Full time Stay at Home Mum reporting for Duty....

On Friday at 12:45pm I was called into the office, informed that I no longer had a job, and by 1pm I had packed up my desk, been escorted out of the building and was no longer employed. So now I am a Stay at Home Mum, which means that I now work for loves and kisses instead of pound sterling and my hours are 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. And instead of getting upset about it I am going to live up to the challenge. Gareth and I have agreed to re-evaluate this in the new year and see where we are, but for now I have the most important job in the world. I will have to take care of all James' nutritional needs (dietician and chef), his education (teacher), discipline (police officer) and fix all his boo boo's (nurse).

I also get the job of keeping the house in a tip top condition (cleaner). Now to say that I am um, domesticated, would be true to sense.... Name me a food and I will cook it for, of late, name me a cake and I will bake it for you. What you want your dishes cleaned and your kitchen swept and mopped, not a problem. You need your toilet cleaned, ok no hassles, I know how to do bathrooms too, and how to dust... but I am afraid that is where all my being domestic stops..... ummmmm....... yeah. Gareth has spoilt me since I became pregnant. He has always done all our laundry and I bet if I asked nicely enough he would even do my ironing (if I bought clothes that needed to be ironed of course), and he changes all our bedding and he does all the vacuuming. He is the man to call when you need to oven cleaned or the dirt taken out. What you have a hole in your trousers? I will just ask my husband to sew it up straight after he builds the wall unit. I think I can safely say that by me being spoilt Gareth has learnt alot.... he can even cook a decent tomato bredie or curry if you ask nicely. But seen as I am now home all the time, I have decided that I will need to take on the domestic side of things and that way we can spend more time together doing family things on the weekend.

Today reminded me of how undomesticated I can be..... James was being an angel for me this morning so I took a shower and washed my hair. While I was drying my hair I could hear James in the lounge playing happily, and then it happened! My son walks into my bedroom, looking very pleased with himself and hands me his nappy, inside his nappy was a nice poo. Yes, James had taken off his nappy himself and brought it very proudly to me. So I chase the little monster to clean his bum and to put a clean nappy on it and then carry on drying my hair. I then walk into the lounge and guess what I find? James had smeared his poo all over his bean bag chair! He had taken his nappy off and then sat on his chair! Great stuff. Luckily I remember that the beans can come out of the chair and that it can be machine washed, so I take the bean bag to the kitchen and try to pour the 10 million beans into a refuse bag..... yeah, that did not work so well.... there were white beans everywhere, except in the refuse bag, it looked like it had snowed in my kitchen. James thought this was great fun. So I sweep up all the beans and I take the bean bag to the bedroom where I attempted to put the beans into the mesh washing basket, this works great until the washing basket gets too full and there are still beans in the bean bag. So I try and put the refuse bag over the top of the mesh washing basket, but the damn thing moves and white beans snow everywhere. Great I eventually get all the beans out and into the washing basket, the refuse bag or on the floor. I sweep up as many of the beans as I can using my hands and put them into the refuse bag, and then decide that I need to vacuum up the rest. I fetch the vacuum, great. I attach all the necessary pipes to the correct holes, great. I plug the vacuum cleaner in, great.... but where is the on button? It took me about 5 minutes to find the damn on button!

Next job, I thought that I would wash all the bedding, so I go and fetch the duvet covers off the top of the cupboard and as I am pulling, 2 winter King size duvets and about 6 pillows with all necessary covers and about 6 blankets all come tumbling down on me.... I was standing in an avalanche of bedding.... This was just too much for me, I looked at the bedding and stepped over it, and walked out the room. So, when Gareth got home tonight, I told him about my day and he just seemed to understand. He helped me clear up everything, after he had stopped laughing, of course.

Next step - education. I have an Internet friend - Abby that does the most wonderful things with her son. I am always so envious of her good ideas, but one that I am going to steal from her is her theme's. Every week she does a different theme with her son. They read a book and that book forms the theme of the week and they do all sorts of activities based around that. So, this is where you come in. Please suggest a theme for James and I, please mention the book that you would use too. What was your favourite childhood read? I am going to add to this as well, by saying that I am going to have a word a day for James to learn around that theme as he is picking up words all the time.

Ok, its now midnight and I have had a long day.... and tomorrow I get to try this being domestic thing again, hopefully without snow or avalanches.

Where to start?

Well clearly I am not meant to be a person who updates their blog on a regular basis. Oh well......

James has turned into a monster and discovered the art of throwing a tantrum, great! It just means that I am ready to murder him at any given time, including when he finds it funny to empty out his box of muesli on my kitchen floor and draw pictures in it. I think it is safe to say that the terrible two's are hitting us already, as my child now throws himself on the floor and has a body wriggling, head banging, smacking, kicking, pinching, scratching, biting, screaming tantrum when he can't get his own way or if we are too slow.

Gareth has just finished his second lot of exams today. We are holding thumbs on that. Since April 16 Gareth has been away in Brentwood for work. Luckily he comes home for weekends, and has had some study leave lately, but I really can't wait for this to be over. Being a single parent to a terrible two's toddler sucks.........

And then me, where do I start? Well, as of Monday I have gone onto part time hours at work. Great! I am heavily overweight and have started Weight Watchers (and have started a second blog about that - maybe I will actually update it every now and then .......lol - http://heavysights.blogspot.com/) and I am starting at the gym on Saturday. I have a special 3 month referal programme from my doctor that I need to do. And then my kind of big, kind of probably not so big, but kind of worrying me news. Since July last year my doctor has been running blood tests on me every so often and since the beginning of the year, every couple of weeks. The have found that my CSR(?) and my ALP(?) levels are up. This is a sign of imflamation in the body, particulary the liver. My GP sent me for a scan, but they could not pick up anything, so she has refered me to the Liver Disease Clinic at Bournemouth Hospital so that I can see a specialist. Now I know that I have no reason to be concerned yet and that this is all probably because I am too fat, but when you see your name on a piece of paper and it says liver disease next to it, it kind of freaks you out a little bit, especially when I know that a friend of mine's Dad got told that he had liver cancer and 6 weeks later he was dead.... yes, I am thinking the worst, but wouldn't you? So I am asking anyone out there that reads this, if you can please muster up any vibes, prayers, thoughts or whatever it is that you do, that there is actually nothing wrong with me, and the 20 odd blood tests that my doctor has run are all wrong or that it is nothing serious. Thank you....

Well, I had better go to bed..... have an early start tomorrow. And we are having the first delivery of Organic Veg and Fruit box (and I added some fresh herbs) tomorrow, and I will need to be bright eyed and bushy tailed to think up recipes with low point values to make with my veggies..... oh and I have to have myself and James up and ready by 7am tomorrow morning.......

Sour Lolly Pop?

Gareth has gotten a promotion at work, which is great - its a step in the right direction and its more money. The down side - he has to go to Brentwood (near Basildon) for 2 months, only coming home on weekends and our trip home that we had planned for May has to be postponed until later in the year, probably October or November..... So we have compared it to a sour lolly pop - its a treat, but you need to work through the horrible sour part first to get to the delicios yummy part.... I just hope that the sour edging is not too thick.

Remember us?

So, its been a few months since I last posted.... oh well. Lots has changed, I no longer have a baby, I now have a toddler that tried to walk everywhere. He has had his circumcision and has lived to tell the tale. I have gone back to work, and James has started nursery. We both love it, although I am probably going to be cutting down my hours to part time soon, and only work 2.5 days a week. We have moved house and James is in his own room and sleeps through the night.

And this weekend we will be having another new change.... I have decided that I have breastfed James long enough and Friday night, 20 March 2009 will be his last breastfeed...... now that is a huge change for me.........

And thats us up to date, hopefully I will start posting more soon again.

It is coming......

Hi To Who Reads this.... we have photos and video of James' birthday, and I promise to upload them soon, but right now we are so exhausted from yesterday that I can not actually describe it. I know that I need to complete my list as well, all in good time.....zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Video: James 'Eating'

Here is a video of what happens when we let James feed himself. The video is 3 minutes long and I do apologise for the sound of my voice (and the Top Gear background). You can expect lots more videos in the future, as the charger for my video camera arrived from South Africa this week, so my son has now become a movie star!

Number 21 - 15

#21 - I love his eyes

#20 - I love when we blow raspberries on his tummy, and he squeals with laughter

#19 - Gareth loves how James' face lights up when he gets home from work

#18 - I love how he wants to copy everything that I do, even if it can be enduring.

#17 - I love the way he smacks his lips together when he eats something that he especially likes

#16 - I remember how nervous I was the first time I gave James his first bath at home, how scared I was.........

#15 - I love how I can sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star to him, and he will go to sleep.....