Something for the weekend

SFTW: Bourbon, Lego and getting shit done

February 7, 2016

Happy weekend! As Rose mentioned, I spent last weekend in Manchester, catching up with my family and obviously having some quality friend time with her (and she took the lovely picture of me and Thomas below). This is the first time I’ve ventured to Manchester since Thomas was about six weeks old, and the journey home put me off travelling alone with the two of them for a while. I did make the mistake of taking the train back to London at about 5pm (the witching hour for the kids, and rush hour for everybody else…) so I was asking for it really. However, I did come over all Pinterest-mummy and put together a Lego play kits for the train in advance of our journey. To be fair, I completely copied the idea from this blog post, but I still felt very smug as George happily played with it all the way to Manchester.

Here’s what else I’ve been thinking about this week: Continue Reading…

Life

Checking in on your New Year’s resolutions

February 4, 2016

So, it’s February already, and don’t underestimate it, as they say. Although most people dislike January because it directly follows Christmas, the weather is horrible, their next payday is a stretch, and there’s not a Bank Holiday in sight, February is barely any better – the weather is still miserable, Spring is nowhere to be seen and festive memories have faded. And those resolutions you made in the optimistic light of a new year – what’s happened to those?

It’s been a month since I pronounced myself in the grip of ‘New Year Fever’, and in the spirit of openness and not making you feel terrible if you’ve tossed your resolutions aside by now (I still think it’s a terrible month to attempt major changes) I thought I’d give you an update on where I’ve got to with my commitments (I still refuse to call them resolutions).

New Year's Resolutions

30 Days of Yoga Camp with Adriene

I did this one!! It really was quite an experience and so I want to write a separate post about it. It was, quite simply, wonderful. The best thing about it as a sort-of resolution was that it was so much fun that I looked forward to doing it, and the only things that made it hard to stick to were lack of time (right?!) and a minor injury I sustained part-way through – I think springing too enthusiastically back into a plank position was the root cause.  There are not enough heart-eye emojis in the world to describe Adriene, so just check it out on YouTube if you’re curious. Continue Reading…

Parenting

Cutting a two-year-old’s toenails…

February 2, 2016

Since Oscar turned two in December, it has been impossible to cut his nails – especially his toenails. So much so that nowadays, whenever I read The Gruffalo to my son, I give him a pointed look when we get to the part about the ‘terrible claws’.

I used to cut all of Oscar’s nails relatively easily by distracting him with good old Peppa Pig and, more recently, episodes of Pocoyo. But lately, he’s been refusing to sit on my lap to watch TV, so whenever I drag him onto it he knows something is up and starts to squirm and howl ‘Noooooo!’ like a thwarted villain in Scooby Doo.

Cutting toddlers' toenails | Everyday30.com

I’ve tried everything to prevent his nails from becoming a public health issue: massaging Oscar’s feet as we watch telly and then stealthily going in with the clippers (useless): telling him his long nails are making mummy sad and that cutting them would make mummy very happy (weakens his defences but gives me no clear access to the nails); and trying to both pin him down and calm him down at the same time as I try to connect blade with nail, not skin (traumatic, futile and counter-productive). Now that a combination of all my toenail-cutting trial and error seems to be bearing fruit, I thought I would share my approach.

First, like an athlete preparing for a long-distance event, I warm us both up. Continue Reading…

Something for the weekend

SFTW: The self-pity party edition

January 31, 2016

I’ve been feeling seriously sorry for myself this week: it started with an injury that meant I couldn’t play netball and had to pause my 30 Days of Yoga project, and ended in wisdom-tooth agony. Needless to say, I was hashtag fumin’, and this feeling was only exacerbated by my netball team romping home to victory without me. (Obvs I would have been more annoyed if we’d lost, but hey, it’s nice to be needed).

Looking back on the week, I can see that missing a single game of netball and two days of yoga practice is not the end of the world. Sadly, I did not have this perspective mid-week when I was heading to Hotel Chocolat for a ‘snack’ or declining dinner with my colleague in favour of ‘going home to cry.’

I think it was missing the yoga that got to me the most. I want to write a whole post about the experience (as Rachel did last year when she took up the same challenge), so I won’t bang on about it too much here, but there was something galling about making the commitment to do it, having never done any yoga before, and then getting to day 23 and having to stop. I felt like a failure. Even though it was the right thing to do, it was infuriating.

The cavalry arrived on Friday in the form of Rachel and her beautiful boys, and not even horrible tooth pain can completely dull the shine of a day spent with your oldest and best friend and her smiling baby. We had planned a walk somewhere pretty and then a leisurely lunch, but Manchester weather had other ideas and so we settled for a long coffee in the morning, followed by a leisurely lunch in a pretty place. The venue was the Eagle and Child in Ramsbottom and we got everything we wanted: a fireside table, excellent food, a killer view and a weekday crowd of oldies cooing over Thomas.

Everyday30

After Nicky had a pretty sorry week last week, and this week it’s my turn to vent, I don’t want you to think we’ve become a total bunch of whingers. So, in non-pity-party news:

Continue Reading…

Parenting

How I organise my toddler’s stuff

January 28, 2016

Kids come with a surprising amount of stuff, don’t they? And by ‘stuff’, I mostly mean plastic crap toys. I don’t really mind the toys – they have their uses – but I also don’t want my house to look like a toy shop exploded in each room. Here’s how I organise all the stuff and stop myself going bonkers over the mess.

First of all, I try to limit the stuff in the first place (this is mostly in vain as every birthday and Christmas George seems to get increasingly more obscene amounts of toys). I regularly try to send toys that aren’t getting much use to the charity shop (or eBay). You must do this secretly – more than once George has discovered my charity shop pile and developed a sudden attachment to every piece of tat in there. I know friends who box up toys in the loft and rotate them regularly, too, which is a great idea as I think children play better when they’re not overwhelmed with choice. The more toys George has to play with, the crazier he becomes – he just starts emptying things onto the floor and going mental.

How I organise my toddler's stuff

Continue Reading…

Life

The job titles we acquire but don’t get paid for

January 27, 2016

Like sharing finances, dividing household chores fairly as a couple is tricky territory, both emotionally and practically. Although Juan and I aim, in theory, to share the load fifty-fifty, I often wonder what percentage of household responsibilities I actually shoulder compared with Juan. Like many couples, we both believe we do more than the other without enough recognition – in our case, especially when it comes to washing up. The fact that I work part time and he full time complicates matters further.

The job titles we earn but don't get paid for | Everyday30.com

This is not an opportunity for me to have a dig at my husband – he really is very feminist and well-intentioned in this regard. However, I am as guilty as the next woman of not being able to shake off the mindset that my partner is ‘helping’ me with the housework, as if it were officially my lot. Much like childcare, housework is one of those things that men have only relatively recently come on board with, meaning they are still praised for being ‘so good/helpful around the house’ in a way that women never are.

Also, in my experience, the incidentals of life admin are often relegated to women. There are so many little things that I do to add value to our shared daily life for which the responsibility is mine alone. If I died, I think the execution of those tasks would, in all likelihood, stop altogether. It would be nothing earth-shattering – life would go on – but the fact that I undertake (or, Juan would argue, create) these tasks without complaint just makes me pause for thought.

So here are the made-up job titles I’ve assigned to myself for the little things I do in addition to my 50% share of household duties – the activities that are completely off my husband’s radar:

The job titles we earn but don't get paid for | Everyday30.com

  • Sock Regroupment Manager
  • Clothes Washing Technician (with independent jurisdiction in Drying Services)
  • Neighbourly Relations Team Leader
  • Chief Writer of Thank You Cards and Miscellaneous Correspondence
  • Photographic Memories Archivist
  • Call Reminder Service
  • Recycling Enforcement Officer
  • Personal Admin Assistant to the Family
  • Head Weeder (with shared responsibility for Front Porch Clearance)
  • Mistress of Household Replenishment
  • Social Relations Executive
  • Sheriff of the Sharp Knives
  • Nursery Liaison Officer (and Head of Child Taxi Services)
  • Fridge Clearance and Purification Troubleshooter
  • Sheet Renewal Engineer
  • Toilet Roll Replenishment Operative
  • Cleaning Co-ordinator
  • HR Manager for Plumbing, Electrical and Automobile Services
  • Oh, and Chief Executive of Biscuit Consumption

Continue Reading…

Something for the weekend

SFTW: Chicken pox, bad backs and solitary confinement

January 24, 2016

SFTW: Chicken pox, bad backs and solitary confinement | Everyday30.com

Happy Sunday folks! I cannot tell you how positive I feel today compared with the past week – which I’m so glad is over because it was an absolute rotter. Ten days ago, just as I finished my working week, Oscar was diagnosed with chicken pox. Like the fool I am, I couldn’t help feeling a bit pleased that my son had managed to schedule his illness to coincide with my non-work days. By now, however, I should have learned that ‘smug’ is a dangerous emotion. Because after a full weekend of zero zzz’s (I’m talking newborn levels of sleeplessness, here) and general hysteria on all sides, I managed to injure my back… by sneezing. Which meant I had to take the whole week off work anyway, and spend my days hobbling pathetically around the house trying to take care of a sick, clingy, increasingly frustrated (and frustrating) child.

Unlike Rachel and Rose, I do not thrive on solitude. Here are some of the things that got me through the week:

  • A re-read of HurrahforGin’s award-winning post on chicken pox – which I can now TOTALLY identify with. ‘It’s scabbed over, bitches!’ Love it.
  • Discovering, after dosing Oscar up with only 5ml of Calpol, that he can have a whole 7.5ml now that he’s turned two 😄
  • Peppa Pig – which scientists have now confirmed is as effective as calamine lotion when it comes to calming pox-related itches. Now, I know in the past I’ve written about how much I love this programme, but even I have my limits – and 12-15 episodes three or four times per day (including loooong sessions in the middle of the night) is way beyond what any parent should have to endure. In fact, so much exposure makes you start analysing Peppa Pig on a wholly bonkers level. But it was either that or watching The Wheels on the Bus 84 times in a row and, having seen that goddamn bus tour cities in Europe, America, the Antipodes and even India over the past few days, I would have sooner stuck my hand in my Nutribullet.
  • My Nutribullet – although I spent all week mindlessly cramming anything I came across into my mouth, I did at least start each day with at least three of my five-a-day. But then, on occasion, I also made one of these

Continue Reading…

Beauty and Style

5 Mum outfit ideas

January 21, 2016

One of the key questions when creating my capsule wardrobe was figuring out what kind of clothes I need for my current lifestyle with two small kiddos – the answer is: plenty of ‘mum’ outfits. Not that mum = frumpy (hell, ‘mom’ jeans are even cool these days), but there are a few considerations to bear in mind when you’re hanging out with kids all day.

  1. Comfort: As I get older, I feel like all clothes should be comfortable, right? But this is especially true when you’re on mum duty – you need to be able to bend over without flashing your knickers, and sit on the floor and run around with ease.
  2. Weather: I think it depends on the age of your kids, but I spend a fair amount of time these days either at the park or walking around our local area, so I need a warm coat, preferably one with a hood, and comfortable, waterproof shoes.
  3. Boob access: this might not be applicable to everyone, but all of these outfits have the bonus of being breastfeeding friendly, too.

I’ve put together a couple of my favourite outfits from my capsule wardrobe below. Note that they’re not all super-casual – I don’t think smart-casual clothes and children have to be mutually exclusive, so if I’m going to a friend’s house with the kiddos (i.e. spending time with adults, hurray!), then sometimes it’s fun to go a little smarter. And it wouldn’t be one of my blog posts without me mentioning lipstick – it’s the quickest way for me to feel put-together/alive (delete as appropriate) when I leave the house. Continue Reading…

Life

How to read more books

January 19, 2016

Growing up, I was a real bookworm – I remember, in primary school, being told to bring two books home from school each evening instead of one as instead of reading my allotted pages I would just read the whole thing.

I would read at different times of the day – and sometimes all day if I was particularly gripped – but reading in bed before I went to sleep was a regular part of my routine until I was in my early 20s. In fact, I can’t recall exactly when this stopped being a daily habit.

When I came to write my part of our post about the best things we had watched or read in 2015, it shocked me that I couldn’t think of a single book I’d read all year. It seemed crazy to me. In a whole calendar year, I didn’t read anything that managed to stick in my head until Christmas. I know there are years when I would have found myself agonising over how to cut down a huge list of must-reads. But last year? Nothing. Nada. Not a one.  

Now, I am not one for beating myself up for not doing things I don’t want to do in my free time. I can watch TV for hours without guilt and have no qualms about rejecting social invitations so that I can relax by myself. And I don’t judge people who don’t enjoy reading – I mean, I don’t identify with them, but I don’t think a regular reader is an inherently superior being. So this post isn’t some new year’s resolution to make myself a better person by forcing myself to spend more evenings poring over a book when I’d rather be painting my nails. But I’ve realised that I really do miss reading and want to do more of it.

I think getting a computer that allows me to access television shows on tap, and having a very short commute, are the two main reasons for the decline in my reading habit. It means that it’s Netflix I generally reach for now before I’m about to doze off. As for commuting, when I lived in London and spent up to 45 minutes on a bus each day to and from the office, I would spend that time lost in a book. A ten-minute drive doesn’t afford the same opportunity, unfortunately. So, having given up one of my top reading slots and had the other one removed, I fell out of a routine that I now want to reclaim.How to read more books I don’t think I’m suddenly going to switch off the phone and computer of an evening and dive back into a daily reading habit just like that, but there are a few things I’m giving a try in an attempt to get back into my reading groove:

  • Using Play Books on my phone instead of relying on hauling a hard copy around. It also means I can read in little breaks e.g. when I’m microwaving my lunch at work, when I’m waiting to meet someone in a café or restaurant (instead of just mindlessly scrolling through Twitter). Rachel actually suggested this to me a while ago and I’ve already read one book this way, so progress is being made!
  • Not trying out any new TV shows out for a month or so. I’m not giving up on any current favourites (step forward Scandal, War and Peace and Endeavour) but I’m not going to go out actively looking for a new one until I’ve altered my reading habit a little bit.
  • Asking people I meet up with to recommend a book to me. Hearing people rave about a story they’ve loved is one of the best ways to get me excited about reading something, and so I am seeking suggestions every time I see someone I trust (to recommend good books that is).

And so, if you have a book you’re dying to recommend to someone then please, please, please leave it in the comments below or tweet us!

Do you find the time to read these days? If so, how? Please leave me tips and recommendations in the comments section!