A Gruffalo Birthday Party

Last weekend was Finley's second birthday party and surprise, surprise (!) we went with a Gruffalo theme. If your child is obsessed with all things Gruffalo then this is a brilliant theme for a party.
However, if like me you are sick to death of the sodding Gruffalo and his idiot child then don't pick this theme. It will likely tip you over the edge and result in necking the emergency back up cooking wine straight from the bottle.

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Relocating My Balls After Maternity Leave

Before my current job, it was my experience that being a Mother was viewed as a negative by an employer.
In fact when I was interviewing for a new position I would mentally list the reasons why I should get the job (experience, skill, enthusiasm) and why I might not get the job. On this list would be the fact that I am Mum.
Yes I had allowed myself to believe that being a Mother made me less capable, less skilled and therefore less employable.

10 Things I Wish I Could Tell Pregnant Me

1. You Don't Need All That Cotton Wool
You've bought shit loads of cotton wool, in like 5 different varieties - you are completely ridiculous. From Day Two you will be using baby wipes because cotton wool is a giant pain in the arse.

2. Don't Re-decorate Your House
You've got someone coming in to re-paint every wall during the first week of your maternity leave. What are you thinking? Its August, its 30 degrees, you live in a tiny little flat and you are the size of a house. Fool.

3. You Have No Fucking Clue How to Swaddle a Baby
If you can't do it now with an inanimate teddy bear, you wont be able to do it with a screaming, wriggling baby. Give it up.

I'm a Google Parent

If I have a question about parenting I Google it. Before I talk to anyone else about it I turn to the Google Gods.
If my toddler says NO to everything, I Google it.
If my toddler will only eat cheese for 3 days, I Google it.
If my toddler keeps bashing me over the head with a Fire Engine and hysterically laughing, I Google it.
Google is my go to source for parenting advice and I'm not sure if that's really ok.

His 2nd Birthday

It was Finley's 2nd birthday this week so we both took a days holiday from work and he bunked Nursery. We got him a few little presents but nothing major so his big gift was a Birthday Day Out.
Its something I hope we can maintain in the years to come as his birthday will always be in the school holidays. He has his party set for Sunday and all the family will be there but we wanted to have him to ourselves for a whole day and take him out and treat him to a ridiculous amount of sugar!
I had a good weather and a bad weather plan. The good weather plan was a trip to a family adventure farm park in Sussex, complete with animals, tractors, water park and rides. I'll keep it in mind for next year.
The weather gods picked the bad weather plan (is Summer over already??) and we headed to the Gruffalo Experience at Bluewater.

Night, Night One Year Old

On Wednesday night I put my one year old baby in his cot for last time, because in the morning he would be two and officially not a baby anymore.

I don't remember feeling sad at all when he turned one but I am really struggling with mixed emotions at the prospect of him turning two.
On one hand I'm excited for the next year to come. I'm so looking forward to having proper conversations with him where I fully get what he's talking about.
At the moment he has a lot of keywords like 'yes, no, choo-choo, dinner, poo-poo,' and he also has a couple of key phrases 'not ver hair' (not over there) and 'eee es' (here it is).