Farewell 2018 Holla 2019

Things I did for the first time in 2018:

Trained for and ran a half marathon - I did it in just over 3 hours.

Cut off all my hair and donated it to a cancer charity.

Had a mammogram - it was fine, just a bit daunting really to be old enough to require one !

Went back to work full time after being at home with my kids for years - that was a bit of a shock to all of us.

Challenges I faced in 2018:

Spent more time in hospital waiting rooms than I would like.

Shed more tears than I knew possible, not always at the right time or in the right place.

Apologised for my feelings and myself and for things I cannot control. Too often.

Gave my time and energy to others who needed support - it helped me avoid my own stuff.

Saying no when I needed to rest.

Wanting to do everything and to see everyone and to be everywhere.

Promises I want to keep in 2019: 

Take better care of my health.

Train for and run another half marathon (in under 3 hours if possible).

Swim regularly again.

Eat well and cook proper food.

Look after myself and get more sleep.

Prioritise myself some of the time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR - I WISH YOU HAPPINESS, HEALTH AND PEACE

I can do this - I know I can

I've said before that I don't make resolutions, but I try to have goals or aims that are achievable. I'm keeping it simple this year so hopefully I'll have a good chance of making progress.

So, in no particular order:

1. I will finish an entire book (no, kids' books don't count)

2. I'm committed to building Baby Boy's vocabulary from Daddy, Mama, Bubba (brother), bubbles, bowl and more.

3. I'm going to use my time constructively when the boys are at school and pre-school. It's only 3 hours, but I'll make it count.

4. The great declutter will pick up pace and I'll stop keeping things 'just in case.'

5. I'll make time for myself whether that's to have a soak in the bath or taking time to do my hair.
 

Bank holiday fun for all the family

Big boy went to stay with Nani-mummy - dressed as Iron Man (of course).

Baby boy played football with Daddy's brother 

Me and Hubbie went to watch bands at our favourite festival 'Edge of the Sea' in Brighton.

Hope you're enjoying the long weekend too :)

Boys, your Daddy really is the best

Watching the washing machine

When we go to the card shops you know those cards that say 'Dad you're the best' or, 'My Daddy is awesome.' Well, they have never been my style and I don't really feel the sentiment in them for myself. I do, however, think you have every reason to give them to your Daddy and here's why:

Daddy is kind, caring and always puts us first - he wants you to be happy. 

Chocolate and cake make him happy beyond belief. Cake made of chocolate is... well, awesome ! 

Spending time with you boys is Daddy's idea of a great time. 

The London Transport Museum is our happy place 

I know how much he wishes he could be there for school assembly every week. So you cannot imagine how he felt last Friday when he saw Big Boy receive a silver star for helping a friend. I know that he was the proudest parent in the room. 

People think I'm the strong one, but I'm not. Daddy is the foundation of our family and he makes us all strong and keeps us safe.

Daddy is the silliest, funniest and cleverest man I know.

Daddy is a very serious man

He makes up songs to amuse you - he's been doing this since before Big Boy was born.

Peppa Pig is his favourite TV show.

There are so many reasons why Daddy is the best, but I can give you my number one reason. If it wasn't for him I wouldn't have you two.

Happy Father's Day 

Today I'm working with gratitude

Today has been a very difficult day. I'm not going to go into detail about why. I would prefer to put it behind me. Instead I'm working on celebrating what is going well right now. So I've been stockpiling the good bits to look back on for a while now just for a moment like this.

Last year my sister shared this idea to keep a 'gratitude jar' where you write down when something good happens. You do this for a whole year then on New Year's eve you sit and read them so you can remind yourself of all the wonderful moments that you might otherwise forget. As a blogger I have this space to record such things, but it's still a good discipline to write a physical note and pop it in the jar. I have a clean peanut butter jar. a pretty pen and some small strips of paper on which to write my happiest moments.

my gratitude jar 

In a virtual version of my 'gratitude jar' here are the small notes I'll be keeping about this week.

• Hubbie dressed baby boy in a pique polo shirt that I haven't seen before and he looked so cute we called him the 'baby mod' 

• Big Boy rushed outside when my sister came over at the weekend to help her carry the bags from her car 

• Mum sent some lovely homemade food with my sister so I didn't have to cook for the boys for a couple of days 

• Lovely friends came to visit at the weekend and I saw my boys through their eyes - as polite, kind and thoughtful 

Saving water - the greatest gift ever ? 

• So many reasons to love Hubbie, but the main one right now is that he got this for our kitchen sink - a water saving swivel tap head. Don't judge, I love it ! 

• This afternoon I took the boys to the park after school pick up. It was a gorgeous sunny afternoon. They had ice cream and played and for a little while it all felt ok. 

I'm going to keep working with gratitude in the hope that there will be more to write and keep in the jar and less to try and forget. 

Eight years on, but who's counting ?

Today it's mine and Hubbie's 8th wedding anniversary. We're taking the boy to stay with my parents and we'll have a night away in a nice hotel with dinner and breakfast - bliss ! In the evening, after dinner, we'll be on air presenting our radio show so we'll be online chatting to listeners in the 'shout box' which is a live interaction with presenters during a show. It's not a conventional way to spend an anniversary, but it's pretty much perfect for us. I get to have a swim, Hubbie gets to go to the gym and we both get to be on the radio together.

So, if you will indulge me this is my post dedicated to celebrating the top 8 things about being married to Hubbie. To misquote Ross Geller from Friends: "One for every year I have been married to and loved him."

1. He's a key member of any pub quiz team with his extensive sports knowledge. Don't ask him about popular culture or pop music though, it will not end well ! 
2. He's taller than me - well let's face it most people are - so he's very handy for reaching things on high shelves. This isn't quite as dim as it sounds. Hubbie has a genuine aversion to DIY, but he does the 'manly' stuff around the house which means I don't have to :)
3. His incredible patience with my backseat driving. I'm always pressing an imaginary brake on my side and will advise him what not to do when driving despite the fact that he's much better than I am at driving long distances - I rule when it comes to city driving though.
4. Even when I doubt myself and my ability Hubbie wants me to do well and is ambitious for me. He's not jealous or competitive, but supportive and genuinely happy when things go well. 
5. The songs - oh the crazy made up songs. Even before we had our boy he used to make up silly songs for and about me. Mostly to the tunes of current hits, but often just out of the blue.
6. Despite wildly different musical tastes we often go to gigs together. I went with him to watch the Fall a few times and he's been to see Prince with me. There's a mutual respect if a bafflement at our respective choices of music. 
7. When we're together we share the stupidest jokes and puns. No one else would find us as entertaining as we do each other - and ourselves. 
8. He knows how to make things all better, whether it's finding a 'kunkarella' to make me laugh or reminding me that I don't like salmon and shouldn't order it in restaurants. 

So, here's to us and our quirky married life. If anyone needs me I'll be in the hot tub worrying about the cat being home alone.

Attachment parenting: I swear by it.

I'm not going to get into it about the Peaches vs Hopkins TV 'debate' on attachment parenting. I didn't follow it and neither woman is a parenting role model I'm about to emulate. I am all for attachment though and was listening to Oliver James talking about lovebombing on Radio 4 yesterday afternoon. As a result today has been spent loafing around and doing as little or as much as my toddler wants to do. You see I like the idea of responding to what my child is interested in, but I'm not about to advocate my skills as a parent above anyone else's. I'm doing my best and I sometimes over-do it or get it wrong. Mostly I am just glad that he's a happy child and that he loves us. 

If anything I've probably been over-attached. I never left my son alone at all when he was first born. I would shower while Hubbie was home either in the evening or stupidly early in the morning. I honestly thought that if I left my baby for longer than it takes to make a cup of tea he was going to roll over (which he'd never done) or stop breathing (he's still here).  Of course I do still check on him - old habits and all that - but now I stay in bed rather than shower at 6am. That's hardly tiger mama behaviour is it ? 

As he's a toddler now I do go and shower and leave him to his own devices (watching telly, creating a 'traffic jam' with his toy cars or playing with the hands free soap dispenser if I've forgotten to put it high up) for around 5-10 minutes. I do have to keep calling every 30 seconds to check he's still in the house though as he can't be trusted not to open the door if someone knocks. Grandma was babysitting on Halloween night and as she is quite hard of hearing he heard the door knock and went to answer it - only to be confronted with two rather terrifying teenage boys in masks. They didn't get any sweets, but the boy got a proper scare !!

The other night Hubbie opened a belated birthday card he'd received that had been sent to the wrong house with the wrong age on it. He affectionately called the sender a nob - supposedly out of earshot of our boy - only for the boy to start saying 'nob, nob, nob, nob' in a sing song voice. I gave Hubbie my 'silly boy' head shake and he responded with, "actually, he may have heard that before in the car driving to football." I suppose it could be worse. I'm not sure how though.

Up until now my son's idea of bad language has been to point at me and say 'Oh. Dear.' forcefully as that is what he thinks swearing is. We're also working on discouraging the 'toilet talk' which he loves right now. As an example.
Me: "What did you do at nursery today little bear ?"
Toddler: "Bum Bum."
Me: "I don't think you did. What did you have for lunch ?"
Toddler: "Poo Poo."
Me: "Ok that's enough toilet talk for today."
Toddler: "Wee Wee."
Me: <sigh>

I'm not expecting a call from anyone asking me to share my parenting secrets any time soon. I am, however, expecting to be embarrassed by my son's vocabulary some time in the near future. 

When If he calls Santa a Nob Poo Poo I'll look around pretending he's not with me, but that's when all my attachment parenting will come back and bite me in the 'bum bum.'

I heart happiness

This evening I was walking behind a woman who was wearing a polka dot coat and asked her where she'd got it from. She was flattered that I'd asked and it made her smile. I often ask women who are wearing something that looks beautiful where they got it and it's nearly always a coat. At this point my friend Bee is rolling her eyes at the ceiling as she was the first person to voice (to me anyway) that I own far more coats than is strictly necessary when I said - pointedly - that Buffy the vampire slayer wore a different coat almost every episode.

Anyway, I digress, from the topic of happiness and in particular two things that happened today that have made me happy:

Firstly my lovely friend Carole posted a piece from the Metro newspaper about Liz Jones - you know her, spitting invective weekly and last year she mocked this blog to demonstrate why Mummy bloggers are rubbish and she didn't even give me credit if you please ! Anyway, she appears to have changed her mind about her arch enemies ie. other women. Apparently she's realised that the best life choice to make as a woman in order to be happy is to be a housewife who works part time and blogs, so yay me !!

Secondly I was at a local community police meeting that I attend and found out that the sergeant of our local team has had to reapply for his job and was given his fourth choice of location. This means he will no longer be based locally to me and I won't have to deal with him any more. I have always found him rude and unhelpful when members of the community have tried to ask for help or advice so him not being there any more is a big win for me. I didn't wish him gone, but the fact that he will be is not making me unhappy.

So Karma is being nice to me right now and I feel I should pass on the happiness to others. Not least as I finished the anger management course this week so I feel equipped to impart some knowledge that I've gained to help improve relationships and restore harmony in your family:

Find your love language. So work out if you prefer a hug as a sign of love or do you like being told you are loved ? Do you prefer gifts or to do nice things for your loved one ? Identifying your own love language and that of those who you love will make for happier relationships and possibly even some nice jewellery !  

Give lots of praise instead of concentrating on what's gone wrong. So instead of saying, "I am very cross that you didn't bring the wheelie bin into the back garden last night," it is better and healthier to express it thus, "well done for noticing that the wheelie bin makes a decorative feature outside the front door all night."

My favourite was learning how to use "I" statements to avert a confrontation. The idea is that instead of saying. "you always…" or "you never…" the approach to take is to make statements that follow this format. "I feel..." When you... Next time please…" so translating this into my own experience instead of saying, "pick your socks up off the floor or I'll stab you." it would be more productive and positive for my marriage to say, "I feel like stabbing you when you leave your socks on the floor. Next time please pick them up or I'll stab you. Please."

I just need to find a suitable love language and some "I" statements for the world's bossiest pilates teacher who taught me last week. I felt like I'd been assaulted by a small skinny drill sergeant with a high pitched voice and who was a bit 'handsie' with her adjustments. I did also, however, feel like I'd worked really hard afterwards and ached in what I am choosing to believe is a good way.

Now that I've got my groove back I'm also going back to teaching yoga and am looking for a local ashtanga vinyasa class as I feel up to going back to a more energetic form of yoga.

See even being ordered around by a bendy woman isn't going to annoy me this week :o) 

The Seven Year Stitch

Hubbie and I present a radio show together that we joke is the only time we actually talk to each other. While that's not strictly true it has reminded us how much we enjoy each other's company. Today he made me laugh so much I had to turn my mic down and let him carry on introducing my song. It was a ridiculous comment about a horse called Hoof Hearted and it had me in stitches and crying with laughter, silly I know.

We've been married for seven years this year - having both had starter marriages as practice - which in celebrity marriage terms is a lifetime. I always forget the date we got married, but I remember birthdays and other celebration days so I don't feel too bad. In fact we kid around that we have reversed the traditional roles as he irons his own shirts and I refuse to read instructions. It works for us.

In our early dating days we went on holiday to California and took a road trip from San Francisco to Las Vegas (via Los Angeles). We spent 24 hours a day together and a lot of time in a car driving. Well he drove, I mostly handed him sweets and pointed at the ocean. At no point did we argue or fall out and we always managed to agree on where to eat and what to do with a minimum of fuss. I put this down to him being easy going more than any positive qualities on my part.

When we were told it was unlikely that we would be able to have a baby we sat and cried for what felt like hours on chairs in the fertility clinic feeling bereft and empty. Every day after that I would phone him at work with some new plan I'd concocted to enable us to have the family we so desperately wanted. One day I called him while I was sitting under a dryer at the hairdressers to tell him I wanted to adopt one of the 11 million abandoned baby girls from India that I'd just read about. He said "Ok."

I asked him if we could go ahead and adopt in this country and he said "yes." We were assessed and verbally prodded and poked for months until we were approved by a panel of 13 strangers as suitable to be parents. Then we waited, and waited, and waited a bit more. It occurred to me that we had given up trying to get pregnant and it had to be worth a try. I suggested that in addition to all the dietary changes we'd made and the weight loss and the yoga we should also try acupuncture or reflexology. He is terrified of needles, but he said "Yes."

On a plane to India I watched Juno and cried and cried and cried. Then he watched it and he cried too. We watched Gavin & Stacey struggle to have a family and cried and cried and cried. We tried to get used to the idea that we would neither adopt, nor have a baby of our own. We went on holiday and remembered why we were together in the first place. Then on the day that I found out I was pregnant he responded joyfully "My balls work !"

As I type this Hubbie is out watching My Bloody Valentine with a friend. He loves their music, I don't. On Sunday I will be taking a flying lesson that he bought me as a present - I am terrified, but you have to love the thought. The other day he told me I looked hot in my skinny jeans - unprompted !

So for all the times that Hubbie has said, "yes" or "ok" or "if you like" to make me happy I am posting this as I know it will make him happy.