What mustn't you do with.......?

In the last week we've had to say the phrase "what mustn't you do with (insert object)?" quite a few times and it all started when last Friday I found out that Isla had cut another little girls hair at nursery. I'm friendly with the girl's parents and I received a text from her mum saying that her daughter had a lot less hair this afternoon than this morning. If anyone else was telling me this story I would have probably burst out laughing but I just felt really fed up about it. What were the nursery doing letting them play in such a way with scissors? I was aware that they used little craft scissors but I had thought that they were supervised. Scissors had already caused a bit of a furore last year when Isla was accused by another parent of cutting the hair of his daughter when she was only 2. That time was slightly more awkward as I was told this by the father while at soft play (I'd never met him before but his daughter started trumpeting out loud that "Isla cut my hair!"). The nursery hadn't even told me anything about it. At the time I found it hard to believe because at home Isla couldn't even hold scissors properly let alone be able to cut a small plait off a girls head (she had Afro hair - there were lots of small plaits). So on approaching the nursery on that occasion they said that they weren't sure who'd done it therefore they couldn't tell any single one parent. It then came about that it wasn't Isla it was her little friend who'd done it, but the other parent was determined to believe the word of his 2 year old daughter.

So since then I thought that scissors might be monitored better although I think I have become complacent of late believing Isla to be a lot more responsible than she actually is. What actually happens when it is described does sound absolutely hilarious. The CCTV shows 4 girls playing hairdressers with each other, they all take it in turns to sit and have their hair brushed and 'styled' and in one little girls experience have an actual cut!!! The long and short of this is that I have spoken to the nursery and so have Isla's friend's parents and they have convinced us that scissors will be more closely monitored and will not be out to use over lunchtime where there is a period of children being picked up from a morning session and dropped off for the afternoon and nursery staff are not so focused on an activity such as craft. Staff who should have been watching the children more closely have also been disciplined. I feel that the situation has been dealt with and hope that it doesn't happen again. This incident triggered a whole weekend of me and the OH saying 'What mustn't we do with scissors' over and over again. "Cut hair" comes the solemn answer!

I mentioned that I've been complacent lately too and so following the scissor incident came the drawing on the walls incident! I really didn't think that this would happen to us. I felt like we'd got past the stage where she might do this, that she would understand that the walls aren't for BLACK FELT TIP PEN! No, not quite and so our next phrase was "What mustn't you do with pens?" .......ah, it's so easy this parenting lark.

Life Gets Complicated

Tomorrow I go back to work.

My days are going to be very different to how they have been the last 9 months, they are going to get very complicated. Right now they are like this:

Get up anytime between 5.30 and 6.30. Stick Cbeebies on the TV. Milk for kids, tea for me. Administer liquid refreshments, appear to enjoy Postman Pat. Make breakfast, requests taken for chocolate but dismissed and the usual porridge given. Clear up breakfast. Noah likes to chuck it around a fair bit. Take Noah up for a nap, dash in the shower after asking Isla to be a good girl and just SIT and watch TV for a bit. During the shower get called to come with tissue to wipe her bottom, she's done a poo "OK darling, well can you just stay put till I get downstairs, I'm washing my hair". Hurriedly finish shower, rush downstairs to make sure she's not decorated the furniture in poo, she has stayed put, she is great at listening to me I decide.

Usually we're out in the morning, to friends, or playgroup or one of our mums is over. Lunch starts around 11.30, followed by another nap (unfortunately only Noah!). Watch a film as a bit of quiet time for Isla. OH comes home from work and then we generally spend the whole afternoon together as a family, dinner at 5ish followed by bath and bedtime routine.

It's also possible to do some chores (well not many, but some). Life like this is fun but it is also very tiring so now I anticipate feeling even tireder when I throw work into the mix. Especially with a night feed thrown in and the occasional visit to Isla's bedroom for some reason or other.

My week will now look like this:

Monday
ME: work in London from 8.45am to 3.15pm. My commute is 1 hour 15 mins.
Children looked after by my mum at our house until OH gets home from work around 2pm and I'll get home around 4.45pm

Tuesday
As above but MIL doing the childcare
We then have to get Isla over to my parents (30 mins drive) to stay the night so she can be looked after by my mum who will also be looking after my niece
Wednesday
ME: work from home 8.30am - 12.30pm
I take Noah to nursery before work
Isla is with my mum
We then have to fetch Isla or she gets returned and then we take Noah to stay the night at MIL's

Thursday 
ME: work 9.30-5.30 at the office
Isla at nursery full day
Noah is with MIL

Friday
As above except I have to get both of them to nursery before work.

It's worth saying at this point that I'm on my own in the mornings, the OH leaves for work at 5.30am. So my main panic is how the f*ck am I going to get ready in the mornings - especially on Friday's when I have to get all 3 of us ready and at the nursery for 8am and then me on a train by 0809!? I'd laugh if it wasn't happening to me. At this moment I'm typing this and feeling a big knot building itself up in my chest and my head hurts.

So tomorrow I'll have some idea on how this all works and I'll see if I've got what it takes to be a mum of 2 and work 30 hours a week - laughable that this is called part time really - course it bloody isn't!

Favourite Illustrations - Nursery Decor Ideas

Before Isla arrived and I had time on my hands to plan her new bedroom I put my mind to how I could make it a bit different from the usual pink fest (we knew we were having a girl), and so I started to think about some of the things I loved when I was growing up and what came to mind first was how I loved the stories of Roald Dahl. They fired up my imagination and I consumed his books like I do chocolate nowadays! As well as the wonderful stories I also adored the illustrations by Quentin Blake that went with the books and I believe that their partnership was amazing, they really complented eachother.

I can't wait until Isla can devour my favourite Roald Dahl stories, The Twits, George's Marvellous Medicine and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. In the meantime though I wanted to impress on her my love of Quentin Blake's illustrations and so she has 3 of his framed prints in her nursery, my favourite one being of the Oompa Loompa's. We also have Matilda and Sophie and the BFG. We bought these from the webstore online at The Roald Dahl Museum. She knows their names and they get a 'night - night' at bedtime along with the menagerie of soft toys and all the wall sticker animals (see previous post Gorgeous Wall Stickers).

Perhaps you have favourite childhood characters that you could somehow incorporate into your little ones nursery decor? Another favourite of mine was Rhubarb and Custard and I've framed 2 cute greetings cards I found of them that I instantly I loved and they are also hanging up above her cot.

I love how Isla's room has a variety of things to look at and I hope as she grows up she loves it too.

The Year that was 2010!

Last year was predominantly a year of getting to know my baby some more and a return to work from Maternity leave. Here are some highlights of my year. 

In January it really felt like the countdown was on to my return to work and on reflection I think I spent too much time worrying and thinking about going back than making the most of the time I had left!

I always hate February, given that it's the shortest month of the year, to me it always feels like the longest. Always so dark, dreary and gloomy that I like to get it over and done with as quickly as possible, so lets move on to....

March: This was the month that Isla started nursery and how I hated those early days! The first day that I left her there for any length of time my hubbie and I went into town to do some shopping. I thought it was meant to feel like freedom and that I'd feel like the old me, but instead I just felt rotten! In the car on the way there I cried continuously. I walked round the shops in a daze with tears in my eyes and to make myself feel less guilty for being away from her I bought her some new things. I practically ran up the 45 degree angle hill to the nursery to fetch her to find that of course she was fine and had a better day than I had!

April: Back to work and it was like I'd never left!! I reduced my hours from 5 days to 4 days, with my day off being mid week so I didn't have to be parted from my little imp for more than 2 days - this fitted in perfectly with my best friend who also adopted the same work hours and so we have lovely Wednesday's together with our children playing together.

I also completed a swimathon for Marie Curie Cancer Care (see blog post The Big C) - 2.5km of breast stroke, back stroke, front crawl and by the end doggie paddle (!) in a time of 1 hour 9 minutes.

May: Isla's first shoes from Clarks. I loved that shopping experience - they take a photo of your child in their first shoes. It made it feel quite special.

June: More fund raising with my sister this time for Race For Life. In total raised over £800 with both of my efforts combined, so I was extremely proud of myself and as was my Dad!

July: The eagerly anticipated 1st birthday! Her homemade birthday card made with my own fair hands was shown on CBeebies much to my excitement!

We had a couple of get togethers planned but Isla was ill on the day (made for a bit of an anti-climax!), so we ended up with a small get together a bit further down the month. She had a lovely time and me and the OH felt very proud of ourselves at having survived the year.

September: Our first holiday abroad with a child on a plane! Hmmm, I'm not in a hurry to repeat that experience.....more on that at a later date....lets just say I learnt that holidays will never be the same again.

December: The month of snow (what a drag!) and Christmas! Our second Christmas as a little family and we were also in the knowledge that another baby is on the way. Good times!

Here's to a healthy and happy 2011 for everyone! Our baby girl is growing into a real little lady and I can't wait to see how she grows this year and adapts to life as a big sister!

This post also features on SuperAmazingMum pop over there and check her out, she's a lovely lady!