Tag Archives: mini-me

What’s in a baby name?

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There are many little sparks that can light the tension touch paper when you’re expecting.

After all when you’re waddling around unable to see your feet anymore and coping with back ache, questionable digestion, zero alcohol and ankles the size of Christmas puddings of course any badly timed ‘helpful comments’ from the other half could cause you to blow.

Probably why so many couples end up falling out over which name to pick for their impending arrival then.

Do you opt for something ‘sensible’ or get more creative? Do you decide to take the path of least resistance and opt for a name that runs in the family? Do you accept the fact that as the woman is the one who is actually going to have to push a pot roast through her nostril, so to speak, she should get more say?

Yes selecting names is a controversial business. And according to hubby because he had to ‘put up with me moaning’ for nine months he had just as much say in the matter as yours truly. Fair enough I suppose.

The reason for these ramblings is that babcentre.co.uk has today revealed the most popular 100 baby names of 2014. And if you’re wondering Muhammed and Sophie are the ones topping the charts.

According to the ‘headlines’ Arabic names are on the up, Royal names are on the way down, Eric and Harper are on the rise thanks to Simon Cowell and Brand Beckham and no one wants to name their kid Miley now because of the Cyrus’ evil twerking behaviour.

Unusual names ‘en vogue’ this year include Wren, Genisis, King, Apollo and Braxton. Presumably the latter is reserved for those who’ve experienced phantom labour pains?!

When deciding what to call mini-me and blue-eyed boy, hubby and I weren’t exactly on the same page.

Ever practical, hubby liked to wax lyrical about choosing names that you wouldn’t have to go through life explaining and that you wouldn’t be bullied over. Plus, as he kept saying, in his opinion you don’t name a child on a whim of your own, you choose something they won’t be embarrassed by. One might imagine he’d take the same approach to choosing a fridge…

In fact if Which had customer reviews of names he could possibly have chosen on the basis of that.

I on the other hand made the very grave error of confiding in my mother which names I liked.

Not being backward in coming forward she professed strong opinions on both, said she ‘wasn’t sure’ which got me wobbling over the options, and then by the time I was due to pop said she’d ‘loved them from the start.’

Hmm, never EVER discuss baby name options with your mum.

In the end hubby and I opted for the only names we could actually agree on. At least there were two of them eh – and no we didn’t call our kid Braxton.

The Primary School Equation: How do you choose?

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Am I the only one who’s ever thought that old saying: ‘Your school days are the best of your life’ is a little bit glib? Or at least too black and white?

I have many very happy memories of my own school days but I was also bullied at various points so making sure mini-me ends up somewhere she feels loved, happy and accepted is hugely important to me.

Plus to be honest I can’t quite believe that we’ve actually got to the stage of picking a primary school for my beautiful baby girl – evidently not so small anymore! It all feels like a huge responsibility.

Where we live there’s one main village school that mini-me should automatically get into, which makes things easier and also harder in equal measure. Less stress over choice but more pressure to like it if you see what I mean.

Well last week hubby and I joined a big group of other potential parents on a tour of the school led by the headmistress about who we’d heard great things. First impressions were that she was quietly assured and trendy and reminded me of a ‘PR type’ who might work in Soho (not that you stereotype when you work in the media!)

Hubby was already stressed as I’d forgotten to book blue-eyed boy in for an earlier start at nursery so he was accompanying us in his sling complete with the hacking cough he has yet to shake off.

‘What if he starts screaming? What am I supposed to do, walk off and do a circuit of the school building? How’s that going to look?’ he asked indignantly.

It got the stock response. ‘Um, it’ll be fine.’

Fortunately I was saved by blue-eyed boy’s famous good nature and a few other parents who’d also accessorised with their under-ones. Plus the youngest was working his cuteness to our advantage – trendy headmistress even commented on how lovely he was!

Also BFF was there and both offspring prefer her to us anyway. Mini-me is frequently asking when she can move in…

Anyway us and the other parents were taken on a loop of the school umming and ahhing over the music room and the new library, trying to filter ‘quietly’ into various classrooms where we were followed by many pairs of small eyes as if animals in the zoo.

Quite freaky to think that hopefully next year mini-me will be one of them.

It also, and hopefully I’m not the only one to admit to this, got my competitive hackles up a bit. I found myself commenting to hubby that mini-me is ‘very musical’ so the school would be perfect for her.

Also I was quite pleased with myself for asking a semi-intelligent question about whether parents can get involved with school life, helping with reading etc.

Silly really, but I suppose as a parent you want to be accepted too just like you did when you were at school.

It’s all coming back to me now. My mum running the book stall every year at my school’s autumn fair and dad helping out with various things.

Waiting nervously for them to return from parents’ evenings to see what my teacher had to say about me.

That’s going to be me and hubby soon. Scarily grown up, for both us and mini-me…

Nice toes and naughty toes

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Ah ballet class, the place where all parenting life meets looking slightly harassed on a Saturday morning.

Since mini-me has been prancing around pretty much since the day she could stand (actually from memory she sported a mean bottom wiggle before this too…) hubby and I reasoned that turning three was probably a good time for her to start a proper dance class.

We’ve heard from friends with slightly older children about the ‘joys’ of ferrying various offspring to football, drama, choir, gymnastics etc. etc. after school or on a weekend morning, a la an unpaid taxi firm.

Fortunately for us this is still ahead – which is just as well as weekly one of us still ends up careering into the village hall car park just after the one class we have to make it to has started. But we’re never alone thankfully, which I find nicely reassuring.

In fact sitting outside mini-me’s beginners’ ballet half-hour is a really good way to remind yourself we’re all in this parenting malarkey together. And you don’t even have to talk to anyone to draw this conclusion – merely pretend to read your book while actually eavesdropping.

(Am I the only one who does this?!)

There’s always at least one of us with ‘mum flu’, that is spluttering into a tissue trying to convince yourself and others that you’re not ill, just a bit grumpy.

There’s the usual array of children hanging off parents’ legs and demanding snacks, the ‘dulcet’ tones of Peppa and her pals playing on a loop on someone’s iPad and the sound of someone coaxing a small person to ‘please do a wee.’

Last week one of the dads was loudly telling his friend how glad he was that his son hadn’t yet professed a desire to start ballet with his sister, as it could have been quite awkward having the only boy in the class.

A mum was picking out tiles from a catalogue while discussing the merits of various colour options, and several of us were gazing with amazement at the pint-sized ballerina with hair her mother had clearly slaved over for the best part of half an hour.

We’re talking not one solitary hair out of place, a curled ponytail, colour-co-ordinating ribbon in exactly the right hue of purple and feathers for crying out loud.

I’ll bet I wasn’t the only one thinking I really must allow time for more than just brushing mini-me’s hair next week.

But the other thing we all have in common, and this to me is the sheer joy of my lovely girl’s ballet class, is the visible pride in watching our offspring practise ‘nice toes and naughty toes’, waiting patiently in line to show the teacher their butterfly run and tippy-toeing around the hall to classics such as ‘I Do Like To Be Beside The Seaside.’

I love watching mini-me twirl and whirl with a delighted smile on her face as her little tutu floats behind her. I love her teeny yet perfect ballet slippers, and I love her uniform that has Royal Academy of Dance embroidered on the label.

Do I think she’ll grow up to be the next Darcey Bussell? Of course not, but it’s still nice to daydream for a few minutes.

Along with the other parents that is.

Smug Mums Incorporated

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It’s been a rather stressful few weeks in the Neat Freak house.

A seemingly never-ending bout of illness finally culminated in a spell in hospital for blue-eyed boy, and although everything’s pretty much back to normal now it’s been a case of muddling along as best we can for a while.

My never-ending ‘to do’ list is now the length of a short novel and I’m actually getting genuinely scared of being eaten alive by the laundry pile.

Being a long-time convert to the philosophy that a tidy home equals a calmer, happier person, I think what I find hardest about being a parent – apart from the lack of personal space – is the lack of space in general.

The plethora of ‘toddler tat’ in our lounge often feels like my biggest bugbear, that and how my kids manage to leave their sticky fingerprints and footprints on everything. But hey, it goes with the territory.

What’s harder to admit is that sometimes I find it hard to remain serene in the face of mini-me emptying out every toy she owns. Or that I love the fact that she does cake making and potato printing at nursery so I don’t have to at home.

Personally I think the sanest thing you can do as a mum is to accept the fact that you’ll never be ‘perfect’, try not to feel guilty about the decisions you make and above all never forget to laugh at yourself – whether at home or in public.

After all being a good mum is many things, but it’s certainly not black and white.

So why do the smug mums brigade, Smug Mums Incorporated if you will, seem to feel it’s okay to look down their noses at the rest of us?

You know the type, the ones who wouldn’t know self-deprecation if it bit them on the arse and who recoil in horror at the thought of feeding their offspring anything that’s not locally sourced, organic and prepared from scratch.

Queen of the Smug Mums, or at least the celebrity face of the campaign, has to go to Gwyneth Paltrow, her of Goop, or as I prefer to call it Gloop fame.

You know that lifestyle website with ‘useful’ tips on the perfect capsule collection wardrobe, the importance of owning a black designer jumpsuit and hearty recipes. Chickpea soup anyone?

To be fair Gwyneth herself has waxed lyrical about how we mums don’t cut each other enough slack. But then she always goes and spoils it by dropping clangers such as how office jobs are easier if you’re a mum than being paid millions to make a film. Or how she only allows her children to watch TV if it’s in French or Spanish.

And while describing herself as a ‘working mom’ as she did recently at a political fundraiser – of course we all host these regularly where I’m from – might be technically correct, in reality she presumably has staff and nannies by the dozen on standby.

Oh Gwyneth if only instead of writing about the benefits of juice cleansing on Gloop you could recount that time when you broke wind in a baby sensory class and blamed your unfortunate offspring.

Or when you let your kids have cheese and a bag of maltesers for tea one night because you couldn’t get them to eat anything else.

Or when you stuck them upstairs for some ‘quiet time’ with the iPad so you could indulge in 30 minute’s uninterrupted trash TV.

We’d like you, and the other Smug Mums, so much more…

Coughing over the dilemma of ‘basic human rights’ (pre-kids)

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The Neat Freak household is one full of sickness at the moment.

Mini-me has managed to take down everyone within a five mile radius with a particularly lovely hacking cough/streaming cold/ what I like to refer to as ‘cotton wool head’ combo. (So apologies if the following doesn’t make total sense!)

Poor blue-eyed boy is particularly stricken and looks so sorry for himself that it makes me want to cry. Horrible.

Having spent the weekend being sprayed with snot, tears and projectile vomit (don’t ask!) all this got me thinking about what it was like being ill before children. You know when you were actually allowed and had time to be ill.

I have vague memories of lying on the sofa with a selection of films to watch on telly and a ready supply of chocolate to hand, hubby checking in to see how I was and bringing home my favourite food for dinner.

Whereas now you’re lucky if you get time to swallow some pills to tackle your own temperature before donning your virtual nurses’ uniform and starting a seemingly never-ending shift of mopping brows, fetching juice, finding favourite Ben & Holly episodes, trying to coax little people to eat something, reaching for the Calpol, doing the fourth pyjama change of the day etc. etc.

Being ill is in fact one of those things you consider a ‘basic human right’ before having children. There are lots of others too…

*Drinking a hot drink while it’s still hot – some days I lose count of the number of times I re-boil the kettle. Either that or pretend to ‘enjoy’ my semi-cold, stewed cuppa that’s been sitting waiting 20 minutes for me with a piece of kitchen roll over the mug.

*Not dreading twice-daily teeth cleaning – this may of course not be universal but as mini-me has a hatred of brushing it’s become something I truly despise. Nothing like trying to clamp your daughter’s head in one position so you can clean her teeth as quickly as humanly possible after 15 minutes of trying to coax her into letting you do it in a less stressful fashion.

*Wearing stain-free clothes – It doesn’t matter how many aprons I use, how many muslins I attempt to hold up as a ‘human shield’ I still always seem to end the day speckled in food, formula, milk, mud and other unidentified substances.

*Being able to pee alone – God I miss ‘using the facilities’ without having to do any one of the following: Singing a selection of show tunes to provide ‘entertainment’ from behind the bathroom door, answering questions from behind the bathroom door, trying to pacify a screaming baby from behind the bathroom door, mini-me yelling ‘Mummy, I need a poo!’ from outside the bathroom door, taking mini-me and blue-eyed boy into the bathroom with me…

*Packing for every possible eventuality before leaving the house like some mad bag lady – I find this one is particularly enhanced by hubby nagging about why it takes me so long to get ready, and then later tutting because I didn’t think to bring a football, third change of clothes for blue-eyed boy, the kite, the preferred nappy cream, a wider selection of snacks and drinks etc. etc.

I’m sure there are many, many more of these. To be continued when my brain loses its current fuzzy status and returns to ‘normal’ – whatever that is…

The thrill of the morning routine

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It should be a truth universally acknowledged that those people who were always running late in their life before children, or LBC if you will, are not going to somehow magically change their ways on leaving the labour ward.

My other half and I have a long-held reputation for horrendously tardy behaviour and arriving at appointments, social engagements, coffee dates and even weddings red-faced from sprinting with literally seconds to spare.

We’re routinely the last people to arrive anywhere, have missed planes, only just made it to several funerals and on one memorable occasion tried to sneak in at the back at the nuptials of a close friend without realising the door we’d chosen would actually reveal our faux-pas to the entire congregation and result in a last-minute speech addition for the groom.

(That was eight years ago and the memory is still cringe-worthy!)

It’s not that we mean to be late. We always have good intentions, discuss when we should depart home  and build in extra time for ‘emergencies’ – now translated as nappy dramas, vomiting incidents and hunting for mini-me and blue-eyed boys’ comfort toys – but it never seems to go according to plan and we still end up rushing.

So it stands to reason that mornings in our house are not calm affairs.

Trying to get two small people to nursery and hubby to the station on time should be simple right? So why does it so often end in frayed tempers and raised voices?

As I work from home I could write in my PJs if I wanted to, but most freelancers I know actually find this rather depressing. Plus I’m quite often rushing to get somewhere myself so add to the mix me getting ready as well as packing everyone’s bags, making breakfast, brushing hair, cleaning teeth, finding shoes and it can often feel like I’ve run a marathon before sitting down to type.

(Not that I’ve run an actual marathon you understand – that would constitute some sort of miracle. And breathing apparatus.)

While it’s too soon to tell with blue-eyed boy, mini-me has definitely inherited her parents’ procrastinating tendencies. Whether it’s ‘approving’ an outfit or saying good morning to her brother it seems to take her an age to do anything before 9am.

I always try to remain calm while glancing with increasing anxiety at the clock, tell myself that getting agitated will achieve nothing, but by the fourth time of asking her to ‘please sit on the potty and do a wee’ the tone of my voice may have reached an octave higher.

Even bribing her with ‘special brioche’ – her favourite food in the world – doesn’t always work anymore. Oh no, mini-me likes to take her sweet time.

Now I have more selfless mummy friends who would happily forgo their own shower in order for their offspring to have a more leisurely start to the day, but I don’t claim to be one of them.

So until some other harassed parent invents some kind of all-natural yet highly effective toddler fast-forward supplement (unlikely!) morning rants in our house are probably here to stay.

And by the way has anyone seen bloody ‘Doggy’??!

Waiting for Farmer Christmas

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Do you often find yourself not so much frazzled but deep fried? As a mum with a toddler who should host her own chat show and a seven-month-old baby boy (who for blog purposes I’m going to call ‘mini-me’ and ‘blue-eyed boy’) I frequently find myself either dozing off during conversations or with my nerves totally shot to pieces.

Add to the mix my job as a journalist and copywriter with a slowly-expanding run-from-home business, all the usual house/life type chores, my other half’s hugely stressful career and my increasingly fleeting attempts to still have some sort of social life and it sometimes all boils down to a recipe for disaster. Or mental insanity.

The kind that even an evening with the West Wing’s Josh Lyman can’t even cure.

But often on ‘one of those days’ either mini-me or blue-eyed boy will drop a little gem of sheer, laugh out loud joy into my day – and those are the golden nuggets that make all the constant juggling and frequent bickering matches worthwhile.

So I thought I’d share a few of my little girl’s recent hilarious soundbites. She might only be three but on good days her material could give Michael McIntyre a run for his money. Of course I’m biased!

  •  Whilst racing home from nursery to shoe-horn in blue-eyed boy’s dinner before snack and bath time – and trying not to think about a looming work deadline which could possibly mean working until the early hours – my daughter suddenly piped up about Christmas. She loves it, as do I. But it turns out we may have some explaining to do when it comes to the Nativity.

‘Mummy I know who’s coming down our chimney – Farmer Christmas!’

  • Mini-me is obsessed with our postman and his red van – probably something to do with her fondness for Postman Pat – but it was only recently I discovered she believes that his work schedule is closely linked to the weather, rather than so-called ‘days of rest’.

‘Mummy the postman won’t be coming today. He doesn’t deliver on sunny days…!’

  • Her three-year-old evaluation of her baby brother being little like she once was, and me and her dad recounting tales to entertain her of when she was very small and explaining her baby photos?  ’Mummy, when I get older I am going to get really small like in the olden days.’ 

Clearly we haven’t done a very good job.

Then there are the general ‘one-liners’ that make me chuckle.

‘Mummy I think it’s time for me to have another birthday party.’

‘This is ridiculous Mummy!’ (Add hands on hips and scowl for full effect).

‘I’ve only got one pair of hands Mummy!’ (Hmm, wonder where she got that one…)