Two more months

Blink and it’s been two months since the last post. One month of pure sightseeing Tuscany and London. Another of just crazy organising life admin. And in that time, my number two learnt how to clap, how to wave, how to flip pages in a book and how to kiss. She now also drinks from a straw and knows how to call for each of us in the family. She crawls around the flat very confidently looking for me. I will miss the pitter patter of tiny palms on the floor one day I know as she follows her daddy around the flat.

It’s hard to imagine that she is two months away from turning one. Two months away from me no longer obsessing over the salt content, honey or breast milk. Two more months before our lives change to me going back to work and they go into full time nursery. I will miss the play date mums. I will miss the playgrounds and the buggy pushing walks.

Miss Three has had a great time learning tennis, the world map and flags this summer. She climbs like a monkey and now is so much more confident in her physical abilities as well as speaking publicly. I love her confidence in life having worried incessantly about her shyness over her two year old stage. She didn’t even so much as flinch as she got her pre-school booster shot even though she confirms to me that it hurt afterwards.

I loved having been an integral part of my two daughters’ growth this past summer although I will admit that the last month I have lost the will to be a good mum and haven’t read as much or bothered to think up exciting new things for them to do. Lots of planning ahead as I research schools and think up life admin things that must imminently get sorted before I head back to full time work.

I will miss this. My last two months of being a SAHM forever. My babies have grown up and the grey clouds have lifted. All my worries are different now. My jigsaw puzzle on what my future would be like is complete. I am proud of my big clever and brave girl. I am also smitten with my cheeky little one who I think will always be a mummy’s girl.

This is enough. My cup runneth over. Two more months of this, and I will fill it with kisses and cuddles I promise.



















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One month full time SAHM with two

This June I set myself a challenge to see if I could have the two children with me full time. No childcare. No holidays. Just us three for five days a week and then with Daddy on the weekends.

It was hard I won’t lie. I worried about the toddler. She challenges me more and more each day with her defiance, her sass and her acting out due to her need for attention. I can not contain her and often this month I have felt like a failure of a Mum. I sometimes do wonder if I have a good grasp at all on what to do with her. Twice this month I have gotten so frustrated with her that I have tried to make her feel bad over what little selfish thing she had done to upset me. Petty of me, because of course she doesn’t understand how when I am tired or sick I can’t play with her anymore. She just demands it regardless of any circumstance. I need to accept that I am to be her everything when she is on my watch. Other days I teeter between using kind language to persuade her to concede versus using threats of cancelling treats or activities and I feel like a crazy lady when her antics escalate to all sorts of cray to drive me up the wall.

Last week alone on Monday, she defied me and opened a gate at a pub which had a sign to say Do not Enter which I had read to her and then lied to say Peter Rabbit was responsible. On Tuesday, she got bored in Mandarin class and decided to walk out to play and when I dragged her back into class she hit her baby sister on her rage. Wednesday she was lovely until I tried to explain to her it may be nice to lend some toys to a visiting friend whose little boy had lost all his toys in Hurricane Irma and she kept shouting he could have none. Thursday she insisted on jumping into her sister’s cot after I had out her down for the night resulting in of course her waking her sister up. Is this all just attention seeking behaviour? Is it normal Three year old behaviour can anyone confirm to me? I miss my sweet little two year old now. She may have tantrumed then but she was never as naughty or mean as she is now.

It wasn’t all hard though. It has been a lovely hot June and so the girls have enjoyed playgrounds, play dates, wetlands, picnics galore, even caught the changing of the guards and visited two museums.

Picnics make it so much easier as eating al fresco means very little cleaning up. It also means easy to little cooking. I’ve been boiling some easy finger veg and find boiled eggs make very easy BLW picnic food. Otherwise, a bit of sliced cheese or poached chicken is always welcome protein. Fruit is also at their best this season making easy and healthy puddings for these picnics.




Eating at home required lots of easy meals. I find myself buying pre-prepped veg quite a lot so that often I only need to blanch them in boiling water and serve up with easy oven or slow cooked protein options.



These were Asian meals, premade and frozen dumplings, batch made stock, one pot rice cooker steamed miso cod and sous vide bulgogi beef with Korean rice cakes, udon or fried rice have been easy crowd pleasers.




On the western meals front, if it isn’t pasta with leftover roast, then I’ve opted to buy ready meals or premarinated meats such as tortillas, pies, lamb kebabs, chicken goujons or breaded fish are also generally easy toddler meals.

That’s all done and dusted now. June’s taster of being a full time SAHM. The flat isn’t as clean as I’d like. The children weren’t always as well turned out as i would have liked. But the important thing is that we are all loving and growing together. I just need to mother on and keep my eye on the prize.




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Summer of Love 2018

I love you two so much
My heart overflows
It’s hard to capture all memories
As time beyond me goes.

This year I spend each day with thee
Our weeks so fulfillingly intertwine
With song, dance, hugs and glee
At picnics, park play in the sunshine.

Together we grow and learn more each day
As Baby becomes more mobile
Preschooler practices numbers, phonics, independent play
It makes giving up my sleep worthwhile.

It’s been climbing, twirling and cuddles galore
But cheeky grins, witty sass and tantrums too
We read stories, non-fiction and rhyme till I can last no more
We share countless meals and sneak snacks with my beloved two.

Time cheats us my dears
Seven months has in a blink passed us by
I believe the laughter has outlast the tears
And it’s time well spent I don’t deny.

One day you shall each have your little ones
I hope then I will still hold you close.
And remember the days in our flat when I held you two once
Hoping for the best I can give you, your futures, only God knows.







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Stolen moments: Making daisy chains

“Mummy, thank you for all the treats today. May we do this again tomorrow?”Miss ‘sugar and spice’ Three thanks me for simple things( a cup of milk and a vitamin) she delights in.

At the moment, life is brilliant for us. The baby is learning to crawl, can sit up and discovers new foods everyday. All the toothless smiles and her determination to inch forward or upward to reach yet another toy never ceases to amaze me. Perhaps because her sister was lazy and never quite as bothered to exert effort, we are not entirely sure what lies ahead for us parenting a wilful toddler.







Miss Three is currently obsessed with trying to climb the taller apparatus in the playgrounds and trees in the park, but she isn’t quite the daredevil only stretching herself a teeny bit more each time. Equally capturing her interest is her new Leapfrog toy that teaches her to write letters and numbers.



I remember different emotions from when I was on Mat Leave the first time around. The sleep deprivation got to me. The lack of friends and confidence left me bereft with a proclivity to self-pity and depression taking it out all the time on the husband and blaming him for my unhappiness.

“I used to say to myself that happiness and misery depend on ourselves. If you feel unhappy, raise your self above unhappiness, and so act that your happiness may be independent of all eventualities.”

Catherine the Great


The recipe these days when the sun’s out:
1)Pack sandwiches/pasta salad, a pack of crisps/ popcorn, fruit, a snack of cheese or biscuits and fruit shoot/smoothie pack.

2)Find a park or garden to eat/run/scoot around in.

There are simple games Miss Three enjoys when there aren’t any playgrounds, such as chasing bubbles, tracking down dandelions and counting the time with each blow, making daisy chains or sometimes just running through tall grass or daffodils. It doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive.














Had we chosen a different city to live in, life would be different. We are blessed in London and I try not to take each blue sky day for granted. It’s hard to remember these uneventful, mundane days but I am so fulfilled that just buying a new electric toothbrush is enough to send me to the moon. I want this post to remind me of the laughter, the joy, the lessons learnt and the growing pains. After all it happens just a tad too quick and I will be caught in the rat race again all too soon. Feeling ever guilty and ever so inadequate. For now, I know I am giving them my all and enjoying every moment stolen.

Six months

I don’t know how we managed to get here, but yet here we are.

You have truly brought joy to my life in ways I didn’t experience before. Motherhood is such a pleasure when you beam and gargle at us all the time.

I love your enthusiasm every morning, I love your bright smiles when you see your sister each time especially love how amused you are by her jumps or one liners. I love that you demand so little even though you need much more. Especially when your sister is being a diva, you are so chilled and reserved.

I think you are strong though. I see your determination when you’ve set your heart on something. I feel your resolve as you tense your little limbs up and prepare to launch at something you’ve decided you want. I see your little eyes watching and observing every detail around you. I think you will be fine.

When I named you, I thought of encompassing joy, grace, and leadership into your name, and now we’ve had you for six months I believe it will come to be. But in the meantime as you grow with your sister, I pray that you both will get along well and that I will continue to be fair with my level of attention to both of you. You two are my world now and even when I wake in the wee hours of the morning and have to be drip fed caffeine to survive each day, I love you and your sister so much my heart could burst.

Happy six months my Lou. Stay active and inquisitive. I look forward to introducing you to more foods and hope you will be a good eater like your sister. I look forward to watching you learn to crawl and stand with the same grace you learnt how to roll over and sit up. The days are not long enough the ones I spend with you. I treasure every single moment you bestow upon us and look forward to many more belly cackles and cuddles.







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