My youngest is 2 today but he's really not himself.

I can't decide whether he's caught a stomach bug, or the sun and heat is too much for him (he prefers the shade like me so the last few days have been hard going for him), or his molars are trying to come through, but whatever it is, he's clingy and grumpy off and on through the day and unsettled and upset through the night.

Last night, he kept pointing to the calpol and ibuprofen bottles and I felt awful because I had to tell him he'd had all the medicine he could have at that point. Nothing seemed to help and even stroking his hair didn't soothe him.

Sigh. I wish he could tell me what was wrong! It's so hard having to guess.

What a rotten way to spend your birthday :-(

The birth of my second son was one of those events that people often describe as "something to tell your grandchildren about" and as my beautiful little boy turned 1 today, I thought I'd share the story with you.

I woke at 6am on 8 July 2011 to the feeling of my waters slowly trickling their way out of me. I'd just turned 37 weeks pregnant and I wondered whether to wake my husband or not, as I certainly didn't feel like I was in labour.

I can remember my husband's alarm clock going off at about 6.30am and because I only felt "funny", he suggested he travel into work as normal and come back once labour had started, if it even did.

I lost track of time then. I think it was about 7am when I phoned my mum and asked her to come down and look after my toddler, as I thought I might be in labour. I also remember telling my husband I should phone the midwives at the hospital to let them know my waters had broken and find out if they wanted to check me over.

While my husband was trying to find the right telephone number for the hospital, I can recall it becoming imperative I keep pacing. I couldn't stop or sit down/kneel/bend over onto all fours, as it was much too uncomfortable. Being upright and mobile felt right.

If I didn't know I was in labour then, I did when the first contraction hit and oh my god, the pain. I was scared, my whole body hurt in the most indescribable way and I had to focus on just getting through each contraction....until I felt the most almighty urge to push. I swore at my husband to phone 999 and while he was speaking with the operator, I could feel my baby's head entering the world swiftly followed by the rest of him.

My mum arrived shortly before the paramedics. She told me she'd expected to find it was a false alarm and the last thing she'd expected to see was me sat on the loo in the en suite bathroom holding my newborn baby in my arms. Same here!

The paramedics told us the 999 call had been placed at 7.26am and my husband guessed the time of birth as 7.30am. I actually think he was born a few minutes before this but I can't say for certain as time took on a very different quality throughout the whole affair.

Baby and I were taken to hospital and checked over. He was fine. He may have only been  5lb 15oz but my husband and I could immediately tell he was going to be a feisty little character. There was never any doubt in our minds that the boy's name we'd chosen during my pregnancy was the right one for him; Randall.

Here he is at about an hour old:

And a year later:

How time has flown.

There's much more I could write - about how the birth affected me and how I really found it having 2 children under 2 - but those are posts for another day.

All I want to say now is: Happy birthday Panda Pop! I love you more than you'll ever know xxx

After yesterday's disappointment and the resultant big knock to my confidence, I woke up today determined to be kinder to myself, write yesterday off as a blip and not to be too quick to concede defeat.

For a change, I tackled my to-do list first and I managed to change the whole look of our dining room table from this:

To this:

I've also banned everyone in the house from putting anything on it EVER AGAIN!

I waited until the evening to settle down to watch episode 5 "never kill a boy on the first date" of Buffy's first season. Husband was out at muay thai, toddler was up in bed attempting to sleep (his monologue down the baby monitor was quite entertaining) and baby was latched on snoozing. All of which equalled peace at last for me!

Now this episode never springs to mind whenever I think about the opening season of Buffy even though it does serve to further the story arc about the Master's fiendish plans to escape his supernatural prison and cause chaos, yadda, yadda, yadda. Because of this, I was looking forward to watching it with fresh eyes and being able to astound you all with my amazing insights.

What actually happened was less than a 1/4 of the way into the episode, I spied Buffy wearing the most fabulous animal print hooded jacket and I then spent the next 2 hours trawling around the net desperately trying to find an image of it to show you. And not just any image, but one that will do its quirky cosy snugness true justice.

Unfortunately, this was the best I could do:



I cannot tell you how much I love this jacket. If I was a jacket, I would be this one without a doubt in my mind.

In the past, I had a tradition that I would get a new coat on my birthday. Well, it's been a few years since I've done this. In fact, the last time must've been in 2007, as I started on the pregnancy rollercoaster in 2008, and I suspect it was the whole baby bump/lack of funds combo that caused the tradition to stop.

I'm not great at shopping for clothes but I love shopping for a coat. I always know when I've found the right one because I can feel it speaking to me. Choosing a coat has always been one of the ways in which I've expressed my personality and I can't believe I'd forgotten that!

As from today, the yearly coat buying tradition is reinstated!

Yay, I just found a piece of me and it's all down to Buffy the Vampire Slayer!

This is what's left on my to-do list:

• File away all the paperwork
• Put locks on all the "un-safe" drawers/cupboards
• Sort out the big box of books that's been sat in the conservatory for the last 3 years
• Tidy and organise my craft table so if I wanted to, I could actually use it
• Declutter the bedroom
• Put locks on the bedside drawers
• Make the boys some fleece trousers
• Do some batch cooking
• Do the Christmas shopping

And the biggest one of all:

• Declutter and clean the spare bedroom before decorating it ready for the toddler to move into after his Boxing day birthday. The baby will then move into the nursery

Visit the rest of #teamBuffy?

To find out Nyssapod's thoughts on "never  kill a boy on the first date", head on over to Audioboo. You can also follow Nyssapod's progress at minibreakmummy. Starting from tomorrow, you'll also be able to follow Nyssapod via her written blog as she tackles her own to-do list. Keep showing her lots of support.

Don't forget to visit Chapters of Claire to find out how Claire's getting on with her to-do list.

 

And after that, go and visit Made by Tamsin who, inspired by this 12 days of Buffy challenge, has challenged herself to publish a post every day of the advent calendar.

Join In!

 

Finally, and as I've been saying every day so far, there's still time for you to join #teambuffy and jump into the 7 remaining days of this challenge. You don't have to be a fan of Buffy - you just have to have a desire to get rid of some of those jobs you've been putting off for a while. If I can do it so can you!

 

See you tomorrow x

I'm going to sound really self-centred here but I LOVE my birthday! For the month leading up to it, I'm like a small child on a long car journey that spends the whole time repeating "are we there yet?" in an increasingly frantic voice.

Yesterday, I decided to bake my own birthday cake ready for today and even though I haven't attempted this before (and hadn't, in fact, baked a cake for at least 12 months), I had great fun trawling the net for inspiration.

One cake in particular caught my eye, and in spite of my novice baker status, I felt confident I could make something similar to it:

I chose a Mary Berry chocolate cake recipe, as I thought the chocolate would look suitably dramatic against the red icing, and away I went!

There were a few hiccups along the way - medium eggs rather than large, a toddler that was scared of the electric handmixer, a hungry baby and a dog that decided to engage in a barking war with the Jack Russell next door. I also had a crisis over the ganache, as I opted to use milk chocolate rather than plain so I was worried it wouldn't have a lovely glossy finish.

I'm really proud of the outcome and I think you'll agree there's very little difference between my cake and the googled cake :

For those who want to make their own chocolate cake, I found the recipe here and honestly, if I can make it, anyone can! Plus, it was truly delicious! In fact, I'm off to finish off the last couple of slices now!