Well here it is, it’s finally here. School Eve, the evening before my tiny baby starts school.
How have we got to this?
Where has the last 4 years gone?
My beautiful little baby is going to school tomorrow and starting a new chapter in his life.
I’m not sure how I feel?
Excited that he’s growing up.
Nervous that he’ll be scared and will miss me.
Sad that our time together on weekdays is over and that I should have appreciated it more.
Angry that school are stealing him away from me.
Anxious that he’ll not get lost in a sea of other children. I know that teachers are very used to the receptions starting and that it’s all new so I’m sure he’ll be in good hands and the school is lovely, I’m so pleased he’s going there.
It’s a massive mixed bag of emotions, it only seems like a week ago I was watching other mums take their children to school on the first day and now all of a sudden its us. I can’t take him tomorrow or Thursday due to work commitments but I will be there to take him on Friday for his first full day. I won’t cry because I don’t want him to see me upset and it’s not what I do! But inside I’m sure the tears will be flowing.
I’m glad that after his first full day I’ll be able to spend the weekend with him before it all starts properly next week.
Good luck baby boy, as I’ve told you tonight, it doesn’t matter how much you get right or wrong at school as long as you always try your best that’s all we ask of you. I’m looking forward to watching you grow and learn but I’m also grieving for what has passed and that my little pre-schooler is now at school. Love you always xxxx
Everything Changes and the world keeps on moving…..
This letter is mainly aimed at you my dear sweet boy, on the eve of your 4th birthday on this wonderful world. So much has come before this day, so many mountains you’ve had to climb and the fun we’ve had sliding down the other side to face the next challenge together. In some ways the last 4 years have been so long but in many and most other ways they have been so very, very short. I cannot remember a time without you in the world, yet just 4 years ago I had not set eyes upon your face yet or smelled the sweetness of your breath of the familiar softness of your touch and the fluffiness of your young hair. I had carried you inside me for 10 months yet didn’t even know you.
Here we are 4 years later and you’ve changed our world for the better. I hope that tomorrow and everyday you realise how loved you are not just by myself and daddy but by the extended wider family too. I hope you realise how your touch the lives of those that you meet with your funny comments and sweet little ways. Each day I can’t wait for you to wake up so you will give me a hug and a kiss so I can tell you how much I love you. The next few months will see changes in all aspects of your little life and I hope that you can easily adapt to everything. I will be by your side each step of the way and together I will guide you through. Next month you start school. Having only just turned 4 you’re still my baby yet are expected to be in school 5 days a week. I hope that you face the challenge head on and settle in quickly, making new friends along the way. I am trying so very hard to keep mentioning how exciting school will be for you but I’m not sure you’ve grasped the concept that it’s everyday for many years to come. I’ll miss you on Mondays and Tuesdays (my days off), I’ll miss your company and how funny you are. I’ll miss how sweet you are with Flixster and how entertained you can keep him while I try to get on with a few housework jobs. He’ll miss you too. His face lights up when you enter the room.
As we prepare to leave nursery behind and move on to pastures new I hope that your enthusiasts for new things and excitement don’t get lost in a classroom full of your peers. I will however make sure that our weekends really do count; we’ll have family time and do lovely things together even if it’s just picnics in the park and feeding the ducks. I’m looking forward to seeing how you learn and grow at school and will be as involved as I can with your school journey.
There is another change on the horizon for us as a family too. We are going to be moving house in the next few months. When I explained it to you I wrongly assumed you would understand what that meant but from our conversations since, you were clearly worried about it and didn’t grasp that when you move house you take all your belongings and furniture with you to the next house. One morning you said to me first thing that you didn’t want to move because you loved playing with the ‘Toot toot’ drivers toys with your brother. I felt sad that you’d been worried about it and we had a proper chat about what moving house means. I explained that when you move house you take all your belongings with you as well as the furniture. At random times you now keep questioning me on things that we will be taking.
‘Even Mummy will we take the films?’
‘Yes, we’ll defiantly take the films’
‘Even Mummy will we take the bubble machine, because I really like it?’
‘Oh yes I’ll make sure I pack that’
‘Even Mummy will we take the doors, because I like them?’
‘Errrmm………’
I’m excited about moving too because the home we are moving too (providing all goes through ok, touch wood, fingers crossed, please universe!) will give you and Flixster much more room to spread out, play and be silly together. The house has everything we ever wanted on our wish list and I can already see that we’ll be very happy there. I can’t wait to make it our home and make many many years of happy memories for you both to carry with you through life once you’ve grown and flown the nest.
As I put you to bed tonight you told me that you’d decided what you’d like for your birthday, I enthusiastically listened, hoping it was something we could source this evening…….you said a parachute. So I’m sorry to let you down and not provide a parachute but you will be getting lots of lovely presents and so much love from us both.
So’ Happy Birthday’ little man, another year older, another year together, another year of memories have been made.
Please always remember I love you both unconditionally….forever.
Mummy xxxxxx
I was recently sent some ‘Nappy Grab Bags’ to have a look at and review. I was quite excited by the concept as I am a person who likes to plan for every eventuality, I love packing the nappy change bag and making sure we have everything so these are a great idea. It’s a small package that comes wrapped up complete with one nappy, four wipes and some cream. The packet turns into the change mat as well as doubling as a disposable bag.
As a mainly cloth nappy mummy it’s important to me that the plastic used is biodegradable which it is. Once you open the perforated seam at the back, the packet is unwrapped to reveal an eco-responsible Naty by Nature Babycare nappy, 4 Kinder by Nature Natural Wipes and a small sachet of Weleda Calendula nappy change cream.
The grab bags are available to buy currently from Ocado, Waitrose and Amazon and can be purchased in size’s 1 through 6.
As a baby wearing mummy I think this will lighten the load on short trips too, I won’t even need a bag now that I can slip one of these into my back pocket and off I go! I made a short video so that you can see mine being unwrapped, I think this was the best way to show the contents.
Becky Mantin has offered one lucky reader of my blog the chance to win a months supply of nappy grab bags, just enter below!
Sometimes just sometimes I wish there was more time. I know more time is never going to happen but I can carry on wishing for it. I probably spend too much time doing meaningless jobs around the house and not enough time noticing the world around me.
I don’t spend enough time with the boys.
I’m guilty of spending too much time cleaning the house but in the moment I’m doing yet it feels important to me.
I’d love to have more time to spend exercising and pursuing hobbies or painting, reading or drawing but those times never seem to come.
Other days I just want to turn back time to see your children as little babies again, to relive our wedding day or to speak to people that we have lost. But never a truer word has been spoken when it was said that tomorrow never comes and yesterday is the past. There is only one day and that’s today, so I need to stop wishing for more time and try to make every minute meaningful and have purpose.
I’m back at work doing my usual hours now and have made a real effort to throw myself into every opportunity that comes my way. I want to do as much as possible to be helpful at work and make a change. This has had the surprising effect of making me enjoy work so much more. I’ve turned positives into even more positives.
It’s time to hand over to my husband again for a review of the SJCam SJ4000 which we recently purchased for our family, this is not a product we have been given to review.
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I love the idea of a GoPro, the design, the durability, the features but mostly I love the marketing, it’s an amazing example of lifestyle marketing, buy a GoPro and you can film yourself surfing, diving, climbing into volcanos and jumping out of helicopters to ski down a mountain.
The only problem is that I don’t really do any of those things and I because I don’t really do any of those things, I could never really justify the purchase of a GoPro.
I know that last year, GoPro launched an entry-level camera at a slightly more justifiable £109.99 but I felt that the compromises made to achieve the price point (no wi-fi, built-in battery and you can’t remove it from the waterproof housing) reduced the camera’s appeal to me, so thought I’d wait until I had suitable justification to buy a higher spec’d one.
A couple of week’s ago, I was reading lifehacker’s roundup of the five best action cameras when I noticed the SJCAM SJ4000 which at $99/£66 seemed like something I could use and not worry too much about it getting lost, stolen or eaten by one of my children. So I set about buying one.
Beware of the clones
The SJCAM SJ4000 is a very popular clone of the GoPro, so popular in fact, it’s attracted it’s own clones and there are numerous cameras of differing (frequently lesser) quality all selling under the SJ4000 name but there are several suppliers of genuine SJ4000s that deliver to the UK.
The Package
The SJ4000 comes with a good collection of mounts to get you started, included with in the box with the camera and battery are;
1 x Waterproof Housing
1 x Quick Release Buckle
1 x Housing Backdoor with Holes
1 x Handlebar Seatpost Pole Mount
1 x Curved Adhesive Mount
1 x Flat Adhesive Mount
1 x 3-Way Pivot Arm Mount
2 x 3M Adhesive Tape
1 x Frame Mount
1 x Quick Release Clip for The Frame
1 x Vertical Quick Release J-Hook Buckle
1 x Universal 1/4″ Camera Tripod Mount
1 x Tripod Mount Adapter
1 x Bandage Set
1 x Stainless Steel Safety Tether
4 x Nylon Cable Ties
1 x Cleaning Cloth
1 x USB Cable
1 x Power Adapter
Overall Impressions
The camera feels solid and well made, as do the mounts although the battery case is a little hard to open, on the front of the camera is the on/off/menu button, on the top is the record / stop / select button. on the right hand side is the up and down buttons, pressing the up button turns on the camera’s wi-fi and shows a screen with the access point name and password. On the left hand side of the camera is the MicroSD slot, micro-usb and micro HDMI ports.
Overall, This is a great little camera for the money, the included mounts mean that, as long as you have a microSD card ready, you can get started filming interesting stuff straight away. The LCD screen on the back is decent enough and lets you frame your shots, cutting out after a few minutes to save power but after a few day’s use you get a good enough understanding of where to point the camera without having to use the screen, so I’m not sure about the long-term benefits of the screen.
The video quality is great in good light, reducing in quality when the light fades or you start videoing indoors, nighttime footage is pretty poor quality but you can still make out what you’re trying to film. The auto exposure isn’t the fastest and the camera sometimes take’s a while to correct itself when the light changes and in most cases the video white balance seems to be a little cool and on the blue side.
The camera has a time-lapse function which takes 1 frame of footage every 3, 5, 10, 30 or 60 seconds, results from this are very good.
Video is recorded at 1080p (full HD) @ 30 frames per second by default and can be set to 720p @ 30 or 60fps (which isn’t a true 60 frames per second, rather than record 60 unique frames per second, it each frame twice, so it’s more like 30fps x2)
When inside the waterproof case; sound is practically non-existent with the camera’s microphone only picking up knocks and vibrations affecting the case itself, there’s no easy way to add an external microphone, so take into account if you’re considering buying this camera but since all GoPro style videos have a banging techno soundtrack this shouldn’t be an issue, right?
The firmware on the camera isn’t the greatest and it took me a while to understand how to navigate the menu structure and change the settings but if you’re the type of person who doesn’t want to fiddle then the default 1080p@30 fps should be fine for you.
The Wi-Fi built into the camera acts as a wireless access point that you can connect your Android phone / tablet or iPhone / iPad to, then you can use the SJCAM app to act as a remote screen for the camera, start and stop recoding, alter settings and transfer video from the camera to your phone.
Battery life is fairly disappointing with the camera only running for a couple of hours using the supplied battery, fortunately it is removable and additional batteries can be bought pretty cheaper from all the usual places.
The supplied mounts are useful and the SJCAM uses the same mounting method as the GoPro, so there’s many additional mounting options available, I picked up a carry case and a party bag of mounts for about £25, allowing me to strap the camera to my wrist, my chest or mount it to my head (which I’m not sure I can do in public).
Conclusion
For £67, I knew that I’d be making some compromises over a more expensive GoPro and I strongly feel that the positives of this camera more than outweigh the negatives, but when looking at cheaper alternatives to popular devices you always need to do your homework and know exactly what those compromises are otherwise you run the risk of being disappointed.
I’m very happy with the camera and it will suit our family nicely and will allow us to record holidays, bike rides and all the kind of things that you’d worry about exposing your phone or video camera to.
Although if I ever jump out of a helicopter and ski down a mountain, I’m definitely buying a GoPro.
The last three days have been awful, Flixster has been on a breastfeeding (nursing) strike. It’s been awful. Before the strike started we would feed each morning when he woke around 5am, then sometimes during the day if he asked for it by snuggling into me then often a quick feed in the later afternoon when he was tired, or if we were out and about and needed a little snack, a breastfeed would do the trick and relieve the immediate hunger.
Then all of a sudden he stopped feeding. It was like he’d never ever ever fed from me before. When I offered him the first morning he turned away. I offered again and he bit me hard and then just turned away again. He just wouldn’t feed, but I wasn’t that bothered as I thought I’d just feed him later in the day. But later came and he still wouldn’t feed. By now I just tried not to think about it, I thought the more I stressed about him not feeding the more he’d pick up on it.
As Flixster is now 14 months old my breasts never feel full anymore so I didn’t feel the need to express any milk off to comfort. If you were exclusively breastfeeding it would be advisable to express at normal feeding times if baby goes through a feeding strike so that the strike wouldn’t affect the supply and to avoid blocked ducts or even worse mastitis.
The next day came and went and still Flixster wouldn’t feed, he just kept refusing, turning away, trying to get away, even morning snuggles weren’t persuading him to feed. That was our special time together and now I couldn’t even offer him my milk.
By now I was worrying that this was the end of our journey, I wasn’t ready to stop feeding, inside I was crying. Desperately wishing I’d paid more attention to the last feed we had together, paid more attention to the way he looked at me. The way his tiny hand gently stroked me as I fed him. I’d missed it, I’d missed our last breastfeed together and now it was gone. The chapter was ending and I’d missed it.
By day three I told myself I had to start accepting that it was probably over. With a heavy heart I offered a feed again in the morning and again it was refused.
Today I went along to the breastfeeding group as normal, hoping against hope that if Flixster saw other babies feeding he might remember what to do, might remember our special snuggly morning cuddles. He didn’t, I offered at group and he refused, point-blank refused. I could have cried right there and then. The amazing lady who runs the group suggested I expressed a little milk off and tried to get it onto his lips. I gently hand expressed some milk and dropped it onto his mouth which wasn’t easy with him turning away. At first I don’t think he noticed, I did it again and he licked it off. All of a sudden I almost saw his brain click into action, he turned to me and I took the opportunity to get him into position to feed him. He latched on, I could have cried again. He was feeding, he was actually feeding from me. I hadn’t missed my last feed. I breathed it all in, I gazed at his face. I wanted to kiss his cheek (but couldn’t as I didn’t want him to unlatch!) All thanks to the amazing lady who runs the group I hope that the end hasn’t come and that we can carry on feeding. If it wasn’t for her advice right there and then at that moment then my journey may have taken a different turn.
Later in the day I managed to feed him again and I took a photograph, just in case it was my last ever feed, just in case I never ever breastfeed my baby again, I wanted to remember this very special occasion, from now on I won’t take his feeding for granted. I will be paying attention and enjoying every single feed and I make no apologies for posting my breastfeeding baby picture, he’s my baby and I am proud to still be feeding him. I won’t be aware when our last feed happens but just in case the next one is the last one I’ll be paying attention.
1)I defiantly don’t take enough photos of the boys together, or more likely the ones I do take are all blurry and difficult to capture. I know that you are both so young but maybe I need to keep the DSLR handy insisted of just my phone, so that I can take loads of shots.
2) I need to take more photos!
So my offerings for siblings this month isn’t massive which makes me a little bit sad. You’re relationship is growing in ways I’d never have dreamed and I love it, I really do.
We still go to breastfeeding group every week where I am a peer support volunteer and now that I’ve swapped my work days I have to take both of you. This is sometimes hard work as you can both be quite demanding at times but in recent weeks it’s been lovely to watch you play together with the toys. I’ve watched you crawl around in the tents and play together with the toy kitchen which has given me some time to take to all the new lovely mummies.
The boy you still love hugging and kissing Flixster but I know he’s not as keen. You do tend to ‘over hug’ though if there is such a thing. Flixster will tolerate a quick hug but your’s are rather long and squeezy! So by the time I’ve grabbed my camera the moment is over.
Boy you’ve really go the knack of making Flixster laugh now though, it’s so adorable. You find something that makes him laugh and you do it over and over and over again and that buys me a little time sometimes to make lunch or pack the bag for the day, so thank you for that!
My favourite photograph of you together this month though is one I quickly snapped in a shoe shop. We went to buy Flixsters first shoes (another milestone in your little life) as we were leaving Flixster was looking in the mirror as he walked towards it all excited and fell down. Within seconds the boy was there hugging him and checking he was ok. I love the photo not because it’s focussed well or its a canvas worthy capture but because its shows the growing love betters you both. A love I can’t wait to watch grow and grow.
Artificial Grass on decking right outside the back doors is something I had thought about for a while but until I did it I didn’t realise how amazing it would be. I’m always doing jobs around our house, I never feel like I’ve finished decorating, building or doing. As soon as I finish one job its on to the next. This week I’ve started project picnic! I had samples sent out of artificial grass to try on the decking before deciding which one to order.
Artificial Grass on Decking – How I did it
For years after we moved into this house I wanted to have a deck outside to sit on and enjoy the south-facing garden for food, drinks and reading. When I was pregnant with the boy, I put plans into place, ordered the materials and my wonderful father in law and husband built it for me. I loved it. It has a rail around the outside and gates so the boys are safe. When the boy was little I’d rock his pram out there and sit out there in the evenings. We never let him crawl out there as I was worried about him getting splinters. This wasn’t a problem as he didn’t have anyone else to see running in and out. Now that he’s bigger its lovely to throw the door open, let the air and sun come in and let him play in and out. I have the issue now though that Flixster is on the move and is moaning like mad and wanting to go outside too, wanting to follow his big brother so I had to solve the problem of splinters and creating a safe play space. A few weeks ago I thought I’d give some anti-slip paint a try so I bought some lovely grey decking paint and set about painting the deck.
It looked great and with older children I would have probably left it like that after a second coat, but the paint didn’t solve the problem. Poor little Flixsters hands and knees were still getting hurt on the wood. So I looked around at various options, mainly on pinterest (which I absolutely love!) and came across the idea of artificial grass. At first I wrote it off as a daft idea, I thought it would look strange. But the more research I did the more the idea was growing on me. I liked the idea of walking straight out of the door onto the soft green grass no matter what the weather was. I shopped around and decided to get some samples to help me choose. I went for a mid priced grass and ordered a 4m x 4m piece large enough to cover the deck. It arrived within 48 hours of the order which was great and delivery was free.
I did my research and found out that to put the artificial grass down on decking boards you just need to make sure the deck is treated and obviously flat. Then all you do is cut to size and screw it down onto the boards using green decking screws.
The boy was excited to stay up and help (which is why he is in his pjs for the photos!) We rolled the grass out (exactly like a carpet) cut it to size with a knife and hubby screwed it down with the boys help.
Just like that within half an hour it was down and looked great, I don’t know why I ever doubted that it would look good. I’m so pleased with it and would recommend it to anyone with children who wants a safe non slip alternative on top of decking. Here’s hoping for many sunny days where we can picnic out on our forever green grass!
The final thing I want to do is paint the rail around the edge. I’ve bought some lovely cornflower blue paint which I hope will go well, I just need some nice light dry child free nights to get it all done!
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