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Buh bye boobie

We made it! 2 Years and 1 day from your birth and we’ve stopped the magical boobie!

We’ve had it all, the horrendous painful, sometimes bleeding, nips during the first week. The 6 week growth spurt which left me trapped on the sofa with you attached to me all day while we snoozed & watched 5 series of Greys Anatomy. The severe mastitis after a hen party weekend when you were 11 weeks old (poor daddy drove 6 hours with you screaming in the back to come save me from the misery I was in!).
The battle with the bottle, any bottle, all bottles, the cost of trying every kind of
bottle & teat in the world ever invented. The magical summer spent outside everyday feeding you anywhere & everywhere. Our first trip abroad as a family and hassle free plane journeys and welcoming Italians happy to see a mother feeding her child.
We made it through the return to work, my furtive visits to the shower room to express, the negative remarks from colleagues and trips away where by breast pump was the first item slung in the suitcase.
We had a slight blip at 18 months after I returned from Hong Kong and I thought that it was time to quit. You had other ideas so we ploughed on ahead through Christmas. We dodged all the winter colds & flu and I managed to continue with my cake diet thanks to the amount of milk I was producing!
But now it’s time. You sleep through the night and Daddy gets the opportunity to take you to bed. I get cuddles that are just cuddles and everyone seems happy. Part of me will always miss that special time we had together but I know we’ll make up for it in other ways.

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Napping after the last feed, 26th Feb 2012

Fun days

I’ve ‘only’ got 4 more months as a part time worker left. That perfect balance between work and home will end on June 1st when I return to work full time. I always knew this would happen eventually I just decided not to think about it too much!
I’ll be commuting into London at least 4 days a week. Leaving the house before Max wakes up and rushing to get home before bed time.
Mostly what’s really upsetting me is that he’ll be spending more time with other people outside our family than with us!
I realise now that having a child involves a slow process of letting go from pregnancy where only you carry him, to birth when you share the carrying (hopefully) to crawling, walking, childcare, nursery, school then maybe university before they’re off into the world (although secretly I’m grooming Max to be a uber Mama’s boy & to live with us until he’s 35!).

So I’m making the most of our time together before June, we’re going to start day trips. Just the 2 of us. I’m cutting back on the playgroups we attend and want to make sure he has some quality Mama time.

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You know there is a toddler in the house when…..

You know there is a toddler in the house when things turn up in random places, like the salad servers in the washing machine or when whole rolls of toilet roll magically appear in the toilet bowl or debit cards crammed into the gaps of the floorboards.

You know there is a toddler in the house when there are small cars randomly left everywhere underfoot, when all clothes seem to have jammy toast marks at thigh height or just out of eye site on your shoulder.

You know there is a toddler in the house when your Virgin+ box is filled with Tomas the Tank Engine, Mist & Leon instead of Come dine with me and Dexter.

You know there is a toddler in the house when the fridge is full of Petit Filous, Baby Bells and half finished cans of Alphabeti Spaghetti instead of Pinot Grigio, Cider & beer.

You know there is a toddler in the house when you get into bed to find half a small farm crammed under  your pillow and a copy of the hungry caterpillar at your feet.

You know there is a toddler in the house when the hours of 7am – 7pm are filled with mess, laughter, games and fun. I love our toddler and his current reign of chaos!

Long haul with a toddler?

In just under 10 days we’ll be boarding a flight to Boston. 7 hours in economy with a 18 month old.

Surprisingly I’m not as worried as some people think I should be. This will be Max’s 5th flight. Previous flights have been short haul trips to Europe lasting an hour or two so this is something completely new.

I spent ages looking for a flight that departed late afternoon, our flight leaves at 5pm, this is the perfect time for us, he’ll have 2 hours to walk about/explore/eat/stare at people/get tired before he hopefully falls asleep.

I’ve kept up with the bedtime nursing with this one trip in mind so that’ll help during take off & landing.

And I’ve bought some new toys which we’ve played with for a day or 2 to gauge the interest level (recently we purchased a scooter for him and he spent more time playing with the screwdriver I used to build it then the actual scooter!)

Handy Max

So what have we bought? This In the Night Garden Playmat he loves this show and the soft mat is comfy to sit/lie on and the little characters are perfect for his small hands. We’re also taking a small tub of play dough and these tools some of his favourite books and his night time bear. That’s it. Mostly we’ll be entertaining him as we are his favourite all singing all dancing toys.

I’m so excited I can’t wait!

PS sorry if you’re sitting near us on the flight

First steps

I took Max out for his first walk to the shops, it took us 20 minutes just to walk 5 metres! We had to stop to look at the car, wall, gate, pebble, seagull …… Basically it blew his tiny mind, I got bored and ended up carrying him the rest of the way.
He’s got a LittleLife Shark back pack which is brilliant. He can toddle on his own and I can hoist him up if he topples over!