Bethany's Baby Babblings

Once upon a time, Christmas was about scoffing ALL the food, getting pissed and being lazy. All of the above went of out the window this year. Me and Dale scoffed some food in shifts because our daughter decided to wake up just as Christmas dinner was served, my gin & tonic lasted me five hours and we were in bed for 9pm Christmas day because we were so exhausted. Not that we care one bit. She is totally worth it and it's lovely having children about for Christmas! Chunk's Christmas Miracles • actually pooing in her nappy (she normally does it out in the open so we considered it our present from her) • feeding at 8pm, FINALLY going to sleep at 11.30pm and then not waking up until 5.30am for her next feed (the six hour stretch of sleep was weird. the nine hour stretch between eating was weirder) • not being that bothered about being passed around the family like a rugby ball (clarification: this is a description of the frequency of being passed not the way she ...

First of all, apologies for the lame blog post title. I couldn't think of owt better. My brain power was used up this morning when doing the cryptic crossword with my mum and dad. Secondly, merry christmas. And now for the main bulk of the post. Yet again I will be giving out unsolicited advice that nobody asked for; be the annoying twat with a camera.  Now before you mentally butt in with the "live in the moment, don't be a slave to social media, etc" argument, let me explain (and sorry but it'll be a bit morbid) You never know when it'll be your or someone you love's last christmas, or last anything. I promise you that having candid or silly or sickly sweet photos and videos of your loved ones will be a massive comfort if anything happened to one of them. I promise. So that being said, my little christmas pudding has been on this planet for 38 days. My dedicated photo album for her has over 350 photos and/or videos... ...and I treasure ever...

Parenting is bloody hard and I've been told that I need to give myself a break. My new mantra is (not that I am qualified to dish out advice at all) to take short-cuts, sack off unecessary tasks, cheat the system and ignore societal pressures of what good parents should do. Be lazy.  For example, it's my daughter's first Christmas. Father Christmas was at our local garden centre. Me and Dale couldn't be arsed to queue up for a what would only be something to post on social media rather than a genuine experience for our kid. So we compromised and took a photo of her by the plastic display in the entrance. Win win.