You cant judge a book...

Hey, its Monday, Liz here after Noele stole my day last week! We've had some great posts this last week and anyone who's been reading them must be really starting to get a feel for what our lives are like so well done ladies for providing the fab reading material :) Before I start telling you about my week I want to introduce a weekly theme to include in our posts, we will each take a turn in thinking one up and the idea is to kind bring us all together as a group a bit more and just get to know each others thoughts and feelings on stuff. So as we are all just getting to know each other as well as our audience (if we even have one lol) getting to know us, this week I want to talk about first impressions and misconceptions. It doesnt necesarily have to be about one of us, just any misconception you might have had of anyone, good or bad, or even common misconceptions people have had of you.

So I wanted to talk about age as it seems it doesnt matter how old you are are you're always thought of as 'too old' or 'too young' to have a baby or children of pretty much any age in alot of peoples eyes! The subject has come up breifly a couple of Netmums meetups, Elly mentioned a while ago that people often think shes alot younger than she is and had gotten funny looks for having a baby in the past, Lilli said that when she used to take her eldest to baby group people would look at her differently because not only was she quite young with a small baby but she was also pregnant with number two and I myself used to feel very judged alot of the time when I had Brett at just 18. In fact when I ran into some ladies who used to attend the same baby group I took Bretty to who were still in touch they claimed we had't become friends because, and I quote, "your baby was alot older than ours".... ridiculous!! Anyway, I want to just go back to Lilli, Ive said before to her that it can be so easy for someone that doesnt know her to judge her but I bet they'd be swallowing their words if they knew everything she's been through and what a genuinely nice person she is and thats the same for everyone, you really cant judge a person until you know their story. Sorry for kind of using you as a guinea pig in this Lilli lol :P I also get told I look too young to have a 7 year old but to be honest I feel like I am sometimes too lol.

Anyway onto my week! The kids are off school now of course but we havent really done alot! Not only am I still struggling to be ready before about 2pm most days thanks to Lucie but the weather has also been rather abysmal... anyone else think summers over for this year?!! We had planned last Wednesday to meet my Mum, sister and sis-in-law at Canoe Lake. I had the kids swimming costumes all ready so they could play in the 'tiddles' (little fountains that squirt out of the ground)but then my mum called saying it was chilly down there and the smaller kids were getting fed up so we didnt go in the end. We did go to Pirate Petes with Elly and Jacob last Monday though and had lunch in Wimpy which was nice. The kids had a great time and they all get on really well despite all being very different ages.

I have now moved Lucie from her moses basket to her cot which she went into straight away with no fuss :). She is still waking during the night though which is a pain. I'm combined feeding her now too, she has two or three bottles a day alternated with breastfeeds but still wants feeding every two hours at least. I need to talk with my health visitor when I see her next week as I'm thinking about weaning but dont think it will make much difference. Its like I've just had to change my opinions and beleifs on just about everything (parenting related) since I've had her, I still dont really have a clue what I'm doing half the time and I feel like a first time mum all over again! Some days I feel really disappointed with myself and feel like I'm doing a terrible job. She seems more happy than she was a few weeks ago though and I manage to get a bit more done. Her happy gurgles and coos shes doing more and more these days make it all worthwhile.

Well its taken me about two hours to get this all down what with bottle and change breaks and chatting on Facebook and my brain actually hurts now so I will be back next week, Becki, look forward to hearing from you tomorrow (and it'll be your turn to think of a theme next week!).

Have a fab week xxx