Happy New Year

Do you do New Year Resolutions? I am 50/50 about them. I quite like to have a plan for the coming year, although I never go so far as to actually write it down on paper. It's more a New Year Aspiration than a Resolution. My hopes and aims for 2017 are:

I'd like to come up with some new baby onesie designs. Rainbow star was my favourite onesie design of 2016, hopefully I can come up with something just as cute.

Never mind lose weight and get fit and all that usual, non-specific stuff. My aim for 2017 is to do my food prep. I always eat better when I take a couple of hours each week to actually prepare a load of food in advance. And when I eat better, I feel better. I found this post over at Hungry Healthy Happy particularly inspiring, though I've never quite reached such awesome levels of organisation. I can but dream. Dannii also writes about eating well on a budget, which was just as useful.

Dannii's amazing, healthy food prep!

Resist the temptation to cut my hair until it reaches the magic length which means I can donate it to the Little Princess Trust. This charity makes and provides wigs free of charge to children who need them due to cancer treatments and other illnesses. I donated my hair a couple of years ago and think it's a really worthwhile cause that uses a resource that would otherwise just end up in the bin. I've had one hair trim in the past two years to help me get there, and I'm itching to get a major chop, but I will resist for at least another 6 months. I'm too chicken to have my hair less than shoulder length, so I need to crow it pretty long to accomplish a decent length of donation. 7 inches is the minimum requirement but the longer the better!

Slightly odd photo but here's what happened at my last big haircut.
I felt so bald afterwards, even though I still had shoulder length hair.

Christmas Baby Dilemmas

This Christmas will be Baby A's first Christmas, and while that is very exciting, it is throwing up lots of new, little dilemmas that never occurred to me before I had children.


The Tree

Our living room isn't very big - none of our rooms are. Our house is the opposite of open plan. Generally, we quite like it that way since we enjoy not having cooking smells in the living room or hearing the TV while in the dining room. But it's always been a squeeze to fit our not enormous Christmas tree in the living room. And this year we have the added problem of also fitting in a fire guard, a play pen, lots of toys and a very mobile, inquisitive child who does not yet understand the word 'danger'. I am pretty sure he will try to pull himself up on the tree, if not climb it. Tinsel and baubles will be stolen, played with, eaten, hidden. I was pondering not putting one up this year, but I really would like to. I'm just anticipating playing tree police for much of the festive season.

Presents

Call me Scrooge, but I don't see the point in giving loads of presents to an 11 month old. He doesn't know what Christmas is, he won't remember it, and he'll probably be far more interested in the paper and empty boxes than any presents themselves. Plus as mentioned, we don't have an enormous house. I'm very grateful for any gifts he may receive from doting grandparents, but I'm also wondering where on earth we're going to store all this stuff. I've become depressingly practical! So with all that in mind, I haven't actually bought Baby A anything for Christmas. Mean Mummy! He won't be totally ignored on Christmas Day though. I am knitting him a cuddly toy so we have something to give him. Partly because I would like to have something with his name on under our tree and something I can say was his 'first Christmas present', but mostly because I've enjoyed learning to knit it. Everyone is happy!

I might have to make this now.

The Christmas Show

Baby A attends nursery one day a week. It is attached to a primary school and every child, including the ones in nursery, have been invited to participate in the school's Christmas Show. At 11 months old, I'm not quite sure what Baby A would be doing, since he cannot be trusted to even sit in the same spot for more than 2 seconds. But it doesn't matter because the show isn't happening on his nursery day and I don't have any spare holidays left to take an afternoon off work to watch him be held by someone else on stage. I would quite like to, but it seems somewhat ridiculous when he's still so young and oblivious. The only thing that saddens me is he would have been dressed as a Christmas pudding. I'm tempted to make my own Christmas pudding outfit for him, just because it would have been so cute! In fact here is a tutorial for a Christmas pudding hat because why not?


Christmas Cards

I have a relatively short Christmas card list usually. I send them to close family and the odd friend that lives far away but who I correspond with regularly. It hasn't changed in years. I definitely know everyone on my list. But this year, nursery sent home a list of all the children in Baby A's room, as well as all the staff. There's only 15 or so children in his age range as it's a small place, but I think I am supposed to do Christmas cards for them all, even though I don't have a clue who most of them are. And of course neither does Baby A, being 11 months old and all. At the moment he is far more interested in porridge than other children. Does everyone join in with this? Will I be judged for not participating? Will I forever be referred to as the Scrooge mother? I didn't expect all this so soon! I guess this is good practice for when he attends actual school. I will be a Christmas card pro by then (she hopes).

A new stage of life.

I write here today, for once not distracted by a giggling/grumpy/crying/playing child. All my spelling and grammar mistakes are my own fault on this occasion. Because the young man is today at nursery for the entire day, and I am at home, for the ENTIRE DAY. I start back part-time at work in a couple of weeks, but we wanted to get him settled into nursery before then. So here I find myself, with no baby distraction, able to actually do what I fancy (sort of). For the first time in months. 

I'm not quite sure how I feel about it. I thought I would be dreadfully sad, dropping him off at nursery, saying goodbye to his cute, little face, walking back to the car on my own, with perhaps a little tear in my eye, sans pushchair, sans baby, sans everything. That's what you read about in mummy blogs so often. Being apart from your baby for the first time is a bit of a trauma, isn't it?

But actually, no, it wasn't like that at all. He started to play straight away. He loves the staff there. He doesn't understand goodbye or even waving, and didn't seem to care at all when I was leaving. And as I walked away, on my own for the first time in months, I admit it felt strange. But it didn't feel sad. I was able to get in my car and set off immediately without wrestling any equipment/small people into the vehicle and checking everything 15 times. No-one started to cry when I had to stop at traffic lights. When I got home, I made it into the house in one trip, in 30 seconds flat.

Once home, I got the laundry hung out without anyone crying. I made lots of stewed apples and fruit purée. I answered a load of emails I've been meaning to answer for weeks. I had a hot lunch, and a hot bath. I even did a bit of knitting and didn't mess it up because it turns out I can count when not distracted. I did lots of little jobs and I did them in record time. And I watched a bit of crap telly, because when am I ever going to get a couple of hours like this to myself ever again?

All of a sudden I've rediscovered that I can be productive. I thought perhaps I was never going to get anything done efficiently ever again, but no! It was the small one slowing things down all along! To be honest, I feel like I have rediscovered a little part of myself that had gotten lost this past year. And I'm not dreading going back to work like I was. Firstly, I don't think I'll be distraught from being separated as I once imagined I would be. When I was pregnant, the thought alone would bring me to tears. Secondly, I was worried I had lost the ability to do my job, frazzled as I feel much of the time. Now I feel as though, actually, I am still a motivated and able person, as well as being someone's mum.

But I am looking forward to picking the little man up. If his settling-in sessions are anything to go by, he won't care in the slightest when I arrive. He'll be too busy playing and having a good time. And while do miss his cute, little face, I am perfectly happy on my own for the day. I won't get too many of these days, so I'm enjoying it while it lasts.