A few weeks ago we were invited to go along to one of the Big Fish Little Fish Family Raves that was taking place in Engine Rooms in Southampton. I’d never even heard of a family rave before and not being someone to turn down a chance to do something different, I gladly accepted the invitation to go along and review the rave. This particular event was Heroes and Villains themed fancy dress and I was apprehensive as to how dressed up most people would be. We went for a cop out costume, of Cops and Robbers (sorry I couldn’t resist!). Darcie wore a striped t shirt and I made her a criminal ID number that I stuck on her top and Dan and I wore black and had Police hats that we could choose to wear depending on the level of fancy dress we encountered once we got there! (more…)

If there’s one thing that I can always rely on to snap Darcie out of any bad mood, it is taking her outside. We’re lucky in that we live in quite a quiet residential area with a couple of small parks so she can walk and run to her hearts content until she gets tired and suddenly reverts to a baby that needs to be carried home. Over the last few months since she learnt to walk we’ve developed quite a few little ‘games’ and activities that are guaranteed to keep her occupied outside. I’m going to list them here in case anyone needs any outdoors inspiration or perhaps just some convincing to get out of the house and release the toddler into the wild. (more…)

With yesterday being ‘International Day of the Girl’ I wanted to write a post related to that subject. I always love when these kind of days roll around as you see all manner of empowering messages across social media and people taking part in events to support equality for women and women’s rights. I’m a true girls girls at heart and I love anything to do with empowering women. There has been a related topic to this in the press a lot recently that has been weighing on my mind and I thought that today would be the perfect time to write about it. I’m referring to the debate over children’s clothing, particularly in regards to the slogans used for boys and girls clothing and the colours that are generally available for each gender. Pink for girls, blue for boys. (more…)

I’d like to start by saying that losing the baby weight is absolutely not the be all and end all of life. For some women the weight just falls off and for others it’s a struggle that last for years. I would say that I fall somewhere in the middle of those extremes; breastfeeding meant that I was unable to cut calories too drastically as it affected my milk supply but equally, within a year I was basically back to my pre-pregnancy weight and size. Despite being ‘back to normal’, there really is no such thing. My body created, birthed and fed a human and that’s not something that you can magically erase. I’m not going to tell you to ‘love your tiger stripes’ because that honestly cringes me out so badly, but I am going to tell you not to let it get you down. Your body has achieved amazing and wonderful things and how you look in a bikini is so irrelevant when you compare it to the life that you have created and sustained.

All that being said, I think every woman has googled ‘how the hell can I lose this baby weight?’ at least once since giving birth and so I thought I would give my two cents on the whole postpartum weight loss situation. (more…)