Last week I had my first full day away from my daughter after spending 5 months together pretty much every minute of every day.

It was HARD.

The organisation I work for has an annual big conference that brings together the movers and shakers working in my specialised sector and it’s a very popular and interesting event. It goes all week, but I had discussed with my boss the idea of using one of my “Keeping in touch” days to attend, as a way to check in and see people and get back in touch with what’s going on in my line of work while on maternity/adoption leave. Continue reading →

Well here are a few more snippets into the minutiae of our daily lives at the moment – a few little things that make me laugh or just reflect life with a toddler!

As she has a birthday quite near to Christmas, there has recently been a flurry of packages arriving in the post of things that I don’t necessarily want her to see… So I have been handing her the giant bubble packets of air to pop while I squirrel away whatever was in the box, and then show her the empty box. This seems to be working, but she now thinks we are just ordering tons of empty boxes full of bubble wrap for her to pop! Continue reading →

Well my gorgeous little girl turned 2 recently and it was such a wonderful celebration!

It was our first birthday together as a family, and I felt really quite emotional about it all. I’m so glad that I only missed one birthday (and frankly first birthdays are always a bit weird as the kid has no idea what’s going on anyway). She’s such a gorgeous, lovely, sweet child and I’m so so happy I get to be her mama.

The birthday weekend itself was rather busy and hectic – we had so many people come and visit us, but we both loved every minute of it. Continue reading →

I’m now 4 months into my maternity leave, and although I love so much about bonding and cuddling and spending time with my kid, it’s also boring and lonely a lot of the time.

You’re in the house alone with a tiny person you can’t really talk to all day, so you go to the park and you’re alone there too, pushing your kid on the swings, nodding and smiling at the other random parents, prattling away to a kid who isn’t really listening. One of our toddler groups is really lovely as two of my friends go there so I really look forward to that one, but most of the other toddler groups are a bit cliquey. Most of the other mums on maternity leave already have friends from their NCT groups or similar, and those with toddlers tend to be stay at home mums or childminders who already know each other and have been going to these groups for ages so they’re less interested in making new friends. Continue reading →

We had our first trip away from home a couple of weeks ago, up to Yorkshire to visit my mum for a couple of days. I drove up at night, so she slept most of the way. She woke once or twice and went “Where the hell am I?” but then went back to sleep again. We arrived at 10pm, and she was initially very frightened and freaked out but then calmed down and settled.

The whole time we were there she seemed absolutely fine – I was worried she would be anxious but actually I was more anxious than she was (ironically I was mostly anxious about whether or not she was anxious!). She had a lovely time meeting some extended family members and lots and lots of cuddles with Grandma – she has bonded really quickly and well with my mum, which is lovely, although occasionally hard not to feel slightly rejected when she preferred Grandma’s hand/cuddles to mine! I suppose Grandparents do have novelty value! All in all she was happy, smiley, quiet and well behaved, and we both had a lovely time. Continue reading →

Some of you are friends of mine on Facebook so will have read most of this already, but for those who are not here’s a little peek into an average week in our lives recently. Continue reading →