heartnbutterfly's Laundry List: Win a BEAUTIFUL Christmas TuTu for your little Chr...

heartnbutterfly's Laundry List: Win a BEAUTIFUL Christmas TuTu for your little Chr...: One lucky winner will win the beautiful Christmas tutu pictured above, in a size 3- 9 months, made by Precious Pitter Patter! Giveaway ope...

Going out.

Soooooo. I went out last night with some friends for a glass of wine and a meal.
Getting ready to go out with Harlow crawling about the bathroom was a feat in itself. With her into the bathroom cupboards, pulling everything out, "Harlloooww", but then, "good job Harlow" I forgot I had that in there.....MY trusty lipstick.
Now what to wear??? Seriously, I have no going out clothes... Lets try this top on.....oh poo, this would get me arrested, public indecency, too much mama cleavage.
Ok, this top will do, kind of fits, and no cleavage.....
Finally found the restaurant after driving around the parkade for 5 minutes.....
Got there, sat down, and ordered a glass of red wine asap!
Would have been so nice and relaxing, except that My husband told me Harlow was awake at 8, crying in her crib.  What happened to the carefree days of going out? Where have they gone?
Sometimes in the 'going out department' I feel I have been ripped off. I have to be back as quick as possible incase Harlow wakes up starving, and in need of a hug off mum and I'm not there.
Well..............I may have got the short straw with regards to being able to go out stress free, but I have got a cheeky chubby Harlow and 3 other cheeky kiddies, that drive me up the wall :)

Chlorine is my perfume.

Today I went swimming with my 3 out of my 4 kids.... I found the entire experience exhausting!
I paid my $13.50 with a smile on my face, not knowing what was in store for me.
Then it all started........ WOW, it was a total nightmare. My whole vocabulary for the entire hour was oi, you, no. oi, you, no. I am sure I looked like the bad Mum of the pool.... I definitely felt like a terrible mum.
At the end of it all, getting the kids to take a shower to wash the horrible swimming pool smell away was a total disaster too, NO mummy NOOOOOOO water in my eyes.
Getting dried afterwards, now that is like torture. Shivering, dripping wet whilst you get your kids warm and dry first before yourself. Trying to spend as little time in the germ infested changing rooms. Shouting out, NO, GRACIE, DON"T SIT ON THE FLOOR, (believing the floor to be a petri dish of green bacterial monsters specifically waiting  for a 3 year old by the name of Gracie  to be their host)
And the end of this wonderfully crappy experience was me thinking that someone had stolen my bland and boring sandals. I searched high and low high and low, but no sandals. After 20 minutes of believing I would have to walk to my car barefoot,  shaking my fist to the imaginary thief of my sandals.....My friend who I was with found them, in the locker, on the top shelve..... Ahhhh yes, I remember now...... I put them there.... duh.....
Never again will I go swimming.....Until next time!!

bottle or breast which is best?

The arguments on what is best for baby can go on for days or weeks or months. I must admit, my 2 boys I bottle fed, and they thrived and are of sound mind.....?? :)
Gracie, I expressed milk and bottle fed it to her for 6 months. She did well, she thrived.
Harlow I breastfed, I am still breastfeeding, she is 8 months old now. I keep thinking I need to bottle feed her formula now, as that is what people are telling me, and what I keep telling myself... will it make her sleep through the night?? I know I sound totally stupid, I know I do, but...... could it have some truth to it?
Anyhow that is what is on my mind right now......

Chicken nuggets for the soul

Supper is a time for the family to come together as a unit. To talk about our day, to laugh to just be happy. How wonderful it is that mum has set the table with clean linen, with knives and forks. To sit down with lovely tasty food that our mother has made specially for us. How lucky we are....
Yeah.....right....Not at this house.  Take a right out of this house, then a left and another right, to the delorean time machine and set it to 1950.......

Suppertime here is different, it's like a horror movie.

SO........................

Tonight, I am trying a different approach for supper. Feeding Sean and Gracie what  know they'll eat, a plate of chicken nuggets, grapes cucumber carrots and an orange..... A bit of a mixture.......But, I couldn't handle the suppertimes as they were..... Stress, the kids complaining, whinging and just not eating.
All I can hear now, is...well, nothing.... It's great. So when my husband gets home, maybe we'll get to eat supper in peace....maybe??!
I am actually contemplating making a 'tapas' type super supper most nights.... See how it pans out!!

Eating dinner in peace.

Last night, was the 1st time in a long time, that me and my husband have eaten dinner by ourselves.
It was our anniversary, thus, a present to ourselves.
Sat, just the two of us, the background noise of knifes and forks, people chatting, waitresses tottering to and fro with their curiously short skirts...We were making a decision on what to have for the starter, was so relaxing, it was fabulous!

I had a glass of wine, while we occasionally talked about funny things that had happened that week. It's a crazy busy household we have, we sometimes forget to realize how great we have it!
When dinner arrived, we ate it without any interruption, such a relaxing evening.....Well.... I mean a lovely 2 hours.
After the meal we went to collect our wonderful amazing, crazy, noisy kiddies from my friend, who was gracious enough to watch them for us.

Such a great 2 hour break from our crazy household!!

Goodnight Nicholas, Goodnight Sean, Goodnight Gracie, Goodawake Harlow....

After having 3 kids that slept really well from a young age, Along comes kiddie number 4, Little Harlow . Bright of the eyes and spirit, A quick and nimble crawler.....Happy and contented most of the time......
Likes to try out her newly sprouted teeth on various chew toys, cell phones and her mum's boobie.
Overall a cute girl.

Although I think she's one of 'those' kids....Yeah, a non sleeper...
In the past, I used to look down on mums of non sleepers, "It' the parents fault"!! I'd say.
We've all thought, nah, I won't be one of those parents who ends up with a non sleeper. Here I am though, little Harlow, she won't nap or sleep well for me. If she does nap it's a maximum of 40 minutes once a day.
So what should I do....
(1) Accept the fact, and move on......

(2) Start drinking MORE coffee                                    
(3) Start drinking MORE wine.
(4) Accept the fact, and move on......
or
(5) Accept the fact and move on.......

Well I am out of ideas.... Just hope it's a phase that's she going through.
I am sure when I am old and decrepit in the nursing home I will look back at my sleepless little Harlow with a smile on my wrinkled face. As I sit in my floral rocking chair, overlooking the other nursing home patients, hoping that one of my kids comes and visits me, sometime soon...... Otherwise the will is being re written, and all my Justin Bieber records are going to charity instead!!