Spending the day with Rhys and my sister - Life As A Mum

Good morning everyone. It's a cold and stormy morning here in Ireland today. What is it like where you are?

As you know I have got emplyoment since Setpember and I have been so happy about that. It's full-time position, so that means I am away from Rhys for over 40 hours a week. The reason I say more is because I have to travel to my work. Its not that far just the other side of the city but because I don't drive I have to take the bus. It's a pain in the butt but it has to be done. I leave the house around half eight in the morning drop Rhys of to school and go get two buses into work. The second bus that I take dosn't take me near my work so I have walk for about 20 minutes or so. I don't mind the walk its the rain that I hate. 

Since I started working Rhys is spending even more time with his dad, he loves his dad and I felt a little left out for a week or two because it was all about his dad. One time he was all about me. I guess change is always good. On my days off I take him out with me for the day. To spend some precious time with him. Rhys is going up so fast and the days are just running away with me. 

As the weather was so bad for the past two weeks I have taken him to the shopping center, and I havent been there is ages. It was a nice change for the town. I love the shopping center but I hate those kids rides. They are two euro ago and they don't go for very long, and don't get me wrong I am not stingy with money but the rides are a minute or less. Its hard to say no to Rhys sometimes but these are the times that I have to put my foot down. I gave him four euro and he go on two rides. To my suprise he was quite happy with that. 

My sister came to see us last Sunday and again the weather wasn't very nice to we went to the shopping center again. Rhys loves his aunt Katie. Katie gets a great laught with him. He really does know how to push her buttons. Sitting back and watching Rhys annoy Katie is very amusing to say the least. We had a lovely lunch and a good catch up. I love my sister she is the best and has a great heart, 

I think thats all for today guys. I hope ye like these posts because I love writing them for you all and sharing my life with ye. 

Thank you all for taking the time to read my post and comment on them. Don't forget I follow my blog so that you don't miss a new post. 

Christina xx

Five Ways to Entertain a Toddler at the Weekend.

Good morning everyone. I was planning to write the second half of Where it all began but then I thought I might save that for an other time. Today I am going to share five ways to keep your toddler entertained during the weekend. I know some of this is common sense but I think they all work. Rhys is at creche every day from nice to half twelve. Once he comes home the day flies by, by the time I cook his dinner, feed him. Then its some play time and by the time he is finished its tea-time already. At the weekend it a different story, Rhys wakes up at seven in the morning. Trying to keep him entertained for twelve hours can sometimes be hard, especially when you are at home for the day. These are the thngs that I do with Rhys when I have to stay at home during the weekend.

• Hide and Seek.

As a child I loved playing hide and seek with my friends. I don't know where Rhys picked it up, but I am guesing it was from a cartoon, he enjoyes watching every now and again. As Rhys is our only child we have to play with him. It's still a lot of fun. First Rhys hides, he loves going under covers, blankets and when I am looking for him, I pretend that I can't find him. All I hear is little giggles, its so cute. Once I hide and Rhys finds me, he then hides in the same place as I just did. It's so much fun.

• Colouring, art and puzzles

Since Rhys started play school he loves colouring and doing art, before that he wasn't really pushed. I bought a few colouring books and a huge amount of colouring pens. As a reward at the end of the week he likes to get a magazine. In those magazines there is plenty of art ideas. Even I enjoying making all the fun art with Rhys. The reason I do art and colouring with him is it gives me a half hour quite time. He isn't running around. Its nice to have some peace in the house. In the last few months he got big into making jigsaw puzzles. I have picked up a few fireman ones, and Monsters Inc. not forgetting the Toy Story one, that he loves to make. He is getting very good at them too.


    putting together a Fireman jigsaw


    having lots of fun glueing


    Going to make them all colourful and fun.

• Football.

Like most boys Rhys loves football and hurling. Even though I have hid the hurley for a while because he was going around the house swinning the hurley and I was afraid that he would hit someone with it. We have a bit of green in our front gargen and he loves playing football with his dad. Its a boys thing.

• Sand/Water

We all went to Dublin Zoo for Rhys' birthday last year and he loved it. If you would like to see what we did that day in pictures Dublin Zoo in pics . Rhys loved to play in the sand, he spend more time there then looking at the animals. A few weeks later we bought him a bag of play sand from Smyths toystore. It is a 15kg bag of sand for a less then a fiver. I thought that was good. I didn't have a sandpit for him so instead of buying one, I used a blow up swimming pool that wasn't being used. Now Rhys can have the sand indoors during the winter and outdoors during the summer. He is happy I am happy.

• Read a Book.

At the end of the day just before bed I read him a bedtime story. Over the past few months I have been picking up books for Rhys. Everynight a half hour before bedtime I read him a story if its a big book, or a book if its a small one. He loves that and that is his routine. If for some reason a story isn't read to him he won't go to sleep as quickly as when a story was read to him. Its amazing what a little reading can do for a child.

Thank you everyone for reading my post it means a lot to me. I hope you enjoyed this post and please share with me what you like to do with your children. I would love to hear from you. Sorry I don't have that many pictures. Rhys was at my phone and he deleted lots of pictures. Thats just the joys of having a child around.

Christina xx

Where it all began

Good morning everyone, it's Monday again. Saturday I had a great idea to start a new section on my blog, as you all know I am a mum on one three year old boy named Rhys. I thought that I would share my life as a mum. If I have tips and tricks to share with you I will do that too. I would like to start by saying that this section on of my blog isn't fact and what I write is only based on my experiences. I know I write about Rhys in my Daily Life post but this section will be all mummy related posts. To begin I am going to share with you how Rhys came into to beautiful world.

On the third of September 2011 at eight minutes to eight Rhys was born, weighing at six pounds and twelve ounces. When I heard what his weight was, I was delighted, because while I was pregnant the doctors in the maternity never stopped saying to me that the baby was under weight. At one stage  one doctor said to me that if he didn't start growing and putting on some more weight that they would give me steroids to bring him on. Within a month Rhys had gained weight in my belly and the doctors were happy enough with that. He was eleven days over due and I personally think that it helped. Around 11.45 I was induced and in an hour my waters broke. I was in slow enough labour from there on. By the time morning came I was in full swing of labour the pains very unreal. That night I was taken up to the delivery room where I received my epidural. For those of you who may be thinking of getting one, I would rather not. The doctors will tell you that you are at risk of back problems after it, there is a chance that you could be left paralysed. What the doctors don't tend to tell you is that the baby is also sedated.

I had to find that our for myself when Rhys was born and with in hours he didn't want to drink milk, he wasn't keeping him body temperature. That was all down to the epidural. Rhys was taken down o the ICU for almost five days. It was such a bad feeling, I had to leave my baby under nurses that are under staffed to look after my baby. Rhys was a hungry baby he needed to be fed every three hours, so the nurses held him out for an extra hour and he was crying for that, which I didn't know. To add to all of this one of the nurses gave him a dummy. Which are bad for his teeth and it was them that had advised me not to be given the baby dummies. I know I am just ranting now.

After being in the ICU for five days Rhys was left home. It was such a happy day for me. I was delighted to hold my baby boy in my arms. I moved into my boyfriends house (Jeff) and him mum. She was a great help she told me what to look out for and all of that. At times though I felt that she was doing more harm then helping me, like when he was teething and his temperature would go up, Jeff's mum kept on saying what could happen with a high temperature. I was more always on my toes. Being a first time mum is hard and you never know what is around the corner. I love being a mum its such a rewarding job as some people may say. I don't see motherhood as a job though. It a way of life. I think I am going to finish here for today. I am not to sure yet when I am going to be posting on this topic, I am hoping that if I do it once a week that it will be a start.

I hope you all enjoy this post and let me know about your experiences of child birth.

Christina xx