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The Gallery – Back To School

5
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

This post is this weeks entry for The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers

The prompt this week is Back To School! Now with Zara only being 9 months old I’ve not got any kiddies going back to school just yet but I do have a husband. My husband is a teacher (well ok he is a lot more than that but you don’t need to know ALL the details :) ) and yesterday saw his return to work after 6 weeks off. It’s been a busy 6 weeks with us visiting my sister Sonia whilst she had her new baby, visiting friends in Oldham, having 3 weeks of hell with teething where Zara sprouted all 4 top teeth at once with much pain, fever, sickness etc and to top it off I’ve been feeling rough myself so having my husband around to help out has been an absolute god send. It’s kind of sad now not having him around especially as Zara has chosen this week to pull herself up to standing in the playpen and I’ve been busy texting progress photos to hubby at work.

So in honour of hubby going back to school, my photo this week is this:

It is of course Zara and Daddy enjoying looking at the various water sculptures at Alnwick Garden on one of the days that we did manage to get out and enjoy the school holidays :)

The Gallery – 29th August 2010

8
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

This post is this weeks entry for The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers

The prompt this week is a photo taken on the 29th August 2010. All day I was looking for a nice photo opportunity but with bad weather and us being busy rearranging the living room and building IKEA furniture the day kind of got away from me. I was tempted to cheat and post a photo from another day – after all who would know except me. Though I’m too honest for that so as we were sitting down to Sunday dinner of veggie bangers, mash and peas I put the camera on the table and got snapping. So here we are a collection of photos from our Sunday dinner on the 29th August, which just happened to be 9 months to the day since Zara was born. I can’t believe she’s been outside of me for as long as I was pregnant now! :)

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The Gallery – A Photo I’m Proud Of!

15
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

This post is this weeks entry for The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers

The prompt this week is “A Photo to be Proud of” and here it is:

It was taken by me on my bog standard digital camera and it’s not the most amazing quality but I love it and it’s the favourite photo I’ve taken of Zara myself :)

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I didn’t think I was a competitive mum :(

3
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

I never thought I’d be a competitive mum and I don’t think I really am but this last few days I am becoming more and more fustrated about Zara’s inability to crawl.

Now don’t get me wrong, I know that she isn’t quite 9 months old yet and it is still early, I know babies all develop at different rates and I know she is completely normal in every way. It’s just we have been at the “almost there” stage for about 2 months now. She pushes up onto her hands and feet and then just won’t go anywhere – well ok so she can go backwards but forwards just seems like too much effort.

I guess I wouldn’t mind so much if she was happy just rolling around on the floor and going backwards but she is getting so fustrated with it herself that she just gives up, lies flat out and screams. She has only managed to get herself up to sitting once from lying down and now seems to have given up on that aswell. I keep trying to give her plenty of opportunity to practice but after 5 minutes we just have a screaming fit (I can so see myself in her when she does this :) ).

On the other hand we have a baby walker and she zooms around in it at about 100mph trying to get into everything and chasing the cats everywhere so it’s not like she doesn’t want to get up and see the world. I’m trying to limit the use of the baby walker at the moment though as I think it might be delaying her crawling for some reason.

Everytime I go on facebook I see mums from the same groups as me telling how their baby is now climbing stairs, coasting on furniture etc etc and I can’t help but feel sad that I’m somehow holding Zara back. We stopped going to baby groups a few months back as they clashed with Zara’s nap time and it was proving a nightmare with her getting overtired so we’ve stopped meeting with other babies and I can’t help but think that maybe if we had been regularly seeing other babies she might be copying them by now and crawling and I’m somehow holding her back by not socialising her enough.

I know I really aught to stop beating myself up about it after all Zara is a healthy and happy baby in most ways, she has great finger dexerity and can pick up and eat peas at a supersonic speed and she is generally a very bright and interested child. I think my fustration is more fustration for her as I know she wants to me up and moving and I hate not being able to fix it for her. I’m sure in a few more weeks she will be all over the place and giving me hell and I’ll rue the day I ever wished for her to be properly mobile lol.

Anyway I just needed to write this down as it’s been bugging me, I just don’t know whether I’m being too competitive, too pushy or whether I’m just a normal first time mum worrying about my babies development :)

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Blogadesh – why I love the world of blogging!

0
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

You’d think just sitting down and writing an online blog is a pretty small and inconsequential thing in the scheme of things. After all it’s mainly peoples personal musings on their lives and such but occasionally you come across something that reminds you why blogging can be such a powerful tool and how it can bring good to peoples lives.

Take for instance Blogadesh , at the beginning of September three of the UK’s mummy bloggers are heading to Bangladesh to see the work that is done by Save the Children first hand. Please click on the badge below to be taken to the Save the Children site and find out more about this exciting trip and for ways to add your support to the campaign.

You can visit the three mummy bloggers individual blogs below:
Josie George can be found at Sleep is for the Weak

Sian To can be found at Mummy Tips

Eva Keogan can be found at Nixdminx

Pop along and show your support for this fantastic campaign :)

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The Gallery – Memories

6
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

This post is this weeks entry for The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers

The prompt this week is Memories, this is a tough one for me as how on earth do I choose a photo which can sum up a lot of memories. I posted a while back for a writing workshop entry on childhood memories HERE so I thought I’d steer clear of that era this week and go back to another time in my life. A time only about 4 years ago when I was in a new relationship, yet to be engaged, married or a mum. Just one half of a new and exciting relationship. We lived down in Yorkshire back then, me in Hull and my now husband in York. I remember one lovely sunny day we went on a day out to Castle Howard just for a change of scenery. It was a lovely sunny day and love was in the air. We had a picnic with us and sat on the grass by the lakes eating strawberries and sandwiches without a care in the world. It was a lovely day and I’ve found this photo which I think pretty much shows me as a young, happy and carefree woman enjoying loves first blossoms :)

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Snot Monster

0
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

I’ve dealt with some disgusting things in my life and I’ve coped pretty well. With the arrival of Zara I’ve coped admirably with the vast quantities of sick, poo of various guises and other bodily fluids but I appear to have finally come across something which turns my stomach. It is SNOT!

My beautiful baby girl has turned from this gorgeous creature:

Into a snot monster. I don’t know why it is, but everytime we go away somewhere new, she comes home producing vast quantities of snot. I honestly don’t know how something so small can create such vast quantities of it, it seems to dribble constantly from her nose from the minute she wakes up until the minute she falls asleep.

What I really really don’t understand though is how I just cannot handle snot. It’s far less smelly or messy than poo or sick but for some reason everytime I wipe her nose, it has me heaving. Maybe I have finally discovered the one thing about babies than I cannot cope with? Maybe I’m just still suffering from the horrible stomach bug I’ve had recently or maybe I’m just a complete and utter wuss. But one things for sure, the nose needs wiping and whether I’m heaving or not it still has to be done so I suppose I’d better just stop whining and get wiping! :)

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The Gallery – Playtime

16
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

This post is this weeks entry for The Gallery over at Sticky Fingers

The prompt this week is Playtime, once more this prompt left me a little stumped as there are not many action photos of Zara playing as I’m usually down there on the floor with her but I did find this photo taken by my husband the other day when we were out in the garden. It’s not the best quality I’m afraid but it will have to do for this weeks entry :) I just loved the way the colour of the grass, the sky and her clothes all seem really really bright :)

 

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3 Years Ago Today

2
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

The 3rd of August 2007, what a special day that was :) I married the man of my dreams, a warm hearted, compassionate gentleman who I love more and more each day. 3 very happy years of marriage later and I can’t be thankful enough for what I have got :)

Below are a few photos taken by friends of our wedding day :)

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Halos n Horns – Review

3
15 years ago
by dawniebrown in

I have to admit I’m unlucky enough to have pretty crap skin, very dry and ezcema so I was disappointed when I noticed Zara’s skin seemed to be like mine and her having to have hydrocortisone cream prescribed when she was only 8 weeks old due to ezcema. Looking back I think this also coincides with when we started using a popular make of baby bath in her bath but it could have been something else so I can’t say for certain. I’d pretty much resigned myself to spending hours applying various creams and ointments to her skin all the time. It was made worse by the fact that we had to bath her every night due to having a UTI and needing to make sure she was kept clean and even though Zara loved baths it was just making her skin awful :(

When I went to the Baby Show at the NEC, I was recommended the Halos n Horns bath products for Zara and to be honest I was willing to try anything and so I bought a couple of tubes thinking that if it didn’t work it wouldn’t be a huge waste of money.

It’s been about 3 months now since we’ve been using Halos N Horns baby bath in her nightly bath and all I can say is I’m amazed. Her eczema cleared up within days and I now don’t use any creams, ointments or moisturisers on her skin at all. We simply have a bath, dry her off and get her ready for bed. OK so she still gets occasional nappy rash or dribble rash but absolutely no sign of eczema or dry skin at all! I’m converted and I now won’t use anything else in her baths.

If you have a baby with dry skin or eczema and have been using other more popular baby brands in their bath then I highly recommend that you at least give Halos N Horns a try. It’s not even that expensive either – I stocked up on them in Asda Living this week and it was only £1.57 a tube. (We are still using the first tube I bought back in the NEC 3 months ago!).

Bathtimes are now fun times with Zara and I don’t have to worry about spending too long in their and it affecting her skin :)

For more information about Halos N Horns visit their website HERE

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