What more blissful experience does life offer than snuggling in bed with your warm and slumberous children? Heaven. Unless you intend to sleep, that is. They are programmed never to let that happen. They will spin. They will kick. And they will fail to give a shit where the head-end is. Our baby’s teething the hard way this week. She’s all dribble and tears and … Continue reading Our kids are trying to break us with sleep torture
Babies are so Me Me Me. Our tiny human is only three weeks old and she’s already lording it like an East African dictator over the once-democratic Republic of Home. I accidentally told the health visitor on Thursday that I’d forgotten how much a newborn can ruin your life. I was hoping to say ‘rule your life’ obviously but my mouth had other ideas. I … Continue reading The twelve essential things you didn’t know but I did about life with a newborn
Hands up if you don’t hate men! Me neither. I really don’t hate them. I love them in fact. I like it that they take the piss, they’re hard to offend and they don’t do fake niceness. I slightly envy their friendships, camaraderie and ability to tell it to you straight. And I’ve never felt that blokes have it easy, that life gives me lemons … Continue reading Get bossin’ if you want to stay sane
Oh how rude of me. I don’t think I’ve told you our news. I do love pies but this bump is, in fact, a baby. After four miscarriages and as many chemical pregnancies, we have a bun that appears to be cooking. But after all that trying, this baby took a while to get used to. Maya starts school in September and all I could … Continue reading Bun in the oven
Maya starts big school in September and I’m shitting it a bit. There’s nothing wrong with the place. It’s meant to be amazing and the parents love it. But nursery. My heart weighs heavy with grief just thinking about losing those amazing people. They’ve nurtured, encouraged and stretched my child since I first left her there with a leaky nose and old man’s hairline at … Continue reading Back off, big school. I want nursery forever…
I love learning stuff with Maya. We read and watch and look things up and experiment together. I’m reacquainting myself with some genuinely interesting topics. But all this revision’s been highlighting some pretty big gaps in my knowledge, some of which I’m not at all willing to alert her to. I was prepared to admit I’d never heard of a brinicle when I saw one on Octonauts. Same … Continue reading Learning is fun (but it turns out I’m stupid)
Hello again Back in October, I gave some friends and nursery mums the link to this blog. I was terrified because I am an enormous wimp. I’m not sure what dark and dreadful things I thought would come to pass if people I knew read my writing. But my fears were ridiculous. Nobody blanked me at preschool pickup or posted a dead mouse through the letterbox. My coat remained spit-free. I was … Continue reading Radio silence and the power of lego
Sometimes I do grown-up tantrums. Things get kicked and swiped and I do a little stamp dance. Nobody gets hurt. But still. I’m not proud. I guess at the root of it are significant issues: stress, lack of time for myself and stuff in my life that isn’t quite right at the moment. Like how work gets the best of me and Maya is left with … Continue reading Twenty things I lose it with because I can’t lose it with my child
Maya is hard to disgust. It’s another one I think she got from her mum. I am mildly disgusting myself and I guess she assumes I’m normal. My own disgust mechanism is a bit faulty. I’m not a big fan of blood and gore. I don’t like documentaries where chimps eat monkeys and even thinking about a caterpillar being consumed from within by wasps that have hatched … Continue reading You lovely undisgustable thing
This cool post by Jess at Wonderoak got me thinking about the things I’ve taught my own daughter without meaning to. Maya thinks and does all manner of stuff that I’m pretty sure she picked up from me when my guard was down (any time outside enthusiastic coffee hour). It’s textbook copycat business. Here is some of her wonky and undesigned learning, good and bad and in no particular order: … Continue reading Leading by shoddy example
