Our Must See Baby Show Stands

HG Awareness Day

Pregnancy is a time that many mothers look forward too, trying for baby and then receiving a positive pregnancy test is the best feeling in the world. Knowing that you and your partner are going to be bringing a little part of both of you into the world makes you feel like you're jumping on top of it.

But you know what isn’t the best feeling feeling in the world?

At the same time as receiving that news, you're so sick that that news is quickly forgotten as you try to find a way around this morning sickness. That 'morning sickness quickly turning into something far worse then a touch of 'morning sickness'. Going from eating your 3 meals a day, eating at the table with your family to being bed bound as you're so ill and not even being able to manage a sip of water let alone even contemplate food.

Bringing up anything and everything and even on the days where you don’t consume any food or water, your insides were still turned inside out. Looking like Casper the ghost's skinny twin who was losing hair. Having any smell trigger you off, it could be the yummy smell of cakes baking and that would still do it. I wanted to keep a peg up on my nose 24/7 so that smells were not a trigger, but that would of helped. Nothing was a trigger, even without food, water and smells I was still being sick.

Being so ill, you have the sirens taking you straight from the doctors to the hospital. Having the hospital become your second home or on days it just felt like your main home. Drips becoming your new best friend, sobbing on the bed as they put it in and wondering how much more you can take of it all. Taking off at 11pm at night in a taxi to stagger through to A+E to beg to put on a drip. Having a hospital bag ready by the door, not in case your baby came early but for the constant trips and over night stays at the hospital where they fix you so you can attempt to live your life for a few hours.

Having thoughts about getting rid so you're no longer so ill any more. Being that ill that those thoughts come about, about something you wanted so badly. Despite your sane mind being so against such a thing. Trying to remember what life was like before that sickness and if I would ever feel normal again. Not being able to bond with your baby, not going shopping for baby clothes or even wanting to talk about baby names. I just couldn’t enjoy or even get in the mindset of having a new baby.

Tensions running so high, not being the only one to suffer with this. The husband loses his job, the toddler wonders what's happening to his mummy – why does she spend more time in the bathroom or bed instead of playing with me. Hormones flying all over the place, we fight and fight. We argued. We turned into completely different people then who we were before we fell pregnant. We moved to be closer to family, though they were no help at all. They didn’t understand this, they are so narrow minded that of course they wouldn’t of understood this.

Crying as you write this because all these horrendous memories come back, you curse yourself for even contemplating going through pregnancy again in case this was to happen again or if it was to happen again on a much worse scale then this. Knowing that it would be my fault for taking that risk.

You do try the so called remedies, you consume ginger in ever form you can get it. The dry toast in the mornings, getting out of bed slowly, the sea bands, the vibrating wrist band, you named it – I tried it. We even gave the medication a go, I tried 3 different lots with which I'm going to try and find out the names of for any future pregnancies and where I want a HG plan in place if it was to happen again. Getting them down me in the first place was a mission itself, but any I did keep down either just didn’t work or came up in any spell I had. So to ask if anything worked for me, the answer is no.

What did work was time, the further the pregnancy went on the less vicious it was. There was a point where I actually started to look forward in the end and actually was able to bond with my baby inside of me. I was no longer blaming him for something which wasn’t his fault, I was able to actually starting thinking about the labour side to it all.

I am a example of how 2 pregnancies can be different, both were of course rotten to me as I developed gallstones with my first. But with my first the morning sickness was bad but was on no scale as bad what HG was and is. This fact, that no pregnancy is the same is the only thing getting me through thoughts of a third child. I went on to have a perfectly normal, straightforward labour with number 2, unless you count us going off to hospital because he pooped in the waters. But he's now a healthy thriving 1 year old.

I'm determined to share my experience with everyone who will listen, I want to educate others like I myself was educated that this isn’t just any old morning sickness. Pregnancy is in no way a illness but with it you can become ill. You don't have to suffer in silence though, there is plenty of help out there available to you. I recommend starting with the Pregnancy Sickness Support website and reading about its support network.

You can contact me at any time to talk about HG (Hyperemesis Gravidarum), I will happily share my story with you and help you to get as much help as possible with finding a way of dealing with this. Or if you're a past sufferer though I tend not to use the word past as like me, you're probably still suffering with the aftermath of HG it would be great to talk about our experience together and I would especially love to hear from anyone who went on to have a healthy pregnancy after dealing with HG.

Being A Brand Ambassador

This post was promoted by a rather interesting conversation I've been having with some fellow Bloggers. It was initiated because of a conversation I was having with 'Blog By Baby' about me tweeting about the Brands me and my blog like to think we represent sent by being Ambassador/Brand Buddy or just simply mentioning them lots. I was tweeting about how excited I was to be seeing Britax, Cosatto & Stokke at The Baby Show this weekend. Which I am, nothing pleases me more then a day gawping at Nursery products and especially prams/pushchairs/buggies etc..

She was rather horrified that I had mentioned them all together and said how it was conflicting, when I asked in a Parent Blogger Facebook group it got the same kind of reaction from other Bloggers. Danielle said about how it was like tweeting both Pepsi & Coke Cola together, but then that is conflicting they are both drinks after all. The three brands I mentioned don't just sell pushchairs, they sell other nursery related products.

I like to think I work well with all the Brands I just mentioned, for me taking on a brand name on my  blog means more then just a name. Brands I take on a long term relationship with are usually brands I've been a customer for before working together with them in a blog/brand relationship. They are brands that I would happily buy myself. Over there to the right are badges that I proudly display to let my readers and anyone who comes to my blog that I work with these brands. All of them are ones which I would happily recommend if I wasn't in a brand/blogger relationship with them, that's how happy I am to blog/tweet about them.

Ok so what if some of them sell the same kind of product, big example being prams. You'll never find a brand selling EXACTLY the same pram as another brand. That's the beauty of being able to have the opportunity to review and share my own opinions on items such as pushchairs. I can compare and use that to help recommend the perfect pushchair for someone. Big/small basket? Air filled tyres? Parent facing? I'm in the perfect position to compare and suggest what could suit someone who's after something in particular in there future wheels, especially with helping them to find one within the budget they're set for it.

It's not just prams, another example would be being both Playmobil & LEGO Duplo ambassador at the same time, I really don't see that as big deal. Both completely different products, both are different building products which the children can enjoy. You wouldn't just go shopping and let your children stick with one brand for there childhood, that's what it's like here on the blog. We want to experience it all, we want to know what rocks and what sucks. We want to be able to recommend to friends, family, readers and people who come to us via Google.

Google is mainly what my reviews turn out to be for, nothing satisfies me more to find that someone has been bought to me by a search term relating to one of my reviews. I can only hope that they found out anything they needed to know from it, I hope the photos I use gave them some idea of what it looks like in use and if they wanted to ask me personally any questions, then there's always the comment box.

There was talk about how being a ambassador should mean that you have 100% loyalty to that brand, how you should even bat a eyelid at another brand. I don't think I've ever just worked with one brand at once in my blog life. Why pledge allegiance to just once brand when there's so many different and fantastic brands to shout out about. Brands should have enough faith in their products to let bloggers shout out about more then 1 at the same time.

The one thing you'll find here on Me, The Man & The Baby is that I wont receive a pram or anything else to review and pop up a review the very next day. I've seen this done with other bloggers, like how? How can that blogger really give a truly accurate review and recommendation of a pram they've used once? Took it to the shop there and back. I know myself when shopping around for reviews, I want to know all I can. I want to know what I wouldn't otherwise see on the website when you go to buy.

Maybe Brand Ambassador is the wrong word? Maybe I should just rename it as 'Brands I love' though I don't mind ambassador one bit because no matter what word or context I use, at the end of the day I'm more then happy to show off the brand love. I'm more then to happy to recommend and review a product if it works for us.


For disclosure purpose, none of the brands I have mentioned have never asked anything more of me then to honestly review any products they send my way. I never receive any payment of any kind and I'm not told what to say. Everything you read is all my words and all photos are my own unless otherwise stated.

California Almonds

I was asked as a mother who's busy (I can see the Husband laughing at that comment) running around after two little ones (they can run faster) if I wanted to snack on some California Almonds for 21 days to see if it made a difference to my life. Now I actually jumped at this proposal, I never find myself snacking and if I do it's usually on a packet of biscuits where I can never just stop at the one. I know I'm not the only one who does that. I also found myself often hungry when out and about, I'm always so preoccupied with making sure I have enough fruit & snacks packed for the boys that I never think of myself.

And did it make a difference to my life?

Yes! I wasn't reaching for biscuits anymore, when at home I just grabbed a packet of Almonds and sat there snacking. They kept me going until lunch/dinner time and I even found myself reaching for the bananas because they complimented the Almonds so well. So at the same time it was encouraging me to snack healthily.

When out and about I found my stomach wasn't rumbling as much because if I was needing a snack I simply reached for my little tin of Almonds. I actually found myself using another tin to keep some Almonds in both my handbag and changing bag. Saved on the pennies, I guess out and about I would of been tempted to drift off to the local bakery which usually leads to both a savoury and a cake. Instead, pops out tin, pops in Almonds. Satisfied tummy and purse. Keeps me going until I get home and actually use the food I've bought in a shop.

I urge you to go and check out the health benefits to Almonds for yourself, on top of all I've said they've been a healthy snack for me to reach out and consume each day. My next challenge for myself is to hunt down some recipes with which I can use my California Almonds.

Meeting Peter James at the ChipLitFest

When browsing the ChipLitFest programme I came across a Author who I just had to see. Peter James fast became my favourite author just a few pages into the first book of his I picked up. I say picked up but really I mean downloaded on to my kindle, My love of books restarted as the baby was born & I needed something to engage my brain whilst undertaking all the feeds and especially those night feeds in the first couple of months. His Roy Grace series had me hooked from beginning to end, with the end not being anywhere in sight just yet. He chatted about his latest edition to the Roy Grace series during his talk and we got to hear how this new addition was inspired.

It was such a enjoyment for me as a Peter James/Roy Grace fan, I fear I may end up morning the end of the Roy Grace series more then I did when Friends ended back in my teen days. The books have me gripped form beginning to end and the Husband has been known to actually come and tell me off for continuing to read even though the baby has been long asleep. I didn't give two thoughts about not actually having a hard copy of one of his books to sign until it came to the book signing at the end. I treated myself to a copy of 'Perfect People' which I read after finishing the Roy Grace series, it was a fantastic read as well as a food for thought read.

I'm gutted that I could only make that one event that weekend, especially as the sun was out throughout the whole time the ChipLitFest was on making Chipping Norton even more inviting & breathtakingly beautiful. Pulling up into Chipping Norton all I could see was crowds of people everywhere spilling out from book signings and afternoon teas with their favourite authors. Next year I've already made myself a promise to clear my whole schedule so that we can make several trips to the Chipping Norton Literacy Festival.

Birthday Candles Fail

Sometimes words are just not needed...

Why sit and write blog posts about days upon days of sunny fun? Why do so when I can just simply offer up photographic evidence of all the fun we've been having. I've been a little quiet on the blog lately because we've actually been non stop that even when the kids have gone to bed the laptop just hasn't been out to play, I guess whilst it's out now doubling up as a cd player to would be rude to not document some of the fun we've been having.

Part of me wasn't going to share anymore photos on the blog, I hear you gasp. It seems in life you collect stalkers, people you decide you want as no longer part of your life. People who have sad pathetic life's who take to stalking your Twitter, Blog & anything else they can get hands on because they just cant get enough of knowing what's going on in your life. I know.. I know.. That's what having a blog is all about, right? But I like to think there's a difference between someone reading and enjoying to someone obsessively needing to know about every inch of my life. Like if you're going to stalker my twitter.. At least have the decency to knock my following counter up a notch.

So two fingers to them because here's our family, here's me and my family enjoying this weather with those who matters to us the most. And those who dont matter? Well enjoy, because this is the closest you'll ever get to my family.

I will continue to share photos and at some point to blog. But then that will probably continue when the rain comes or I get bored of back to back Glee episodes. Whichever will come first.

The one where we nearly called the Fire Brigade

 

We had our first 'stuck' incident today. It wasn't something we expected until at least the age of 5 where he wanted to nose at something and show how got his head stuck in some bars. I still very much anticipating this happening. That day wasn't today though.

Instead we had a locked door incident in the downstairs toilet from where it was locked from the inside with just one 4 year stood behind the door. It was a major EEK moment where I thought I would have to call the paramedics simply at the horror which was coming from the man's face. I shooed him back into the living room as I just knew he would either get angry or panic, my money being on the panic. I think we were to blame, I don't think I've actually explaining to him about locks on doors and how we probably shouldn't be using them at this age. It was yesterday when we had a friend and her offspring around that I think he learnt the lock was on the door from the older children. Reminding me that if we don't teach him things, he will learn them from other people.

The 4 year old didn't panic as much as what I thought he would, he didn't really seem to care. Which I guess was good, a hysterical child would of just made the situation much worse. Thankfully we've got one of those locks where it just simply needed a screwdriver to turn it to open it from the outside. If that wouldn't of opened it I guess it would of been a call to the fire brigade to get my child out of the bathroom. Which would of been highly embarrassing and would of most likely resulted in me having to buy a new door.

Windows Phone with Bounty & Holly Willoughby

A couple of weeks ago I was invited to a exclusive event with Bounty & Windows Phone with a panel of Bounty Mums and Holly Willoughby. Over a rather delicious afternoon tea we discussed how the latest smartphone technology can help busy parents stay organised and how we can keep kids safe yet entertained on our phones. We were joined by Windows experts, a panel of Bounty Mums who have been trying out the phone for the last few months as well as a few journalist. We really were in fantastic company and I could of happily sat there all evening munching on cake and chatting all things 'phone'.

It's no secret that I love technology, I'm a blogger so I guess it's in my blogging blood to do so. I'm a social media fan and am often found on the latest social networks and more often then not I use my phone for this kind of activity. I've been a Apple fan for many years and had only recently moved over to a Samsung Galaxy after wanting more freedom with what I was doing on my phone. So being asked if I wanted to check out what Windows had to offer rather appealed to my 'Geek' side, I was intrigued to see what made it different to the competition.

We were talked through 'live tiles' and this jumped out to me, this is why I wanted to escape my iphone. With these tiles you're able to make the home screen your own, you can arrange it how you want it and make it easy to see everything that's going on with the people and passions in your life in real time. Trying this out for myself, I was pleased to instantly put my two most used apps - Facebook & Twitter into tiles and place them prominently on my home screen for ease of access and use. Within seconds I had the home screen changed to a colour (Cybher Pink) that would make me smile once opening my phone up and reflect me as the user. 

We were shown a feature called 'Kids Corner' where we can hand our phones over to our children without fear of them racking up high bills or accessing material we don't want them to. We can control exactly what apps they use as well as what videos and music they listen to. Now the 4 year old is pretty nifty on a phone and posses that skill where you hand him a new bit of technology and he instantly knows how to use it. But that doesn't stop me fearing him deleting my precious photos which I'm yet to back up to the skydrive, well you can protect that with a password. This is a feature I need to sit and explore to really discover how this can benefit us as a family. Curious about Kids Corner? Read these FAQ for more in depth questions and answers then what this newbie Windows Phone user can give you.

Holly talked us through how she uses her Windows phone and how it helps her stay in control and on top of things with juggling her career and motherhood. Her diary is automatically synced with with her outlook calender enabling her agent to update her phone directly so Holly knows exactly what she's got upcoming and can stay on top of her busy lifestyle. She also discussed how she uses 'Kids Corner' to keep her kids safe on her photo and talked us through some of the great educational apps her children play on. 

What interested me the most was what the Bounty Mums had to say about using Windows phone, there was one mum who I had to question more after hearing her discuss how she used to be rather disorganised until she started to use phone and put into action the calender function. My biggest problem in life is organisation, the Man actually bought me a Filofax for Valentines day in a bid to make me more organised as the ipad just wasn't working. Like the notifications on the ipad where I just shooed them away, the Filofax just doesn't even get opened. On the Windows phone, the notifications you get are there to stay, there's no shooing them away. They just sit there on your home screen being a constant reminder.

I've been sent away with my own Windows Phone 8X by HTC so I can try out Windows on the phone for myself. I'm sure I'll be back here soon with a more in depth review on the phone itself and how it's fitted into our family life.