Gok Wan and the perfect boots

As some of you may know, I have a bit of a thing for Gok Wan.

There he is. Lovely man. I don't fancy him or anything... or maybe I do... I don't know... but anyway, I like him a lot and I want him to be my best friend. I used to love watching Gok's Fashion Fix when we had a TV licence, much to D's disgust!

So imagine my delight when Gok popped up in my dream the other night.

In the dream, D had got tickets to see a Gok fashion show for my birthday. I had a cunning plan that I would dress shockingly badly, then Gok would see that I needed his help, kit me out like a model in free clothes, and we'd be friends forever. And being a dream, it all went according to my plan! I wore these hideous boots that I would never be seen dead in except in an attempt to lure Gok into eternal friendship, and when he saw me in the car park he came and took me by the hand to help me. We went into the studio and I got all my beautiful new clothes and was feeling like Cinderella, then... THE PERFECT BOOTS!

Haha, I have been saving up for beautiful boots for months, so my subconscious obviously knew how much I needed them! In the dream they were these gorgeous jazzberry suede stilettos, about knee high, oh my.

Something like this, but without the platform and, obviously, a boot. I would never buy something this impractical in real life, as it'd be a good 3 years before I could safely wear them without falling over a small child and possibly taking someone's eye out, but what are dreams for, hey?

Gok decided I looked so good he'd put me in the show, so I got to walk down the catwalk in my amazing, free, designer outfit, then the real models brought me flowers and a 3D jigsaw puzzle of London attractions! It was one of the best nights of my life!

I did buy my boots about a week ago, but they ended up being flats and chocolate brown. I do love them though :) And they were half outlet price (about a quarter normal price), so bonus!

Being the favourite

There is a quotation I've heard before that I just love. I don't even know who it's by, but it goes:

To the world, you may be just one person.

To to one person, you may be the world.

I just love that! I've always loved the quotation, but since having children it's meant so much more to me.

Because these little people, they come into our lives so helpless and dependent. And we love them so much and so instantly. We give to them until we feel we cannot possibly give another second or another thing, and then we somehow give a lot more!

And the most wonderful thing about that is that they love us absolutely!

When Benjamin was tiny and I was battling with post-natal depression, my Mum said to me, "You are the most important person in his life." and at the time it wasn't what I wanted to hear. I felt like I wanted to escape my responsibilities and be free. But gradually I realised that I wanted to be that person, I wanted to be his mummy, I wanted to be the most important person in his world. That's one of the reasons I decided not to go back to work, but to be a stay at home mum.

Wanting to take care of them; with Ben, it happened the first time he put his arms up to ask me to pick him up. With Amelia it was the first time I laid eyes on her.

I don't want someone else to be the most important person in their lives, I want them to come to me when they fall over and hurt themselves, and I want to be the one they look over to when they do something very clever. How could I possibly give that to someone else? Obviously some people have to, and some people choose to, but not me!

I have come to realise, even more now that I have two children and my attention is always split, that I don't have to be perfect. Neither of my kids are sitting there with a scorecard, rating my performance and loving me in proportion to that. They love me completely whatever I do: no matter what. As long as I am enough, that's enough.

D said once that I was 3 people's favourite- it was just an incidental comment but it meant a lot to me. Because I am! And because I know it won't always be that way, and that's okay, but for now it is glorious. Even in the middle of the night when it has to be me, and even when both kids are sad at the same time and for both of them it has to be me! It's exhausting, but it's wonderful.

Bath time!

My boy loves the bath!

Bath time is Benjamin's special time with Daddy. I got them these letters last year to play with in the bath. They stick to the walls and the tub, absolutely brilliant.

He loves having his toothbrush to chew, ahem, I mean brush and splashing like a loon. No matter how many times he has splashed, there is always a new and exciting way he can get water on the floor! It just cracks me up!

Jeggings

I have finally found someone who actually looks good in jeggings! Check it out:

You're gorgeous Amelia!

Washer woman

You know, you wouldn't think it would be so difficult to keep clean clothes in the cupboards. We have a washing machine which is also a dryer, and I am home all day every day. How could it be such a big deal??

Okay, so it's not really. Keeping on top of the laundry is one of the few things that I can handle, even with a brand new baby in the house. But it is hard work!

Now that there are 4 of us, and two of us tend to need more than one set of clothes some days (most days for the smallest!), I need to do a load pretty much every day, certainly every day I am home. Our washing machine is only 4kg so it's not a very big load, and with it also being the dryer that means I can't have clothes washing and drying at the same time.

I like to delude myself that someone is actually interested in this! But I feel like we have washing around the house all the time in one form or another. The laundry basket brought down to the kitchen waiting to load the machine, wet clothes in the machine waiting to be dried, dry clothes in the machine waiting to be taken out, clean clothes in the living room waiting to be folded, folded clothes in the bedroom waiting to be put away, and of course the delicates that can't go in the dryer and get hung on hangers in the bedroom for a couple of days. It just goes on and on! Occasionally I'll have a couple of days off and then I'm confronted with a mountain, which is even less appealing.

I think that's enough complaining.

Can you imagine having to do all of this by hand? Having to wash it all with your hands and wring it all out then have it hanging around to dry? (I hang mine when it's dry, but I can't stand it hanging round the house. There's literally nowhere we can put the airer that it's not blocking a used doorway, and we don't have an airing cupboard.) I can't even imagine what it must have been like before washing machines were a necessity.

I like to remind myself how lucky I am :) Now stop blabbering on woman and get some ironing out!

Fat bottomed girls

I am so impressed with myself, I went for a bike ride yesterday. There is literally only one time in the day I can get out on my bike. When both kids are in bed, if we haven't eaten yet I can go for a quick ride while dinner is cooking. This is the only time when I don't have children around AND I'm not too full AND it's not too close to bedtime.

I have been thinking about it for a while, but it just seemed so much to get organised, but even though I was only out for 15 minutes it was definitely worth it.

Here are some things I pondered during my cycle:

1) If you haven't ridden your bike in about a year, you need to pump up your tyres before you go, especially if there are speed bumps near your home. Before I was heavily pregnant with Ben I used to cycle to work every day, so I bought a pretty good bike for that, but it is no good at all if your tyres aren't plump. The brakes seem to have stayed very sharp though.

2) If it's November, wear a jacket and especially GLOVES!

3) If there is something you love doing, make time for it. After a rubbish day I was so happy because I was doing something for ME at last.

4) Everyone has 15 minutes to exercise. I have been deluding myself for the past 2 months that I don't have time, but I actually do. Of course it helps if you have an amazing husband who is willing to cook dinner for you. And exercising makes me feel better. I miss the feeling of knowing my muscles and being in tune with my body: it's important to me.

5) I absolutely cannot WAIT to be able to go out with Amelia in the bike seat! I used to cycle around a lot with Ben, but obviously when I was pregnant and now that I have two children at home I am not able to do that. When Ben is in school I hope to get into it again.

This was a while ago, Ben was about 10 months I think.

A big boy bed

Look at this gorgeous little man:

He's had a haircut since then and I miss his lovely curls. It is still quite long though.

Anyhow, Ben is 2 and a quarter today and growing so quickly! He is brilliant: so funny, charming, kind, loving, strong, clever and independent. How such a small person can have so much personality is beyond me. To me it is absolute evidence that we were people before we were born.

He has worked out in the past week that he can climb out of his cot: arghhhhhhhhh!

See, I have been using his cot as a playpen of sorts when I go for a shower in the morning. He is usually very happy to choose a couple of toys to take upstairs after breakfast and play with in his cot, and I get a few minutes to shower, get dressed, stick some washing on etc. It's usually about 20 mins before he starts asking to come out, which is great. Since Amelia arrived it has been trickier, since Benjamin's thinking is that whenever the baby falls asleep it is 'Mummy and Ben time', whereas I'm thinking the first time the baby falls asleep is 'Quick! Must get clean from the dried on milk/spit/yogurt/baby wee/general smelliness of the previous day and night' time. Not hugely compatible.

And that means that my little superstar is no longer particularly impressed about going into his cot. So he makes a loud fuss and usually wakes Amelia up which means that no one gets what they want. Sigh.

When it does work (i.e. when I've sneaked upstairs with Amelia and Ben hasn't followed me making a loud noise AND she's gone into her moses basket without waking up AND he's chosen to go up to his cot without making so much noise she is disturbed before I get his door shut AND she miraculously sleeps more than 5 minutes), he plays for about 3 minutes then climbs out! The first time I was stunned to see him walking nonchalantly into the bathroom and saying 'Hey'. The second time I laughed. The third time I was like, 'Ben, how on earth are you doing that??' so he showed me! I couldn't believe how easy it was for him!

And now, after 4 days of it and one falling-out (falling out of the cot, not falling out with each other), I'm feeling that there's not much point putting him in there any more.

Sooooooo...

... the big boy bed!

This has been set up in his room for months. Ebay bargain! I kept telling him about it before we set it up, I said he'd have a special blanket and a pillow like mummy and daddy, and that he'd be able to get in and out himself and he'd be a big boy like daddy. And I was all excited about getting special Toy Story bedding for him. Then he saw it, and he was like Nuh-uh. He went over to it once and patted Buzz, and he's not voluntarily been near it since. I think Amelia has been on it more than he has!

The first night I said he was going in his big boy bed, he sobbed until I asked if he wanted his cot, to which he shouted 'YEAH!', so I put him in his cot. For a while I would ask him each night where he was going to sleep, cot or bed, and he's always cried and pointed at his cot. I've tried to help him get the idea by sitting on it together to read stories, or having a cuddle on there together but he always cries and points at the rocking chair. I don't get it!!!

Obviously I get that he's always slept in his cot and that's comforting to him. I often see him putting his feet up on the bars when he's falling asleep, or touching the sides with his hands. He has always been a creature of habit and loves his routines, so maybe it's just too much of a change for him. I don't think it's down to Amelia's arrival because I started trying to put him in the bed before she was born, and I've never said to him that we want the cot for her.

I just thought he'd be really excited to sleep in his Woody and Buzz bed, and be able to get out and play in the mornings. Maybe that just hasn't clicked yet.

We'll have Amelia in our room for another 4 months at least, so we're okay as long as she'll fit in the moses basket. I have a lovely stand for the moses basket (another eBay bargain), and it fits beside our bed easily so I can just scoop her out without even leaving the realms of the duvet, so it's a good arrangement. I just know that as soon as we acquire another cot for her to move into, Ben's going to suddenly be ready to move to the bed!