27 Jul 2023
If We Were Having A Coffee, I Would Tell You... #4
What’s new… You know when people ask you what’s new, and you feel like you don’t actually have that much to report? I’m kinda taking that as a good thing. I don’t have any major life updates. 2023 is proving itself to be a nice, gentle year on the whole. Our weekly routine is pretty set and whilst I doubt it looks particularly exciting from the outside, I have a general feeling of contentment. Nothing is perfect, there have been plenty of challenges, but I also feel like leaning into this phase of life is the way to go at the moment. We’re pottering a long, spending a lot of time in the playground, constantly battling to keep the house a least vaguely tidy (no mean feat when your toddler’s favourite thing is to empty cupboards, pull things off shelves etc – it’s a bit like living with a mini hurricane), trying to maintain hobbies, exercise, sanity amongst the glorious chaos that is parenting. You know, the usual.
Summer so far… June just felt like a lovely month. We had a lovely, gentle holiday in Somerset, visited Kent to see Gary’s dad and catch up with friends, had some of my girls come stay, had dinner at The Old Hall (we had a voucher) and crashed my dad & Elizabeth’s holiday for the day which meant sitting in a hot tub on a Thursday afternoon – hard life. Spoiler – Alfie thinks hot tubs are a lot of fun. The weather was just beautiful, and our garden looked glorious in the sunshine which made me happy. July has been a lot quieter and rainier, but we have a busy August ahead and whilst it felt like the sunny weather was very fleeting, I am actually thankful for rain and cool winds because the weather across the rest of Europe right now is, quite frankly, bloody terrifying.
Alfie is now 19 months which is a surreal thing to type. He’s a real joy at this age; we are having hints of toddler tantrums (particularly if you take the remote control off him) but he is mostly smiley and excited by life. His favourite thing to say is still ‘oh dear’ although he does it with an enthusiastic level of enunciation so it’s more like ‘OH DEEEEEEEEEYA’. Sometimes we have ‘oh dear’-offs where we shout it back and forth to see who can do it with the most enthusiasm – he always wins of course. I assume he’ll say something else at some point (we have recently had hints of the word ‘chair’), but if not, he seems to communicate quite effectively with those two words. We finished breastfeeding at exactly 19 months and ooofff what a journey that was. It’s tempting to move on very quickly, but I equally don’t want to diminish it because it wasn’t easy. Nineteen whole months. I get a present right?! I don’t want to jinx it, but his sleep has also started to improve a little recently so we’re tentatively hopeful. I think I’m going to have to write a whole other post on sleep deprivation because I have a lot to say.
Money – I’m not really one to talk about my finances on the internet but equally, I do feel a sense of relief when other people do because it is very easy to scroll through social media and think it’s just you, particularly when you see the influencers constantly trying to persuade you to buy things and a lot of beach snaps. Mortgage rates, rent increases, cost of living…. Not the one is it? We also had the extra double whammy of childcare costs and needing to drop my hours at work post-maternity leave so that was excellent timing on our part. There’s no point to this really, just a little honesty.
My sister got engaged – on a distinctly average afternoon in March, I received a video call from a pretty garden in Rome and a sudden amount of shrieking ensued. I did already know that a proposal was on the cards, but this didn’t make it any less lovely or exciting. We are now in full-steam planning mode for next year. My sister is an events manager, so this is turning into the most organised wedding in the world and I’m here for it.
Tell me, dear reader, what’s new with you?
16 Jul 2023
A Mini European Road Trip With A Toddler: Lille, France; The Netherlands & Bruges, Belgium
Leg 1: Home > Folkestone, Kent
Leg 2: Folkestone > Lille, France
Leg 3: Lille > The Netherlands
Leg 4: The Netherlands > Bruges, Belgium
Leg 5: Bruges > Home
Our final leg was the longest and therefore the one we were
least looking forward to. We purposefully tried to keep Alfie awake during the
drive from Bruges to Calais which was successful but then we were delayed at
Calais and ended up too far on the other side i.e. dealing with a toddler who
is past the point of sleep but very overtired. Let me tell ya: this combined
with being confined to a car in a queue is not the one. By the time we
were back in England, things had escalated and we had our first proper
experience of being the people with a small child screaming the place down in a
service station just outside Folkstone. Half empty service stations really echo,
don’t they? I re-used the old cheesy puff tactic to get him back into his car
seat which worked, only he realised five minutes later that he had been tricked
and was FUMING. Honestly, in the end – out of sheer desperation – I searched
YouTube for ‘get my baby to sleep’ videos, found some trippy shit that involved
floating sheep and whether by luck or judgement, it worked and the bugger that
is my firstborn fell asleep and I could finally bang my head against the window
in peace.
And that’s a great note to end on don’t ya think?
Hey there!
