Hey Guys,

It's been a wee while as my Scottish people would say. I'm still here! Busy joggling the many components of my life. Ally is doing great! She's now 14 months and doing many amazing things but more on that later. Today I just wanted to share the post below with you.  Enjoy the read.

YUMMY MUMMY

Before I became a mum I used to secretly judge mums that would just 'let themselves go' after having a baby. I'm not even talking about weight now, just general personal appearance.

I have since repented!

This yummy mummy business is NO JOKE!

You do a lovely weave, leave your hair down and all your baby wants to do is pull on it. You hold it up in a bun and your babe effect is decreased.

You get your face beat or slapped as I heard someone say and your baby helps you blend your eye brows into your eye shadow. Osheyyy MUA!

You put on your fancy heels to go out but you need to push that pram. That's not going to be okay for your back. So what's the point. You pull out the flats. All this decreasing your babe-ness.

You paint your nails for the week but because you are constantly washing bottles, your hands and changing nappies they are all chipped by the second day.

Sometimes you've put baby down for a nap, you start doing your manicure and she wakes up needing a nappy change. #NailsSmudged. What is the actual point. *cries*

You wear a lovely top that's working with your body shape and your skin complexion only for baby to colour it with some lovely food she decides does not need to remain in her tummy. Might as well drape yourself in a sack. Lol

You wear a lovely dress, you're finally feeling hot with yourself but after lunch with friends, your mum-tum starts to show and someone asks if you are expecting again. Chisos! See my life!

I could go on and on. Point is the struggle is very real. But what do we do? Give up on our babe-ness?

Well for me, I plan to keep trying and I think it actually gets better as your baby grows older. So I am here in my corner of the world, less judgemental as I try to find my own balance point.

Shout out to all the mummy's out there that make this mummy thing look so easy.
From now on when you see a mummy dressed, just hail her, you don't know what went on behind the scenes. She truly is winning! 

ALICIA AT ONE

Ally turned One this weekend. We are still on a bit of a high! We've been buzzing all week.
The week began with Allys ambassador aunt coming all the way from the States, God mama Bis arrived on Tuesday then we had a cake smash photoshoot session. The rest of the week was full of shopping, great food, movies and jisting. We had a full house and Ally was always the centre of all the attention and she definitely knew something was going on. On the Saturday which was her actual birthday, we had a small party at our house with a few friends and family and off course all our New Mums Club families. Ally is surrounded by so much love and favour.

Thank you so much to everyone that has celebrated her, travelled from far and wide to see her, prayed for her, given her gifts and just blessed her in your hearts. We are truly grateful. Today I will just be sharing photos from the week with you and also seeing as Ally is surrounded by so many entrepreneurs I will also make a note of all the vendors that made #AllyWeek a massive success and one we won't be forgetting in a while. Please follow them on Instagram. Please patronise them:)

PHOTOS:

Pretty Princess

Priceless Princess

Precious Princess

Daddys girl

Alicias Crew

Alicias Crew

Cake Smash Cake @thelittleoxfordbaker

photos don't do justice @forspicelovers chicken wings from scratch!

House entrance, party time!

Amazing food @zazicookhose

Cupcakes @thelittleoxfordbaker

House Party

Birthday girl got tired

The birthday cake by God mama Bis

Allys out of town crew

New Mums Club, trying to get all the babies in one photo!

Birthday Girl

They had to play chess

Birthday girl

House Party

VENDORS:

Cake Smash Cake/ Cup Cakes/ Birthday Cake : God Mama Bis @thelittleoxfordbaker
Photos : Uncle Jang @reubenreng 
Photoshoot props: Tata Michelle @mfleur, Uncle Danie (he blew balloons. lol)
Allys Outfits: Esty and Amazon
T-shirts : Supplied by Tonton Joel Mark1615 Clothing (COMING SOON)
Scrumptious Food All week : Ambassador Aunt Melissa @forspicelovers
Birthday Finger Foods: Tata Michelle @house37
Birthday Food : Toun @zazicookhouse
Puff Puffs: Aunty Oluchi @oluchiemenike
Theme: Allys Omazing Mummy @tabitha__o

Thank you so so much to everyone that has been a part of Allys first year! May God richly bless you.

BACK TO WORK; YAY or NAY???

I always imagined that when I became a mum, I would either be a stay at home mum till my children were 5 years old or work part time.

Since graduating, I have always worked. I even worked while I was at college and university. I have enjoyed working, work has always had its challenges but non the less I like being employed. I like being busy.

Maternity leave has been great but towards the end, I started to get a bit bored. I began to crave adult conversations more and more. lol.

I had planned to return to work part time, I had a meeting with my manager and the options available to me for part time work were not all that appealing. For one, I would have to work more Saturdays than I worked when I was full time and I would not be able to return to the shop that I had worked among other issues.

Just as an aside, when I was looking at some of my options for going back to work, I realised quite a few people I had trained with had become managers and were taking on larger roles in the company. I felt bad. As though I had missed a lot while I had been off. Before I got comfortable in my self pity, I was quickly reminded that I had not been sleeping the past year, I had a baby and was off caring for her. This is a significant life achievement or event which ever way you want to look at it. And I should not compare myself to my colleagues. Everyones race is different.

Now back to my decision to go back to work. My husband and I spoke and weighed all the options. We spoke about how we would need to manage time wisely and adjust to make time for more family activities when we were both off. Another thing we spoke about was what I would be doing with Ally if I worked part time. I didn't just want a situation were I would just leave her in front of the TV or with her toys while I do my house chores or work on my computer. Then she might as well be at nursery.

I was speaking to my brother and he reminded me that our mum always worked full time and we turned out right. hmmm, you may say she had more help seeing as we grew up in Nigeria but weirdly enough when I reflected it felt like she was always present. I spoke to her and asked her for advice, asked how she felt, if she felt guilty for working and so on. It was great listening to her and using her advice to shape my perspective.

I also spoke to my pharmacy mentor who returned to work full time after having her daughter. I asked how she managed family and work. She gave me some very helpful information and lots more. She kept saying she can't tell me what to do but just listening to her gave me so much wisdom.

In the multitude of counsellors there is safety - Proverbs 11:14

I am so thankful I have these people to talk to and rub minds with. So I made a decision to return to work full time. I start in about a week. I am looking forward to returning and also managing family life and work. I am looking forward to holidays away as a family. When I've worked for a bit, I would let you guys know how it is going. Pray for me:)

There's this silent beef between working mums and stay at home mums. The question is always who is better. I think neither are. Just make the decision that's best for you and your family. And whether you work or you are at home. I think the most important thing is to be present with your child every time you are together. Being there but being absent minded will just be a big waste.

Good luck to all the mums out there who are rounding up maternity leave. Have you made a decision about what you will do when your leave is over? Please share.

RECOVERY.

Hey Guys.

Today is the 16th of January. My EED for Alicia was 16/1/16. I remember this time last year... My hospital bag was packed. I was pacing up and down to try and get madam out but nope she stayed in for 12 more days. I believe she came at the perfect time. I'm so thankful for past 365 days. Words can't even begin to express my gratitude to God, family and friends. Ally is almost ONE. Yay!!! Praise God!

Today though, I just wanted to share a few things I learnt from the recent theft of Ally's Pram.
If you haven't read about the stolen pram or the new pram, please click on the links to bring yourself up to speed.

Joe and I have lived in this development for three and a half years. We always prayed to be a blessing to our neighbourhood and to be friendly or at least cordial with our neighbours. In apartment complexes, people tend not to be very 'neighbourly'. Not like they are hostile but everyone just minds their business. This is the 4th I've lived in. People just give each other a node or smile, hi or hello on their way in and out.

The day the pram was stolen, my husband suggested we write a letter to all our neighbours. This was motivated by the police saying they had received similar car burglary reports in our area.Well that's not something we would like our neighbourhood to be known for. We weren't sure what we were going to say but when we got our thoughts together, we wrote a letter to every apartment. In the letter, we stated what had happened and that we would like everyone to come together on a Facebook group we had created to identify possible solutions.

One person joined the group, then two people, then three and before we knew it we were building a community for people living in this development. Not every resident has joined the group yet. Several people shared their stories and we were able to come up with some potential solutions.
It's been a learning journey for Joe and I. We have learnt how to write a petition, how to seek information from the police website among many other things. We petitioned the Sheffield City Council in order to make our street safe again. You can view and sign our petition here. We are also creating an appeal to the development management company whom we pay service charge to yearly.
It's been an interesting experience. Lots of learning.

So I know this post is not much about new mums or mums to be but I hope you've learnt a thing or two from it. When life gives you lemons look for how to make lemonade and drink it. Unite with people and find solutions! There is power in numbers. Its amazing what people can do when they unite.


xo.

THE NEW PRAM

Happy New Year Guys!

Hope everyone had a lovely Christmas and New Year celebration?!
We did. Allys First Christmas was spent with friends and family.

My last post was about our stolen pram. You can read about it here.

We decided to get a new pram. We got the Mamas and Papas Armadillo City.
This time we were just looking for something that would do the job but didn't cost as much as our previous pram. Also, because she is a lot older some of the features of our previous pram were not needed.

I went to the Mothercare website, set a filter for prams by price and among the top ten were the armadillo city. I thought it looked nice, showed Joe, watched a few videos and read a few reviews. Searching for reviews led me to Amazon and it was available there too and then to Boots were it was on offer. Plus my staff discount this was a score.

One of the nicest things about this pram is how it folds. it is so compact and it also has a handle to carry it while it is folded.

The pram is only world facing so the first few times I put Ally in it, I was a bit emotional cause she wasn't facing me. But she is a big girl now and very inquisitive so its time to face the world.

Its still cold up in this place so I got a foot muff for the pram from Amazon and I particularly like it cause it looks like African print.

We are thankful for our new pram and getting accustomed to it each time we use it.

OUR DEAR PRAM

When I told my husband I was pregnant, one of the first things he did was create a google document with a list of everything we would possibly need. His middle name might as well be googledocs. We have one form of spreadsheet or another for almost everything. lol. We used this document to buy stuff in preparation for Allys arrival.

2.5 months in her New Born Pod

One of the last things we bought was a pram. (A Pram is a four-wheeled carriage for a baby, pushed by a person on foot. Can also be called pushchair; baby carriage, stroller, pushcart, baby buggy...)
We just couldn't find one with all our specs. We saw several ones but each time it wasn't quite 'there'. I was the one with the plenty specs as I would be pushing this thing around most of the time. We eventually bought Allys pram after she had arrived and we were out of hospital.

4 months in her New Born Pod

We got the Icandy Raspberry Package. It was perfect. It cost a bit more than your regular pram but it was so worth it. Nice and compact, small tyres, suitable from birth till baby is 25kg. You can read more about it here. I would highly recommend this pram. When she was born, she used the new born pod which was warm and cosy, this meant we didn't need to get a pram with a carry cot and we wanted her car seat to remain in the car. It folds into one and so was easy to handle. The pram is light weight so we walked all over the place during the summer months, and I dropped a lot of my baby weight during this time.

6 months less of 8 days.

I knew I loved this pram but my love for it became even more glaring after we got back from Nigeria. Ally and I were walking home from Tesco one afternoon and I realised the brake was not working. I thought It was cause we had a bit of shopping in the tray but even after it was emptied, the brake didn't respond. We took it to Mothercare where we had ordered it from and they sent it off to Icandy. We were given a replacement pram and uhhggg, It was so annoying. I had to keep praying for grace not to be upset by this temporal inconvenience and to be thankful that we had something we could use. We didn't go out as much cause pushing it was a lot of work, it was heavier and the dimensions where just weird. I kept bumping into things.  I was constantly calling Mothercare to check if our pram was back. When It got back, they called me and you could tell the lady was so happy to be making that call. lol. Our pram was back and we were happy!

Quick Selfie before one of our many walks!

Two weeks ago Ally and I were going to visit a friend and her children. As I walked towards the car, the pin was up, I opened the door to put Ally in her car seat but it wasn't there. I opened the boot and her pram was also gone. Jesus! Confusion. Shock. Fear. Dread. I looked around the road as I said several times 'God NO'

Shopping!

I don't even know how I composed myself, I was just in shock, I went back into the house, messaged my friend that I wont be able to come explaining what I had just discovered. God Why Now? I cried, called my husband and cried again. lol, I was so upset. What is wrong with these oyinbo people now?
We thought we must have left the car door open over night but when we spoke to the police, they told us that there have been similar thefts without forced entry to that brand of car. Chai. God, who has money to buy another pram? They gave us a case number but there wasn't much they could do as there was no CCTV to cover what had happened. The case is still with the police and I pray we find the person or persons, I would just love to slap them. lol but the Jesus in me has been helping me pray 'God forgive them and save them'

Winter! 9 months in her footmuff

So our much loved pram is gone, what shall we do? With the car seat off course it was painful but Ally was due to change her car seat soon, so it wasn't as painful as this pram we had carefully selected and hoped to use for a long time. We had several kind gestures, my friend offered to give us a pram to use, others suggested we keep an eye out at second hand shops and Ebay incase someone tries to sell our stolen pram so we can possibly buy it back.

We decided to buy another pram... I will write about how we came to this conclusion and the deal we got in next weeks post.

xo.

MAXIMISE RELATIONSHIPS

I spoke to one of the new mums in my New Mums Club who moved to England just after she got married. She had a baby earlier this year and still considers her self new to the UK. Vicki is mummy to 9 month old John. She loves being a mum and is particularly enjoying the bond she is forming with her son in the first year of his life.
I asked her what she thinks about being a mum here compared to what she would have expected it to be in Nigeria where she comes from.

Vicki and John

The biggest difference she finds is the fact that in England you are kind of 'on your own', and even though your mother or mother-in-law may come for omugwu (Igbo word that has now become a Nigerian word which is when the mother or mother-in-law comes to take care of the daughter and the baby she has given birth to) the time they spend with you is always limited. In Nigeria one can hire help and there will always be family members, neighbours and well wishers around to help you care for your baby.

Vicki, her Mum and John

In England, she feels like she needs to ask to get help and she doesn't want to appear as a burden to anyone. People here lead such busy lives. It's a DIY kinda place. She enjoys the health care system. She likes how the health workers; doctors, midwives, health visitors are available to answer new mums questions and put them through things they don't know. The system is quite organised and she knows who to call for what. The health workers are constantly in touch to monitor your baby's growth and development at each stage.  She also likes the fact that health care is 'free' and not a function of your financial ability. She is thankful for the system were she is and is making the most of every relationship.

One relationship in particular Vicki has found helpful these past months is her relationship with the other mums at our New Mums Club. YAY to the NMC!

NMC taking over Meadowhall, One Buggy at a Time!

Speaking to her made me think of all the relationships a new mum has. Some will be deeper and stronger than others but none the less and it is up to us to maximise these relationships.

As a new mum you have or should have relationships with your:

Spouse/Baby's Father, Mother/ Father, Mother-in-law/ Father-in-law, Siblings, Friends, Extended family, Church members, Doctor, Health visitor, Midwives, Nanny/au pair, Minder/Key worker, Various Mummy/Baby groups and so on.

All these relationships though different will help you at one point or the other in the raising of your child. We will always need people. We need to keep these relationships healthy so we can reap the maximum benefit from each of them. Because we are humans, we may not always see 'eye to eye' with some of these people we are in relationship with, some of their methods of caring for baby may appear archaic or foreign to us but we don't need to dismiss them altogether. We may not always have 100% of what we want but even if it's just one of these relationships you have, make the most of it, don't live like someone that has no one when you do. Just incase any of these relationships have gone south, let's repair and strengthen them for the sake of our babies.