The Frank Diaries: Surviving the Newborn Stage

Hello you ruddy marvellous lot. Happy 2016 and and all that. We had the most un-celebratory New Years Eve on record I think. Homemade pizzas (one of which we forgot about and completely decimated), the last episode of the Agatha Christie that was on over Christmas, and the London fireworks on our phones whilst in bed. Watching the clock on Big Ben count down from 60, whilst simultaneously hearing the fireworks from 11 miles away due to the time delay, was a slight anti-climax though. I won’t lie.

Christmas was equally as low key but very pleasant indeed as we travelled round various parts of London and Kent visiting our four families. Other than dressing him in the obligatory Santa outfit, we didn’t make a huge fuss about it being Frank’s First Christmas™. Paul and I didn’t even bother getting him a present (shock horror!), although he did get some lovely bits from doting grandparents, aunts and uncles. And I enjoyed copious amounts of cheese, chocolate and alcohol. As I said, low-key but satisfyingly pleasant.

To accompany this blog post I thought I’d share some pictures that were taken at my Mum’s house over Christmas by my brother in law. He is by no means a professional photographer, but likes to sit and quietly click away on his fancy Dan camera. I love seeing the day from a reportage point of view, and as most of my photos of Frank are iPhone selfies enhanced by a clever Instagram filter, it’s truly lovely to now have some more natural images of him (and my gorgeous nephew, Eithan) that capture the ‘every day’. So thank you very much, Colin 🙂

But anyway, this post isn’t about Christmas or the New Year. It’s about survival. Frank turned three months last week, which means as we enter 2016 I no longer have a newborn baby. My mind is boggled. In many, many ways it is a huge relief to be in the ‘infant’ stage. He’s still very young and vulnerable, but now that he sees so much more and his synapses have gone in to overdrive, his personality is really starting to emerge and he’s just so much more enjoyable. He’s also chubbed out big and is cultivating quite the double chin, which is super cute.

Frank was not an easy newborn. I don’t think I had unrealistic expectations, but he did (and still does, to be honest) cry an awful lot. See, there are babies who whinge when they want something and whimper when they’re unhappy, but are generally happy to gurgle and look around in blissful unawareness. But then there are babies who fly in to inconsolable rage at any given moment, turning purple in the process, causing the cat to fly out the cat flap in fear of his life, and stopping only to eat, sleep or poo. Frank was most definitely the latter.

In the depths of the night feeding sessions I would more often than not find myself asking the internet a desperate question. Why does my baby cry so much? How do I get my 4 week old to sleep for longer? Does my baby have reflux? What is colic? Baby forums became my sanctuary, and I’d scour the posts looking for other new mums who had asked the same questions, eagerly reading the answers and words of advice from those who had been there, done that.

But the problem with babies is that they are extremely changeable and totally unreliable. What seems to work one day might not work the next, and what might work for one baby may have the complete opposite effect on another. So it’s all trial and error, this baby rearing lark. However, three months in I’m pretty sure I know what my baby likes and doesn’t like now. We have a bit of a routine going. I’m down with the kid.

Here’s what works for us:

Baby wearing

Whilst pregnant I knew that I wanted some sort of sling. The hippy in me wanted a wrap as opposed to a structured carrier so I bid for an Ergobaby Wrap on eBay and had fun practising the basic wrap for newborns before he arrived. At three days old and with Paul instructing me via a YouTube tutorial, we somehow managed to get Frank in snugly and I felt like some sort of Earth Mother Goddess. It soon became clear, however, that when I most needed the sling (i.e. when Frank was massively overtired and screaming inconsolably), the Ergobaby just wasn’t going to cut it. Too time-consuming and complicated to get on. Some quick research and a call-out on a baby forum later and I had a NCT Close Caboo winging its way to me which is SO much better. In the early weeks Frank would usually nap in this once a day when I would potter around making lunch, tidying up etc. I wouldn’t say he particularly loved or loves the sling. He nearly always protests as I put him in and will generally take 5-10 minutes of frantic jiggling and shushing to settle him, but there’s no denying the sling is a great tool in the early weeks for a baby who just wants to be close to you.

Swaddling

In the first month I put out a couple of desperate, baby-related pleas on Facebook and got a multitude of helpful messages from my mummy friends. SEVERAL people suggested swaddling but I have to admit I was really reluctant in the early weeks, and I’m not too sure why. I think I thought he wouldn’t like it. Eventually I gave in and it changed everything regarding Frank’s sleep. He had a pretty severe startle reflex and having his arms bound to his sides improved his sleep enormously. I started with a Gro-Snug which worked well initially but kept riding up around his face in the middle of the night, and am now on Swaddle Me blankets. I use them for every sleep, day and night. In fact, I rely on swaddling so much now that I am quite scared he won’t settle properly once he starts to roll over and we can no longer swaddle! But we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it…

Dummies

Ok, hands up who said whilst pregnant that they wouldn’t be giving their babies a dummy? I know I did. I’m not even sure why these little plastic wonders are frowned upon by many, but what I do know is that I’d bought a pack of two ‘just in case’ prior to Frank being born, and had effectively shoved one in his mouth within the first few days.

Nowadays his dummy is used as a sleep aid and I intend for it to stay that way. When he’s swaddled and on my shoulder, he’ll often start sucking on my jumper. In goes a dummy and he falls asleep fairly quickly, spitting it out just as he starts to fall in to a deep sleep.

White noise

Apparently it’s bloody noisy in the womb, so many babies are calmed by white noise. I use an app on my phone called Sleepy Sounds and Frank LOVES it. There are lots of different sounds on there but it’s the hairdryer he really responds to, calming in an instant if he’s hysterical, and sending him to sleep when it’s bedtime. I do have my concerns as it needs to be pretty loud to have any effect, and as it’s on my phone I don’t like having it too close to his head. But again, this is a big part of our sleep routine and something Frank struggles to settle without.

Rocking

Paul takes the mick out of me for calling Frank a ‘motion baby’ but he really is. Whether he’s rocked, bobbed, swayed or swung, Frank likes to move. However, I can already feel this constant motion already taking effect on my back and knees, and it’s only going to get worse as he gets bigger, which leads me to…

…The Swing Chair

A few weeks ago his napping was driving me absolutely mad, as he would wake- without fail- 30 minutes after going down. Every time. I’ve read a lot about it and realise now that it happens as he is coming out of his light REM sleep cycle. Whereas he should slip in to a deeper sleep at this point, the transition wakes him up and he can’t re-settle. You can’t get anything done in 30 minutes, and with me needing to get back in to Utterly Wow mode this month, I desperately needed a solution. The internet told me a swing chair would be my saviour, so we asked for one as an early Christmas present from his Nanny and Grandad, and I think I actually wept tears of joy the first time he napped in it and I had to wake him 2.5 hours later.

A few weeks in and it doesn’t work every time, but as I type he’s upstairs gently swinging away, having been down for 1 hour 4o and counting. The swing chair may be huge, cumbersome and ghastly to look at, but boy it delivers.

So there we go. These are the tools that settle my demanding diva and have got me through the newborn stage. The ‘routine’ is quite extensive, and many a time I lament the fact that I have to do all these things to get Frank to sleep when other people seem to simply lie their angels down and walk away, but needs must. Some might say I’m ‘making a rod for my own back’ (possibly the most over-used sentence on baby forums), but I’m confident these are all just temporary solutions. As it happens, I’m pretty much following the method of American paediatrician, Harvey Karp who wrote The Happiest Baby On The Block. His method is all about the 5 S’s: Swaddling (yep), Side or Stomach position (Frank goes to sleep on my shoulder or in my arms on his side), Shush (white noise), Swing (hell yes), and Suck (pass me that pacifier). And he’s a Doctor, so he must be right.

Right?

Sama xx

Paris & Joe: The One With The Wedding Dresses

So I left my dress hunt having just had a wonderful, despite the bead-crushing, experience at Teokath in Canterbury. I knew the dress would be Jenny Packham but I didn’t want to go back to Teokath as I had my beady eye on a gorgeous number spotted on Pinterest, which I now knew they did not stock.

Unfortunately, it turns out the gown I was lusting after was actually a 2013 collection dress and I couldn’t find a boutique that stocked it, although I must point out that my “search” consisted of looking through each boutique’s online catalogue and you can take a guess at the accuracy of that. Eventually, out of sheer desperation, I emailed Pantiles Bride in Tunbridge Wells, a stockist of JP. Did they have the dress I was looking for? No. Could they borrow it? Yes!

And that was how the next phase of the dress hunt began, trekking up to Tunbridge Wells with my mum, maid of honour and sister on a Jenny Packham Designer Day, which not only meant heaps more Jenny Packham gowns than I could ever imagine but also a 10% discount if I ordered there and then. Imagine my disappointment when I arrived and found the one I wanted desperately to try had not arrived… Well actually I wasn’t that disappointed. It might have been the brightness of 30 glittering JP gowns, some I had never even seen, but I put the disappointment to the back of my mind and we got on with some serious dress trying.

Pantiles Bride is a genuinely stunning boutique, it’s all cream plush carpets, big thick drapes and you pad around in your socks. Fizz on arrival and (given that it was a rather cold day in April) the heating was on so I was lovely and toasty whilst hanging around in my beige granny pants. The thing I love most about Pantiles Bride, though, is Alex the bridal consultant who manages to inject a bit of humour and fun into what could be a really gushy serious affair. Don’t get me wrong I want the fluff that comes with buying my wedding dress, but I also don’t want someone who tells me I’m embracing all my bridal beauty when I clearly look like utter rubbish.

After much strutting and fizz guzzling we had managed to whittle the dresses down to two: Esme and Eden. Now these two are seriously stunning dresses and you only have to search “Jenny Packham” on Pinterest to catch a glimpse of the beaded beauties. But for some reason I just could not commit. I couldn’t pinpoint anything in particular but in hindsight I think I just didn’t feel a pull towards either of the dresses. Yes, they were lovely but I wanted to change little details and neither seemed like my perfect dress. We headed home on a promise to return at the end of the year, closer to the wedding when I might feel a bit more decisive and with an added bonus of Christmas shopping in Tunbridge Wells.

Eden

Esme

But it was not to be. I received an email from Alex in August to say that if I wanted the Esme dress I would need to place my order by the end of September as she was sadly being discontinued. All of a sudden the pressure was on. I began having Esme-related dreams and I knew I needed to go back and try it one more time, just to be sure.

So off we trotted on a sunny Thursday mid-September. By this point I was quite pleased having lost a stone since my last visit (I had also convinced myself that this was why I couldn’t make a decision) and the wedding was now less than a year away. Alex had told me that this time, the Jenny Packham I had wanted to try last visit would be in the shop. No pressure.

We arrived 10 minutes late, courtesy of Southeastern Trains, and at exactly the same time as my mystery dress. Alex had been hiding downstairs fearing my wrath at potentially a second disappointment of the dress not arriving. She took it out of its FedEx box in front of us and instantly I was in love. And luckily for me I loved it even more when I put it on! My mum had originally been rooting for Esme and my best friend’s vote was with Eden, but they both agreed that this was the best dress for me. Decision made, I couldn’t believe how easy that had been!

Post dress purchase celebrations!

We dabbled with ordering it in Champagne, the colour that I tried it on in, but in the end my mum was quite set on Ivory and I didn’t care enough about having it in Champagne to dash her dreams of a blushing bride in white. I recently received a swatch of the material in the post and am super happy that I didn’t go for Champagne so I guess mum did know best.

I am now the most recent convert to believing in “when you try on the one, you’ll know”, having thought it was a complete load of rubbish before. Now I am just disappointed that I will only get to wear it for one day – I might have to organise an annual Friends-style gathering to stop the dresses gathering mothballs, or is that a bit strange??

Paris x

Paris & Joe: Bridal Shoes & Something Blue

 

Before launching in to this absolute corker of a post from Paris, I just want to thank everyone who read/shared/said nice things about my last excerpt from The Frank Diaries. There was me thinking the general reaction would be Jeez, cheer up love, you’ve just had a baby, and instead I got an outpouring of love and understanding and sisterhood and, most surprisingly, thanks. It wasn’t necessarily a difficult admission for me to share- let’s face it, I’m an open book when it comes to personal thoughts and feelings- but I totally get now that it’s a subject that other new mums may not find so easy to talk about. So I am truly humbled that my ramblings touched so many people.

Anyway, on to more exciting things… WEDDING SHOES. This week’s post from Paris might be my favourite so far or hers. Enjoy!

If I thought that I could breathe a big sigh of relief after I had bought my wedding dress and reclaim my brain for thoughts other than wedding fashion, I was wrong. In the very same appointment that I bought my dress I was given the homework that any bride-to-be wants… shoes. Oh and underwear, but that is far more boring.

So this post is all about shoes. I would not normally consider myself a “shoe girl”. I have so few pairs of work shoes that it hasn’t been unknown for me to be dashing off to a last minute event, realising that all my suitable pairs are locked in the office and I am faced with the prospect of UGGS and a pencil skirt (great look, obviously).

Which brings me on to my next important point, being comfortable. If I’m not doing my daily commute in my pixie ankle boots (yep, still with the pencil skirt) I am usually chilling in some kind of converse type shoe or better yet, slippers. I don’t know how many pairs of slippers Joe has thrown away over the years, he is amazed that I have any left.

So with these being my shoe criteria it was clear to me that I didn’t want a massively high heel. As much as I grappled with the idea of adding some much needed length to my ridiculously short legs, I knew that I would be limping down the aisle, which wouldn’t be ideal. So I started ticking the “mid-heel” box.

I wanted something unusual but while the other brides-to-be I know head towards an overload of glitter I knew that wouldn’t be possible for me and my already super glitzy dress. Last year I went through a phase of rather loving the bright pointy court shoes that seemed to be floating around. I bought a pale yellow suede pair and wore them to a wedding, where they were immediately ruined traipsing through a muddy field. I probably should have known better with it being a December wedding and no amount of dry brushing or wet mopping could get them clean. One good thing did come from the ruined shoes though, I decided that I wanted suede shoes for my wedding and preferably in yellow or blue.

So that was the plan and I went on a Pinterest rampage collecting images of shoes from Kate Spade, Manolo Blahnik, Jimmy Choo and Vivienne Westwood such as these:

They didn’t all match the brief but each pair had something a bit different. However, try finding anything on Pinterest in the real world! I was having serious shoe difficulties.

And my difficulties were about to get a million times worse, specifically, mum-level worse. She was not happy about my shoe dreams and was not afraid to make this known.

Now I do have to feel a little sorry for my poor Ma as she hasn’t really had much luck with my wedding. It has felt like I have broken her heart at every turn, whether it be not getting married in a church, not having a strapless princess dress and let us not even breathe about the time when I said I wanted to stay with Joe the night before (I believe Sama did this and I haven’t ruled it out just yet, sorry mum). The guest list couldn’t accommodate everybody my mum wanted and remember when I nearly bought my dress in champagne? Luckily for me I am about as eazy breezy about it as I can be but my mum’s instant dislike of less-than-bridal shoes did start a bit of a shoe wobble. And that’s when I fell in love with these beauties:

Charlotte Olympia, Desiree. The pom-poms. THE POM-POMS! My heart sank at the £550 price tag as I tentatively asked Joe whilst hiding behind my computer screen:

“Joe… what’s my wedding shoe budget?” (This was a loaded question, the budget is my area of expertise.)

“I don’t know. What was you thinking?”

“Well, what do you think is expensive?”

“Hmm, what do you think is expensive?”

I was getting nowhere fast so I showed him the shoes. He liked them, I was bolstered. I told him the price and his response was a big fat laugh but I took it on the chin knowing that, having found them in the “bridal” section, my mum would absolutely love them and Joe was no match for her.

My mum hated them. And I think that is when I properly had that wedding realisation that all the wedding mags bang on about – you can’t please everybody, so just please yourself.

So when a few weeks later my bridesmaid, Sophie, whatsapped me these lovely blue suede numbers I knew that I had to have them and I didn’t care what anyone else thought.

My blue suede beauties!

The Tallulah shoes from Hobbs were a complete steal at £65 after being 50% off and they are blue, suede, a bit pointy and sooo comfy. I keep strutting around the flat in them and practicing my aisle walk, which will involve absolutely zero limping. And do you want to know the best bit? My mum loves them. The irony.

So brides-to-be tell me all about your wedding shoe woes? Are we thinking traditional or something a bit different?

Paris x

Jennie & Andy: Unnecessary Panicking and Necessary Beautifying

The past few weeks have been up and down on the wedding planning rollercoaster. It’s seen a wedding dress wobble- do I really love it as much as I thought I did? Am I completely sure this is the ONE out of all the many out there? Should I book a couple more bridal appointments, just to be sure…? A budget panic when I realised I haven’t actually factored in the cost of my flight back to the UK. Andy’s is booked, but mine isn’t – am I even going to be able to go to my own wedding?! I’ve had a heart fluttering moment when I realised Prosecco-on-tap vans are actually a thing, and a heart sinking moment of falling completely in love with a completely out of our budget videographer. The videographer I never knew I wanted, but turned out to be the videographer of my dreams. There’s even been the odd “why on earth are we doing all this, why don’t we just elope” wine-fueled chat too!

Luckily I’ve had my married bridesmaid Lucy, and one of my best friends who is getting married the week before me and going through so many of the same debates, questions and panics, to talk me through each and every wobble. I resisted the urge to go and try on more wedding dresses and fallen back in love with my own, remembered all the reasons we’re planning our wedding the way we are, and come to terms with the sad reality that the dream videographer is going to have to stay just that, a dream.

Despite these ups and downs these weeks have been quite productive, ticking a few more bits off the wedding planning to do list. After several months of dithering and indecision I’ve booked professional hair and make up for the day. I started out thinking that I’d do my own make up. It’s a pretty pricey addition to the budget, and I’d been scared off professional make up by those horrific make over photo shoots where you leave with about 3 inches of make up on your face, and eyes so ‘smokey’ you look like you’ve been punched. I want to look like myself on my wedding day, not a scary plastic bride. I was worried too, that being away from the UK I wouldn’t be able to fit in a trial, and the thought of someone else doing my make up for the very first time, on my wedding morning was quite a scary one.

With this in mind I had a couple of department store trips for product demo looks to attempt to recreate at home. It was after a few of these sessions I realised a truth about myself: I’m actually quite rubbish with make up. I can do a day-to-day mascara and concealer look, and throw on a bit of eye-liner for a night out, but other than that I’m clueless. I don’t actually own half the products that I would need to recreate any of the looks the lovely make up counter ladies did for me, and the list of products I would need would add up to a fair amount on their own. I considered the fact that by buying products I would actually be making an investment, that I’d be able to use them again but in reality, I don’t think I would. They’d just sit in my bathroom cupboard going slowly dry and past their best.

I decided, for me, professional hair and make up was the best option. I’ve booked The Wedding Hair Company, found through  the Little Book For Brides. After a scroll through their website I fell in love with the romantic, relaxed hair styles. It’s all very loose and pretty. Perfect for a summer day in the garden. I shared some ideas with them and they came back saying what I wanted was ‘them’ to a tee! They’ve promised me too, that we’ll be able to squeeze in a trial on my flying visit back to the UK in February so there won’t be any unpleasant wedding day surprises.

Relaxed, wavy, floral-entwined gorgeousness!

I’ve booked hair and make up for me and my Mum, and hair for my bridesmaids. Now it’s booked I’m completely happy with the decision. Mum is thrilled too – I think I get my inability to put on make up from her! I love the idea that I’ll have some body that can give me advice on how to get my fairly thin, fly-away hair into something that looks thick and glossy. I’m pondering extensions too, more for body than length. I’m excited to treat my bridesmaids to professional hair, too. They’ve been sending me ideas of things they like, which luckily are so very similar to the style of The Wedding Hair Company. As they’re all in matching dresses, I’m keen to them to pick individual styles for their hair. When it comes to make up, I’m hoping for a natural, pretty, glowing look that will stay in place all day. I want to look like me, but on a really, really good day!

Does anyone have any tips for wedding day hair and make up? Has anyone gone for wedding day hair extensions?

Jennie x

The Frank Diaries: Out of The Fog

I have logged on to finish this blog post so many times now, I’ve been that close to scrapping it altogether and writing about something totally different. I wasn’t exactly a regular blogger to begin with, but now I have a young baby who fights sleep all day long unless it’s on me, it’s become even more difficult to find the time to get online. Ok, let me rephrase that. I spend all day online. On my phone. One handed whilst breastfeeding/cuddling/housing a sleeping baby. But it’s become even more difficult to sit at a laptop and type. Is there a machine that will allow me to dictate future blog posts, I wonder? There should be.

What I originally set out to write about was the torrid time I had in those first few weeks. Reading this post back to myself, it now seems incredibly bleak, and, I’m pleased to say, out of date. Nearly 10 weeks in, we’re well out of the fog and I’m very much enjoying my beautiful, stubborn, funny baby and starting to enjoy the monotonous repetitive simple existence that is maternity leave postpartum. But I’m going to share it anyway. As is the way with this blog, my witterings serve not only as a permanent reminder for myself (and a good form of contraception when I start to think I could handle a second child), but hopefully as something for other shell-shocked, grieving, exhausted new mums to relate to.

So anyway. Here it is.

The First Two Weeks

I vividly remember what a close friend (and now mum to two beautiful babies) once told me when I asked how it was going after her first child was born. She said: “The only way I can describe it is devastating. Our life has been devastated.” I think there may even have been tears in her eyes as she said it. (Or I could hear it in her voice- I can’t actually remember if this was by phone call or face to face.)

Either way, the emotion behind and the conviction with which she said this simple statement really did take me by surprise. At this point I didn’t have many friends with babies, so my contact with new mums had gone little beyond a congratulatory card in the post, followed perhaps by a “Hey! Sprog is gorgeous. How’s it all going?” text several weeks later.

As I’m sure many of you can relate to, my Facebook feed these days is full of baby-related status’ (amongst the Buzzfeed articles and cat compilation videos). Proud arrival announcements, babies dressed as pumpkins/Christmas puddings/Easter bunnies depending on the time of year, selfies of mum and baby in bed together, all traces of exhaustion masked by a carefully selected Instagram filter (ahem, guilty). Prior to having my own baby I was led to believe that giving birth was horrendous and that sleep deprivation would be a killer, but that it would all be worth it because once he was here I would realise what true love really felt like, unicorns would sing, and life as I knew it would be complete.

I’ll be honest, the first two weeks with Frank were horrible. HORRIBLE. Whilst there were moments when I’d stare in wonder and bewilderment at this tiny person I’d created (usually when he was asleep), and tentatively whisper “I love you, Frank”, hoping that I meant it, the vast majority of the time I was experiencing one or several of the following emotions:

fear

Arriving home from the hospital I just remember feeling scared. Scared of the night ahead without professional support, scared of Frank, scared of the next time he’d want to feed (breastfeeding was excruciatingly painful before I discovered nipple shields, but that’s a whole other story), even scared of my much-loved home that now felt totally alien due to this strange creature we’d just brought in to it.

grief

Paul and I were shell-shocked. We were exhausted. Nothing was the same and everything was different. The life that we had spent ten years building together, the daily routines we’d established, the evenings we’d under-appreciated and the simple things that made us happy… gone. Those first few days were largely spent mourning our freedom and old life. And this made us both immensely sad. One evening I vividly remember gripping his hand tightly and whispering “I want to go back”. And meaning it. Which of course leads to…

guilt

How could I be mourning our old life? How could I even be contemplating a desire to go back and not get pregnant? It’s what I had so desperately wanted and struggled to get. It’s what thousands of women across the globe desperately want and struggle to have. Paul and I had created a life, a little miracle, yet in those early days I genuinely believed we’d made a ginormous mistake. And don’t even get me started on Lenny. Our ginger fur ball, our ‘first-borne son’ as Paul affectionately calls him, who was completely freaked out and all but disappeared in those first few days. Several times I would seek him out in a lonely corner of our house, bury my wet, snotty face in his fur and whisper “I’m sorry, Lenny, we still love you, don’t hate us”.

exhaustion

You don’t know what true exhaustion is unless you’ve made it to the final interrogation stages of SAS: Who Dares Wins, or you’ve just had a baby. In the 62 hours between going in to early labour and leaving hospital I think I got about 3 hours sleep. Once home, I was lucky to get 2-3 hours of broken Z’s a night for the first week. Physically, you can deal with it; the adrenaline somehow keeps you going. But it’s the mental exhaustion that’s the killer. That’s what had me in tears multiple times a day for a reason I couldn’t even begin to understand or articulate.

lonliness

Due to Paul’s job, he was only able to take a week off work, and before I knew it he was kissing me goodbye at 8am on a Monday morning and shutting the front door behind him, leaving me…and Frank. After the initial what the hell do I do now panic, we’d somehow make our way downstairs and set up camp on the sofa. And there we would remain for the majority of the day.

My favourite time of day, a moment of calm and respite, was late morning. Frank would either be feeding or asleep on me, tea and biscuits would have been consumed, Facebook/Instagram/Bloglovin’ scoured, Holly and Phil’s friendly, familiar faces on the tellybox. Despite the severe lack of sleep, this was cosy and comforting and quite nice.

I was also lucky enough to have someone pop in nearly every day- whether it was my Mum, Paul’s mum, a close friend or even the midwife. I wasn’t good company of course- more often than not I would just cry and talk about how bleak life had become and how much I wasn’t enjoying it- but the support was there, and for that I will always be so, so grateful.

But, by heck, those first couple of weeks were lonely.

misery

What you get when you combine all the above. The ‘Baby Blues’ as they like to call it. There’s no doubt about it, for the first two weeks I was seriously glum.

Glum. (But definitely enjoying sofa snuggles.)

8 days old and doing his best Mr Burns from The Simpsons impression.

The calm after the ‘hysterics at 3am’ storm.

Things didn’t suddenly get better once we entered week three, but it was at this point that I realised I had to snap out of my misery and self pity, and began to see the woods for the trees. (I have no idea what that phrase means, but I think it’s contextually accurate.) Feeding had become infinitely better, I was getting more like 4 hours of broken sleep a night which was meagre but manageable, Frank and I had established some sort of daytime routine, and- wait for it- I was getting out and about, even if it was just to walk down to the corner shop to buy yet another pack of bourbon biscuits.

Much has happened between now and then. We’ve had the dreaded ‘colic’, on-going jaundice, dabbles with cranial osteopathy, a bout of mastitis, and a tongue tie division (and subsequent regrowth). I may well go back and expand on some of these events at some point, but given the time it’s taken me to share this particular passage of time, I wouldn’t hold your breath.

In the meantime, I want to say to any new mums what I was told again and again in those early weeks.

It does get better.

Infinitely better, in fact. He will still frequently and inexplicably scream the house down, his sleep is seriously questionable and I worry every day that I’m not doing this parenting lark very well. My breasts are unrecognisable, Paul and I get infuriated with each other far more often than we used to, and I still miss my independence immensely.

But I can now say that I am well and truly, head over heels in love with my little boy. I mean… look at him!

Calendar pose.

Til next time…

Sama xx

Paris & Joe: Tales From The Production Line

I hate to say it but I have really let the “wedmin” slip this month. As much as I envisaged having the Save the Dates made and sent out for the one-year-until-the-wedding countdown, it just hasn’t happened that way. The good news is that we did finally get around to making the ruddy things. The bad news is that I still have around 25 of them sitting on my shelf ready to be sent/hand delivered. I could give a thousand excuses including work, friends and moving, but in reality the wedding had just slowly slipped down the priority list. However, I did absolutely ADORE making the Save the Dates and I am so pleased with the finished result. There is something so satisfying about setting up a crafty production line and churning out card after pretty card.

So here is the final version:

Not quite the postcard style I had planned and the one and only reason for this is cost! Turns out that Save the Date post cards (or any post cards for that matter) are blooming expensive. We took a trip to Whitstable to find some vintage style Whitstable postcards, thinking we would use these and then stamp our message on the back. I fell in love with some screen printed corrugated postcards in a little artists shop, but at £2.50 a pop Joe dragged me away to be consoled with cod and chips. Then, one lunchtime I was browsing through Paperchase when I came across some really pretty foiled cards in all sorts of bright and whacky patterns. So Paperchase came to the rescue with their lovely embellished numbers and at £4 for 8 cards, all was well in the world again.

The English Stamp Company provided our lovely lobster stamp and Save the Date stamp, and I really cannot recommend them enough. I know that Jenny also used them for her Save the Dates and they are just so helpful and the stamps arrived within a few days. I also purchased some gold embossing powder and an embossing gun from them, which gives that raised finish. After continuing to fail miserably at getting the stamping juuuuust right (did I mention that crafts turn Joe into some kind of mental person?) I was demoted from stamping duties to permanently sit with the embossing gun, which is essentially a teeny tiny hairdryer.

All in all it took three and a half people (my flower girl Belle popped along for the ride), 6 hours and approximately £80 to make 50 x Save the Dates. People have been wondering whether the cards are a hint to the colour scheme but I am sorry to disappoint, although I suppose they do fit with the “bright” theme. The colour scheme is still up in the air with no sign of coming down just yet and I am quite happy with that. I like to change my mind and the closer to the wedding that I actually make a final decision the better, I say.

I have been rather decisive about hair and makeup however! Originally I wanted to do my own makeup as I hate that trowelled on look that I see on so many brides at the moment. I know every bride says they want to look “natural” but I really do! Then I had my makeup done as a bridesmaid for my dad’s wedding last week and I absolutely loved it and it’s always nice to feel a bit pampered too. Two days later I booked both the hairdresser and makeup artist and ta-dah! another thing can be ticked off the list.

Bridesmaid-ing.

Speaking of ticking things of the list I may have ticked another teeny tiny thing off the list last week… the dress! But I think I will save that for next time.

Paris xx

The Frank Diaries: His Arrival

I have given birth.

The majority of you will know this already due to my social media updates, but if you’re an occasional blog reader, you may have been wondering why it’s all gone a bit quiet about these parts of late.

Life has changed.

Meet Frank.

Four weeks old today, Master Frank William Hemsley is entirely responsible for my radio silence. I’ve been attempting to write this blog post since the week after his arrival but have just managed a paragraph here and there before he’s required my attention again, or I’ve chosen sleep instead, or more visitors have arrived, or I’ve just decided to stare at his face in total and utter shell shock.

I want to talk and talk. I want to go in to vivid detail about the first few days, about our feeding dramas, the baby blues, the devastation that is severe sleep deprivation, the endless googling, and, of course, the moments of stupendous awe and wonder that wash over me when he’s asleep on my chest, or clasping my finger, or gurgling away happily in his daddy’s arms. And I will… in time. Hence why I’ve started The Frank Diaries. Entries might be super short- just a little snippet of life with Frank I feel compelled to share in a spare moment. Or they might be a little longer, written over a few days or weeks as this post has.

Many of you may not be interested in baby stuff, but life with a newborn is all-consuming so I’m afraid I’m finding it rather hard to focus on anything else at the moment! I have wedding updates from Jennie and Paris to share, as well as Part 2 of my Utterly Wow 2015 Season post… but I’m hoping for now you will indulge me and my need to talk baby.

But first… his birth story.

A couple of days before…

At my 39 week midwife appointment I asked for a membrane sweep. I wasn’t desperate to have him then and there but I really didn’t want to be two weeks late and hoped the sweep would just move things along a little bit. After 2 minutes of painful prodding and poking up there, my nice midwife peeled off her gloves with a shake of her head. My cervix was high and to the side- which meant it didn’t look like labour was imminent. I thanked her anyway for inflicting such pain upon me unnecessarily (although I had noone to blame but myself), and gingerly went about my day.

At 1.30am that night I woke up in some discomfort. After going for a wee, I got back in to bed and the back ache began. Two hours of ouch ouch OUCH surges that felt almost on top of each other and had me lying awake wondering if this was the start of something. At 3.30am I downloaded a contractions app, crept downstairs to a dark living room and began timing. They were roughly every 8 or 9 minutes lasting about 40 seconds each. Painful, but bearable. At around 6.45am I took my oblivious husband a coffee and informed him that I believed I was in early labour. Ever the gallant knight, he leapt out of bed to get me some paracetamol, propped me up in bed with supportive pillows, and finished packing the hospital bag in preparation for our imminent departure.

Ah, who am I kidding? Bleary-eyed and just a little bit dubious, he questioned my claims, thanked me sarcastically for having an early sweep when he’d wanted me to wait it out, and asked if he could go in to work still as he had an important meeting. Of course, I knew from friends’ experiences and reading too many online birth stories that early labour can take hours and even days, so I allowed him to leave me on the condition that he’d come home immediately if things ramped up. As such he didn’t need to. The contractions continued steadily all day and he arrived home at 5pm to find me bent over the birthing ball with a TENS machine attached to my back like a total cliché. By this point the contractions were every 2-4 minutes lasting a minute each, so on my third pleading phone call to the hospital, they allowed us to make our way in to be assessed.

After a lengthy wait in triage due to a lady giving birth in the corridor toilet outside our room (!), a nice but somewhat distracted midwife told me I was 2-3cm dilated- not enough to stay at the hospital, much to my despair. Back home we went in a car journey from hell, with the instruction to have some dinner and a bath and they would see me back at the hospital later on that night, they were sure. Contractions had really ramped up by this point, and after managing a couple of mouthfuls of rice whilst bent over the birthing ball (I avoided the chilli as really didn’t want to see it make an unwelcome reappearance later on), I waddled to the loo only to discover I had begun bleeding quite heavily. We were back at the hospital within an hour and a half.

The bleeding was a concern so at 3-4cm dilated they allowed me to stay, this time hooked up to a machine so they could monitor baby’s heart rate and the contractions which, by now, were excruciating. It’s worth pointing out that Paul had truly stepped into his gallant knight shoes by this point and upon my very un lady-like commands was leaping up to furiously knead my lower back as each surge swept in. Birth partner brownie points to him.

About 9.30pm we were told a room was ready for me in Delivery Suite and I waddled round, clinging on to Paul for dear life. “And this is the room you’ll be having your baby”, declared a young, smiley midwife, as she showed us in to a vast, clinical and totally unremarkable hospital room. I thanked her anyway (I was half expecting her to reveal the ‘room rate’ next, Four In A Bed stylee), and veered straight for the nearest piece of furniture I could bend over.

My birthing midwife arrived and introduced herself at this point, and I found myself begging for pain relief, to which she completely flummoxed me by saying “Sure, what would you like? Epidural? Pethadine? Gas and air?”. For some reason I thought an epidural would only be offered when I was in the throes of active labour or when I’d exhausted every other possibility, but my ability to think rationally or decisively had, by this point, completely vanished. I looked bewilderedly at Paul who suggested I start with gas and air which the midwife proceeded to get ready for me.

Still standing (I think- it all becomes a bit of a blur at this point), with the next contraction came an extreme pressure down below. Having watched way too many episodes of One Born Every Minute, I knew this was something I should make the midwife aware of, who seemed intrigued by this announcement and told me to get on the bed so she could assess me. “Do you want the good news?” she asked, after a few seconds of poking and stretching, “you’re 10cm dilated.”

I genuinely don’t think I have ever been as shocked in my entire life, and my response (something along the lines of: “SHUT THE F**K UP”) I suspect conveyed this. To have gone from 4cm to 10cm in around 40 minutes went some way to explaining why I’d been bleeding so heavily, but having glanced at the clock when we came in the room and thinking I would most likely be labouring all night, I couldn’t believe that it was time to push and that it was very possible I’d be giving birth THAT DAY.

The next and final half an hour is a little more difficult to recollect, as by now I was sucking furiously on the gas and air and speaking mainly gobbledygook. What I do know is as follows:

• The midwife briefly disappeared (presumably to get ready for the pushing stage) and whilst Paul tried to understand my attempts at gas and air fuelled communication, we became aware of an alarm sound that was coming from the heart rate machine and steadily getting louder.
• Paul popped his head out in to the corridor to alert someone, and within minutes a swarm of doctors, nurses and whoever else was passing by (or so it felt like) were in the room, wheeling in various bits of machinery and talking at me urgently.
• I heard “baby’s heart rate” and “forceps delivery”. I also heard my name lots. One woman raised the stirrups next to the bed and put my legs in them; another callously ripped the tube from my mouth that was feeding me the blissful high and told me to hold on to the bed handles instead.
• I briefly caught glimpse of the ginormous forceps and instantly wished I hadn’t.
• When it was time to push- “In to your bottom, Sama, like you’re doing a big poo“- I got way too het up about the technicalities. “Like I’m actually trying to push out a poo? What if I do poo? I don’t want to poo!”
• My fear of unwittingly releasing my bowels in front of an entire medical team meant the first three pushes I did were pathetic. I knew they were pathetic at the time, and yet I did them anyway. I effectively just tensed my stomach and groaned for effect. The doctors weren’t impressed and at this point starting shouting at me.
• Realising it was actually quite urgent, and with the numbing effects of the gas and air fading away, I pushed properly and I pushed long and hard. With shouts of encouragement from everyone around me, and a doctor pulling on the forceps as hard as she could (I swear she was pushing against the bed with her foot), his head crowned and a baby’s cry filled the air which was simultaneously surreal, terrifying and wonderful.
• Cue a very surreal minute as we waited for the next and final contraction: me, so grateful and relieved the hard part was over, Paul, glancing down to look at his first borne’s head and seeing a view of his wife he would never be able to unsee.

And with a final push this little purple alien was pulled out of me and plonked on my chest, crying as loud and as hard as he possibly could. Due to the forceps and the speed in which he must have been forced down my birth canal, he looked completely bashed up. I’d like to say I felt instant love but it wasn’t like that. I felt a connection, no doubt about that, but the main feeling I had was that of shock and bewilderment. He was here. This was my son. This was Frank.

Holy shitballs.

Minutes old.

16 hours old and fresh out of the boxing ring.

‘Til the next time I make it to the laptop…

Sama xxx

Jennie & Andy: Colour Schemes and Bridesmaids Dresses

This is my first real post from long distance wedding planning, and I’m pleased to tell you it’s going surprisingly well! So far most communication with suppliers has been via email, so no change there really. Mostly it’s just really exciting to be doing this wedding planning thing together again. There is something rather lovely too about being back with Andy, and being able to crack open a bottle of wine on a Sunday evening and start searching you tube for the wedding playlist. We inevitably end up stuck in the 80s and it’s all down hill from there!

Today though I’m going back to some of the planning that happened before I left England. First up, the colour scheme.

When I was younger I was never one of those girls who knew exactly what their dream-wedding day would be like. I did, however, always know I was going to have a red colour scheme. It would be a dark red wedding, with bridesmaids dressed head to toe in burgundy (probably inspired by a red velvet party dress I had at the time – oh so very 90s!), and huge arrangements of red roses.

Now though, as much as I do love a red wedding, I much prefer softer colours, especially for the summer. This is the one part of wedding planning so far, except for the dress of course, that Andy has given me complete free reign with. With full permission to do as I choose I got stuck into mood board creation. My initial thoughts were towards a white wedding – Bridesmaids in white, white roses, and enormous bunches of Gypsophila everywhere. A full on white scheme though has quite a sense of elegance about it and, really, we’re not exactly elegant people.

What I’ve finally decided upon is a very English country garden palate. Think blush pinks, soft creams, summery sage greens, and a splash of gold glitter. Does anyone else feel a bit pretentious talking about colour schemes? It’s not pink its blush, don’t you be giving me any Barbie tones. Its sage green, lets be very specific on this one!

Pretty, summery goodness.

Hand in hand with the colour scheme decision, came the bridesmaids’ dresses. The bridesmaids’ dresses were something that had been worrying me from the very start. I’m lucky (or greedy?!) enough to have six lovely friends who have agreed to be my bridesmaids. I’m lucky too, and incredibly thankful, that they’ve all been very relaxed about their dresses. At the moment they’re scattered across the globe: 3 in England, 1 in Scotland, 1 in Hong Kong, and 1 currently on her way between Eastern Europe and New Zealand. It didn’t take too much time comparing diaries to realise that the next time they will all actually be in one place is the wedding itself. There was never going to be a date when we would be able to shop together. With one of the girls away travelling until next summer, asking them to pick there own dresses didn’t seem fair either. The only real option was for me to get the dresses, and cross my fingers they all fitted and suited the girls.

More colour scheme inspiration, plus the Two Birds dresses that didn’t quite make the cut.

Finding the dresses took a few shopping trips with my UK based maids. At first I had my eye on pink and cream floor length Two Birds gowns. I liked the way they could be wrapped in so many different ways, so they could match without actually being matchy-matchy. As they come in a ‘one size fits all’ style, they seemed like the perfect solution too for the girls that wouldn’t have the chance to try on the dresses until a few days before the wedding. When I actually got two of the girls to try them on though, I was a bit disappointed. When my friend Lucy tried one on, I could tell from her face that she just wasn’t comfortable. With each dress carrying a £250 price tag, I couldn’t justify anything less than amazing. The Two Birds dresses were out of the running.

The dresses that have made the cut are nothing like my original thoughts, but they are ones which the girls are much more comfortable in. They were also considerably more budget friendly, much to Andy’s relief! In fact I found them in the sales, and had a few stressful hours of should we, shouldn’t we, with the only bridesmaid I was with at the time. After going away, and coming back again, we decided to risk it, and bought as many as we could, guessing the sizes and hoping for the best. Luckily a panicked Internet search that night managed to provide the sizes we were missing. So far 4 of the girls have been able to try them, and I’m very relieved to say they fit perfectly, and everyone is happy so far.

Fingers crossed the final two fit…!

Has anyone else bought dresses for absent bridesmaids? How did it turn out on the day?

Jennie x

My Utterly Wow 2015 Season: Part One

If you like real weddings then you’ve come to the right place today. With my Utterly Wow 2015 season done and dusted, I think it’s time for a little jaunt through the generally awesome weddings I’ve planned, designed, styled and coordinated this year. This is an image heavy post, so grab a brew, settle down and enjoy Part 1…

A Laid Back Garden Party

Kicking off the season were Danielle and Lewis who eloped to California last year and wed on a cliff overlooking the Big Sur. Back home, they wanted to do the whole thing again in front of their family and friends, so enlisted me to help them plan a big party in their back garden in Bexley, Kent… handily just a couple of miles down the road from me! They were determined to have a relaxed, happy day without breaking the bank, but with 150 guests some very careful planning, sourcing and budgeting was required.

The chalkboards were all done by my own fair hands, and I’ve got to give a big shout out to Joanne Truby who I’ve wanted to work with for a long time, and who provided the beautiful flowers. This couple and their families were great fun to work with, and by all accounts the party continued long in to the night…

Awesome photography by Chris Deller Photography

Super Pretty in West Sussex

Next came Sarah and Oli, who introduced me to the fabulous Grittenham Barn in West Sussex. I first met Sarah way back in Autumn 2013 when she was feeling a bit overwhelmed with the prospect of planning a wedding and wanted to chat about how I could potentially assist. In the end this pint-sized beauty was a-ok planning a most splendid day on her own, but she did ask me to coordinate for her, and of course, I was more than happy to oblige.

A gorgeous, relaxed, flexible venue, flowers in tin jars, a stunning bride and a cake table even more heaving than my own, this pretty June wedding was just a delight from start to finish.

Supplier shout-outs to Alexandra’s Kitchen who were great to work with, and Source Images for the beautiful photos.

Photography by Source Images

A Whimsical and Playful London Wedding

Now I know you shouldn’t have favourites, but I think Natalie and Steve were up there this year. My first London wedding, this gorgeous pair got hitched at the top of the National Theatre, before boarding a boat at Festival Pier for an hour and a half of  drinks and canapés, and finally docking at Westminster Boating Base in Pimlico where they ate and danced the night away. Hired in my favourite capacity of designing, styling and coordinating, Natalie and Steve practically gave me full creative reign and I loved every second.

Working with a colour scheme of mint, peach and gold, I wanted to have fun with this styling, and so made two large paper garland backdrops for both the ceremony and the reception venues, as well as hand-writing the place name cards and vintage mirror table plan. We had a giant ‘bouquet’ of balloons for Natalie and Steve to guide their guests along Southbank to Festival Pier, and at Westminster Boating Base (which is actually a pretty tricky space to style due to the low ceilings and venue limitations) we went all out on the tables, with sparkly, chevron runners from Gilded Linens, mint goblets and mis-matched glass candle sticks from Classic Crockery, and pretty, pretty flowers from Pip Lowe.

Natalie and Steve went with several of my supplier recommendations, with Handmade Food providing the BBQ feast and Kate Ruth Romey creating gorgeous, bespoke stationery and paper goods. The dream team was complete when Flood The Floor (my own wedding band) brought the house down in the evening, and these guys partied hard. A brilliant, brilliant wedding.

Humungous thank yous to Emmie Scott for capturing the day so brilliantly, and to the lovely (and equally pregnant) Bec from Heart Shaped Weddings who assisted me on the day.

Images by Emmie Scott Photography

Love and Laughter Abound in South London

Ahhhh, Laura and James’ fab wedding had me finally working at Asylum in Peckham- an amazing deconsecrated chapel I’ve wanted to work at for yonks. This fun-loving pair booked me for my hugely popular On The Day Coordination service, and I loved bringing their day to life- despite it being one of the hottest days of the year!

Laura and James kept the decor clean and simple (you really don’t need to do much in that fab venue!), with a fresh colour palette and hugely thoughtful favours from around the world for their lucky guests. In the evening guests hopped on a London bus and headed to The Pepys pub in the city where the partying continued well in to the night.

Marianne Chua was behind the lens, and if you’re after fun, quirky and real reportage photography than she is most definitely your girl!

Images by Marianne Chua Photography

I’m a lucky wedding planner, right? There are three more weddings to come in Part Two (one of which is going to be on Love My Dress very soon as it features a certain Lovette), and I tells ya, they’re all pretty special.

Sama xx

Maternity Leave: The First 2 Weeks

With nearly two weeks of maternity leave under my belt, I feel compelled to share a little bit about how I’m feeling with the whole ‘not going to work’ thing. Work, of course, being my full time job managing the bridal boutique. I’m only on semi maternity leave from Utterly Wow as you can never fully switch off when you’re self-employed. My 2015 season may be done but of course I am securing next year’s clients, catching up on admin etc etc. I’m virtually work free for the next couple of months though- yippee!

As I alluded to in my last post, I’ve been looking forward to this period ever since I even started thinking about babies. Not because I don’t like my job at the boutique- I really love working at Blackburn Bridal and have been checking in regularly to see how they’re doing without me. (Absolutely fine, incidentally. And there was me thinking they’d fall apart without my insane management skillz. I’m not going to lie, I am disappointed.) No, I’d simply been looking forward to some ‘me’ time. I’ve worked hard for the last few years. Building a business around a full time job takes serious time and effort, and with a busy summer of weddings combined with making sure the running of the boutique was ‘handover-ready’, I was positively chomping at the bit to put my feet up and chill the hell out come the end of August.

Or at least I thought I was. Two weeks in and evidently I seem to be struggling with the whole ‘putting my feet up and chilling the hell out’ concept.

My problem is I like to be busy. I like to be active. I like structure and I like to be productive. A day off for me is seen as precious time to get things done, and is rarely spent lying around the house or taking a spontaneous jaunt to the seaside. I will often have some sort of ‘plan’ for the day (even on the most precious of days off, a Sunday) and come the evening I will sub-consciously look back and mentally tick off all the things I’ve done to make sure I’ve achieved enough to warrant not feeling like a bad person. It’s the same with activity. (Note I use the word ‘activity’ and not ‘exercise’.) I haven’t exercised regularly for a loooong time, but I do like to spend a large portion of my day on my feet and moving around. If I don’t I get restless legs and struggle to sleep, so spending a day on the sofa watching crappy films just isn’t going to cut it for me. I know, I’M WEIRD.

The first thing I did on Day 1 of ‘The Leave’ was write an epically long Shit I Want To Do Whilst On Maternity Leave list which is currently washi-taped to my office wall. I’d been compiling a list on my phone for the last couple of months and so transferring this list to an official colour-coded, category-divided spreadsheet seemed a great way to spend an hour. I know you want me to talk you through said list so here we go…

There are three main categories: Home Improvements, Work Life and For Fun.

Home Improvements consists of little jobs around the house that I’ve wanted to do for ages and just not had the time nor inclination for. There are the more appealing jobs such as putting together a gallery wall of family photos in my hallway, organising storage and finally making the wedding/honeymoon photo albums. And then there are the not-so appealing jobs like painting the bathroom ceiling, weeding the garden and cleaning the kitchen cupboards inside and out. (The latter gallantly bestowed upon me by my adoring husband.)

In my Work Life there is so much I want to do, from re-doing/updating my website and writing a book proposal, to the dreaded tax return, getting back to regular blogging, and research/prep for a new Utterly Wow endeavour (ooh, cryptic).

Finally there’s the For Fun category (are you still with me?). This comprises the more typical maternity leave activities such as packing my hospital bag, washing baby clothes, preparing freezer meals, baking, day time cinema trips etc. All the things that I should want to do but I know will inevitably make me feel like a lazy shitehawk.

As my Mum said bemusedly when she popped over earlier in the week and I showed her my list: “You’re not planning on doing this all now, are you?”

And here we come to the crux of the maternity leave quandary I find myself in, two weeks in. I want to get things done, now, before baby comes and reduces me to a sleep-deprived, sofa-dwelling crying mess with a boob permanently out. But equally I know I should take the time to relax, to nest, to read my hypno-birthing book and to spend a day baking a cake and then eating it all because… well, because I am 37 weeks pregnant and soon I’m going to be responsible for a tiny person, and these are the last few weeks of ‘just me’ time I’m ever going to have. Ever.

And I’ve literally only just realised the enormity of that sentence as I typed it. Wow.

So what have I been doing for the last fortnight other than procrastinating? Well, you can dress it up as ‘nesting’, I guess, but the real answer is shopping. Yes, I have spent the last two weeks BUYING THINGS. Not clothes shopping- although I did impulsively treat myself to a necklace and new autumn cardigan on a quick dash to Bluewater the other day. No, I’ve been thing shopping; things for my hospital bag, things for the baby’s room, things for the house, things that will actually enable me to tick certain jobs off my To Do list such as storage boxes, picture frames and weed killer. I can’t seem to let a day go by without spending money… and yet I also don’t seem to be getting a huge amount done. PROCRASTINATION OVERLOAD.

On the plus side, shopping of any description does make me insanely happy so I am having a rather pleasant time whilst I spend all my money and try to adjust to life on The Leave. And phase 1 of The Nursery Reveal is nearly ready to share, once a couple of rugs arrive next week. For now though, here’s a sneaky peek of a corner…

So talk to me, those of you who have babies. Did it take you a while to adjust to maternity leave or are you a natural at maxing and relaxing? How did you spend your time waiting for your tiny person to arrive, and if you could impart to me a word or two of wisdom, what would it be?

Sama xx