The holidays are now over and soon I will start a new job in London. I’m actually glad to be back home and I can’t complain about anything since I have another week off. How do I feel right now? Well a bit nervous as it takes me a while to adapt to new changes. I will be working full-time to London, I won’t be around the house as I was before and my husband must step-up a lot more at home.

Change

I talked a lot about this word. Change is good but so hard to embrace it. Take the example of having a baby for example. Life has certainly turned upside down with a baby but I could not imagine my life without little A.

My sisters (in-law) thinks that I have changed but in a good way. Some people change because they have to. I had no choice but change. I needed to be more reponsible as my daughter depends on me. We got to move forward in life, my aim has always been to be a better person: better at work, better at relationship, better at caring… and to achieve this, I sometimes need to push drastic changes.

I used to work from home and I’ve hated my job for a long time. It started to make me so unhappy that I got to find a better job. This comes with a compromise though. I did not find something close to home and commuting is going to be a pain. But looking at the bright side, this is a job opportunity that I am sure will make me feel good about myself. Staying at home made me depressed and really knocked my confidence.Do I sound selfish and career-minded? Dealing with guilt is difficult…

My new work is going to change the way we operate at home. Drop-offs to nursery, get to the train station, planning dinner…. But perhaps this could be a blessing in disguise. Looking back, changes are good and makes me a better person: the new job will force me to be more organised and cherish the rare quality time that I will have with my daughter.

Spending quality time with my daughter is what it’s the most important priorities. Not sure yet how it is going to be in reality but I will make sure that I spend enough time with her. She needs my full-attention and that is what matters the most to me now.

My career was my baby before and I would sacrifice everything to my ambition. I changed a lot! Work has become the last priority in my mind but it does not mean that I am not professional. I needed to find a better job because I was unhappy at home. Work is still important to my life balance and I need to be good at work so that I can be independent. What if my husband lose his job? At least we still have a back-up that we can rely on. I need a good job because I can relax more at home and not worry too much about our financial situation.

I heard many times that you can’t have everything (work and family). As far as it concerns me, this isn’t how you should see it. Finding the right balance is actually more important than having it all. Work is work, home is home.  When I am back from work, I should focus on my daughter and not going straight to my work emails. This is really something that I will make sure to apply otherwise I am going to be feel guilty and unhappy.

I love the fact that I have three weeks holidays before starting my new job. Even with no much money left in my bank account, I’m in a new turning point and I feel very positive about it.

Bring it on September

What do you think? Please feel free to comment, I would love to hear the feedback!

Mum’s Pickle is a website where you can find pertinent information about family stories, education, parenting books, children activities and other baby products.

Realmumuk blog would be used more like my diary, things that I have been doing, working on and things that makes me gringe! Don’t be surprised if you see a few change on this blog though as I am moving some of my posts over Mum’s Pickle.

Lots of Love,

RealMumUK or Mum’s Pickle!

So how to create a child friendly garden? Well, you need to combine important elements such as sand, water and adventure. It is possible to make your garden educational too.

1: Sand pit
Little A loves her sand pit and we use it every day! We bought a wooden pit with a lid to protect the sands at night. With the little benches, we spend long hours to read books and enjoy our tea time. We bought the sand pit (£100) at Great Little Trading Co. We did wait a little but it was really worth it and we have been using it every sunny days. It is the perfect size too as we did not want something too big (HxWxD:  20cm x 120cm x 120cm). If you prefer more original ones, the Great Little Trading Co has also some very cool sand pits with different shapes, like the boat with the cute canopy that costs £200 (I did not buy this one as it will slightly out of my budget).

2: Swing
As I don’t live nearby a playground, we bought a wooden swing frame with a baby seat and two standard seats. Don’t underestimate the power of the swing! It is more educational than I thought. Indeed, for babies (under 2), it is both fun and educational. The swing allows them to develop their eye tracking, motor (they learn how to to seat) and auditory (the sound of the outdoors) skills. If you own a big garden, you might be better off to buy a swing set or wooden climbing frame (see below).

3: Water feature
Children love to play with water. If your little stars are too young for water guns, you could get a small paddling pool. Nowadays, you can buy a table where you can put the sand on one side and water on the other side. As I have recently bought the sand pit, I am currently using her old baby bath and to be honest, my monkey really likes it.

4: Adventure element:
my garden is not very big and as my child is still little, I will probably replace my swing with a big adventurous house or climbing center. If you want some inspirations or ideas, check the Great Little Trading Co. I found it very convenient to have a climbing frame in our safe garden. Most of the online retailers stock TP products as these are the safest and most robust. If you want something smaller, I suggest to buy a little playhouse, great to develop their imagination.

5: Growing plants:
Although little A. does not fully understand the concept of growing plants, she is particularly curious to see the small tomatoes growing in our garden. Tomatoes are one of Alice favorite and she enjoys watering them. For older children, it is great to involve them with growing foods and get them to eat the fruits of their work.

In total, I have spent around £250 in total for the garden. We bought two maple trees and some other herbs that we planted in April. I am quite proud of the results actually! But most of all, I really love spending time with my little A who is enjoying very much the garden.

Have you heard about mySupermarket.co.uk? If you read the small prints of Tesco / Asda TV ads, you will notice that their data source are coming from the website mysupermarket.co.uk. The comparison site enables you to buy your groceries at Tesco, Sainsbury, Asda and Ocado (Waitrose). It has probably been created for me as I am a regular customer to these 4 giant supermarkets. Easy to navigate, you have one tab per supermarket and I really like the fact that you can monitor how much you are spending with the total at the top of the page.

Do you find it difficult to shop after work? Most of us hate crowdy supermarkets and long queues. This is why I have recently turn to have my groceries delivered. I was sceptical at first because I could not trust them to deliver fresh veg and fruits. But I did give a try and I have made my first order via supermarket.co.uk. The delivery charges might be the small price if you want to avoid the long queues at the supermarket…

It is very easy to register: you just need to provide your post code, name, email and a password of 6 characters. Once registered, I suggest you watch the video which explains how to use effectively the website.

Let me know what you think, ok? Looking forward to hear from you soon

Happy Shopping!

xx

Yes, mum often faces the big question: is dummy a good or bad thing? From my experience, I am not sure why my sister-in-laws managed to convince me to introduce the dummy to my little A. We started the Dummy when he was 4 months already and although it has helped to comfort him many times, there hasn’t been one day without me regretting it.   I am not saying it is wrong to introduce the soother but I could not just stop feeling bad about using the dummy.
Dummies have proven to help colicky babies because dummies helps with regulating the breathing and some babies need to suck more than others which was the case for me since I breastfed and I have been in several situations where I was actually giving my finger to give myself a break! Another good argument is that weaning off Dummies is said to be easier than weaning off the thumb.

Little A is almost 2 and he has used the soother only for sleeping times. My partner and I have been very strict when it comes to the dummy and he was not allowed to use it for other times than his naps or at night. I was determined to get rid of the dummy this month but then our little star was poorly a couple of weeks ago and I did not think it was actually the right time to stop using the dummy.
After he got better, I have read a testimonial from a mum in the book Teach Yourself Managing Your Toddlers Behaviour (Teach Yourself General) about using a reward chart and explaining to the toddler that they will get a star every time he/she is not using the dummy. At first, I thought that little pumpkin will never be able to understand the concept but then I told myself to give a try. So I spent two hours creating a star reward chart and bought some Velcro squaresso that I can scratch the stars on the chart and would be also able to use it later on.
I have also bought his favourite character from In the Night Garden (Iggle Piggle). I put Iggle Piggle in the box and with the help of little A, we have put all the dummies in the same box (he did not realise that Iggle Piggle was in there) and I explain that today the dummies are going away since he is a big boy. We then went for a walk and when we came back, I took the dummies out of the box (without letting him know) and as I timed it right, I told him it was time for his nap. Before going to the nap, I reminded him that we won’t have any dummies now but we will have something else and I brought the box so that he can discover his new “soother”. He was actually very happy, went to his cot and I was surprise that he forgot about his dummy so quickly! He did cry a bit (more than usual) but fall asleep without big outburst. Wow! I was so proud for winning the first battle but I knew that war wasn’t over yet and I thought the night-time will be more difficult.
For the first night, I decided to put him to bed later than usual (which could have work me against me if I over-tired him), after serving him his favourite dinner. He surprised him again: he cried a little but gave in within 15 minutes! Later in the night, he did cry asking for his dummy but I have tapped his back and went back to sleep again forgetting about it. The day after, he enjoyed the reward of putting the star (next to the image of dummy that I crossed) on the reward chart and was very proud of it.
The second night was more difficult than the first one and he actually ends up sleeping with us in the early morning. Although a few tears were dropped, I did not give in and I have resisted for 6 days now. We still need to work on sleeping through the night (something that has been ongoing she was born anyway!) but one step at the time, let me enjoy this victory!
To conclude, I would say that you should not feel bad if you introduce the dummy and being firm on the soother usage is important, it is recommended to stick to sleep times only. It is not a good thing to use the dummy but it is advised to start weaning them off when he reached 18-24 months otherwise it could lead to a bad thing (pushing the front teeth, delay speech…).

Start the mother’s day with a big bang, check Gordon Ramsay’s eggs benedict recipe. The eggs are basically cooked in water and accompanied with a hollandaise sauce and a muffins (or crumpets). Beware that the sauce requires a lot of whisks so ideal for the morning workout .

Lunch time, we are preparing a smoked salmon with some steamed potatoes. I’ll probably make a yoghurt sauce with dill. Then separately, I’ll make a nice mixed salad.

Dinner time, well we might have a chicken curry from the local indian restaurant .

Have a lovely day everyone!

* Vegetables:
Lentils, Baked beans, split peas, chickpeas, broad beans, spinach, green beans are particularly advised. Beetroot, celery, fennel, chicory help bowel movements.
If you would like to have some lovely recipes, I recommend to use Annabel Karmel’s book (plaice with spinach and cheese, couscous with chickpeas, Green Fingers, lovely lentils with vegetable purée, Popeye pasta, sweet potatoes with spanish and peas).  I will gather also my own recipes using these ingredients.
*Dry Fruits:
Prunes, dates, dry apricots, fig, walnuts, nuts, almonds are good  also but beware to not give too much as these are huge source of calories (180-320 k calories for only 100g). And if your toddler do not like these, you will end up by eating them!

* whole cereals:
Bran cereals, oat cereals (ready-break), whole-wheat breads, whole wheat pastas. Rice is to avoid as much as you can and should be eaten with a lot of vegetables.

*Fresh fruits:
Plums, kiwi, passion fruit, raspberry, blackberry, cranberry, grapes, guava and orange are recommended. These can be easily given for snack.

It is also recommended that you don’t peel the skin of the fruits to keep the fibres and the vitamins.

Banana, white bread, meat with a lot of fat and Rice should be avoided if your toddler is constipated. Regarding dairy products, according to my GP this should be also avoided. However, I have always learnt that milk or yoghurt are both ok but cheese not. Milk is good for bowel movements.

I have read half way through the book and conclusions are that we are definitely ready to start phase 1 of potty training. We need some training before the training lol! I am starting to get ready for this important challenge and I am looking at the potty training. According to Gina Ford, if you go for a toilet seat, look for toilet seats with handles as it gives an extra sense of security for the child. Futhermore, looking into the different product reviews, it is advised to check how easy it is to clean the cushion and if the seat is adjustable (or check if you have normal toilet size).

£20 on Amazon

Basically the right toilet seat should be: Seat with handles, easy to clean, adjustable to fit your toilet, anti-slip without needing to use any stick pads. So far I found one match available on a few online shop and it is the East Coast Nursery Alpha Egg Toilet Seat. It comes in different colours: white/lilac, white/beige and white/pale blue. However, I have not seen a lot of reviews regarding this product.

If you would like more information regarding other types of potties and toilet seats, read my post on potty training.

Curling Tongs
According to my face shape (I have a long face like Liv Tyler), curling a little my hair will make my face less long. Wearing my straight and long hair are not very helping so this could be something that I would love to have.

Pamper Day
I would love to spend a weekend get pampered, get some lovely facial treatment done and massage! I have heard that the (very) luxury Spa at Sir Christopher Wren in Windsor is one of the best in UK. The Sanctuary in Covent Garden is also very popular and they currently have some offers that could make you save up to £43. A cheapest option would be to buy some nice spa products and give Mum a day off so that she can enjoy a long bath with a facial mask on (and a glass of champagne).

Digital Book Reader
As my little toddler gets more and more space with toys and books, I have to get rid of my books and therefore I would love to have a digital book reader. You have several choices of  digital book reader depending on how much you want to spend. The ipad sounds very cool but it is so expensive! Anyway a standard digital book reader can store many books (the sony reader provides already 100 classic books) and it is easy to download the books from Amazon.

Gift Vouchers
If you really don’t have any clues about buying the right present to Mum then I suggest to get gift vouchers to avoid buying something that she does not like. Personally, I am quite happy to choose my own present and accept gift vouchers with opened arms. You can buy vouchers to nail salon, spa center like the Sanctuary and plenty other shops.

Classes and lessons
Tennis lessons and dance lessons (such as Salsa, Tango and contemporary) are also in my to-do list. It is a great way to keep fit and learn something that I enjoy!

I will keep this list updated over this weekend.