Honest Diary of a Working Mum #1

Hello and welcome to my first ‘Diary of a working Mum’ post. I’ve decided to try and write one of these every week to document what’s going on in our lives at the moment as a family and reflect on our tiny human’s development with each week that passes.

Tiny Human (let’s call her TH for short) is coming up to her first birthday, and as per usual since giving birth to her, I found myself leaving things until the last minute to organise even though I’ve had the plan in my head for months. So last night, I placed our Waitrose food order at 11:30pm, with only a couple of hours until the cut off. OK, so it’s not really last minute as I’ve managed to sort most things with a week to go until her party, but I used to be much better at getting things sorted than this.

I’ve also decided to make her birthday cake, which I’m hoping will become a tradition for her birthday! We did try to order one from a professional (twice) but the stars didn’t align due to holidays and one of the bakers giving birth… so the task falls to me. I do love baking but have to confess it does feel like a lot trying to fit in making a delicious first birthday cake with general life, work and raising a tiny child.

TH has been on good form this week and she absolutely annihilated a substantial roast dinner for lunch today. We went out with some friends and two of us easily demolished a very refreshing bottle of Sauvignon Blanc. Who says Mums can’t day drink?!

On the development front, we seem to have added a new word yesterday: ‘door’. I’m not entirely sure how useful this is but nevertheless am now encouraging her to say ‘door’ as many times as possible in one day. Honestly, the way she articulated it was so clear, I was genuinely quite shocked. ‘Door’ joins her other two words: ‘Dada’ and ‘Ba’ (ball). My husband thinks I’m being generous by suggesting these are real words and maybe I am being… but still, it’s an exciting time to start looking out for real words and encouraging her to repeat them back to us.

My big bug bear at the moment is gross motor skills. I didn’t crawl until I was 13 months and didn’t walk until 21 months, so we’re in it for the long-haul and I’m trying not to get too concerned about the general lack of mobility until TH is past the times that I achieved these milestones. But I can’t deny that it’s incredibly discouraging and difficult not to compare when I see other babies several months younger than her running around on Instagram (and in our own Mum and baby circles). But there’s nothing to be done about it yet, so I’ll just have to wait for time to pass and try to appreciate the fact I can still put her in one place while I do chores without her escaping and injuring herself.

Thinking ahead to next week and work looks crazy, especially tomorrow. I work on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays when TH is in nursery and then we have Tuesdays and Thursdays together. One of the key members of my team has been off sick for most of this year but came back a couple of weeks ago and I’m feeling way less stressed now than I was. However, there still never seem to be enough hours in the day and I’m really trying to do at least a full-time job in three days. So not ideal, but it is the season of life I find myself in. Sales have also been very slow in April after a better March, so that puts on added pressure to make sure I’m maximising my time and keeping things ticking over with the business. The bills keep coming even when the sales don’t!

Finally, on top of everything else I’m still waiting for some answers about what on earth is wrong with me. I’ve been having investigations since November last year because things aren’t right – I’ve had malabsorption of key vitamins as well as various other symptoms. We’re currently going through a process of elimination and our working theory is coeliac disease. I have a gastroscopy scheduled for mid-May when I’m hoping I’m going to get some answers so I can start working on feeling better than I have done for the past 6 months.

I hope you’ve enjoyed this first entry for Honest Diary of a Working Mum. See you next time!