Due to the overlapping illnesses suffered by the children over the last few weeks I've had to cancel the creche every week and go without the nourishment provided by my grueling exercise regimes, and now I'm really suffering for it. My body has turned into blancmange, I'm all weak and wobbly. So the next few weeks of picking up my fitness level are gonna be tough, but worth it.
I've been doing the exercise classes and the gym ever since Ethan was 3 months old. I decided, as I stood mournfully eyeing my tired defeated body in the mirror one morning, that I had to do something to combat the slowly deteriating mass of flesh I saw before me. I'd aired my concerns over my non-recognisable self in comparison to my slender pre-baby figure to my health visitor, and to friends, and the response was always the same 'Oh don't be worrying about getting back into shape, that'll all come back naturally in time'. I listened to it all and couldn't help thinking, 'hmm well how come when I took that approach after Megan was born I remained fat and lumpy?'
To any new mums who may be reading this I will not lie to you, your body does not just magically return to it's pre-baby state without any conscious effort by yourself as many of your well meaning friends will have you believe. I think all mum's end up getting to a certain point after having their baby when they look at themselves and think 'Oh crap my body has fell apart and I haven't got the time or inclination to do anything about it', especially when you're hardly getting any sleep and every waking second is consumed by feeds, pooey nappies and crying (by both mum and baby if you're anything like what I was like in the early days!).
Sheer determination and a hint of panic pushed me to signing up at the gym, at first thinking I'd just try to get there in the evenings and weekends when the hubby was home to have the babies. As soon as I learnt that there was a creche available every morning I paid up front for a year! It was like all my christmas's had just come at once. All of a sudden I entered into a world where I could be child free for a whole hour every morning while I worked my bum off in the gym, making every second count. At the end of every session I felt exhilerated and proud that I was getting that bit closer to getting a shadow of my former body back, and the kids were so pleased to see me when I picked them up from the creche. I found I had more patience to deal with Megan's tantrums and Ethan's relentless crying in the evening when he had colic or was teething. My overall sense of well being was significantly heightened.
I mentioned all of this to my health visitor at a routine check for Ethan a few months ago, and hinted that perhaps it would be beneficial to let new mums know that this kind of thing was available for them if they wanted it. However I got the impression that health visitor's don't appreciate being told how to do their job and the conversation resumed back to Ethan before I pissed her off too much!
I do believe it should be advertised more to new mum's, not only do you get an hour child free but you get to work off some of that pent up new-mum-lifestyle-frustration. Or if you're particularly shattered just sit in the hall for the hour pretending you're having a breather, as I may have done on one occasion after being up all night with a teething boy!
Anyway, I'm getting side tracked. Back to today. So yes I'm back on the exercise regime, and was meant to be starting some kind of healthy eating plan today aswell, which certainly should not have included the Galaxy caramel chocolate bar I had after my chicken salad wrap, but never mind, one thing at a time eh?
We're currently taking on the potty training challenge with Megan, we've been tackling this particular stage of development for 10 months now, all the books and articles on 'How to Potty Train your toddler in a week' obviously were not referring to Megan, she has plans of her own when it comes to her bodily functions. At first it all seemed to be going so well, with the aid of 'Teddy' (see pic below) we managed to get her to put a wee wee in the potty, at which point we celebrated massively and handed out stickers and cuddles, all the right moves according to the books etc. But then nothing for months. She would sit for ages on the potty talking and reading her potty book, and not a drop. Then we'd pop her pull ups back on to go out and she'd have this contemplative look on her face for afew seconds before grinning from ear to ear and running off. Blummin monkey knew exactly what she was doing! Which on the one hand was quite reassuring because it was evidence of her having obvious control over her bladder, she was holding herself until we put her pull ups on, but on the other hand it was extremely infuriating.
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| Teddy perched on the towel rail offering words of encouragement |
Luckily spring brought with it some blisteringly hot days where I decided to abandon Megan's pants completely for a whole week! Following afew puddles on the kitchen floor and mummy's disapproving scowl, she eventually started weeing on her potty, triggering praise and stickers, and eventually big girl knickers with princess's on them. I was so pleased we'd cracked it, well nearly, there was still the issue of number 2's, and Megan's refusal to do them anywhere apart from in her knickers.
So the breakthrough was in May, and it's now August and we're still desperately trying to get Megan to do her number 2's on the potty or toilet before she starts school in September. She'll be the youngest in her year at school because she was born right at the end of August, hence the pressure to start the potty training perhaps a little earlier than usual (she'd just turned 2 when we introduced her to the potty to have a play with and 'make friends' with), and ever since the open day at Megan's school afew weeks back when the reality of Megan going to big school like a grown up little lady suddenly hit me. The thought of her teacher's having to face what I face in Megan's knickers on a daily basis made me blush and grit my teeth, I couldn't put another human being through that...could I? No no of course not, it is my parental responsibility to get my girl to do the deed on the toilet, and only on the toilet.
Needless to say I've tried everything; ignoring the whole matter to see if she'll go to the potty herself, encouragement, chastising, bribary, disgust, acting like poo is great! I've ran out of idea's. Then today when I was on the phone, Megan suddenly hopped off her chair and over to the potty for what I thought was a wee. I've never been so excited to see a grimace and pink cheeked look of concentration on anyone's face in my life. Completely forgetting I was on the phone I realsied what Megan was doing and began chants of encouragement, 'good girl, you do a nice big poo in the potty, that's it, big push, clever girl!!' Needless to say the rare phone phone calls recieved from that particular friend may now become even more rare, as I quickly ended the phone call to focus on my amazing child that had just managed to achieve something right up there with climbing Mount Everest as far as I was concerned!
I cuddled, kissed, swooned over, and threw her around playfully as she giggled (after wiping her bum of course..that could have been messy otherwise!). And on Megan's instruction we took a photograph of her 'big snake' that she had 'put in the potty all by herself' so that we could show Daddy when he got home, well it's better than the other idea she had which was to keep it in the cupboard for later so that everyone could see her snake, eek!
So we've had an afternoon of telling Ethan all about Megan's big poo, she went to wake him up from his nap, much to my dismay, as I was cleaning the potty because she just had to tell someone that wasn't me, I think she felt a little bit deflated that Ethan didn't seem too bothered, or even to understand, probably because he didn't, but I managed to get him to clap his hands in ignorant appraisal of his sister's toilet achievement anyway.
Hopefully this could be a turning point, maybe, please God, please let this be the end of scraping poo out of Peppa Pig knickers?! I'll keep you posted...
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| Megan with her stickers for being a big clever girl! |
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