The Alice

Huggies contacted me a little while ago to ask me to be a Huggies Mummy Blogger. I was really excited to say yes, because I will be needing a lot of nappies in the not so distant future and I know next to nothing about them, and so far Huggies have been a brilliant brand to work with. I unfortunately missed out on the inaugral Huggies Mummy Blogger meetup due to a hectic work schedule, but their lovely reps posted a goodie bag out to me which I received this week, which almost made up for not having the day of pampering. Huggies have also kindly offered to sponsor my attendance at CyberMummy, so I am looking forward to meeting all the other mums then.

Huggies have set Mummy bloggers everywhere a challenge and I’d like to invite you to take party: MESSY PLAY! They want to see photographs of your little ones making a mess of themselves and there are prizes for the best entries.

Child psychologist Janine Spencer says, “Giving children the freedom to play messily helps them develop their imagination and social skills. It boosts their confidence and helps them understand the world around them. That’s a small price to pay for a bit of mess.”

So, here’s the brief: post the messiest photos of your little one to your blog anytime between now and July 14th, any type of photo will do – your baby getting messy in dirt, paint, food, whatever. Huggies will then create a list of links to all the blog posts of babies getting messy on mum blogs around the web.

Some rules:
1. The messier your baby is in the photo the better (the challenge is cleaning up!)
2. Post the photo to your blog with The Messy Play by Huggies Wipes challenge. (It can be an old photo or a previous post).
3. Send a link of your blog post featuring your Messy Play photo to @Huggies_UK on Twitter or online.team@Huggies.com to participate.
4. Check out http://www.flickr.com/photos/messyplaybyhuggieswipes/ to see all the blogger submissions and links to their blogs. Submissions will also be shouted out by @Huggies_UK on Twitter.
5. The top 3 messiest entries will receive Huggies gift packs of Huggies merchandise.

I would recommend checking out the Messy Play link to Flickr – there are some really messy entries on there already.

As a Huggies mummy blogger I was really keen to enter, though of course I have no baby to get messy! So my first thought was to snap my husband after a particularly messy cookery session, or mowing the lawn… nope, turns out he’s pretty well behaved at the moment.

So my entry is the mess of clothes that was in our spare room until they got packed away a couple of weeks ago ready for our move (thanks, Mum!). Baby H is going to have an insane amount of outfits:

Whilst you’re getting messy, why not visit my fabulous fellow Huggies Mummy Bloggers?:

- 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

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.

One thing I have struggled hard with over the last week is the fear of losing my identity. I have always wanted to be a mum, and a young one at that, so the concept is not unexpected nor new to me. But how do I become ‘mum’ and still remain ‘Alice’?

I do a lot of fun things that I often take for granted. I work for an amazing magazine, a job that has introduced me to many things I otherwise wouldn’t have been aware of. I haven’t paid to see live music (including festivals) for the last 7 years because of Will’s job. I enjoy eating out regularly at michelin-starred restaurants and drink in private members clubs. I get to spend my weekends in bed if I want, or at London markets eating cheese and drinking cider with my friends. I know I won’t be able to do all these things when the baby comes, so does that mean I will be less ‘me’?

The ‘mummy blogger’ scene is a strange one; in my job I have worked with fashion, music and even food bloggers, but not the mums. I have read many of them over the last couple of days as I find their material compelling, and how wonderful it must be to have somewhere to record and feedback on the ins and outs of parenting.

But, dare I say it, some of them seem a little dry. For years I have enjoyed blogs such as Dooce, Everyday Stranger, DasBecca, Mademoiselle Robot, Girls Gone Child and LLG because they not only talk about their main subject matter but diversify into others – interiors, fashions, mental health, photography, food, wine… I find myself hooked on these people’s lives, feeling their agonies and triumphs as much as I do my friends’. These blogs aside, I can’t help but feel some ‘Mummy Bloggers’ have left their previous lives and successes behind to simply become mothers. I look forward to being the best mum I can possibly be, but I know to do that I need to keep aspects of my current life, too.

Saying that, I came across one blog today that I had to sit and read through in its entirety. Metropolitan Mum is brilliant – a London mum recording life with her husband and six month old baby. She makes it so easy to relate, perhaps it helps that we live in the same neighborhood and she too conceived quickly after being told she was challenged fertility-wise. Whatever the reason, I will enjoy being along for the ride, safe in the knowledge that Met Mum not only loves talking about being a mum, she also goes to Brora sample sales and enjoys spending Saturdays in Liberty’s. Sounds like my kind of woman.