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The beauty of a one year oldNovember 21, 2015

Adam is asleep, the whole cot available and his head is jammed right into the corner, his legs bent against the bars. Babies sleep in the oddest positions, trapped limbs seem to be his latest craze. When he wakes he’ll roll if he can, move to a crawl position and sit himself up, an automatic movement that will help him wake up further, but sadly also curtails any remaining shut eye time. I’m yet to discover how to train him to lay down himself! Mostly we don’t mind, he’s happy when he wakes and will content himself crawling and walking round his cot. It’s one of the beauties of him being this age, as as he turns 13 months tomorrow there are a few things I’m really glad to have left behind in the first year.

Sterilisation – oh the faff. We splurged on a steam steriliser and let the bottles pile until we could fill the thing. Our friends are in the last throws of pregnancy so we lent it to them and removing the big clumpy white thing from the kitchen was truly liberating. Whether we steamed, almost burning fingers on hot plastic, using a microwave or left out big sploshy cold water containers with the overriding smell of disinfectant, the goodbye is brilliant.

Accompanying that is formula bottles, expensive milk in all it’s fake-ness and boiled water none the less. Moving to sippy cups with standard water at mealtimes and cows milk for other times is lovely. Not only is our wallet celebrating but we’ve found ourselves drinking a lot more milk too… milkshake anyone?

Dull toys. To be fair we’ve not really gotten rid of any toys so far, but it’s lovely to see him play with toys rather than just munching on them. Now we bounce balls, open and close doors, connect, recognise, fill and empty. Toys for under 6 months are over-glorified teething rings basically, past 6 months aren’t bad, but over a year and things get much more fun.

The food panic and the art of preparing reject-able food. While Adam’s diet still features extra fruit and veg, having to prepare and purée unsalted simplified food is behind us. It’s a disheartening process, having to make an amount of food big enough to use the whizzer but small enough to feed a tiny tummy. Oh batch cooking is supposed to be the answer but if fresh slop gets a turned up nose then reheated has little to no chance. And you just know your tummy growls will be your kitchen soundtrack.

What don’t you miss?

All naturalNovember 19, 2015

Lets face it, we all have image issues. I have a friend who is always, really ALWAYS, late, another seems to yo-yo with their weight. Some have the most fashionable exterior hiding a broken inside, while others are solid but, with all the love in the world, couldn’t get far in a beauty pageant. And, we all want to tweak it too, perhaps we want the wittiest on-line persona, or can’t resist a new hairstyle. I knew a beautiful girl who would wake an hour earlier so her partner would never see her without full make-up.

Then there is the dreaded make-over. I remember vividly being a tweenager on a school holiday, with a suitcase full of clothes that screamed ‘dork’ – the girls really thought they were doing me a service. My overly small frame was clad with jeans belted far past the button, and mascara that went beyond panda and into black eye territory. The grand entrance to the dinner room was cut short by a teacher who ordered me straight to the bathrooms to ‘remove it’. The teachers face conveying they had unwittingly updated my look all the way to ‘clown’. Barefaced and pulling on my own clothes again I felt like I was re-emerging, being more true to me.

While make-up has never been much concern to me, nail polish pulled me in deep. I’ve admired many a professional job but never splurged to get it done myself. It seems a more usual thing here is Serbia than in the parts of England I’ve called home, but a little pampering can go a long way I’m assured. I’ll admit I felt a little apprehensive but after 2 long hours my nails were truly pampered. I felt great too. I had been forced to stop. When I walked in the house the pent up energy exploded as I danced around with Adam in my arms.

I went through the usual learning curve, changing a nappy was fun, the odd feeling and slight egocentric moments. Then on Sunday one fell off. The bubble burst as my true nail was revealed in all it’s bareness. A replacement was given but on Tuesday another bare nail was apparent, soon, for safety sake, I’ll encourage the rest off. My memory was tugged staring at that one bare nail, echoes of that barefaced girl all those years ago, like I was again re-emerging. In my imagination my nails were rejecting this foreign thing, standing their ground, reminding me I’m as God created not as Kate curated.

We will never stop tweaking our appearance to the world, though I hope we have the courage to show our true skin from time to time. When I see the beauty of the natural push back through it reminds me that it’s the deep beauty we must nurture, protect and develop. It’s the heart and soul of who we are that is worth so much more than the trinkets we adorn ourselves with. So, for now I’ll let my nails heal, be natural, for now I’ll crawl back into familiar clothes and habits born so long ago – it won’t last!

A year and a bit a parent :5 unexpected lessonsNovember 14, 2015

Parenthood changed and fractured our lives, grew our hearts and pushed our limits.

Those parties back before the weather turned bitter are just memories and pinholes in the ceiling. New toys are eclipsed by Christmas gifts. Our little chaps bypassed those milestones and his personality shines through more and more each day. I look back to recall so many things parenthood now means that it didn’t before. So here are my 5 unexpected lessons from year one and a bit beyond.

1. How to do laundry
With daily loads to hit the machine I suppose this was predictable. I’ve learnt to hand wash clothes, how to really use the different settings on the washing machine, how clothes that have tags saying 40 degrees can sometimes be washed at 90, and how jars of baby food stain for life. No longer shall I find a single wash cycle that works and stick with it.

2. Nobody really knows
I think most parents discover that all the advice in the world is not a manual. Parenting is as diverse as it gets and that helpless feeling you get, especially in the very early days, is totally normal. Even if you think you know something you probably will laugh at your confidence in weeks to come.

3. Being eclipsed is not always OK
Most of the time parenting means taking a back seat, it skews priorities, demands attention, and laughs at the notion of alone time. It may come as part of the package but it’s not healthy to lose all anchors but your child, fighting for individuality is not selfish but necessary.

4. Live in the moment not the drama
Drama is exhausting, planning the future or re-living angst is simply not worth the battery power. All our best buys have been for present needs, many of our mistakes have come from trying to forward plan. Appreciate the moment, be it chaos or silence, moments are fleeting, especially in the early years, and not being in them fully is missing out of so much.

5. Your own childhood will be a reference book
We forget great chunks of our early years but what remains influences our parenthood style greatly. I found myself making the food I remember tasting as a child, singing the nursery rhymes and craving the same story books that left our family bookshelves decades ago. Equally we are daily weaving legacies for our child in each actions we do.

Overall, I’ve learnt to strive to be the mummy I am, not the mummy I, or anyone else for that matter, imagines I may be.

A year is so fleeting and before I got to hit publish it was long over. The lessons I now value are probably not the same as those I would have shared 6 months ago. Daily we watch Adam change and grow, his confidence, it agility and dexterity, his lengthening limbs and facial expressions. It’s easy to see him change, but his change is in ways a mirror of our own, for parenting must too be a process of change. I suspect the lessons of year 2 are likely to be totally different and such an adventure to explore.