Eliot Jude, I still can't believe you are already a whole year old. It seems like yesterday I had a bump and now here we are, already looking back on your 1st Birthday celebrations.
It was your special day on Thursday, (technically not until 3:54pm) Mummy and Daddy came in to you singing Happy Birthday and you greeted us with your lovely smile. You opened (with help) and played with some of your presents before we all went out for the day. You were a model and we went to Battersea Park Zoo but I'll write all about that in a different post. A couple of days later we had a party for you with close family and friends.
This month you are getting more confident with walking with support and have taken a few steps by yourself more than once, clever boy! I wonder if next month I'll be writing that you're walking all by yourself?!
A new thing this month is that you have started to point to things and talk, planes in the sky, animals and other things. It's very cute and makes mummy and daddy laugh.
You have another new tooth at the bottom. I think you may be teething again as you have been putting your fingers in your mouth and chewing them.
We've had some more of the tantrums, like I mentioned last month, often when you are tired. You get very frustrated and show this through pinching (quite hard) so we're hoping you'll grow out of that sooner rather than later.
I am ever so proud to be your mummy, you have changed so much in the space of a year, it is amazing to see you grow and learn.
Proud Mummy at Battersea Park Zoo on your Birthday!
Feeding
Food is still a favourite but there are times when you are fussy and won't eat very much. You tried grapes again properly and seemed to enjoy them. You are not a greedy baby, you will stop eating when you've had enough and will push it away.
I changed your milk from formula to cows milk on your birthday, you haven't noticed the difference and drink it happily. You still have three bottles a day but I'm thinking about moving your milk to a beaker for you to drink out of.
Weight
I still haven't had your weight checked and we missed your 8-12 month check with the health visitor...oops. Daddy was meant to change your appointment but had problems getting through.
Clothes
You are still wearing 12-18 month clothes and some 18-24 month bits. You got lots of new bits for your birthday, hopefully you'll get to wear it all before you grow out of it!
Your first experience of sand Sleeping
Most of this month you have sleeping well. Sometimes you cry in your sleep, perhaps you've had a bad dream. If we give you your dummy you normally settle very quickly.
Your Likes/Dislikes
You love your new trike that nana J and Grandad bought you for your birthday.
You don't love the washing machine as much as you did.
You love being on the move and trying to get hold of things you shouldn't be touching.
The posts are cropping up left, right and centre so if you haven't read about BritMums Live 2014 yet, where have you been?!
On the run up to the big event many of us bloggers had declared how nervous we were but it turns out it wasn't as bad as I'd imagined.
Through the wonders of social media I'd arranged to meet a few bloggers beforehand which was grand but on Friday morning my nerves started to kick in! I got in touch with Donna from The London Mum to see if she wanted to meet at Liverpool Street Station. A group of us had planned to meet at All Bar One but I found the prospect of turning up by myself extremely daunting. I am just crap in those situations, so I was relieved when Donna was up for to meeting first too.
We headed to All Bar One where we plucked up some Dutch courage with Prosecco, and thanks to Donna met some other bloggers including Katie from Hurrah For Gin and Kiran from Mummy Says. All very lovely and I discovered a few who had lived in the area I do now, small world!
With a couple of Proseccos down the hatch it was time to head to registration. We met Gemma from Sunshine On A Cloudy Day, Andrea from Blogger Mumma and one of her gorgeous boys, baby Archie.
On our empty stomachs lined with Prosecco, Donna and I actually missed the introduction! I think we both assumed that there would be an announcement so carried on chatting to brands. But there were no notifications! As a grown adult I'm perfectly responsible enough to get where I need to be but failed massively here! I blame the Prosecco!
The first day went by in a blur of meeting fellow bloggers, seminars, crazy dressing up and the BiB awards.
I am so pleased to have met Kelly from To Become Mum, I love reading her blog and she is so lovely! I was really glad I bumped into Hayley from Sparkles & Stretchmarks, one of my blogging faves, another lovely person, who has been kind enough to give me blog advice more than once and for that I am very grateful!
Over the two days I spent quite a lot of time with Vicki from Ellie Bear Babi who was also so lovely! I've repeated lovely far too many times but everyone I met was just that!
Saturday was a day of more seminars, learning, being inspired and meeting more wonderful bloggers. It was great to meet Sarah from Toby Goes Bananas who I made a 'sort of pact' with about buying a BritMums Live ticket. Sarah bought hers the next day but I didn't after seeing the state of my poor bank account! A few weeks later though I did, so I didn't entirely break the pact! Over lunch I met Donna from Redhead Babyled, amongst other bloggers and again everyone was lovely!
One highlight had to be having cuddles with Andrea's gorgeous Archie, he was so well behaved (in fact all the babies were) and simply adorable!
What really made the weekend was meeting the people behind the blogs, especially the wonderful bloggers I spent lots of time with. Thank you Donna, Gemma, Andrea and Vicki for fab first time BritMums memories, roll on BritMums 2015 and the Butlins weekend/Trip to Northern Ireland somewhere between (hopefully!)
If you fancy a glimpse of what BritMums was like, watch my Vlog :)
Right at this moment I am absolutely sick to death of looking at my laptop screen. For days I have been writing reports for the class I teach part time and barely know. It has been hard as I don't feel I know them well enough, so my comments are a bit more sparse. Regardless its taken me bloody ages! Still the last time I wrote reports I had a bump, now I have my little man it's not as easy to allocate time to things such as reports.
Any-hoo I just wanted to check in and say we're still here as my blog has been neglected. Due to work pressures and various other bits there has been no time to spend on it. But I do have lots of bits that are back logged so do keep an eye out for new posts and reviews!
Tomorrow I'm off to Britmums live, super excited but also super unorganised and nervous...but I'll be reporting back soon!
If you follow me on twitter or Instagram you may have seen that I paid a long overdue visit to the hairdressers. And when I say long overdue I mean a year and a half :-0
The last time I had my bonce cut is when I was three months pregnant with Eliot. I realise this is probably 'shock horror' for many people but seriously time really does fly. Needless to say the ends of my hair were in a terrible condition and my poor locks really were crying out for a revamp.
I went to a salon I hadn't been to in my home town before. Luckily I walked in at the right time and just had to wait ten minutes for my haircut.
I talked through what I wanted with the hairdresser and she got to work.
It was literally like a weight off my shoulders as she snipped away! I love it, it looks and feels so much better and I can actually do something with it whereas before I was just scraping it up out of the way. Overall I'm very pleased with the cut but why oh why do hairdressers always take off more than you requested?
Feeling good about my hair I went shopping in the hope that I may have some success with outfits for Britmums. My mum was looking after Eliot so I made the most of baby free shopping! I bought a few things but I'm not overly happy with them, I need to try them on again.
When I arrived back at my mums she said that Eliot had had an accident. He'd fallen off the bed face first. My little man had a red nose and upper lip. He hadn't been sick, there was no bleeding and he didn't have any bumps. We thought to be on the safe side we'd take him down to A&E to get checked over. He did seem ok in himself but as I hadn't been there when the accident occurred I wanted some medical reassurance he was ok.
As expected there was a fair bit of waiting involved, Eliot got cranky as he wanted to crawl all over the floor.
We saw a nurse who assessed him first of all. He was a bit uncooperative but thankfully she said he appeared ok but we would need to wait for a doctor to check him over.
It wasn't too long before we were called again. The doctor asked some more questions and carried out some checks, much to Eliot's disapproval. E was not a happy bunny and screamed the place down. But after his battle with the doctor we were told that all looked well, thank goodness! We were advised to bring him back if there was any further concern.
Having a late dinner & choc buttons after his ordeal.
So I guess it's true, Friday 13th is unlucky for some!
This week for a few days only Ella's Kitchen Weeny Weaning Restaurant popped up in South West London. We were lucky enough to experience what the 'worlds first sensory restaurant for babies' had to offer! To say I was excited to visit would be a bit of an understatement!
On arrival Eliot and I were met by the Ella's Kitchen team who showed us where to 'park up' before leading us down to the sensory play zone.
The Weeny Weaning Restaurant concept involves babies experiencing sights, smells and sounds so they are able to explore food in many different ways. There were songs to listen to (see video clip at the bottom for Eliot's dancing!) which Eliot wasn't too sure about at first but once he'd settled in, the music was definitely one of his favourite things!
There was play food and real food for babies to get to grips with to touch smell and taste, as well as flash cards and wooden books with pictures of food to look at. Eliot thoroughly enjoyed his experience in the sensory play zone and I think this is a brilliant way to familiarise babies with various foods by stimulating different senses.
Once Eliot had got his taste buds tingling we took a seat in the tasting zone.
Using a tablet, babies (with a bit of parent assistance) were able to choose their main and dessert. First I selected what age best suited Eliot (from 10 months). Next the tablet showed six options for a main and then six options for dessert. The one's that Eliot tapped the most were ordered. Watch the video at the bottom to see how the interactive menu was used.
The Caribbean and Chicken and Mango pouch arrived very swiftly for Eliot to get stuck into. He particularly loved the lid that covered the tablet and the tablet itself so they were a bit of a distraction for him. He continuously picked up the lid and swiped the screen with his messy fingers, hence the smeared screen above! Eliot enjoyed his Caribbean Chicken and Mango but didn't finish it all, he's very nosy and was very interested in what was going on around him.
For dessert Eliot had chosen 'Berry Yummy' yogurt. He does have a sweet tooth so he made sure he finished his pud even though he was constantly looking around to see what everyone else was up to!
Funny face!
We had a great time at Ella's Weeny Weaning restaurant and I think this is a wonderful concept to get babies excited about food. There is a gap in the market for such restaurants, so I personally think they should pop up permanently in the future!
The Ella's Kitchen team will also be analysing what babies chose using the interactive menu and I'm very interested to see what they find!
Would you like to see Ella's Kitchen Weeny Weaning restaurants across the country?
I have lived in London for very nearly five years now. As a professional pre-baby I thoroughly enjoyed the lifestyle, being a fifteen minute tube journey from central, catching up with friends and just general London life.
Now I'm a mum I see things a bit differently, I have a love/hate relationship with London. I personally don't want my son to grow up here, I may go into reasons in a later post but lately I have not been loving London so much. I forget the reasons why I love it. However, over the past month I've been pleasantly reminded about how great London is when visiting a few of its 'gems'.
2. Vauxhall City Farm, literally just up the road from us. A fantastic place for a family trip to see/stroke/feed various animals.
3. Our most recent 'gem' has been Crystal Palace Park, home to the BBC mast (which we can see from our balcony) and plenty of green space. It has an abundance of things to do! Such as feeding the ducks, walking with the dinosaurs, visiting the farm and conquering the maze. See our video below of our afternoon in Crystal Palace Park.
