At One!

Just where did the last 12 months go? It’s Millie’s 1st Birthday tomorrow and I can’t quite believe it. I’m not really one to get too sentimental and emotional about such things but I must admit it has hit me more than it did Callum and makes me go ‘gulp’!

With Callum, I hurried his baby days along always pushing him towards the next milestone & looking forward to the next phase of Callum. I wasn’t a fan of the baby phase and longed for more interactive stages. Looking back I was more stressed about doing things correctly and not getting into bad habits. I guess so many people are with the first child.

However, this time with Millie, I’ve relaxed into it and gone with Millie’s lead. Because my attitude has been different, I’ve enjoyed the baby stage so much more. Although I can’t wait to see what Millie is going to learn to do next I still look back with nostalgia.

But enough of that, lets look at the now!

Millie is still very quick to dish out the smiles at all & sundry and most of the time she is quite easy going but she is beginning to get a bit more of a spirited personality. She has always known what she wants but now she can get stroppy if she doesn’t get her way. This is especially true when it comes to walking around while holding our hands. Should we dare to ignore her desperate grabs for our hands as they pass by because we are busy with something else, or we tire of activity after the 14th cycle of the downstairs of the house, while rubbing our sore backs, she will cry like you’ve just taken her bottle away after the first taste of milk! Like I say above, she knows what she wants and while walking her around….I say walking her around but what I really mean is while she is walking you around because you really don’t get much say of where she goes.

We’ve tried persuading her the walker is a good independent way to practice her walking skills. She has use of a few. One which she sits in which she likes at first but gets frustrated with its size as she gets stuck occasionally and prefers to run me or the cats over with it! We also have one of those VTech walkers, the ones where you have lots of buttons to press & a phone on the front then a handle at the back which they can use to push it around. Similar to this, we have Callum’s old wooden blocks trolley walker. If we try to get Millie to walk with either of these latter types she freezes and cries.

Millie loves to dance and I think she is going to be the more musical out our two children.

She can clap and she can wave and just within the last week she can pretend to talk on the phone. Not that she says any recognisable words as yet but she holds it to her ear and babbles into it.

Millie now has 4 definite teeth and a 5th one has just broken through the gum and I believe there are a couple more that will be close behind.

She is rather speedy at the bum shuffling now and can be guaranteed to make a beeline for the top of the stairs giving Stuart and I many a heart attack as we don’t have a stairgate and she refuses to go down backwards! Think it is time to accept we need a stairgate with this one!

Mille still loves lights like many young babies do – we have several lights with dangly things on (crystals on the downstairs ones, stars on Callum’s light and butterflies on hers) and she looks up at them and makes a herrrr noise (like when you breathe on a window) to indicate she wants you to blow them to make them move and she’ll smile and giggle when you do.

Like Callum was at this age, it feels like she is on the verge of learning so many new things.

It’s hard to imagine that over the next year she’ll be walking and talking and moving from baby to becoming a proper toddling little girl.

Here’s a little montage of her past year:

		Millie's First Year VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

 

I think I must’ve blinked…could we do that again? Ha! Nah! No chance! Trot onwards please! Eyes forward!

Time is a gift and not to be wasted

Occasionally, there will be an event, a tragedy, a moment, something said, that makes you take a look at yourself and you realise you need to change, that your priorities are wrong.

It is unfortunate that so often it takes for something negative to lead you to do this but as long as we learn from our lessons and take something positive from it, we are only human and we should forgive ourselves.

A couple of these things happened last week that made me look introspectively at myself & realise I needed to change.

The first being the tragic and very unexpected loss of a young baby girl’s life. At just 9 months with no warning. I can’t even begin to imagine what her family are going through. They are the thoughts that when you have children you try constantly to push back into the darkest depths of your subconscious. My thoughts now go out to them. This unimaginable tragedy happened to a Mummy on Twitter, a mummy blogger which for some reason our paths haven’t before crossed on Twitter but she and her family have clearly touched so many and my Twitter timeline was full of fellow Tweeters paying their respects for her sad loss.

I, in no way, wish to compare as I have had no direct experience and everyone’s loss and grief is a personal thing but my poor Mum & (older) Sister have experienced the loss of a baby as my Sister was a twin but sadly, her identical twin sister, passed away at just 6 weeks old. In fact, it is the 39th anniversary of her death next week. Anita  is very much still a part of our family, even for me who wasn’t around when she was born. She is our family Guardian Angel. She is often talked about, talked to and remembered constantly.  A family doesn’t ever really get over that type of tragedy even though you learn to move on.

For this reason, I have been a little more aware, a little more nervous for the first 6 weeks of both my babies’ lives than perhaps I would’ve been. To know that after 9 months of carrying this little growing life inside you that you bring safely into this world, learn to love, get to know, ready to protect with your own life, then suddenly to find they can be taken away from you. As I say, we so often have to push those thoughts away to enable us to live our lives the best we can. I was already anxious for the first 6 weeks but this has reminded me, it can happen any time, 9 months, a year, 5 years, 11 years, 18 years…it is not right when a child goes before their parents whatever the age!

The second thing to make me think was a simple sentence from my Son, Callum. I confess to being a bit rubbish at playing with my children. I have a short attention span for such a thing, especially when it involves imaginary play – which is surprising considering I’ve always wanted to be an actress. I lose patience quickly whenever I try to do creative craft, arty stuff or cooking with Callum so, although I do these things from time to time, I no where near do them often enough.

I am also rubbish during the winter at getting motivated to getting outside the house so, unless I have something planned in advance, I can quite easily waste a day inside doing not a lot.

The worst thing I can do first thing in the morning, is pick up my laptop. For there I am glued until I am made to move by the needs of one of my children or my own hunger, thirst or call of nature.

What was the simple sentence uttered by my dearest son that made me ashamed and want to change? “Mummy I don’t like it when you sit here all the time” referring to usual position of my arse sat on the sofa with my laptop on my lap, or close by if I’m holding Millie

Shit! I can sometimes be a really crap mother!

I said to Stuart recently, I need to make the most of these days I am at home (not working) with the children and really appreciate them as before long I’ll be back on the hunt for a job and the likelihood will be that I get a full time job. Callum will be in school and Millie in nursery. I wont ever get these days back again. So why the hell am I wasting them? Why am I not grabbing every day and making it a memory?

So I’ve made a plan. I would say a promise but I don’t believe in promises as sometimes promises have to be broken and I don’t like broken promises. So I am going to say I’m really going to try my damned hardest to stick to this.

I am going to spend more time with and enjoying my children.

Should I not have any plans to meet a friend or my family I am going to go out to parks, soft play, walks, the beach, farms etc. These things don’t have to be expensive and are quite often free. Callum loves looking around pet shops or fish shops (the aquarium kind not the fried type). Once a fortnight I will try to either bake or get arty with Callum and/or Millie (admittedly a little more difficult with Millie). I will try to make myself join in games with Callum, especially when Millie is sleeping.

To ensure this happens, I have to limit my computer use so I propose the following:

• I will not pick up my laptop Monday to Wednesday until the evening/children are in bed unless Callum is happily watching a DVD (which isn’t actually that often).
• On Thursdays and Fridays, when Callum is at nursery, I will limit my laptop time to when Millie is napping and again once children are in bed.
• I will allow myself to use my phone during the above times unless I notice this taking over important family time.

I think this is realistic and should be easy to stick to.

I am not perfect and I may slip into bad habits from time to time but hopefully, by writing it down, I am more committed and can remind myself of what I have pledged by reading this back. I want to be a better Mummy and I want to make the most of these days so we can all look back at the memories we’ve made.

12 Weeks: Time for reflection

12 weeks is the new 6 weeks! I finally feel things are coming together and ‘normalising’ some what. We are surviving and, what’s more, it feels less like ‘survival’ and more like ‘coping’.

Its so hard when a newborn comes along to see past the suffocating fog that surrounds you. You can’t see any way out or any end to it, it just bogs you down.

It has been easier the second time round because at least you know that it does get better, allowing you to just have faith that it will. Even still, its difficult not to doubt that there will ever be an end. You hear stories about other people’s second children – they are either so much easier than their first or the first was an angel and their second a nightmare! I found myself asking, which would Millie be? Was Callum a good or a bad sleeper? I thought he was pretty average – not awful but not great either.

In truth, a lot of what Millie does or the phases she has gone through have been similar to Callum but I am a lot more relaxed this time. I know it is ‘normal’ and that the less I stress about it, the quicker the phase will pass, and it does! Because of my relaxed attitude she does seem to go through these phases quicker than Callum. For sleep issues, I know that she’ll eventually just ‘get it’ and all I can do is provide her with some kind of routine but be flexible enough to know that things change and I will have to change with them.

For the moment (and it is always ‘for the moment’ – see point above), Millie is napping in her cot without too much fuss getting her to sleep (there was lots of rocking and him waking as soon as he touched the bed) – not for longer than 45 minutes to an hour but I’m not worried about that yet, she’ll work it out. Millie is going longer through the night again AND is also in her own room in her cot. Millie is happy. She is putting on weight. She is, as everyone comments, very alert (cos the world needs Lerts!), strong and developing daily. She’s happy, I’m happy – that’s all that matters.

That said, she has been a bit out of sorts today after her 2nd lot of jabs yesterday so I’m prepared for it all to change again tonight.

Of course, there are bad days – when the tiredness really sets in, I feel I can’t cope. I look around at the mess and I panic that I’ll never get round to catching up with the washing or manage to grab any kind of lunch anytime soon. People tell you it isn’t important but you can’t understand that – the fog sets in again. But then the next day, all will be right with the world again, and I know, even when that bad day is happening, that it is only because I am tired – tomorrow will be better.

The hardest bit for me now, is convincing others that I’m happy with how things are progressing and trying not to let them influence me and start worrying over nothing because, of course, everyone has an opinion and thinks that the way they did it was better and they never had the problems you’re having! I now just go along with it, smile and think, they’ll see soon enough!