Today we did nothing but play

Mother, O' Mother, come shake out your cloth,

Empty the dustpan, poison the moth.

Hang out the washing, make up the bed,

Sew on a button and butter the bread.

Where is the mother whose house is so shocking?

She's up in the nursery, blissfully rocking.

Oh, I've grown as shiftless as Little Boy Blue,

Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo.

Dishes are waiting and bills are past due,

Pat-a-cake, darling, and peek - peekaboo.

The shopping's not done and there's nothing for stew,

And out in the yard there's a hullabaloo.

But I'm playing Kanga and this is my Roo.

Look! Aren't his eyes the most wonderful hue?

Lullaby, rockaby, lullaby loo.

The cleaning and scrubbing can wait till tomorrow,

But children grow up, as I've learned to my sorrow.

So quiet down cobwebs; Dust go to sleep!

I'm rocking my baby and babies don't keep.

 Ruth Hulbert Hamilton

Poem via here

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Shhh!

Don't tell my Hubble I'm in love...

I think this may be the most splendid coat I have ever seen. A little bit out of our price range at £88, but definitely worth it if you have the cash to splash... It is the coat of my dreams- for me and Bean! Matching outfits perhaps- I wonder if they could make one in my size?!

Belle and Boo have a whole range of super sweet goodies, the cutest clothes, beautiful illustrations, wall decals, lunch boxes and much more. I think I best start a Christmas list!

You can buy the coat here.

Found via here.
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Quick, quick... Hurry, Hurry!

Rush, run, move those sweet little behinds over to Kickcan and Conkers pronto if you want win this beautiful double-sided 50's/60's school poster...

Gorgeous I think you'll agree, but you have only an hour to enter so don't hang about!

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Work in progress

24 hours later it looks like this:

Still very much a work in progress, but a definite improvement!

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A change of scene

Last night the temperature in our bedroom dropped to below 15 degrees. It is barely even September. This completely unacceptable, but unsurprising since we live in a concrete box with open vents to the windy world beyond.

So, we're all moving in to the nursery. It is smaller so we can heat it with ease and much less draughty.

Although, it is not yet a nursery as such, more a massive pile of Hubble's design books, my old clothes and things to be ebayed The beginnings of the nursery are there, it just got waylaid somewhere between birth and now.

It was supposed to look more like this

Or perhaps like this

It currently looks like this.

Not really the look I was going for. I have a very busy weekend ahead trying to reconcile my dreams with reality. Wish me luck!

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Inside and Out

I try to do too much, be too much. I always have and it has always been my downfall. I spend so much of my time comparing myself to others, what they have, what they do, what they think, that I sometimes forget to figure out what I want to do, what I have, what I think.

I need to concentrate on me for a minute or two. 

For the first time in my life I feel as though I have a strong sense of self: I am a mummy. 

I know what I believe, what I want and what I have when it comes to being a mummy. At this moment in my life it is all consuming. There is nothing that can compare. But what about in a few years time, when Bean and whoever follows her is bigger. 

I will still be a mummy. Just from slightly further away, just far enough to leave room to breath and grow. 

But

I also need to learn to be me. 

As someone edging daily closer to her thirties, how does one learn how to be themselves? 

I need to break it down into to little chunks. Bite size pieces. 

I've been meaning to write a post on "My Autumnal Look". Looks have always been a little bit too important to me. It is time to make a change.

Today I made the decision to work on myself from the inside out. I had gone out to buy a new winter wardrobe, one that aligned with the picture in my head of who I thought I should be this season. It's never just a look, it's a whole character. A part I will try to play until I change my mind and become someone else for a while. I didn't buy my new personality this time. I bought some breastfeeding appropriate tops and some snuggly cardigans. 

One thing at a time.

No new personality overhaul that changes on a weekly basis, leaving me always trailing behind. I need to figure out what I want, what is important to me, where I want to go to. All without a silly facade. I need to be true to me.

I just need to find out who me is.

Image copyright Matthew Coleman.

Makes you think

Last night Bean would not go down properly. She had slept for about 40 minutes and then woke up mewling  (does anyone else's baby still do this?!). I got her to sleep and put her down a total of 8 times only for her to start crying moments after I left the room. She has been teething like crazy so was just putting it down to that. I was about to pump her full of drugs (baby nurofen) when I stopped and really paid her attention: the type of cry, her body language, her facial expressions. She was over heated. Simple as that. She was too hot and was trying to let me know. I changed her grobag and she went down like a dream.

It really makes you wonder how much we miss when we make assumptions about what our babies want or need.

It also scares me to think of all the tiny little people "crying it out", desperately trying to tell someone something, calling out for help into the dark and no one coming to rescue them.

Scary and heartbreaking.

Listen to your babies people, they are much wiser than we give them credit for.