning at six months old

Wow! Six months old already. It only seems like five minutes since I was writing his five month update. It’s been a busy month though. We’ve had Toby’s first Christmas and a visit to see both sets of grandparents (which included an epic seven hour trip home during which Toby didn’t cry once!). The other big development this month is that we’ve started weaning! More on that later though.

So Toby is continuing to grow steadily – he weighed in today at 17lb 7oz so slowly creeping up the centiles but still very long and skinny. He’s in all his 6-9 month clothes now (and has been for a couple of weeks). There is no way most of those clothes are going to last until he’s nine months though! I’ve just had to order new 6-18 month sleeping bags too as his feet are right in the bottom of the ones he’s got at the moment. If this carries on he’s definitely going to be the tallest kid in the infants!

Sleep has been going fairly well lately, although I have a feeling that might be about to change temporarily. Toby has been continuing with his sometimes sleeping through, sometimes waking up for one feed and his naps have been great lately. However, in the last couple of days he has really got the hang of rolling over. Which means he rolls on to his tummy and then wakes up and realises he doesn’t want to be on his tummy and cries until someone comes to rescue him. I really hope he learns to roll back over himself soon so he can just be whichever way round he fancies. Sitting up is going well too. For some reason though Toby is fantastic at sitting up on his own at Baby Sensory, but then we get home he just starts toppling over again. It’s so weird! He’s still trying really hard to crawl as well. As soon as he is on his tummy his legs start kicking away but they still aren’t really getting him anywhere yet!

Despite all the teething symptoms last month we still don’t have any visible teeth. That hasn’t stopped us starting to offer Toby some food to try though. We’re mostly going with baby-led weaning; offering Toby the same things we’re eating. He’s very happy playing with his finger foods but doesn’t seem to quite have the dexterity (or the inclination) to put them in his mouth yet. He has eaten a little bit of a few things when we’ve held them for him, toast seems to be the favourite so far! I’m sure if we just keep offering him different things he’ll figure it out sooner or later. As far as his reflux goes, I’ve heard it can improve when they start solids but for now we’re still on the Gaviscon and ranitidine. Whenever we try and reduce the does his symptoms come back so we’ll just stick with it for now.

So that’s it. I can’t believe my tiny 6lb 10oz baby is a strapping six month old. Half way to one. It’s just crazy. Bananas!