The Alice

You might have noticed that this weekend I am on my computer at home catching up on blogging instead of at the inaugural CyberMummy event with the rest of the Huggies Mummybloggers.

When Huggies invited me to the event with them months ago I was feeling like a pregnancy superhero; I was working and socialising and more importantly Baby H was behaving herself. We lived in London and despite knowing I’d be almost 39 weeks pregnant I thought a day out would not only be do-able, it’d be welcome. Silly Alice!

Fast forward to now and our situation is totally different. I thought long and hard about the decision not to go, but I had to think of the worst scenario which would be going into labour and being a long tube and train ride away from home. Because of Baby H’s position we are under hugely strict instructions to make our way to hospital ASAP as soon as I feel the slightest rumble in my uterus and there are all sorts of nasty complications (cord prolapse – yikes) that could happen if we don’t get there in good time.

Were I still in London and if Baby H was head down as she should be I would have been there with bells on, but as it is I simply can’t risk it.

So that is why you will find me napping and typing today, instead of gassing and tweeting. I hope you’re all having a ball and I will be there next year without fail!

In the meantime, you can see the event being liveblogged at the CyberMummy blog, or visit my lovely fellow mummybloggers:

- Me, The Man and The Baby
- Baby Genie
- Glowstars
- Young and Younger
- A Place Of My Own
- A Mothers Ramblings
- Perfectly Happy Mum
- WAHM-BAM

- Sleep has suddenly become really hard. How can I be so tired yet find it difficult to drop off at night? I’ll tell you how: a head in my ribs, a baby with the hiccups at 2am and a middle of the night football habit.

- ICE. Oh god, ice. I love it so much. Current daily intake: 3 pints. YUM. Thinking about ice makes my mouth water.

- I put on my maternity jeans (Topshop Baxters, the type with stretchy pockets, size 10) this morning and it was a lot tougher to get them over my thighs. I think pregnancy weight is finally catching up with me…

- I have not ‘done’ my hair since I left for Greece (i.e. blow-dried/straightened). Instead I’ve been leaving it au naturel, which means curly. It’s nice for a change but I wish I had the energy to dry my hair properly. I’m thinking this is good practice for when the baby gets here, I’m sure blow-drying will be the last thing I’ll want to do.

- Work is now officially a drag. I worked from home twice last week and once the week before as my SPD was just horrendous, it goes away fairly swiftly with a good rest but comes back when I walk. Because of this I’ve brought my maternity leave forward by a week, meaning I will leave on 11th June. That’s 8 working days! I can’t wait.

- …because of this we have brought our moving date forward to 13th June. Which means we have less than a fortnight to pack up our London lives. Eek.

- I no longer have ankles. I have cankles.

- Baby is still breech which is not only worrying but really uncomfy – I’m going to Argos this evening to purchase a gym ball and will do my best to bounce her the right way up.

- I think we’re all ready for the arrival of baby, with the exception of being in the right city (let alone the right house). This weekend we went shopping for all the final bits; hospital essentials, bottles and steriliser (I will be breastfeeding but want Will to do one feed a day), baby monitor, newborn sleepsuits….

- I bought a pack of 2 breastfeeding bras from M&S. They are possibly the least sexiest item of clothing I’ve ever laid my eyes on, but BOY are they comfortable.

It’s guest blog day! I had lots of fun last night (in between panicking about what the hell to write) emailing back and forth with the lovely Anna, someone whose blog I wasn’t familiar with previously.

Anna is a stay at home mum with a one year old son, George, and she writes at EvieGeorge. I’m pleased to give up this post to her and have to admit I shed a bit of a tear when I read it this morning (hello hormones) – take it away, Anna!

“There are occasions when I look at George and I just want to cover him in chocolate sauce and eat him. He is the best DIY project I ever did!!(well, with a bit of help- ha!) To me, he is perfection personified. Sometimes, he just comes over, wraps his arms round my neck and kisses me and I’m not sure how I manage to keep my heart inside my chest. It literally feels like it might burst out.

People say you stay the same person after you have kids but I disagree. I think once you are a mum you are someone’s MUM! I mean for goodness sakes, you are the mother of someone’s grandchild, someone’s cousin, someone’s nephew or niece and that is a huge responsibility, albeit an amazing one.

Maybe when your child is bigger you can get back to being a bit more like the original ‘me’. But whilst you’re still changing nappies every couple of hours that’s a tough one. From other blogs I have seen people really struggle with this, it can cause turmoil and despair that they are losing their identity. Well, I have those days too, it can get to three in the afternoon and I am still in pyjamas and I wonder what the hell I’m doing.

What I am doing is teaching my son to play, to sing, to love, to laugh, to dream. I know he’s only one but everything I show him now will affect who he is when he’s bigger. That is why I don’t mind that the current ‘me’ is pretty damn different to the old ‘me’ because as soon as I start humming ‘row, row, row your boat’ my son starts moving backwards and forwards with his hands grasping imaginary oars and it was ME that taught him that!”

Now I’d urge you to pop over to Anna’s blog and read my guest post - where I write about mummy bloggers and books.