welcoming-elanor

[welcoming-elanor]

We, as a family, made the collective, conscious and conscientious choice to buy a real Christmas tree from the local garden centre this year.

Translation: AAAHHHHhhhhhhhhhh that stupid fake tree finally collapsed!!! Can't even hold up the STAR! AHAHAHAHA!!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSS mummy wants a real treeeeee aREAL TREEEE WANTSS WANTS my precious

#christmas #tree #real christmas trees

[welcoming-elanor]

Weird how people have different butts/backs/sitting posture. My partner and I each have our "favourite chair" in the house, and these two are strictly non-interchangeable. I get backache with their chair; they detest my chair and hide upstairs to sit in their favourite chair.

I think it's all down to the butt shape.

#chairs

[welcoming-elanor]

Bye bye pump and accessories. You've served us well. After four kids (previous owner) and then two kids (mine), I think it's time to let you go.

#parenting #motherhood #breast pump

[welcoming-elanor]

Kid2 recently started enjoying Twirlywoos*, and he's allowed two 10-min episodes before bed.

He gets this hungry, manic look on his face when it's Time and I load up the show.

Makes me feel like a crack dealer every time I hand him the tablet

*a kids show on BBC about four birds (???) who live on this weird ship and journey to our world sometimes to explore Concepts (e.g. full, noisy, all gone, wrapping)

#parenting #he's still learning to stop #proper big tears and snot bubbles when the show ends #twirlywoos #bbc

[welcoming-elanor]

Urgh my stupid effing knee effing up my rigid exercise schedule. I thrive on rigid schedules you stupid knee and i was doing so well.

but yeah...no...it wasn't the exercise that fucked up my knee btw. the running was light jogging at best and i wouldn't even call what I do "strength training". and the yoga was more like...deep stretching

It was actually due to running at full pelt with rain boots on because I was late for after school pick up -_- did a 15 minute walk in 9 minutes so yeah...

#parenting #hazards of parenthood #afterschool pickups are bitches

[welcoming-elanor]

One is...not usually allowed to be glad of a child's distress. But, in this instance, I'll just go ahead and feel glad.

Kid2 was absolutely bawling when I dropped him off at nursery this morning, and Kid1 was also out of sorts and refused to wear her cardigan because "it was too puffy".

All good reasons to be upset in and of themselves. BUT. The MAIN reason was because my partner is away for two days, and they usually do the morning dropoff.

Therefore: I'm really glad that we (as a team) have successfuly divided the kid's affections 50/50 wherein the absence of either one will cause equal distress.

People usually don't believe when I say the kids go absolutely crazy (in a clingy and emotional way, NOT a sugar-high, all-bets-are-off way) when my partner's away, coz y'know..he's just the dad right? Well, here you go, Exhibit A: two emotionally distraught kiddos crying over...I dunno...flowers that are slightly too yellow

#parenting #bless the little feeties of kid2 tho...poor thing burst into tears when he saw pictures of my partner at nursery #and kid1 was trying her best to be brave...poor kid. #it's only two days! like...hello people.. we've had worse

[welcoming-elanor]

Urgh... we're staying at the "Enchanted Village" of a theme park, in a supposed "Woodland Lodge". I'd forgotten how commercial and plasticky everything feels in such places. Particularly jarring since our holidays in the last decade or so have been in actual woodland lodges in the actual middle of nowhere, so the difference really jumps out at you.

But yknow we're here for a different kind of fun. Just need to get my head straight and shake off the urgh feeling.

#theme park #woodland lodge #holidays

[welcoming-elanor]

I feel so out of touch with who I am as a person, sans motherhood, that I had to go in search for another name. A secret name. Like a cat, with their secret name they don't tell anyone, and ponder over it during the full moon.

Maybe I can use that name here. Where no one will find me.

#motherhood #loss of self #self #secret name #it's keitha

[welcoming-elanor]

It's an oddly normal feeling when the first kid begins a sentence with:

"Like in Skyrim, when..."

#parenting #skyrim #never too early i say #she likes to spectate my partner's gameplay

[welcoming-elanor]

It's weird but I still do a double take sometimes and go Oh yeah, the second kid's a boy (as opposed to the first kid). Because there's genuinely no difference in the day to day. The same constant need for cuddles, the same curiosity and exploration, the same intensity of new experiences, the same messes, chaos and pain in the bottom. Even nappy changing is essentially the same (but with the added tension of vertical passing!). He really is just a baby. Like she was just a baby. So much so that I forget they are (allegedly) supposed to be different.

What I do notice very acutely though is the difference in their base personalities, which completely and thoroughly suffuses everything they do, feel and perceive. Where she experienced and responded to everything with an explosive intensity, he does so with a gentle curiosity. And I relish in observing this contrast, fascinating stuff.

#parenting #children #gender #no difference really #siblings

[welcoming-elanor]

Child No. 1 has officially settled into the role of Big Sister today 🤧🤧 she got herself ready and zipped Child No. 2 into his footmuff while I got ready, then sang him a song to keep him happy. 😭 it's happening!! But it's happening too quickly!

#parenting #siblings #kids

[welcoming-elanor]

OK so I need a rant.

Im just...bewildered by how, as my life has unfolded, I've stumbled into the supposed heteronormative utopia that fits so nicely into the template of the Ideal Family. I.e. I'm married to a man, with one daughter and one son

Good lord what would my bi lil 15 yr old ass say about that.

Not sure why I'm having this meltdown

#family #heteronormative #meltdown

[welcoming-elanor]

Children can be such incredible conduits to self awareness.

My partner finally admitted that they are a finickety, pedantic, opinionated, neurotic fusspot (affectionate) AFTER realising why they clashed constantly with our first kid (because she too is a finickety, pedantic, opinionated, neurotic fusspot whose favourite line is No, no no, Daddy). And why they got along superbly with our second kid (because he's chill like me).

Well my dear second child, stick with me and I shall guide you through the thickets of wrangling a lovable pedant in your near future.

#parenting #siblings #self awareness

[welcoming-elanor]

[welcoming-elanor]

Seeing pictures of this blanket in progress makes me wanna cry🤧

#knitting #blanket #baby #proper heirloom material this!

[welcoming-elanor]

When the first (eventually) became a champion sleeper, we mused about a second. And the mantra we recited to each other was, "Can't be worse than the first. Can't possibly be. We've hit rock bottom with the first. Surely."

Well, guess effing what. SO much worse. Rock bottom was actually the crusty surface of a grey sludgy river known as Don't Even Breathe Differently Or It'll Wake Up, or else as Well, I'm Trapped Here For 40 mins Please Get Me Supplies, or otherwise as Please Fucking Go To Sleep, You Can't Even Hold Your Head Up Anymore For Crying Out Loud.

The creature in question is currently licking my elbow in a desperate attempt to stay awake.

#parenting #baby #what have we done #sleep

[welcoming-elanor]

The talk I gave tonight was primarily about how babies, as well as young children, experience hyperconsciousness, something that is often considered one of the main reasons why children at these stages are ‘difficult’ to handle.

Kids man, they encompass some of the most phenomenal thought processes and it is all driven by the fact that this whole world is completely new to them. If you want to see abstract ideas constructed in a matter of seconds, talk to a child. Their grasp is unbelievable.

Even if you feel that children whine, cry, and scream too much… in considering how they’re in a world they had no prior concept of, and are subject to an uncontrollable amount of stimuli every waking moment…. I still believe they’re handling it all fairly well.

This conference made me realize how much of a passion I have for destigmatizing childhood behaviors. There’s a sort of ‘Ahh..’ moment that people come to when they see that children actually have reasons for everything they do, that they shouldn’t be viewed as underdeveloped ‘functioning’ adults but should instead be recognized as humans in a separate yet equally important stage of life.

I’ve also been doing some work in researching and writing about children as an oppressed class, I’m finding ways to incorporate my previous sentiments into that.

#parenting #this is why i force myself to have infinite patience with kids including my own #and apologise if i raise my voice #they are going through SO MUCH all the time!!