I HAVE MOVED!!!

I now have got a new blog on wordpress it is still called being mum to cami but just ahs a few more things on it!

Attending Cybermummy11 wow wow wow!!!

Wow wow wow I just had the most awesome day, I was very lucky to attend the Cybermummy11 blogging event and I have never felt more at home with writing my blog than I do now.

I had been trying to get a ticket to cybermummy since one of my very good friends told me about it a few months ago; she is a fantastic Mummy blogger and has a good reputation and a lot of followers, she has introduced me to them via twitter. On the Tuesday before the event I was told by a lovely lady who I new as @mummytips that Johnson and Johnson still had some sponsored tickets available (little did I know that she was Sian one of the creators of Cybermummy I have never felt more honoured!) she forwarded all my details to them and they very promptly came back to me and said that they would be happy to sponsor me.

Well it goes without saying that I had a very whirlwind of a week, that built into a total crescendo of excitement that erupted when I got off he train at London Victoria to meet two lovely blogging twitter mummy’s @sussexmummy & @soph4soph. I had never met before but new from my twitter conversations, they had agreed to help this very nervous London traveller get to her final destination Cybermummy11 at The Brewery, Chiswell Street.

I walked in very nervous and like a rabbit caught in headlights I had never seen so many mums that blog in one place. We were 400 strong and all very proud of what we were achieving no matter how big or small! I have to admit I felt a bit like a fraud as my blog Being mum to Cami has only been going for 6 months, with only 7 followers, but was pleasantly surprised to be stopped 2 or three time by people to say they like my blog and thought my daughter was cute (my head really started to swell) I know my blog is out there and I am happy with it but was never really confident that anyone else really read it apart from close family and friends, turns out I am very wrong.
We had some amazing speakers, some awesome workshops, and some funny and very moving blog post readings from some very inspirational mummy bloggers. I came home with four of the heaviest goody bags known to man my daughter was in awe of all the things I had picked up for her. I have made some fantastic contacts learnt many things but the one thing that have taken away from this amazing experience that I love the most is that I have finally put many faces to names of blog writers I love to read and converse with on twitter.

I have to go back next year as there are so many that I did not get to meet and hopefully my blog will continue and grow with all the wonderful things that I learnt. Thank you to everyone who helped me on Saturday I am most grateful and hope to see you all again next year if not sooner!

Been a while.....

Well it has been a while since I have written a blog, "why" you ask well because things have just gone a bit manic. My role in social media mums has taken off thanks to my awesome entrepreneurial friend Chelle McCann, I have been baking for my Flour and Sprinkles business for a couple of events like the Brighton Mums website launch and another at my favourite spa Uniquely Organic Ecospa it has all been so exciting.

I have also just come back from the most lovely family holiday in Majorca Alcudia to be exact. It was the first one we have taken abroad with C and she loved it. She did not bat an eyelid at us being on a plane or taking off but tiredness soon kicked in and then she was all over the shop laying on the floor fidgeting not wanting to respond to anything we told her. When we arrived in Majorca and had boarded the coach we were told we would be the second drop off after an hours coach journey (which was one from hell thanks to C). Well how wrong they were, add another 45 mins to that journey a very overtired C two stressed parents and make us the 2nd to last drop off and hey presto that is how our holiday begins.

We had rain, thunder storms, overcast days and sun but to look at holiday pics you would never know as we made the most of the sun we had. C adored being in the sea more than the pool as it was freezing we have now all been buried in the sand, built many sand castles, made new friends from Germany who were the loveliest family with a daughter C's age who she is now pen pals with, they were like two peas in a pod and had much fun together.

My favourite moment of the holiday was when C started to ask to join in with the mini club as they did a mini disco every night most of the songs in Spanish or German, but by the end of the holiday she knew the words and all the dance moves and we are now the proud owners of the Mini disco CD and dance to it regularly. C even watched a reptile show in the hotel and was given the opportunity to hold either a snake or a tortoise and she chose the snake, it was huge but she was adamant she wanted the snake!!!.

My funniest moment of the holiday was when C was offered another ice cream and she said "no mummy I just want fruit" my hubby and I just looked at each other and laughed, she clearly takes after her Dad for good eating I would have had the ice cream!

I really loved the time the three of us got to spend together it felt like we were finally given the opportunity to really bond with our little girl since she has grown up so much and really appreciate what a smart little cookie she really is. Since we have been home she seems to just have grown up even more and gotten even smarter, nursery even said the same thing.

All in all we just had the best holiday and a family refreshed and reunited we are and appreciating each other all over again.



www.flourandsprinkles.co.uk
www.uoecospa.com
www.socialmediamums.co.uk
www.brightonmums.com

PLEASE we need your advice!!

Well another week has gone by and apart from some hearty colds my family has been fantastic, we celebrated my Nephew Alex’s first birthday with an awesome sunny family BBQ with all of my Hubby’s family. I made a giant teddy bears picnic cupcake for him.

And I was thrown back to my own childhood when all four cousins ranging from 4 to 1 year were popped in the bath together to save time and water, they all enjoyed it splashing and playing. They had all been playing barefoot in garden so you can imagine how dirty the water was at the end, as all adults in the bathroom showed their shock at how dirty their kids had been, the kids just did not seem to care!

Well this week ladies and gents I really need you to post your helpful tips and advice, my hubby are desperately trying to find a way to prize C away from her much loved Babies bottles at bed time. She is not a big eater and struggles to put on weight so she still has a bed time bottle (this I have to say is in no way helping getting her dry at night!). C turns 3 in October and we really feel it is time for the bottle and milk to go BUT she has become so dependent on the bed time milk to help her get to sleep I feel it is going to be a hard battle.

We have tried a lot of things like telling that only babies have milk and she is not a baby like her cousins she is a super big girl. We have offered her the milk in a variation of cups but they are just rejected and she cries for her bottle. We have tried just not giving her the milk at all and not mentioning it at bed time, but normally after half an hour she is crying for it and we are so tired that we give in, on the rare occasion she does fall asleep without it she wakes in the night crying for it, and to me this is worse as I hate interrupted sleep when we have only just got her sleeping through the night.
I know she is only 2 and half so maybe asking a bit much of her, but we have got her toilet trained and we would love to get rid of the night time nappy to but the milk at night is stopping us doing that and we really would like to have her totally dry by the time she is 3.

So please post your comments as we really do need some help with this one, any titbit of advice would be very welcome, and I will do a follow up blog letting you all know how we got on and what advice we found useful.
Thank you in advance
H,R & C

Easter Eggs, and a really lovely week

Well this week has been a much improved week, My health has really picked up and C is back to her normal cheeky self. We had an awesome Easter with C getting to enjoy a day with her cousins Emma and Alex.

We had a delicious BBQ followed by a mini egg hunt for the girls. I took quite a lot of the eggs from C’s egg hunt over to her cousins to get rid of them as we had way too many, only to receive half of them back and another 4 from family members and they were way bigger!!! We now have a fridge that resembles a chocolate shop, good job every now and then Daddy enjoys a good gorge on choccy and can put away quite a bit (and he remains skinny so not fair!!)

C adored getting her new scooter but goes at a snails pace on it and has to stop and get off every 2 minutes to put it straight and inspect any bug that deems to walk by, it is delightful to see her engaging with nature but seriously 15 minutes to get to the bottom of our road is a little extreme and really quite frustrating

My daughter is a very caring sharing little girl she has the biggest heart and insisted that we make Easter bunny cards for all her friends and teachers at nursery. I spent a good 2 hours cutting out bunny silhouettes with her scribbling on them and scrunching up tissue paper for their tails. When we were getting ready for nursery the day after making them she announced that we had forgotten four people so I had to rush and make some more for her decorate. Bless her the look on her face when she was giving them out at nursery was one of pure joy she so enjoys giving.

We have recently had a parents meeting and been told that we have a very bright toddler on our hands, she is already trying to spell her name, can do at least half of hr alphabet and is very popular with both children and staff I cannot tell you how proud I was I left the nursery positively brimming. I was so proud that I bought C her much wanted Cinderella DVD as a reward. We have now watched said DVD a good 3 times a day since purchasing it, she worked out how to control the DVD player so we will not be getting a break.

We also attended my nephews 4^th Birthday C was so excited as it was a fancy dress costume and she chose to be a bunny, we had a battle to get her in the costume when we arrived, but after 2 hours off an entertainer and running around with her cousins we had an even harder battle to get her out of it. We have had a really lovely couple of weeks and it is really refreshing long may it last!!!

Migraines an ambulance trip and the most tolerant child in the world

Well this week has not been the greatest! I have started to have awful migraines again it started a week ago on a trip to the park with some friends for a picnic, they had just come back from their honeymoon and we really wanted to catch up with them, to give them their wedding gift and hear all about the adventures.

While in Sainsburys I got a pinched nerve feeling in my neck and shoulder it got so really painful While at the park I started to get weird fragmented vision and then 10 mins later I had numb fingers and then my arm went numb then my teeth and face and within 20 mins I was back to normal and spent the rest of the day in the park have a fab time. But by the time we got home boom it started again but my right side went this time. By the next day I could not move my neck and shoulder and my head was killing me, the docs prescribed some drugs and sent them to me but they made me so sick my hubby ended up having to take time off to look after C and take her to and from nursery.

Then just yesterday I was rushed into hospital again by ambulance as the same thing happened, I could not speak feel my hands and my sight had totally gone, I was needless to say really freaked out, but after an hour and half at the hospital some specialist IV migraine drugs and I was back on my feet feeling a bit spaced out and groggy but a million times better.

C has been amazing through this whole week she has just got on with it and come into my room every now and then to give me a kiss on the head and say I love you mummy. she seems so grown up sometimes, it worries me that because of my poor health it is going to force her to grow up much quicker than she needs to. She really is an amazing little girl with such a mature wise little head on her two and half year old shoulders, I am so proud of her, for being so tolerant of her poorly mummy.

Being this poorly again has made me appreciate how much I should make of my healthy time with C, get out enjoy the sunshine and not fret about things so much

But on a much lighter note I have the loveliest weekend planned with friends and family. I am doing Bbq on the beach this evening with friends, and when we come home we are putting all of C’s dummies in a bag and leaving them out for the Easter bunny, and when she discovers they have gone tomorrow she knows that on Sunday there will be a huge surprise for her, we have arranged a huge Easter egg hunt and at the end will be her new twist and roll scooter!! she has been desperate to own and not stopped going on about it.

We have been avoiding getting her one as they scare the hell out us, we have seen one to many kids face plant off them but if it helps ease her from her dummies we are willing to give in (I really hope I don’t l ive to regret this decision). On Easter Sunday we are also going to have a BBq at My hubby’s brothers house and some of his other brothers are attending to I am so looking forward to all the yummy food and seeing C running around with her adored cousin Emma.

Why not try and win yourself an ipad 2 this Easter by following the clues on these links: Win an ipad2 with the #easteregghunt 27th April - Join the facebook event page here http://on.fb.me/hER101 & follow @createdotnet for the clues

Win an ipad2 with the #easteregghunt 27th April sign up here http://bit.ly/fP4DdX& follow @createdotnet for the clues

One week, one stomach bug and some brainteasing toilet questions...

Well we have had an amazing week, NOT we went to Devon to see my parents for my Husbands Birthday and Mothers day (they were on consecutive days this year) we also managed to stop off in Linfield to spoil my amazing mother in law (she really is amazing!).

We were doing really well on the 250 mile trip with C sleeping most of the way until we hit a traffic jam of epic proportions! We were stuck for and hour and a half of non moving traffic and were going slightly bonkers by the time C woke up in the most amazing and funny mood, never have we been able to say before that she handled being stuck in the car better than us, but she kept us sane until we could get on are way again.

But poor C threw up in the car on the way which is rare for her, I can count on one hand the number of time she has been sick exactly 3. We had a first experience as parents of having to stop t the roadside on the motorway to clean her up. She kept saying she needed the potty but could we get her to go! She was not enamoured with Lorries whizzing by and rocking the car and all the noise, thankfully we had had the foresight to pop her in a nappy before we set off as we new she was not yet in control of her bowels enough to travel 250 miles, but bless her she did keep asking to go to the loo and her nappy remained dry (maybe I should have had a little more faith in her control)

I love visiting my parents that live in a stunning part of Devon and have amazing views of rolling green hills and everything there is done at such a leisurely pace, we are not allowed to lift a finger and they spoil C rotten a lot with their love and affection, and the well placed treat.

I think my mum had forgotten how much poo a toddler can produce, she let C run around without her morning nappy on (normally still on from bedtime) and she could not get to the loo in time and laid one neatly out the hallway carpet, it was at this point the hubby and I decided to pretend we were still fast asleep.

But little did we know that this was the beginning of a very nasty week long tummy bug that would wipe C out for 3 days. We went to visit the Living Coast in Torquay and visit C’s much beloved penguins, they are totally free roaming and even have their own little penguin crossing. C loved it as did all the family; the last time I visited there I was 6 months pregnant with C. She did get me a classic in the toilet though, which had my mum in stitches! C and I were sharing a cubicle she had already been to the loo and was waiting for me, when at the top of her voice decided to ask somne very embarrassing questions like

Do you have bit bits or a willy?

Are you doing a poo Mummy?

Can i wipe your bit bits mummy?

Then decided she had had enough of waiting for me to finish on the loo and flung the toilet door open with me still sitting on it! This had me frantically trying to pull her back (while sitting on the loo) shouting please noooo i am not finished close the door, all I could hear was mu mother killing herself laughing and not coming to my recue! I now feel this was Karma coming to bight me on the but for years of giving my mum hell?

C slept a lot that weekend and it broke my heart to see her so poorly. She has lost a lot of weight to and we have only just managed to get her weight back to where it should be! She had to have a week of nursery as anything that went in it came straight back out, and she as taken it upon her self to stop eating, this bit is really worrying me as she is now better and still refusing to eat!

Mothers day was wonderful I got spoilt as did my Mum; my hubby had a most enjoyable birthday and got thoroughly spoilt to. But at least while C was recuperating at home we had some glorious sunshine to roam about it!