Midweek Musings: Normal service will resume shortly (hopefully!)
Hello there. I felt I had to blog today because blogging on Wednesdays has become A Thing in my life, and I'm a stickler for schedules and routines. Alas, however, I have nothing of interest to write as we are all poorly. First the baby had it, then Oli had it (he refused to eat his dinner and didn't even want a glass of wine - that's how I really knew he was ill) and then I woke up with an interesting pain in my skull as though someone had tried to put it in one of those car crushers but then given up after squeezing about eight times, and then given it a good shake before chucking it on the floor and stamping on it.
There's nothing more boring than hearing about how ill someone is/has been so I shall stop this whiny post here. Suffice to say, I have discovered there IS something worse than a screaming baby at 3am, and that's a screaming baby at 3am when you have flu.
One thing I will mention though is that I have ordered Chip this fab activity cube from John Lewis, after seeing my friend Sally's baby playing with hers. It's SO lovely - all wooden and reassuringly solid with delightful little illustrations on it. I can't wait for it to arrive. I need to get her some more wooden toys actually - if anyone has any recommendations please shout!
If you'd like to read something more cheery, may I suggest my six-month baby update post? The littlun is actually completely recovered (amazing how babies can basically get a cold and within 24 hours it's gone) but her mum and dad are still dragging our carcasses around like zombies. Hopefully we'll be back on top form soon, but in the meantime I'm off back to bed...
Six month baby update
Happy half birthday little one! We took these pictures of you several days after your actual half birthday as you were a right grumpy moo that day, and definitely not up for photoshoots. But today follows the first night when you have slept through, from an amazing midnight to 6.45 (so, not exactly a lie in for us, but definitely an improvement). And to top everything off, this morning when I got up and said hello to you, you squeaked with giggles at me, despite the fact you've got a bit of a cold at the moment. You are THE BEST.
It's incredible to think that Daphne has been around for half a year already, but at the same time it feels like SO much longer than that. Emotionally, I've experienced more than I had in the previous ten years before she was born put together (and that's saying a lot, considering I got married and divorced in that timeframe!). It's so true all those sickly cliches about motherhood opening up a part of your heart you didn't know existed - I used to roll my eyes at all that stuff, but now I'm the same soppy sucker.
At six months, Daphne is the proud owner of two bottom teeth - the first one came through when she was about five and a half months old, followed by the second just last week. I'd love to get a picture of them but it's really hard - unless she opens her mouth really wide (which usually only happens if she's screaming!) her tongue is always in the way. But they're definitely there, and thank god - because the teething process was as properly horrible as I had anticipated, with lots of nightwaking screaming and suchlike. We resorted to Calpol a few times and it didn't seem to have much of an effect, neither did the teething powders unfortunately. Dentinox teething gel worked quite well the first time I gave it to her smeared on a dummy, but she soon got wise to it and once it was sucked off spat the dummy out and started screaming again. I'm quite dreading the next set of teeth coming through - poor babies, it must be horrible.
On the subject of dummies, Daphne has almost completely weaned herself off them. They were quite effective at getting her to sleep when she was younger, but now she usually spits them straight out. Sometimes she likes one if she's in the car seat but I can see that we'll be chucking them away soon. Which is good, in many respects, as I was paranoid about her becoming hooked on them, but bad in the sense that they were really good at settling her in the past, and I have no alternative tricks up my sleeve.
This week though, on the advice of my friend Julia (thanks J!), I started giving her a Jellycat rabbit to cuddle when she goes to bed every night, and I don't know if it's just coincidence or the fact we started a bit of controversial sleep training (more on that next) but since then she's been sleeping much much better. I even noticed she's started sucking on his ear in the middle of the night so he's definitely comforting her. I slept with him for a few nights first (which was quite funny, I came in to see Oli had made the bed with the rabbit 'tucked in' on my side) so that he smelt of me (NICE) and she definitely nuzzled her face against him when I gave him to her. He still needs a name though, as currently we are calling him Bunny. Original much?
So sleep - yes. Daphne was becoming one of those stereotypical nightmare sleepers, waking every hour between 2am and 6am, screaming her head off, and nothing could be done to comfort her. That was the weirdest thing. I would go in, try to cuddle her, or offer her a feed, but still she would scream, like she was angry at me because she wanted to sleep and it was MY FAULT she couldn't. We tried Calpol in case she was in pain, but that didn't help either. It was after one particularly horrendous night, when she was awake from about 8pm until 3.30am, and NOTHING I did settled her, that I decided we had to try something different.
So the next night we did the controlled crying thing. Yes I know it's controversial but I looked into it properly beforehand, and was reassured by several people that the stories of the raised cortisol stuff has very little scientific backing. Anyway, it was horrible, horrible, horrible. But actually she only cried for about ten minutes before falling asleep. The next night we tried it again, but every time I went in to check on her she cried even more - like I said, it was almost as though I was preventing her from learning how to sleep by going in and disturbing her all the time. So I stood outside the door and tried to shush her through it, and just waited. And it was hideous and I probably cried more than her, but she went to sleep and didn't wake for five hours.
Every night since then she's got better. The crying is now down to literally three minutes or so and more just moaning than crying - certainly no screaming, and her stretches of sleep are getting longer and longer. Last night she slept from 6pm to midnight, when she woke up and was clearly hungry. I fed her a bottle, put her back down in bed awake, and she chatted to herself a bit before falling asleep again until this morning. I'm not going to get cocky because I know that things with babies can change so much so quickly, but it's just lovely to know that she's getting some real, decent sleep, instead of these crappy hours here and there that were making her so grumpy and upset.
The weird thing is though, since she's started sleeping better at night, her naps have gone completely haywire. She was great at napping before (mostly worn out from her wakeful nights I guess), now she's a mess. Sigh. Swings and roundabouts I suppose!
What else can I say about six months? Well, she's certainly 'chatting' more, making all kinds of weird and wonderful noises (including a week of non-stop screeching which was really fun - she decided it was a great sound and would make it at every available opportunity but especially when mummy was out having lunch surrounded by people without kids. You've never truly been embarrassed until you've looked up to see EVERYONE in the cafe staring at you in disgust. Although may I suggest to the man who sat next to me on a shared table and frowned at us as he was trying to make a VERY IMPORTANT WORK CALL that he is a bit of a wanker and that possibly a coffee shop is not the best place to be doing VERY IMPORTANT WORK).
Physically, she's definitely taller than she was and maybe not quite so plump. She's still not great at rolling - she'll do it once maybe then decide it's a waste of time, but her hand-eye coordination is much better and she can grab things and pass them from one hand to another really easily. She's also constantly doing sit-ups, which make me laugh - she's trying SO hard to pull her back up to a seated position, bless her. I'm really looking forward to her being able to sit up on her own as I think it'll make playing with toys so much more fun.
And a quick update about me. When Daphne was first born I read everywhere that by six months I should be back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Well I AM NOT. I'm still the same as I was before Christmas, when I gave up dieting. I'm about seven (OK, OK, ten) pounds heavier than I was before. This is probably linked to my utter lack of general movement over the last two months - this miserable weather has seen me hibernating and driving places instead of walking. I stopped doing my exercise programme and I'm generally eating and drinking a lot more than I was at the end of last year. So I really need to get that sorted and have resolved to start in March, or once the weather cheers up. I will say that I've been absolutely KNACKERED since the four-month sleep regression thing took hold, so finding the energy to exercise has been really tough. Plus my sugar cravings are off the scale. I really should try to give up sugar but it sounds so depressing... any advice on that gratefully received!
Blog(no)lovin' - a small plea
Look, I'll admit, I don't fully understand Bloglovin'. This may be an age-related issue.
Twitter, I'm a pro at, Facebook I'm starting to like more and more and Pinterest and Instagram, well, they're works in progress but I'm getting there... But Bloglovin' - I truly suck at.
I have 19 followers on Bloglovin' people. NINETEEN!
Worst of all, I had 21 two weeks ago.
What am I doing wrong?! Anyone care to enlighten me?!
I'm actually getting a reasonable amount of traffic to the blog these days, which is LOVELY, yet if you looked at my humiliating Blog(no)lovin' tally you would not believe me.
I don't get it. Why don't you Blogloviners love me?! Sob sob.
So this is a small (and embarrassingly desperate) plea; if you do like my blog and you do use Bloglovin', please give us a follow. Otherwise I may have to remove my account. Because, y'know, I live in fear of waking up tomorrow to only 18 followers... I appear to only be going one way with this. (Oh help! please don't unfollow me! Oh god, it's SO undignified to beg! Gaaahhhh! *shoots self*)
Midweek Musings: Property hunting and the Great Interior Design Challenge
Hello! This post is very late. This week seems to be evaporating before my eyes. For one thing, little Daphne is six months' old today - I can't believe she's been here for half a year already! Sadly she was in a complete grump all day - I'm not entirely sure what the matter with her was, whether it was teething or separation anxiety beginning or just baby PMT, but she didn't really enjoy her half-birthday. Sniff. Anyway I'll do my six-month baby update post once she's cheered up and fancies posing for some (better) pictures.
Anyway the exciting (and preoccupying) news is - we've found a house! And it's in Wimbledon! And they've accepted our offer on it! HOWEVER - we need to get a mortgage on it so at the moment we're still a bit in limbo as nothing has been approved yet. I'm keeping everything crossed, but as we're both self-employed, getting a mortgage is an absolute bloody nightmare so nothing is guaranteed. I don't want to share too much info about the house in case we lose it, but it's a midcentury marvel in need of work. I'll keep you posted... please keep your fingers crossed!
I find it so infuriating that it's so hard to get credit when you're self-employed - surely someone who is employed and can be made redundant at any time with nothing to fall back on is a far higher risk than someone who's managed to create their own work for years?! Yet if I got a 'permanent' (no such thing!) job tomorrow, I'd be able to get a mortgage with no bother at all. Makes me really cross actually.
In the meantime, in order not to get our hopes up too much in case we lose the place, we're still spending hours on Rightmove trying to find alternatives we like just as much. Tonight I came across a terrace in need of modernisation, and feel the need to share this bathroom with you - YIKES! That's some creative shower curtaining.
I'm not going to lie - househunting is excellent fun. My mates over at Myfriendshouse actually did a post about Rightmove addiction, which may resonate with you...
Finally, I hope you've all been watching the Great Interior Design Challenge! It's on BBC2 at 7pm (stupid time BBC schedulers!!), Monday-Wednesday and is basically like Bake Off with wallpaper. Well worth a watch, and if you're on Twitter you can also join the discussion when the show is on using the hashtag #GIDC. Me and my work cronies have been enjoying pulling the poor designers' schemes to shreds - they really do have a hard time of it with tiny budgets and only a few days to transform rooms, but that doesn't make our armchair criticism any less harsh... mwahahaha.
Daphne's nursery tour
I didn't really want to do a post on Daph's nursery because it's basically been a bit of a... CHALLENGE. It's a teeny tiny room, which I stupidly while pregnant made even tinier by adding a whole wall of mirrored wardrobes. I hadn't realised at the time that this made it impossible to fit a normal-sized cot bed in. I basically used up the one good wall with these damned wardrobes - while we needed the storage, I really didn't think it through.
It's also a really weirdly shaped room, with the door at an angle - sort of cutting off one corner of a square. Plus it has an awkward chimney breast sticking out on one wall. Anyway with a lot of measuring and squeezing, we've managed to get in a small cot - the Mokee mini cot in fact - as well as a small chest of drawers and a shelving unit (which we already had). And a chair (although you have to move the chair to get into the wardrobe but luckily I don't need to do it that often!).
It's not the ideal child's room/nursery that I had in mind when I pictured myself as a mother, but despite this, it's actually turned out to be a really cute, happy room. When I'm feeding Daphne last thing before her bedtime, I sit in there and look around at the random mishmash of stuff (and different wood finishes!!) and I can't help but smile. It's ridiculously girly (especially with those pink polka dot curtains that I already had) but it suits a tiny baby girl and I feel like there's plenty for her to look at it, all of which has some story or meaning behind it - as with everything else in my flat.
Here are some more pics... (apologies for the crap photography. The light in this room is also a bit of a challenge!)
It's a bit cluttered, it's probably a bit too PINK, it was done on a budget, but it's a room full of love. As we're house-hunting this won't be her room for too long (can't wait for more SPACE!), but I think it's quite a good start, and I'm pleased with how we manage to work around the tiny floorplan and create a usable space for her. It's my new favourite room in the flat. I hope she feels safe and happy in there.
Midweek Musings: Weaning trials and sleep success
*warning - baby-heavy post!*
I'm writing this after having mopped both Daphne and myself down following an incident which will now be referred to as Butternut Squash Gate. Yesterday her evil Feeder Mother gave her two huge cubes of butternut squash puree, and felt all proud and pleased as she gobbled the entire lot down. Not realising that there is such a thing as too much roughage when you are just under six months old. Ever since, butternut squash has been coming out of both ends (the stuff from the top end going straight down my bra - lovely!), accompanied by lots of tears and gigantic farts. She's finally fallen asleep in exhaustion. I'm so sorry little Chippy.
How much food is too much food for a six-month-old baby? I have literally no idea. Once again it strikes me as crazy that I am responsible for this delicate little baby's LIFE and yet I know more about looking after my Macbook. We've got the Annabel Karmel weaning book but nowhere does it really suggest any ideas for portion size - it's all that same old guff about not worrying if they don't eat much more than a teaspoon. HA. Chip says sit her in front of a 6oz steak and she'll quite happily put the whole thing away, then cry all night with tummy ache. One way to learn about cause and effect I suppose.
I do wish there were clearer guidelines about how much to feed babies and when - it all seems so confusing and there's so much different advice out there. I really am making it all up as I go along. Maybe I'm just really thick but I don't have any instincts as to how much is too much! We were going to do baby-led weaning but Chip was obviously so hungry all the time - when we ate she would watch us and open her little mouth in expectation - but she's not quite mastered the hand-eye coordination thing enough to put a carrot stick in her mouth yet. So we've been spooning puree in, and she's loved it all (except for spinach, which is probably fair enough). Her favourite thing is 'biscuits' (mashed up Farley's Rusks with milk) and she could eat that all day long. I was giving it to her as a kind of supper because I thought it would help fill her tummy before bed, and was quite pleased about it but then I googled rusks and everyone on Mumsnet said they were horrific and full of sugar and I'd be better off giving her a Mars bar. So that made me feel quite terrible - even though we'd bought the reduced sugar ones. Sigh.
It's a minefield. I miss the days of trying to choose between two cartoons of formula that were ostensibly the same anyway. Much easier.
On a more upbeat note, Daphne is finally sleeping in her own room at night! We've even taken down the bedside cot! We moved her in a bit early (the guidelines say that babies should sleep in a room with you until they are six months' old) because she was already napping in there and we were really reaching the end of our tethers with the exhaustion thing. It's made me happy and sad all at once - but mostly happy because we've actually had a few relatively decent nights' sleep since she moved in there about a week ago. She obviously prefers the bigger cot with more space to stretch out, and I am sure that she prefers not having to hear her mum and dad grunting (hmm, that makes it sounds as though we're having conjugal relations, which is definitely not a priority right now) and snoring away next to her at night too, or waking her up when they come to bed at 11pm.
It is a bit weird not having her next to me though, and last night in the middle of Butternut Squash Gate she was waking up every hour or so in constant pain with wind so I gave up and brought her into our bed again (which I secretly loved). I think if she's ever poorly I'm going to use it as an excuse to have more baby cuddles in our bed - it was one of my favourite parts of when she was little - there's really nothing nicer than having a sleeping baby snoozing on your shoulder...
It is bittersweet now when we put her to bed at night, tucking her in and leaving her to it. She's already starting to become independent... sniff sniff!
She's also started to do a lovely long nap at lunchtime which is definitely the most exciting thing to happen to me for years. Or this year at least. I sometimes even get two hours to myself in the middle of the day to do stuff, and IT IS BRILLIANT.
Finally, we've finished Making a Murderer. Thanks to whoever recommended it to me - what little chance of sleep I had before has now disappeared thanks to my new late-night googling sessions of 'who might have killed Teresa Halbach?' and 'why did Brendan confess?' etc etc. It's driving me insane! I keep thinking there's no smoke without fire and surely even with a low IQ you don't randomly confess to raping or murdering someone?! We will never know! Aarrgh!
These made me cry
Just had to do a quick blog post about the wonderful Anna Lewis and her artwork - I stumbled across her on Instagram and every single one of her beautiful drawings resonated with me. Most of them had me sniffing in tears. They absolutely sum up what motherhood is like, and I feel like buying and framing them all (except that would be quite weird and I'd probably cry everytime I looked at them, which might make getting things done around the house difficult).
My absolute favourite is this one below and I'll be ordering it for sure - it's so simple, so poignant, so damn TRUE and I just love it. Check her out on Etsy, Facebook and Twitter. And grab some tissues first. Sniff.
Midweek Musings: the house hunt is on!
I can't quite believe I'm writing this but, after being on the market on and off for nearly two whole years, Oli has finally sold his house. It's a long story but it was a lovely house in need of renovation and we ummed and ahhed about whether or not to move there (for about a year, no joke), but it was in NW London which was always going to be a bit too far from my family. Anyway it went into auction yesterday and about an hour before it was due to be auctioned, Oli accepted an offer from a buyer and the contracts were exchanged!
This finally means we are free to try to find a family home. The only problem is that neither of us is quite sure exactly where we want to live (well, Wimbledon Village would be nice but is sadly out of our price range). We both like being in London for the convenience and the fact it's near to our friends/work, but we also both hate London as a place to bring up Chip - too many people and too much pollution. I'm kind of exhausted just thinking about trying to make a decision to be honest. But still, it's so exciting because we can finally actually start looking at houses in earnest, and in a 'good' position which is so critical when the market is so competitive!
I was actually sent a press release yesterday with this nifty map attached showing the average house prices per tube stop - it's crazy how just moving one stop away from your preferred location can save you up to half a million pounds in some cases. Unsurprisingly Colliers Wood (where we live - I call it Wimbledon cos it's the same postcode and no one has heard of CW, and everyone in the entire world has heard of Wimbledon) is one of the cheapest areas on the Northern line. I actually think it represents really good value for money and would consider staying here if it wasn't quite so traffic-choked.
On another note, because there's always got to be some ying with the yang, this weekend my car started playing up. It's eleven years old now and possibly 'had it' - the last service was more than a grand and given that it's only worth £1500 I'm not entirely sure whether I want to sink even more money into fixing it. But at the same time, the idea of buying another car fills me with dread. Not only are most of them ugly these days (is it just me?!), they are ruddy expensive. I was a bit shocked when I started looking into over the weekend. I know a car is a luxury, especially in London, but I've always had one - ever since I passed my test - and there's something about the sense of freedom it gives that really matters to me. A couple of times over the past ten years I've been technically 'homeless' and my car was the one thing I owned and although it sounds silly that was really important to me. Because of this I'm reluctant to go car-less at the grand old age of 35. I guess I'm set in my ways, and I can't think of a nice way of getting the cat to the vet's without it. So... winning the lottery is required at some point in the not-too-distant future, please and thank you.
The truth about parenting sleep deprivation
You will start writing this post eighteen times before finishing it.
A 'good' night will be one when you sleep for more than three hours in a row. You will feel like superwoman after this night. Ideas will flow, ambitions will be unsurpassed. YOU WILL BE ABLE TO DO ANYTHING THAT DAY.
If your baby does decide to sleep for more than three hours in a row, you'll be terrified they've died. So you won't be able to sleep anyway because you'll keep leaning over their cot to hear them breathe, and probably waking them up in the process.
People will ask you how your weekend was, and you will have absolutely no idea. Even though it's only Monday.
Mothers whose babies sleep through the night will offer you unsolicited pearls of wisdom and you will understand what it is like to feel murderous rage. Topped off with a side of shame and failure.
'Have you tried a bedtime routine?' *headdesk*
It will become a twisted badge of honour to proclaim to anyone who will listen: 'Well, I didn't even sleep well when I was pregnant. So technically I haven't slept through the night since LAST JULY! Ha ha ha!'
Your dreams, when you have them and actually remember them, will have you considering a course of therapy... 'I did what with WHO?'
If you succumb to co-sleeping in desperation, you may wake your partner one night in a panic and scream 'where's the baby? WHERE'S THE BABY?' while pawing at the bed in the dark, not realising that she's actually - shock horror - happily asleep in her OWN COT.
Co-sleeping will turn you into the Hunchback of Notre Dame. So long as the baby's comfy right?
One night in the depth of the antisocial hours, you will pick up your partner's arm, instead of the baby, and try to put it back in its cot*. You will yank it and yank it and wonder why it isn't moving. Your partner will be so tired he will barely notice.
Many an evening will come when, while trying to get the baby to sleep using tried-and-failed methods such as shushing and stroking, you will fall asleep yourself.
You will shush until you faint.
No sheep will ever let you down like Ewan the Dream Sheep. Promised so much, delivered so little.
You will look back on the nights pre-baby when you had a mild bout of insomnia, or a bit of jet lag, and remember how you felt you WERE SO TIRED YOU COULDN'T FUNCTION. And you will laugh hollow laughter as you inject coffee into your eyeballs and try to do life admin while looking after a screaming baby, having slept for about thirty five minutes the previous night.
There will come at time when, at 4am and when your infant is singing away to herself with no intention of sleeping, you will burst into tears. And you'll just go for it. Really let loose - proper sobs. Accompanied by cries of: 'It's not fair! IT'S NOT FAIR! WHY DOESN'T SHE WANT TO SLEEP!!'. And your baby will be so shocked at the noise, she'll shut up and fall asleep.
Hunt-the-dummy in the pitch dark will become your newest and most hated game.
There will be approximately sixteen dummies in your bedroom - in the cot, in your bed, under your bed, in your hair... yet you will never be able to find one before the crying escalates to screaming.
You will consider using earplugs to drown out your baby's night-time singsongs but then be terrified of accidentally dropping one in their cot and having them swallow it. You will ball your fists as you realise even these small solutions are denied to you.
Your baby will often decide that the day should start at 5.30am. Nothing you do will persuade her to go back to sleep. So you will begrudgingly get up, pour yourself an enormous mug of tea, rub your eyes and entertain her, only to have her YAWN at you. For real.
Every now and then your baby will shock you by not waking up at her usual time in the middle of the night. But of course you still will. Ha ha.
*I actually did this. Sorry Oli.
Midweek Musings: Baby Bottles and Nursery Progress
Hello there! I don't often do reviews on here (mostly because the things I am offered aren't usually relevant) but when Scandi brand Twistshake got in touch with me and offered me one of their new baby bottles to review, I couldn't say no. (That sounds so cheesy and hackneyed but it's true).
As Daphne has always been bottle fed, we've been through our fair share of different bottles - we started out with the ones that came with my breast pump, then we moved onto Dr Brown's Anti-Colic, which I think were good but were a right palaver and a half to wash up, and then we moved onto Mam's Self-sterilising Anti-Colic bottles which we currently use. They've been pretty good and I don't have much to complain about with them (although Daph hated their fancy teat and so we still use Dr Brown teats with them), but the Twistshake is quite frankly genius thanks to one thing - the little powder box it comes with.
When we moved onto powdered milk, this really worried me - how would we store the powder when we went out? I know you can get little plastic boxes but they looked fiddly and lots of people said how much they leaked. To avoid the issue completely, we usually make up a bottle then flash-cool it and take it with us, keeping it in a cool bag (or fridge if we're at a friend's) until Daph needs it. I'm pretty sure the NHS would string me up for this, but touch wood it's been OK so far. But today I went to my mum's and I roadtested the Twistshake and it was just brill - I simply scooped out the powder required into the little powder box then tucked that neatly back into the bottle. Then topped it up with slightly cooled boiled water when I needed to make up Daph's feed.
I've seen that you can also use this powder box to store snacks for older kids (like cucumber sticks etc) which is another brilliant idea. I do like a multi-functional invention!
The bottles are bright and colourful (I hated the look of the Dr Brown ones) and very easy to use, with a special powder filter that stops any lumps from clogging up the teat. They're Anti Colic too, although Daph no longer has colic so I can't comment on that. They kind of look like grown-up drinks bottles I think! I love the fact that the colours are bold and not insipid or very clearly gender-specific. We use blue Mam bottles (as well as pink ones) and it annoys me that the pictures on them are clearly designed for boys.
The only downside of the Twistshake is that (as far as I can tell) they are not self-sterilising like the Mam ones - this is a real plus for me as we don't have space for a separate steriliser in our stuffed-to-the-brim kitchen. Otherwise though, I'm impressed, and very happy to recommend them. They're available on Amazon
In other news, this week we've been getting Daphne's nursery ready for her to move into when she's six months old (in just over two weeks). Sniff! Part of me can't wait to move her into her own room because quite frankly, she's a noisy little bugger and between around 2am and 5am just basically makes noise non-stop - singing, gurgling, shouting, crying, you name it. But then part of me is really soppy and can't bear the idea of her not being next to me anymore, all soft and snuffly and smelling of babies. I will miss her!
As we're hoping to move house at some point this year we didn't want to spend too much money on the nursery, so we've really just made do with what we've already got, and bought a few new touches like a rug (not the horrible old one in the picture!), some artwork and a cot mobile, to try to make it nice for her. I'll do a proper nursery 'tour' post when it's all finished but the cot is in and looks fab, and my mum is busy adjusting the existing cheap Ikea curtains (finally cutting them to the right size for the window and lining them with blackout lining). She's also making a cot bumper for me. My mum is a superstar! I really need to learn how to do this kind of stuff - seriously considering a sewing course at some point...
The one thing that I have yet to manage to source is a nice lampshade for the boring pendant light fitting. We have a bright pink one (also Ikea) up now that I bought when I first moved in and it's just dull dull dullsville. I'd love something quirky but not too expensive. Or cheesy. If anyone has any bright ideas, I'd love to hear them!