No! Don't make me go back there!

I have 2 more pay days left and 5 more months of maternity leave, then I have the choice to either be broke for 3 months, go back early and spend less time with my baby or be completely broke and hand in my notice. Let's face it, the £81 and a few pence child benefit we get monthly just about covers nappies and dummies, babies are blimming expensive!
The original plan was for me to go back to work part time at the end of October, but as soon as I gave birth, I knew that I really didn't want to leave my baby. I need to start making money as, even if I go back in January (after a year's maternity leave), I'll have no money for Christmas, or going out for my birthday, or maybe not even for Isabella's first birthday.
My first idea was to make a few quid from doing online surveys. I used to do them all the time when I lived in my old flat and ended up earning £30 on one site and a £10 Argos voucher on another. But that was back when I had a lot more free time in the evening and it took me almost a year to make my £30 and Argos voucher. Plus it's annoying. And a tad repetitive. And very boring. And your email ends up being spammed no end as your details are spread far and wide across the internet.
The second idea was to start my own business, as I've been intending to do for 2 years. The number of mums starting their own businesses has risen by 20% since 2000 and there are now over a million of us at it. Also, it means having a bit of money and if things pick up enough, not having to return to the office and leave my baby. So far, I've spent about £70 of my hard-earned money on supplies, made a few trial bath muffins and set up a Facebook page to advertise my wares. It's not exactly a massive money spinner as of yet. BUUUUUUT there is one shining beacon on the horizon! My mother-in-law organises a local event every year called the Towpath Harvest where people in our town come together to barter and to sell their home-grown and home-made produce so I'm going to see if I can drum up a bit of business. The goal is to become established enough to do the craft fair circuit next Christmas.
Then there's the third option; trying to make money in the comfort of my own home using the wonder that is the internet. I've joined PeoplePerHour offering my services and am at present searching about 6 different websites for some data entry work. I think I'm just going to have to persevere and throw many nets in the ocean. All going well, I'll be able to earn a bit of pocket money to keep clean nappies on my baby's bum and food in her tummy. Wish me luck!
It's not that I don't want to work, quite the opposite. I've always been a grafter and worked since the age of 15, but I've found that my priorities shifted from having a bit of spare cash to go to the pub to spending as much time with my baby as possible and watching her develop into her own little person. I'm just really not ready to leave her yet and the thought of going back to a job that I didn't really like (and was supposed to be temporary) in the first place and missing out being with my baby does just bum me out no end. Maybe I should just start playing the lottery and see how that works out for me...
TTFN!

Far too awake for this time of night

This is why you should never EVER exercise late at night! As I've been busy with bubba all day and making bath truffles and muffins for my little cottage industry (Kayleigh's Creations, check us out on Facebook!) tonight it got to half 10 and I realised that I hadn't got round to doing any exercise.
With just a month and a half left to lose a stone and having eaten a lot of chocolate and cheese, I started to get a bit panicky. Unfortunately, Isabella then decided to wake up for a feed. Managed to get her off to bed, pottered around getting a few bits done and she awoke again! Fed her a bit more, did a few more busy things and before I knew it, it was only twenty minutes to midnight. But, because I'm an utter trooper (and feeling guilty after yesterday's Krispy Kreme and not exercising since Sunday) I did 40 minutes of bum and thigh exercises and dance-style toning as quietly as possible with DVD practically on mute.
I now feel vaguely better and my bum muscles are killing me and utterly, utterly wide awake! A sensible person would say "it's way past my bedtime, my baby's going to be waking up for another feed soon, I should sleep". Apparently I'm not a sensible person. Instead, I'm sat here with a face mask on about to watch a Dispatches documentary on 4OD about benefit cheats. Happy days!
I may be even more tired than usual in the morning, but at least I'll get to spend a bit more time with hubby and my pores will be a lot clearer.....
Isabella really amazed me today; during Nakey Nakey Playtime (between dinner and bed to avoid another nappy and outfit change) she managed to push herself up from lying on her tummy, to more or less sitting up. Her legs were still tucked under her, like a frog about to hop.

Doesn't she look chuffed with her little self?! It's astounding how much stronger and smarter she gets by the day. I'm going to wash this blue gunk off my face and have a nice cup of green tea.

TTFN!x

Having a trying time :-(

Isabella and I have been having a few tricky evenings of late. Because she's a very minimalistic  napper, I thought that she'd be really tired and easy to settle at night. WRONG! I thought that being such an active baby, she would wear herself out. WRONG! So it's a real struggle sometimes to get her to sleep, let alone get her to stay asleep.
We've tried encouraging her to self-settle innumerable times, but it just doesn't seem to work on her, she needs to be nursed to sleep. She's also redeveloped the habit of waking up just for a cuddle. It's happened 3 times this evening so far. As lovely as it is to feel wanted by my baby, the novelty does wear off sometimes!
Sunday night was perhaps the worst sleep we've had since she had the snuffles a few weeks ago (which was when she refused to sleep by herself and poor hubby got kicked into the spare room so that she could stay with me) and it left me absolutely exhausted. I don't know why some nights she'll only wake up twice and other nights she's determined not to sleep. Why can't babies just be predictable?!
I'm just getting through each day as it comes by telling myself that one day, one sweet day, she will sleep through the night again and I can get some actual, proper sleep.
I've been too tired the last couple of days to exercise, so I've capped it all off by having a krispy kreme. It was just over 200 empty calories and I've had a lot of chocolate today, but it was sooooo worth it! Back on the diet wagon tomorrow!
On the plus side, I made Isabella some new purees today, including cauliflower and broccoli and she really liked it. My baby likes greens, yay!!!
TTFN x

What I've learnt from my baby

My baby is getting so big!!! I've been a little bit preoccupied of late, hence the not posting anything for a while. Isabella is on the verge of crawling and has a wide vocabulary of babbling. What I've noticed about Isabella is that I can actually learn some life lessons from her. Mainly because babies are so instinctive and just do what feels right for them. Here are some things that I have learnt from Isabella so far.

1. Do things in your own time, not when people think you should do them. Babies do things when they are ready themselves, not when the books say they should. For example, Isabella was ready for solids at 4 months, some people were telling me from when she was 3 months to give her some because she was feeding so much, some people told me to start at 5 months. With our babies, we let them do things in their own time, but we don't allow ourselves that same flexibility. There's so much pressure to lose our baby weight as soon as possible or be ready to leave our baby with a relative quickly to get our social lives back on track, but where did all this rush come from?! I still don't feel ready to leave my baby with somebody during the day or more than a few hours in the evening, but then again why should I try to push myself? Some people feel ready to go back to work when their babies are as young as 4 months, some don't feel ready until they're over a year. Let's cut ourselves a bit of slack!
2. It's OK to show a bit of emotion! You wouldn't dream of telling a baby not to cry when they feel stressed out or to calm down when they're so excited that they give themselves hiccups, so why is there so much pressure for us adults to keep a stiff upper lip?! Agreed, being upset or stressed around your baby isn't good for them, but the rest of the time, if we want to express how frustrated or happy or perplexed we are, maybe it would do us good to share it a bit more.
3. If at first you don't succeed, try and try again. Imagine how useless we'd be if we gave up everything at the first attempt. I mean, everything that we've tried in our lives; walking, talking, co-ordinating our hands and mouths. We literally would not be able to do anything! Isabella has been trying to crawl for ages now and she's got to the point where she pushes her bum up and either goes backwards or flips over, but she's showing no signs of quitting! I'm horrifically guilty of being a quitter. I hurt myself trying to ride a bike, so I gave up. I quit quitting smoking dozens and dozens of times before I succeeded. So, I've decided to, for once in my life, just do something! I've been meaning to start my own business making bath products for nearly 2 years then put it on the back burner or delayed it because I feel like I've got more research and work to do, but now I'm just going to take a dive and do it! As they say, nothing ventured, nothing gained.
4. Life is too short to do something that you don't want to. My baby will not do anything she doesn't want to, she's already got a mind of her own. If you offer her a toy and she doesn't like the look of it or doesn't feel like playing, she just won't take it. She's the same with food; she doesn't like avocado or plain baby rice, so she won't eat it, simples! I'm not suggesting that we should take this too literally, if you refused to do a task at work because you didn't enjoy it, you'd probably get a disciplinary, but how many times in our lives do we do something simply to please somebody else? Maybe we should grow down a bit and explain (nicely) that we don't want to eat something we don't like the look or smell of or would rather do or go somewhere else. After all, isn't life a bit too short to not enjoy what you're doing?
5. Sometimes we just need a hug. I'm not sure why, but once we reach adulthood, a lot of us have a lot less human contact with each other. How many times has your baby stopped crying as soon as you picked them up and gave them a cuddle? Even through the toddling stage and childhood, a hug can make everything better, but many grown-ups suffer from hug-deprivation in their lives.  Hugs increase the level of oxytocin and release serotonin and dopamine, which are all important for making you feel calmer and happier. Studies have shown that regular cuddles can also decrease your stress levels, which can reduce your risk of high blood pressure. There are absolutely dozens of reasons to hug somebody, so aim for at least 3 hugs a day (even if they're with the same person) to keep the blues away!

I'm sure my baby has a lot more to teach me, like the importance of being nakey nakey as often as possible, she's an extremely wise little girl.