Aspirations

Me: whatcha gonna be when you're older, JJ?
JJ: I be bigger and bigger and bigger
Me: ok, but what do you want to do when you're older?
JJ: I be a tiger
Me: um, ok, but what job do you want to do?
JJ: I be tiger who goes work.

Well, there you have it folks! He then proceeded to spend the rest of the car journey practicing his roar.

Morning conversations

Soph: I want more milk
Mum: There's still milk in your cup, you can drink that
Soph: It's too wet
Mum: What?!?!?!


 Mum: Jaiden, kiss Soph to say sorry
Jaiden: Mwah
Soph: *wiping slobber off her cheek* Jaiden, that's NOT a nice kiss

Magic muffins

Sophia is at that fussy eater stage of life. And she's an especially fussy one. She *might* eat a baked bean or two, if you're very lucky and the wind is blowing in the right direction. She also likes to pick the beans out of Nan's rice and peas. But that's about all the vegetables she'll eat. Or that's what she thinks. I sneck them into her when I can.

Ella's kitchen baby food pouches
She likes the brown one and the purple one(see below)

Better still, she sometimes calls them liquid chocolate!
They're not the cheapest thing in the world, but it's gets some veg in, which is something her digestion desperately needs on occasion!

The other thing I do is make muffins with added extras of fruit and veg. I'll take a recipe which already contains some fruit or veg, and throw in some more, just for kicks!
Right now Sophia is sleeping, and I threw together some muffins which are reasonably low in sugar, almost fat free, contain wholemeal flour and oats and had... pear&apple puree (used instead of oil), a whole apple, a whole carrot, a whole banana, half a courgette and some sultanas. I just hope they pass the Sophia test later on!

Do all the things

My children graciously decided that they would wake up at 5.30am to give me plenty of time today to do all the things. So before 7am came around I'd already got a load of washing in the machine and done almost all of yesterday's washing up!

It's not yet ten o'clock and I have thus far done breakfast, caught up with the online world, stripped and changed the bedding on my bed, put the wet washing out on the airer, sorted dry washing and started putting it away, dealt with wee on the floor, and consequently bathed two children. The one that did the wee, and then the little one wanted to jump in the bath too, so he also went in, dried and dressed the kids, half dressed me (the other half is still pyjamas) and started another load of washing (bedding and towels and all that was wee-ed on).

Now I am just sitting for a minute before I make white sauce and assemble some lasagnas.

snapshot

Jaiden is doing something to my hair with a spoon. It feels a bit like when the hairdresser pulls two strands to check they're the same length. I suppose I should be glad it's a sppon he's holding and not something more dangerous!

Sophia is watching Cbeebies (TV channel for young children). I like to watch a bit of news and weather first thing and then we switch over for a few (or more than a few) children's programs. 'Tilly and her friends' just finished - that's one of the gentler ones, and quite enjoyable, even for mummy, as opposed to others which I turn off when they come on!

I am trying to be awake. JJ cried in his sleep a fair bit and Soph cried out at 2.30am. I went in, but she was actually asleep, but in going in, I woke JJ. He had a nappy change and went back to his bed ok, but coghed a lot over the next hour and cried and cried at 3.30am, so he came into our bed to stay! And that's that!

In the snow (walking to the pub for lunch!)

 And that's as close as JJ's got to the snow so far since he's teething and been running a high temp

31 day blog challenge - day 1

I found this blog challenge which gives a title or instruction for what to write for 31 days on a blog called 'While on this side'. I liked the idea, so thought I'd give it a go. The only thing I will say is that I retain the right to interrupt this series with inane twittering or random things my kids have said, so it may take me more than 31 days to get through this!

As you can see (click pic to enlarge), the first post is to be a recent photo and intro, I guess about me and who I am. Right, let's start with a photo....

This one is me being absolutely shattered my my kids' insistence at getting up at a time that starts with a 4.

 This is JJ kissing me.

And this is me discovering I'm about to go change a stinky bum.

And that, by the way, is how I look when I've not had enough sleep for 3 nights in a row and haven't even combed my hair yet. Just keepin' it real :D  And yes, those are birthday cards and Christmas decorations up still in the background.

So who am I? I'm Debs, I'm a wife, a mummy, a daughter, a girl who must have pink things (that's Soph's definition of a girl - they must have pink things. I'm more in to purple, personally, but there you go).
Most importantly, I'm a child of the king. I mess up, I get it wrong, get cranky and shout at the kids over stupid things (especially when I'm tired), but I love Jesus, and Jesus loves me, and has a bucketload of grace for me!

I've been blogging a looong time, or that's how it feels. When I started I was young, free and single. This blog has seen a lot of changes, and I alternately laugh and cringe when I look back over all I've written here.

That's all my sleep deprived brain can come up with at the moment, but I've gotta save something to write tomorrow, right?!

Chicken

"Mummy, I want some chicken" said Sophia pointing to a packet of chicken thawing on the side.

"Not now, Sophie"

"But mummy, I want some chicken"

"You can't eat that chicken, that chicken is raw"

Sophia scrunches up her nose, looks at me with a puzzled yet bemused face and says
"Chickens don't roar"

Extreme couponing?

I've been watching extreme couponing all day today (admitedly on the 31st Dec when I wrote this, and not on the 6th Jan when it will post. I'm taking a leaf out of Kathleen's book and writing posts ahead of time)

I've found the ones who hoard it all a little sickening, and the ones who give it away to charity an inspiration.

I honestly don't think that we get as many coupons here in the UK as they appear to in the USA. But it's inspired me to look out for coupons and also deals like buy one get one free, and to consider putting aside the extra to donate to our church food bank.

11 months just flew by

Dear Jaiden,

You were 11 months old yesterday. You're almost a year old already, how that time had flown by!
Seems like just the other day you were a tiny baby, snuggled in my arms. Now the only times I get to snuggle you are when you're tired and cranky, want some of my food, or Sophie's having a cuddle and you want to get in on the action. Because it just wouldn't be fair for one of you to have a cuddle and not the other!

You love your sister and she loves you, sometimes too much (trying to pick you up, squeezing you too tight, or trying to tuck you in under a blanket and totally covering you up)! I love watching the two of you when you are playing together.

This morning Sophia woke up early because she was so excited to play with her tea set and 'make tea' for every one, or actually, to make tea for you (We'd had the tea set put away for a while and got it out again last night). She woke up at 5.30am and woke you up too! After you'd had your mummy milk you were desperate to get playing with her, and she wanted you too. I watched as you sat and chewed on some plastic fruit as she busied about pouring out tea for you. About the only thing she doesn't like to play with you is the train set, because you have a habit of picking up the tracks she's laid, so that you can suck and chew on them!

You're a very chatty boy, with very expressive 'oh's and 'oooh's. You have this really annoying squeak when you want something (you totally got that from Sophia, grrr!). And you also learnt to say 'MUM!' from Sophia. You say 'mum', 'dad-dad', 'hiya' and 'no'. You've probably got some more words than that, but those 4 are the clearest. You never took much to the sign for milk like mummy did, but I do see you using it sometimes when you want milk, or just want mummy. I've also tried to teach you the sign for please, and sometimes I think I see you use it. We'll have to work on that some more.

You have beautiful light brown curls and big brown eyes. It's funny because I wonder sometimes just how two children can look so similar and yet so different. Really, I think you look like me. I like it.

You have the most beautiful smile, and the fifth tooth (bottom, to the right of the front two) is doing its best to catch up with the 4 fully out. I think I might have just caught sight of tooth number 6 this morning (also on the bottom, but to the left) trying to make an appearance.

I'm so glad that I'm your mummy (even if I wish sometimes that you'd still call me mama and not MUM!)

love you,
Mama

Just an average day (the early edition)

The night before....

JJ ate too many beans (out of nan's rice and peas) and also fell asleep on his bottle, so was full of gas! He cried out in his sleep quite a bit, and at 11.30pm he was clearly not happy. We picked him up so as to not to wake up Sophie, and changed his nappy and gave him some gripe water. Lots of cuddles and pattings and rubbings finally resulted in a burp and he did settle back to sleep eventually without waking his sister up.

5.20am  I hear murmurs and chats over the baby monitor. I look at the time, groan, and choose to ignore them cos it's happy noises.

5.30am I hear the unmistakable noise of Sophia shouting "MUM!" and more "ooohs and dadads" from JJ. I realise that staying in bed is not an option. I get up and discover the crack on my heel is really sore, and walking on it really hurts. So I semi limp to their room, not putting any weight on my right heel. Actually, I go to the bathroom first, and have another few "MUM"s shouted at me, so I yell back "I'm on the loo!"

I go in to their bedroom and pick up Jaiden and change his nappy. Sophia tries to talk and tickle him, but he's not having any of it. He wants mummy, and that is that. Once his nappy is done he sits/stands up and determinedly makes himself as close to me as he possibly can. Sophia is also trying to get in on the cuddle action, so I have one in each arm.

Soph refuses to wee, so we go downstairs (If a camel can drink a lot of water and go for ages without a drink, what animal can go for a long time without weeing?! A Sophia, that's who.) I'm learning not to battle over it every time, only the times where we'll be away from toilet facilities and I want her to go before we go out or whatever.

We come downstairs and I put JJ down on the floor, and he collapses in a sobbing heap. I put the tv on - it's still before 6, so bbc breakfast hasn't even started. I gather up the necessities - phone, tv remote, tissues, feeding cushion, and JJ and I settle in for some mummy milk and snuggles. Soph moans cos she wants snuggles and milk, but I tell her the baby has to have his milk first. (Mummy's priority really - it's been a long time since I fed JJ the night before, and really I want him to feed quickly for my comfort more than his!)

We channel surf a bit and find something called something like 'make do and mend'. It's gentle enough for my brain, and interesting enough to distract Sophie from her moaning. JJ takes his time, looking up to check on the world every once in a while, but finally he's done. Well the milk is done, he's actually still hungry so I go to the kitchen and get him a bottle and some milk in a cup for Soph. He goes on the cushion at my feet and Sophie comes up for a snuggle with me.

Once the milk is all drunk, I get to have a bit of personal space and regroup. Oh actually, there was a dirty nappy changing in there somewhere too. Mid mummy milk I think, cos I remember thinking that I still felt uncomfortable.

I grab my laptop and check in a few places - see if I have any move likes for my blog page on facebook, read back some of the events of the last few hours. I earn a few swagbucks, read a coupleof blogs, try to figure out my blog analytics and fail (it says I've got a ton of page views and traffic from another blog, but having chatted with them on facebook, they say they've never read my blog or reffered people here. Odd!) That's blogger. Google analytics says I've had no traffic at all, which I know is also wrong!

Soph asks for something to eat, and I have something too. Finally manage to get a glass of water too. It's about 7.15am by now.

We have a few meltdowns. Soph cos JJ's taken her cup, JJ cos Soph won't give him her food. JJ comes overs several times saying "mmmm" and chomping his mouth to show me he wants some of my food. He also finds Sophia's discarded plate and we play peekaboo with it. I catch sight of what looks like tooth number 5 having a good try at breaking through the gum.

At some point (after I've got to see the weather forecast) we switched over from bbc breakfast (which we turned to at 6.10am once that other program had finished) to cbeebies.

7.30am I change another dirty stinky nappy and we manage to tip nappies all over the floor. (I opened a new packet, and then they went everywhere) We'll pick them up at some point.-

8am Soph trips over her own feet and cries and comes for a cuddle. She's tired and would have done better with another hour asleep, but once she's woken up, that's that.

JJ comes over and wants to be picked up too. Generally once one is picked up, the other wants in on he action too.

At some point I started writing this blog post, it was before Sophia came over, cos I started typing with two hands, and that was reduced to one, and then none for a short while.

It's almost 8.30am and I can hear Menard's up and getting ready for work (slightly later than normal cos he works closer to home on a Tuesday). I think I smell another nappy, so I'll end this post here.

(I finish by spell checking and find it amusing that the blogger spell checker doesn't recognise the work 'blog')

Edited to add - nappy was a false alarm, so we spend time having snuggles and kisses. JJ's very good at 'mwah-ing'

Treasuring the snuggles

JJ's got to the stage where he wants to be up and at it, so I don't get to sit and snuggle his very often. Expect when he's asleep. So I will get up and dressed and on with the day in a minute, but first I'm enjoying this snuggle.

Being a mummy is hard work

I'm a stay at home mum. I assume most of my readers know that, but just in case they didn't.

Right now I'm shattered. We have finally got Jaiden pretty good at sleeping, but my body doesn't seem to have caught up. Add to that a couple of weeks of being ill - stomach bug followed up with flu-y cold, and it feels like I'm wading through jelly.

Jelly. Must remember to make jelly with Sophia tomorrow. Since I told her we would, she's unlikely to forget, but it would be good if I could plan it in rather than trying to do it at the last moment while trying to juggle six million other things.

I'm tired, I keep eating silly things instead of the healthy stuff I ought to be. I know that there's most likely a connection between energy levels and what I eat, so I'm trying to do better.

But mostly, I just feel like I need to say that being a mummy is hard.

It's amazing too, but today, it's hard. I'm off to bed soon (just after 7pm!) and I'm sure tomorrow will be better. Goodnight all