gurgle.com blog

Pops has been wobbling around and tumbling onto her bum for a few month now (she's crashed into the coffee table and got a few shiners on her forehead numerous times) so I was delighted when she took her first proper steps on her sister's third birthday. I think it was seeing lots of older girls playing with her toys that made little eleven-month-old Pops get up and walk. She walked two months earlier than The Bean did, but apparently second children learn to walk faster than first, because they're desperate to be just like their older sibling. (Or finally get their hands on the toys they've been watching their older sibling covet for months!)

It was time to buy Pops her first shoes - a milestone moment for any parent, no matter how many children they have. We went to Clarks first, where we managed to end up with the grumpiest most uncharismatic sales assistant i've ever come across. This is the conversation she barked at me:

Grumpy: "What do you want?"

Me: "Um, my daughter is eleven months and has just learnt to walk and we want to by her her first pair of shoes."

Grumpy: "Which ones do you want?"

Me: "Ahhh I was hoping you would show us which ones would be most suitable..."

Grumpy: (Motioning to a whole row of shoes with the words 'for walking' next to them) "Any of these"

Me: "Right, you'll need to measure her feet then?"

Grumpy: "Yeah take her shoes off"

MY Husband: "No we're leaving, thanks for spoiling a special moment..."

Grumpy: "OK, whose next..."

Needless to say, we scarpered and bought her shoes in Russell and Bromley kids around the corner where she got some much funkier moccassin/native American style shoes that means she's the coolest baby in the Mother and baby drop in...

We finally arrived at the special day, The Bean's third birthday. I can't quite believe that I have a three year. Hold on, I can't quite believe that I have a one year old too, actually, hold on, I can't quite believe i'm 30, but that's another story...

Luckily I took the day off on Friday to prepare for the party and to take my daughter and her best friend to 'fairy school'! The Bean is obsessed (and rightly so) with fairies, so finding a fairy shop in Hampstead which taught three and four year old's to be fairies was perfect. Seeing them all running around in their fairy outfits, making wands and tiaras and decorating fairy cakes was worth every penny. So, after spending a fortune at the fairy shop, I dropped The Bean to nursery and headed reluctantly to Sainsbury's to gather food for a more credit crunch party. I bought loads of pizza bases (99p each) to put toppings on at home, the usual dips and carrot sticks and I bought two tubs of cous cous which I admit was cheating slightly, but hey, i'm sure the organic mum's can't really tell the difference between homemade and shop bought!

I made The Bean's birthday cake at 10pm (typical, this has been the pattern for the last two years too) and having drunk rather a large glass of wine I decided to add flour to my butter icing to thicken it up. Needless to say my icing tasted sour and salty and at 6am on The Bean's birthday, before anyone had woken up I was downstairs scraping off the old icing from the cake and adding my new sweeter stuff!

The party got off to a good start and all The Bean's 10 friend's arrived in fairy costumes... suddenly our house seemed very full. I had to tell some of the fairies off as they kept disappearing upstairs no doubt to use my Touche Eclait as a crayon on my walls. After a fairy picnic (pizza's went down well, not as good as the warmed up party cocktail sausages) it was time for cake which The Bean loved, especially because it was a pink birthday cake covered in white chocolate buttons. Afterwards my mum, who is a teacher made all the girls colour in and do some sticking, which was fantastic and killed loads of time, that was followed by musical bumps, musical statues and pass the parcel, which was hard work because two and three year old's don't understand why the present has to be passed on. The best part of the party was when The Bean opened one of her presents and it was a box of fancy dress outfits - brilliant idea - all the little fairies immediately dressed up in feathered mules, gloves, plastic beads and dresses. It had turned into a fairy fashion party and I was delighted, less work for me and more fun for the kids!!

The best idea of all was to start the party at 11am. It means we had a totally hectic morning but by 1-2pm everyone was gone, the Grandparents were clearing up the debris and I was tucking into a well-earned glass of wine, whilst the girls watched Mary Poppins (one of The Bean's pressies from me).

My hints:
Start the party early with the hope that guests leave earlier (it could back fire and you could end up with guests staying all day but that's your fault for making it too much fun)
Little girls (and boys) love dressing up, but i've got girls so can only really speak for them! Put a box of dressing up the middle of the room and watch the chaos!
Keep the food simple, no one touched the fancier stuff I prepared - most popular were the cocktail sausages and tiny triangles of tuna mayo sandwiches made with half white bread, half brown bread, to make them look pretty!
Early parties mean adults are less inclined to drink, but buy a few bottles of wine and some beers just in case
If you have a mother who is a teacher, make sure she can come and help entertain the three year old's - she was an absolute godsend...!

There are a few perks to being the editor of a baby website, especially when I have small children of my own who can share the rewards. However, my Friday perk, was being invited to a press screening with my daughter and niece (who are three years and eighteen months) of In The Night Garden at The Gate cinema in Notting Hill. My daughter has been a fan of ITNG since she first glimpsed it at about one and half and ever since, we've had to sit through many an episode of Upsy Daisy screeching through her 'troublyphone' or watching Makka Pakka (who reminds me of my Grannie) clean with his Uff Uff. Luckily, to stop all parents going mad the soothing voice of Derek Jacobi (a Shakespearean actor who also appeared in Gladiator and Gosford Park) helps to relax you after a hectic day in the office or with the kids. There have been times when i've wanted to climb into Iggle Piggle's boat and go to sleep...

We arrived at the cinema and were immediately given two Upsy Daisy outfits for my daughter and niece. This was absolutely hilarious, every child at the screening was either Iggle Piggle or Upsy Daisy. It was starting to get more and more surreal! We spotted CBeebies presenters Alex and Kerry and my two little Upsy daisies had their photo taken with the presenters. Jenny Frost from Atomic Kitten arrived with her very cute son dressed in a leather jacket and aviator sunglasses and Terry Wogan put in an appearance! (As you can tell things were getting more surreal by the minute).

We made our way into the cinema and all the little Upsy Daisies and Iggle Piggles sat down with their parents to watch an episode of In The Night Garden. It looked fantastic on the big screen and most of the kids were completely captivated by what was going on, even the very small ones. My daughter and niece immediately started dancing in the aisle of the cinema and practically danced the whole way through. Luckily at the end they played the ITNG 'dance' where all the characters bop along together in a bandstand. At this point most of the kids in the cinema got up and danced their funny little dances along with their favourite characters. It was so incredibly sweet to see. I took both my little Upsy Daisies home and they insisted on staying in their costumes all day!

The great news is that these screenings are part of special screenings happening across the UK where you can take your child along to the cinema and have them join in with the In The Night Graden fun. I thoroughly enjoyed myself and my three year old and eighteen month old niece had a fantastic time. You have to pay for your kids but adults go free. I've included the list below of cinemas where ITNG is playing so hopefully there is one near you. Oh, and if you do go, write and tell me how it went!

Screenings from Friday 20 March until Thursday 2 April at 11:00am and 11:55am unless otherwise stated. Pay for children's tickets, adults go free. Contact the individual cinemas or call 087 1704 2068 for more details.

The Belmont Picturehouse, Aberdeen - excluding weekends
The Little Theatre Cinema, Bath - excluding Sundays
Duke of York's Picturehouse, Brighton - excluding weekends, Tuesdays and Wednesdays
The Ritzy, Brixton - excluding Sundays
Regal Picturehouse, Henley - excluding Sunday 29th March
Arts Picturehouse, Cambridge - excluding Fridays, Sundays, Mondays and Wednesdays
Clapham Picturehouse - excluding weekends and Thursdays
The Cameo, Edinburgh - excluding Fridays, Sundays, Tuesdays and Thursdays
Cinema City, Norwich - excluding 21st and 22nd March and 2nd April
Greenwich Picturehouse - excluding Fridays, weekends and Wednesdays
Exeter Picturehouse - excluding Fridays, Sundays and Mondays. Tuesday screenings at 2:30pm and 3:30pm
Picturehouse at FACT, Liverpool - excluding Tuesdays and Thursdays
The Gate, Notting Hill - excluding weekends and Tuesdays
Phoenix Picturehouse, Oxford - excluding Sundays and Wednesdays
Harbour Lights Picturehouse, Southampton - excluding Fridays, Sundays and Wednesdays
Stratford-upon-Avon Picturehouse - excluding weekends
Stratford Picturehouse, London - excluding weekends
City Screen Picturehouse, York - excluding 22nd March

Enjoy!

Not mine! My births were OK, but after one Caesarean section and one third degree tear (and countless horror stories from my friends) I was starting to feel like no-one had a 'good' birth story, until my twin sister gave birth last Friday.

Ok, she was six days overdue so not as perfect as if her baby arrived on his due date. She was feeling HUGE, TIRED and FED-UP, so she had some reflexology and a membrane sweep (which by all accounts was pretty painful) and the next morning, at 8am she started having contractions. Luckily our mum was staying with her at the time so she could look after my sister's oldest daughter who is 18 months old.

My sis and her husband went to St Marys hospital, London, when contractions got to be about five minutes apart (after about 2 hours at home). Instead of going to the normal ward, she went to St Mary's Birthing Centre. This is a special birthing unit reserved for women who have had uncomplicated pregnancies who are expected to have uncomplicated deliveries. (So i'll never have a chance to give birth there if I go for number three because of my C-section/third degree tear/Vbac history). They were transferred to a room which had wood panelling, 'mood' lighting, a flat screen TV, a birthing pool, birthing balls/stools, coffee and tea and en-suite bathroom! Obviouly they were in shock by this stage at how amazing their surroundings were. My sis laboured for a while and made good use of the gas and air, whilst her husband watched Cleopatra on the flat screen TV. After a while she'd got to 10cm and she was able to push. She got into the birthing pool, which she tells me took away a lot of the pain, and pushed her son Jackson out in 20 minutes!

My new beautiful little nephew weighed 8lbs 8oz and he was perfect looking (not all red and squashed, although I am obviously biased). After they had performed all the checks and Jackson was fine, My sis, her husband and Jackson were taken to their 'suite' which was just as amazing - wood panelled walls, en-suite bathroom, TV, phone, DOUBLE BED and little wooden crib for Jackson. I don't think she wanted to leave! They also encourage husbands or partners to stay, hence the double bed.

The best thing of all is that giving birth in the birthing centre at St Mary's is free, but is only suitable for mums who are having a 'normal' pregnancy. (So, if you are having your baby in London, definitely check this place out)!

My sister's birth story restored my faith in having babies and the ability to have a quick, easy-ish labour. If all labours were like this and lasted three hours and all women were transferred to luxury rooms instead of noisy hot maternity wards where you get NO sleep, wouldn't giving birth be just that little bit easier? (And if all husbands were given flat screen TVs during labour wouldn't life just be easier all round?)

Anyway, congratulations to my sister who is now starting the incredibly rewarding but enormously tiring world of looking after two children and of course, welcome to the world baby Jackson!

Pops got her first tooth. The problem was, because The Bean didn't get any teeth until she was over one I assumed that Pops would be the same. (Bad idea - now I realise, all babies are different even twins!) So, one night about two weeks ago I got terribly frustrated as Pops cried practically all night. I was so tired and part deranged as she is such a good baby normally. Low and behold, the next day I discovered her first tiny little milk tooth right at the bottom at the front. I felt like a very bad mother as i'd given her no teething gel, teething rings, homeopathic teething granules (you name it , it's in my cupboard) and I even got cross with her for crying! Now I know why; poor little Pops was teething the whole time... I made up for it by spoiling her with cuddles at every opportunity I could.

It's hard to look for the signs of teething, they differ in all babies and all experts say teething should not be accompanied by a fever. Both my girls had very red cheeks but no dribble! They also both went completely off their food (and both are good eaters) so this was a good indication (that I obviously didn't pick up on) that they were teething. Pops will only eat Plum Baby foods while she's teething because they are the most pureed so probably require her to use her sensitive gums less. Luckily for me Plum Baby launched a new range of fromage frais pretty much the week she was teething, so I was able to feed her from my free batch (there are some advantages of being an editor of a baby website) of yogurts with flavours like strawberry and chamomile and raspberry and rosehip. Of course Pops thought this was great and couldn't beleive her luck!

Soon tooth number two had arrived after another sleepless night which was quickly followed by Pops crawling! Month eight is the 'happening' month in Pops' first year. She did the funny 'foot tangle' crawl for ages but as suddenly as the tooth arrived, she worked out how to crawl. Pops being mobile is now a new worry for me. When The Bean learnt to crawl (much much later than Pops) we made sure our house was ultra baby-proof, but this time with a toddler in the house I am constantly making sure that pen lids, paper, hair clips and Sylvanian family people are out of reach. I find myself putting swallowable objects into my pockets so Pops can't get them which results in my pockets bulging with random things like buttons, feathers from the sofa, apple cores and crayons. It's all go in our house...

Seven months seems to have flown by. It seems like only yesterday that I was heavily pregnant and dragging myself to work dreaming of maternity leave. Now suddenly I find myself back at my desk, a little lighter and less swollen! Leaving the girls was as tough as I had imagined it would be, but the anticipation of leaving them was worse than actually leaving them. I spent the last two weeks of my maternity leave looking sorrowful and thinking, 'this is my last baby group,' or 'our last Monday at the mum and baby drop-in...'
I well and truly beat myself up about returning to work even though I know The Bean will be fine as she is nearly three and going to nursery and positively loving having a life away from her parents, but Pops is only seven months. It doesn't help that she has turned into an adorably smiley baby who gurgles (geddit?) and laughs and is on the verge of crawling. I've given strict instructions to our nanny to lie to me if she starts crawling when I'm not there.

Luckily we have our old nanny back who looked after The Bean when I returned to work the first time so at least i don't have to get used to a whole new person in the house. It's still strange to have to search for the girls hats and mittens in the morning as I have to guess where my nanny may have hidden them!

The first day back came and went and it wasn't as bad as i'd imagined, despite staring at the girls' photo on my desk for about 30% of the day. There were things I definitely enjoyed and things I hated but overall, it did feel good to be using my brain. Obviously i'm lucky because I love being the editor of gurgle.com, and as it's a baby website no-one minds if I talk about my children just a teeny-weeny bit....

So here are my going-back-to-work pros and cons:

The things I don't like about going-back-to-work
1. Obviously, leaving my two gorgeous daughters
2. Getting up early (OK, this happens anyway with small children but at least at home you can lie on the sofa with your kids watching Big Cook, Little Cook early in the morning)
3. Commuting on the train - (at least i'm not pregnant anymore so tube travel is marginally better and standing is an option again.)
4. Feeling hugely jealous of my stay-at-home mummy friends as they all head off to Kew Gardens for the day.
5. Juggling work and looking after two young children and feeling guilty that I can't devote all my time to either. (Probably should mention my husband here too!)
6. Guilt, guilt, guilt...
7. Feeling that I should spend all my spare time with the girls and therefore seriously neglecting my husband and friends.

The things I like about going back to work:
1. Having a grown-up sophisticated handbag which doesn't contain baby wipes, nappies or boxes of raisins.
2. Having grown-up conversations with adults (OK, we do talk about babies, a lot in the office!)
3. Having a whole hour at lunch to eat a meal without having to feed anyone but ME, or to shop or go to the bank without negotiating a double buggy through the crowd.
5. Looking forward to seeing my children's beaming smiles when I walk in the door, (unless you are really lucky this doesn't happen much when you are at home with the kids all day.)
6. It's great to have another identity other than being a mum.
7. Feeling a huge sense of achievement at juggling my kids and my career and hopefully keeping everyone happy!

So, with a heavy heart (and chest!) I have started to wean pops off breastfeeding because I return to work at gurgle in two weeks. Although I am looking forward to returning to work, the thought of leaving my lovely smiley, delightful baby and cheeky toddler is breaking my heart. i'm sure you'll see more blog entries about how i'm coping soon enough...

All my books suggest weaning off the breast slowly and cutting out one feed per day over several weeks. Well, because of Pops being ill and me taking the girls away to see my two friends with kids, I kept on breastfeeding. On long car journeys or staying at other people's houses breastfeeding is definitely easier. This means with only a couple of weeks to go I am cutting out daytime feeds and feeding Pops in the morning and in the evening. This is by far the most painful method for me as my breasts are completely engorged and I almost cried earlier when Pops accidentally punched my chest. It's also probably the most traumatic method for Pops as she can't understand where her beloved 'champagne' has gone all of a sudden. I have pumped and dumped to take the edge of the pain and have stopped sleeping on my stomach, but tonight, after a day of non-feeding and after sitting through a committee meeting at my daughter's nursery in pain, I gave in and fed Pops. Ahhhh the relief! I can now type without fearing that the vibrations of my elbows will knock my chest! I've had mastitis once before when I was breastfeeding The Bean, so i'm obviously reluctant to revisit that painful episode again. When I gave up breastfeeding before it was after a year or so, and I was only feeding The Bean twice a day. This is different, I was feeding Pops pretty regularly so it's so much harder.

The upshot is that if I manage to wean her off breastfeeding before Christmas, it will mean I can have a drink (or two). It's been so long since i've had a Christmas where I haven't been either pregnant or breastfeeding that i'm excited just looking at bottle of Baileys. D is actually silently sighing as he reads this over my shoulder, as he knows he'll have to deal with a wife who has the alcohol tolerance of a sixteen year-old. (All those years building up an ability to drink my husband under the table have been quashed by three years of sobriety!) D has just informed me that he is disappointed to be losing his taxi too!

So, I survived a long haul flight with a toddler and a six month old baby! It was actually much better than I thought it would be. The Bean was so excited to be allowed to watch limitless TV and Pops was exhausted so she slept. I managed to watch the Sex And The City movie which I hadn't seen yet, so that was a huge bonus. We flew on BA and had the seats at the front. I thought it was great that they brought us what looks like a car seat (but you can have a bassinet for younger babies) which attaches to a table that folds down in front of us (we were in economy). Pops was very happy in it and it enabled me to have my hands free and eat some food. The Bean is now pretty much potty trained (I say this with my fingers crossed) and did the flight without pull-ups on, just grown up pants! I was also really worried about what I could take on the plane in terms of baby milk, baby food and liquids - well the answer is nothing! They took all my baby food etc from me at passport control, but I was able to buy it in Boots once we got through check-in and passport control. For anyone worrying about this, Boots at Heathrow Terminal 5 stocks loads of baby milk and food for you to take on board your flight.

We hired a car and took the kids baby seats with us. In retrospect this was a great idea, it saved loads of money not hiring American baby seats and we knew ours were safe and new! Hiring a car was a good idea too as we stayed in Brooklyn and drove into Manhattan most days. How refreshing to drive into a city without congestion charges and where it is pretty reasonably priced to park. We found somewhere that was ten dollars a day!

We travelled to New York, and once we were there I was really worried about how jet lag would affect the kids, but they were both fine. They slept in the car from the airport to Brooklyn so were able to stay up longer usual. New York was great with kids, lots of child-friendly cafes and restaurants. I've previously been to New York for work, or with D on a weekend break, so seeing New York though the eyes of my kids was great. We visited an amazing park within Central Park for kids and went to a Brooklyn toddler's music group with The Bean. We stayed in Brooklyn with friends which was lovely, very family-orientated and the Brooklyn Children's Museum was well worth a visit - they have a mini New York Deli with tiny trolleys and fake (but very realistic food) for kids to put in their trolleys. We saw 'The lady with her hand up called Liberty', as The Bean described her, and 'the buildings that touch the sky'. It has made me realise that is is possible to fly long haul flights with two children and feel fairly relaxed! I felt really proud of my kids for behaving well and dealing with things like jet lag, staying in strange bedrooms and letting me have a few glasses of wine in the evenings!

You'd think being a second-time around mum would make me confident about every stage of babyhood, but both my girls have been very different so far. The Bean was born five weeks early and was very small compared to her peers until she was about one and a half when she seemed to catch up. Pops is completely different, weighing in at 8lbs at birth she put weight on very quickly and although I am breastfeeding, at five months she is now 18lbs! With this in mind I have taken the steps (against my Health Visitor's advice) to wean her early. Call it mother's instinct, but I know that Pops is hungry. She's the same size as most seven month old babies and I feel that breastmilk just isn't enough to sustain her. She has been waking up at night and I can practically see her mouth watering when I cook The Bean roast chicken! I started off on baby rice as it's simple and easy for young babies to digest. Pops loved it and has slept really well since then. Next week i'll graduate on to carrots, then potatoes and perhaps some root vegetables... To me, she's much happier with a little bit of food, even though the Health Visitor was aghast at the suggestion that I would be weaning her before six months! So, who should I trust, A Heath Visitor, a GP or a mother's Instinct?

The Bean is now settled happily into nursery and although some mornings she still cries when I leave, on the whole (and if her best friend Savannah is there) she settles in fine. One look at the gooey play doh or the 'messy room' and she's forgotten about her bedraggled mum. Potty training is still interesting though, we still can't seem to get poo s in the right place and my washing machine is on overdrive. Wee s generally end up in the potty or the toilet. The whole process is definitely taking much longer than I thought it would. You just have to perservere! Lat week D and I both had important work meetings and we both discovered Poo on our shirts during the meeting as The Bean decided to have a little accident as we were leaving the house! The trials of working parents continues!

The Bean is definitely getting cleverer. Yesterday she said to me 'Mummy I want to Kiss you', after we kissed she said, 'now can I watch television because I kissed you'! Oh dear, at such an early age she's already aware of the power of a kiss....

So, today was the big day. The Bean started nursery. I felt excited about her starting but also really apprehensive. I've been at home with her for almost four months now and we're really close - she's a great companion, so it seemed strange that she would be gone for the whole day. I packed her little lunchbox and D and Pops came too to drop her off. D said he had a lump in his throat the whole time especially when we walked in and saw her coat peg with her name above it. The settling in procedure at The Bean's nursery is that the parent stays for as long as it takes for the child to settle in. D went off to work with a heavy heart and I tried to blend into the background so she could get on with playing. Eventually the staff told me to go into the staffroom and have a cuppa to see how The Bean coped. She coped remarkably well! In fact she didn't ask for me once! I decided to leave the building and with the nursery staff's permission I nipped to Sainsburys. I thought i'd do something to keep my mind off leaving her, like the boring weekly shop (which was remarkably easier with only one small baby to wheel around instead of a toddler spying the chocolate aisle). All was fine until I bumped into a friend in the fruit section and dissolved into tears...suddenly the thought of The Bean all on her own was too much for me to take. I finished the shop and rushed home eager to see her, only to be called by the nursery to come at 2.30pm as The Bean was still doing really well and hadn't cried or asked for me once. In fact I ended up picking her up at 5pm (practically a whole working day away from me!!) - she did the entire day with no fuss. When I walked in at the end of the day, she announced to the whole room, 'that's my Mummy'...

So, it's official (in our house anyway) The Bean starting nursery was much more traumatic for D and I, (Pops loved it because she had me to herself all day), than for The Bean. She talked non-stop all the way home about the play-doh and the messy room and her new friends (with names like Florence, Astrid and Gwyneth) and her new teachers. I admit it, part of me wanted her to miss me, to run after me as I left (which I remember doing to my mum when I was far too old to get away with it) or at least have a few tears about leaving her mummy. In fact the tears came when I told her it was going-home time. I suppose this is the first step your child takes onto the road of being truely independent from you, great for the child, horrible for all those mums out there going through the first day of nursery or school. So, for anyone who found themselves snivelling into a bag of celery in the supermarket today, this post is for you.