Life, love and little things - February 2016

The title seemed apt, given that February for many people is all about those red hearts and flowers. M and I celebrate St Dwynwen's in January - I make him Welsh cakes, he buys me daffodils. And this year (thanks to a lovely friend babysitting) we made it out for a hilarious meal at Wagamamas: flying chopsticks, mix ups with a very carefully ordered allergy friendly dinner meaning that our neighbours nearly went without their meal, and a rogue hair that nearly caused a bust up between our bearded waiter and a very cross chef all made our first date since Harry was born infinitely memorable. And in a really peculiar way, just perfect.

 I've not been posting much of late, despite plenty of allergy friendly/ vegan cooking and baking going on - Harry is transitioning to just one nap, which has meant that my time int he morning to do housework, shower, make lunch, get supper started and blog unaccompanied has all but vanished. Sadly this hasn't seemed to make Harry's afternoon nap any longer so I'm a bit thrown out of sync - trying to do what I previously managed in three hours, in one. Unsurprisingly it's not working. That said, mornings with my chatty bubba are lovely - all those months narrating our days are paying off as Harry tells me about any trains, planes or cars we see.

I'm still a bit torn about slings - our Ergo is nowhere near as comfy as it used to be for either Harry or I, and I'm contemplating a toddler Tula or a woven wrap. Sadly our sling library is just too expensive for me to try either, much less both, so I'm trying to work it out by guesswork. I know I liked wrapping when we used the Moby, and from what I understand the Tula isn't dissimilar to the Ergo, but comes up higher to provide Harry with the back support he's outgrown all too fast. It's a bit tricky, and I wish I'd realised that needing more height than the Ergo offers was a common issue - we can get round it at the moment, but as I say it's certainly not comfy for me, which means I suspect it's not that comfy for Harry either.  I'm determined to get it sorted out though as I'm missing baby wearing (toddler wearing?) so much.

I'm still crocheting - I've got 10 stripes & the border of Attic 24's Sunny Crochet along granny stripe blanket to go. I've really enjoyed making this for Harry, next on my list is to crochet some bunting for our fireplace. Given how wedded I am to the Attic 24 patterns, I thought I'd use Lucy's pattern for Granny bunting - using my leftover yarn from the cosy stripe blanket as that one lives over our sofa, lending some lovely soft colour to the lounge.

Other little things of note - I've decided to take the plunge and refresh our kitchen, repainting the walls, ceiling and cupboard doors, and am currently investigating stickers to go over the tiles. Some new blinds up at the window, a big declutter and spring clean should all hopefully ensure that it starts to feel more like a kitchen than a one room migraine.

For those of you who remember me giving up Guides when I was pregnant, I'm back running the unit once again - a lack of local volunteers meant that my much beloved unit was closed briefly at the start of this academic year. With girls still keen to be members and unable to attend any other local units I initially reopened it with a plan to hand it straight over to 2 lovely women who had volunteered, sadly unforeseen circumstances for both of them have meant that their help only materialised for a short while, and I'm be-neckered on a Tuesday evening once again. I must be doing something right as we've increased the girl numbers by nearly 50% since reopening! Still, as I keep telling my lovely husband, as soon as there's a safe pair of hands to pass it on to - I will step back.

That's our life, love and little things for February - I hope you enjoyed this 'peek behind the curtain' as it were - if it's something you did like, do drop me a note in the comments as this is the type of post I can easily knock up during a short nap (while avoiding the washing up)