2010 in review

The best Christmas present I had this year was my gorgeous little girl starting to properly walk. It's funny to see Tilly upright, walking in a drunken fashion with her arms out for balance, but it's possibly the best thing I've ever seen. Tilly has hypermobility and this means that she has been late to reach milestones like crawling, standing and walking.

Thinking about this made me think about how far we have all come this year and I wanted to go down a self indulgent memory lane and highlight some of the posts that have illustrated this best.

We moved house in February, it was a lot of fun and immensely stressful, the house hunting was a complete nightmare with the two little ones and mostly on my own because him indoors was working and I was on maternity leave. But we found our perfect home and we are incredibly happy here in the 'sticks'.

Through my blog I realised it was okay to admit to post natal depression, and I wrote a poem for Eliza here called Finding You and I was rather into poetry at the time so I wrote something for my own mother here called Mummy I Miss You. The support of this community has never failed me when I've needed it and for that I thank everyone of you who reads me.

I discovered Twitter quite early on in the year and made a few observations here, I also discovered that blogging can be addictive and a bit competitive at times and wrote my thoughts on that here in 'Time for Blog Idol?' I don't really think like that anymore as my blog is part of my everyday life now and no longer a novelty, but still we do now have the The Mads so maybe I wasn't far off the mark...

I've had numerous parenting crises and wobbles very publicly, mostly to do with being a working mother and it's no secret that I find it a constant struggle. But again I always get comments that comfort me and I know I'm not alone in my struggles. Toddler behaviour regularly bewilders me and I wrote this post 10 Universal truths about toddlers to sum some of their maddening behaviour up.

I regularly reminisced about time BC (before children) but this post stands out as one of my best memories 'Why Bonnie still rocks my world' about misbehaving on a business class flight to Singapore.

I started to think about who I am and what my life means to me. I wrote about my thoughts on feminism here and I was pleasantly surprised by the reaction. Whilst I was on the political soapbox I wrote about the mess that went on in the week while the powers that be tried to agree on an coalition government.

I reminisced about my wedding and went to Cybermummy, I won a MAD Award and spent more time thinking about my family in 'Taking Stock'.

We had a scary moment when we traipsed off to A&E at 10pm and I realised how lucky I am to have such a brilliant Dad myself.

And finally we had a lovely, busy, hectic, exhausting but perfect Christmas. 

For me 2011 will be the year I stop whining about being a working mother and do something positive about my situation. I will have my book edited and I will most probably get millions of rejections but I will persevere to get an agent.  I will continue to love, cherish and completely adore my children and I will try and be a bit nicer to my husband.

Bring it on. I'm ready...

How to get a toddler dressed

Eliza has worn the same green dress for about a week. During the day and during the night. I simply cannot prize it off her. She reluctantly took it off for a bath but it had to go straight back on. She wore it throughout Christmas at her Grandma's. She changed once when she wanted to wear a Princess dress to go shopping.  Of course she did.

I hate that green dress. That dress made me cry. It made me feel like the worst, most inept mother known to mankind. Because I am not able to take it off my daughter. I know that despite her promises not to interfere my mother in law thought I was rubbish for not being able to do this simple thing.  She's right I am. I know I should have just taken it off her and lived with the screams, but somehow I couldn't. I know that her reluctance or refusal to take it off is about control and rationally I know it's a phase she's going through but it's still hard work emotionally isn't it?

So today as we are back home for the first time in about 5 days I decided I'd try for real this time.

But I had had a good night's sleep in my own bed and the girls' had done too in their beds, rather than an assortment of travel cots and In the Night Garden Ready-beds. So I was feeling rational and calm.

I put three outfits out on her bed and gave her the choice.

To my utter amazement she chose a skirt, a pair of tights, some knickers and a top.  All from different outfits which just made me smile because she will always do things differently but who cares? She was wearing clean clothes that were warm.

Hurrah!

Victory!

I cannot tell you how proud I am of myself. That should tell you everything you need to know about the confidence I have in my own ability as a mother. It's low bordering on non-existent.

Note to self: New Year's resolution #1 must give self a pat on the back occasionally.

Note to readers: I would have uploaded a picture of said green dress but blogger appears to have its knickers in a twist.

The toddlers of Christmas present

I realised one thing today with absolute clarity. Having two toddlers at Christmas, when you factor in presents, lots of new people, lots of old people and lots of dogs is like, it's like, well, what is it like actually? Like herding chickens into the path of a fox warren or like climbing Everest with ballet shoes on or perhaps like asking God to stop the snow in a ritual involving the tears of unicorns.  In simple terms it's extraordinarily, bloody hard work but when you actually get some kind of result, like a yes not a no to a question like 'please put your coat on' or an 'okay mummy' when you say there are no more presents to open the joy is untold.

Let's face it the joy is untold in having children, the corny old saying that they bring Christmas alive is true really isn't it? Gone are the days of drinking and eating too much and falling asleep in front of the TV. Who can do that when there are small people who want to play?

But I will say this for my children. They were remarkably thoughtful today. Tilly decided she wanted a nap at about 3ish so I put her down then collapsed myself (it hadn't been an easy night) and Eliza fell asleep on her Daddy's lap watching the telly. Remarkably good luck.

We had a lovely day and as ever at Christmas time I'm loving having the time with the girls without work to preoccupy me.

I have a good feeling about next year.

Merry Christmas all!

xx

Toddler logic

"Mummy, your hair is the colour of poo isn't it?" said Eliza as she sat on the loo at 6.50am today.

"Well, technically I suppose, but not really darling no," said I taking a quick glance in the mirror just to make sure.

"But your hair is brown and so is poo so it's the same isn't it?" She was deadly serious.

"Well yes it is.  Good observation." I'm sure it's all part of the learning process and let's face it my hair has seen better days.

Then we came downstairs to play but Eliza wanted to 'help' me wrap presents.

"Ok, there's one here we can wrap for Daddy." I said and handed her a warm Christmas jumper from the secret hiding place. She grabbed it and started to go upstairs.

"Where are you going?" I said.

"To give it to Daddy." She said like I was a total moron for asking. Maybe I was.

"No we have to wrap it and put it under the tree darling, he can't have it until Christmas day."

"No, no Mummy," very serious, "he has to have it now because you haven't wrapped it, and he has to say Happy Birthday to me when I give it to him." She said legging it up the stairs.

"But we have to wrap it first Eliza, that's how it works."

"No Mummy. I give it to him and then he puts it under the Christmas tree!"  I gave up. I just know when I reach a point where my adult logic and understanding of how the world works collides with hers and to continue would just end in tears. Him indoors played along rather well though, declaring rather loudly (so I could hear no doubt) that he'd wear it on Christmas day.

But the fun didn't stop there. No she wanted to do some serious wrapping this morning, so she got out the wrapping paper and laid it out on the kitchen floor. Then she went and got a random collection of toys and said we had to wrap them all up.  They consisted of:

- an ancient Peppa doll who was definitely a Christmas present several years ago for one of her cousins.
- the empty head of Mr Potato Head minus any defining features.
- a sort of board picture type thing with holes in it that had once had laces weaved into it.
- her dolly's dress

We then wrapped up all these 'presents' and put them under the tree.

I wonder if that would work in a few years time...? Perhaps not. Shame.

Things I love about Christmas

1.  Mulled wine.  This year both Tesco and Sainsbury's are doing a very decent ready made bottle. If you are a complete slob like me then you can microwave a cupfull in 1 minute.  Then sit in front of the fire and pretend you brewed it up yourself.  Perfect. (If you fancy having a go yourself there's a decent recipe here.)

2.  Mince Pies.  My local co-op is doing some really nice ones and the best thing is that Eliza hates them which means Mummy can be a right piggy in complete, undisturbed, bliss.  Tilly actually does like them but that's okay, she's not as demanding as her big sis.

3.  Christmas trees.  Ours is lopsided because Eliza insisted on getting the one that had branches on one side only.  It has fallen over twice, fortunately neither child was sitting next to it at the time, but the decorations suffered. It was rather sad.

4.  Mary the Snowwoman.  Feminism is alive and well, albeit rather cold, in our garden.

5.  Two little people to buy pressies for!  It's so much more fun for littlies than grown ups isn't it? You just know they don't really give a damn what's inside, they just like the unwrapping.

6. Mulled wine. Did I say that already?

I took Eliza to see Father Christmas today at Lapland UK in Kent. We went with my friend Jo and her daughter.  A good job really since it needed the sort of humour only Jo and I can conjure up together to get through it.  We met Mother Christmas who had Heidi plaits and a mixed Eastern European accent who looked about 30 and a Father Christmas with white beard, definitely from somewhere near the Estuary who looked about 90.  He's done alright for himself I reckon.  The girls made Gingerbread with MC and had rather magical visit to FC. We weren't much cop on the ice rink though, in fact my 3 year old daughter was probably making a better fist of it than me. Jo's daughter, however, proclaimed with great pride that she 'hadn't fallen over at all'.

As you would imagine Eliza was very much in awe of a 'big' girl (she's 5 I think) and they became friends after about 2 hours, doesn't that always happen?

I feel suitably Christmassy now.

Of course my Christmas spirit will be well and truly entrenched when Jonathan comes to stay on Wednesday.  I'm so excited I can hardly bear it. What a great week!

Merry Christmas! xx

*PS: this is not sponsored.*

One year on..

So it was actually a few days ago but I missed it in my oh so busy life. I have had this blog for a year. A whole bloody year.

So drum roll please some of my blog related highlights have been:

Getting my pretty makeover, my girls immortalised in illustration. Lovely.

Feeling inspired to write through blogging and then writing 85,000 words in a novel. Gotta give it a try haven't you?

Realising that I am not alone in my struggle to be the perfect working mother.

Realising that I am not alone in my stuggle to be the perfect mother.

Realising that I am not alone in my struggle to be a half decent mother.

Accepting that I will always be the best mother I can be and that will have to do.  Particularly when it comes to Maltesers at bedtime.

'Meeting' some brilliant, strong, funny women through blogging some of whom I have met in real life others I hope to meet at Cybermummy 2011.

Oh yes I won an award! The MAD award for best looking blog.  That was fun. I believe Mrs Young&Younger still has it!

Discovering Twitter. What incredibly silly fun.  Especially during the #electiondebates. I think we made our own little bit of history on those nights.

And you know what there are probably loads more that I can't remember right now, as my brain struggles to retain the information I need to keep me and my family functioning on a daily basis. But I bloody love my blog, I love the freedom of expression it gives me and I love that some people like it to. Thanks.

Oh and by the way, meet Mary. She's our snowwoman. Made by Eliza and her Daddy. She is standing outside our french doors in our living room. Lurking in a rather sinister fashion. I feel like going out and giving her a mince pie or something. Despite the Aston Villa scarf and hat I think she is cold.

Oops i did it again

Remember her? Yes me too. It was me again last night. I seem to recall muttering the words 'I am never drinking again' fairly recently. So I won't say them again since I quite clearly didn't mean them before. 
But just so you know, I'm not.

I'm not dancing at office parties again either.

I'm definitely not going to try and get the boss to dance with me again. Ever.

I wish I knew the point at which all my promises to behave like a grown up get well and truly forgotten in favour of behaving like the drunken relative everyone dreads getting stuck with at a wedding. If I knew then I could plan to leave before it happens.  Shame really.

My saving grace is that the rumour doing the rounds about my 'moshing' on the dance floor has ensured my reputation as a dull and boring Mummy who doesn't ever let her hair down has now been obliterated.

Every cloud and all that...

What Mummy wants for Christmas

One of the downsides of letting your children watch Nick Jr (there aren't all that many actually apart from all the awful Barbie films) is the ads. I'm not against advertising, that would be grossly hypocritical given the bloody great banner above my girls' heads, but copious advertising to children does make me a teensy bit uncomfortable.

You see at age 3 Eliza will just say to me:

"Can I have that please Mummy?" for everything they advertise or

"Can I have that please in Princess please Mummy?"for anything overtly boyish.

She's still at the age where a simple 'yes' warrants a 'thanks' and she moves on. But this won't last. I need a strategy.

I've noticed that there are increasingly more ads targeting mums like me on Nick Jr, particularly at bedtime. So after many "Can I have that please" from Eliza there came on an ad for Vanish, you know the bright pink bottle that you put in your wash? No I'd never bother either, surely the small fortune we pay for washing tablets/powder is enough right?

But not according to Eliza. When the Vanish ad came on she said,

"Mummy, you can have that for Christmas. That's a Mummy toy."

So it is darling. Glad to see those gender stereotypes are developing nicely in this mummy's house.

You know you're a mummy when...

I stumbled across this blog today and I hope the author doesn't mind but I thought it was so incredibly, freakily like my life that I wanted to continue the list with a few of my own. Feel free to add - it's good to know you're not alone. 

So here goes.. You know you're a Mummy when...

1. Going to Sainsbury's on your own is a treat.

2. You are the only person in the room who thinks it's perfectly normal when you inadvertently pull a dummy out of your bag along with your laptop in a business meeting.

3. You are still watching Peppa Pig after the children have gone to play somewhere else/gone to bed. And you're really enjoying it.  I just LOVE Miss Rabbit.

4. You would rather catch sick in your hands than have it go on the carpet - it's a bugger to get the smell out isn't it?

5. The decision to go anywhere is put through the 'will there be sharp edges at toddler head height' filter.

Thank God it's Friday.

I have reached a new low

Sometimes I try and remember what sort of Mummy I thought  I'd be before Eliza was even a twinkle in her dad's eye. I think I had an idea I wouldn't stand for any crap, I'd be firm but fair. I'd do lots of arts and crafts with them and we'd play silly games in the garden in the summer. Her Dad would build the children a Wendy House and we'd all sit in the lovely sunny garden which would have the scent of jasmine and hollyhocks growing up the wall.

Fast forward a few years and I do manage the odd crafty thing, we do play lots of very silly games and I have it on good authority that Grandpa will build a Wendy House next summer. I have a lovely garden but no jasmine but I do have hollyhocks.

But I'm not firm but fair. I'm a total pushover. I'm also badly inconsistent and I use bribery far too much.  However tonight was a new low, even by my lax standards.

After a full on 22 minute tantrum whereby Eliza threw herself on the floor repeatedly and screamed so much she made herself sick, she calmed down and cuddled me.  But was tearful and tricksy.  She wouldn't go to bed happily and I just wanted to see her smile.

So I gave her Maltesers. Well only 4. But they made her smile.

I left her room.

It went quiet for a bit.

Tilly started up so I went in and gave her some milk.

Came downstairs and lit a fire.  Then Eliza started walking down the stairs, I went out and met her half way just in time as she tripped and fell into my arms.  So of course we needed more Maltesers to get over the shock. Both of us.

All quiet now.

Long may that continue. I've run out of Maltesers.

What's your lowest parenting moment?

Who are the experts?

I was musing today about what to do about Eliza wanting to suck her dummy that she had just dropped in the loo.  After doing a poo and before flushing. She went mental when I washed it.

So who knows how to deal with that?

And who has good advice about baby sleeping issues?

And who can tell me how to make food my toddler might actually eat (the co-op is running out of sausages and fishfingers)?

And best of all who can give me any tips of stopping my children clouting each other when they both want a piece of Mummy?

Ok I admit I have an ulterior motive here.  I'd love to be able to gather the best advice from mummys like me (or not like me actually, Mummy's who are half decent at it) and collate it for a personal project I'm working on (nothing to do with work, just something I'm doing).

So I thought since at least some people read this, I'd ask you here. If you would like to get involved in this project then please do contact me and I can give you more details.

I'm looking for advice on anything and everything to do with babies and toddlers. Really practical stuff rather than what so called experts tell us that makes us feel like failures if our children don't comply.

The book
So I have now written about 70,000 words.  Not bad for someone who lacks any staying power normally.  I've cracked on with it and hope to have it finished and edited by the end of January. It's hard work and commitment in the evenings but bloody good fun escaping into my 'other world' too.

Just wanted to tell you as I'm quietly quite proud.

Anyway get in touch about the advice thing if you want to hollyward (at) itsamummyslife (dot) com

Eliza's Banana Bread

I took Eliza to nursery this morning on the toboggan that my Dad brought round (my Dad doesn't let a bit of snow stop him) but they closed early because only four children were there. I have been at home today and yesterday because the trains out of here are sketchy and I live in fear of getting stuck in London or having a four hour journey home.

The problem is that I can't really get out anywhere because it means heaving the pushchair up the drive through 20 cm deep snow that's become really icy. It's hard work and the children just get snow in their eyes and get all cold. So we all have cabin fever. If we lived somewhere like say the North Pole or Lapland we'd have the right kit, but we live in Surrey and you don't expect to be 'snowed in'.

So today I decided to be the perfect mother and bake banana bread with Eliza while Tilly ate wax crayons quite happily. Well she couldn't quite join in the baking fun and she was very happy drawing on the floor so I thought that was okay and probably good for her creative development (I'm convincing myself rather well).

Pretty impressive isn't it?

She measured it all out herself and put the mixture in the blender then she held the button down and poured it in the tin.  She's a chef in the making.

In case you are interested here's the recipe - it's super easy (has to be for me to cope with it).

• 225g/8oz self-raising flour
• 100g/4oz butter
• 150g/5oz caster sugar
• 450g/1lb bananas (the softer the better), peeled and broken up
• ½ tsp salt
• 2 eggs
• 175g/6oz mixed dried fruit or walnuts - we used walnuts.

You bung it all the mixer then mix quite a lot. Then if you are brave you put the walnuts in a plastic bag and cover with a tea towel and give your toddler a rolling pin to bash them.  Then you add them to the mixer.

Stick it in the oven on 180 degrees for about an hour and a half and then leave to cool before turning out on a wire shelf-y thing that proper mothers use when baking.

There you go, lovely with a bit of squirty cream if you are 1 and a half or 3 years old.

Right now I'm off to bed.  Eliza fell asleep at 5pm today, I know what an idiot I am not to have persevered in my attempts to wake her, so I expect she'll be up bright and early so I'm going to get some kip while I can.

Christmas Gift Ideas: Review & special offer of Kodak Photo Books

This year I was planning to give family & close friends handmade Christmas gifts since I've become such a dab hand at making biscuits with Eliza.  The really lucky ones might even get cake.  I know, I'm too kind. I'm also clearly super mummy if I manage to do that which I probably won't let's be realistic.


So for those who don't get to try my new found baking skills I might try  Kodak Gallery Photo Book products. 

You can create a beautiful, hardbound Photo Book with photographs stored at KODAK Gallery. They are high quality and come in a range of different sizes and templates. I think that's a really nice gift for a grandparent for example - your year in pictures. There are lots of similar products out there but what's nice about these is the quality of the book, you could even do your wedding pictures for example.

*Kodak have given me the chance to offer my readers (hi Dad!) an exclusive deal. Get 2 Kodak Photo Books for the price of 1 with voucher code 2FOR1PHOTOBOOKS

I never get round to printing off pictures and putting them in albums so I really like the idea of the Photo Book, some of the images I'd use in mine are here.

Tilly Mouse discovering the joy of toothbrushing

Me and Eliza asleep after gardening with Grandpa

My little Halloween witches.

Competition
A competition will run here and across a few other parenting sites, and one overall winner from all of the sites will become Kodak’s ‘Photo Book Family’. The ‘Photo Book Family’ will win a KODAK Pocket Video Camera and KODAK Gallery credit, and be asked to create a video diary of their Photo Book creation. We would suggest that each site asks their readers to send in their best family photo, and Kodak will select the winner.  

• Prize: 1 x KODAK PLAYSPORT Video Camera, £50 worth of KODAK Gallery credit.

• Winner requirements: The winner will be required to supply Kodak with footage of their family compiling their Photo Book within 28 days of receiving the prize. We are happy to liaise directly with the winner once they have been chosen, to clarify what elements they could include in their video diary.

• Competition dates: Starts Dec 1st – Ends Dec 12th.

Email address to send entries to: Kodak.Xmas@ketchumpleon.com
This email address will be live from Wednesday Dec 1st and entrants will need to send their full name, address and family photo to this address to enter. One entry per person, open to UK residents aged 18 or over.

*T&Cs: Valid until 31.01.11 on www.kodakgallery.co.uk. Maximum of 1 free Photo Book per customer, voucher code can only be used once. Offer is valid on all Photo Book types (excluding the mini book).