Tried and Tested

Took my beautiful phil and teds pushchair out for the first time the other day. Took me a while to get it into an upright position for Joshua, and remove the 2nd seat though. I definately need more pratice.

I got there in the end, joshua nicely strapped in and ready for our walk. He looked really comfy and I think he preferred it to our petite star. Purely because he was sat more upright and had a good view of the world. He didn't moan once... But it was only the first outing. So time will tell.

It is much heavier than the petie star but then it wad always going to be. Yet it was very easy to push and steer... I just need to get used to it being a bit wider. Stupid wilko's and there narrow tills... Had to wait in the biggest queue cos it had the only till we'd fit thru. Soo glad we didn't opt for a side by side double pushchair or we'd have been completely screwed.

I didn't find a fault with it on this occasion but I've not had to put the raincover on yet... They always seem to baffle me a little. Maybe I'm just not smart enough for pushchairs or something!!

Looking forward to trying it out when squid makes his appearance and I can pop both my little men in it. I'm so never going into town via the road with the hill once I'm pushing them both... I fear it would actually kill me. Although it would be a good workout, perhaps if I walk up a hill every day I'll actually manage to shed some of my baby weight. Who am I kidding? I'm never gonna get back to a size I'm happy with!

Whoops I went a little of track there... But to recap I'm very happy with my purchase. Just desperately trying to sell my graco pushchair and failing. We really don't need three.

Reading List

This is the BBC reading list from 2003, and I aim to read all the books on the list.


1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Brontë
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights, Emily Brontë
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli's Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel García Márquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Süskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel García Márquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie 

Too long..

Well it has been an age since I blogged, and suddenly my due date is fast approaching. I’ll be 37 weeks tomorrow so officially classed as full term – meaning Squid could be born at any point over the next 5 weeks. I’m hoping it won’t be as long as 5 weeks though, I’ll go crazy.

I finished work today which was a great feeling, I like my job and I love where I work but I’d had enough. I do wonder how I survived working a full day for this long last time... I’ve only been there for 4 hours and I always end up with back ache. Not quite sure that it has sunk in yet though, probably will Monday when I’m still in my pj’s and not having to go to work. Work threw me a little baby shower at the end of last week, which was totally sweet of them. Got some gorgeous little clothes as well as a couple of packs of nappies. Which are always more than appreciated. It was wonderful to get some more little boys outfits, as most of the tiny baby stuff we have is neutral.

Not being at work though means I can get all those little jobs done that I need... or should that be want to do. Top of the list is to finish packing my hospital bag. I think I’m nesting... it’s a strange feeling, I don’t think I ever really got the nesting instinct when I was pregnant last time. Sleeping, and lounging on the sofa was way more appealing than scrubbing the bathroom tiles, or sorting through cupboards or something as equally insane. I’ve a list of things I want to do:

• Finish the baby washing and ironing
• Sort the cupboard out in Joshua’s room
• Bake ...bake ...bake
• Cook some dinners and freeze them
• Give every room in the house a good clean, including all the horrid jobs like the oven

Wonder how much of it I will actually do, between all the normal things and trying to spend as much quality time as I can with my baby before Squid arrives.
That’ll do for today and hopefully I will start blogging more often and find more interesting things to blog about.

Settling for Apple...

After months of dreaming about the Icandy pear, I managed to convince Ant that we ‘needed’ it. That nothing else would do and I just HAD to have it. So off we went Saturday to have a proper look at it, see how bulky it is when folded down. Sit Joshua in it, push it around and see how we got on. Turns out they didn’t have any left, so we had a play with something similar and it was actually really bulky.

So I decided to have a look at the Phil and Teds a pushchair I’d originally dismissed without much thought – I didn’t like where I thought the baby would lie.
So we asked a store assistant to give us a demonstration and turns out I’d imagined it all wrong. Doesn’t do everything I liked in the pear, but it’s actually a really good pushchair.

So I didn’t get a pear, we ended up coming home with a Phil and Teds sport in Apple green. The colour might not be to everyone’s taste but I love it – it’s funky.

It’s a 4 in 1 pushchair:
• Newborn
• Toddler
• Newborn and toddler
• Two toddlers




What do you think? Anyone got one?

Baby Names

It’s a mine field, there are so many possibilities out there and yet I still can’t find a boy’s name I love enough to want to call my baby. Joshua was easy and we had decided pretty early on, shame we used our second favourite name as his middle name and didn’t save it in case we had another boy.

It’s such a responsibility, and what it you chose a name you love now but might not love quite so much in a few years. Names come in and out of fashion incredibly quickly these days. You need to make sure the name works with the surname. That the initials don’t spell out something awful which would result in teasing. Although with our surname the kids are going to get teased any way – which makes all the more reason for choosing something sensible for the first name. Considering the shortened versions of names if equally important – we never shorten Joshua. We don’t like calling him Josh... thats not his name, so we don’t do it. But fact is as soon as he goes to school his friends will shorten his name. I like the name William but would hate for it to be shortened to Willy, which kids would no doubt come up with. Willy Allcock...can you imagine. Poor child, I could never inflict that on him.

I want to discuss names with people, but we’ve decided this time that we are not telling anyone if we decide on a name – or even what our options could be. Everyone already knows we are having a boy so we want to keep something a surprise. People are too opinionated on names – people have no issues in saying ‘Oh I hate that name’ to a name you really like. Honestly do they not realise how insensitive that is. However if they don’t find out the name till the baby is born, they will keep their opinions to themselves.

Do you choose a traditional name.
A common name.
Something unusually.
Something completely wacky.

You have to consider how the name sounds on a baby and if it’s a name that can make the transition into a sensible adult’s name. Some names take ‘daisy’ for example it is completely adorable for a little girl, but not a name I find I can take serious when an adult introduces themselves as daisy.

You could always take a leaf out of Victoria and David Beckham’s book and name your child after the place they were conceived but you could end up with something completely ridiculous like ‘Leamington.’ Not really a baby name is it?

Alternatively take a leaf out of Katie Price and Peter Andres book who names their daughter 'Princess Tiaamii.' I could name my son 'Prince Charming' or something utterly ridiculous. Imagine the looks I would get when people asked his name, could be worth doing it just for the responses I’d get.

I could make up a name, chances are my son would never meet another person with the same name but he would always be faced with responses like ‘How unusual’ and ‘How do you spell it?’ One option is spelling our surname backwards which just doesn’t work but spelling my maiden name backwards does. So another option is ‘Sirron.’ What do you think? Or I could take part of my name and part of Anthony’s name and create something like ‘Luthony’ or ‘Anucy’.

I guess I just need to go back and bury my head in my baby name book and hope somewhere in the next 14 weeks we manage to come up with something we love. If you have any super amazing suggestions feel free to pass them this way.

Time flies...

It’s less than 15 weeks until my due date, less than 20 weeks till Christmas, therefor less than 21 weeks till the year ends. I don’t know where the time has gone; it seems to be racing through my fingers at a terrific speed. Has someone sped up the clock and not told me? If so can you please just slow it right back down again, back to how it used to be.

Do you remember as a child when you were waiting for a birthday or Christmas it seemed to take forever? Now the years are passing me by two quickly. I’m having a bit of a panic, just less than 13 weeks left at work that makes it sounds even closer until squid is due. I have nothing ready; I have no little lists telling me what I need. No idea who’s going to look after Joshua when I’m in hospital....who can I call in the middle of the night to say come on over please? There’s so much to think about, granted I don’t need as much stuff as I did the first time but at least then I knew I needed everything – now I’m not quite sure. I got as far as putting Joshua’s clothes in bags according to size. But honestly I can’t bear the thought of taking them out, washing them, drying them, ironing them and sorting them out to see if there is anything we need. Having a winter baby this time there is going to be some things. It’s weird cos last time I somehow enjoyed the tedious task of washing and ironing, maybe it’s because I didn’t know how much time I was going to spend washing over the next year. My ironing pile is never ending, I just don’t want to be adding to it...if I live in denial I might be safe.

Somewhere in the next 14 and a bit weeks (providing squid doesn’t show up early) I need to organise everything I need for the new baby, make plans for Joshua, buy him a present from squid, buy squid a present from Joshua and do ALL my Christmas shopping. There is no way I’m dragging a 17 month old and a new born around busy crowded shops – not in a million years. Somehow I need to fit this in around looking after Joshua, working, and the million and one other jobs I have to do in the house anyway. Fourteen weeks sounds ages, but it only seems five minutes ago it was 20 weeks and I decided it was time to slowly start sorting things... yet 6 weeks later and I still haven’t done anything.

I keep hoping for some energy to come back to give me the motivation to get on with things, but I may have to stop hoping for that soon and just do it... cos those fairies are just not going to show up and do it for me I don’t think.

Reviews

I have just written a review for a product I recieved via a competition and I really enjoyed writing it. So if anyone has anything they would like reviewing them please don't hesitate to contact me.

amummyslife@googlemail.com 

Alternatively you can find me on Twitter @ljastars

Links to Reviews

Dribblebuster Sleeping bag
Organix Mighty Meals
Review: b-organic Soothing Balm