Breaking up is hard to do....

As an adult, in a settled marriage, career and life in general, the thought doesn't exactly cross your mind that you're going to have to do any sort of 'breaking up' with anyone.  However, that has not proved true recently.

Over the past couple of months, my amazing little working at home scheme (Tuesdays and Thursdays) has become more and more difficult, as nearly 19 month old Emily turns her puppy dog eyes on me and wants story-time, meal time and play times with me - making me feel so torn between the flurry of emails, documents and phone calls that I have to handle on a daily basis, during office hours.  So after a lot of soul searching and consideration, we have decided that she will attend a lovely local daycare, 5 days a week which will allow me to be in the office full time, and she can have fun learning and exploring and meeting other children.

So we had to say goodbye to Danielle, who has looked after Emily since just after her 1st birthday.  And what a bond they developed together!  Danielle's little baby, Harper has also become a firm friend of Emily's, with 'Harper' being a very favourite word for quite some time now!  Danielle has gone way above and way beyond for us - doing things like loaning Emily extra clothes/shoes/bedding if she needed it, patting her to sleep, rocking her to sleep, cuddling her when she was upset, putting her first hair clip in her hair, making her play dough, and generally loving her like another little daughter. 

And I am absolutely certain that she did even more than that, but never said so.  She is a truly amazing woman, and we have loved having Emily with her. 

We'd get countless photos, videos and online stories about what Emily has done in her little day.  The 'daily book' was amazing - a loving little comment about the day in general - what Emily had loved and done and learnt.  So special.

We can't believe she was so little when she started there!!  Here are a few of Danielle's lovely photos of Emily. Thank you Danielle xXx

Very first day, just 1 year old

     

Flower - one of Emily's favourite words!

Picnic in the park

Making my Mother's Day painting

Fist time with a clip in her hair!

Playdough fun!

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First outing to the local village

In the double pram with little Harper

Summarising the last 6 months!

Well it's no secret that having a bubba takes up 99.95% of your time!  Plus working full time, there is a LOT to juggle, so that's why I haven't been on my Blog for AGES!  But I am back now.  Well I hope so anyway! 

I thought it would be fun to summarise the past 6 months, or try to, to get up to speed.  Emily turned 18 months old on Thursday this week.. it's been 6 months since her 1st birthday party - time flies when you are having fun!  We have settled into the year's routine very well and Emily is very happy with her new carer, where she has been since just after her 1st birthday.  There is a little girl there too who is 6 months younger than Emily and they are firm friends for sure :) 

They have started to venture out to some of the activities the homebased care company puts on and Emily loves them!  Lots of fun!

We have had a few milestone birthdays in the family recently - a 30th for Emily's uncle, a 60th for her Nana and a 21st for a cousin!  Wow!  We made the cakes for the 60th and the 21st - very yummy work indeed, even though Chris is working hard and long hours in his new (since March) Bakery Supervisor role.  Chris starts work at 10am and finishes at 8.30pm but doesn't get home until 9.15pm, so it's Mummy all the way in terms of Emily's care etc!  It is full on but I love spending that time with her!  So I am doing the drop offs and pick ups, but... we get weekends together, for the first time in the 10 years we have known each other!!  So that is incredible and to be honest we are still adapting to it!!  It's weird to have so much time together on the weekends, they feel long and relaxed.... like they should.

In other news, we are soon to have a whole new routine as Emily will be going to daycare 5 days a week as it's getting too tricky to get my work done at home on my Tuesdays and Thursdays with her, so we have a lot of changes ahead!  And there are some things we are trying to help her with in terms of readiness.. moving to 1 sleep a day as she is still on 2 (mild success, still 2 sleeps at the mo, but the first one is much shorter than it used to be) ... attempting to get her to feed herself from a spoon (some success, but she has lost interest now!) ... sitting at a table and chair for her meals (she loves this!!), so we are getting there.  It will be a big change for us all but we feel ready to face it.  Especially as Emily has been walking for 2 months now (I can proudly say that I was working at home the VERY day she took her first steps so I saw it all!)!  And totally full of beans.... Here's to new adventures!

Sneaking out for a quick bite on a Friday Chris wasn't working.. wow, a totally foreign feeling enjoying food without our Princess around!!

Loving the table and chair!

              

18months old - wow!

Playtime while with her lovely carer!

Moving forwards... in leaps and bounds!

Well, Emily has recently hit 2 big milestones... crawling (forwards!) - she was crawling backwards for a while there but now is going forwards and is very, very fast!!  And has also learnt to stand up pulling herself up using the playpen, the feet seats, the TV table... me... basically anything she can!!  

It is so sweet to see her doing these incredible activities when, only a short time ago, she was a little pink blob brought home from the hospital.  My how time flies, especially when you are having fun :) 

We have also recently bought a playpen (!) to keep her safe, especially when I am working at home.  So far she is enjoying it and will often read her books and shake her rattles quietly to herself.. such a sweet little girl.

We are just really enjoying this new phase - every phase is my favourite actually!  She is very active, reactive, interactive - it's amazing, and really starting to copy us, all our sounds and noises!

I think she is getting more teeth.. she has just woken for a cuddle and some Pamol (pretty unusual for her) and that's the 3rd night since Friday night she has done so.  Molars?  Eye teeth?  Eeek!  Here's to another restful night's sleep, night everyone!

O.N.E.

Well, it's official... we have a darling little One Year Old!!  It was Emily's birthday on Friday last week and I would have written but we were too busty preparing for the party and celebrating her birthday!!  We had an absolutely incredible time, and Emily seemed to enjoy it all, even though she was a little overwhelmed at times!!

In our regular monthly birthday photoshoot, Emily proudly plays with the wooden ONE loaned to us by our neighbour... lucky we had Chris there to help this time as Em does not sit still anymore, photoshoot or no shoot!!  Gone are the days when she would lay happily and played with something for ages, now it's what can she grab, and how quickly can she get to it - by backwards crawling, I might add :)  She is yet to master crawling towards things!  Despite mine and Chris's best demonstratiuon efforts!

And so, her birthday... what an exciting day!!  We opened presents in the morning and Emily cried at her main pressie, a toy elephant which sings and shoots air and plastic balls out of its trunk!!  I tried hard not to laugh at her reaction but it was very difficult!!  And Chris started on the cake... A gorgeous 1, with fairies, toadstools and butterflies everywhere.  The fondant decorations were made for us by a friend.  It was exactly what I wanted for the cake!  And mine is the opinion which matters hehe!  Granny arrived too in the afternoon which was lovely so we had a good catch up and she got plenty of baby cuddles too.

On the day of the party we had all our lovely family and friends here to help celebrate Emily's big day.  The weather was perfect - sunny but not too hot; there was plenty of food and lovely $2 shop decorations (can't go wrong there but funny how you spend a whole lot more than just $2 hehe!!) and of course our Birthday Fairy Princess was loving the attention and celebration!  See the wings below... there was a wand, somewhere too. 

I was very proud of us for creating this stunning "1" of photos too - well, that's what it is in case you were wondering!  All of our fave pics of our Baby Girl... where have the months gone??  Happy Birthday Emily Darling xxx

It's. Been. Too. Long.

Oh my goodness, where has the time gone????  In precisely 3 weeks, 1hour and 32minutes, Emily will be 1 year old.   One Whole Year.  Like that!!  

I keep thinking about Blog-related topics, especially when I am out walking with Emily (gasping in this heat I might add!) ... what it means to be a mum (absolutely delicious, unbelievable, lucky, amazing, incredible, beautiful, precious, intimate, sincere, unreal, over-the moon, surreal, in love, love, LOVE!); what it feels like to be a working mum (hard but satisfying, especially when it's pay day yay!); what it's like when you're tired and baby's not (interesting!); how I feel about still breastfeeding Emily in the evenings (amazing, not sure I am ready to stop, I am a little addicted!!) and life in general...

But I always find something else to do - usually checking Facebook or watching crap on TV!  But now's the time.  Now.  A crisp white page awaits me.  SO what's been happening lately, gosh where to start?  I guess we can congratulate ourselves on a very successful end of the year - with Chris on the Christmas shirt, he was working 5am/6am - 6pm/7pm most days there for a while, with not many days off so we didn't see a lot of each other, or Chris of Emily, and I was the main parent, all day, every day, every evening which was pretty full on as work was crazy in December for me.  It always is!  But we made it.  I timed my return to work exquisitely, only having 7 weeks of work until break up for 2 weeks... yessss!  It was divine leaving on that last day and fetching Emily from The One's and heading home, knowing I didn't have to think about work for over 2 weeks.  Such bliss :) 

We had a wonderful Christmas (at home and with Chris's family - Nana and Grandad) and New Year's (spent with guests and my parents at their Lodge) and generally were very lazy, ate too much, drank too much and lived life peacefully.  We saw the New Year in with Emily waking at 5am on the 1st of January from the light/heat/who knows so had gorgeous family cuddles in bed for ages - that's got to be my best New Year's yet!

And then all too soon it was back to work.  Yuck.  It's been a frantic first month back.  A new HRIS.  6 (??) new staff, I have actually lost count.  But all of that has meant a lot of work.  And that got me thinking how I really enjoy my work.  I like getting things done.  But I do think about work waaaay too much.  So I need to stop that silliness because life is for living!  This past week I haven't done much more than my usual working day, so not much time out of hours etc so I am feeling better tonight than other Fridays.  As Emily is such a little dream and goes to sleep early and easily, and Chris doesn't get home till quite a bit later, I was finding myself 'just quickly doing the odd bit/bob' which, as you know, is never quite that and easily turned into an hour or two extra some days.  Not exactly my usual style.  I am dedicated but let's get real.  Put it in perspective Jen! It's not that important.  In fact it's not important at all.  I just make it out to be because I am a bit of a diva/drama queen!

And so onto 2015... what does that hold for us?  Who knows.  All I care about is my beautiful little family (and of course wider family and friends!) and spending as much time together as possible, making gorgeous memories and having special times together.  The year has started off with our first official Daddy / Daughter Day, with Chris looking after Emily on Mondays!  So cute - they seem to have SOOO much fun!  Paddling pool, jolly jumper, tickles, cuddles, stories, walks, you name it.  It is so great they have this time together and Chris was kind enough to say that 'it's so easy being at home with Emily, but you Jen have trained her so well with her routine' Hehe.  I had to chuckle!  She hasn't yet had a teething Monday, and they haven't gone grocery shopping, where it's go-go-go from wake up to sleep time and trying to fit in the shopping and make it home in time for Emily's sleep - rush, rush, rush!  So that will be a fun day for them I am sure :)   But until then... sleep tight!

A new routine!

I can't believe I've been back at work for 3 weeks and our new little routine is now well-established!  How time flies when you are having fun (??!!)... well, not exactly fun but it's definitely not too bad!

Emily is a little dreamboat of a baby and sooo very happy with it all, which is such a huge relief to us.  It is definitely making being back at work much less stressful than I ever imagined, and it is getting easier by the day.

We have also had 4 days where I have worked at home which have gone very well - Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Emily has done her usual - lots of playtime and entertaining herself quietly (well, not always that quietly I must say!  She is in the process of perfecting her baby screech!!), feeding and watching Baby Mozart / Baby van Gogh which she loves, and it keeps her entertained for a good half hour.  Fortunately she has been so good with her routine, sleeping for even longer than she normally would which is really helpful so I can get my work done.  She always wakes up happy and ready to play!  So cute!

Hmm let me see now... what will I learn?!

Fascinated by Baby van Gogh!

At the moment, Chris is starting and finishing work early, whereas usually he starts late and finishes late, so Emily and I are lucky enough to only worry about getting out of the door on time in the mornings (we leave home at about 6.50am!), and he is here to help with everything in the evenings - every day except Fridays when Chris works his usual hours, so we have to get ourselves sorted in the evening that day.  

It can be tough, I'm tired, Emily's tired and it's all a bit go-go-go, but we get there and she usually goes to sleep happy enough and has a good long sleep (phew!).  Next year though, Chris will be back to starting late and finishing late, so we are going to have a swap around of Emily time.  He will do the morning routine and drop her off to The One, and I'll fetch her and do the evening routine, as I'm dropping off and fetching her at the moment.  So that will be really nice to share the drop offs and pick ups with Chris. 

Well it's great to know we have 2 lovely days ahead of us, no deadlines or work, to relax and recharge, and ... it's only 4 weeks to go till break-up day and the 2 week Christmas break - yippee!!  We can do it!!

Sleep tight everyone :)

9 months old!

Playing with her Jungle Book

The first of 1000 steps on our new journey...

Well, 3 cheers for Team Hodgson this past week as we all survived (most successfully, I might add) the first week with me being back at work full time!  I was pretty anxious last weekend as I didn't know how Emily would cope being with The One for an almost full day on the Monday, but I really shouldn't have worried at all as she was a happy little bunny, not phased by new surroundings at all!!

This photo was taken yesterday, so day 4 of being with The One... very happy and settled!

Neither Chris nor I slept all that well on the Sunday night unfortunately.  Isn't that always the case... you lie there waiting for your alarm to go off... Argh! I was asleep off and on from around 4am, waiting for Chris's alarm to go off at 4.45am, and then waiting for mine to go off at 5.30am.  So I awoke in a semi zombie-like state and just went onto autopilot!  

It was rather a shock that I just knew what to do and when to be honest, having spent the majority of the past 9 months not showering till at least 9am and rarely leaving the house till at least 10am if I could help it!!  I did try and train myself the previous week though using my alarm to get up and shower etc at 6am so I wasn't too jaded on the Monday!

Emily and I were ready very early on the Monday as I had some things to give to The One - nappies, wipes, Emily's toys and things, and I wanted to be able to settle her in properly and I wasn't sure how long that whole process should take - so we left home at 6.30am (gasp).  It all just happened so smoothly, I drove off in shock that neither Emily nor I cried!!  I fully expected to be a blubbering mess, I even told Emily that if I was, it was ok and normal!!  My rescue remedy drops and chewing gum definitely helped keep me calm, that is for sure.

But not a wet eye in the house... Am I a terrible mother?? I thought as I drove off.  And all of that day at work, I actually didn't worry about her at all.... Wow!!  I barely know The One, and yet, I was totally fine with Emily being with her.  Now that came as a shock too!  Plus it was actually a nice change of scenery to be in the office (this is simply a novelty and it will most definitely wear off haha!) and to be with my colleagues again.

When I fetched Emily - I could literally not get there fast enough - she was fine, but a little tired and had done very well for the day.  PHEW, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.  The only thing which was a bit funny was that she wasn't drinking her formula from her bottle.  Hmm!  Strange. She never does that with me or Chris, or others who have fed her before.  But Chris or I have always been with those people while they feed Em, so probably just getting used to a whole new routine. 

On the Tuesday and Thursday, my wonderful mother-in-law (MIL) came all the way to our house to look after Emily while I was at work, and funnily enough Emily was also a bit iffy with the bottle, so she tried the sippy cup and she had some on the Tuesday, and all of her milk that way on the Thursday - yay!  My darling MIL also cooked, did washing and bought us treats... plus of course had a wonderful few days with Emily!  So thankful she could help out as Tuesdays and Thursday will be my working from home days from this week onwards, and I was in the office the whole of last week.

Happily playing at home with my MIL

The rest of the week sailed by although I did have a bit of frustration with The One regarding routines... Emily's, mine, or The One's, but that all seems to have settled down and the juggling of 2 wee babies is getting easier for her and she seems to have them all in a good routine - whatever and however it works out.  I just have to accept she will do things a bit her way and while that is a little hard to do, the main thing is, is that Emily sleeps and eats when she is there, and of course is happy.  She is very, very happy actually, which is so lovely to hear.  Plus she is now drinking her milk from her sippy cup, yay!  So relief all round!

On the plus side, work has been absolutely fine and not too stressful (well, at the moment anyway!) which is a nice surprise and I am easing myself back into it all.  And this week we begin working at home on Tuesdays and Thursdays so we will see how that goes... watch this space :)