Children’s Birthday Parties are *hard!*

And it wasn’t even my little monster’s birthday!

Today we’ve been to a friend’s little boy’s 3rd birthday party – the LD’s fourth proper party, first of the fancy dress variety, and also the first one that Mummy has done solo as Daddy was at work.

It was lovely, and my chum had put in SO much effort – there were tables for colouring, sticking & play doh-ing, (all a bit advanced for the LD, but the older kids were having a ball!), plus music, loads of toys and books, and some great baby-friendly party food.  The little dude (dressed as an alien from toy story – he has been chosen – the claw is his master, oh yes!), had lots of fun, being admired and cooed over by all the grown ups, chasing balloons, commando-crawling under chairs & tables, munching tasty noms – and he was good as gold, didn’t cry once!

The mummy on the other hand, spent the whole 2 hours getting increasingly frazzled – making small talk with other mummys (who all have older children, and all want to have the ‘oh, when {insert their child’s name here} was that age…’ conversation, which is nice the first couple of times, but the novelty soon wears off whn you’re distractd by trying to make sure your own little monster isn’t getting into something he shouldn’t be!), running interference between balloons and newly aquired teeth for fear of LD being left with a crippling fear of loud bangs, untangling him from chair legs and other people’s legs, and trying to teach him it’s not polite to grab mini sausage rolls off other people’s plates.  Phew. 

Plus, solo party-going means no Daddy to take a turn at baby-entertaining while mummy scoffs a plate of party food & some pop- so not only was I exhausted when we left, I was starving too!

Other than that though, it really was a lovely party.  I love watching the LD learn to interact with other little people – he & the birthday boy’s little sister are good chums, so they enjoyed a bit of quality time too 🙂

Shattered now though – and the LD is crashed out next to me too. Dread to think how tired we’ll be when it’s his turn for a birthday. Less than 5 months till we find out. Eek!

You know you’re a mummy when…

…you lose the ability to frivolously spend money.

Yes, it’s true. I’ve lost my senseless spending spree gene. Where did it go? I don’t know. Will it ever come back? Only time will tell.

Let me explain…
last weekend, The Daddy and I decided to take The little Dude on his first trip to Brighton. (That’s code for mummy has dropped some baby weight so deserves a little Primarni-based treat.)
The Daddy had just got a little bonus at work, and since we’d been super frugal for a few months (and did I mention, dropped a little baby weight?), he offered to treat me to a wee fashion splurge. (Yes, I love that man.)
So we jumped on the train and off we went.

First stop, Primark. Always fills me with excitable giddiness. Generally, on hitting Primark, I’ll spend around £50 & come away with 2 big brown bags full of loveliness. I have a specific route I always follow so as not to miss a single rail of bargainous fashion – you may call it sad, I call it efficient. It’s a big store. Basket in hand, Daddy pushing pram behind, off I went.
Forty minutes later (told you, it’s a big place, and I’m very thorough), in my basket was a top, a bag, a brooch, and a necklace. Total cost: £10. Pathetic.
Upstairs to bambino goodies – picked up a few bits, but still not terribly impressed.
Queued and paid, left a little disappointed, but still hopeful that H&M would yield better results. (especially as there are now TWO branches – deep joy!).

After a Starbucks vanilla latte to energise & regroup, we hit store number one.
Come on Hennes & Mauritz, lay your couture goodness on me.
Or just three pretty dresses in the whole place, all in stupid little tiny size sixes.
FAIL.
We’re down, but not out. There’s still the original H&M in Churchill Square. Where an emo-punk-princess bomb appears to have gone off.
DOUBLE FAIL.
Okay then, H&M Kids.
NOW we’re talking.
Pretty much my whole splurge budget goes bye-bye on tiny clothes covered in robots and monsters and such.
And that’s when it hits me.
I actually don’t mind.
Sure, I’m gutted to not be strutting home clutching bags of new pretties, but I can’t wait to see my little man in all his new goodies 🙂
It’s official, I’m a mummy.

My ‘haul’ for the day looked like this:

The Little Dude’s, looked like this:

That’s the way to do it!

Of course I’m not saying that I’m done with my wayward shopping spree ways altogether, but it seems that without me even noticing, my priorities have really changed. Which is probably a good thing, if a little disconcerting at first.
I even find myself reconsidering SALE bargains – ‘sure, it’s only a fiver, but that fiver would buy a week’s worth of nappies’ – that is scary stuff.

Got me thinking though, I’m only 4 and a bit months in – what other madness is going to creep up on me out of nowhere? So, my lovely friends, do tell- what have been your defining ‘OMG I’m a mummy’ moments so far?
(And somebody, please, tell me I’m not likely to suddenly stop loving loud noisy guitar based music & discover a penchant for Ronan Keating. Please?!)

We’ll be weaning in style now…

In case you missed me jumping round in excitement last week, The Little Dude & I got a little lucky… we won a shiney new Stokke Tripp Trappin the competition over at Yummy Mummy Tips– hooray!

And today as the nice delivery man dropped it off, I got all over excited again!

I ripped open the packaging and laid all the gorgeous chunky pieces out on the carpet – like a beautiful Scandinavian jigsaw. With screws.
I had a brief ‘boo hiss, going to have to wait for the Mr to get home to put it together – super pout’ moment, before finding my determination & convincing myself it couldn’t be that hard.

I was right.
Do not let flat pack connotations of doom put you off getting a Tripp Trapp. Yes, it does come as a box of bits, but this is not your ordinary flat pack where you end up with too many ‘e’ screws and not enough ‘g’, and the pre-drilled holes never match up, and there’s always a chipped piece, and the instructions make as much sense as your favourite drunk uncle at a family wedding… oh no.

This is as simple as it is chic. Ten screws, (complete with magical alun key so no need to stress about tracking down the right kind of screwdriver) and nine pieces, which clunk together beautifully and effortlessly.

About 25 minutes later, I was looking lovingly at my little man’s super chic new dining experience.
(Having only sworn once, which was my own fault for tightening all the screws before sliding in the flat pieces – silly mummy. Don’t do that.)

So it looked great, but would it pass The Little Dude quality control test?

Yes. With flying colours 🙂
He was a little bemused at first – sort of looked at me like ‘hmm, I’m at the table, but you’re not holding me… interesting.’ then he spotted ‘Where’s that monkey?’ (favourite book of the moment) and his happy safari cube and grabbed at both. He looked at me with a great big gummy grin of delight, then returned his attention to his book.
Safe to say, he approves.

And I certainly do, because I have a chic new (almost matching) chair at the table rather than a big plastic affair that doesn’t match anything – everybody’s happy!

Muchos gracias again to Yummy Mummy Tips, and to Stokke.

Now I just need to win an Explory… ;D

my little baby bowling ball :)

So Wednesday, is baby clinic day , or as I keep calling it, weigh-in day.
(curse you daytime tv – too much biggest loser!! :P)

I think it’s a bit of an odd practice really – for a couple of hours a week, a local church hall gets turned into a little baby cattle market – bring ’em in, strip ’em off, plop ’em on the scales! It’s lucky we can’t remember it all as adults – can you imagine how many of us would be in therapy for the shame & embarassment?!

Anyway!
It was our second visit (because of the little ‘un’s weight loss problems early on, we had more home visits than usual), and completely different to the first. Last week, the pile of red books was huge & we waited quite a while, today – in & out in 10 minutes!
And, I’m pleased to say, the little dude is now weighing in at 9lb 2oz – making him officially slightly heavier than the girlie 10 pin bowling ball I use when we visit the local lane 😀 (you wondered where I was going with the post title, didn’t you?!)

That said though, he’s currently snoozing next to me, rocking a rather funky stripey tee that’s allegedly for babies up to 7.5lb. go figure.
baby clothes sizing properly baffles me. and i can’t even blame one particular company – I have ‘tiny baby’ clothes from boots, mothercare, next & h&m kids – all for up to 7.5lbs, all of which my 9lb 2oz bowling ball baby still fits very comfortably into.

definitely going to have his daddy’s build. which is all well & good, but by the time he fits into all the gorgeous 0-3 month summer stuff i bought when he was still a bump, it’ll be nearly Christmas! 😛

anyone else had this problem? or any reccomendations of where to buy for beanpole babies?!