A Year in a Nutshell

Well there really was no danger of me getting carried away when I started this blog over a year ago... But here I am again, back in the saddle. It would seem that 9 months in, 9 months out has been the perfect length of time for me to process all the changes and alongside the celebration of C turning that ripe old age this week, I'm preparing for a job interview, writing again and starting to remember what it's like to be me.

For fear of leaving a gaping hole in the journey, I feel I should bridge the year long gap with a brief (very brief) summary of the events that followed my last post at a mere, unknowing 26 weeks pregnant. There were 8 long overdue days, much waddling, much back ache and most noticeably much chaos having moved house at 36 weeks. C burst into the world (quite literally) in May 2010 weighing in at a healthy 8lbs 4oz and snoozed peacefully through all that followed which for me was a spectacular amount of stitches, 3 hours of surgery, physio for a dislocated coccyx and what felt like, and often still feels like, a long road of recovery. Despite being an 'easy baby', and no doubt, this means different things to different people, it seemed a large chunk of me was left on a hospital bed somewhere and I wandered around shocked and bewildered, sore but smitten.

D and I have spent the last 9 months in a daze, applauding all the little changes and falling more and more in love. You know you've got it bad when the baby is fast asleep in bed, the house at last still and quiet and we sit looking at pictures and videos on our phones of all the different faces she pulled that day. Just recently, I even found myself showing a close friend footage of C waving some bubble packing in the air to which she responded, "Is that all she does?"... Yes. It is. But in the words of Sting, every little thing she does is magic. The dada's, the mama's, the almost crawling, the excited waving, the cheeky giggling. Ah the giggling. It's only when we watch back said footage that we can see, in full technicolour, the ridiculous lengths we go to to raise a giggle from our little squidge.

So 9 months on and my heart is ever expanding, some days I'm more mummy than Ali but then other days I'm more Ali than Mummy. The two are merging pretty well and like so many people so wisely predicted, life before parenthood seems like a distant memory, like reading about someone else's life in a magazine. But there's no mourning the old life (well, that's not completely honest, there has been the odd occasion...)it's out with the old and in with the new. More mess, more chaos, more noise. I can't wait.

Good in the Ordinary

I've been off work this week and cooped up at home with a sore back. It's a job to know whether moving around or resting is the solution so a little of both has been done but unfortunately to no avail.

However, it's been a good opportunity to catch up on emails and do those little errands that are always overdue. I also had the time to listen to a teach on the story of Ruth in the bible which was a real eye-opener for me. I've read the story before and whilst always thinking Ruth is clearly a good sort of egg, doing the right thing and all that, I've never really seen the bigger picture - that God works in the ordinary things of life - and has a hand in our 'luck', 'good fortune', 'karma', whatever you want to call it. Nothing miraculous happens in the story, no parting of the sea, no bread precipitation... Just a girl, who went through a (long) rough patch but decided to grit her teeth, bear down and press on where it would have been easy to get bitter and give up. In her faith and search for work, she 'happened' to walk into the field of a man who would end up helping to dig her out of a rut. Lucky.

So thanks to Ruth, who has done me good on an ordinary day where nothing particularly exciting has happened and I'm instead tired, sore and feeling guilty about the dirty dishes in the kitchen. And thanks to a God who is still so involved in all the mundane little things.

Getting Started.

Blogging is something I've thought about doing for years and put off for various reasons (the biggest being fear of it opening up a black hole of self-important expression) but having followed, and enjoyed so much, a friend's blog from the other side of the Atlantic (thanks Carlie) I decided to give it a go.

Being 6 months pregnant lends itself to the idea - a sort of diary, if you will, of my last few months before becoming a first-time mum. I endeavour to keep blogging post the invasion of the little one but only time will tell! And maybe, one day, baby Ellsmore will read this and it will all be worthwhile.