My husband has just purchased tickets for ‘Peppa Pig’s Adventure!’ at our local theatre, and it’s hard to tell who’s more excited (well, once you’ve ruled me out, as I’m struggling to think of anything worse than spending an hour and 20 minutes in her company).
The Peppa Pig phase has hit us hard, with no end in sight. In fact, we’ve seen so many episodes, so many times, that I find myself thinking about it far too much!
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This week, our local Health Visitor Amanda came a-calling for Miss O’s 2-year check. If you have one coming up, here are my key takeaways from the experience!
1 – Despite knowing deep-down that this was a standard check on my child’s progress and not an examination of my parenting skills, five minutes before she arrived, I found myself casually laying out bowls of fruit and putting the CBeebies ballet on in a last-ditch attempt to look like I had my sh*t together (and cover up Miss O’s chronic addiction to Paw Patrol and Custard Creams).
So, I was Googling ‘Bing’ to prove to my husband that Coco is voiced by Topsy from ‘Topsy & Tim’ (because that’s the kind of important stuff we argue about these days) and it says that there are 78 episodes of this CBeebies stalwart in total.
SEVENTY EIGHT?!?
Since bloody when???
Those of you who follow my Facebook page (the rest of you should totally come and join us by the way; it’s where all the cool kids hang out…) will know that Miss O recently turned two. And my God, don’t we know it.
The rage, the tears, that perpetual scowl that just screams “WHY ARE YOU RUINING MY LIFE?!” (and of course, plenty of actual screaming; she nearly deafened me yesterday when I suggested that her father’s pants weren’t appropriate headgear for nursery).
This blog is usually firmly rooted in the ‘toe-curlingly embarrassing parenting mishaps’ category, but I’m shaking things up this week with a post on something that actually went rather well!
On Monday, I took Miss O to an under 5’s cooking class. Technically, I was 7 days late, as I’d set off the previous week with the best of intentions but my Sat Nav dicked about for England, so we ended up turning back 45 minutes later and consoling ourselves with cake at home instead (OK, so not totally mishap-free…)
I don’t know about you, but since becoming parents, we seem to spend about 50% of our lives looking at farmyard animals.
This week, I’ve put together a handy (*spoiler* it’s completely useless) ‘A-Z’ guide to visiting the farm with your toddler:
A is for Aghast – how you will feel when faced with the extortionate entry fee. Read more
Last weekend we attended our first family wedding since Miss O was born. Everything was lovely; the bride looked beautiful, the sun shone, the wine flowed…but bringing your toddler along for the ride really adds a certain something doesn’t it??
As we were staying away for 2 nights, we had to pack everything we owned, naturally, which turned loading the car up into an elaborate game of luggage Tetris. I then spent a hugely enjoyable 2.5 hours wedged between a cool bag, a travel cot and three Paw Patrol cushions watching 23,435 episodes of Bing (I thought we’d moved on from that whiny little fluff-ball and his bean bag chums, but every once in a while his popularity skyrockets again – he’s basically the Craig David of the kid’s TV world). Read more
Those baby milestone cards are everywhere these days – you know, the ‘Today I’m 6 months old!’ and ‘Today I took my first steps!’ type things.
I was never organised enough to buy any and have no idea how people manage to get their babies to pose so nicely with them – Miss O would have either eaten it or projectile vomited all over it before I’d even had a chance to point the camera in her direction…
This week, I’ve had a crack at making my very own ‘Mummy Milestone’ cards:
Having a baby is a real relationship game-changer. On the one hand, I’ve gained a whole new level of respect for the guy who stays so calm after Miss O’s 1458th tantrum of the day (this is usually the point at which I stomp off to sit in the car with a Kit Kat to calm down) and who happily gets up at 5.30am with her so that I can get some extra shut-eye.
But on the other hand, we do things that drive each other absolutely bananas. A lot of these are things that we’ve always done, but hey, if things got a bit tense pre-baby, you could pop out for a nice pub lunch somewhere, or, I don’t know, have an impromptu weekend away in Paris (we never actually did this, but it’s what you like to imagine you’d be doing instead of watching a Peppa Pig marathon, idly wondering why someone hasn’t turned that annoying little oik into sausage rolls yet…)
These days, it’s all a bit more stressful, and frantic, and there’s Lego f*cking everywhere. So those once completely brush-offable bad habits have become REALLY BLOODY ANNOYING. Read more
In my younger years, if I’d overindulged on the wine on a Saturday night, I could spend Sunday curled up on the sofa, eating junk food and watching back-to-back episodes of ‘Murder, She Wrote‘ (mainly wondering why the baddies ALWAYS give Jessica at least 20 minutes to tell them how they committed the murder before shooting her – I mean, they bloody did it, it can’t be news to them…)
These days, I get to nurse my hangovers at a farm, or soft play, or if I’m really unlucky, the supermarket…
Pass the wine please 