I’m Not Perfect…

…Despite what I will have you believe on this blog of mine… haha! In fact I am far from perfect. Some of my worst traits include the following:

I am a professional procrastinator! I will put boring tasks off for as long as possible (putting laundry away is one of them!)… and before I know it I have a list of tasks that is super long! I find it way TOO easy to say “I’ll do that later”. You should see the junk room in our house… it’s been needing decluttered for months… and each weekend I think I might start…. but then I think, next weekend instead. It will be a junk room for forever.

Another of my less than perfect traits is the fact that I love spending money! I really do and I can’t seem to help myself. If I go into a shop, it feels wrong to come home empty handed. I could save a lot of money if I just never left the house… window shopping is definitely not for me!

Also, James thinks I am bossy…

Just being honest!

Things I’ve Learned In Life, That They Don’t Teach At School…

There was no ‘marriage teacher’ at school to teach me how to be a good wife and how to be married! James and I married young… I was only 22 when we got married and again, my pre-marriage notions are hilarious. Of course, it’s wonderful and lovely… I love being married, but being a grown up is so much harder and complicated than it seemed when I was 17! We had to learn to fight properly (something we STILL haven’t got the hang of haha!) and learn to always think of the other person… we had to learn how to budget, do chores together…

We weren’t taught about birth at school… I had to learn how to ‘birth’ a baby pretty much by myself haha and boy was it a shock! I mean, of course we were told how it happens… but those diagrams etc… they are nothing like the real thing. As soon as I went into labour, both times, it was nothing like I had imagined.

I’ve learned that little boys are the most oddly fascinating little creatures! They are affectionate, funny and quite absurd! Raising two boys (thus far) has certainly been the most interesting and amazing part of my life to date. They are hilarious. I always imagined having little girls, as I was growing up and it wasn’t until I had Ollie that I realised how wonderful life with boys is.

I also had to learn how to be a parent… nobody taught me that. I guess I picked things up as I was growing up, babysitting…. having 2 younger brothers and I guess I’ve so far parented by example (my mum is awesome!)… but I think about my pre-baby notions… my wonderings about what life would be like and I laugh at how naive I was!

In the years that I have been married, I have learnt to deal with loss and how to overcome the heartbreak and disappointment that comes with miscarrying… I had to learn how to be strong, patient and KEEP GOING in order to create the family we now have. Some things take time and a heart can be broken… but it can be fixed and though the pain is always there somewhat, it dulls.

I’ve learnt that my happiness is my choice. I’m the only one responsible for me being happy! It wasn’t until recently that this really clicked for me. I refuse to let anyone drain me of a good mood! If I’m not happy with something, then it’s up to me to change it! Marcus Aurelius said that the happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts and I really believe that. If you THINK happy, good thoughts… you’ll feel good and be happy too!

Shortlisted For A Blog Award!!

So… I am one of 7 bloggers that has been shortlisted for the Loved By Parents Blogger Of The Year Award!! Sounds cool doesn’t it?

Know what the prize is? A 2 night stay in a luxury treehouse in Wales for all 4 of us. How awesome is that? I’d definitely love to win and so would the boys… so if you like my blog and you wanna help me get over my failed driving test haha, I would be SO appreciative if you could vote for me and my little blog.

This blog has been a diary of our entire life as a family… I started keeping this blog less than a year after James and I married… and I was only as few months pregnant with Ollie. That’s 5 and a bit years! I love my blog and love writing it and I figure, I’ve been shortlisted for an award… so my little blog must be alright!

So yes… I shamelessly beg you to vote for me as Blogger Of The Year. It would make me super happy… and if I win I will be sure to post a video of me doing a happy dance… that’s a promise!

CLICK HERE!!!!!!

So Yesterday Wasn’t Totally Great…But Then Was!

I FAILED MY DRIVING TEST! Sob… I really thought I had passed, my safety questions were right, my driving was good… my parallel park was PERFECT and I remembered to check my blindspots when moving off from my emergency stop (something that is an automatic fail if you forget to do)… I had written ‘ob’ on my hand to remind myself to check my mirrors…

Guess what I failed on? Just once, I forgot to check my left mirror when I was turning left. I know… a serious mistake… (I think I also failed on my approach speed coming to a set of lights… they changed and I breaked quite fast… I thought that was better than running a red though!).

So when the examiner turned towards me at the end with a smile on his face and said “Well Emma…”… I was thinking I had scraped by, because I hadn’t REALISED at this point about the one mirror check…”unfortunately this time……….. blah blah blah…..”. Gutted.

I got home and rebooked the test but it isn’t for weeks. I chose the soonest date they had. I am hoping that a cancellation comes up in the next week or two so that I can just try again… I dislike all the waiting in between.

James let me have a nap to try and conquer my bad mood… it kind of helped… and when I woke, we collected Ollie… who said I would win next time if I drove a bit faster (not sure he fully understands!). James cooked dinner, I chatted to a couple of friends (who made me feel tons better) and I chatted to my mum (who ALWAYS makes me feel better). One friend made me realise that failing this time will make it so much sweeter when I do actually pass.

So after I’d napped, played with the boys a little, had dinner cooked for me and spoke to a couple of friends, I felt much better and my day then improved some more when Lucy over at Capture By Lucy informed me that I was 1 in 7 shortlisted bloggers for the Loved By Parents Blogger Of The Year award!! How did this happen?? Haha!

You can click the button here to vote for me!

My Best Posts

So… I trawled through my archives and came up with this list of the posts I have written, that I like the best!

10 Things I Don’t Know How To Do
Random Things About Our Family
Things I Want To Teach My Sons
The ABCs Of Me
On Being A Mum Of Two
Things That Make Me Smile
Ollie On Marriage
Dear Teenage Me
The First Moments
In 10 Years
...On Being A Mama To Boys
Nate’s Birth Story
Ollie’s Birth Story
My Job
What I Know About Raising Boys
My Sincerest Apologies

Butterflies In My Belly…

It’s a known fact that I’ve been learning to drive for a while now… and so it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that my test is SOON. Haha! By soon, I mean… before the month of May is out. I haven’t told many people of the exact date… because I hate to think of the additional pressure of many people knowing and then having to tell a ton of people the bad news, if I were to fail.

It’s going fine. I was SO nervous when I first started driving, but I got used to it quite quickly. My instructor thinks I will do fine in the test… and I’m sure I would if it weren’t for my nerves! I get so nervous before any test situation and I don’t quite know how to make the nerves disappear!

My Earliest Memories

The thing I remember the most about in my early childhood, is where we lived in Comber. I was 3 or so. I had a couple of friends… one called Natasha and one called Leanne. I remember the things we used to get up to including getting into trouble for watching Dirty Dancing. I was never allowed past a certain lightpost on the street…. that was the furthest I could go… and we had gooseberry bushes in our garden. There was an old woman who lived across the street called Doreen and she used to let me come over and eat slices of apple dipped into the sugar bowl. Yum!

My mum and dad bought me a cabin bed with a cubby hole underneath. It was the most awesome bed I’ve ever had and I spent ages playing in it.

I remember I cut my whole fringe off… the whole thing. I looked a sight.

Once, the house a couple of doors down went on fire and we were all evacuated onto the street. Apparently it had started because of a row between the husband and wife. I remember standing on the street in my nightie with all my other neighbours… also in their pyjamas, but one was out in a towel!

Then And Now And The Heartbreak Inbetween

Every single day… I look at both of my little boys… and I can’t believe how lucky we have been. James and I have two amazing, smart, healthy and fun little boys, that are ours for forever. We aren’t going to have any more children, and as I mentioned before, there is such a lovely feeling comes from knowing you are finished and that your family is complete.

Our amazing little family didn’t come easily though.

When Ollie had turned 1, James and I started talking about adding to our family and we started trying for baby number 2 in the August. We fell pregnant very fast with Ollie and expected the same the second time around.

We were ecstatic when we found out, just a couple of months later, that we were pregnant and the baby was due to arrive a couple of days after Ollie turned 2. How perfectly timed. A two year age gap sounded wonderful and we were excited for Ollie to have a sibling.

Unfortunately I started bleeding at 8 weeks. We went to the hospital to find that the baby was only measuring 6 weeks and there was no heartbeat present. They could not confirm whether I was miscarrying and booked me in for another scan a week later to see if there was any growth. James and I spent a horrendous week in limbo drifting between hope and heartache. The waiting was so painful.

At the second scan the Dr. told us it was bad news, but at the same time told us that because of a minuscule size difference than the week before, they could not legally advise me of my options. They told me to come back in another week. The sonographer who performed the (internal) scan was a little rough and I had a feeling she had prompted things to happen naturally.

I lost the baby 3 days later on Sunday, 8th November, 2009 at 9pm. Losing the baby was the most terrifying thing to happen in my life. It seemed like hours but was in fact less than 20 minutes. Then it was over. I arranged a scan for Monday morning, but I knew they would confirm that the pregnancy was over and the miscarriage was finished.

We were broken hearted. I swore I never wanted to try again. I couldn’t understand why it was happening to us… you don’t imagine bad things happening to you and when they do it’s a shock.

A few days later, I was adamant that I DID in fact, want to try again. It felt like, if we didn’t try again and we didn’t get our wish of having another baby, that the devastating experience we had been through would have been in vain.

James and I started trying again. After falling pregnant twice, rather fast… it came as a surprise when it took more than a year to fall pregnant for the third time. I couldn’t get my head around why it was taking so long and worried that maybe there was something wrong and maybe we would never have another child.

We found out we were pregnant after Christmas, after trying for about 15 months. I couldn’t believe our luck. It was such a relief knowing that we could in fact get pregnant and we were again, excited. Our joy was short lived as one week into the pregnancy my symptoms disappeared and I took a pregnancy test which came up negative. Just a week before I had had symptoms and a positive test… what had happened in between?

I lost the baby a week later. My heart broke for a second time.

I went for tests at my Dr. to first of find out if everything was working ok and she referred us to the fertility clinic at the hospital. The appointment was made to rule out any problems there might be, why it had taken more than a year to fall pregnant and to question why I had miscarried twice.

The appointment date came through for April, blood was taken, questions were asked… and a followup appointment was made for August. We didn’t need the followup appointment…

At the end of April something must have clicked because I found out a week and a half into May that we were pregnant for the 4th time.

This time, nothing went wrong… I was on tenter hooks the whole pregnancy but that’s exactly what I got… a WHOLE pregnancy and a baby boy, born on 18th January 2012.

I think back to my original thoughts after the first miscarriage, 3 1/2 years ago, thoughts about never wanting to try again… and can’t imagine what life would be like if we hadn’t continued trying… we wouldn’t be this family of 4. We wouldn’t have a home filled with love and laughter of 2 parents and 2 little boys. I feel crazy lucky to be called mum, mummy and mama by two handsome mini gentlemen.

A Day In The Life Of…

I love seeing how other people spend their days… their routines… how they manage to get everything done. I have always loved to-do lists and routines and I thrive on predictability in my day! The day to day of our family, on a weekday, is as follows:

7.00 – 7.30am Ollie is normally awake before Nate… he slips out of his room quietly and climbs in between me and James. He will play Minecraft on James iPad for a little while… James and I catch a couple of extra zzzzzzzs!

7.30am Nate is normally awake by this time and he joins us in bed too. He is normally super happy in the mornings and in bed is where we have some of the funnest Ollie/ Nate interactions. James gets ready and I get Ollie ready for school… he gets his uniform on and I pack his snack in his schoolbag. At 7.40 James and Ollie leave the house, James will drop Ollie at school for 8.00 for breakfast club.

8.00am After James and Ollie have left the house, Nate and I head downstairs for breakfast after he has had his nappy change. Nate loves breakfast… I don’t normally eat anything.

8.30am When breakfast is finished, I get Nate washed and dressed and then he plays in his room while I get my shower and get dressed. When we are both ready I will check my email, Bloglovin etc and do a quick tidy of downstairs. I will get rid of the breakfast dishes and normally get a load of laundry on to wash too. When those couple of chores are finished we play together and have a relaxed morning, depending on what we are doing!

9.00am If we are going out for the day… which would be more often than not (baby group, classes we go to, to see friends etc) we normally get the 9.05am bus to wherever we are headed to. I can’t wait to be able to drive!!

10.00 – 11.00am Nate goes down for a nap. He is pretty easy and will nap happily in his pram no matter where we are. If we are at home, I will carry on with chores while he sleeps… if we are out and about, I get some relaxed time haha!

11.30am It’s quite early in the day for lunch, but Nate likes his lunch early! He will have anything from cheese on toast, spaghetti bolognese, fruit, omelette etc He is a super eater and isn’t fussy on much. He is very easy to feed!

12.00pm Once Nate is finished lunch, we play together until it is time to collect Ollie. Nate is such a sociable little baby, and interacts really well when played with.

1.35pm We leave for the bus. Sometimes James will collect Ollie and the other times, Nate and I get the bus!

2.00pm I go to collect Ollie. He is normally really full of beans and happy to tell me about his time at school… what snack he had, who he played with etc. We rush from his school to the bus stop to make it on time.

3.15pm We arrive home, Ollie kicks his shoes off and settles on the sofa to have a snack, watch some tv and have wind down time. I will change a load of laundry in the dryer etc and plan what to have for dinner. Nate normally has a little snack in his high chair while watching me do laundry!

4.30pm James arrives home and takes over the childcare while I make dinner.

5.00pm We have dinner together and then spend the rest of the evening playing, watching tv, chatting, doing homework, getting ready for bed and clearing up the dinner things.

6.30pm Nate goes to bed first and once he is settled Ollie goes to bed at about 7.00! Both boys settle really well… normally.

7.15pm-? James and I normally relax together for the rest of the night until bedtime. We normally watch a movie together and have chocolate! I will blog, edit photos, catch up on emails and twitter etc. Bedtime for us can be anything from 10.30-12!