…and then you find that someone has already blogged it. http://www.stevewiens.com/2013/03/26/ten-words-that-describe-infertility/

I just found an old photo of my eldest when she was coming up two.  Apart from the fact that I think she looks absolutely gorgeous in it and I want to show her off to the world.  I thought it would be fun to get one of Jackson who is two in June (wow that went fast!) and put them on the same post. What is funny is even though Minnie was born in November and Jackson in June, they both turned two in the Autumn – aahh the weirdness of emigrating to the other side of the world. Anyways here’s the very lovely Minnie, Autumn 2011:And here’s the handsome Jackson, Autumn 2013: Spot the difference.

I realised last night that I was actually looking forward to my appointment at the dentist for two fillings.  I now know I was a fool as my entire mouth is numb, there is an ache in my jaw and the sound of drilling is still ringing in my ears.  Plus there is a dent in our bank balance that I would rather have spent on shoes. Bearing all that in mind, what kind of a week did I have that made me look forward to such mouth violation? My week contained  32 hours of work, visitors in the house who weren’t keen on children (eat my food, sleep in my house and wash your clothes in my machine – like my children peoples!), ferrying my children to various lovely friends houses to look after them while I did many hours of work with visitors, husband working 12 hour days and PMT like you wouldn’t believe. Highlights were… Minnie announcing for the tenth time that she doesn’t want me to be her mum anymore and …

My little girl’s middle name is Hope.  This is because when I had no hope, Minnie gave it back to me.  This person, when she was only five cells big, was my gift of hope. I will always be thankful to my daughter for that gift.  The Bible says, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life”. And I think if Minnie hadn’t been the little embryo that could, my heart would have been very sick indeed. I’ve been overwhelmed by how much I love Minnie this week.  Which is odd to me because she has been a right little madam, pushing boundaries, telling me she wants another mummy, being rude to visitors in our house, generally looking nothing like the daughter I would like to see as the result of my parenting!  I’ve had to discipline her so much, setting her boundaries and not letting her go over them (the harder part of the boundaries!).  I am exhausted. It has made me wonder about where we will be …

This week was the first week in the New Year that I am officially a working mum and Gareth is back to his day job.  We knew that my squeezing in 24 hours of work into an already busy week and only gaining 8 hours of total child free time was going to be somewhat of a challenge.  We warned ourselves that it would take a month of seeing what I needed to hand over to Gareth to find those productive hours at home and this week gave us the first glimpse of where I lack in available hours!  Thankfully it is halfway through January and the majority of Christchurch don’t go back to work until Monday or even later so it’s only me (and our bank balance) that’s noticed how few hours I’ve worked. I love working from home and working on a freelance basis.  I know it will be the best option for our family once I have work established and we’ve all got ourselves into the rhythm.  Gareth let me have the …

One of the very many things that changes when you have children is your experience, and therefore expectation, of holidays.  I categorise it in the list of changes that you hadn’t 100% signed up for when you decided to have children.  Sure you knew from friends who had gone before you that holidays wouldn’t be the indulgent luxuries they had once been but I hadn’t realised just how much holidays with children looks almost exactly like normal weeks with children! There are some subtle, and very welcome differences though…you get a sleep in until 8.30am every other day, which in turn gives you freedom to stay up past 10pm a few nights in a row.  When one or both of your children have their daily tantrum on your local supermarket floor there is another with you to share the humiliation and in fact will carry out said child so you can finish your shop in peace.  You get to be more imaginative with what you do in the day and can pack it out with …

I find being mum to two small children really stressful, I think more than the average mum because I am a certified control freak and a nearly three year old and 16 month old will not be controlled, some days they won’t even be gently guided.  I’m finding it doubly hard this week so thought I’d share a couple of funny stories from the past few weeks. First of all, the quick wit of Minnie:  I often treat her to a juice bottle that is covered in garish pink patterns and Dora the Explorer on, you know the type, allegedly water but really highly flavoured and full of trash.  I buy her the bottle as a treat and then for the rest of the week I fill it with water – how clever am I.   Anyways one dinner time I thought I would educate myself on exactly what’s in it and picked up the bottle to read through the ingredients.  My suspicions were right, seriously no natural stuff in there.  Minnie starts screaming at me, …

I am breaking my blogging silence for words that really haven’t been said (see title of my blog site), but they have been simmering under my breath for quite some time now.  The following is to all you mums, young and old, who come across the path of me and my little ones during our days together.  It’s a little harsh but frankly, so are you! When I am standing in your shop, at your till, buying whatever essential item your shop sells that my family needs to go on with its week and my son begins to cry because he hates shopping and can’t stand being stationary, strapped into his pushchair….please don’t stop what you’re doing to tell me he’s crying, to tell him he looks tired and suggest he perhaps needs to go to sleep.  Instead carry on with your job, sell me the item, take my money and you will see, the moment I get to push him out of your shop the crying will stop, he will be quiet, peace will …

We went to the Farmer’s Market for our gourmet porridge yesterday morning like we do most Saturdays (I ran there so totally earned my whisky soaked raisins and vanilla custard topping).  A new thing this weekend was face painting, I was tempted but instead we spent our $2 on Minnie. This is for the grandparents, enjoy.