All posts tagged: #LittleTreasuresMagazine

Say hello to my little friend

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The magic of Christmas is a special thing when you’re a kid. Twinkly lights, the Snoopy’s Christmas song on high rotate, seeing extended family, decorating trees, waking up to presents and a note from Santa, a special lunch and a free pass to gorge on candy canes. When you’re a kid, it all just…happens. When you’re a parent, however, it all just…happens because you do it all. I’m no grinch, and Christmas is pretty much the highlight of my year (note: Due to printing deadlines, I’m writing this column quite far ahead of Christmas. I will laugh at myself long and hard when I see that sentence in print), but from somewhere around mid-September my right eye starts to twitch as I think about logistics. Where will we be? Who will be coming? Does everyone fit? Are there any more vegetarians than there were last year? Oh, and a vegan now, too? Where are the Santa Sacks? Are we allocating enough time to all sides of the family? Can someone please turn off Snoopy’s Christmas …

Firsts and Lasts

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(Originally published in the Autumn 2018 edition of Little Treasures Magazine) “I re-homed the Mountain Buggy while you were out, it’s gone to a lovely family expecting a surprise third baby” my husband beamed at me, a look of expectant pride on his face as if I’d soon be whipping out a certificate for ‘The Most Helpful And Organised Partner’. “You WHAT?” I shrieked. “G-gave away the M-mountain Buggy?” He stammered, “The thing you said we should probably give away because Tilly is too big for it now? To a nice family? Was that not right?” Doubt flickered across his face as he edged towards the fridge to pour me a large wine. It was absolutely the right thing to do, better than my default plan based on leaving it under the house to gather that under-the-house-smell saying, “we really must re-home that buggy,” every time I trip over it while trying to hunt down the cat. It’s not that I didn’t want another family to benefit from the pram that had given me a …

Shape Shifters – Exercise after Having a Baby

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I had a chat with the exceptionally clever and lovely Stacey Law, physiotherapist from Leto Women’s Health in Auckland, to write this article for Little Treasures Magazine. Stacey helped put me and my diastasis recti (I won’t lie, I always have to google the spelling of that one) back together after my second pregnancy, and is a go-to guru for post-natal bodies. She’s a big fan of being kind to yourself and grits her teeth when she reads headlines about celebs ‘getting their body back after baby’, and I love her for it! You can read the article in this pdf here: Shape shifters Or jpgs below.

Back to work I go

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(This piece originally appeared in Little Treasures magazine, and is on their website here. ) Last year I decided it was time to don high heels and un-strained clothes to sashay back into the workforce. Since having the girls I’ve done part time work, but it has all been from the comfort of my kitchen table involving limited contact with other actual adults. I should clarify: part time paid work – because the full-time mum gig is obviously a major job in itself. With interviews done and an offer made, I got to revel in the the giddy excitement that comes with realising someone wants to pay for the stuff your brain does. Swiftly followed by panic that my brain might not remember how to do the stuff it used to. I gave myself a quick pep talk about how I’d grown actual humans, dammit, and have been juggling things like some kind of mashup between a circus ninja and a UN Hostage negotiator ever since, so I’d be just fine. Last time I was in an …

I’m doing it wrong (says the internet).

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Many things change when you have a baby. Your body, your hair, the shadows under your eyes, your bank balance, your relationships, and the information dished out to you through your social media feeds. Based on the types of conversations I have online, the photos or articles I look at and the demographic box I fit into (city dwelling 30-something mother of two), I get quite the cocktail of ads and ‘suggested posts’ served up to me on Facebook and Instagram. Sometimes I imagine there’s a plucky young Facebook executive casting their eye over the data report for the day and thinking to themselves, “based on her criteria, today this lady saw ads for leggings that make you two sizes slimmer, washing powder, toddler shoes, gin, adult slippers that look like shoes, a wine sale, crumpets, sleep consultants, frozen chicken nuggets, anti-wrinkle cream, multi-compartmented lunchboxes, a device you stick in your lady parts that connects to your phone to say how much work your pelvic floor needs, and more wine. WHAT IS THIS LIFE?!” Sometimes …

Now it matters

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At the risk of coming across as a bit neurotic and high maintenance, I think having babies has made me a bit neurotic and high maintenance. Previously mundane or everyday situations have taken on a whole new meaning now that there are two tiny humans in our life. The little things have become big things, and motherhood can feel a bit like one of those reality TV shows where people have to make it through obstacle courses covered in soap while big padded gloves throw unexpected blows. Except there’s no cash prize, and instead of an exciting purpose-built course, the obstacles are things like long queues at the supermarket. For example: Holiday traffic with the husband before kids: “Oh rats, traffic is at a standstill. Never mind, let’s listen to some music, have a chat, and share the chocolate bar that’s in my small and tidy handbag”. After kids: “Noooo! I’m down to the last three crackers for the bored toddler, and then there’s nothing but a half-empty packet of crystallized raisins somewhere in the …

The name game

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Before I had my own babies, I couldn’t understand why people would say “still deciding on a name” in their birth announcement. What? You’ve had nine months to prepare for this moment! How hard it is to choose a name? Er, actually harder than it looks, I discovered when pregnant for the first time. Jeremy (my husband) and I had decided not to find out what we were having, so we needed options both ways. We set perimeters on name-choosing rules, such as checking there were no notorious criminals with that moniker, no names of ex-partners or meanies from school, and making sure it wouldn’t sound silly with our last name (when we got married, I was keen on having one family surname, but filled out the forms somewhat reluctantly because my married name makes me sound like a drunk Irishman). We both loved the same boy’s name. Sorted. A girl’s middle name would be Clare, after my mother. BAM, we were nailing this naming thing and I was only about eleven minutes pregnant. But …

Go with your gut

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In the glamour stakes, the gut ranks somewhere alongside the armpit in the eyes of most people, and is generally left to its own devices. Far from simply being a means of getting food from one end of our body to the other, the gut is the powerhouse of our immune system, and a factory for brain chemicals. I spoke with Rosanne Sullivan from The WellBeing Centre in Auckland and found out why we should be giving this part of our body a whole lot of love and attention. “It’s estimated that roughly 80 per cent of our immune system is location in our gut”, says Rosanne Sullivan, ” and a significant amount of serotonin (our ‘happiness hormone’) along with other brain chemicals are made in the gut. Yet despite being one of our biggest organs, the gut is not often a popular topic of conversation. But it’s something we should pay a lot more attention to, as the negative effects of an under-performing gut can present in surprising ways. “The gut is a big, long …

The upsides of the massive front side

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A few friends are pregnant with their first babies at the moment, which has propelled me into a surge of nostalgia – combing through our newborn photos, and getting teary about little socks that I can’t face giving away. My pregnant friends agree that yes, tiny clothes are gorgeous and perusing Moses baskets online is a worthy cause for reaching their data cap, but they all look at me like I’m drunk at 10am when I say, “and isn’t being pregnant just so wonderful?” Flicking through my pregnancy diary, there are tales of sore hips, exhaustion, uncomfortable nights, and all-day sickness, but I think Mother Nature suppresses those recollections so that the human race continues. Or perhaps the sleep deprivation after Tilly (my youngest) altered my brain function. Either way, the upsides of having a massive front side are dominating my memories. The clothes I loved maternity clothes, that wonderful comfortable world of elasticised waist bands and stretchy tops. Seriously, jeans that appear normal, but with little elastic inserts where no one can see? Genius! …