Going into 2018 Confidently

Last year was consumed by my newly found motherhood, remembering back to this time last year I was a bit of a mess - mentally and physically. I have learnt so much in the last 365 days about babies and my daughter.. and surprisingly also about myself. Looking back over the past year I can barely recognise myself as the mother I am now. I was terrified to leave the house with this new human I was suddenly in charge of, what if she did a poo? what if she made a noise? Now I feel quite confident in my role, even if I made decisions that I know would receive eye rolls on the mama forums. I own my mistakes. These day's I could even pass as a normal functional human being.

Now maternity leave is well and truly over (did that even happen?) I feel like it's time to finally get my shit together. My role as mummy is now second nature but who am I when Lylie isn't around? When I was pregnant I promised myself I wouldn't be 'that mum' you know the one that can't talk about anything but their kids. Seeing as 99% of my day is consumed fully by this little person I can honestly say I am finding my non-pg conversation running a little dry. I apologise to my non-mum friends every time I feel myself talking in too much detail about the woe's of weaning or teething, the time to talk to them about all of that will come, when they will actually be interested. 

It's not like I don't have mum friends to talk to, I have been blessed with fabulous mum friends. We even socialise together without the rugrats, or at least we try. Getting together with four other mums all with children born within a month or so of each other without one of us or one of the babies being sick is challenging. And when we actually do all sit round the table you will not shut us up, although our favourite topic of conversation... you guessed it our children. We talk the night up and in our minds its going to be this blurry pre-childrenesq night of properly going OUT OUT but by 11.30 the thought of the 6am wake up call with a hang over or the eight texts from at least one of the husbands 'just letting us know' that the baby isn't sleeping great always makes us end our evening there.

One thing I can honestly say I have enjoyed again recently is fashion. I can't really take any credit for getting my old body back it's just sort of happened. I have been quite stressed for non child related reasons and I've hardly stopped, the weight just sort of fell off. (silver lining moment) When Radley asked me if I wanted to choose a bag from their new collection my first instinct was to choose something big enough to fit in snacks, nappies and all my other baby essentials.
But I stopped myself.

I choose the Bliss Crescent large grab bag, which is far from practical on a day out with a toddler. This bag will remain safely tucked away in it's dust bag ready for lone moments. Although it is actually such a good size I probably could fit a fair few baby essentials within it, any mother of a toddler knows you need two hands at all times so a grab bag is definitely something you hold on reserve for those special days when you want to look glamorous, elegant and child free. This bag is the catalyst for organising some well deserved me time for 2018 without feeling guilty (ok only a little bit guilty)