Week 42 – 11/05/16
1.Velcro baby.
This week has seen another tooth poke through so we have a full 4 now and I can see 2 more top teeth edging their way to freedom. This may explain why I have had somewhat of a Velcro baby for the past few days perhaps.
It could of course also be separation anxiety as I know Paddington is now fully realising that him and me are not the same person and that I can walk away from him, and I think this may be troubling him a bit too. Often when I try and put Padstar down for a play or leave him in his chair for a second, he starts crying with actual real tears as if his world is about to end. Also when I walk away to get something he will sometimes crawl behind me with his face a contortion of anguish, and tears dropping from his distressed little eyes until I inevitably turn around and pick him up.
It is heart breaking, yet also a little frustrating at times, as getting stuff done is virtually impossible and all he wants is cuddles and attention, which of course I want to give him but sometimes I just need the loo or to put some laundry away without having to carry him with me. This isn’t his usual style, he has definitely been more Velcro this week, (I don’t like the term clingy as that implies that it’s a bad thing when actually I love that he needs me and wants me this much at the moment and I want to help him through this. It won’t always be this way so it does feel pretty special, though it makes day to day tasks a bit more of a challenge!).
He is also sleeping pretty badly again this week (what’s new there I hear you cry!), with a few nights where he has been waking every hour, which is awesome (not). He cries out into the darkness as if really needing to know that I am still there and then just won’t settle unless he has some boob. Jon has tried to help me out and settle him once or twice but he just keeps on crying and getting more upset until I eventually take over and cuddle him. He seems to just want his mum at the moment, which is hard for Jon and pretty demanding for me, but also makes me feel like I am doing a good job at making my boy feel safe and loved and providing comfort which is an amazing feeling.
This is just how it is for now clearly. I am hoping this ‘phase’ will pass and that it is just teething or a short separation anxiety phase, as I could really do with some better night’s sleep again soon!
2.Proper raspberry blowing fun.
Our little Paddington is delighting in making raspberry sounds again and they are much more sophisticated than the first baby ones he did a while back. He really goes for the lip vibrations and then a bit of tongue poking out to create variations in sound. It cracks me up each time which of course encourages him to be even more playful with it and do it over and again.
Speaking of the fun of making blowing noises, he has also started taking his empty doidy cup and putting it over his mouth as a sort of sound piece and then either blowing into it to make a loud noise or shouting into it. He finds this super entertaining and his little face is a picture of joy and mischief throughout – as well as always a bit red from where he has been pressing the cup into his mouth and nose! Again, this is pretty funny to see and hear, and he loves to make people laugh already, so it becomes a bit of a comedy routine with little Padstar as the enthusiastic comedian.
When I drink from a plastic water bottle, he thinks it’s the most fun toy he has ever seen and immediately starts reaching out to grab it, and if I let him have a go, after a few little sips of water, which always seem to amaze him that they come from the bottle, he will then take the bottle in both of his hands and blow/shout into it, pausing to look at my reaction every few seconds. He likes to do this in cafes and restaurants where we always get a lot of other tables laughing at his japes. This kid is already an entertainer and a right laugh to be around. He is such a dude.
3.Brand new kicks.
Paddington’s grandma treated him to some super duper cool navy blue high tops as his first pair of shoes. They are quite possibly the cutest things I have ever seen and best of all, they stay on as they are high top trainers with Velcro fastenings. Win!
He seems to quite enjoy wearing them too and is getting used to the experience of swinging his heavier feet and kicking them against things. He can also stand in them too which is what she bought them for, to stop him slipping about on the wooden floors and for outside.
We still mainly do bare feet though as I know it’s important for him to feel the floor while he is finding his feet so to speak, but his new kicks will come in handy when he wants to try walking and standing more outside, and they just look adorable on him.
4.Working girl.
After a wobbly couple of weeks of finding myself jobless, facing the prospect of a career change and having to find work as a new(ish) mum in a new(ish) area, and dealing with the emotions that brought with it. Then having to sign on, which was at once humbling and depressing, the tide has thankfully changed, thanks in part to my tenacity and pro-activity, and also in part to this very blog and the power of social media. And some very awesome, supportive mum friends.
I have spent a lot of evenings and Paddington nap times scanning the Internet for jobs and thinking about what new areas of work my skills could be suitable for, as well as re-doing my cv and tailoring different versions of it to send to different companies speculatively, both within my old field of TV production and also to some local companies that I looked into and decided would be cool to work for. My shortlist was very short, as I reasoned that I had been given this opportunity to be cut loose from my old work and life so it was up to me to use that to find a job that I wanted to do, for a company that I admired and wanted to work for, and that suited my new family life and gave me the work/life balance that I now need.
The TV search wasn’t looking fruitful, as part time work doesn’t really exist, (though a brilliant new venture has been set up called Share my Telly job, designed to find the exact kind of work that I was looking for: flexible and part time, by pairing up people with compatible cvs to job share roles within the industry. It’s a great concept and I really hope employers see the sense in going for it, but it has literally just launched so is in its infancy at the moment with very few jobs or employers coming forward to support it yet. I do wonder if TV is too set in its exploitative, inflexible old ways though to really take an initiative like this on board? I hope it proves me wrong), and TV work is all based in the two nearest cities, Cardiff and Bristol, which are a fair old commute, which isn’t ideal with Paddington to consider now. Also, as Jon works in Bristol, if I ended up commuting there every day too, then why did we move to Wales and would it not be easier to just live in Bristol?! That just didn’t make sense to us. I had to find work locally, or remotely, to be near to Pads nursery and later on, school, and for all our hard work and time spent apart as a family, renovating our old cottage to be worth it.
In the midst of my job search, 2 old school pals reached out to me, after reading my work wobbles blog, and offered me some brilliant suggestions and opportunities, and oddly they were both within the same new field that I have been looking into as a possible new career path. That must be the universe telling me to go in that direction right?!
Marketing and social media management seem to utilise a lot of my existing skills and I think I could be good at them. It’s creative work and requires keen organisation skills, is project based and can be done freelance, remotely or for a company within a normal office setting. It has options for flexible working basically and crucially, can be done part time. Part time is very important to me now as I want to spend time with Pads as well as being able to work and the usual 5:2 work:life ratio just won’t cut it anymore.
I had been heavily considering retraining on a digital mums course to give me a better chance of finding work within marketing/social media management when 2 golden opportunities came up thanks to my network of amazing mum pals who saw my potential before I did (thanks Marie and Ella for thinking of me and believing in me!).
I was offered an interview, after sending my cv into an inspirational and aspirational family run local company, for an exciting role overseeing the company’s website, online profile and social media presence. Now, I haven’t had an interview for about 4 years and TV interviews are very informal and not exactly your standard interview set ups, at least in my experience anyway. I was excited but also a little daunted as to how I would come across and react in an interview setting after so long. I felt quite rusty and just really hoped they liked me.
My mum took Padstar for the morning as I made myself look neat and presentable, with actual make up on my face and everything, and then we all drove to my interview together. I gave Pads a little kiss and cuddle as I left him with grandma to walk around the town, and off I went to determine my future. It felt strange to be on my own, without my little man, let alone going for a job interview!
The interview was luckily very relaxed, though there were 4 people interviewing me which was quite a big welcome back to the real world of work! It seemed to go quite well and I really liked them and felt pumped and exhilarated afterwards. I was buzzing when I walked back into town to be reunited with my gorgeous baby boy and have a debrief cuppa with my mum.
It was good to put myself out there and big up my work experience and skills after so long just being a mum, and by the word ‘just’, I do not mean that being a mum is not enough, if we were able to live off one salary alone I would absolutely consider being a stay at home mum (and dabble in passion projects to keep me busy, i.e write that novel I thought I’d have time to write on maternity leave and play with pretty flowers whenever I fancied etc…) and admire those that can make that work, as it isn’t the easy option at all. I mean that being a mum has been my single focus for the past 9 and a bit months and now I want to return to work alongside my mum duties, which as you all know by now, I bloody love and cherish, as something for me, to regain some independence and identity and because I actually really like to be busy and get my teeth stuck into something creative.
Well, later that day I got an email offering me the job! I fist pumped the air in excitement and felt chuffed that an employer had believed in me, seen my skills as transferable and taken a punt on me. I am now a Marketing Assistant for a really stylish homegrown brand, Mandarin Stone, who are market leaders in the world of stone, porcelain and ceramic floors and tiles, and the role is part time and locally based. Exactly what I was looking for. And alongside this new job, I got offered the chance to do some short monthly freelance marketing work which taps into my edit producing skills, for another mum friend who has just set up her own company that recognises the untapped potential of the huge pool of talented mums out there who are struggling to get back into the workplace as they now need part time and flexible roles, that most employers aren’t willing to consider unfortunately. There seems to be a spate of redundancies at the moment amongst my mum peers, with companies getting rid of most of the mums in their workforce because they tend to be the ones doing the part time work which seems dispensable to certain, well actually sadly, to most companies – what is the deal with that?! You would think such an antiquated viewpoint wouldn’t be prevalent in these supposedly modern times wouldn’t you? Mums make great workers people, and I bet we can be just as efficient working part time as some employees are working full time. Don’t rule us out!
And through the suggestion of this lovely mum pal, Marie you are a total legend! and an inspiration for a new working mum, I am also going to do a brilliant free online course in inbound marketing, squeezed in around the new job and Paddington’s needs!, so I will have an actual industry accreditation to my name soon too. Busy times ahead!
I am really looking forward to training up in my new role and evolving my skills, and happy to be changing my career to something that really suits my needs and opens up a lot of options and exciting prospects. It feels like I am future proofing my skills in a way, as everyone has and needs a website and social media accounts these days, so if I can become an expert in using those tools to promote business and present and define a brand, then hopefully, I will have a long and varied new career ahead of me, that I can fit in around being Paddington’s parent, which is of course, my top job and number one priority.
I start the new job in a few weeks so I have time to adjust to the now very real prospect of returning to work, and can also sort out Pads nursery settling in days and make the most of our precious remaining maternity leave together. Everything is about to change. Again.
5.Our last Water Babies session
We have loved our Water Babies swimming adventure. We are two chapters in now and have both gained so much from the classes. They have been really fun sessions as well as being important to teach Pads about being in the water safely and get him, and me, confident in and around the pool. He has come on so far since his first few sessions and really loves being in the water.
This week the lovely teacher brought along a big round floating mat and instructed me to seat Pads near the edge of it and then call him to me. He was supposed to jump into my arms and then they would move on to the next baby.
Well Pads really enjoyed sitting on the large floating mat, like a frog on a lily pad, so when I called him, he laughed and smiled at me and continued to happily sit. For quite a while. I was the mum pleadingly calling out his name over and over and clapping and gesturing for him to come to me and he thought this was a great game! Eventually, he did launch himself quite forcefully off the mat and landed face first on the water, which wasn’t exactly the plan, but he wasn’t phased which goes to show how happy he is in water nowadays.
We are going to continue to swim weekly on our own as its great for both of us, but we had to end our Water Babies story here partly due to finances, and partly due to me going back to work so not being able to do Tuesday’s anymore.
It’s the end of a swimming era, but we have the skills and confidence to continue alone for now and once we are in the swing of things a bit more after my return to work, I will try and find a class closer to our cottage, and cheaper, that we can go to and build upon our skills.
6.From one mum to another...
I was overwhelmed with mum to mum thoughtfulness and kindness this week. There is nothing like a fellow mum friend to understand how hard it can be sometimes to be bringing up baby, especially when you have both been ill with different, or possibly the same?!, bugs one after the other. That coupled with the whole not having a job for a while there wobbles and panicking about what to do next and how to sell myself after so long out of the jobs market, and us still not being in our own cottage yet, and not being able to spend any quality time as our little family as Jon is either at work or working on the cottage, has made for a tough couple of weeks and though we’ve popped out the other side now and I am back to my positive, take it all on the chin self, it still sucks a bit.
I have had some lovely messages of support which have put a smile on my face when all I wanted to do was frown or cry, and some really lovely phone chats about motherhood and beyond, including some great advice and shared experience about returning to work with my amazingly wise and inspiring friend, and mother of 2 beautiful kids, Claire – I really needed and value those chats, they made me feel a lot more positive about how things have changed for me as a person and that I still have plenty to offer in the work place, if not more than before. As well as some great leads and suggestions towards finding a job as mentioned above, all by you lovely lot, so thank you. I really appreciate it and love our little mum network. We got each other’s backs and that’s a great feeling.
A big shout out must go to my lovely buddy Jayne as well, who has a gorgeous new baby girl herself and still found the time to send me 3 brilliant books to cheer me up. When the package arrived I thought I had been sleep, or rather sleep deprived, ordering at first, until I saw the lovely gift message and I was blown away with loveliness and a warm, fuzzy feeling, so thank you Jayne. I really appreciate the books, and am very touched that you thought of me. I am especially chuffed that one of the books is by my favourite mum blogger, The Unmumsy Mum. I have had that book on my wish list since it came out and have been devouring chapters around Pads naps and loving it. It’s a fun and resonating read that shows that we are all just in the same boat as parents, muddling along the murky river of sleepless nights and self doubt, and it’s OK to admit that things can get a bit shit sometimes, and there’s always another mum going the same way up shit creek to lend you a supportive hand or a virtual cuddle.
7.Fun in the Sun
We had some gorgeous sunny days last week didn’t we? What a difference they make when you have a baby, as suddenly your options just open up and you aren’t confined to indoor spaces. Pads loves grass now and loves to race around a garden or a park or a field on his hands and knees. He also tries to eat the dandelions and put stones in his mouth but that’s all part of the fun right?!
We spent a couple of lovely days making the most of the sunny weather and had our lunches in the garden and an early evening play on the lawn. Pads found the hose pipe for watering the flowers a truly magical thing so was very helpful in picking that up and twisting it so the water stopped flowing!
On Sunday, Pads and I went along to the Malvern Spring Show with my mum as a fun family day out, and because we all love flowers and pretty gardens. It was a brilliant day. The sun shone, boy did it shine. It was almost too hot at times and being a Brit, I was ill prepared so had no suncream for me or Pads. I am not even sure if you can use normal suncream on a baby, can you?! He had his sun hat on though and was quite happy chilling in his buggy with the shade over him.
When it got to above 20 degrees and the breeze stopped, it really was quite hot so I unbuttoned his dungarees and removed his socks and he just styled it with his legs out in the fresh air to keep him nice and cool. I was quite envious as I would have liked to do the same.
He was an absolute legend all day, happily being pushed around the garden exhibits and enjoying the bright colours and textures of all the beautiful plants and flowers. It was very busy too with lots of people buzzing about and he loves people watching so he was in his element, chattering away and making his favourite funny scrunched up face.
We had quite a few pit stops for food and boob and to give Pads a little pad about after being sat in the buggy for a while. We found a nice kid friendly grassed area and I let him crawl about on the grass and he went absolutely berserk with all the freedom and space.
He loved it when I went down to his level to crawl with him and chased him about the field, shrieking with delight and turning around to make sure I was still chasing him and tease me with pauses before stomping off again with speed. He is a really fast crawler too, so it was quite a workout chasing after my little guy and a lot of fun for me too.
He also saw and felt a tree up close for the first time which was a huge source of wonder for him. He crawled up to it to investigate and realised he could stand up against it. Then he looked up and saw that the trunk went on and on up into the sky. This was huge. That kept him amused for quite some time. I reckon he will be a future tree climber, like his dad.
We all came home tired out after walking miles around the huge site, a little tanned on our faces and very happy. I have to admit that at the end of the day when the stalls and gardens started selling off their plants at bargain prices, we did go a bit mad and turned Pads buggy into a sort of mobile gardener’s world. Our bounty became too much to carry so I did end up carrying Paddington while mum pushed a buggy full of tulips, astilbe, salix and various other pots and plants! A great day out.
Week 45 – 31/05/16
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