A new leaf......

So I continue to be awful at updating my blog.  I feel so guilty, as it was meant to be something we could all look back on and reminisce about.  I have realised that the huuuuge backlog of posts I need to write covering the last 3 and a half months are just hanging over me and are putting me off blogging.....I feel that I have so much to catch up on that I don't know where to start and the whole prospect is becoming a chore.  

Some photos from this last weekend, when Pip, in her gorgeous 80's-esque romper suit, got adorned with a Chanel ribbon........that's sophostication, right there! Thank you Lulu at Berry Diaries for the amazing photography skills!

So, instead of sitting down to write each and every post idea I've had over the blogging drought and doing separate posts for every amazing development Pippa's had I am just going to wipe the slate clean and start afresh.

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Since mid-May Pippa has grown from a happy little baby, who was sitting up and starting to get her very own personality, to the very mobile, many-toothed mini-toddler she is now. I really do feel she is on the brink of leaving babydom behind. So much chatting, crawling, scoffing, giggling, teething, chasing and exploring.  She is saying Daddy (albeit to me, Rufus AND John), giving Rufus proper hugs, climbing on and off the sofa herself and throwing rather terrifying little tantrums when she doesn't get her way. 

                   

Rufus is loving our new patch, we can walk in the woods or around beautiful polo pitches right from the front door. He has made lots of friends and has a new Chocolate lab girlfriend called Chloe.  I am loving the new neighbours here and am now feeling like we can definitely carve ourselves a proper life here for the next year.  All in all, life is brilliant with our little family right now.

Here's a bit on where I am in myself at the moment.......(warning - mind dump ahead!)

The pencils part of my blog has been sorely neglected, but I have started to get some more commissions through and am going to work towards a Christmas fair. It's great to get some independence in the mix and I really relish the chance to earn a bit of pocket money again. But finding the time to do it (and do it well) is another story!! I love my art, and whilst I think I could potentially make quite a good sideline in it, effort and commitment pending, I am not convinced that it could ever become a full-time thing for me.  As soon as I start to think of it as something we might be financially dependent on or the pressure mounts up I lose the love for it - it becomes a chore and a duty.

  

Fellow mummy-friends returning to work have made me really think a lot about my future career options and timings.  I get so envious of the whole prospect of a second income coming in, of turning up to a job, doing your thing and then getting paid for it, rather than the stress of self-marketing, self-promotion and squeezing work in around nappy changes and mealtimes.  I would also kill for an opportunity to really use my brain again.....right now it feels like it's dissolving, slowly but steadily!  I have started thinking about looking at something I can train in or study over the next couple of years which I could ultimately qualify in and use once Pippa and any other future children are all at school. Any ideas are very welcome....! 

But despite this, I know that being a Mummy is what I really want to do and be for the immediate future. I want to see Philippa grow, I want to go for walks together with Rufus, I want to go for play dates and to take her swimming.  I want to be there all the time, I don't want someone else potentially seeing Pippa's first steps or hearing her first proper words.   For me, the emotional costs (let alone the childcare costs) of missing these precious, precious months and early years can never be worth it.  I know it's such a personal choice and sadly not a real choice for some due to finances, circumstance or personal situations.  Sometimes I do think that maybe our finances really won't survive me staying out of work, things are pretty tight at times.  I think if I had had the foresight and brains to really set myself up on a career path prior to having Pippa it would be a different story.  As it is I have no career background to fall back into, I would be starting from scratch in whatever I did.....with a minimal salary to match.  If I was looking at a decent pay packet each month maybe it would make those sacrifices and the associated guilt easier to bear? Maybe not, maybe it's just an excuse I've latched onto?! Either way, for now, I am Mummy.  And that's good enough for me, even if it means beans on toast 3 nights a week!

So in the meantime I shall continue my eternal battle between my maternal self and my (probably imagined/fatastical) potentially high-earning intellectual being. And I shall get back into blogging land. So I missed a couple of lovely months out......well, with the big 1st birthday looming I'm sure I'll soon have more than enough material to make up for it!!

(PS.....BONUS..... I think Pip has just said Mummy for the first time ever, this morning. Ahhhh....there we go, it's all worth it.)