The crazy hair cut experience

So if you've read the blog before or if you have met my youngest son, Levi, you will know that he has a lot of hair! When I had a scan at 38 weeks, one of the first things the sonographer said to me is, "your baby has lots of hair!". I didn't even know you could see things like that on a scan! But indeed, when Levi was born just a few days later, he had a tonne of black hair. Even though I knew he would have hair, I wasn't quite anticipating that much!

This was Levi just a few hours old....

and this is him at 8 weeks old. Check out that hair!

He is seven months old and he has 7 haircuts in this time! I have always used scissors in the past and that has done the job. He always used to stay pretty still owing to the fact that he was a younger baby and didn't really move around that much so it wasn't a very difficult job. (I know that if you're a hairdresser and you're reading this, you are probably cringing right now that I cut his hair myself. Seriously, I have so much respect for you all because I am so hopeless at it and I clearly have no idea what I am doing, as was evidenced by the rather visible chunk I took out of his hair a couple of months ago!). This is a picture of him after his first haircut when he was just three months old....

I cut his hair a couple of weeks ago and I decided to use the clippers on him for the first time. I thought I would use the clippers because it is harder to mess up and now that Levi is a bit older and his hair is thicker, it is a lot more noticeable when I go wrong! (notice that I said when and not if there?!)  I know that Caleb absolutely hates clippers - he cries so much, so I have started to take him to the barbers just because I refuse to cut his hair anymore! I thought that given that Levi is a lot younger, I would try it out on him then as he gets older and I cut it with clippers he will be so used to it that it won't be a big deal. To be honest, I would probably take him to the barbers as well but being as he can't even sit up on his own yet I am not sure if they would cut his hair!

I sat him on his bumbo seat on the kitchen table, put a coverall on him and got the clippers out. He looked a little unsure at first but didn't really react. I thought to myself, this is perfect, it's going to be so easy and he doesn't even care that I'm doing this. Five minutes later, he was screaming the place down. Levi doesn't really cry much at all but seriously, he was screaming so much, sobbing with tears rolling down his cheeks! I felt like the worst mother in the world. I stopped for a minute to cuddle him and comfort him but I was past the point of no return and I had to carry on. A mullet on anyone is never a good look, let alone on a bubba.

I continued on with the clippers and as I continued, so did the crying! We were both so relieved when I was finished. I bathed him, gave him some milk and then we sat and cuddled for a while. I'm not sure which one of us needed the comfort the most; him or me! Here are pictures of him after his haircut. The one of him in the stripes was taken on the same day. I was pretty relieved to see him smiling after the trauma of the haircut, I tell you!

So even though his hair ended up looking a lot better than when I use the scissors, I'm not really sure what I will do in the future to cut it. I think maybe we will be making a trip to the barbers after all!


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Stop staring at me!

A couple of weeks ago, Mum came down to see us. We went out a did some shopping and then went to Costa for a hot chocolate and some carrot cake (Caleb comes to expect this now whenever Mum comes to visit, he is a little obsessed with babycinos, ha ha!). We had just got our food and drinks and sat down when Levi started crying. He isn't usually particularly vocal but he was literally screaming. It wasn't for that long and it was because he was hungry so as quickly as possible, I got his food out of my bag and started to feed him.

Just across from us, a mother and daughter were sitting, having their lunch. The daughter must have been in her late teens and I don't know how old the mother was but they glared at me when Levi cried. He's a baby; he cries. I am used to people looking over now and then because I think it's only natural to look in the direction when you hear that sound but usually it's a sympathetic look or a smile that says, "I know, I've been there" or "oh, bless that little baby!". This was neither of those looks. They looked at me as if I had just stuck Levi in the eye with my fork or something. Utter disgust that my baby was crying and interrupting their lunch and the sort of look that just made you feel like a bad mother because their baby is crying.

So to any of those people who have ever given anyone that look - it isn't helpful. We know our baby is crying, we don't need your glare to make us aware of that fact. As mothers, we are doing our very best to help our babies and to provide whatever they need at any given time. Being a Mum isn't always easy and sometimes it seems to take ages just to be able to get out of the door. Sometimes as Mums, we have had little sleep due to being woken up numerous times in the night (I am lucky in that I am not one of those Mums - Seth is a lighter sleeper than I am so he is the one who usually wakes up and goes to see to them!), we can be tired and at our wits end from a child who just doesn't seem to want to do anything we want them to do that day and being in the house with them all day can seem like a bit too much so we decide to head out. When you look at us like that or make comments, you don't know what effect it can have on us, or how harmful it can be to our fragile states. On this occasion it was fine - even though I was annoyed at their reaction, it didn't overly effect me, I just brushed it off (although perhaps I didn't completely brush it off or I may not be blogging about it now, ha!). It could have been another story though.

When I had Caleb, he was quite a poorly baby. He suffered badly with colic and reflux and pretty much cried for the first 2 months of his life. I was suffering from postnatal depression so neither of us were in the best states! I remember one day (I still refer to it as "Black Thursday") when he wouldn't feed at all. I was in a complete mess and felt like an awful mother because the doctors were concerned about Caleb's weight and even though he didn't want to feed, I felt like I was starving him. He was crying, I was crying, it wasn't pretty. I just had to get out of the house so as quickly as possible, I got us both ready and we went out to a shopping mall for a couple of hours. I didn't even have any make up on, which is a pretty big deal for me as I never leave the house with absolutely no make up on! Luckily for me, no one glared at me or stared at me because I had a crying baby. Some people gave me that sympathetic smile and one lovely lady stopped to talk to me and said, "it will get better". But on that day, had someone given me "the look" or made some comment, I was so fragile at the time that I think I would have just broken down.

So again, for anyone who has given that look - it might not seem like much to glare at someone to you but for the person on the receiving end of that, it can be a huge deal. It can make us feel like we're bad mothers who don't know how to take care of our babies. It can make us feel like maybe we weren't cut out for motherhood in the first place and we will never get to grips with this thing that millions of women in the world seem to find so easy. Please don't judge us. Babies cry; it's just what they do. If you want silence, go to a library. On the other hand, if you hear our baby screaming, you could be that person who gives the sympathetic smile or you could offer to help. When I have encountered those lovely people who have smiled or who have offered helping hands (I had a lovely experience of that too - read about that here) it has really boosted me and I will never forget those acts of kindness. Just remember that as mothers, we may not be perfect and we may not be doing things how you would have done it, etc. but we are doing our best and that's what matters.



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It's a BOY!

Yes, that's right people, it's a boy. Or rather he is a boy. He, as in my son, Levi. Not a girl; a boy.

You may wonder why I feel the need to make that clear. The thing is, in the 7 months he has been alive, many people have stopped to admire him, which is lovely. I'm a proud Mum and I love it when people admire my children. However, at least once a week, people will ask me, "how old is she?", make comments like, "look at her lovely hair!" or they will say to Caleb, "what is your sister's name?" The last one is my favourite because Caleb will always put them firmly in their place by replying, "he's my brother. His name is Levi". At this point, they look at me, just to check that Caleb has actually got it right and say, "oh, is it a boy?". Well yes, yes it is!

I don't really know why people ask that. I dress him in boyish clothes and I don't think that any of his clothes are even really gender ambiguous (except maybe for one playsuit which is a Hawaiian print - it could look like a girls outfit to some so he only wears that when we're not seeing people, ha ha! It came as part of a set anyway!). On one of the occasions where someone made the boy comment, he was in blue and red and had a blue blanket. When I told them that he is a boy, they said, "oh, well you can never really tell these days, a lot of parents put their little girls in a lot of blue". I suppose she had a point and I personally like blue on girls, but if I ever had a daughter and put blue on her, I would make sure that it looked a little bit girly! Or, you know, put a bow or a hairband in or something.

I have come to a couple of conclusions as to why people may think that Levi is a girl.

1. He has a ton of thick, dark hair. Someone said to me, "you don't really expect to see baby boys with hair; that's why I thought he was a girl". It still strikes me as a little odd that people might assume that all baby girls have hair and all baby boys are bald or have very little hair.

2. He has good eyelashes. Again, I don't really see the reason behind that one either. It's much the same as the reason above.

3. He's a pretty baby! I'm not going to lie, I do think he is gorgeous and maybe he could be considered pretty, ha ha! My sister said that I should put him in for baby modelling. Seth and I were laughing and saying, what would we do if they wanted to stick him in a dress and but a flowery headband on him?! He would look beautiful, ha! To me though, he looks like a boy but maybe that's because I'm his Mum and so I would think that regardless.

4. This is the best one..... I have two children. The older one is a boy. And therefore the younger one is..... a girl? I guess there are a lot of people who would like one of each and that's great. I have friends who have one of each and don't want any more children because they always wanted a boy and a girl. But a couple of people have actually said, "oh, I saw you had a boy and for some reason I just thought your other one was a girl!". On that note, when people have realised he is a boy or they see that I have two boys, I've been asked if I was disappointed that he was a boy. Or they say that I should have tried harder for a girl. Or they ask if we were trying for a girl. Nope, we were just trying for a baby and as luck would have it, we had one!

I know that maybe it's normal for people to be asked the gender of their baby, especially if they dress them in white. I dressed Caleb in a lot of white as a newborn and people asked if he was a boy. That's fine, but I do feel like I get asked a lot more than your average person. Am I the only one who has had this or are there any other Mums out there in the same situation? If so, please tell me! I find the whole thing quite intriguing / frustrating / amusing! And apparently so does he!

Seven months

It appears that I blinked and Levi is seven months old. The time seems to have passed by so quickly in some respects, yet in other ways it feels like he has always been a part of our family.

He is a gorgeous, cheeky little one. He has so much dark hair and he has literally had a hair cut for every month that he has been alive! I am pretty sure that if I hadn't cut it, it would be half way down his back already!

I had him weighed a couple of weeks ago and he is 16lb 9oz. When Caleb was just seven weeks older, he was only seven ounces heavier! Caleb was my skinny baby and although Levi is a lot heavier, he doesn't seem really chubby but he has a sufficient amount of squeezable chub, ha ha! I just love it! He fills out his clothes really nicely; it's such a novelty to me as everything was always slightly baggy on Caleb.

Before I had a baby, if anyone with a child had said to me that at 7 months old they could see so much personality in their child already, I would never have believed it. However now, I totally get it! Levi laughs at everything, from someone aiming to make him laugh to just looking at him! He smirks when Caleb gets told off, which I know is definitely going to make life interesting a they get older, ha ha! Or there are other times when I need to tell Caleb not to do something but Levi will then laugh so hard at whatever it was that Caleb did that it makes it hard to tell him off! I just know that those boys are going to be as thick as thieves and they will probably gang up on me a few times :).

Levi has been rolling over for a good few weeks now and manages to travel around slightly on his stomach. He hasn't quite figured out how to go from front to back yet though. He can sit up for a couple of seconds at a time but we are still working on that! He has taken to eating like a champ! I was really nervous about introducing him to solid foods. The first couple of days were difficult; he wouldn't take a spoon so I had to put the food on my finger and then put it into his mouth but he has the whole eating thing down now and will eat pretty much anything I give him, he makes it so easy for me!

A few people have got his name wrong. I didn't think Levi would be a hard one to mess up (even if you don't know the name from the bible, think jeans, people!). But people have pronounced it levy and more than one person has even called him Leroy! Fun and games!

I love this boy so much and all of the fun and laughter he adds to our family. As much as I would have kind of liked to have a baby girl, I love being a Mum of two boys!

Three!

At the end of July, my lovely Caleb turned three. How on earth did that happen, can someone please tell me?! Because I am pretty sure that he was only just born! I used to hear Mums say stuff like that before I had children and I just didn't get it but now that I have my own, I am all too aware of how quickly the time passes!

We bought a water play table for Caleb's Birthday and put it out on the balcony. On his Birthday morning, he opened all of his cards and some of his other presents and then we took him out onto the balcony. He had been with me for some of the time when I was painting it and had spoken words of encouragement to me ("oh Mummy! That's beautiful painting! Clever girl!") but he hadn't seen the end result, nor did he realise that we were turning it into an area for him. He was so thrilled and excited as my boy is obsessed with playing with water. He was out there for ages in his pyjamas playing, he loved it.

 He got a lot of Birthday money and so we bought him some of the cars from the disney film, "Cars". The only one that arrived on time was a huge Lightning McQueen but he was pretty pleased with that so I can't really complain!

We wanted him to have a really lovely Birthday doing things that he loves and talks about doing. Seth had taken the day off work for Caleb's Birthday which made it an extra lovely day. We went swimming with Caleb. Unfortunately Levi had a really bad cough so we thought it would be best for him not to go into the water. Seth stayed out with him and sat in the viewing gallery and Caleb and I went in! This is only the second time in his life we have taken him swimming - he loved it and was terrified at the same time! He was wearing his armbands but he still had his little arms and legs wrapped around me. We ended up being in the water for nearly two hours and the longer we were there, the more confident he got. He ended up jumping in off the side of the pool into my arms and when he finally let me let him go so that he was floating, he said excitedly, "look, Mummy! I'm swimming!" It was pretty adorable.

After swimming the plan was to go to Costa to get carrot cake and a hot chocolate as he loves doing that (my Mum's influence!) and then we were going to go and watch trains; one of Caleb's other loves. When we got into the car to leave the swimming pool I told him the things that we were going to do next. His response? "I want to go home". Um, what? I asked him a few times just to make sure he knew what was on offer but again I got the same response! I thought that maybe we should just go ahead and do what we were going to do anyway, but as Seth pointed out, "it's his Birthday, let him do what he wants!". And so we did. We headed home and he had a lovely afternoon playing with his water table and Lightning McQueen and not once did he get bored! We just had pasta for dinner at his request and then we gave him his Birthday cake - a Lightning McQueen one. No, of course I didn't make it; I know where my skills lie and it most certainly isn't in the kitchen! He freaked out a bit about the candles so Seth ended up blowing them out for him!

It was a lovely, simple Birthday. I kind of feel bad that we didn't do more with it than we did, but we did everything that Caleb wanted and he had a great day with us all, so I'm happy with that!

The balcony transformation

We moved into our flat almost three years ago. It wasn't in bad condition when we moved in but slowly we have made a few changes here and there, as you do! However, one area that we have pretty much ignored was the balcony. We just never go out there and it was a pretty ugly balcony, so we never really wanted to go out there!

We decided a little while ago that even though the balcony isn't very big, we wanted to do something to make it nicer. Seth suggested that maybe we grow some vegetables out there - I laughed at that idea! Anyone who knows me knows that I am hopeless when it comes to growing or cultivating any plant of any kind. (Does anyone remember when I almost killed off Mum's hanging basket by watering it with windscreen wash?). Being as though we don't have a garden for Caleb to play in (although we make up for that by spending quite a lot of time at the park!), we decided that we would turn the balcony into a nice little area for him. We had pretty much decided on getting him a water play table for his Birthday so it made perfect sense.

I forgot to take proper before photos of the balcony but trust me, it was pretty nasty! I got rid of some of the junk that was out there from when we took our fireplace out nearly TWO YEARS AGO (yeah, we hadn't sorted that yet. Don't judge). I swept it all up and brushed the nasty bricks down so that they were free of spider webs and other lovely things.

 Seriously, surely everyone in the world knows how much I hate spiders so even I can't believe that I did that but luckily enough for me, there were no spiders in the webs! The next evening while Seth was at a youth activity I painted the bricks. It took around three coats to get them to look nice. I was going to paint them red but I couldn't find a red brick paint that I liked so I decided on keeping it white.

The floor of the balcony isn't that attractive so I decided that needed to be covered in some way to look better. I bought some foam hopscotch tiles and put them down on the floor to add some nice colour and to make it look better. It actually took a lot longer than I thought it would but maybe that's because I'm a bit of a perfectionist and every area of the balcony had to be covered so I spent ages measuring, cutting and sticking to make it fit just so! It's not perfect though so don't look too closely at the photos!

I'm pretty pleased with the end result. It looks so much better than it did and while it's not massive, it's nice that Caleb has a little outdoor space now.