5 things I'll do differently next time

With Squidge now being a year old, I find myself reflecting a lot on how his first year was, not just for him, but for us.  And what his first days and weeks were as a newborn (gosh I miss those days!). 

It’s no secret that we’re dying to start trying for baby #2, and will be fairly soon, and if and when we manage to have another baby, there’s a few things I’d do differently.

Make more effort to breastfeed

Squidge just didn’t take to it, he screamed and screamed and screamed and I cried because he was screaming.  It just didn’t happen.  I’d try every day, but to no avail.  Just hearing him cry/scream was super stressful – we’d never had a baby before and the last thing you want to hear is your baby crying.  Well, I’m a bit more accustomed to it now and feel more confident dealing with a crying baby.  So for baby #2, I would definitely try on many more occasions to get them to breastfeed (assuming they struggle in the same way Squidge did), instead of a couple times a day, I'd make sure I try and every single feed.  On reflection, I could have made more effort with this with Squidge, and should have.

Wear them more

I’m a big fan of baby wearing and we still put Squidge in a sling fairly regularly.  He likes it and we love it.  Something I didn’t really do though was to wear Squidge around the house when he was a newborn because at that stage we didn’t have a sling.  We didn’t buy one until he was about 2 months old.  Well, for baby #2 I’ll be wearing them from the first few days for the extra bonding and closeness.

Baby led weaning (BLW)

We haven't quite managed it with Squidge, we've done a bit of a combined approach; spoon feeding him purée's and giving him finger food to feed himself.  But with the next baby, I'd love to really give baby led weaning a proper go from day one, and ideally wait until they're 6 months old.  With Squidge we started weaning him at 17 weeks as that's when he seemed ready, but I would like to try and hold out for him to be more developed and able to feed himself for BLW to be a success.  Aside to this, I'd also like to try and refrain from giving them any jar food, and make the effort to give them only homemade food.  At the moment, most of Squidge's food is homemade (poached salmon with veg etc), but I still rely on jars when I'm out and about or if he's being fussy.

Get a co-sleeper

We moved Squidge into his own room earlier than planned as his Daddy got the flu when he was about 3.5 months old and it was keeping both of us awake.  I made the decision to move Squidge to his own room so he could sleep a bit better and it went really well, but oh my god did we miss having him in our room, waking up and seeing his smiling little face.  Next time I'll get a ridid co-sleeper to keep next to the bed that'll sleep them for up to 6 months.

Print, file and frame photos

Something we haven't really done is print photo's of Squidge.  I really want for him to have his own photo album to look back at when he's older.  Until mine was lost, I loved being able to go and look at all my old baby photo's; I'm not sure any exist of me any more :(  If not a photo album, they maybe something like project life - I know it all takes effort, but it's still something I'd love to make the effort to do.  Also, just as a little extra, I'd definitely get Milestone Cards, I think it's lovely being able to glance back and see them at these little milestones.

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A Brighton Getaway

Brighton is one of my favourite places to go, in all of the UK.  In 2001 (about 4 months before meeting my hubby), I came to Brighton for a big holiday with my close school friend.  We booked into a backpackers for a week and spent a week discovering the city and the amazing open culture it has.  At the end of the week I couldn't face leaving quite yet, so I stayed on for an extra 3 days and experienced the Gay Pride festival, such an experience!

My old job took me to Brighton a couple of times too and I couldn't have been happier to go.  So when the chance cropped up to go again, this time taking the hubby and baby, I couldn't say no.  We stayed at the Brighton Travelodge (not the seafront one) opposite an enormous and beautiful park.

Our room was basic, but clean.  It had everything we needed: kettle, tea, coffee, cups and lots of space - we had a family room.  The staff were amazing, all were very friendly and bent over backwards to help us.  The breakfast was very basic in terms of vegetarian options for the cooked breakfast (scrambled eggs and baked beans) but the food they had was cooked well (the eggs were lovely!).

Our only qualm was that our room was on the first floor, right above reception at the front of the hotel, and since it was during a heatwave, we really needed the windows open - the hotel had a couple of stag and hen parties, so on the Friday night, every half hour from about 1am - 5am we were woken up by groups of drunk people out the front.  So, if you're there with a baby or children, I'd recommend asking to be at the back of the hotel :)

We drove down on a Thursday and had the full Friday there before heading home on Saturday morning, so we made the most out of Friday.  We decided to walk in from the hotel (a decision we both later regretted considering we hadn't had breakfast, Squidge was close to needing a feed, and it was boiling hot and not a short walk!).

Close to the hotel was this field full of beautiful wild flowers, it was so beautiful I took about a gazillion pictures!

 Right next to the field was this lovely cafe.  We were going to stop here for breakfast, but there was a big queue, the place was empty and service seemed very slow, so we moved on.

We passed this lovely viaduct too, thought it was a good photo opp :)

Just beyond that was an open market, we were planning on walking back and were going to stop here, but after walking all the way there, and spending hours walking around we were too knackered to walk back so we got the bus.

We also saw a real Banksy!!!!!

Such a beautiful building!

The little man was cwtched up in his pram and was happy there most of the time :)

We also stopped off at the Sea Life centre, Squidge absolutely loved it! He loved seeing all the fish, and all the colours.  He also took a nap on the pier :)

On the Saturday morning, we got up early (as we always do with Squidge) and had breakfast downstairs in the Travelodge, as I mentioned above, it was simple but lovely - the hubby loved his meaty breakfast :)  After that we packed up the car and checked out about 10 am.  About half hour away was a lovely National Trust place called Nymans (more on this over on my mummy blog soon). Squidge needed a feed at about 10:30 so we thought it would be well timed.

It was absolutely beautiful, one of the nicest National Trust places we've been to.

We had a lovely couple of days, although it did seem like travelling there and back took longer than we were actually there for (6 hours there, 7 hours back - for a 3.5 hour journey if we didn't have a baby!).  I'm hoping to bring Squidge back to Brighton when he's older, it's such a wonderful city, we both felt really safe there.  Our only issue was that we struggled to find The Lanes, well, we didn't - mind you, we didn't make a whole lot of effort to find them :P

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*The accommodation was provided free of charge, all opinions are my own

Getting to know YOU

Recent events have really got me thinking about you guys, all of you who take the time to read and subscribe to my blog.  It's dawned on me that you all know bits and bobs about me, but I don't really know anything about you.  So I'm going to kick things off with a few random facts about me - and what I'd really like you to do, is share some random facts about yourself too - it could just be what country you're from if you don't want to share much, or you could talk about your favourite bands or hobbies etc?

My random facts

* I'm a published illustrator (not as fancy as it sounds!)

* I love crafting things, I taught myself to knit about 2/3 years ago and more recently learned to crochet

* Since having a baby I cry a lot more, I find things moving/sad

* I did ballet for 10 years (from the age of 2 and a half)

* I permanently have bunting up in my lounge and conservatory (I love it!)

* I'm a complete geek - the hubby and I play games like Minecraft (and have since it was in alpha testing), Halo and Lego (Star Wars, LOTR & Marvel), and board games (like  LOTR, Agricola, Catan, Carcassonne, Alhambra, Pandemic etc)

* My first love musically is heavy metal, but I also love ska, reggae, classical... Frank Sinatra)

* I regret not having kids sooner

* I can't drive

* Becoming a mother has been the most amazing experience of my life

So there's some random facts, I'd love to learn more about you, so please leave your random facts in the comments below <3 And because I don't say it enough, thank you so, so much for taking the time to read my blog and comment, I appreciate every single last one of you <3

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Get your bits checked - My mum's story

Taken just after diagnosis, before her radiotherapy started (October 2004)

On the 19th August this year, it'll be 10 years since my mum lost her life to cervical cancer, one of the most preventable cancers out there.  The Drs think she'd had the cancer for quite a while before things got bad.  I remember her having horrendous periods when she was going through the menopause, and even after going through it, she would still randomly get bad bleeds (with bad clotting).  Myself and my step-dad urged her to go to the Drs again and again, but after some bad experiences with Drs when she was younger, she had no trust for them, so refused to go, as a result, she hadn't been for a smear since I was born.  See, she was a stubborn lady.  She was also elegant, sophisticated and pretty much the kindest person you'd ever meet - she'd give you her last pennies if you needed them.  She'd nag you go to the Drs, but not go herself through fear.  That fear is what led to her losing her life.  

Her battle with cancer was a brave and valiant one, her attitude was always 'When I get better' never 'if'.  After being diagnosed, and through loss of blood needing several blood transfusions her battle began.  She needed radiotherapy to shrink the tumour before they'd operate.  She had several doses of this between October and December, and then in January they operated, performing a radical hysterectomy (this is where they remove the uterus, ovaries and all the lymph nodes surrounding the area to remove any cancer cells that might be spreading - they also had to remove a sizeable portion of her bowl as it had started to spread.

After the surgery the consultant told us that he was confident she was no cancer free, and that she might need a little chemo just to kill off any last tiny cells.  After being released from hospital she developed a kidney infection, the local hospital said she couldn't get her chemo until this was resolved - but instead of trying to fix the infection they just kept telling her to call back a week later, a week later and again, a week later.  In all these weeks with her kidney infection being untreated, the cancer cells were regrouping.  By the time she had her first, and only, dose of chemo, it was too late. The tumour was back and it was bigger than before.  It had also spread to her nearby organs and bones.

After this, it was a case of managing her pain - for her though, she was still determined to get better, she just wanted to feel well enough to have more chemo, but in reality, on looking back, the disease was winning the battle.  She weighed next to nothing and could easily see all her bones through her skin.  It was on June 18th 2005 that we had the news of the tumour coming back, 2 months later she passed away.

Whether you've put off having your first smear, or if you're in your 50s and burying your head in the sand, please, please go and get your smear test. It's literally a few seconds of mild discomfort and a little embarrassment and could save your life.  

After seeing the horrific suffering and pain my mother went through at the age of 55/56, literally wasting away before our eyes, and knowing how painless getting a smear test is, I know which I'd opt for every time.

Please please, if you're overdue getting in done, do it now, stop reading this, pick up the phone and book an appointment.  Don't cancel it or reschedule, go and get it done.

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This is NOT a sponsored post

Why I wear makeup

** No filters or photoshopping **

Yesterday I dyed my hair and took a photo of it, before doing my makeup.  I was going to share it, but  my skin looked a bit rubbish and I thought I'd do my makeup first, then share the pic of me with my freshly dyed hair and new colour.  It was only then when scrolling through the images on my phone, that I saw both images were really similar, but very, very different.  It got me to thinking about the difference makeup makes to me and why I wear it.

A lot of people think of makeup as being a mask, or that people shouldn't wear it because it damages your skin, or because we're beautiful enough without it.  In all honesty, the reason that anyone wears makeup is their own business, and could be for any number of reasons.

For me I wear it for so many different reasons.  In it's purest form, I'm an artist and this is a way to create, I love experimenting (especially with new products).  But, I also find makeup gives me confidence.  I don't have the best skin, I've always had spots and as a result I have lots of little red scars on my face and some general redness and chicken pox scars.  My skin is also quite bumpy and starting to show signs of ageing, oh and I hate my eye brows, they're a nightmare.

When I put makeup on, it makes me feel fresh and pretty.  I love that I can draw attention to my eyes, get rid of the redness all over my face, and just add it back where I want it (cheeks).  As much as I wear lots of different products, I never like to look like I've troweled it on.  Apart from my eyes, I generally like makeup to look as natural as possible on me, just to cover up all my imperfections.

I don't wear makeup to lie, or to pretend to be something I'm not, I wear it to give myself a little boost, to cover up all the horrid little things I don't like about my face and for once, to feel pretty.

Why do you wear makeup?

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Mummy Monday #3

Good morning and Happy Monday my lovelies - I hope you all had a fantastic weekend?  Did you get up to much?  My week has been good, very tiring and challenging, but good :)

Monday

Monday was a bank holiday so the hubby had the day off work, yay! We went to Penarth - first off we  walked around the charity shops (that's pretty much all that was open!) I managed to find a Ralph Lauren sleep suit for Squidge for only £1.50, bargain! After that we walked along the pier, fed the little man, and had some chips while sitting over the sea - such a lovely day :)

Tuesday

Tuesday we had a quiet day at home - Squidge played in his Galt Toys donut a lot, he got lots of practise sitting on his knees and holding himself up - he was also rocking in that position, the precursor to crawling! And, the little pic there, I was sitting down eating a cheese sandwich for lunch, I looked over and that was the little face staring at me, FOR THE ENTIRE SANDWICH! LOL

Wednesday

On Wednesday we went over to a friends house (a local mummy I met at mummy club) - Squidge LOVES looking at other babies, so he really enjoys play-dates.  The rest of the day was quiet, we went home, played on the play mat & read stories.

Thursday

On Thursday we'd normally go to mummy club (Squidge, me and my mother-in-law) but because of the election, it was cancelled as they were using the hall for voters, so instead we spent the day at Squidge's grandparents :)

Friday

On Friday afternoon our friend's who we had a play date with on Tuesday came over for a play-date with us :)  It was actually really cute - they were sat there in front of each other and Squidge would keep grabbing toys from his friend, and vice versa - I keep all the cushions around him as he still falls over and I don't want him to bang his head.

Saturday

Saturday day was good - the in-laws came over in the morning and helped us start to renovate the front of our house to make it prettier and more presentable (I really should have taken before photo's!).  Then in the afternoon we went to a local coffee/tea house called Chaiholics which is in the Roath area of Cardiff - we had THE best tasting carrot cake we've ever had! Squidge was really well behaved and just awesome <3  Unfortunately, we had a terrible night - we went to bed at like, 11:30pm and the little man woke up about 2am, and was unhappy and fussy until about 4:30am, keeping us both up - then he woke up at 6:30am and stayed up - so we all spent Sunday tired!

Sunday

Despite being super tired on Sunday, and Squidge spending nearly all morning crying his little eyes out - he was SO tired, but flat out refused to sleep - he normally has a nap around 9am but he didn't nap until just after 12 (he's usually had 2 naps by then). We had afternoon tea at my favourite place in Cardiff (Pettigrew tea rooms) booked in for 1pm, so we parked somewhere nice and took a little walk through Bute Park with the little man in the sling.

All in all a good week, but he's been really difficult to get to nap in the mornings (not all the mornings), so I'm hoping this week is better :)  What has been wonderful is the amount of laughs and giggles we've been getting from him, it's honestly the best sound I've ever heard <3

Quick question for you - do you prefer this time of format for the posts - day-by-day account, or more of a chit chat like last week?

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6 Tips to get you through University

For those of you about to embark on a new chapter of your life at University, I have 6 tips for you to help you navigate that first year, and beyond! Before I jump into the tips, let me tell you a bit about my chequered University story.

I studied art & design at college, both my best friend (at the time) and I applied to two different uni's in the same city, Cardiff.  We both got in. All was set, we were going to house share not far from her uni.  Then about a month or so before we were due to leave I realised I had no savings to take whatsoever... what money would I live off until my loan cheque arrived? So, I decided to defer for a year.  That decision ended our friendship (sadface) but set me on a different path (happyface). I worked for a year, saving up money where I could, so I had some money to go with - it ended up being around £500, not a great deal, but enough to buy food and essentials until the first loan cheque came through.

My first year was in halls, and I hated it.  I nearly quit dozens of times as I was really homesick, and of the 7 other people I shared a flat with, none of them liked me or spoke to me.  See, the first night there (the night before our first day at uni), they all went to kick off freshers fortnight - I went out for dinner with my mum and stepdad instead - and that was enough for them to never really talk to me.

Fast forward nearly 3 years, I'm in my final year just about to start my 2nd semester, my dissertation is done, handed in and passed (whoop).  I have an obscene amount of debt in the form of an unauthorised overdraft (to the tune of £3.5k) and the lecturers asked to come back and repeat the year.  

That never happened - by the time it was time to come back, I had a secure job and I was clawing my way out of debt, I couldn't afford to return.  Luckily by this point I'd met my future husband, literally about 3/4 weeks before that. If it wasn't for him, I'd have ended up back in West Wales, working in pubs and living with my family.  First thing I needed to do was find a job and get some of my debt paid.  It took a while, a few months, the whole time I'm getting behind in my rent - see my next loan cheque was due when I was asked to repeat the year, I used that for my rent.

After a few months I landed a full time job working in an office with a reasonable salary (the equilivant of about £13k now), but I learned some hard lessons in that time and I found myself living off about £10 a week #truestory.  So if you're heading to uni in the next few months, please have a read of my tips before you go, they might just save you from making some bad decisions :)

1.  Get yourself a part time job - it doesn't need to be loads of hours, perhaps just a Saturday day, freeing you up for the weekend, but that might just be enough to pay for your booze money for the week, saving you from dipping into your loan, grant or savings.  When I was in uni, stacking shelves in a 24hr supermarket overnight was one of the best paid student jobs around :)

2.  If you get a part-time job, it might well be paid to you at the end of every month - so if you can, set up all your bills (mobile phone, rent etc) to come out on the 1st of the month - that way you'll know right at the beginning of the month that all your bills are taken care of :)

3.  Do one big food shop every month, stocking up on stuff that lasts a long time and taking advantage of offers (BOGOF etc), that way each week you only need to shop for the stuff that goes off (milk, bread, eggs etc).  There's loads of great food you can cook on a tight budget too - don't be like me and just live off tomato pasta and cheese on toast!

4.   If you get into financial difficulty, don't be afraid to talk to your bank, they'd rather that and help you come up with a plan, than to let things get really out of control.  And if you can, I'd really really urge you not to even consider payday loans.  I did and it got me into a repetitive cycle that was hard to break, I need to borrow money from my boyfriend to pay them off :/

5.  If you're planning on buying anything online, always do a quick Google search for voucher codes and check cashback sites too, it might only been a few pence or pounds here and there, but it all adds up over time :)

6.  Also, make sure you're on the best student account for you - make sure you research which one meets your needs the best, whether that's one with a decent overdraft or interest rates - try not to be duped by freebies, you're money might be better off earning you some interest :)  Also, if you switch with TSB, they'll switch your bank accounts over in 7 days, nice and quickly, which makes it pretty easy as they do everything too.

This isn't so much a tip, but a piece of advice.  Uni really changed for me when I moved into a shared house, I really didn't do well when I was in halls, I felt isolated and depressed, and mostly lived in my room as I didn't get on with any of the other students in my flat.  If this is you, don't be afraid to change to a house-share, my whole uni experience changed so much when I house shared :)

And most importantly don't forget to have bucket loads of fun! Go to freshers week/fortnight, endless late nights at the student union bar and local clubs - the friends you make at uni, will be your friends for life (nearly 15 years on my best friends are still my uni friends).

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*Colaboration

Mummy Monday #1

As much as I'm still regularly updating and maintaining my mummy blog, there might be a time in the future that I decide to bring that all over here.  So I thought I'd start up a series called Mummy Monday, so every Monday will be a mummy themed post (but not a product review), whether it'll be mummy beauty, mummy fashion or just 'this is what being a mummy is like' - so if this isn't your cup of tea, you might want to skip visiting on Mondays :)  (thanks Mummy's Beauty Corner for the suggestion!).

So, this last week was a big one for Squidge and I.  It was the first time I left him alone for a whole day with his Grandparents.  I had a work-thing to go to, crazy golf at the Celtic Manor, which was really great fun.  It was so hard leaving him though - my intention was to spend the first hour washing my hair, doing my makeup and getting to town nice and early to do a bit of me-shopping and have some me-time.  Alas, that didn't happen.  I spent the first hour in floods of tears, missing him loads just knowing I wasn't going to see him before he went to bed.

I finally got my act together and an hour later than planned got to town.  I wanted to head to New Look to see what they had in their Inspire (plus size) collection - but very disappointingly they seem to have reduced the range available significantly here in Cardiff, and it was nearly all black.  Being a bit disappointed, I headed to Starbucks to grab some lunch, when a display in Mothercare caught my eye.  Jools Oliver (Jamie Oliver's wife) has launched an exclusive Mothercare collection called Little Bird - it's retro kids clothes that look like they're straight out of the 70s - amazing! I couldn't help myself but pick up a few pieces for him - so after shopping for me (fail) I ended up with loads of baby clothes for Squidge (win).

On Friday for the first time, he also properly sat up by himself! He's been doing it in little bits for a little while, but always with one of us holding him up to balance him - but on Friday he was sat in the middle of his play mat (surrounded by pillows!) by himself for a good 5 mins before he fell, with no one holding him up :)  He's also so close to crawling - when it's in that inflated donut thingy in the pic above he can bring his knees under him and push right up, he only needs to coordinate both and he'll be off! (I know it'll be hard work, but I really can't wait to see that too) :)

Squidge fast facts

• He's just over 6.5 months old (7 months on 6th May)
• At last weigh in nearly a month ago he was 16lb 4oz (he's being weighed again tomorrow)
• He's in size 6-9 month clothes
• His favourite foods are pineapple, chicken and cod - he also really likes cucumber & plums

I hope you've enjoyed this post and look forward to the next one :D

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Bathroom art print wish list

Over the summer when we were waiting for Squidge to arrive, we re-decorated the whole of the upstairs, and had a new bathroom fitted.  I've never made that much effort with the bathroom before, but since it's now so lovely, I've actually been on the lookout for nice things for it.  Something we've never had in there before is any kind of art, and to be fair, it's a very small bathroom so can't really fit much in there on the walls, but there is a space above the loo (which is nestled between a mirrored cabinet and the shower) which would be a perfect place for a little bit of art.

After searching the internet I found a site called Minted which had some really lovely prints on there. The bathroom walls are blue, so I'm sticking with a bluey/greeny theme for the artwork, and above are the prints I've narrowed it down to.  I think the top left one is my favourite (although, I love the middle one too!), what do you think?

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Easter Sunday at Cefn Onn Cardiff

As you might know if you saw my recent post, I want to start including more lifestyle posts here, more snip-its from my life.  I was going to post this over on the mummy blog, but I thought I'd post it here instead for a change, in an effort to mix things up a bit.

So last Sunday, Easter Sunday, we went for a walk around a park which is only a 5 min walk from our house.  It's in North Cardiff and is home to some of the biggest trees in the UK.  It has the tiniest car park for those driving in, and despite lots of signs asking to keep dogs on the leads (some of the trees have disease and dogs running freely helps to spread that) it is a favourite park for dog owners to let their four-legged friends free to run about in :)  It's not a particularly long walk, and just over half way there is a lovely little lake/pond too, and frequent benches to rest on and take in the peacefulness.  

On arrival in the car park :)

The little man was busy sleeping when we got there

Random post :)

New fence - I liked all the twists :)

Twigs and sky

New buds

So many trees!

Pretty fence

The trees are out in blossom

What a beautiful picture this turned out to be! It looks like a sculpted soap!

Another beautiful flower

And more...

Hubby and Squdige - still asleep!

About half an hour into our walk there we needed to stop and feed the little man, and ourselves. We'd brought some food with us so we sat on a bench to eat our sandwiches while we were waiting for Squidge's bottle to warm up.

After being fed he was a happy man - I was having a no-makeup day :)

If you're ever in Cardiff and want somewhere to walk, Cefn Onn park is just lovely, it's not too taxing, long etc, and a lot of it is under shelter from the trees.

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