Pregnancy Cravings and Toddler Tantrums...

This week it has become obvious to me that I'm dealing with a rather serious pregnancy craving.

I have admittedly gone through a phase of being in love with McDonald's cheeseburgers (still love these quite a bit actually) and part-baked cheese rolls (still love these A LOT too), but this week something has happened to me and I'm not really making it through the day without a fix of this latest overwhelming craving.

DONUTS.

DONUTS.

DONUTS...

I'm in love.

And I've become quite particular about which ones will do. They can't be from Asda. Oh no, Asda do not make good donuts. Sainsbury's are pretty high up my list - they do these lovely glazed hundreds and thousands beauties, which are pretty amazing. I've eaten three in the last 24 hours.

Krispy Kreme I think goes without saying. The glaze, the filling, the soft chewy dough. I think at some point during this pregnancy I must sit with a box of six Krispy Kreme's, a pot of tea to myself, and have a moment. Maybe whilst watching Made in Chelsea (my new favourite TV show - yes, I am late to the table as I always am with what's on TV, but On Demand has all the series from the beginning and I'm hooked. Caggie Dunlop is totally my new girl crush).

Greggs donuts are also way up there, Raspberry Creme is honestly heavenly. I ate four of those in about a day and a half.

I think it's possibly one of the worst cravings though. One of my friends so kindly informed me that there is at least 300 calories in each Krispy Kreme donut and I'm averaging at least two a day. I'm not sure this is a sustainable habit for the remaining 19 weeks of this pregnancy but what's a girl to do?

I'm also feeling that I'm not quite ready to give them up given the week I have just had with my toddler. Brooke is very nearly 21 months. Going on 14. I'm not quite sure where the attitude has come from but boy oh boy, does she have one. The tantrums really are something. And over the smallest and silliest things too which is what makes it even more frustrating to deal with.

Take for example the garden. We can no longer mention the garden in passing or in an every day conversation. We instead now have to spell it out. If anyone comes in to our house, like my Mum for example, I have to say,  "Don't mention [*whispers* "out there...!"] and I'm pointing like a loon out the window.

Anything to do with being outside, leaving the house, going to the shop, going to the park... Going in the garden in particular, ends up causing an extraordinary meltdown. I should probably make clear that I am not depriving my child of being outdoors in the fresh air, oh no. Quite the contrary, if anything Brooke spends more time outside than most kids (and more time then I would care to be outside - I'm not sure where I got her from, I would much rather be inside in the warm.) But despite two playgroups a week, numerous trips to the park, hours in the garden and trips around town in the buggy, it is seemingly not quite enough. My little darling wants to be outside at all times of the day and more so at times that are just inappropriate and annoying.

Take for example last night, Al went to put the bin out. It was about 7pm. Brooke and I had already been out in the afternoon to the park, the library and had a nice walk home. She should have been unwinding for bed but no, she had other ideas. As Al was taking the rubbish out, she erupted. She screams, she stamps, she cries. We explained that Daddy was just putting the bin out and would only be a minute - this of course was like saying "No more cheese" or "no more dry cereal" (her fav foods!) We explained some more that it was nearly bedtime, plus she didn't have her shoes on. She didn't give a monkeys. She carried on kicking off anyway.

"Oh Mother, I'm just getting started..."

When bedtime came around shortly after, we started our journey up the stairs. Perhaps an error on my part, but a small cardboard box of toys were on the stairs that I'd sorted for the baby earlier in the day. She promptly refused to go any further and seemingly lost interest in the bath she was so keen to get in 5 minutes before. I tried to usher her up the stairs, explaining the toys were for the baby and it was now bedtime. Did she listen? Did she bollocks. Once again she had a massive meltdown and refused to go any further up the stairs. I had to carry her up by her dislocated armpits (don't you just hate that), and even when she got to the landing refused to go any further towards her room. She screamed bloody murder, refused to get undressed and refused to get in the bath. I quite frankly felt like throwing myself out of the window. It had been a very long day. We'd been up since 6am, we'd all had a busy day and I was ready for a rest. Brooke once again however, had other ideas. Once we wrestled her into her PJ's (after I'd relented - I just couldn't listen to the screaming and crying for another second - and threw the box of toys for the baby on the bed to placate her), she then took a further TWO hours to go to sleep. Needless to say we were all exhausted by the time she eventually dropped off. Nevertheless she was still up this morning at 5.50am demanding that Al put Peppa Pig on his phone for her...!

I am reliably informed of course, that this is "just a phase" and that the "terrible twos" do seem to present themselves from about 18 months onwards, so this must be what we're contending with. But it is bloody hard work. I feel for any parent going through this incredibly tough stage as it so draining and very tiring. From my point of view, I don't think that the pregnancy hormones and tiredness and irritability is helping either, but I'm trying very hard to keep a level head and approach things calmly.

And with donuts. If only I could have wine too... That would definitely make things easier.

Weekly Roundup

I am not entirely sure who I need to mention as I steal this very cool blog idea, as I'm not sure where exactly the Weekly Roundup or Sunday Roundup blog originates from. If someone knows, please tell me and I'm very happy to thank the rather clever person.

So this week was largely all about counting down to Friday. Admittedly most weeks are about counting down to Friday, but this particularly Friday was very exciting because it was our 20-week ultrasound scan (yippee!)

The beginning of the week was pretty uneventful. Monday's are our lazy day and we usually have an easy one at home (mainly spent in PJ's with lots of tea and toast).

On Tuesday we went to Playgroup (Screaming Brats Playgroup, SBP) for the first time since Brooke was poorly. For those of you that don't know, Brooke got a very bad case of the kiddies norovirus, Rotavirus. She had the usual sickness and diarrhea symptoms that go with Rotavirus, but her body wasn't tolerating any of the fluid she drank after being sick, which she desperately needed to replace what she was so rapidly losing. She ended up badly dehydrated and after 4 hours in A&E was put on a drip. It was a very horrible couple of days. I had planned to blog about it but actually found it all quite upsetting to go over again so I'll leave it as she was very poorly but very quickly recovered - phew!

So Tuesday morning found us back at SBP and Brooke was a happy bunny to be there. As the weather was a bit nicer, the small patio area was open and the children could play outside on the slide and trikes and bikes. I have a bit of a thing for slides in so much as I hate them. This is ironic really as my daughter LOVES them and lucky for her, has an indoor slide at home and another in the garden. I think I dislike them so much because I hate Brooke climbing. Incidentally, this is also another of her favourite things - are you sensing a theme?

I may have mentioned this before, but Playgroup really gets on my goat. I'm stuck between a rock and a hard place though because Brooke really loves to go, whereas I would rather scrub toilets. I think the main things that bug me are the parents, closely followed by the other children. I understand that this is kind of how Playgroups work, kids and parents etc but it's really rather annoying. The parents, mainly the Mums, really wind me up because they're so laid back, and dare I say it, a tad lazy (this is certainly how they appear, I'm not judging. Well maybe I am a tad.) They sit with their plates of toast and mugs of tea and gossip idly about so-and-so's boyfriend's ex who's having so-and-so's baby. And while they obliviously chat away, they're crazy-ass toddlers are running riot around the group, snatching toys and ramming smaller kids with bikes (that should really be outside, I'm just saying). I saw one boy actually fall backwards off the slide outside. He can't have been much older then Brooke and his Mum was nowhere to be seen. I nearly had a heart attack. I thought, I can't watch my own child, and this child and that kid over there balancing on that chair, and that kid who's going to roll off that toy kitchen sink... It's really not good for my nerves.

I think the highlight of Wednesday was popping to the post office - jealous? And then things got really wild on Thursday when I had to do a very cheap food shop at Aldi.

Let's firstly talk about how amazing Aldi is. I mean, it is awesome. If you don't love Aldi then I suggest you leave this instant! Not really, come back. But seriously, this supermarket is the way forward. As a recently unemployed pregnant person, times are hard. The next few weeks in particular are going to be a little bit of a struggle (OK, a lot of a struggle) until my maternity pay kicks in, so we're really stretching the pennies as far as they'll go. I nearly squealed with delight at the cashier in Aldi when she told me the shop I had just done was only £22 (this was for ingredients for 4 meals! Although admittedly I did have to get a couple of things in Asda and Iceland later that day too, but still £22 - I was very pleased with myself.)

Finally Friday arrived and after I'd dropped Missy Moo off with my Mum at 12.00pm, I went and picked Al up from work. We were early for our appointment (which was at 1pm), so we had to wait around for a bit and the two of us sat there all sheepish and grinning at each other like big kids, eager to see bambino again. We were a little surprised to see a guy sonographer come out and call us in, but he was possibly one of the nicest blokes in the whole world. He chatted and laughed with us the whole way through our appointment and even slipped us extra freebie scan pictures at the end, including one of the baby's feet, which Al had mentioned he thought looked really cool. It was such a lovely experience and definitely one of my favourite scans. Finger crossed that everything is well in these next 20 weeks and the next time we're at the hospital it's because I'm having a baby!

After the scan, we went and did something a little bit sensible. And morbid. We made wills. People have been laughing at me when I've said about us making wills and I admit, I would rather spend the money on baby clothes and food (donuts mainly and vanilla mocha frappacinos and EVERYTHING from the Next newborn range) but the main thing for us (because we don't actually have any money to leave to anyone) was having a legal guardian put in place for Brooke and the new baby. I think we all worry about what will happen if one parent dies, but did you know that if both parents die and care provisions haven't been put in place for your child or children, then social services can place your children in care whilst a court decides who is the most appropriate person to raise your child/children. And did you know that literally anyone can put a hand up to raise them? An estranged family member, a family friend - anyone. When I learned this, I felt sick in the pit of my stomach. Al and I don't have a huge amount of family around us and the thought of a family member that we don't see (for valid albeit deeply personal reasons), stepping forward to make a claim to raise our children filled us with huge amounts of dread. Once we knew this was the case, it became pretty clear to us that we wanted to make proper arrangements for our kids so that we wouldn't ever have to leave our kids in that situation. And whilst I very much hope that Al and I don't leave Brooke and our new bambino as orphans, I feel a lot better now knowing that should anything happen to us, there is a legal guardian of our choice in place to care for them. God that is morbid isn't it? Sorry. Shall we move on to something lighter?

So this weekend we have spent cleaning and sorting out things in house that we don't need, want or use. We have put a tonne of bits on eBay and hopefully we can a make a few quid to cover our next few Aldi shops.

And to finish on a really lovely note, here's a couple of pictures from our scan. We're still thinking Team Blue and the baby does look spookily like my brother in this picture!

Still, not long to go now, 20 weeks down, 20 weeks to go...

Nerd Like You

I have been writing for the awesome website Nerd Like You, for a few weeks now. Finally it seems, after 27 years of being the ultimate geek, I'm learning how to put it to good use!

Being predominantly a Mummy blogger, the super-cool editor-in-chief Susie, told me to include the Mummy stuff where I could and I have been enjoying merging the Mama and Nerd elements together. It seems to be a great combination.

I would love to know what you think of the pieces I've written so far. As I say to Susie, be brutal!

Nerd Like You - Nerd Family

Parenting - the non-textbook way...!

When you have a new baby, you go a bit mental. Well, by that I mean - when I had my first baby, I went mental. And not a bit. Oh no, A LOT.

I was under this impression (and seriously false illusion), that my baby had to do all these amazing things like, sleep through the night and not have a dummy and breast feed beautifully. So when absolutely none of these things happened, I was not prepared (cue aforementioned mental behaviour...!)

I guess like a lot of new mums, I believed all the things you read in the glossy parenting magazines and the books written by women who actually don't have children. And I think I'd listened to one too many stories about so and so's baby who did this and did that and blah blah blah, that I felt like I was a big fat shit mother because my baby didn't meet the textbook.

Fast-forward 20 months to now and I finally feel able to say that all that parenting guff is a load of tosh. (Although, yes I was a bit on the heavy-side, that part is true, but come on now, I'd just has a kid.)

I found that when I really got to know other Mums, the truth came out. Not in a dramatic Eastenders kind of way, but more of a, "Oh you're just trying your hardest to not crack up as well? Me too!" And after a massive sigh of relief that you're not the only one without a textbook/non-existent model baby, you soon learn that they have kids that are just like yours. Ones that don't sleep or eat very much or refuse to brush their teeth and they draw on walls and kick off in ASDA etc You know, real-life children! It is at these points in the parenting journey that you think "YES! I'm not totally shit at this!"

Now I know I'm not the perfect parent, but hey, who is the perfect parent? (What is the perfect parent?) And yes I'll admit, my kid has her fair share or angel cake slices and Milky Way bars. AND despite the fact she still doesn't sleep all the way through the night, ends up asleep on her Dad's head in our bed at 3am, loves her dummy more than any toy in the house and was bottle fed from 3 weeks old, I have come to the realisation that she is doing just fine.

And I say "just fine" because I'm not going to brag and say she's perfect (well obviously she's perfect to me) and make out she's an angel, but what I've done so far in raising her, I can sincerely put my hand on my heart and say I'm proud as punch. She's sassy and clever and funny. And she's considered and cautious as well as be daring and curious. She has a lovely temperament and a fantastic personality and I'm quite happy to take a large portion of the responsibility for how incredible she really is.

So the morale of this story is; when my new bambino comes along in 5 months, I now know that everything I did the first time around, that a book or television program told me not to do, I will do again anyway. Not because I think my way is best, but because my way is all I know and my way seems to work. And from seeing how well my baby has grown and developed, I now have the confidence to do everything I did before and not feel like it's the wrong thing to do. If my baby needs rocking to sleep then that's what I'll do. If my baby falls asleep in my bed, then that's where he or she will stay.

And this time I won't worry. I won't fret, I won't cross reference every cry and murmur with some cods wallop baby book. I will instead look at my amazing eldest child and think, "how awesome is she?" And know that our new addition will be just as incredible.

New Maternity Wardrobe

This weekend I found myself indulging in three hours me-time. No hubs, no Teeny, no housework - just me. Alone. For three whole hours.

After I'd got over the shock that Al had agreed to my three-hour flit from the house, (I really needed a break after a shitty week with horrible preggo headaches) I thought, ooh, I'll go shopping, which is exactly what I did.

I had been moaning all week that the maternity clothes I had, all had holes in (they did...!) so I thought I'd head up to the new retail park, MK1 in Bletchley and take a scout about in Primark and H&M.

I didn't have a lot of cash to spare (the perks of recently becoming unemployed at 4 months preg...!) so I wanted to see how far my measly £30 would go. I was actually really surprised (and chuffed) that for £16.00 I came away with a long beige cotton shirt, a long black and white stripy vest top and a t-shirt dress from H&M. Down the road at Primark, I came away with a mint green shirt and a long white vest top (that when I got home was actually rank so is now a bedtime t-shirt...!) for £7.50. I also picked up a pair of maternity leggins with a huge bump pouch (very much needed as I'm getting seriously rotund), for £6 from Asda (I love Asda!!)

Al had also been like, the best husband ever and got me a pair of black and white spotty peg trousers from ASOS too, so by the end of yesterday I had a pretty awesome maternity wardrobe.

I actually went shopping with the very wise words of my friend Lanny in my head, to not actually buy "maternity" clothes (which I have found are seemingly uninspiring and very very expensive) but instead but what I normally would, just in bigger sizes. This may seem like a really obvious approach to dressing the bumpage, but I really never thought of it before. I don't think it applies as well to trousers though, as I do need (and kinda love) the big over the bump pouches, but in terms of tops, shirts and dresses I have got some lovely bits that don't look as frumpy as my previous maternity wardrobe.

So here's a few pics of my buys! What do you think?

Big BIG news!

This time, there is actually a reason I haven't blogged for a good 8 weeks. It's not just because of my normal laziness, oh no, it's because I'm PREGGERS!

So you see my laziness has upped itself a considerable notch as I'm remembering all the joys of the first trimester. That, plus the fact we waited the recommended 12 weeks to have our scan and tell our families - and I couldn't tell you without telling them first now could I?

But as of today, we're done. I think. I apologise if someone I'm related to (and give a monkey's about) is finding out about the new bambino via this blog. Whoops.

So. I'm up the duffer again. Up the spout. Preggers, preggo, preg. With child. Got a bun in the oven etc etc.

It definitely feels different this time. My sickness has been an absolute bastard for a start. For pretty much the first month I didn't leave my sofa and when I did leave my sofa, it was to puke or go to bed.

The last few weeks haven't been too horrific though and I'm hoping as I move into the second trimester I'm going to feel back to my normal self.


Brooke has been an angel. She's happily played with her toys and watched A LOT of CBeebies (I keep saying to Al I must write to Justin Fletcher and say thanks for making my life easier), and has just generally been a little star.

I've tried to explain it all to her but she hasn't the foggiest and just keeps saying "baby."

She was even with me the morning I peed on a stick - again, not really knowing what on earth her crazy mother was doing, but there with me rooting through the various pregnancy tests and thrusting them at me.

I must admit that although we were trying for another baby, I was stunned that it happened so fast. Because I fell quite quickly with Brooke, in my mind I was convinced it would take me at least 6 months. So when we said we'd try in the new year and I was knocked up by 5th January, I nearly fell on the floor.

And because it was so speedy, it did take a good few weeks to really sink in. Like I said, it feels so different this time. Probably because I'm not thinking about it constantly like I did with Brooke as I just don't have the time - my mind is just totally occupied all the time with Brooke. But as the weeks have gone on and I've started to get rounder (I've put 5lbs on already!) and seeing the baby on the screen at the scan, I am so so so excited to be having a new baby. It's so amazing that our family is growing and that my baby girl is going to be a big sister. I just can't wait now.

So my new bubs is due on 27 September. I've so far got a feeling it's a boy but who knows and we're planning on keeping it as a surprise too. Planning being the operative word. It may become all a bit too tempting at the 20 week scan!

And here is a little pic of our bambino. Isn't he cute? N'awww!

Silent Sunday