The phrase “they grow up so fast” resenates with us this summer as my little baby that was just learning how to crawl and babble is now full on walking and running and saying dadda.

I absolutely love how headstrong and happy this little boy is and how much personality he has that everyone stops and chats to him even if he only says a few things for now. He is so cheeky and clever that he makes me so proud and happy.

I know people are probably thinking who cares? and that’s fine but for now I want my son to have his spotlight moment.

So I work in quite a social place and our neighbourhood is chatty we get stopped all the time when people want to see the kids. Of course they ask the same things everytime like are they good? How are they today etc and here is why I want to talk about anything but…

I am with them 24/7
I know this isn’t the person’s fault thwy are just being polite but I am literally with them both all day everyday i love them to bits but please talk about something else.

Lack of adult conversation
The only adult conversation before I get stopped is usually from the TV and even thwy is cbeebies presenters a ring overly animated. I haven’t had an adult conversation in what could have been hours so please ask me how the weather is anything ask me what I had for dinner please..

Maybe I’m not ok
Maybe I would just like someone instead of in a jokey way to ask me how I am feeling not how I’m coping but how am I feeling? Would you like to go for coffee without your children? Yes please.

I know even without kids we have good and bad days but it feels like with kids those amplify. It feels like the good days give you a false sense of security and the bad days make you feel like rubbish.

Good days

Good days can be often but a rally good day I mean a day where I haven’t been woken up in the middle of the night by the toddler, a day is where both children have had good sleeps and are in generally good moods and I have been able to nap or have free time and then they have gone to bed on time and I get some free time to watch a film.

These days do give me a false sense of security like yes I have got this parenting malarkey and I have my shit together. (Yeah right) My hair might be brushed and I might look bright eyed or as bright eyed as you can with a toddler and a baby but inside I am waiting for that moment where something goes wrong where the toddler doesn’t nap in the afternoon which leads me on to

Bad days

It feels like we have more and more of these now the toddler will test our patience and his boundaries. A bad day is when the toddler had a crappy sleep and is having his afternoon nap at 10am, where I didn’t get any free time or a nap and where we are still trying to put the toddler to bed and it is already 11pm. These days make me miserable like a failure and sometimes this is hard to admit but when they are really playing up I wish I was pre child again with all the free time and naps I could dream about. This then leads to feeling guilty so I try and smother them with love and attention. When I haven’t had a good day I also feel like sitting on my laptop all day while they watch TV all day.

Conclusion

I guess good and bad days lead to different patience and parenting I just need to relax sometimes and other times realise they don’t always stick to a routine and there’s nothing we can do about it.

Hello again me here and I am about to tell you what I am completely and utterly bored of hearing with two children so close in age. Let me just give you a bit of information about myself and children so I am 26 years old and I have a 1 and 3 month year old and a 3 month old. I am married and me and the husband both work.

We live in a village where everyone stops you to say hello and see the kids we are like little celebrities in our area but my gosh we hear a lot of rubbish. We here these things more than once a day and now we just smile and move on but it is still really annoying to hear so here they are the things me and the husband are utterly sick of hearing.

Sleep

To me more precise “oh do they both sleep?” nooo they are both up all night having a party. Yes they sleep and yes they sometimes nap they aren’t supernatural.

Brothers

The next one which is with anyone we see whether we know them or not. “Oh what is he like with his little brother?” “Does he like him?” and what we tell them is no he didn’t to begin with he just wanted to hurt him but now he doesn’t care stop trying to cause trouble when there isn’t any.

Planned?

“They are close in age was it planned?” you think I want to go through that 4 months after I just went through 9 hours of birth and had to be cut yes it was planned. In reality it took just 1 night to get pregnant again about a week before we were going to get the implant in and the rest is history.

Behaviour

Is he good? This is annoying is he good are all children little angels I think not. J has his days when he is a nightmare and H has his days where he is a nightmare too.

Hair

This one is also popular with people we don’t know. “Oh where did he get his hair from?” i will give a little background to this as no one has seen J before. J has the most gorgeous curly blonde hair I have ever seen on a baby and as you can probably guess mine and my husbands are both straight and brown so yes we hear this. I wonder if people secretly think he isn’t my husbands.

Boy or girl?

Yes we get this with both boys okay J I kind of get because of the curly blonde hair but in no way does he look like a girl and H doesn’t either but we still get she and her all the time.

Work

“Will you go back to work?” this is another one that makes my blood boil a little. I am very proud that I work not slating anyone that stays at home but I love that I go out and make money so for people to now think oh she has kids she won’t work annoys me yes I will go back to work but what business is it of yours?

Yes I kid you not I have a one year old and this is my first time at soft play but in my defence J didn’t start sitting up for a while and hasn’t been crawling that long and we had our newest arrival baby H.

So I was really nervous as I have heard of soft play as germy places for kids so I was worried about sitting anywhere but we went in and paid for it well only J £2.50 (bargain!!) and we went into the toddler bit which is a little corner compared to the massive tunnels and slide on but J had mega fun playing in the ball bit with the other babies. I do feel like the adults took up too much of the play area as J had to squeeze through people but he was bloody happy and I got an almost peaceful cuppa (mum goals!!)
So now I can’t wait to take J there again he loved the ball pit so much just taking the balls out and throwing them around and it didn’t feel really tight spaced.

I was super excited to try the bigger kiddie bit I know J wasn’t old enough but I wanted to go on the slide yes big kid me. I had to basically drag a very unwilling toddler up to the bit and then go down the slide with him. He wasn’t impressed and I learnt my lesson so we went back to the toddler part. J wasn’t interested in the shapes or anything like that he just chucked the ball pit balls around the whole time so I feel soft play was a success i expect on a weekend or holiday it would be much more busy and J would probably get more trampled on but we had a happy toddler and happy mum.

So the last couple of days we have a very unwelcome guest overrun our home and toddler called the ear infection. This is the first one that has arrived and it started from nowhere but it is now metaphorically ruling the house.

It all started Sunday night when J was awake all through the night we would put his dummy back in and he would settle so we didn’t think anything of it and then Monday it hit us.

J refused to sit up just cried all day and felt boiling hot. He definitely wasn’t himself and to top that off he just wanted to sleep all day. We were definitely worried about him an had to keep giving him Calpol even though it didn’t get rid of it it at least brought his temperature down.

Monday was the worst day and Tuesday we finally took him to the doctors and low and behold an ear infection was causing our oldest son so much misery and since then we have had last night where J and H stayed in our bed with dad at the end of the bed so there was no room for me. J kept waking H up by crying every five minutes and i was also waking them up by moving around so much so no one got any sleep.

This morning though I see a light at the end of the tunnel I actually got words out of the boy and he is up to mischief throwing everything off the bed including remotes so I don’t think I need to go recover in a dark room anymore because our unwelcome guest has finally gotten the hint.

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Like all toddlers mine is unruly loud and sneaky. But I am about to write about my experiment of leaving the toddler in a room on his own and what he got up to.

So just to say I didn’t completely leave him on his own the whole time but I was more or less cleaning and nipping into the room every so often and this is what I experienced.

Mess, mess and more mess

So his dad left a Pringles tub on the floor with Pringles in and well lets just say they ended up all over the floor in lots of crumbs. I am not entirely sure how he got the lid off but I think dad definitely learnt his lesson.

Finds things that aren’t food to put in his mouth

Before I get the parent police we don’t let our children eat everything but there are times just like this one we don’t see him eat something and so I come into the room and he has hair dangling down from his mouth after eating something on the carpet.

Harassing

He can’t just sit and play oh no he has to annoy everyone else in the room and this includes the dog who he tries to yell at and stroke but in his own way and pulling his brothers blanket off him and trying to scratch him

Destroying everything

So the husband has a shelf of play station games the toddler can reach and so he will get them down and literally wipe the floor with them and sometimes with the disc. I almost forgot he literally throws everything from dummies and bottles to food and god knows what if he got his hand on them.

Escape artist

So this is the last thing since i was out of the room for no more than a few seconds at a time but the toddler kept escaping the room. He can now move the pram out of the way and leave the room. (We don’t have stair gates because they don’t fit the door) and he will end up in the kitchen or in the bathroom he also likes to climb up the sofa but the problem is he can’t get down again.

So I have realised he cannot be left alone for more than literally a second eat time before I find him with something in his mouth or he has upset his brother so I figure I will wait till he is older and move out before I start cleaning the house.

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Finally keeping on top of housework

So the washing basket is overflowing, the kitchen looks a tip and don’t get me started on how many stains are on our bedding. I am rubbish at keeping up with cleaning and housework but the last 2 weeks have been a lot easier. I don’t try to tackle everything in one go everyday so I have figured out that doing cleaning every 2 or 3 days suits me fine and keeps my guilt at bay. This is a few things I also do

Do bits of housework any chance I get
so while I boil the kettle I will scrub the sides or while warming up a bottle I will put a wash load in.

Do housework in the evening or night when kids are in bed
it’s harder because I can’t make a noise but I can get some stuff done and listen to music at the same time

Stick the kids in front of the TV
This is controversial and I am not ashamed to say I stick the child the older one in front of the TV while I go and put clothes away or clean the toilet yes I might be a bad parent but he enjoys the TV.

While thenChild is at rhythm time
Me and the husband take it in turns doing rhythm time with our Oldest chils so when the husband has him I will try to get things done

Organise a list and rota
Me and the hubby share the house work we have a rota it’s not entirely fair but he does the kitchen and one other room sometimes and the day we are doing the cleaning

Letting us both get on with it
I give the husband time to do his and he does with me and so we get stuff done

So that is how I am finally tackling the washing basket the house looks decent and I don’t feel guilty.

Tales from Mamaville

So mother’s day has been and gone and I know i am a little too late. My children are both too young to really understand mother’s day so the husband makes the effort in their honours I don’t mean to sound ungrateful because I loved my mugs from both of them, my cuddly bear and chocolate (Ferrero Roche) but here is what I would have liked.

A day off

Maybe too adventurous so maybe an hour off, half an hour off? Me and my husband singlehandedly look after the kids on our own so a little break would have been nice.

Breakfast, dinner, tea etc to myself

Our toddler is very curious about food and much like the dog literally begs for our food whether it is coco pops for breakfast, bacon sandwiches or even chippy chips he will literally sit by us and beg for our food until we give it to him so being able to eat to myself would be nice.

Nap

If it isn’t the toddler it’s the newborn awake while I am suffering from sleep deprivation he is happily playing and not caring about going to bed so a nap without having to deal with either of them would be nice.

Not cleaning up poo

Between the two of them they poo a lot. I would say maybe 1 or 2 each a day and sometimes it isn’t very nice (is it ever?) so a day off that would be lovely.

Going out for dinner/cinema etc

A day with the husband and i know your saying it’s mother’s day you should spend it with the kids that made you a mum but me and the husband don’t get a lot of time together so that would be nice.

Conclusion

A day off or a little break would have been very nice considering they are both so hands on and it is only us two all day and night. I know they made me a mum but sometimes we need a break.

“Come to this playgroup. ” said a mum I bumped into. Already my palms were sweaty (not an Eminem reference) and I couldn’t think of anything worse but I looked at my beautiful boy with his golden curly locks and I couldn’t deprive him of seeing other babies and having company his own age.

So when I went I was nervous I had baby 1 grumping in the front of the pram because he got a short disturbed nap and baby number 2 was grumping just because.

Here is how it went I sat baby J down took his coat off and let him play and then mum’s were coming up to me chatting and it felt amazing. I spoke to the eoman that told me to come and she held baby 2 (baby H) he was fed and burped and I got to enjoy a warm cup of tea I mean luxury.

Baby J also had a good time he played with a hand held bell the whole time and crawled round the room even interacting with one of the other babies even if it was just trying to hurt him but he interacted with other kids.

I was so proud of myself for getting out there and doing that for baby J because to me it was a massive deal.

                      
The Mum Conundrum
                      
The Mum Conundrum 
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