20 things about returning to work

So I've done one whole week (well minus a day but who's counting?) back at work and here are 20 things about returning to work; some tips and some observations.  I'd love to hear any additions you have to my list!

1. Wear deodorant - I've been wearing deodorant for at least 15 years but for some reason on my first day back I completely forgot to apply it so spent the whole day paranoid that I smelt. Not the best move for a first day
2. Break in heels - so if like me you have been living in flats whilst looking after the children then I really suggest breaking in your heels. I was in pain by 9.30am and I was sat down most of the time! It really is worth getting used to heels before wearing them for a whole day!
3. Don't drink too much coffee - like when I first started work when someone asks if you want a tea or coffee I said yes... Big mistake especially as I usually drink decaf still so there were a few shakes going on with too much caffeine in my system.
4. Remember dresses ride up - so when I returned to work last time I was pregnant so this time I needed new work clothes. Lots of dresses looked nice in the changing room but I totally forgot about that annoying thing that dresses do... Ride up! Grr so annoying having to remember to keep pulling them down all the time.
5. Cake is all around - it's always someone's birthday. No matter how much you're "trying to behave" forget it, temptation is all around and of course you're back at work so you "deserve it". This week, this is the week that I will behave... Unlikely....
6. Some people will be more pleased to see you than you expect - I got a big hug from a woman that I didn't know that well and asked to see pictures of the kids. Great, more than happy to do this and always happy that people are pleased to see me but so surprised by who wanted to see them. I was a little shocked but it was a nice feeling. 
7. You have to be creative from the start - "ooh you had one of each, not need for anymore or anymore maternity leave" err awkward actually we've always wanted 3, cue a little nod from me and not saying a lot.
8. Everyone will assume you're sleep deprived and those parents who are will hate you if you're not - we've been lucky our kids sleep well and the only reason I was tired was because I woke early, not the children. But those parents at work who have been woken the previous night will stare at you with daggers. 
9. Some conversations will come to an abrupt end - "so are you working full time?" "Yes I am" ... End of conversation as there isn't really a lot to add.
10. You realise how big you must have been when you left - "wow... You looking amazing"  I obviously liked the compliment but they didn't need to sound quite so surprised.
11. It helps to remember your job title and team - when I returned to work last time I returned to a different role and team. When I then got introduced to people and they asked what I was doing I kept forgetting. Not very professional, it would definitely help to remember what you do and who you do it for.
12. You need to re learn how to sit in a chair - if like me you spend most of your time on the floor then you need to re learn how to sit in a chair. Especially one that swivels, I felt like the work experience kid who's never sat on a office chair before.
13. The adult conversation that you've "been missing out on" isn't that stimulating - at lunch time the conversation took a turn to talking about pickle and big or small chunks. Not the intellectual conversation that people like to make out that you've been missing out on then. 
    
14. There can be good banter - but you need to remember that some people will react as badly as your two year old. Oops! Must remember those sensitive types who can't handle a joke.
15. You quickly end up talking "business speak" - please don't hate me but I did use the phrase "touch base" this week. I cringed and shrunk in my seat a little as soon as I said it. 
16. Business is much like home - by this I mean you go back to find that budgets are being squeezed and the profit needs to improve. Much like home then. But at least my employer is still making a profit
17. You may need to work on your concentration - Particularly in a meeting which spends a lot of time on semantics rather than actually "doing" anything and you might find yourself planning your food menu... Or thinking up blog post ideas.
18. You have to talk to people you don't like - whilst on mat leave I got to spend a lot of time with people I like. Forget it when you get back to work, it doesn't matter whether you like them or not you have to be professional and get on with them
19. But you may also remember how many good friends you have there - I made the most of the first week at work and managed to have lots of coffee catch ups with some lovely friends. This reminded me what nice people I am surrounded by at work which makes leaving the kids that bit easier. 
20. But it'll never be as fun - I work for a good company but let's be honest it doesn't compare to spending time with your children, seeing friends, jumping in muddle puddles and generally being child like yourself! But it's worth trying to make the most of what ever situation you're in. 

Product Review H&A Bubbly Bath

As I've discussed before bedtime is my favourite time of the day and a big part of this is bath time.  My children both love the bath and have done from a young age, in fact my son has never cried in the bath and has always loved being in the water.  It's been great since he's been old enough to share a bath with his sister and they have their final play time of the day together in the bath.  Since my husband and I love swimming and want our children to love the water we have always encouraged plenty of splashing and squirting with toys in the bath although this sometimes does leave my husband and I wetter than the kids!  But they're having fun and that's the main thing!

My son has quite bad eczema so we have never really added products to the bath unless we can help it because we don't want to dry his skin out anymore.  But when Tots 100 offered the opportunity to try H&A Bubbly Bath I decided to give it a go.  I loved the Disney packing on the bottle we were sent as it had Nemo on the front of it and I'm a sucker for Disney films however my daughter (2) doesn't yet have the attention span for a film.  I have had Finding Nemo on in the background recently though as she played elsewhere in the room so was impressed when she recongised the character.  So come bath time I added the bubbly bath and was really looking forward to seeing the children's faces when they saw a rare treat of a bath full of bubbles.  Sadly this didn't happen as the pictures will show.  I was expecting lots of bubbles or some sort of foam but was disappointed not to see this.  However, this product isn't just about bubbles but about being soft and gentle and is approved by pediatricians and I have to say that is really is soft and gentle.  The product certainly didn't dry my sons skin out and actually felt slightly softer.  This may not sound like a big claim but my sons skin is very coarse at the best of times and has tried all sorts of treatments from the doctor so for something to make even the slightest difference then it's a good product.

So overall, this product isn't a great bubble bath because I didn't see many bubbles! But it is a good product to add to your bath if you want something to soften the water on delicate skin. I've seen that H&A have a Minnie Mouse range which I'm tempted to try as my daughter loves Minnie Mouse at the moment and would bring lots more smiles to bath time!

* I was sent the product to try but all views are my own.

Friday Favourites... Cold Defence Spray

Ok, apologies in advance but this isn't a glamorous post but then who said that parenting was glamorous?! So this weeks favourite is Boots Cold Defence Spray.  I'm sure you may have seen cold defence sprays in the past and I have to say that I'm a total convert.  First sign of a cold and this spray comes out and up my nose - but not only mine but my daughters as they can be used from a year (and whilst you're pregnant). The idea of it is that you take it at the first sign of a cold and it can help prevent it coming into a full blown cold and / or reduce the duration of a cold.  Obviously colds are part and parcel of winter and are even more prevalent when you have children so something that can help reduce the duration or even help stop it is a winner in my book! I urge you to try it!!

Now another good thing to try is to try a Vitamin C plus zinc effervescent tablet when a cold starts to take hold.  It might be all in my mind but I do feel that if I take one of these when I start to feel a cold coming on that sometimes it does help to stop it becoming a full on cold.

Does anyone else have any top tips for colds in toddlers... And their parents?!

Midweek Meal Makeover 5/52 sweet potato, broccoli and Feta Frittata

So we're into the second month of the year and my new years resolution is still going strong, this is pretty good right?!  So meal number 5 is a first for me - a frittata, I've made omelettes before with plenty of fillings but never a frittata so after this recipe card from Waitrose had been sitting in my file for over 2 years I thought it was time to give it a try!

Ok - Before you look at the pictures, please again excuse my laziness for using my I-phone again as I failed to get my canon out! And please excuse the broken plate in the background! My only saving grace is that for once it wasn't me who broke it!!

This frittata should be served with salad, please excuse me for just having cucumber - it was all the salad we had in the house!
Now about the frittata... Yum!! It serves four and since it used 7 eggs (yes 7!!) I decided just to have my quarter and try and be good about portions for once, especially after last weeks massive portion.  It was seriously yummy, I urge you to try this one and now think a frittata could be a regular meal for us; it's healthy, packed full of veg and the leftovers will be perfect for lunch for the children! And of course it's cheap to make, is there nothing not to like?! I'm looking forward to trying new combinations and think grated courgette maybe a great one to add in as well as spinach and peas!
It's also got to be well done to Waitrose - Their recipes always hit the mark and I can assure you that there will be more Waitrose recipes featured here in the coming weeks!

How are your new years resolutions going? Am keen to hear whether people are sticking to them or not!

What to buy when your child only wants to wear party dresses!

Christmas and then a January birthday meant that there was plenty of excuses for my two year old daughter to dress up into a party dress.  This now has the consequence that she only want to wear party dresses which to be honest I'm not that upset about except for the fact that it's still cold and she insists on taking off her tights and cardigans!  Luckily I have been able to get her to wear trousers to nursery since they have soft play there and a party dress just isn't practical!

We've been lucky that we do have a good supply of dresses that can fall under the "party dress" umbrella but I thought it would be a good excuse to have a look around at the cutest dresses for girls just in case you have a special occasion coming up or like my daughter you just want to make the everyday a little bit more special!

Joules Rose Print Dress

A gorgeous rose print dress that is very girly without being pink! Love the contrasting red bow.  £39.95

JoJo Maman Bebe Shirt dress

This isn't a traditional "party dress" shape but it makes it more practical (sorry to be boring!). We have a similar dress from The Little White Company and our daughter wore it to a christening last year but it's also versatile enough to be worn day to day as a light summer dress.  This is £18.

Boden Party Dress

I do try and have my daughter in girly clothes but not head to toe in pink but sometimes a dress comes along that just looks right in pink and this is one of those! Again we have a similar one from Next that someone bought for us last year and it looks gorgeous in the summer! We had some family pictures taken with our daughter in this dress and she loves wearing it too! This dress is £38.

Sainsbury's Horse Print Dress

If your little girl loves prints and having things to point at on her dress then she may well love this horse print dress from Sainsbury's.  It's £16.

To see all these dresses and more please check out my Pinterest board

All the Small things

So a couple of weeks ago I stumbled upon mummy never sleeps and in particular her linky about "all the small things".  I love this idea and really think that it's a great idea to take a little bit of time out and give a little bit of space and time to the small things that happen in life because really they may be small but they amount to big things in the end!

Strangely like mummy never sleeps my small things post this week starts with a poo story!  Walking into my 2 year old's room I knew that there was a great big poo waiting for me, it stank! But poo, what's special about that when you're a parent? Well when I turned on the light my daughter and I realised this was no ordinary poo.  Oh dear, she's out of her sleep bag AND it's a leaky nappy! Argh! And cue the crying from my toddler as she realises she has "dirty hands mummy".  It had got everywhere as these things do so everything was stripped and cleaned and she was put in the bath to have a quick shower which she hates.  So, not the best start today but onward we went down to breakfast and all was fine.  In fact it was all "fine" until we got the little one up from his morning nap when she started playing up a little.  This I can cope with but she refused to sit on the step when asked so the whole morning went downhill from there and she gave me those "couldn't give a damn eyes" which got me wound up!!  I was so looking forward to nap time although in typical style she didn't nap!  As the afternoon passed we went out and had a nice day but she still played up some what and a text from my husband around 5.30pm saying he wouldn't make bathtime actually gave me great joy as I decided that a slightly early night was in order.  It was when my husband got home that the small thing happened.  My husband said "oh I'm too late to see the kids, that's a shame" and I thought he was being sarcastic as he knew what type of day I'd had, then he said that he wanted to go in and see our daughter but as she'd just gone down didn't want to disturb her and said that all he really wanted to do at the end of a day at work was see the kids and spend a bit of time with them.  This made me smile, my husband wanted to see our kids and not only see them but spend time with them, even when they're being a little on the naughty side!  I knew this about my husband already, it wasn't a surprise but it was so nice to hear.  I, like most probably often don't take enough time to appreciate my husband and how good he is with our children and how much he loves them so when I heard him say that he wanted to see them I gave him a hug, just a small thing but good none the less!

Monday's Moment... Let's celebrate our differences

I was recently reading a great post by Charlotte Taylor on being a single mum which then led to us having a twitter conversation and her saying that "motherhood should be about embracing our differences" which got me thinking.  She is so right!  As I have previously said in my mind the (age) gap post sometimes it feels like if you're not doing what others see as right (I.E. what they do) then it must be wrong.  But isn't this really narrow minded and should we be bringing up our children to be this narrow minded? No, as Charlotte says I think we should embrace our differences.

I would love us to start embracing and celebrating all our differences.  Differences in where we live, how / when / if we work, child care, how many children we have, age gaps, routine and so on and so forth.  We are all different and we all have different circumstances, I'm fed up feeling like I have to explain my circumstances when I say I'm going back to work or justifying a 15 month age gap with our children and so I'm going to (try to) stop doing this.  My husband and I are different people but we're a team and we're different to everyone else, why don't we all enjoy being different to each other rather than judging others and their choices and the circumstances that are forced upon them.  I know that I've been lucky with the people I have met since I became a parent and I have met some really nice people and have some great groups of friends.  I love how different all these friends are and what they each individually bring to my life now and the support they give me as a parent.  I have different people to go to depending on the circumstances and this is a great thing to be celebrated!

One of the most annoying people that is around at the moment is a certain ex-apprentice "star" who's initials are KH.  I refuse to put anymore than that or link to her because this gives her publicity and I think as long as she's getting publicity she's going to continue coming out with controversial statements.  But I feel that she is very narrow minded and of the impression that if people aren't doing what she is then it must be wrong and her children must not come into contact with them.  I actually feel like some of views are almost dangerous in the sense that she is a parent of impressionable young children and I worry how narrow minded they are going to grow up to be.  If they are not allowed to go to a party of a child the mum doesn't like the name of then they're not going to learn about people different to them and often this is where you learn the most.  We're supposed to be moving away from a class based society but if our children are already having it drummed into them that they are better than others just because of their name then this is never going to happen.

So before I rant anymore especially about KH let me sign off.  Parenthood is a journey (argh hate saying "journey"!) and we are all going on separate ones.  Let's enjoy the differences that meeting other parents brings and enjoy the differences that our children will encounter.  Of course we won't like it all but we can learn from almost all of it and surely that's important for us and our children? I feel that it's such an important thing to bring them up to be more open minded and accepting of the people they meet and to judge people on the values they live their life by rather than the house they live in.

If you want to follow Charlotte on Twitter it's @charltaylor

Shopping with a toddler

So shopping with a toddler in a high street shop (I.E. not supermarket shopping where you have a trolley) should be renamed extreme shopping.  It's such hard work!!

After a library trip we headed into town to get a coffee and a babycino (I think these are cute and my daughter loves them!) and then go into a couple of shops.  My first mistake was not having the second seat on my Phil and Teds pushchair to stick her in if required and my second was not having any stickers to hand (note if you have a toddler keep stickers in your pocket AT ALL TIMES!).  So into Superdrug we go, my third mistake was saying "don't touch that", I should have remembered from my swimming teacher training that all my child is going to hear is "touch that".  So I was duly ignored and she grabbed everything; lipsticks, moisturiser, sanitary towels and I tried to remain calm especially to the peering public, then she grabbed the cotton wool pads and realised I actually needed those!  And like a light bulb moment I suddenly had a brainwave - I needed to occupy her. Cue asking her to hold not one but two things for me, one for each hand!  She did try and pop one under her underarm to free a hand but we moved round the shop quickly. We managed to get round the shop unscathed and managed to walk back to the car whilst she carried on holding onto my make up remover and cotton wool (don't worry I did take them off her to pay!) which was brilliant until we got to the car and I took them back again and she screamed "MINE, MINE, MINE!" oh well, you can't win them all!

It would be fine if it wasn't for the fact that I have an awful memory and always forget something that I need to buy so have to repeat the whole process tomorrow!  I will try to remember stickers and to occupy her hands!

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