Month: May 2018

Self Care

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I focused on myself this week.  Things are going pretty well with Bella, we’ve got a good routine and rhythm to our days and weeks, but I feel like my own goals are falling by the wayside.  There were two things I wanted to focus on: my health and my ‘addiction’ to my phone.  Ironically ,this post has no photos due to the latter issue.  I refuse to wait and take photos before I hit post, so there we go.

Sadly, I’m in the worst physical shape I’ve ever been in my life, and I’ve always had a tendency to the larger side.  I like food, I like eating, and I’m not keen on exercise.  It doesn’t make for a good combination.  I used to go to the gym, but with Bella, that would mean signing up to an expensive gym with a creche.  Once you factor in travelling to and fro, it simply didn’t feel like a good use of our time.  Instead, I’m jumping on the home exercise bandwagon.

Every morning, after Bella and I have had a nice cuddle in bed, I change straight into my exercise clothes.  We go downstairs and I set Bella up for breakfast – she gets a tub of the cereal of her choice, a jug of milk, an empty bowl and glass, and she can dish them out as she wants.  As she does this, I press play and get moving.  I set up my laptop and mat the night before so that I don’t lose any precious time while Bella is occupied.  I usually have to dart to her help a couple of times through the routine, to give her more milk or wipe something up, but in general I can make it through a 20-30min routine.  Once she decided not to bother eating and stood behind me, copying my moves, but these days she’s happy to sit and watch me work out.

It feels good.  I’m really pleased that it’s not “dead time” for Bella, that she’s doing her own thing, being independent with her breakfast.  Working out first thing in the morning works well for me too, because it starts my day off positively which then influences my subsequent eating habits.  Part of me is also proud to be a good role model for my daughter and that she can see me trying to make positive changes to my own life.

The second thing I wanted to tackle was my phone addiction.  I really struggle not to continually tap away and check on the latest notifications, even when I’m not expecting anything to be happening.  Ironically, we’re really good at keeping Bella screen-free, but my phone is the one sticking point.

My strategy was simple.  I was going to leave my mobile upstairs in my bedroom all day long.  I’m allowed it at naptimes.  Otherwise, it simply stays out of reach.

 

I got to 9.46am on Monday morning when I couldn’t take it anymore and ran up the stairs to get my mobile.  9.46am.  It’s appalling.  The main thing I learnt was that it wasn’t the messages that I was after, but my camera.  I really wanted to capture those moments of Bella’s life, and that simply doesn’t happen without my phone.  And once it was captured, I wanted to post it to Instagram, and then my email notifications caught my eye, and so on.  I did manage to rein things in and put the phone down, but it didn’t quite inspire me to keep going with the experiment.  I have gotten better at not using my phone after Bella’s naptime until she goes to bed, but the morning is still a struggle.

The only solution I can see is to buy a stand-alone camera, but frankly our finances are stretched and I don’t want to spend the money on it right now.  I’m not sure where that leaves me.  Ideas on a postcard most welcome.

When you’re not feeling well…

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Bella has been ill for the past couple days with a tummy bug.  Her appetite has disappeared, the nights are full of vomiting, and the days are feeling longer and longer.  There’s fussiness, there’s endless demands for cuddles, and there’s a fair few meltdowns.

What do you do on days like this?

Lots of people default to screens.  Bella is now 2 years old, and most of us are aware that the recommendations are for under 2’s not to have screen time – something that we’ve tried to follow as closely as possible.  Some people have assumed that now that Bella’s 2yo, I’ll have done a 180° and allow her to sit in front of the TV for hours on end, but actually I intend to remain very light on screen time for as many years as possible.

Having said that, illness is a different story.  What I have learned is that TV can be really useful to reset our moods, especially when Bella’s having yet another meltdown and I’m that close to losing it.  The only show she watches is Something Special* (aka “Mr Tumble”) and she adores it, so we record the episodes automatically and it only takes a second to put one on.  It’s a nice way to let me have a little break from her clingyness and let her have something she enjoys.  Bella often asks for a second episode after we’ve watched it, but she also knows that that never happens so she just accepts my “No” and moves on.

Apart from the 30 minutes of TV, I’ve found that we need to keep busy.  But it’s a different type of busy.  It needs to be mentally busy, something that keeps her mind occupied enough to not notice the pains of her body, and obviously we try to keep things as physically undemanding as possible.  What can you do with a two-year-old that fits that bill?

Go for a walk

Obviously Bella is somewhat low energy, so we’ve been grabbing the heavy duty pram we bought for her at birth (as opposed to the lightweight one I usually use these days), reclining it back and letting her relax with her feet up while we pop to the shops or walk to the park.  I must admit, every time I hope that she’ll nod off, but that’s yet to happen.  At least when we arrive at the park, she doesn’t require much encouragement to sit on the swings and let me get the workout pushing her!

Sand play

I didn’t want a traditional sandpit cluttering up the garden, so instead I put some kinetic sand in a tub and threw in a number of tools and shapes.  Bella loves the sand tub and will often ask to play with it multiple times in a day.  I try to put it out on the patio when she wants it, because as much as I want the sand to stay in the tub, it rarely stays that way.  But I have now perfected a system where we can sit on a waterproof playmat indoors, and then gather everything to shake it out outside, without getting sand everywhere.  Win-win!

Water play

Bella has a water table outside and adores it.  She has a water turbine and a couple boats that came with the table, and then there’s also a few cups and accessories that we’ve added.  She’ll play for hours, and our only issue is usually the sun coming overhead.  I need to find a way to get proper shade on our patio!

Art

Watercolours are Bella’s favourite at the moment, and they involve sitting nicely at her table which certainly works in our favour right now.  We’ll grab some watercolour paper and paint away until she loses interest.

Board games

This can be a bit hit and miss, depending on the brainpower that Bella has at that moment in time, but we have some great Orchard Toys games that she’ll usually be happy to mess about with.

Thankfully it’s a long weekend here in the UK and it helps that my husband is at home to help keep her entertained.  I’ve got my fingers crossed that the bug will have passed by the time he returns to work!

[* I get lots of questions about why we watch Something Special, and not say, Peppa Pig.  Something Special is largely based in the real world, with real people – not animations or anthropomorphised animals.  This was particularly important as we follow the Montessori concept that children in the 0-3 plane shouldn’t be exposed to adult-led fantasy.  We actually learned about Something Special from a mum in the baby signing class I took Bella to, because the show is designed to use signing to communicate with children with learning difficulties.  So, we have a lovely way to keep learning new signs even though we don’t go to the class anymore, gain exposure to children that often don’t look or act similar to the children Bella knows, and keep learning about different aspects of the real world in every episode.  Need I say more?!]